Why is this a thing?

[potentiality_26]

There seems to be this thing that TV shows do where there is an antagonist (or a good guy who has gotten really annoying and antagonistic lately) who just drives me crazy, and I'm thinking to myself, "I will be overjoyed when he dies.  Overjoyed."  And then, for about an episode, he gets awesome, and I remember why I loved him once or come to love him even though I never did.  And he dies the next episode.  Boom.

This has become so common that I can literally predict when someone will die by this pattern.  Step One: I loathe him.  Step Two: I kind of like him suddenly/again.  Step Three: Dead.

Is it that they planned to kill this character but decided it wasn't worth doing unless it was painful?

What's this about?  It's actually really common.  I'd cite examples, or the program I'm watching at the moment which inspired this particular outburst, but I'm not sure where that would put me spoiler-wise.  I bet some of you know what I'm talking about, though.
 

Comments

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Gods, it has become rather common, hasn't it?! UGH... Used to be a Joss formula, but I guess other writers figured it worked so well -

Total trope now. Meh.

*HUGS*

[potentiality-26.livejournal.com]

Bah. Shoulda known it started with Joss- things that hurt so often do.