History NeverTrustATrailer / LiveACtionTV

** The BBC One trailer for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]] ends with the [[BlatantLies Blatant Lie]] of someone knocking four times just like TheProphecy said, in the actual episode however, [[spoiler:it was LampshadeHanging and the Doctor stopped the villain from knocking a fourth time.]] The trailer repeated the first knock.

-->'''House''': This test isn't exactly FDA-approved.
-->'''Wilson''': You committed a crime! Do something!

-->'''House''': This test isn't exactly FDA-approved. [the test goes exactly as planned with no ill effects]
-->'''House''': [much later] Hey, Wilson, Tritter is still bugging me about my drug habits, which, AsYouKnow, I did some illegal stuff to support.
-->'''Wilson''': You committed a crime! Do something!
-->'''House''': I don't wanna, cause I'm a JerkAss.

* ''Series/StarTrek'' examples:

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'':

* Teen Nick mastered this trope for their ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' promos, ''especially'' for Season 10.

** In the season 6 premiere, Jill catches her her oldest son, Brad, in a compromising position with his girlfriend Angela. The advert for the episode shows the pair getting caught in the act and Jill asking, "What if Angela gets pregnant?", followed by a glimpse of Brad's serious expression and a ''shocked'' look from his mother (heavily implying that a TeenPregnancy plot is about to unfold). The reality? [[spoiler: Brad and Angela never actually have sex in the first place, Jill's statement about pregnancy is actually spoken to her husband (to convince him to have "the talk" with Brad), and her "shocked reaction" is in response to Brad yelling at her and storming out of the room.]]
** In another episode from a later season, Jill hires a professional (played by Tom Wopat) to install granite countertops, only to find that he's the same man who once flirted with her at the gym and tried to ask her out. Nothing happens between them, and Jill actually ''fires'' the guy because his behavior makes her so uncomfortable. The advertisement, on the other hand, shows the two of them kissing passionately (which actually happened during a DreamSequence in a previous episode), Jill tearfully confessing "He ''kissed'' me!" (which he ''did'' -- without her consent, right before she fired him), and Tim opening the front door and coming face to face with the flirtatious handyman (who actually just came back to get his tools).

** The trailers for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E6TheAlmostPeople "The Almost People"]] suggested that [[spoiler: [[CloningBlues Ganger!Doctor]]]] was a villain, when in reality [[spoiler:he was generally good and helpful throughout the entire episode, even pulling a HeroicSacrifice at the end]].

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': [[ScrewedByTheNetwork As part their infamous treatment of the show]], Creator/FOX heavily promoted the show as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQQ_pI9gRIY&ab_channel=Nintendementia an action comedy]]. While there's some of this, it's still a mostly serious SpaceWestern.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8grPGqH3IHI This preview]] for the season six finale made it look like Ziva was going to kill Tony on her father's orders. Pretty shifty of CBS, but at least the episode itself was good.

* The trailers for each new ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode - reproduced on the [=DVDs=] for your viewing dissonance - always tried to make it sound much more of an action 'n' explosions show than it actually was. Sometimes this almost worked, most times you'd wonder if it was the same show, and sometimes, you'd wonder if if was the same universe.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': At the end of a season finale, there was a long preview hyping the next season's premiere, saying that Buffy would face her deadliest, strongest, most legendary foe ever... {{Dracula}}. The hype blitz continued during the entire off season, with every ''Buffy'' rerun containing a promo for the Buffy vs. Dracula showdown, commercials for it even ran in unconnected commercial spots, often during primetime. In all, it was built up as Dracula obviously being the BigBad for the coming season, or perhaps even multiple seasons, so epic was the ad campaign for the upcoming meeting. When the episode finally came... it was a one-shot, essentially a gag episode, where Dracula's arrival was treated largely as a joke and Buffy doesn't actually defeat him, but essentially ''mocks'' him into laying down and playing dead. He was never heard from on the TV series again, reappearing only in comics once or twice. Hard to say whether it was just a really deceptive ad campaign or a rather mean-spirited TakeThat.

*** The "Next Time" trailer for the episode ended with a coffin topped with sunflowers, implying it was Vincent's. In the actual episode, it's the coffin of a girl whose death by the MonsterOfTheWeek Vincent is blamed for, and who is never seen. It's also a reference to a lost Creator/VicentVanGogh {{painting|s}} of the same subject matter.

** One scene that appeared in almost all of their commercials for season 2, a scene of Wrestling/SummerRae slapping Wrestling/NatalyaNeidhart across the face. The commercial made it appear as though Summer slapped Nattie because Nattie said Summer dresses like a stripper. In the actual episode, the slap occurs after Nattie insults Summer for being [[ChristmasCake 30 and still single.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'',
** For the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXpO25EIErw first trailer]] the announcer mispronounced almost EVERY SINGLE NAME of the characters [[note]](only getting Janeway, Paris, Kim, and Neelix right)[[/note]]. And considering that one of the characters is named "[[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Doctor]]", this is especially bad. The announcer also mispronounces words ending with "er" as ending with "a", such as "fighter" as "fighta" and "voyager" as "voyaga". [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And they also called Harry Kim the communications officer,]] [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer when he's actually the Chief of Operations]]. Notably, at least two episodes had been filmed at that point, as the trailer had shown clips from the two-part pilot, so it wasn't an issue of the characters' names not being known at the time. The actors had already said who they were.

** Final ''Franchise/StarTrek'' spin-off example: UK TV channel Virgin 1 marketed ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' on the basis of the handful of relatively sexy moments that make up the 4 seasons. While it might have featured more blatant sexual situations than the previous ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series, the show was still pretty tame by most modern standards.

*** The trailer states that "five special Rangers" are sent back in time to capture an escaped criminal mastermind. In the show, the original Red Ranger Alex is [[spoiler: supposedly]] killed in action and the other four Rangers - who were ''fired'' for failing to stop Ransik's escape in the first place - steal the [[TransformationTrinket morphers]] and hijack a ship to travel to the past after Ransik. In doing so, they meet and recruit a new Red Ranger who is Alex's ancestor.

*** The "Next Time" trailer for the episode ended with a coffin topped with sunflowers, implying it was Vincent's. In the actual episode, it's the coffin of a girl whose death by the MonsterOfTheWeek Vincent is blamed for, and who is never seen. It's also a reference to a lost van Gogh painting of the same subject matter.

** The BBC One trailer for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]] ends with the [[BlatantLies Blatant Lie]] of someone knocking four times just like TheProphecy said, in the actual episode however, [[spoiler:it was LampshadeHanging and the Doctor stopped the villain from knocking a fourth time.]] The trailer repeated the fist knock.

* ''Series/That70sShow'': A commercial for one episode featured a scene where Donna told Eric [[WhamLine she had to leave him.]] It turns out [[spoiler: this scene was part of a dream sequence. Perhaps the shows only dream sequence played like a normal scene. Although they didn't get married, they remained a couple until Creator/TopherGracee left.]]

* ''Series/ControlZ'': In the second season trailer, there is a hooded figure that is supposedly the avenger, who attacks Javier and pays a visit to Gerry. We can also see Alex gagged and tied inside a classroom, making her a victim of the avenger. Ironically, the figure turns out to be Raúl, who ''isn't'' actually the perpetrator. His attack to Javier was to make sure that Sofía was fine and the reason behind visiting Gerry was to convince him to hide from the police. At least for the time being. In addition, [[spoiler:Alex is the ''actual'' avenger as she had orchestrated her own kidnapping to avoid suspicion]].

* Creator/TheWB's ''Series/BirdsOfPrey2002'' kept employing this trope week after week to the point where it actually played a large part in causing the show's demise in the eyes of many critics, in retrospect. To elaborate, the show centered around the full-grown daughter of Franchise/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} fighting crime alongside ComicBook/BlackCanary and the former ComicBook/{{Batgirl}}, TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture...or today (the show was kinda vague about it), with guidance from [[BattleButler Alfred]], while a manipulative [[Characters/BatmanHarleyQuinn Harley Quinn]] hid in plain sight, and plotted to avenge ComicBook/TheJoker by getting back at the Bat-Family. Cool...except that the show kept promising "Next week...*cut to silhouetted images of Batman or a Batarang on a wall*" and promising that Batman would be returning to Gotham, with much hype and fanfare...and then every week it'd turn out that the trailer had just lied. The show employed this so much, and so shamelessly, that viewers en masse got sick and tired of being lied to every week, and the vast majority stopped watching by midseason. The ratings got so abysmal that the show was suddenly yanked off the air without warning (not that anyone was watching by that point), though The WB ''did'' air the already-filmed season finale as the GrandFinale a few months later.

** For whatever reason the Australian promos all try and play the episodes for drama. Several treat Sheldon's "we can't be friends anymore" moments as shocking swerves that will change the show forever instead of a one-time gag about the roommate agreement that barely factors into the plot.

* Previews for ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' are usually either uninformative or edit the footage together in a very misleading way. For example, there were numerous previews hinting that [[FanPreferredCouple Amy and Ricky]] had feelings for each other or that they were going to get together long before [[spoiler: they finally became a couple in season three]].

** Inverted with a WordOfGod confirmation that the trailer for 'iOMG' ''isn't'' the same as the iSAFW debacle and something major ''does'' happen.

** The show would advertise ''regular episodes'' like ''iSpace Out'' and the aforementioned ''iOMG'' as '''SPECIALS.'''

** Final ''Franchise/StarTrek'' spin-off example: UK TV channel Virgin 1 markets ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' on the basis of the handful of relatively sexy moments that make up the 4 seasons. While it might have featured more blatant sexual situations than the previous ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series, the show was still pretty tame by most modern standards.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' has an odd case, a sales pitch to the sponsors of the series, where Creator/RodSerling outlines a few episodes from the first series. When talking about ''Escape Clause'' it splices in footage of a car being hit by a train, planes crashing and he talks about homicides. The actual episode has none of these things.

** The Sci-Fi trailer for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E5EvolutionOfTheDaleks "Evolution of the Daleks"]] showed the Doctor standing below a hovering Dalek urging it to kill him [[spoiler: followed immediately by a shot of someone standing in the same place, in the same position (arms spread, looking up) being blasted by the Dalek. Of course, this wasn't the Doctor but a secondary character, though you couldn't tell because of the "glowing skeleton" effect that victims of a Dalek blast get in the new series. Anyone watching the trailer would swear the Doctor was just executed.]]

* The trailers for the 1990's Swedish miniseries ''Nattens barn'' made it seem like a vampire/supernatural story (by incorporating footage from the protagonist's fantasy sequences and dreams), while it was in fact a perfectly realistic series about a RomanticTwoGirlFriendship between two {{Goth}}s.

** The ad for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]] puts a great deal of emphasis on a blonde girl backflipping through a row of lasers. The scene was actually [[spoiler:a three-second filler with no real importance to the plot (except to further showcase the amazing talents of [[MarySue the Doctor's offspring]].)]]