Diabolus Ex Machina: Difference between revisions

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== Anime & Manga ==

* ''[[Darker ~~Than~~ Black]]''. What was that? You thought {{spoiler|Havock}} was going to get a ''happy end''? ...Don't be a fool.

* ''[[Darker than Black]]''. What was that? You thought {{spoiler|Havock}} was going to get a ''happy end''? ...Don't be a fool.

* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO|MS IGLOO]]'' Episode 5 {{spoiler|The very young recruit, Erwin, has survived the sortie, and talked his opponent into being taken prisoner rather than dying needlessly when a blast of laser fire from a distant Salamis kills them both.}}

** Something happens like this in the Gundam Side-Story ''Space, to the End of a Flash'', where the pilot of the Gundam Unit 5 survives the battle of A Baoa Qu and is returning to the ship... {{spoiler|only to be shot in the back by a barely alive Gelgoog}}.

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* In the seaon two finale ("Twilight") of ''[[NCIS]]'', the team manages to foil a devious terrorist plot. As they are celebrating their success, Diabolus strikes in the form of a high powered sniper rifle fired by the [[Big Bad]] that drills a hole in Kate's head. To add insult to injury, Kate had just taken a bullet for Gibbs and was spared serious injury thanks to her [[Bulletproof Vest]].

{{quote|'''Kate''': I was sure I was going to die before-- ''([[Boom! Headshot!]])''}}

* ''[[~~Blake's Seven|~~Blake's 7]]'' is loaded with Diaboli ex Machina. For example, people who say they hate Servalan, and have no reason to like her, keep betraying the protagonists to her, even though she has never [[Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves|rewarded a traitor and kills them each time]]. In "Rumors of Death," she's been deposed in a revolution, and she's in a dungeon cell, awaiting execution. Avon picks this time to care about anything other than himself, for the first time in the series, avenging his old girlfriend's death. So he frees Servalan in return for information. He makes that a priority over everything else, including winning and safety (usually his highest priority).

* ''[[Blake's 7]]'' is loaded with Diaboli ex Machina. For example, people who say they hate Servalan, and have no reason to like her, keep betraying the protagonists to her, even though she has never [[Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves|rewarded a traitor and kills them each time]]. In "Rumors of Death," she's been deposed in a revolution, and she's in a dungeon cell, awaiting execution. Avon picks this time to care about anything other than himself, for the first time in the series, avenging his old girlfriend's death. So he frees Servalan in return for information. He makes that a priority over everything else, including winning and safety (usually his highest priority).

** Servalan is some form of walking [[Diabolus Ex Machina]] generator - most grievous example is what was meant to be the finale, her trapped on a ship on the edge of the galaxy that was about to explode, orbiting a planet that was also ''soon going to explode''. Come next season, it is confusingly revealed that somehow the fact that the ship was being eaten apart by a ravenous space virus made the teleport TEN THOUSAND TIMES STRONGER than ever before, and even though she had no idea how to operate it by pure luck managed to land herself NOT in empty space for a start (because the teleport had no safety mechanism to prevent that), and then of all the thousands of possible planets not only a habitable one, not only a populated one, but one governed by her own people... COME ON!!!

* Just think: if it weren't for the miniseries, this is how ''[[Farscape]]'' would've ended: {{spoiler|They're finally safe from the Scarrans and the Peacekeepers, the wormhole to Earth has been closed forever -- but it's okay! Because John is going to marry Aeryn! And then a completely unforeshadowed alien descends from the sky and blasts them into little pebbly bits.}} And vice versa, since the cliffhanger was pretty much why there was such a demand for a miniseries to begin with.

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* One of the last few episodes of ''[[Monk]]'', Monk spends the episode trying to get on the good side of the kid of the only cop against his reinstatement. Then he gets cornered by a bear, {{spoiler|saves the kid, solves the crime, and the guy changes his mind. Unfortunately, the two officers who supported him changed their minds after nothing more than going back over his case records}}. The writers [[Yank the Dog's Chain|Yanking The]] [[Shaggy Dog Story|Shaggy Dog's]] [[Yank the Dog's Chain|Chain]] resulted in a mildly delusional [[Heroic BSOD]].

* The final episode of Series 3 of ''[[Primeval]]'' where humanity has been saved from evil Helen by a hungry raptor. However the Pliocene anomaly closes, trapping Danny 3 million years in the past.

* Col. Henry Blake was already written out of ''[[M*A*S*H|Mash]]''. He'd [[Retirony|gotten his discharge and left for home]]. But that wasn't enough, so at the end of his farewell episode, Radar gets the message that his plane was shot down. "There were no survivors."

* Col. Henry Blake was already written out of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]''. He'd [[Retirony|gotten his discharge and left for home]]. But that wasn't enough, so at the end of his farewell episode, Radar gets the message that his plane was shot down. "There were no survivors."

* ''[[Bones]] has the episode "The Bones on the Blue Line".

* Some people actually have been screwed over by unexpected twists in [[Reality TV]] [[Reality Show|shows]], this may qualify.