4. Sure The House I Was In Exploded / I Was Poisoned...But That Was Just For Dramatic Season Finale Purposes Chloe Sullivan And Lex Luthor (Smallville)
This continues the theme of season finales being viewed as the perfect excuse to kill of principal character for the shock value, only to bring them back just as quickly. From Picard to Fox Mulder to Sherlock; sometimes the death of these characters can be resolved satisfactorily, others are ultimately disappointing. And for sheer shock factor, no TV finale was quite so brutal (and ultimately pointless) as the season three finale of Smallville, 'Covenant'. The episode itself had plenty of cliff-hanger moments. As Clark meets a possible Supergirl and vanishes, an imprisoned Lionel Luthor exacts his revenge on his enemies. Chloe Sullivan and her dad, witnesses against Lionel in his trial, walk into their house which explodes spectacularly around them. His son Lex Luthor fares no better, as he succumbs to a poison and dies gasping for breath. As Lionel shaves his head, audiences wondered if we were witnessing a clever twist where he will become the ultimate nemesis of Superman, rather than his son. But then it all falls flat in season four. Not only is Clark back in the first few minutes, Lex is revealed to be alive, off hunting an ancient artefact. He might need to have his blood purified every 72 hours or his organs will shut down, but that wasn't really a satisfying resolution. As for Chloe and her dad; apparently it was all a ruse to get them in witness protection and even she is back by the end of episode two. (Surely there are simpler ways to fake someone's death then to stick them inside an exploding house?) It makes all the dramatic moments in the season three finale utterly pointless and suggests the show was afraid to make bold choices in its storytelling. Hey it takes a 100 episodes to kill off Clark's dad!