# What TV shows have ended by killing off the lead?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 22, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822 "2005-12-22T17:36:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/21 "2005-12-22T19:04:33Z")
[hijack enabling]Actually, according to the episode “Orpheus”, the demon suffers terribly from the presence of the soul, since he’s prevented from doing evil. Imagine the constant frustration! [/hijack enabling]
And Gunn lived, dammit!!!
_la la la I can’t heeeeeeaaaaar yoooooouuu!_
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### Author:  [@parthenokinesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/parthenokinesis)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/22 "2005-12-22T19:11:55Z")
> [@DianaG](#):
>
> And Gunn lived, dammit!!! \*
Right. I can’t imagine a universe where someone would kill off Wes and allow a pissant like Charles Gunn to survive.
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### Author:  [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/23 "2005-12-22T19:15:54Z")
> [@DianaG](#):
>
> [hijack enabling]Actually, according to the episode “Orpheus”, the demon suffers terribly from the presence of the soul, since he’s prevented from doing evil. Imagine the constant frustration! [/hijack enabling]
Sure, it suffers. But I think the human soul suffered more.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/24 "2005-12-22T19:26:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> **Sledge Hammer**. The entire city was blown up by a thermonuclear device, including Sledge.
>
> However, despite this, the series was renewed. The second season was billed “Sledge Hammer: The Early Years.”
And it didn’t matter that Dori was his partner five years before he met her.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/25 "2005-12-22T19:30:21Z")
In a sense the lead guy in **Twin Peaks** died at the end. (Though his body went on, filled with evil.)
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/26 "2005-12-22T19:34:06Z")
On a related note…
M_A_S\*H didn’t end, but became a _very_ different show after killing off Lt. Col. Henry Blake. The change was due more to backstage political maneuvering than plot development, but it did happen.
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### Author:  [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/27 "2005-12-22T19:53:25Z")
Another UK fave, The Young Ones.
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### Author:  [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/28 "2005-12-22T19:57:14Z")
Always loved the end of **Forever Knight**. Now THAT was bleak…
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### Author:  [@Jenny\_Haniver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenny_Haniver)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/29 "2005-12-22T19:59:56Z")
Speaking of **Angel** , the show it blatantly stole\* its premise from, **Forever Knight** , also ended with the almost all the main characters dead.
**Quantum Leap** ended with a title card that said Sam never returned home.
\*I say this as a fan of both shows. Also, going off-topic, while I agree that the human soul suffered more, I don’t think this is flaw in the curse plotline. As explained in “Surprise” the gypsies (for the purposes of the show) regard vengance as “a living thing,” with its own drives. It makes sense that they would regard guilt in the same way - i.e. it didn’t matter if the soul that did the killing did not feel guilty, as long as the guilt was felt.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/30 "2005-12-22T20:12:56Z")
> [@Knorf](#):
>
> [hijack]
> People are always forgetting that in the Buffyverse, the vampire is really just a human meatsack with a demon living inside. The demon has access to the memories and more or less the personality of the original person, but that person is dead, dead, dead; their soul is gone. Even some of the characters in Buffy seem to forget this. So, when you dust a vampire, you are killing the demon that inhabited the meat puppet.
Continuing the hijack:
I didn’t forget that fact; I’m simply saying that saying Buffyverse vampires are dead seems silly given that the characters speak of killing them all the time. The confusion arises mainly because so many vamps use the same names as humans and as vampires. I agree that Human-Harmony is dead, f’instance, but Vamp Harmony clearly is not. It’s clearer with Angelus, who had the good grace to adopt a new name and thus avoid those niggling identity problems.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/31 "2005-12-22T20:13:51Z")
It wasn’t the last episode, but there was a TV Western (the revamped second **Maverick**?) where they killed off the lead character and replaced him with another character _played by the same actor_.
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/32 "2005-12-22T20:13:55Z")
Personally, I think a lot of characters on both shows didn’t seem to understand or care that Angel’s soul was a different entity than his vampire self, and I’d put the gypsies in that category. They didn’t care who was inside, or if they were adding another ‘who’ to the equation by giving Angelus a soul… they cared about the body. Shove this mysterious thing called a ‘soul’ into the body, and the body starts to suffer. Simple as that.
January 7th-9th 2006… the SDMB angel DVD festival begins… and if we keep at it, will end sometime in the spring of 2007. 😃 Keep yer eyes open right here.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/33 "2005-12-22T20:26:32Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> It wasn’t the last episode, but there was a TV Western (the revamped second **Maverick**?) where they killed off the lead character and replaced him with another character _played by the same actor_.
That was **Nichols**.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/34 "2005-12-22T20:30:35Z")
Well, Howard Stern killed off the entire cast in the final episode of “Son of the Beach.”
And while Norman Lloyd wasn’t “the” lead character in “St. Elsewhere,” he was second in the opening credits, and he died in the final episode.\*
- I hallucinated that there was a subsequent “real” ending in which the whole series turned out to be an autisitc boy’s fantasy, but that was such a stupid idea, I HAD to have imagined it!
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/35 "2005-12-22T21:26:52Z")
Dan Conner (John Goodman) was killed off in the bizarre final episode of _Roseanne_ (well, sorta kinda- it was revealed he’d been a ghost or hallucination or fiction within a fiction or something for the past few seasons).
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### Author:  [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/36 "2005-12-22T22:20:09Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> Soap. The last episode was a cliff hanger with just about everyone being shot.
>
> Offhand, I remember Jessica was in front of a firing squad and Burt and Danny had just kicked down a door and met a hail of gunfire. Not sure about the rest of the cast – it was probably 20 years ago…
Danny was laid up in the hospital and Burt (Bat) was going after the guys who did it. In the last scene, he’s about to kick open a door and they show behind the door several guys with guns waiting. But you don’t actually see or hear the gunfire.
Jessica was indeed in front of a firing squad, but in an episode of Benson, it was revealed that she didn’t die but was in a coma.
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### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/37 "2005-12-22T22:28:13Z")
Not entirely humorous, nor exactly what the OP asked for, but doesn’t that describe what happened to _My Sister Sam_ after Rebecca Schaeffer was killed?
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/38 "2005-12-22T22:39:13Z")
I think MTV’s _Dead at 21_ ended that way.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/39 "2005-12-22T22:46:57Z")
> [@gonzoron](#):
>
> Always loved the end of **Forever Knight**. Now THAT was bleak…
I thought I was going to be first with that one.
Except I hated, hated, hated the ending.
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### Author:  [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-have-ended-by-killing-off-the-lead/336822/40 "2005-12-22T23:14:38Z")
…in the underated Canadian series [Psi Factor](http://www.geocities.com/dreampsi/psi_factor_en.htm)
The lead actor, Conner Doyle, dies in a brilliant final episode of season one. Prior to this episode, the series was a ‘so-so’ 1/2 hour X-files clone, but all that changed after this episode was broadcast. Matt Fewer came onto the show, it became a full hour for each episode, and a whole lot of story arcs began which put the X-files to shame. It all fell apart in the final season though…
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