10 Best Times TV Characters Returned From The Dead

The BBC's Sherlock is a brilliantly frustrating case study in onscreen resurrection.

While the detective's "death" only lasts for a matter of minutes - with Sherlock's survival being revealed in the final seconds of The Reichenbach Fall - the two years between the second and third seasons were rife with desperately far-fetched theories as to how he denied the Reaper.

Framed as a fraud by Moriarty, Sherlock was posed with an impossible choice in the second season finale. The detective must hurl himself from the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, or his tormenter will have every person that Sherlock holds dear murdered, with assassins standing by.

Sherlock's emotionally-loaded farewell to John seconds before his jump lent an air of mournful authenticity to proceedings. As paramedics scraped Holmes' bloodied remains off the pavement, viewers were left with one question: how the hell does one survive a multi-story swan-dive onto concrete?

Ultimately, Sherlock is maddeningly vague concerning the answer that fans were dying to find out. The following episode depicts a number of increasingly fantastical theories, later shown to be the musings of a guilt-stricken Philip Anderson following Sherlock's perceived suicide.

While Sherlock eventually confides what he claims to be the unbelievable truth behind his survival to Anderson himself, the tongue-in-cheek manner of his revelation means that audiences are ultimately left questioning the legitimacy of his explanation.