How NOT to Kill TV Characters

Uh, is it too late to change my mind?

Alright, I’m going to start with some positive reinforcement here, TV writers/producers/etc. When a character on a TV show is offed and it’s done right, it’s some of the most powerful drama that can be absorbed by human eyeballs. We’ve covered it on here before, the longevity of the format means that you get plenty of time to really get attached to these people, to care about them. So when they sign off for good it fucking hurts, provided the timing, context and narrative justify it. We love the characters you introduce us to and as much as we might weep and protest, we understand when it’s their time, whether you give us one heart-wrenching solitary demise like the season 4 finale of Dexter or a full-blown massacre like the Red Wedding.

'Red Wedding Depression', it's a thing.
‘Red Wedding Depression’, it’s a thing.

What we do not appreciate is when you abuse your power or just fuck it up so badly that any sense of drama or emotion is utterly voided. This happens a hell of a lot more than it should. Recently there have been rumblings that Al Jean and the rest of the Simpsons team are planning to kill off Krusty the Clown in an episode later this year. Nothing is confirmed, but there are definitely hints, so let me join the rest of the waking world in a chorus of “don’t you fucking dare”. That is a terrible, terrible idea.The Simpsons, while admittedly a shadow of its former self, is a wonderful, timeless program full of colourful characters who barely change and never age, let alone die, we are fine with that. It didn’t make any sense the last time you killed off a character, but mercifully nobody gave a damn about Maude Flanders (which, worryingly, seemed like the entire reason she died), we give a damn about Krusty, we love Krusty.

On the face of it that might seem like a pretty good reason to kill him off and indeed it would be, in a format that befits that sort of behavior, like a drama, something with a larger overarching plot. This brings us to our first big DO NOT bullet point on the list of character execution guidelines, DO NOT kill characters in sitcoms or light shows just to get a rise out of people. The Simpsons killed Maude Flanders seemingly just to say they had killed someone and they are far from the only offenders. Oh hi, Family Guy, didn’t see you there.

Uh, is it too late to change my mind?
Uh, is it too late to change my mind?

There was actually an earlier episode in which Stewie faked Brian’s death to prove to him that his family loved him, it was a little misplaced but it was appropriately dramatic and it made a valid point. Most of the time when Family Guy puts on its serious face the results are pretty embarrassing but that was an effective episode sign-off. Then they killed him for real. Then they brought him back. I doubt anyone ever believed he’d stay dead any more than we believed Buffy had been killed off for good, but still, poor decision. It was bad enough that a show that’s at its best when you can just sit back and laugh without having to really delve in decided to make a massive song and dance about an upcoming character death worthy of Eastenders but going back and resurrecting him in the wake of fan outrage, then passing it all off as a master plan? Come the fuck on. To quote a line from the actual show “If you’re gonna dump on people, the kind of steaming, stinking, smelly dump that your kind traffics in, at least stand by your dump.”

The one thing I will say in defense of Seth McFarlane’s decision to (temporarily) put the dog down is that he selected a character with real narrative weight and consequence. Singling out a character for the guillotine just for the hell of it might be puerile but it’s so much worse when it’s just a side character who was only ever really there for the odd laugh. Towards the beginning of its life, Scrubs was brilliant at dealing with death, better than almost any other sitcom, I count the death of Ben in season 3 as one of the most tragic in any show, beautifully told and tenderly toned. What’s not beautiful in any way is taking a funny, purpose-serving comic relief character and subjecting her to a lingering demise just to inject a bit more drama into your rotting carcass of a show. You know the worst thing about Laverne’s death? It was either going to be her or Ted, they probably decided by flipping a fucking coin. Granted it would have been that much worse if they’d chosen Ted, considering how many suicide jokes he featured in but even still, what the hell were you thinking? People die in almost every episode of Scrubs, it can be sad, funny or shocking but we always understand the consequence, getting rid of Laverne felt like a child ripping the head off of their thirteenth favorite Beanie Baby whilst nobody was looking so they’d have an excuse to throw a tantrum.

What did they do, throw a dart at the cast photo?
What did they do, throw a dart at the cast photo?

But then, I guess you could always kill your characters off just to appease your fans, right LOST? Again, when people died in LOST it was painful. Charlie, Sun and Jin, hell even Sayid, despite his laughably silly final moment. But who the hell were Nikki and Paulo and why should any of us give a shit? During the rather unfortunate third season this irritating pair were shoehorned into the plot as if they’d been there from the beginning, they’d already pulled this crap once with Professor Dynamite in the first season and it didn’t work then but this was ten shades worse. These irrelevant dullards actually got the bulk of an episode to themselves, following some arbitrary plot-line about stolen money or some such. Anyway they got eaten by spiders in the end I think, I can barely remember. The fan reaction to Nikki and Paulo had actually been so negative that the writers had elected to remove them to stem all the mud slinging, like some kind of apologetic Aztec sacrifice.

Lest we forget. No, seriously, who the fuck are these two?
Lest we remember.

There’s one way that’s worse than all the rest though, note must be taken. You can change your mind, you can throw a blameless side character to the wolves, you can murder a foursome of lovable sitcom characters in a bus explosion and call it a series finale (The Young Ones) or suddenly cut to the guy who played Kumar lying in a pool of blood with absolutely no explanation and never bring it up again (House), hell you can even drop a bridge on Captain Kirk but if you’re going to kill someone off, you fucking kill them. Stephen Moffat, you had better be listening. It was bad enough when Russell T. Davies was running Doctor Who and managed to weasel his way out of killing Rose Tyler, but Moffat has perhaps the worst track record with death of any showrunner in the history of everything, you could take the TARDIS from one end of existence to the other but you’d never find a piece of storytelling more stupid than the final moments of The Angels Take Manhattan.

The alternate episode title was 'How to Ruin Everything'
The alternate episode title was ‘How to Ruin Everything’

Moffat couldn’t kill River Song (though lord knows he tried), he definitely couldn’t kill the Doctor, even his greatest creation was a thing that killed you in a sort of nice way. After all the sidestepping and excuses, all the buildup and foreshadowing, we had to hope he’d finally grow some balls and give Amy Pond and Rory the dramatic send-off they deserved. NOPE. He retconned some contrived, nonsensical nightmare where the two of them were sent to some idyllic corner of the 1960s where the Doctor couldn’t visit them for fear of ripping a hole in time or some shit. We get it, Stephen, we liked Amy too, we were sort of OK with Rory but we can let go, we understand when it’s appropriate for a character to die and we’re only watching this stuff, not writing it. So yes, the largest DO NOT in the character death guidebook, in bold red letters, if you’re going to kill someone off, they’d damn well better actually die.

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