Which TV character's death moved you the most?

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Rowdy Roddy McDowall, Jul 17, 2014.

  1. Rowdy Roddy McDowall

    Rowdy Roddy McDowall Commodore Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2011
    Location:
    Cornelius drive
    .
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2023
  2. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Location:
    JirinPanthosa
    Laura Palmer
     
  3. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2004
    Location:
    Hiding with the Water Tribe
    In the middle of a silly season of a silly show, True Blood managed to deliver one of the most powerful and moving death scenes I've ever watched with the death of Godric, and it wasn't even of a significant character on the show.

    [yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i2pLSQ3czg[/yt]
     
  4. Melakon

    Melakon Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2012
    Location:
    Melakon's grave
    Bill McNeal on NewsRadio.
     
  5. auntiehill

    auntiehill The Blooness Premium Member

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2006
    Location:
    on the couch
    The first one that springs to mind is Henry Blake on MASH. I was just a kid and it really took me by surprise. My mom, who was also in tears, used it as a good teaching moment: in wartime, no one is truly safe.

    As I've gotten older, other character deaths moved me: Bobby Singer on Supernatural, Daniel Jackson on SG1 (OK, only the first time; he died and came back a ridiculous number of times), Locke and Jin & Sun on LOST, the fairly realistic death of Sybil on Downton Abbey, etc.
     
  6. sidious618

    sidious618 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2005
    Location:
    sidious618
    Jack Shepherd on Lost, although it was amplified by so much else and the fact that it was the finale that perhaps it's not fair of me to list him. Nevertheless, I was sobbing.
     
  7. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    Claire Kincaid on Law & Order.

    Of course, Spock was a TV character. He just didn't die on TV. Plus, he's not really dead, as long as we remember him. ;)
     
  8. Jedi_Master

    Jedi_Master Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 25, 2011
    Location:
    Hurricane Alley
    Most of the deaths on Lost (Charlie, Jin and Sun, Locke, etc.)

    Henry Blake on MASH, which works because even the actors were surprised, and thus the scene is amazingly authentic.

    Downtown Abbey's deaths so effected my wife that she will no longer watch that show.
     
  9. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Location:
    I said out, dammit!
    Jennifer "Pilot" Chase on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
    Seriously.

    Kosh on Babylon 5.
     
  10. Ar-Pharazon

    Ar-Pharazon Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 19, 2005
    Location:
    Far North Chicago Suburbs
    Not exactly "moving", but Alan Alda as a convicted rapist, being executed in the gas chamber in Kill Me If You Can, was very realistic and disturbing.
     
  11. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2001
    Location:
    Burlington, VT, USA
    Pretty much every significant death in Six Feet Under.

    Is that cheating?
     
  12. Saga

    Saga Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2008
    Location:
    VA
    yes. totally unexpected.
     
  13. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    IIRC, the scene in the OR of Radar revealing Henry's death was actually take two. There was some technical problem that made the first take unusable, if I remember right from a documentary I saw on the show way back when.

    OK, I searched before submitting. Here it is, with further correction and clarification, confirmed at snopes.com, with citations. From Laughing Matters by Larry Gelbart:

     
  14. Melakon

    Melakon Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2012
    Location:
    Melakon's grave
    Gary was such a pro, he made playing Radar look easy.
     
  15. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Location:
    JirinPanthosa
    In 24, the death of David Palmer happened right at the beginning of the floodgates opening when you still felt that there existed characters other than Jack Bauer who were in the protection bubble. Unfortunately later in the series they made characters so expendable they lost all impact, but at that point, it still had an impact.

    For Six Feet Under I'd vote for Nate's wife for the most moving death, just in the way the episode unfolded where she just disappeared and it gradually becomes harder and harder to deny she's dead.

    Battlestar Galactica has a few (Though a few of them later reversed). Ellen Tigh, Starbuck, Laura Roslin.
     
  16. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2001
    As soon as I saw the thread title, this is who came to mind.
     
  17. Sto-Vo-Kory

    Sto-Vo-Kory Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2008
    Location:
    Battle Creek
    When that episode aired, my girlfriend (who is generally NOT a cryer) weep for about an hour afterward. When he cameoed later that season (or another season, I forget which), she gasped his name as her eyes welled up in preparation to be moved again to tears. For this scene and character to affect her so much, they had to be beautifully shot, written, and performed (which I agree that they were).

    As for the character death that moved me the most, I'd probably have to say Lt. Dan Muldoon in the first season of the Naked City. I loved that character and he dies before the opening title shot in the episode "Bumper." Later in that same episode, his replacement (a super-unlikable A-hole) is paging through his day planner and comes to a memo written for some day in the future that says: "Jimmy's birthday. Needs new gloves." Jimmy Halloran was his young partner and this small notation spoke so much about Muldoon's character that I was moved to tears. Kind of a silly thing to cry over -- a tiny consideration for someone else scrawled into a book -- but the actor John McIntyre played Muldoon with such charm and compassion that losing that character from the show was devastating.
     
  18. RevdKathy

    RevdKathy How scared are you? Moderator

    Joined:
    Oct 9, 2000
    Location:
    being Rev'dKathy
    It was in a film, though the character began on TV: Spock's death reduced me to a sobbing wreck in the cinema. It still makes me choke up even now when I know there's 4 more films.
     
  19. doubleohfive

    doubleohfive Fleet Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2001
    Location:
    Hollywood, CA
    Everyone in the final episode of Six Feed Under

    Ten's regeneration on Doctor Who

    Cordelia Chase, on Angel

    Juliet, Sun and Jin, and Jack's deaths on LOST

    Crixus and Spartacus on Spartacus: War of the Damned

    Catelyn Stark, Rob Stark and his fiancee at the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones

    J.R. Ewing, on Dallas

    Richard Harrow, Boardwalk Empire

    Opie on Sons of Anarchy
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2014
  20. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    Admiral Forrest from Star Trek: Enterprise, since he reminded me so much of my dad and thus watching Forrest die was almost too much to handle.

    Side note: Vaughn Armstrong was on an episode of Law & Order: LA and played a very Forrest-like character. Died there, too. :(