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The Mercury News
April 9, 2006
Mortality hits prime time
While a beloved actor's death forces "West Wing" to adapt, more series are choosing to kill off main characters
By Charlie McCollum, Mercury News
SPOILERS!
On tonight's ``The West Wing,'' Leo McGarry -- Democratic vice-presidential candidate, former White House chief of staff and one of the most indelible characters in recent TV history -- will die of a sudden heart attack.
``We almost lost him 15 years ago, did you know that?'' President Josiah Bartlet will tell C.J. Cregg, the press secretary turned chief of staff. ``I was prepared then. Not today.''
In the episode, fiction mirrors reality, as it often has on ``The West Wing.'' Four months ago, John Spencer, the splendid actor who played McGarry, suffered a sudden heart attack and died.
His death rocked those involved with the White House drama, much as McGarry's death will shatter the other characters on the show. It may have been the tipping point at which it was decided to bring down the curtain on ``The West Wing'' after seven seasons.
``This feels like a very organic ending to the show with him gone, because I just can't imagine doing it without him,'' says Allison Janney, who plays Cregg.
In the case of ``The West Wing,'' McGarry's death has been well publicized and shouldn't come as a surprise to the audience. But more and more often in recent months, viewers have had to learn to live with the mortality of popular TV characters, who often are dispatched unexpectedly.
In recent months, major characters have been killed off on a host of series: ``Lost,'' ``Desperate Housewives,'' ``The Sopranos,'' ``24,'' ``The Shield,'' ``Smallville,'' ``NCIS,'' ``The L Word.'' ``24'' alone has eliminated five popular characters since it returned in mid-January.
``For a long time, the common wisdom on television was that you never killed off a major character unless you absolutely had to,'' says Robert F. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. ``Now, when you turn on the TV set, you don't know who's going to make it to the end of the episode.''
Death in all its forms is now perceived as ``a great way to get buzz; it's a great way to keep the adrenaline of the show and the viewers going,'' Thompson says. He also notes that many of the current top TV dramas have large casts and ``these big ensembles make it possible to kill someone off.
``When your show is called `Starsky and Hutch,' you can't kill off main characters or you'd have to change the title.''
Carlton Cuse, a producer on ``Lost''-- which has whacked two main characters and several minor ones in less than two seasons -- said recently in the Los Angeles Times that ``the stability of the cast was one of those untouchable things in television. The wisdom was that the audience is investing an hour, the networks are promoting the cast, and you just can't do that.
``But people have discovered that wisdom isn't true. The episodes where those kinds of deaths happen become more vivid and memorable and part of the mental lexicon.''
In fact, says David Chase, creator of the often bloody ``Sopranos,'' what surprised him most when his show became a success ``was realizing that the public would embrace a show that ignored so many of the hoariest conventions of television. Such as: Don't kill main characters.''
Writers for the top TV shows insist that killing off characters is not meant to play mind games with the audience, but rather to serve the story.
Howard Gordon, the executive producer of ``24,'' says that originally, President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) -- a character in the series since Year 1 -- wasn't supposed to die a jolting death in this season's opening episode.
``We had been circling a story for the opener for two or three weeks, and it didn't really excite us,'' Gordon says. ``Then somebody said, `What if the president is shot?' It really was one of those epiphanies and a convenient way to jump-start the year.''
But Gordon points out that death always has been an underlying text on ``24,'' starting in the first season which ended with agent Jack Bauer's wife being killed. ``Jack does a dangerous job in a dangerous world where no one is safe,'' he says.
``I don't think you have to be sensational, but you have to be emotionally honest no matter what you're doing. Shock for shock value will never work if it's not attached to something with emotional integrity.''
But perhaps the most important reason for the surge in deaths on serial television might be the most unexpected one: scripted drama's competition with reality TV.
``What makes reality television so compelling is on shows like `American Idol' and `Apprentice' and `Survivor,' you are guaranteed at the end of every episode that they are going to `kill' off a major character,'' Thompson says.
``That's one of the things that makes reality TV work for viewers: You know going in that this is going to have a payoff every single week. And the people doing scripted TV noticed that.''
Gordon agrees: ``There is absolutely a `Survivor' fixation at some level. All these shows, whether it's `Survivor' or `American Idol,' are always about somebody leaving the show. It's always about a symbolic death.''
But while the deaths give the serialized dramas a jolt, they still can make the audience at home unhappy.
Fans of ``24'' continue to complain about the death last month of lovable computer nerd Edgar Stiles (Louis Lombardi). When ``Alias'' appeared to kill off Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), Sydney Bristow's main squeeze, earlier this season, the uproar was so great that Vaughn will return (somehow) when the series resumes on April 18.
Still, it looks -- as least for a while -- as if the Grim Reaper will continue to walk through the worlds of many shows. Without giving away details, there are departures planned for ``Lost,'' ``24,'' ``Everwood'' and ``ER'' before the season ends next month.
And on the last two episodes this season of ``Prison Break,'' says executive Matt Olmstead cheerfully, ``three people bite it.''
© Knight Ridder Digital 2006
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