In one episode Magnum P.I. helped an old friend commit suicide. Was any series main character ever involved in a more “shocking” plot ?
How many “shocking” things did JR Ewing do?
All I can say is somebody’s going to have to show me a lot before I drop Tony Soprano off the top of the list.
Maybe I should have said “out of character.”
Actually, Lucy didn’t get “pregnant”, because they were not allowed to say that particular word in TV…
Come on. Tony didn’t want to whack anyone he just had to have them whacked. It’s business.
Looked like he enjoyed a few of them to me.
What were the first main characters involved in a male-male or female-female kiss?
Though not really a shocker the episode of Diff’rent Strokes where WKRP Gordon “Mr. Carlson” Jump played a child molestor was very disturbing. Of all the “message” episodes Diff’rent Strokes did, that one was the creepiest
Edith Bunker was assaulted and nearly raped. that was a shocker. She was not the lead, but she was the lead actress.
In the final episode of MAS*H, Hawkeye forced a Korean woman to smother her baby. Well, no, not exactly “forced.”
Interesting timing for this thread. Though not the main character, Det. Lee Scanlon did something pretty shocking in last night’s episode of Medium. He apparently allowed a vigilante to torture and kill his (Scanlon’s) serial-rapist brother.
I see somebody hasn’t see The Shield.
Vic, main character and questionably-corrupt cop answers the question at the end of the first episode when he shoots one of his partners in the head during a gang raid, because he’s worried that he’s gonna squeal to IAD. It’s extra shocking since the actor who played his partner was being promoted as the other main character on the show. This is just where it STARTS. In the final episode, he cuts a deal with ICE that he could get immunity for all past crimes…he implies beforehand that they were just a couple of bends of the law, but spends 10 minutes talking into a mic listing everything he’s done. When his boss tells him what a sick bastard he is, and how much trouble he’s going to get her in, he just smirks and says “I’ve done worse.” He then proceeds to turn in his other, loyal partner Ronnie, sending HIM off to jail for the rest of his life. At the same time, his only other living partner calls a FAMILY MEETING, which turns out to be him poisoning his pregnant wife and toddler son, and then shooting himself when the cops arrive…
And then there’s Nip/Tuck, which famously featured a scene where a woman walks into the office and cuts off her own breasts with a chainsaw.
Didn’t Magnum P.I. also execute a guy? I think the episode was called “Have you seen the sunset” or something like that.
I’ll nominate the second episode of the British series Spooks (shown in the US as MI-5). Tom, who was the lead agent, and Helen, a relative newcomer, were sent undercover to investigate a far-right group. They were found out and taken prisoner. The rest is kind of gory.
They were taken to a restaurant kitchen where they were threatened to give up information. In order to convince Tom to talk, the kidnapper forced Helen’s hand into a vat of boiling oil. When that didn’t work, he forced her head into the oil, after which he shot her dead.
Yeah. It’s kind of hard to see an abortion as all that shocking, especially compared with all the other stuff in this thread, especially considering so many women have had one.
Kirk kissed a Negro. Or should that be Negress?
It doesn’t seem all that shocking in light of the other posts here, but one of the moments that I’d been most shocked to see was on St. Elsewhere - during Dr. Donald Westphall’s (Ed Flanders) last episode as a regular. The new chief of staff said he could remain on staff if he simply ‘compromised’ some of his principles (like for example insisting the hospital treat AIDS patients.) Dr. Westphall responded by…
Telling him to kiss his ass, and then mooning him.
The really shocking thing was that it was all shown, fully & completely, on network television! No hiding it all.
Yup, but Ivan had killed two of his best friends. Wasn’t completely out of character I’d say, especially since he and Ivan had a history from Vietnam.
I’m racking my brains for the suicide episode though…
When I see the thread title, I think:
Lucy got pregnant, had an abortion, then shot Ethel after asking her if she’d seen the sun rise that morning.
On a very special Blossom…
In this episode an old war buddy comes to Magnum, says he is dying of cancer and has only has few weeks of agonizing pain left to live, and asks Magnun to help him commit suicide. Magnum refuses and spends the rest of the show trying to talk his friend out of it. Finally, Magnum agrees to not hinder the man in his suicide. In the last scene the man gets into an airplane with very little gas in the tank and heads out to sea as Magnum watches him go.