10 TV Character Deaths That Pissed Off Fans

Following one of its most acclaimed seasons, Day 6 of 24 is where the wheels truly began to come off the mega-successful thriller series, as evidenced no better than by the infuriating demise of steely CTU agent Curtis Manning (Roger Cross) in one of the season's first few episodes.

Since his introduction in season four, Curtis' bravery and general badassery seemed to position him as the one true character who could possibly take up Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) mantle one day, enough that the fanbase even affectionately nicknamed him "BlackJack Bauer."

If Curtis was ever going to be killed off, it absolutely needed to be in an ultra-heroic way that elevated his character, but instead the decision was made to have him die a totally unexpected and flat-out underwhelming death.

In season six's fourth episode, Curtis takes terrorist leader Hamri Al-Assad (Alexander Siddig) hostage and plans to kill him, refusing to accept that he will be granted a pardon.

Jack attempts to talk Curtis down but ultimately has "no choice" but to shoot him in the neck, killing him.

Beyond the fact that such emotionally-driven unprofessionalism felt entirely out of character for Curtis - even with his very understandable personal motivations for wanting to kill Al-Assad - was it really not feasible for Jack to just, you know, kneecap his pal instead?

Curtis' death was so deflating that many fans assumed he'd return, but alas, he died for real, and we've all been fuming about it ever since.

For all of 24's attempts to present a successor to Jack Bauer, they had the perfect candidate years ago and pointlessly killed him. Yikes.