List Of Cliffhanger Endings
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.
The phrase is believed to come from the end-of-episode situation in adventure silent films of the early 1900s, with the protagonist literally left hanging from the edge of a cliff, although the oldest usage the Oxford English Dictionary has is from 1937. Some serials end with the caveat "To Be Continued..." or "The End?" In movie serials and television series, and in the Star Wars films (imitating movie serials) the following episode sometimes begins with a recap sequence, e.g. "Previously on L. A. Law".
Read more about List Of Cliffhanger Endings: History, Serial Media
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list and/or endings:
“Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
“Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Logic and hope fade somewhat by thirty-six, when endings seem more like clear warnings than useful experience.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 2 (1980)