“The first stage of television grief is rejection: when a favorite character is killed off, the desire to distance yourself from a show you love, to disown it, even, is powerful. ‘I’m done,’ you declare firmly.’ I’ve had enough of this crap. They’ve gone too far this time.’ I’ve seen it in a lot of fan communities; I’ve said it (half-heartedly) myself. In the past decade or so, I’ve developed a bad habit of falling in love with a certain type of BBC series, whose writers seem to be collectively united by slim budgets and streaks of cruelty: on one of my favorite shows, three of the five major characters are killed in the span of five episodes; on another, the entire cast of four kicks it in under a season — and it might be worth noting that most of them go violently, too.”
Stages of Television Grief: On the Decline of Downton Abbey by Elizabeth Minkel
