# Cliffhangers resolved by character falling off the cliff. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 18, 2020, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054 "2020-04-18T14:25:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/21 "2020-04-18T20:15:33Z")
Now, if you’re going to insist on it being the end of the book, Terry Pratchett’s _The Color of Magic_ ends with Rincewind falling off the edge of the world. IIRC, one of Anne McCaffrey’s books ends with a person falling off a cliff. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/22 "2020-04-18T20:16:38Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > That might fit, if you had only read the title, but not the content of the OP’s actual post. It also depends on your definition of episode: the scene was clearly one episode in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/23 "2020-04-18T20:18:59Z")
Not a cliff hanger but in Thelma and Louise at least they drive off the cliff in the end. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/24 "2020-04-18T20:21:26Z")
Sledge Hammer? Series ended with Sledgehammer blowing everyone up, from what I remember. The producers weren’t expecting another season, but when they got one, they had to go “Sledgehammer: the early years” to account for the fact that the last episode had Sledgehammer blowing everyone up. (This is all going by memory. Please correct me, people.) ---
**Author:** ![Calavera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calavera/32/70_2.png) [@Calavera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calavera)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/25 "2020-04-18T22:24:36Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Now, if you’re going to insist on it being the end of the book, Terry Pratchett’s _The Color of Magic_ ends with Rincewind falling off the edge of the world. > > IIRC, one of Anne McCaffrey’s books ends with a person falling off a cliff. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > It also depends on your definition of episode: the scene was clearly one episode in the movie. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > That’s not what I was referring to. > > [I meant this scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR7XB0VBPM) > > It is clearly a cliffhanger within the film. Do you really not understand the meaning of the word cliffhanger? This is not about people literally hanging/driving/throwing themselves off cliffs. A cliffhanger is a situation which at the end of the book/tv episode/film/whatever the character is left in any kind of danger. It does not have to involve cliffs. It should really be something that is going to be resolved at a later time: The next episode, the next movie, the next book etc. Dangerous situations within the same film/episode./book are not **real** cliffhangers. I don’t think anyone has come up with one yet bus ASL’s Planet of the Apes is reasonably close. Cheers to everybody who actually bothered to read the OP. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/26 "2020-04-18T22:40:46Z")
Did Sarge ever let go of the tree and fall in Beetle Bailey? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/27 "2020-04-18T22:55:22Z")
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhanger) lists some of the standard sort, not what OP wants. I interpret their quest as involving both 1) To Be Continued (i.e. this isn’t The End of the story) and 2) a victim doesn’t survive into the sequel(s). I can’t think of examples but ISTM a series cast member dying mid-season may thus be written-out - sick or threatened or whatever in one episode and croaked by the next. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/28 "2020-04-18T23:04:41Z")
> [@Calavera](#): > > … A cliffhanger is a situation which at the end of the book/tv episode/film/whatever the character is left in any kind of danger. It does not have to involve cliffs. > > It should really be something that is going to be resolved at a later time: The next episode, the next movie, the next book etc. Dangerous situations within the same film/episode./book are not **real** cliffhangers. … There may be a number of these in episodic television in which a performer’s contract hasn’t been resolved (one way or the other) when the season finale was filmed. For example, at the end of the sixth season of _Law & Order_, Claire Kincaid was shown driving a car hit by another driver. It wasn’t clear if the character was dead. When the seventh season dawned (or actually when the cast list for the seventh season was revealed), we learned that the character had indeed died. > **[Law & Order: The Sixth Year, PopMatters](https://www.popmatters.com/66535-law-order-the-sixth-year-2496097423.html)** > > If you had a kid the day Law & Order premiered, it’s 18-years-old now. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2020, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/29 "2020-04-18T23:38:55Z")
> [@TCMF-2L](#): > > Every week in the opening titles of **Quantum Leap** we were told Sam was hoping for that final leap which would take him home. In the final episode it was revealed he NEVER made it back home. In a similar premise in the BBC series Life on Mars and sequel Ashes to Ashes each episode begins and ends with the question will Sam Tyler and/or Alex Drake make it home but at the end of Ashes to Ashes it is revealed that both were dead before the series started. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/30 "2020-04-19T00:13:35Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > This doesn’t really count because there was no real tension in this show… but “The Young Ones” ended with the whole crew in a bus that drives off a cliff. > > Cheeky. Through a billboard of Cliff Richard. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/31 "2020-04-19T00:39:23Z")
OK, here’s one that should fit: [The Good Son](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Son_(film)) There’s a good son, and a bad son. In the movie’s climax The two sons are fighting literally at the edge of a cliff. They both start to go over the edge. Their mother can only save one of them. She saves the good son and lets the bad son fall to his death. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/32 "2020-04-19T00:45:58Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I wasn’t a regular watcher of the show, but I watched the occasional episode that looked interesting. I always wondered, if he did get “home,” how would he know he was home for good? He’d never be able to resolve a problem, or help anyone ever again, for fear that THIS MIGHT BE THE THING HE’S SUPPOSED TO DO, that would cause him to leap again. That would suck. Sam would have known. He and Al traded places in one episode, thanks to a freak lightning strike. Al was the Leaper stuck in the past, and Sam returned to the Project. He knew unmistakably that he was back home. He even remembered his wife, who he had forgotten all about, because she had left him at the altar in the original history, but Sam changed circumstances during one of his leaps so that she went through with the wedding. Sam found himself having to leap back in order to save Al’s life. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/33 "2020-04-19T00:58:25Z")
Reading the OP, I think the short story (and short movie) “An Ocurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” may qualify, as it starts with a man about to be hanged, his escape and avoidance of his captors and… …his eventual hanging as the escape was all in his imagination Film can be found at [An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge on Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/15147706). ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/34 "2020-04-19T00:59:40Z")
Two novels that might qualify: _Cat’s Cradle_ (Vonnegut) and _Song of Solomon_ (Toni Morrison). ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/35 "2020-04-19T02:51:56Z")
I hate it when a show ends with a cliff hanger and then gets cancelled and you never get a conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/36 "2020-04-19T03:56:32Z")
The movie Cliffhanger with Stallone kind of begins this way. > [@pirviii](#): > > I hate it when a show ends with a cliff hanger and then gets cancelled and you never get a conclusion. Alf! ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054/37 "2020-04-19T04:04:49Z")
BBC Series Witness has a number. Biggest is at the end of season 16. Leo Dalton (William Gaminara), one of the leads, wrestles a suicide bomber out of a crowed market while trying to get the bomber to give up his plan. There is an explosion and Leo doesn’t come back for the next season. In many other episodes, one of the subjects is seen to be recovering or their life is changing for the better. Only to get their brains blown out by another or changing to suicide mode and jumping from a building. One particular episode had a wrongly accused man getting released from prison, the father of the woman (the accused’ dead wife) arranges a meeting with the man to apologize for thinking the man was guilty and ask forgiveness. Granted, then the father shoots the man anyway. A dark, dark series. Persons with a way out of their predicament can or should see a way out; they backslide anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cliffhangers-resolved-by-character-falling-off-the-cliff/852054.md?page=1)