* Buffy the Vampire Slayer's mother died. Then Buffy died.
* Kind and wise Mrs. Landingham was killed by a drunk driver on The West Wing.
* On The Sopranos, Dr. Melfi was raped, then a few weeks later a stripper named Tracee was beaten to death in one of the most brutal scenes ever filmed for television.
And it got even rougher last weekend when Xena: Warrior Princess ended its seven-year run with a finale that saw Xena shot full of arrows, beheaded, defiled and cremated. So much for happy endings.
The beheading of Xena left many fans calling for the head of Xena producer Rob Tapert, who is married to Xena star Lucy Lawless and thus approved the televised decapitation of his own wife, most likely a television first.
Online petitions begging for some sort of made-for-TV film to bring Xena back from the dead are circulating widely on the Internet and Xena shrines on the web are filled with cries of woe from longtime fans of the show.
Xena's death was in atonement for long past sins, a rationale that didn't sit well with longtime fans like Sarah Packard, 22, of Ypsilanti.
"I thought it was pointless and meaningless and I think it sent a bad message as far as the only way she could be truly redeemed was to be killed," says Packard, who hopes the show is remembered for its former glory rather than its final gruesomeness.
The death of a character has often been used to generate ratings for a show, but Xena: Warrior Princess was at the end of its run and had been one of the most successful syndicated dramas in recent years. The show, which revolved around the relationship between former bad girl warrior Xena and her friend Gabrielle and the evils they conquer, had a devoted following, a good number of whom didn't want to see their heroine defiled.
"We didn't really need to see her headless body," says Packard. "They just kind of lingered in a couple of closeups. It was a really traumatizing visual.
"There is a portion of the audience that is little kids and this was definitely an R-rated episode," she says.
Back to the Lucy Lawless Library
Back to the Xena Picture Library