Editor's Note: This is a weekly guest post from BuddyTV. Check back every Wednesday for more from BuddyTV.com on the state of television and your favorite shows like 24, Grey's Anatomy, Lost and Gossip Girl.

It's very hard to surprise TV viewers any more. Killing off a major character is usually easy to spot. Either the character resolves all of his major conflicts or he gets to perform one last act of heroic bravery or, as was the case with Edie on Desperate Housewives, the network promotes the heck out of it.

Yet somehow in the past week, two of FOX's dramas managed to kill off major characters in shocking and unexpected ways that left viewers' mouths agape. Both moves weren't heavily publicized beforehand, nor were they telegraphed, giving viewers two genuine surprises.

The big death of the week was on House as Dr. Lawrence Kutner was discovered with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. His suicide came out of nowhere and left viewers and the other characters on the show with a ton of questions. The reveal happened in the first five minutes of the episode, giving viewers a chance to experience the same thing the show's characters felt: total disbelief.

Since then, it was revealed that Kutner was killed off so actor Kal Penn could leave the show and accept a job in President Obama's administration. Even so, it was a creatively brilliant decision because Dr. Gregory House's biggest concern is mysteries, and Kutner's suicide left him with an unexplainable mystery that shook him to his very core.

A slightly less interesting but equally shocking death came on the penultimate episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. After storming Catherine Weaver's house to take her daughter, another Terminator arrived to take them out. Though John and Sarah got away, John's uncle Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) was shot in the forehead.

Fans might expect some collateral damage on the show, but the way in which this series regular was killed off was jarring. There was no epic fight, no triumphant final moment, the Terminator just found Derek, shot him in the head, and walked away.

There was a subtle brilliance to the death, as it solves a long-standing problem with the show. This group of humans runs around fighting an advanced race of killer robots, yet always manage to escape unharmed. It started to seem like defeating the robot race was rather simple as John and his family got away every time. Finally, in this instant of surprising realism, the Connor family came face to face with the actual consequences of waging a war against advanced robotic assassins.

The best part of these deaths is that we're not even in May yet, the time when all the shows have their big, season-ending shocking moments. If these are the types of events that are happening in April, next month will undoubtedly bring a lot more shocking twists, turns and, hopefully, deaths.

Make your picks for who will go home on your favorite reality shows and compete against other fans with BuddyTV's Fantasy TV.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us