12 Main Character Deaths That Killed Great TV Shows

12. Dan Conner (Roseanne)

Episode Of Death: S02E24 - "Into That Good Night, Part 2" (technically S02E23 - "The Wedding")

It's pretty much certain that this unexpected passing would have killed the show were it not that the revelation of it came about in the final episode. Think of this more as a retroactive derailment.

John Goodman's Dan was always at the heart of Roseanne: a brash but loveable everyman, he was the perfect embodiment of the show's blue-collar ethos. Then, at the end of Season 8, Roseanne walked out on him. In the season that followed, Dan spent twelve of the twenty-four episodes absent or otherwise MIA.

This sad states of affairs apparently came about as a result of star Roseanne Barr's Diva-like behavior on the set - as the Wikipedia page says, the eponymous character, "bossy, loud, caustic", was based on Barr herself. On a less sensational note, Goodman may also have wanted to focus on his burgeoning film career.

In any case, returning for the Christmas episode, the faithful, dependable Dan that everyone knew and loved admitted to having an affair, resulting in his prompt ejection from the Conner family home. Adding insult to injury, an explanatory voice-over in the final scene of the final episode revealed that the whole ninth season had, in fact, been a work of fiction dreamed up by Roseanne herself to cope with the death of Dan...from a heart attack...all the way back in the pen-penultimate episode of season eight. The camera pans back to a seat in which Dan had been seated and all of a sudden he's not there anymore.

While this may have explained some unlikely developments, like Roseanne winning a $108 million lottery jackpot - as well as Dan's out-of-character infidelity - it smacked of emotional manipulation, and, more pressingly, the infamous Dallas shower scene. As with Scrubs, it's probably best to just pretend the show ended that one season earlier (say it with me, "There was no Season 9".)