Great article. I am watching a show that has this exact problem. There have been at least 5 fake out deaths of characters, where you think a character dies, then they come back a few episodes later. It got to a point where I was seriously irritated because the stakes had completely disappeared. Pretty soon the only deaths that really mattered were those of ancillary characters...ones that I knew wouldn't come back. It helped, some, but it was still really obnoxious to see a very dangerous scene set up, a tragic endings, then all that was undone next episode.