Here’s a fun little Halloween game; y’all can play in the comment thread or on Twitter as you prefer. How many TV shows can you think of in which one of the main characters is already dead by the end of the first episode? Characters who appear only occasionally don’t count; it has to be regular screen appearances. Obviously, shows which have vampire characters such as Dark Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and The Munsters are included, as are ghost characters like Merlyn Temple in American Gothic, Captain Daniel Gregg in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and “Slimer” in the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters (and since we’re allowing cartoons, half the cast of The Groovie Goolies qualifies). But there are also science-fiction versions of undead, such as Arnold Rimmer in Red Dwarf or Alex Murphy in Robocop, and wholly-mortal characters whose deaths set events in motion and thereafter regularly appear in flashbacks, such as Master Po in Kung Fu and Laura Palmer (mostly in photos) in Twin Peaks. I asked Grace to play yesterday and she came up with Georgia Lass and her fellow Grim Reapers in Dead Like Me; several characters in Glitch, Resurrection and The Returned; Ezekiel Stone in Brimstone; Olivia Moore of iZombie; Sheila Hammond of Santa Clarita Diet; and Kieren Walker of In the Flesh. I’ll bet there are plenty of others, though; how many can you name?
Dead On Arrival
October 30, 2020 by Maggie McNeill
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I don’t think any vampire appears in the first few episodes of Dark Shadows.
Nope. But Barnabas Collins is already dead the first time he appears, and Josette’s ghost is around from the early episodes.
Yes, to be fair, Barnabas is dead at the time of the first episode.
The reboot version of Dark Shadows did start with Barnabas, though. (And unfortunately, that’s still the only version I’ve actually seen.)
Desperate Housewives had Mary Alice Young who narrated the rest of the series.
Ann Sothern was the voice of the car in My Mother the Car in the 60s. I presume she was dead and had come back to help out her hapless son.How’s that?
Perfect! Yes, that’s one I forgot!
In Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969–70; remade 2000), Hopkirk is a ghostly detective visible and audible only to his partner Randall. I can say that the first episode (of the first version) stinks.
Luckily, even shitty series are allowed as long as at least one character is dead!
You beat me to it; that’s the only one that comes to mind.
Beside Laura Palmer we can put Lilly Kane whose murder drives the first season of Veronica Mars.
Jeff Goldblum did a brief series called Raines, in which he would mentally recreate the victim of the crime. His partner was also revealed to be dead at the end of the first episode, IIRC.
So many vampire shows;
Blade, Moonlight, Forever Knight, The Strain, Van Helsing, The Originals, Being Human, Tru Blood, The Vampire Diaries, and several about/called Dracula.
(Was The Count in the first episode of Sesame Street? I don’t think so…)
Afterlife;
Dead Like Me, The Good Place, Highway to Heaven
SciFi upload;
Glich, Upload, Red Dwarf, Robocop, Altered Carbon, Max Headroom
Undead/realived.
iZombie, Pushing Daisies.
Ghosts;
Charmed (their mom), The Real Ghost Busters, Ghosts.
Cartoon;
Casper the Friendly Ghost, Milton the Monster.
Flashbacks;
Orphan Black.
I feel like Forever and New Amsterdam (2008, not 2018) should be listed, though the protagonists are immortal, not dead.
Immortals & angels aren’t dead, but you named a lot of good ones. I can’t believe I forgot Casper!
There are so many, and I know there must be several I’ve heard about that I can’t recall immediately.
Jennifer Slept here, with Ann Jillian. I watched that one a lot. Nearly Departed was similar, much worse, and a total waste of Eric Idle, but at least it had Eric Idle.
Lots of kid’s cartoons– Funky Phantom, any version of Casper, I’m certain there was a cartoon of Beetlejuice at some point, though I never saw it.
It’s already been mentioned, but I was already dying to mention Pushing Daisies, possibly one of the greatest shows ever. If you haven’t seen it, find it and watch it! Do not read much about it first or anything. Just watch. You’ve never seen a show like it, even if you’ve seen everything it copied from.
The ORIGINAL Smothers Brothers Show featured Tommy returning to life as his brother’s new Guardian Angel. I’ve never seen it aside from a few clips in Smothers Brothers documentaries.
Any other show involving angels in which the angels are identified as deceased people (which as far as I’m aware, is an idea held by no major religion other than Mormanism, but it sure is popular among the general population.)
None of the regular characters from the ORIGINAL live-action Ghost Busters TV show for kids in the 1970s, but every episode did feature two ghost characters, often played by former comedy stars, and the ghosts were always important characters for the particular episodes they were in. But if you start including the guest star of the week, you also get shows like Kolshak The Night Stalker, which often had undead villains.
Is that the first version of Marilyn in the illustration you chose for today?
The Night Stalker & Ghosbusters don’t count, because the regular characters are all alive. But Funky Phantom for sure!
The second pilot for Star Trek, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, saw Lt. Kelso killed by a mutated Gary Mitchell, who was in turn killed by Captain Kirk with help from Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, at the cost of Dehner’s life. A trifecta, eh?
I don’t think you’re quite getting what I mean.
Ah, reading more slowly (and after sufficient caffeine) you’re right, this isn’t a correct example. I’ll continue to ponder the question for something else.
“Arrow”, though Sara Lance / White Canary isn’t a regular character for a while – but she does die in the first episode.
“Legends of Tomorrow” in which she is the lead character – by which stage she has come back from the dead three times.
“Angel” is another show with a vampire as the lead.
Do Doctor Who regenerations count as dying? If so, then Doctor Who.
It’s a bit of a cheat on your question, but Michelle Yeoh’s Captain Philippa Georgiou of “Star Trek: Discovery” was killed in the second part of the two part series opener. Her double from a mirror universe is now a regular character,
Topper: Staid banker Cosmo Topper (Leo G. Carroll) gets haunted by the fun loving Kirby’s ghosts.
Struck By Lightning: Jack Elam plays Frankenstein’s Monster.
A Gifted Man: Doctor is literally haunted by his dead ex-wife.
Agents of Shield: Agent Coulson died in the MCU then gets resurrected in Tahiti (“It’s a magical place.”)
Wandavision: Do comic book characters ever truly die?
South Park: They killed Kenny. You bastards!