_
---
### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/5 "2012-01-22T12:25:37Z")
Aren’t you at least obliged to say ‘Bwah hah hah’ or cackle or something?
---
### Author:  [@bmasters1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmasters1)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/6 "2012-01-22T16:32:43Z")
That’s what I wondered. Sometimes, both character and actor pass on (like with Michael Conrad, who died in the middle of #4 of “Hill Street Blues,” and as such, they wrote Phil Esterhaus to have passed on in the middle of getting it on, IIRC).
---
### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/7 "2012-01-22T16:44:07Z")
Sometimes the writers kill off a character to show how hard-core the plot is.
I’m almost finished with season 3 of the show 24 (Amazon Prime has got me hook, line, and sinker). When the virus-terrorist wanted Palmer to kill Ryan, I just knew there was going to be an annoying deus ex machina. Even though the guy was like the Rocket Romano of CTU, I still couldn’t believe that they were actually going to kill him off, especially in such a sad way. The previous season should have warned me that the writers weren’t above such dramatics, but I guess they fooled me 'cuz I was all “Oh my goodness! I can’t believe they let this happen! What’s gonna happen now?”
So, I think it was obvious a ploy to keep the audience from getting jaded, since there’s only so many times that Jack Bauer can swoop down and save the day at that last minute.
---
### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/8 "2012-01-22T16:46:26Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#):
>
> No, they shoot the actor as well.
If only they had done this when Denise Crosby left ST:NG.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/9 "2012-01-22T16:49:27Z")
Killing off characters “makes you care.” Joss can kiss my hairy white ass for all the carnage and heartbreak he’s put me through. I still to this day can’t watch “The Body” a second time.
---
### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/10 "2012-01-22T16:53:25Z")
If done judiciously and carefully, it also gives more of a sense that anything can happen rather than the usual “everything will reboot at the end of the episode and no one is ever in any real danger”.
You know Picard/Buffy/Gibbs isn’t going to die. Therefore they’re never in any real danger. When they are placed in danger, you think less of the danger and start thinking ahead to “ok, how is s/he getting out of this one”
---
### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/11 "2012-01-22T17:09:59Z")
Yeah, it can happen either way. Sometimes the character is killed off _because_ the actor is no longer available. (Either they died, or they left the series—Col. Blake was killed off when McLean Stevenson left the cast of M_A_S\*H.) Or the character is killed off as a creative decision—because the character’s death is an important plot point, or because the series creators don’t want the character on the show any more—and as a result, the actor who played the character is out of a job.
---
### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/12 "2012-01-22T17:27:55Z")
Yeah, look what happened to Joey’s character on his soap opera. He was talking big to the press about how he sometimes makes up his own dialog, so the writer killed him off.
Then he got to come back as someone else transplanted into his old body (am I remembering that right?).
I remember getting a little choked up at the memorial scene, when Tasha Yar died in ST:TNG; not so much when she kept popping up (twice, at least: alternate universe where she wasn’t killed; and as her own-daughter?)
I’ll bet, if they really needed to and wanted to, they could have figured out a way to bring McLean Stevenson back to MASH even after they killed off his character. Twin brother? Who knows?
One thing that TV proves is that death is not forever.
Roddy
---
### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/13 "2012-01-22T17:47:06Z")
Perhaps the biggest dilemma for the writers and producers of _The Sopranos_ was whether to kill off Tony in the final episode. Everybody knew that was the end of the show, so anything would have worked. So what do they do? Have the goddamn screen go black! You never really know about what “really happened” to Tony, and you have to finish the writers’ job for them.
---
### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/14 "2012-01-22T17:51:05Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> I’m almost finished with season 3 of the show 24 (Amazon Prime has got me hook, line, and sinker). When the virus-terrorist wanted Palmer to kill Ryan, I just knew there was going to be an annoying deus ex machina. Even though the guy was like the Rocket Romano of CTU, I still couldn’t believe that they were actually going to kill him off, especially in such a sad way. The previous season should have warned me that the writers weren’t above such dramatics, but I guess they fooled me 'cuz I was all “Oh my goodness! I can’t believe they let this happen! What’s gonna happen now?”
The producers admitted that the original plan was to fake out Chappelle’s death and bring him back later in the season. But this was somehow leaked to the press and so they decided to kill him off for reals.
---
### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/15 "2012-01-22T18:44:05Z")
> [@Zeldar](#):
>
> Perhaps the biggest dilemma for the writers and producers of _The Sopranos_ was whether to kill off Tony in the final episode. Everybody knew that was the end of the show, so anything would have worked. So what do they do? Have the goddamn screen go black! You never really know about what “really happened” to Tony, and you have to finish the writers’ job for them.
But in the interim seasons they whacked major players without compunction. It was all plot driven, AFAIK, and had little or nothing to do with actors’ contracts, etc.
---
### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/16 "2012-01-22T18:55:40Z")
I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but if they’d really wanted to have done _ST: Voyager_ right, they would have signed the cast to short term contracts and then killed a few of them off slowly over the first couple of seasons.
Such a thing would also allow them to get rid of actors who just aren’t working out, even mid-season, and replace them with new people.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/17 "2012-01-23T17:58:38Z")
> [@Chimera](#):
>
> I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but if they’d really wanted to have done _ST: Voyager_ right, they would have signed the cast to short term contracts and then killed a few of them off slowly over the first couple of seasons.
>
> Such a thing would also allow them to get rid of actors who just aren’t working out, even mid-season, and replace them with new people.
Given the premise of _Voyager_, wasn’t there a limited (though obviously not non-existent) ability to add new characters/actors? :smack: 😉
---
### Author:  [@Spectralist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectralist)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/18 "2012-01-23T18:09:47Z")
Not necessarily the ship supposedly had a pretty big crew, over 150 I think. They could have added new main characters by promoting various unnamed crewmen to officers. And added tension with the idea of the ship being understaffed and the crew overworked.
---
### Author:  [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/19 "2012-01-23T18:15:14Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Killing off characters “makes you care.” Joss can kiss my hairy white ass for all the carnage and heartbreak he’s put me through. I still to this day can’t watch “The Body” a second time.
To this day, I have never watched the last three minutes of “Seeing Red.” Killing Tara to trigger Willow’s fall to the Dark Side was unforgivable. (And getting hit by a stray bullet – on _Buffy The Vampire Slayer?_ That’s like someone dying of pneumonia on _Star Trek…_).
And to add salt to the wound, Joss puts Amber Benson (Tara) in the opening credits for the **first and only time** that episode. Harsh.
---
### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298/20 "2012-01-23T18:16:20Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#):
>
> No, they shoot the actor as well.
>
> What the heck are you asking?
Hey, it worked for Brandon Lee.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-off-a-character/610298.md?page=2)