History NotWhatItLooksLike / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'': In the pilot episode, "A Tail In Twain", Joe, Sam, David, and Wishbone spot somebody apparently [[GraveRobbing digging up graves]] who subsequently scares them away when he spots them. Later, when they go back with Joe's mom, Ellen, they find out that he was recovering the belongings left behind by the man's settler family that tried to start a farm in the town in the 19th century before moving on.

* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/{{Blossom}}'' after being played straight multiple times within ''one'' scene: Blossom's father walks in on her and her date making out on the couch, to which she hastily babbles this, her father's date comes downstairs, making ''him'' blurt this out, then the closet door opens and Joey and Six fall out, leading Six to declare:
--> "This is ''exactly'' what it looks like!"
** Of course, this isn't true either, Six was throwing herself at Joey, who was trying to fend her off, resulting in them taking a fall.

** And in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E7Revelations Revelations]]" when Xander discovers that not only is Angel back from the dead, but he's snogging Buffy. Given that sex with Buffy turned him into the evil Angelus, the Scoobies are understandably pissed.

* ''Series/DrQuinnMedicineWoman'' of all shows pulls this. The titular character notices her beau Sully sneaking off with her friend Dorothy into Loren's store, with Dorothy closing the blinds and putting up the "Closed" sign. When in another instance she actually catches them coming downstairs from Dorothy's room, she flips out, only to have Dorothy reveal that she's been teaching Sully to dance in order to surprise Mike.
** Several seasons later, Jake notices his sweetheart Theresa sneaking off with local {{Jerkass}} Hank. When he confronts Hank and he refuses to reveal what's going on, Jake gets drunk and starts trashing the town. An angry Hank finally reveals that Theresa has been teaching him to read and that he didn't say anything because he felt it was no one else's business.

-->'''Candy''': Well, I never.\\

* Gussie Fink-Nottle is victimized by this several times in ''Series/JeevesAndWooster'', and it always ''just happens to be'' his hopeful fiancée Madeline Basset who walks in on him.

* ''Series/OneLifeToLive''. After Luna tracks her husband Max and his mistress Blair down in Atlantic City, Max hides in the bathroom while Luna screams at Blair, who feebly denies having an affair with Max or even knowing where he is, but the already disbelieving Luna has her suspicions confirmed after finding Max's discarded shirt. After Max finally emerges from the bathroom, Blair even more feebly tries to claim, "This isn't what it looks like...", but the fed-up Luna simply tells her to shut up.
** A few episodes later, Max walks into his house to find Luna and his best friend Cord hugging. Although Cord is in fact ''comforting'' Luna over Max's infidelity, thanks to Blair's lies, he thinks he's seeing proof that Luna and Cord are having an affair as well.

* ''Series/PerfectStrangers''. Balki is utterly disgusted to find an inflatable woman in the trunk of Larry’s car:

** (amusingly, Larry appears just as ashamed, and Balki just as disgusted by this explanation as by the original assumption)

* In ''Series/{{Roswell}}'', this happens in the early stages of the Max/Liz/Kyle triangle, when a suspicious Kyle has followed Max and Liz (Max is driving). Liz ducks down into the driver's side foot-pit to either retrieve something or hide from the person ''they'' came to follow, and Kyle draws the obvious conclusion.
** Also comes up after Michael shows up at Maria's house in the middle of the night in a distressed state after running away from his abusive foster father. Maria brings him in and lets him sleep in her bed, where her mother finds him (fully clothed) the next morning. She does not take it well.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}''; in "Tick Tick Tick...", Castle insisted on staying at Beckett's apartment (sleeping on her couch) to protect her from a killer obsessed with Castle's Nikki Heat novels. The next morning he makes her pancakes, but another dead body is deposited outside her front door. Ryan and Esposito investigate and Castle is unable to convince them that his staying at Beckett's overnight was completely innocent.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}''; in "Tick Tick Tick...", Castle insisted on staying at Beckett's apartment (sleeping on her couch) to protect her from a killer obsessed with Castle's Nikki Heat novels. The next morning he made her pancakes, but another dead body was deposited outside her front door. Ryan and Esposito investigated and Castle was unable to convince them that his staying at Beckett's overnight was completely innocent.
-->'''Esposito''': Pancakes is not just breakfast, it's an edible way of saying, 'Thank you SO much for last night.'\\

** In "[[Recap/AngelS04E13Salvage Salvage]]", this is the villainous Angelus' verbatim reaction to being caught holding Lilah's body right after she'd been [[spoiler: stabbed in the neck by Cordelia]]. Everyone naturally assumes he's the one who killed her, and Angelus is so amused by this turn of events, and by the fact that the heroes would never believe him anyway, that he doesn't even try to hide his snickers as he delivers the line.
--->'''Angelus:''' ''[in a sarcastically overwrought voice]'' Wait, guys, it's not what it looks like!

* Inverted in ''Series/QueenOfOz''. Queen Georgiana is forced to have an arranged marriage or she'll lose her throne and be excommunicated by the royal family. She's under huge pressure for the day to be perfect, but then her groom collapses and dies with an allergic reaction. She stabs him with his Epi-Pen in a fit of anger that everything's ruined, but to the TV cameras and watching public, it looks like she was trying to save her life. Her popularity skyrockets and her position is assured.

*** The Romulan Warbird is firing upon ''Enterprise'' ([[spoiler:but it's actually a malfunction in their weapons array]]);
*** There's a Romulan on the bridge, looming over a fallen Riker ([[spoiler:Riker was knocked down when [[ScreenShake the ship shook]] and the Romulan went over to help him up]]);
*** And worst of all, Dr. Crusher has been shot by a Romulan ([[spoiler:he was actually shooting at an alien intruder and Crusher got hit by accident]]).
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E3DayOfHonor Day of Honor]]", an episode with heavy ShipTease between them, Lieutenants Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres are [[LockedInAFreezer trapped in a subzero environment]] and [[IntimateHealing huddle together for warmth]], only to be teleported to safety. Cue amused reactions from the crew at the sight of two officers clutching each other tightly.

*** The Romulan Warbird is firing upon ''Enterprise'' ([[spoiler:but it's actually a malfunction in their weapons array]]);
*** There's a Romulan on the bridge, looming over a fallen Riker ([[spoiler:Riker was knocked down when [[ScreenShake the ship shook]] and the Romulan went over to help him up]]);
*** And worst of all, Dr. Crusher has been shot by a Romulan ([[spoiler:he was actually shooting at an alien intruder and Crusher got hit by accident]]).

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E6BoobyTrap Booby Trap]]", Geordi had genuinely not been trying to hook up with holographic Dr. Leah Brahms. While he did ask the computer to add elements of her real personality, he didn't choose to simulate her (the computer instead making the decision) and even after developing feelings for her never tried to pursue a romantic/sexual relationship with her. In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E16GalaxysChild Galaxy's Child]]", Geordi meets the real Leah Brahms, who discovers her holographic incarnation and is led to think that Geordi had intentionally used her image to generate a Brahms love toy.

** "Hush" also has Buffy, in answer to the query of how she would kill "The Gentlemen" [[ADateWithRosiePalms move her hand up and down at waist level]]. Following the horrified looks on her friends' faces, she then pulls a stake from her purse and they all nod in understanding.

** Gerald feels very uncomfortable when he hears [[ADateWithRosiePalms Janet moaning and thinks she is pleasuring herself]]. She was actually having a massage with a neck massager.

** Yet another episode has Carla [[FlashBack tell a story to Elliot]] about what she caught Turk doing in bed, when she was laying right next to him: he's implied to have been having ADateWithRosiePalms, but when Carla lifts up the covers, she lets an obnoxious gasp when he's revealed to be eating ribs in bed.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E23Timescape Timescape]]", the ''Enterprise'' and a Romulan Warbird are [[TimeStandsStill frozen in time]], except that nothing's what it seems:
*** The Romulan Warbird is firing upon ''Enterprise'' ([[spoiler:but it's actually a malfunction in their weapons array]]);
*** There's a Romulan on the bridge, looming over a fallen Riker ([[spoiler:Riker was knocked down when [[ScreenShake the ship shook]] and the Romulan went over to help him up]]);
*** And worst of all, Dr. Crusher has been shot by a Romulan ([[spoiler:he was actually shooting at an alien intruder and Crusher got hit by accident]]).

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' has an off-camera, real-life example. Creator/GeorgeTakei was apparently told at the last minute that Sulu would have [[ShirtlessScene his shirt off]] in the episode "The Naked Time". In his autobiography he recounts that he immediately started a hardcore push-up regimen in his trailer, and says he's not sure what people must have thought walking past his trailer with all the rocking and grunting, but it probably wasn't what it sounded like.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "Timescape", the ''Enterprise'' and a Romulan Warbird are [[TimeStandsStill frozen in time]], except that nothing's what it seems:

*** There's a Romulan on the bridge, looming over a fallen Riker ([[spoiler:Riker was knocked down when [[StarTrekShake the ship shook]] and the Romulan went over to help him up]]);

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In an episode with heavy ShipTease between them, Lieutenants Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres are trapped in a subzero environment and [[IntimateHealing huddle together for warmth]], only to be teleported to safety. Cue amused reactions from the crew at the sight of two officers clutching each other tightly.
* ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}'':

** In "What Is And What Should Never Be" after being touched by a dijinn, Dean wakes up in an alternate timeline where the Winchesters never became Hunters. Their mother is still alive, likewise Sam is getting married to a still-alive Jessica, but Sam and Dean aren't very close and all the people they saved are now dead. Dean realises that he needs to change things, so he breaks into his mother's house to steal a silver knife to kill the dijinn. Sam catches him and Dean gives this trope, making it look as if he's going to tell Sam the truth. Instead Dean says he's stealing the silverware to pay off a gambling debt, which is more in tune with his character in the alternate timeline.
** In "Mommy Dearest", Castiel tries this line when the police find him, the Winchesters and Bobby at the scene of a massacre. It's a moot point, since the cops quickly turn out to be monsters themselves.

* In ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Chinga", Scully is a bit put off when she calls Mulder and hears grunting and women moaning in the background. Mulder pauses the video he was watching and passes it off as an episode of ''World's Deadliest Swarms''. Subverted when it turns out that he was telling the truth.

* Averted in the ''Series/{{UFO}}'' episode "Close Up". Paul Foster walks in on his superior Commander Straker having what appears to be an intimate tête-à-tête with a [[MsFanservice mini-skirted Lieutenant Ellis]]. The ever-calm Straker advises him to never judge a situation by the end of a conversation. However it's PlayedForDrama in a flashback scene when a private eye photographs him entering an apartment with Ellis and he's MistakenForCheating by his wife, who divorces him (Straker is unable to explain because his work is so secret his wife could be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade).