You Shall Not Pass/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


As a Death Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.

  • Both Kor and Eddington died like this on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
    • Kor was a legendary but disgraced Klingon, managing to survive so long as a warrior he was going senile. Taking command of a damaged vessel with no living crew left, he singlehandedly destroyed/delayed a Jem'Hadar squadron from overtaking the Klingon task force they were chasing. This was deemed so impressive by the Klingons on the ship he'd been serving on (even Martok, who'd hated the man) that they all broke out in song. Truly a warrior's death.
    • Eddington single handedly master minded a scheme to save his people AFTER his whole Face Heel Turn--not to mention being captured and imprisoned by Starfleet--and then went down fighting to ensure that everyone escaped.
  • In an alternate timeline in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise is being attacked by three Klingon warbirds; Riker states that they can outrun them, but Picard orders the ship to stand fast and fight the Klingons so as to allow the past Enterprise to escape. Prompts the famous line, "Let us make sure history never forgets. The name. ENTERPRISE!"
  • The Battlestar Galactica is being pummelled to oblivion by Cylon Basestars....when suddenly the far more badass Battlestar Pegasus shows up starts stomping on the Cylons. The ship is destroyed taking out the last Cylon ships so that Galactica can escape. Possibly the most Awesome Moment of Awesome on that show.
  • Doctor Who: "Tomb of the Cybermen". The Doctor and Jamie attempt to close the electrified doors to the tombs, sealing the Cyber Controller inside. When they realize that doing so would kill them as well, even if they could overcome the Controller's attempts to force is way out, the enormous Toberman pushes them aside, declares, "You shall not pass Toberman: The door is closed," and forces the doors shut, killing himself and (apparently) the Cyber Controller.
    • Another Doctor Who example: in the new series episode "Tooth and Claw", a character who had previously betrayed the Queen repents, and so of course has to die, so he volunteers to sacrifice himself to give the main characters more time to escape the werewolf, despite the fact that normal humans with guns had previously been shown not to slow it down at all. His death is not shown directly, so it is not known if or how he actually slowed it down.
    • Yet another Doctor Who example: In the new series episode "Doomsday", a Cyberman, who formerly was the director of the Torchwood Facility, turns on its cybernetic fellows at the last possible moment before they break in on Our Heroes and stop them saving the day; this rebellious Cyberman even says "You shall not pass" twice, and then mows down the other Cybers with an electric rifle. It's actually a very touching moment. Then comes the single black tear; borders on Narm but we'll let it pass.
    • Still another example from Doctor Who, when in the new series episode "Dalek", one of the soldiers tries to hold off a fully-charged Dalek with a pistol. We then see a flash of light, the sound of a Dalek shot and a scream. Then we see the Dalek approaching.
    • From Part 3 of "The War Machines" back in the William Hartnell era of Doctor Who. In the last scene of the episode, a rampant robot is bearing down on the (characteristically) useless army and random civilian director-type-people. They all turn and run for cover, but the Doctor stands his ground in what could be more of a CMoA too.
    • In the episode "The Stolen Earth" in the recent series, the American UNIT general and random Red Shirt single-handedly stand against an oncoming Dalek force to give Martha Jones time to teleport away... and of course, get lasered rather quickly. I mean, come on, these are Daleks.
    • Does no one remember Jack Harkness? In "The Parting of the Ways" he stopped at the entrance to the main part of Floor 500, holding off several Daleks with a 19th century handgun to give the Doctor an extra twenty seconds. You Shall Not Pass, indeed.
    • In The Wedding of River Song, we get Rory versus The Silence. The device that lets him remember them is booby trapped and causing him agonizing pain, but he keeps it on so he can remember them and cover the escape of Amy, the Doctor, and River Song once the Silence broke in. Unfortunately, it gets too bad for even him once the juice gets cranked up. The Silence still don't get to pass, because Amy, who'd been told to run, came back with a machine gun.
  • Marcus Cole does this to Neroon in the Babylon 5 episode "Grey 17 is Missing". Clips over part of the episode show Marcus getting his ass kicked. While he is prepared to meet his death to make this delay as long as possible, Neroon spares his life. Neroon then immediately concedes that Delenn is the proper leader of the Rangers by saying "They would die for you; I don't think I could make them die for me."

"We are Rangers.
We walk in the dark places no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass.
We live for the One, we die for the One."

    • In another episode, in a vision of a possible future, Garibaldi stays behind to make sure Sinclair can escape, even going so far as to declare 'This is the moment I was born for!'
    • The Battle of the Line probably also qualifies, seeing as they were attempting to buy time for transports to evacuate as many civilians from Earth as possible.

"Hold the line. No one gets through, no matter what."

  • Subverted in the first season two episode of Stargate SG-1 in which Daniel is badly wounded. Thinking that this will likely kill him anyway, he tells Jack to take the others and go on without him while he plans to stay behind and cover them. However he ends up meeting no resistance and instead hauls himself to a Goa'uld sarcophagus to get healed.
    • Played straight (or perhaps homaged) in the episode "The Enemy Within" where Teal'c beats a Goa'uld infested Major Kowalski to the gate room before he escapes, utters "You cannot pass" and kills him on the ramp.
    • Made ever more awesome because of the circumstances. The Enemy Within is the second episode of Stargate, and at this point Teal'c's fate is yet to be decided (One option was to remove the infant Goa'uld within him for study, which would kill Teal'c). The Goa'uld inside Kowalski takes him over, opens the Gate to Chulak, and enters the gate room to find Teal'c blocking his way. Keep in mind that the Goa'uld are Gods to Jaffa. The Goa'uld orders Teal'c to stand aside. Teal'c: "You cannot pass."
  • In The Sarah Connor Chronicles episode "To The Lighthouse", Charley Dixon does this for John Connor.
  • Heroes: Government agents are attempting to capture Micah, because he's been helping other heroes to safety. Finding themselves in a parking garage, Micah and Tracy, who recently learned that she's his aunt, seem to be cornered. However, Tracy tells Micah to run, and also to activate the sprinkler system (Micah can "talk" to machines). He does so, and we get a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Tracy, as she activates the full power of her freezing ability once Micah's out of range, freezing half of the garage, killing the agents, and sacrificing herself in the process.
    • Of course, we later find out she is still alive, after pulling a T-1000 melt-and-reform maneuver.
  • Supernatural: Castiel does this in the Season 4 finale to hold off the prophet Chuck's archangel so that Dean can reach Sam.
    • In the Season 5 episode "Abandon All Hope," Jo decides to do this by building a bomb to hold off a group of hellhounds because she's mortally wounded. Right as the plan is about to come to fruition, her mother, Ellen, decides to join her, reiterating the show's theme of the importance of family.
  • An episode of Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. entitled, They Shall Not Pass has Gomer paired with Sergeant Carter. When Carter is injured, only Gomer is left to protect bridge, which he does successfully.
  • 24 Season 8, Episode 14: A Secret Service Red Shirt stays behind to fight off the attacking military squad while Jack & Co. attempt to evacuate President Hassan.
  • Farscape. D'Argo. "I'm your daddy!"
    • Also Crais and Talyn Star-bursting to save the others and destroy the Command Carrier.
  • Blake's 7: The Liberator versus an entire alien spacefleet. The "bridge" is the edge of the Milky Way galaxy.

"Fire!!"

  • Angel, in "Habeus Corpses", Gunn makes the others go on while he holds back the zombie horde inside Wolfram and Hart. He survives, though.
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