History HopeSpot / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Being based on ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', it is no surprise that the show does this a lot, too. An altered scene that adds an additional HopeSpot on top of those already in the books occurs in the middle of Season 2. Catelyn Stark manages to secure an alliance for her son Robb with Renly Baratheon, the sanest and most powerful claimant to the Iron Throne who also hates the Lannisters, in return for a token show of submission to Renly once the war is over. [[spoiler:No sooner has Renly agreed to this before he is slain by a monstrous LivingShadow created by Melisandre, shattering his coalition which results in the Stormlands bannermen joining Stannis's cause, and the Tyrells eventually switch sides to the Lannisters.]]

* ''MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': "Master Vile and the Metallic Armor part 2". Tommy and Kat have nabbed the Zeo Crystal and recovered the Falconzord. They blast Globbor, then combine with the Ninja Megazord to pound him. They seem to have won... then Globbor gets up and turns out to be just fine. And worse still, Master Vile reveals that Ninjor is absorbing the damage. Globbor defeats both the Ninja and Shogun Megazords, which are then teleported to a distant planet with the Zeo Crystal now linked to Master Vile. Globbor also drains the Rangers' energy, weakening them severely.

* Another ''Star Trek'' example in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', in arguably the TropeCodifier for the cliffhanger season finale, "Best of Both Worlds Part 1." After the Borg abduct and assimilate Picard, Riker gives the order to fire the superweapon improvised from the main deflector dish. The music swells and ''Enterprise'' opens fire. Only for Part 2 to reveal the Borg have already adapted for that weakness, because they learned of it from Picard. The Borg NoSell the attack, ''Enterprise'' is temporarily disabled, and the cube heads to [[CurbStompBattle Wolf 359]].

* ''Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined'': The midseason finale of Season Four. [[spoiler: The humans and Cylons have put aside their differences and found Earth together. Cue exulting music. Oh wait, Earth is a nuclear wasteland and has been for two thousand years.]]

* ''{{Firefly}}'': The opening sequence to the first premiere. Mal charges out of the bunker to shoot down a flyer that was keeping away the reinforcements. He returns triumphant... and the reinforcements don't come anyway, as Command has surrendered the battle -- and to make things worse, the reinforcements that ''do'' arrive proceed to rain fire upon Serenity Valley, killing everyone except Mal and Zoe.

* ''{{Dune}}'': The 2000 miniseries has a beautifully dark and very justified one near the end of the final chapter, where Rabban, a brutal and savage oppresor of the people of Arrakis, find himself surrounded by the very people he had been oppresing. The Hope Spot kicks in when he sees Stilgar, the leader of the Fremen rebellion, bearing a rifle, and seeming to offer Rabban the hope of a quick clean death by gunshot... only for him to walk away, leaving him to the knives of a few hundred people who have no interest whatsoever in giving him a quick clean death.

* Another ''Star Trek'' example in ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', in arguably the TropeCodifier for the cliffhanger season finale, "Best of Both Worlds Part 1." After the Borg abduct and assimilate Picard, Riker gives the order to fire the superweapon improvised from the main deflector dish. The music swells and ''Enterprise'' opens fire. Only for Part 2 to reveal the Borg have already adapted for that weakness, because they learned of it from Picard. The Borg NoSell the attack, ''Enterprise'' is temporarily disabled, and the cube heads to [[CurbStompBattle Wolf 359]].

* ''BabylonFive'': In Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning [[spoiler:Emperor]] Londo Mollari sees his homeworld in ruins, but as he tells two young children and their caretaker, there is still hope, it will be hard, but as long as one keeps fighting, there is hope. As he speaks, he recalls when [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeNBJ5o-b7s humans were in a hopeless spot but still didn't give up fighting.]]

* * In season 4 Tyrion has been accused of murdering [[spoiler: Joffrey]]. The people still loyal to him are powerless to stop his conviction so Tyrion chooses Trial by Combat as a final TakeThat to his father. It looks like Tyrion will be killed by The Mountian in the duel when [[spoiler: Oberyn Martell]] offers to be Tyrion's champion. During the duel it soon becomes clear that The Mountain is losing and with his death Tyrion will be exonerated. Then [[spoiler: right before delivering the final blow, Oberyn gets careless and The Mountain grabs him and crashes his skull with his bare hands. With his champion dead, Tyrion is pronounced guilty and sentenced to death.]]

* ''CrimeSceneInvestigation'': During the multi-part episode of "Grave Danger", there's a really cruel and clever one of these. At one point, the CSI's think they've found where Nick has been BuriedAlive. They start digging, and at exactly the same time, Nick can hear a scraping sound from outside the box. The team get really excited when they realise that the thing they're digging up a plexiglass box, and Nick starts banging on the box and calling out to them, clearly ecstatic that he's about to be rescued. [[spoiler:The box the CSI's dig up contains a dead dog, and the scraping sound Nick was hearing was actually the box cracking, as he'd weakened it by shooting out the light.]]

* ''SamuraiSentaiShinkenger'' has one in one of the last episodes: the Shinkengers have an all out battle against Dokoku to buy Kaoru the time she needs to use the sealing character that will lock the BigBad away forever. Just as the team gets beaten to within an inch of their lives, she finishes and the seal hits Dokoku full force...[[spoiler:only for him to walk out of the explosion with only minor damage, as he found a way to negate the effects of the character]]. The episode ends with Kaoru too injured to continue fighting and the others desperately searching for a solution.

** Day 5: Lynn MacGill seems to think he might not have made a HeroicSacrifice after all after he stops the gas from killing everyone in the building, but it just took the gas a few seconds to reach him, and he and the man guarding him die horribly.

** A worse one comes in the end of season 4. [[spoiler: Beecher is paroled thanks to an attorney he fell in love with, says goodbye to Oz, gets finally out...and wakes up. It was AllJustADream, and in reality, Beecher's parole is refused, and he is forced to stay in jail.]]

** A particularly nasty and heart-wrenching example from "The Angels Take Manhattan"... [[spoiler: Rory and Amy have jumped to their supposed deaths]] to create a temporal paradox to poison the Weeping Angels' food supply. The paradox puts them back where they started the adventure, ready to head out with The Doctor and River on a family voyage, until [[spoiler:Rory is distracted by his own gravestone and is sent back in time by a weeping angel and Amy goes with him.]]

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Being based on ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', it is no surprise that the show does this a lot too. An altered scene that adds an additional HopeSpot on top of those already in the books occurs in the middle of Season 2. Catelyn Stark manages to secure an alliance for her son Robb with Renly Baratheon, the sanest and most powerful claimant to the Iron Throne, and an enemy of the Lannisters, in return for a token show of submission to Renly once the war is over. [[spoiler:No sooner has Renly agreed to this before he is slain by a monstrous LivingShadow created by Melisandre, shattering his coalition which results in the Stormlands bannermen joining Stannis's cause, and the Tyrells eventually switch sides to the Lannisters.]]

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Being based on ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', it is no surprise that the show does this a lot too. An altered scene that adds an additional Hope Spot on top of those already in the books occurs early in season 2: Catelyn Stark manages to secure an alliance for her son Robb with Renly Baratheorn, the sanest and most powerful claimant to the iron throne of the seven kingdoms and an enemy of the Lannisters, in return for a token show of submission to Renly once the war is over. [[spoiler:No sooner has Renly agreed to this before he is slain by a shadow created by Melissandre, shattering his coalition and leaving half his army to ally with Stannis and the other half with the Lannisters.]]

* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Has too many to count, but a particularly cruel one happens to Tony Almeida on Day 3. [[spoiler:After an agonizing 4 or 5 hours of knowing his wife Michelle is trapped in the hotel where a fatal virus has been released, he learns she's immune and breaks down crying in relief. As Michelle is on her way out of the quarantine zone she's taken hostage by the Big Bad, who immediately forces Tony into a SadisticChoice between betraying all of his colleagues or letting his wife die after all.]]

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': Wesley's final battle in the finale might be another example; the demon has him beaten with magic, so Wes resorts to a knife. The demon then blocks him, grabs a bigger knife, and proceeds to fatally wound Wes.

* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'': Lampshaded in the first season.

** Played later for drama in a season 6 episode. Shawn's father is back in town, suffers a heart attack and after much drama and anguish the man promises his boys that he'll stick around from now on and they'll be a family. [[spoiler: And then he dies.]]

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': In the episode "Six Months Earlier", Hiro travels back in time to rescue Charlie from Sylar. [[spoiler:It turns out she would have died of a blood clot in her brain anyway. Then Hiro accidentally teleports to Japan and can't get back until she's already dead]].
** Subverted somewhat when in season 4 [[spoiler:Hiro goes back again, and this time convinces Sylar to remove the brain defect from Charlie]] then unsubverted when [[spoiler:later that episode, after being cured, Charlie is kidnapped by the new big bad, Samuel, before Hiro and her can run off for their happy ending]]

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': We spend most of the episode "Greatest Hits" expecting Charlie to drown in a flooded underwater station at the end. When he gets down to the station, it's not so much flooded, and Charlie doesn't die. Then in the next episode, [[spoiler:Mikhail ''does'' flood the station, and Charlie dies in a poignant HeroicSacrifice.]]

** Its [[Series/NCISLosAngeles LA counterpart]] with [[spoiler:Dom. Kidnapped by terrorists and missing several months, the team discovers he's in LA and launch a rescue mission. Sam finds him on the roof (Dom admitting he always knew they'd find him), only for Dom to get gunned down moments later.]]

* ''Series/{{Oz}}'': Beecher tries to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge following seeing Keller, the guy he fell in love with, working with Schillinger his enemy but in a tragic Hope Spot fails and ultimately gets his arms and legs broken by Schillinger and Keller.
** A worse one comes in the end of season 4. [[spoiler: Beecher is paroled thanks to an attorney he fell in love with, says goodbye to Oz, gets finally out... and wakes up. It was AllJustADream, and in reality, Beecher's parole is refused, and he is forced to stay in jail.]]
* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': In episode 11, [[spoiler:Danny dies taking out Monroe's only power amplifier with him. By doing this, he effectively brought Monroe back to square one. Randall shows up on Monroe's doorstep not too long after, and not only offers him ''more'' power amplifiers but soldiers, weapons, and a full team of scientists]].

* ''WesternAnimation/StargateInfinity'': The show's villains, on these: "It's very gratifying to give people hope, and then snatch it away."
** Speaking of Stargate, just about every time the tide seems to be turning during the Ori arc... it turns out it's not, something happens to make it all worse, and now we're ''really'' screwed.

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': It has one. [[spoiler:Logan's mother dies]], and he is convinced that she is still alive. He asks Veronica to find her for him, and she tries to do so ([[spoiler: encouraged by the knowledge that the woman who supposedly witnessed the suicide was a liar]]) until Weevil finds a freshman with a tape that shows, amongst other pointless things, [[spoiler:something dropping off the bridge at around the time that his mother jumped.]] Logan then gives up until Veronica gets a hit on one of his mother's credit cards- someone used one. They go to where it was used and find a woman there. [[spoiler:Logan]] tentatively asks 'Mom?' only to have the woman turn around to be revealed as... his sister, Trina. [[TearJerker Makes you want to cry.]]
** Supposedly her death was purposefully left ambiguous in case the writers wanted to bring her back, so does that count as only a half-futile hope spot?

* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode, "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E25TheSoundOfHerVoice The Sound of Her Voice]]" is one big Hope Spot. The crew of the ''Defiant'' receives a distress signal from a shipwrecked Starfleet officer, who is slowly suffocating on a not-quite-habitable planet. As the ''Defiant'' rushes to her aid, the senior staff take turns talking to her over the radio. The rescue party seems poised to reach her in the nick of time... only to discover that an [[TimeyWimeyBall ill-explained time displacement]] was in effect, and she's actually been [[DeadAllAlong dead for years.]]

* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': [[spoiler:Kate's death. She's shot in the chest, but was wearing a bulletproof vest. She gets up, and is killed mid-sentence. Sentence being? "I never thought I'd live-" She's shot in the head, by the way. No way she's surviving that.]]
** Its [[Series/NCISLosAngeles LA counterpart]] with [[spoiler:Dom. Kidnapped by terrorists and missing several months, the team discovers he's in LA and launch a rescue mission. Sam finds him on the roof (Dom admitting he always knew they'd find him), only for Dom to get gunned down moments later.]]
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': The episode "Help", where [[MeaningfulName Cassie]] (teenage girl who has had a premonition of her own untimely death) is saved by Buffy from being killed by a demon... but then a lethal trap goes off... and Buffy saves her just in time for a heart attack to kill Cassie.

* ''WesternAnimation/StargateInfinity'': The show's villains, on these: "It's very gratifying to give people hope, and then snatch it away."
** Speaking of Stargate, just about every time the tide seems to be turning during the Ori arc... it turns out it's not, something happens to make it all worse, and now we're ''really'' screwed.

* ''TheYoungOnes'': The final episode contains a two-fer; the boys have escaped their confining, limited lifestyles and have their whole lives ahead of them, full of freedom and hope... only for them to accidentally drive through a billboard of Cliff Richard and over a massive cliff. Then, at the very bottom of the cliff, from within the battered, smashed-up bus we hear them say "Phew! That was close!"... and the bus explodes in a massive fireball from which nothing could survive.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** The first half of the finale of Season Two has Sam and Dean separated and when they finally meet each other, Sam's rival stabs him in the back and he dies in his brother's arms.
** ''Mystery Spot'' also had one of these. It's a Wednesday, Sam thinks they've beaten the trickster but Dean gets shot by a mugger, is dead before Sam even gets there and Sam can't even wake up this time.
** As Sam pretty much says in ''Devil's Trap'', they're still alive (although Dean just barely), they've still got the Colt and we would love to believe him if it weren't for the fact that, in a second, a ''giant truck'' will smash into their car on purpose, leaving all three of them bloody and unconscious. What a ''fun'' way to end the season!
** Every season finale. ''No Rest for the Wicked'' has them just about to murder Lilith-- the entire episode is one giant Hope Spot-- and [[spoiler: Lilith turns out to be possessing Ruby, and Dean goes to Hell anyways]]. And then ''Lucifer Rising'': [[spoiler:Dean gets to Sam with some help from Castiel, Sam hears him calling out and puppyfaces "Dean?", and then Lilith hits his BerserkButton and he [[NiceJobBreakingItHero kills her, destroying the final seal and releasing Lucifer from his prison]]]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The series 4 finale, the Daleks are defeated yet again, and the Doctor finds himself surrounded by all of his companions and friends from the start of the new series including Rose, who he thought he would never see again. Everything is shiny and full of laughs for the next few minutes until [[spoiler: half of them go home, Rose is left in a parallel dimension with the Doctor's clone, and Donna gets brain-wiped.]] The last few scenes show the Doctor cold and wet, staring ahead blankly in the TARDIS, completely alone again.
** "Voyage of the Damned" has another powerful one. Astrid has driven herself off a precipice into the ship's reactor in order to off the BigBad. As the Doctor returns to the other survivors, he is reminded that she was wearing a teleport bracelet with a system for rescuing passengers who run into trouble with it on. [[spoiler: So he attempts to recall her... only to find that the system does not have enough power, and all that's left of her is constituent particles in her image, which he has to disperse. Hell of a TearJerker.]]
** ''The End of Time'' is ''very'' mean about its Hope Spots. The Doctor has just saved the Earth and possibly the universe from the opening of the sealed time bubble and the return of Gallifrey, and he's still alive, despite thinking that The Master's return was what was supposed to have killed him. Then [[spoiler: he hears a sound...four knocks, from Wilfred, on the inside of the flood chamber for the radiation, which The Doctor will activate if he lets Wilfred out, spilling the radiation on him...the entire rest of the special is a class one TearJerker through and through.]]
** In ''Fear Her'', all the drawings have returned to life - except the Doctor. [[spoiler:Then the other drawing comes to life, and it's an OhCrap moment.]]
** A particularly nasty and heart-wrenching example from "The Angels Take Manhattan"... [[spoiler: Rory and Amy have jumped to their supposed deaths]] to create a temporal paradox to poison the Weeping Angels' food supply. The paradox puts them back where they started the adventure, ready to head out with The Doctor and River on a family voyage, until [[spoiler:Rory is distracted by his own gravestone and is sent back in time by a weeping angel and Amy goes with him.]]
** In ''A Good Man Goes to War'', Rory saves his and Amy's daughter from being kidnapped. Amy takes the baby and hides, while Rory, the Doctor, and the various aliens he recruited to help out form a line of defense to stop the last of the troops coming to get little Melody Pond. [[spoiler:It turns out that the baby Amy was holding was just a "Flesh" replica, and the real baby had been kidnapped long ago. [[TearJerker Yeah...]]]]
* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'': In ''The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith'' we see present day London in ruins and Sarah Jane and Luke stuck in the past with no idea how to defeat the Trickster without...bad things happening to Sarah Jane's parents. Cut to the image of a Blue Police Box as the Doctor's music plays. [[spoiler: It turns out to be just a policeman]].
* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}: In the ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' finale, there's a Hope Spot when they're in the trench ready to go over the top and the guns go silent. Then:
-->'''Darling:''' Thank God -- we lived through it -- the Great War, 1914 to 191'''7'''...
* ''Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined'': The midseason finale of Season Four. [[spoiler: The humans and Cylons have put aside their differences and found Earth together. Cue exulting music. Oh wait, Earth is a nuclear wasteland and has been for two thousand years.]]

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': It has one. [[spoiler:Logan's mother dies]], and he is convinced that she is still alive. He asks Veronica to find her for him, and she tries to do so ([[spoiler: encouraged by the knowledge that the woman who supposedly witnessed the suicide was a liar]]) until Weevil finds a freshman with a tape that shows, amongst other pointless things, [[spoiler:something dropping off the bridge at around the time that his mother jumped.]] Logan then gives up until Veronica gets a hit on one of his mother's credit cards- someone used one. They go to where it was used and find a woman there. [[spoiler:Logan]] tentatively asks 'Mom?' only to have the woman turn around to be revealed as... his sister, Trina. [[TearJerker Makes you want to cry.]]
** Supposedly her death was purposefully left ambiguous in case the writers wanted to bring her back, so does that count as only a half-futile hope spot?
* ''FlashForward2009'': The episode after [[spoiler:Al Gough [[ScrewDestiny screws destiny]]]] begins with a montage of the world and the main characters being optimistic after learning that [[spoiler: the future can be changed]].

* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Has too many to count, but a particularly cruel one happens to Tony Almeida on Day 3. [[spoiler:After an agonizing 4 or 5 hours of knowing his wife Michelle is trapped in the hotel where a fatal virus has been released, he learns she's immune and breaks down crying in relief. As Michelle is on her way out of the quarantine zone she's taken hostage by the Big Bad, who immediately forces Tony into a SadisticChoice between betraying all of his colleagues or letting his wife die after all.]]
** Day 3? If anything you'd think the first finale had to be the most infamous/cruel one in the series. Think about it: After enduring hell for the past 24 hours, [[spoiler: Jack has finally killed the BigBad of the season, gotten [[TheMole Nina Meyers]] arrested, and reunited with his daughter Kim. Then he heads into the room where his wife is being held... and breaks down upon discovering that Nina had shot her minutes before and she's bled to death. No, Jack. There isn't going to be any happy ending for you.]]
* ''{{Dune}}'': The 2000 miniseries has a beautifully dark and very justified one near the end of the final chapter, where Rabban, a brutal and savage oppresor of the people of Arrakis, find himself surrounded by the very people he had been oppresing. The Hope Spot kicks in when he sees Stilgar, the leader of the Fremen rebellion, bearing a rifle, and seeming to offer Rabban the hope of a quick clean death by gunshot... only for him to walk away, leaving him to the knives of a few hundred people who have no interest whatsoever in giving him a quick clean death.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': The ''entire'' final episode. After two seasons of searching, the loss of virtually all the original crew, the ''Liberator,'' and most everything else, the crew ''finally'' locate Blake on Gauda Prime. But put Blake and Avon in the same room, and all goes to hell in short order.
* ''CrimeSceneInvestigation'': During the multi-part episode of "Grave Danger", there's a really cruel and clever one of these. At one point, the CSI's think they've found where Nick has been BuriedAlive. They start digging, and at exactly the same time, Nick can hear a scraping sound from outside the box. The team get really excited when they realise that the thing they're digging up a plexiglass box, and Nick starts banging on the box and calling out to them, clearly ecstatic that he's about to be rescued. [[spoiler:The box the CSI's dig up contains a dead dog, and the scraping sound Nick was hearing was actually the box cracking, as he'd weakened it by shooting out the light.]]
* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'': Lampshaded in the first season.
-->'''Cory:''' You just ''love'' dangling that little string of hope in front of us and yanking it away, don't you?
-->'''Mr. Feeny:''' I had a cat.
** Played later for drama in a season 6 episode. Shawn's father is back in town, suffers a heart attack and after much drama and anguish the man promises his boys that he'll stick around from now on and they'll be a family. [[spoiler: And then he dies.]]
* ''MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': "Master Vile and the Metallic Armor part 2". Tommy and Kat have nabbed the Zeo Crystal and recovered the Falconzord. They blast Globbor, then combine with the Ninja Megazord to pound him. They seem to have won... then Globbor gets up and turns out to be just fine. And worse still, Master Vile reveals that Ninjor is absorbing the damage. Globbor defeats both the Ninja and Shogun Megazords, which are then teleported to a distant planet with the Zeo Crystal now linked to Master Vile. Globbor also drains the Rangers' energy, weakening them severely.
* ''Series/{{Oz}}'': Beecher tries to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge following seeing Keller, the guy he fell in love with, working with Schillinger his enemy but in a tragic Hope Spot fails and ultimately gets his arms and legs broken by Schillinger and Keller.
** A worse one comes in the end of season 4. [[spoiler: Beecher is paroled thanks to an attorney he fell in love with, says goodbye to Oz, gets finally out... and wakes up. It was AllJustADream, and in reality, Beecher's parole is refused, and he is forced to stay in jail.]]
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Being based on ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', it is no surprise that the show does this a lot too. An altered scene that adds an additional Hope Spot on top of those already in the books occurs early in season 2: Catelyn Stark manages to secure an alliance for her son Robb with Renly Baratheorn, the sanest and most powerful claimant to the iron throne of the seven kingdoms and an enemy of the Lannisters, in return for a token show of submission to Renly once the war is over. [[spoiler:No sooner has Renly agreed to this before he is slain by a shadow created by Melissandre, shattering his coalition and leaving half his army to ally with Stannis and the other half with the Lannisters.]]
* ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'': The climax of episode 31: the Kamen Rider Club instigates a MisfitMobilizationMoment among the Subaroboshi students, turning them against the Aries Zodiarts! Gentarou/Fourze has figured out the limits of Aries' power, allowing him to get the upper hand. Aries is about to be defeated, [[spoiler:until [[AloofAlly Meteor]] arrives, reveals he made a [[DealWithTheDevil contract with Aries]], and then proceeds to ''kill'' Fourze.]]
* ''Series/GreysAnatomy'': One episode had a main character finally wake up from being in a coma for a few months. Everyone is happy, though of them note that it's not unheard of for people in comas to wake up and have one final burst of energy ("the surge") before dying. Everyone denies it's the surge, saying he's going to be fine, because they don't want it to be true, though the patient [[GenreSavvy knows he is going to die]] and plans accordingly. To the viewers, it's a ForegoneConclusion, since he [[AnachronicOrder died the episode before]] after slipping back into a coma and being taken off of life support after 30 days (as he requested).
* ''BabylonFive'': In Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning [[spoiler:Emperor]] Londo Mollari sees his homeworld in ruins, but as he tells two young children and their caretaker, there is still hope, it will be hard, but as long as one keeps fighting, there is hope. As he speaks, he recalls when [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeNBJ5o-b7s humans were in a hopeless spot but still didn't give up fighting.]]

* In ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' [[spoiler:Kate's death. She's shot in the chest, but was wearing a bulletproof vest. She gets up, and is killed mid-sentence. Sentence being? "I never thought I'd live-" She's shot in the head, by the way. No way she's surviving that.]]

* Also, the ''Series/{{Buffy|TheVampireSlayer}}'' episode "Help", where [[MeaningfulName Cassie]] (teenage girl who has had a premonition of her own untimely death) is saved by Buffy from being killed by a demon... but then a lethal trap goes off... and Buffy saves her just in time for a heart attack to kill Cassie.
* Wesley's final battle in the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' finale might be another example; the demon has him beaten with magic, so Wes resorts to a knife. The demon then blocks him, grabs a bigger knife, and proceeds to fatally wound Wes.

* ''WesternAnimation/StargateInfinity'''s villains, on these: "It's very gratifying to give people hope, and then snatch it away."

* The opening sequence to the first ''{{Firefly}}'' premiere. Mal charges out of the bunker to shoot down a flyer that was keeping away the reinforcements. He returns triumphant... and the reinforcements don't come anyway, as Command has surrendered the battle -- and to make things worse, the reinforcements that ''do'' arrive proceed to rain fire upon Serenity Valley, killing everyone except Mal and Zoe.
* In the ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' episode "Six Months Earlier", Hiro travels back in time to rescue Charlie from Sylar. [[spoiler:It turns out she would have died of a blood clot in her brain anyway. Then Hiro accidentally teleports to Japan and can't get back until she's already dead]].

* In the final episode of ''TheYoungOnes'' contains a two-fer; the boys have escaped their confining, limited lifestyles and have their whole lives ahead of them, full of freedom and hope... only for them to accidentally drive through a billboard of Cliff Richard and over a massive cliff. Then, at the very bottom of the cliff, from within the battered, smashed-up bus we hear them say "Phew! That was close!"... and the bus explodes in a massive fireball from which nothing could survive.

* We spend most of the ''Series/{{Lost}}'' episode "Greatest Hits" expecting Charlie to drown in a flooded underwater station at the end. When he gets down to the station, it's not so much flooded, and Charlie doesn't die. Then in the next episode, [[spoiler:Mikhail ''does'' flood the station, and Charlie dies in a poignant HeroicSacrifice.]]

* In ''The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith'' from ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' we see present day London in ruins and Sarah Jane and Luke stuck in the past with no idea how to defeat the Trickster without...bad things happening to Sarah Jane's parents. Cut to the image of a Blue Police Box as the Doctor's music plays. [[spoiler: It turns out to be just a policeman]].
* In the ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth'' finale, there's a Hope Spot when they're in the trench ready to go over the top and the guns go silent. Then:

* The midseason finale of Season Four of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''. [[spoiler: The humans and Cylons have put aside their differences and found Earth together. Cue exulting music. Oh wait, Earth is a nuclear wasteland and has been for two thousand years.]]
* Rare example of a villain getting this from the pilot episode of ''NewTricks''; a vicious, psychotic gangster has been released from jail following an appeal of his conviction for the murder of a barmaid two decades beforehand. He and his friends are celebrating in a posh restaurant when the main characters enter the restaurant to officially and publicly announce that [=DNA=] evidence has cleared him of the murder he was convicted for. The entire room begins to celebrate... moments before more police officers flood in to arrest him for another murder two decades ago that same [=DNA=] evidence can now conclusively prove he ''did'' do. [[spoiler: Oh, and turned out his wife murdered the barmaid under the mistaken impression she was having an affair with her husband.]]
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'' has one. [[spoiler:Logan's mother dies]], and he is convinced that she is still alive. He asks Veronica to find her for him, and she tries to do so ([[spoiler: encouraged by the knowledge that the woman who supposedly witnessed the suicide was a liar]]) until Weevil finds a freshman with a tape that shows, amongst other pointless things, [[spoiler:something dropping off the bridge at around the time that his mother jumped.]] Logan then gives up until Veronica gets a hit on one of his mother's credit cards- someone used one. They go to where it was used and find a woman there. [[spoiler:Logan]] tentatively asks 'Mom?' only to have the woman turn around to be revealed as... his sister, Trina. [[TearJerker Makes you want to cry.]]

* The episode of ''[[FlashForward2009 Flash Forward]]'' after [[spoiler:Al Gough [[ScrewDestiny screws destiny]]]] begins with a montage of the world and the main characters being optimistic after learning that [[spoiler: the future can be changed]].

* ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'' has too many to count, but a particularly cruel one happens to Tony Almeida on Day 3. [[spoiler:After an agonizing 4 or 5 hours of knowing his wife Michelle is trapped in the hotel where a fatal virus has been released, he learnes she's immune and breaks down crying in relief. As Michelle is on her way out of the quarantine zone she's taken hostage by the Big Bad, who immediately forces Tony into a SadisticChoice between betraying all of his colleagues or letting his wife die after all.]]

* The 2000 ''{{Dune}}'' miniseries has a beautifully dark and very justified one near the end of the final chapter, where Rabban, a brutal and savage oppresor of the people of Arrakis, find himself surrounded by the very people he had been oppresing. The Hope Spot kicks in when he sees Stilgar, the leader of the Fremen rebellion, bearing a rifle, and seeming to offer Rabban the hope of a quick clean death by gunshot... only for him to walk away, leaving him to the knives of a few hundred people who have no interest whatsoever in giving him a quick clean death.
* The ''entire'' final episode of ''Series/BlakesSeven''. After two seasons of searching, the loss of virtually all the original crew, the ''Liberator,'' and most everything else, the crew ''finally'' locate Blake on Gauda Prime. But put Blake and Avon in the same room, and all goes to hell in short order.
* During the multi-part episode of ''CrimeSceneInvestigation'' "Grave Danger", there's a really cruel and clever one of these. At one point, the CSI's think they've found where Nick has been BuriedAlive. They start digging, and at exactly the same time, Nick can hear a scraping sound from outside the box. The team get really excited when they realise that the thing they're digging up a plexiglass box, and Nick starts banging on the box and calling out to them, clearly ecstatic that he's about to be rescued. [[spoiler:The box the CSI's dig up contains a dead dog, and the scraping sound Nick was hearing was actually the box cracking, as he'd weakened it by shooting out the light.]]
* Lampshaded in ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'''s first season.

* Beecher of ''Series/{{Oz}}'' tries to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge following seeing Keller, the guy he fell in love with, working with Schillinger his enemy but in a tragic Hope Spot fails and ultimately gets his arms and legs broken by Schillinger and Keller.
* A worse one comes in the end of season 4. [[spoiler: Beecher is paroled thanks to an attourney he fell in love with, says goodbye to Oz, gets finally out... and wakes up. It was AllJustADream, and in reallity, Beecher's parole is refused, and he is forced to stay in jail.]]
* Being based on ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', it is no surprise that ''Series/GameOfThrones'' does this a lot too. An altered scene that adds an additional Hope Spot on top of those already in the books occurs early in season 2: Catelyn Stark manages to secure an alliance for her son Robb with Renly Baratheorn, the sanest and most powerful claimant to the iron throne of the seven kingdoms and an enemy of the Lannisters, in return for a token show of submission to Renly once the war is over. [[spoiler:No sooner has Renly agreed to this before he is slain by a shadow created by Melissandre, shattering his coalition and leaving half his army to ally with Stannis and the other half with the Lannisters.]]
* The climax of ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'' episode 31: the Kamen Rider Club instigates a MisfitMobilizationMoment among the Subaroboshi students, turning them against the Aries Zodiarts! Gentarou/Fourze has figured out the limits of Aries' power, allowing him to get the upper hand. Aries is about to be defeated, [[spoiler:until [[AloofAlly Meteor]] arrives, reveals he made a [[DealWithTheDevil contract with Aries]], and then proceeds to ''kill'' Fourze.]]
* One episode of ''Series/GreysAnatomy'' had a main character finally wake up from being in a coma for a few months. Everyone is happy, though of them note that it's not unheard of for people in comas to wake up and have one final burst of energy ("the surge") before dying. Everyone denies it's the surge, saying he's going to be fine, because they don't want it to be true, though the patient [[GenreSavvy knows he is going to die]] and plans accordingly. To the viewers, it's a ForegoneConclusion, since he [[AnachronicOrder died the episode before]] after slipping back into a coma and being taken off of life support after 30 days (as he requested).
* In Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning [[spoiler:Emperor]] Londo Mollari sees his homeworld in ruins, but as he tells two young children and their caretaker, there is still hope, it will be hard, but as long as one keeps fighting, there is hope. As he speaks, he recalls when [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeNBJ5o-b7s humans were in a hopeless spot but still didn't give up fighting.]]