History OffscreenMomentOfAwesome / LiveActionTV

* Frank Lapidus on ''Series/Lost'' was caught in the submarine explosion in the episode “The Candidate”. The remaining characters don’t find him for two days, and when they do, he’s floating in the water hanging on a piece of the sub wearing a life vest. Michael and Sawyer established the water had sharks in it back in Season 2. Not only does Frank not even mention the fact that he’s been alone in shark infested waters for two days stuck on a piece of broken submarine, he’s ready to fly the plane off the Island and shows almost no sign, physical or mental, of anything being wrong.

* A season 4 episode of ''Series/Izombie'' plays this for laughs while NoticingTheFourthWall at the same time. With Liv on suspension and unable to participate in any of the action of the episode, both Liv and the audience have to rely on Clive's reenactments of all of the action scenes in the episode. Clive even mentions in the episode about how he hates when cop shows skip all the action and have someone only tell about the action, which is exactly what happens in the episode.

* This happens frequently on ''Series/{{Merlin}}'' thanks to the year-long [[TimeSkip Time Skips]] between seasons. It would have been fascinating to see Morgana discover that Morgause was really her half-sister, start learning how to control her magical powers, sink into the rage and bitterness that epitomizes her character from series three onwards, and finally become the last High Priestess of the Old Religion - but it all happens off-screen.
* On Series/{{Leverage}} this occurs in the pilot, as Eliot's [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Establishing Moment of Awesome]]. Eliot is in a restaurant calmly sipping coffee while facing an unidentified guy surrounded by mooks. The guy refuses to hand over the thing Eliot's there for. The lights go out, there are a few muzzle flashes, the lights go on. Eliot is still sipping coffee and the mooks are all unconscious. The unidentified guy immediately hands over the thing. This all serves to create DramaticIrony for the first third of the episode, as Hardison keeps repeating "I don't even know what you ''do."''

* In ''Series/TheWildWildWest'''s "The Night of the Golden Cobra" Mr. Singh's partner in crime Col. Mayo informs him that Singh's aides have done a FaceHeelTurn and work for Mayo now, as part of Mayo's plan to do anything to get his hands on the oil under Pawnee land - in the cellar of Singh's palace giving him access to said oil he tells West and Gordon that the former must get rid of the Pawnees or it'll go ill for Singh's daughter Veda - whereupon the aged Mr. Singh arrives wielding a sword and announces "Two Sikh mercenaries have gone to join their ancestors. [[BadassGrandpa I expedited their departure]]." This actually has a good reason for being offscreen given that Mr. Singh's played by Boris Karloff, who was 79 at the time...

* A season 4 episode of ''Series/iZombie'' plays this for laughs while NoticingTheFourthWall at the same time. With Liv on suspension and unable to participate in any of the action of the episode, both Liv and the audience have to rely on Clive's reenactments of all of the action scenes in the episode. Clive even mentions in the episode about how he hates when cop shows skip all the action and have someone only tell about the action, which is exactly what happens in the episode.

* In Season 5 of ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', Agent Davis, who was thought to have been killed by Season 4's BigBad, shows up alive with only a tiny scar on his cheek, to everyone's surprise. A RunningGag ensues where the show cuts to him ''just after'' he is finished telling someone the story of how he managed to survive his encounter with said BigBad. All the audience gets to see is the listener's reaction, and every time they say it was the most amazing story they've ever heard.

* PlayedForLaughs in one episode of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle''. The boys buy loads of fireworks to pop off in the desert, including a comically massive artillery shell called the "Komodo 3000." We mostly get to see their reactions when the entire stockpile is accidentally ignited all at once, but we know when the Komodo 3000 goes off because the entire countryside ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYng9T8EpS0 cuts to full daylight]]'' for about five seconds.

* No big-time heroics are shown in ''Series/TheTick'', with most episodes taking place between their crime fighting. Whenever the team is about to do something heroic they just cut to the aftermath.

** A lampshaded example: Ted refuses to tell his kids Victoria's most embarrassing story, which involves NoodleImplements. After the story is told offscreen, Marshall and Lily react with "That was the greatest story ever."

* Toward the end of the first season of ''Series/{{Glee}}'', Kurt Hummel wins the Cheerios a national championship via singing a fourteen-minute CelineDion medley. In French. We don't get to see it.

* Has happened more than once in ''HomeAndAway''. Like the story that introduced Peter, where Leah was held hostage and Dan was trying to rescue her...but by the time we came back from commercial, Peter had beaten him to the punch. It's possible that this was done so as to keep the timeslot, but still, pretty damn irritating.

*** In "Baelor," two major battles occur, but only the aftermaths are shown. First Tyrion gets knocked unconscious by the rush of clansmen following a RousingSpeech and only wakes up after the battle, then Robb is shown returning triumphant from battle with Jaime Lannister as his prisoner.

* For budgetary reasons, the show doesn't show most of its battles, usually just the armies charging in followed by the aftermath. Awesomely averted in the penultimate episode of season 2, ''Blackwater''.

* For budgetary reasons, ''Series/GameOfThrones'' doesn't show most of its battles, usually just the armies charging in followed by the aftermath. Awesomely averted in the penultimate episode of season 2, ''Blackwater''.
** One noticeable example is the ''Battle of the Fist of the First Men'' around season 3. Which consisted of The Nightwatch fighting a horde of wights, among them reanimated corpses of animals most notably a fucking reanimated ''[[RaisingTheSteaks BEAR!!]]''. The Nightwatch was completely crushed and demoralized. But we only get to see the survivors make a grim march back to Craster's Keep.

** In the Season 4 premiere, Chuck is cornered by 10 armed {{Mook}}s who already know he's a dangerous guy. Their boss has Sarah and Casey hostage and gives the order, by radio, to kill Chuck. The next thing to come over the radio is Chuck saying something like "Clearly you don't know who I am because you only sent 10 men," in his best BadAss voice. Sure, it's funny, but why couldn't we see it?

** The ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' episode "Random on Purpose" had Abby Scuito from the original ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' guest starring. When she gets kidnapped, mention is made of the rest of Team Gibbs coming to help. However, they are never seen in the episode. When Abby does talk to them, she is by way of a video screen, with the camera on Abby from behind the screen, probably due to the unavailability of the ''NCIS'' cast. Made worse by the fact that Gibbs is always at his most {{Badass}} when Abby is in trouble.

* On Series/{{Leverage}} this occurs in the pilot, as Eliot's [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Establishing Moment of]] [[{{Badass}} Awesome]]. Eliot is in a restaurant calmly sipping coffee while facing an unidentified guy surrounded by mooks. The guy refuses to hand over the thing Eliot's there for. The lights go out, there are a few muzzle flashes, the lights go on. Eliot is still sipping coffee and the mooks are all unconscious. The unidentified guy immediately hands over the thing. This all serves to create DramaticIrony for the first third of the episode, as Hardison keeps repeating "I don't even know what you ''do."''

** In the episode "Ceremonies of Light and Dark", [[{{Badass}} Marcus Cole]] goes to question an entire {{bad guy bar}} about the whereabouts of [[spoiler:[[NumberTwo Ivonova]]]]. He calmly states that, if he doesn't get any answers, then "[[BadassBoast In ten minutes, I'll be the only conscious person in this room]]". Sure enough, the next time we see him...

* On ''Series/{{Bones}}'', the [[spoiler: UST that makes up the bulk of the character interaction gets resolved ''completely off-screen''.]]

* No big time heroics is shown in ''Series/TheTick'', with most episodes taking place between their crime fighting. Whenever the team is about to do something heroic they just cut to the aftermath.
* The main storyline of most episodes of ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'' involve Red describing the various adventures he and his Possum Lodge buddies get involved in.

* No big time heroics is shown in ''Series/TheTick'', with most episodes taking place between their crime fighting. Whenever the team is about to do something heroic they just cut to the aftermath.

* Also happens on ''MyNameIsEarl'' in the episode My Name is Alias. Earl is tranquillized [[spoiler: by Darnell and his father and taken along on a series of missions, but passes out of consciousness, allowing us to only see fragments of the mission, as we watch from his point of view]].
* In the Blitzgiving episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': we are sadly not allowed to see our heroes grease up Lily with butter and slide her down the hallway.

** In the Fifth Season Penultimate Episode, We have the BigBad, [[PhysicalGod Glory the HellGod,]] engaging in a epic against an army of [[TheKnightsTemplar Modern Day Knights]] in order stop her from obtaining [[BarrierMaiden Dawn]]... or we can assume that, as we watch Buffy viewing the battle helplessly through a barrier.

** we never see the Telepath War or most of the Drakh War even though other characters vaguely refer to it all the time, leaving us only with some of the fallout. The details get [[ExpandedUniverse expanded on]] somewhat in the spinoff books, but it's still not actually shown.

* The ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' episode "Random on Purpose" had Abby Scuito from the original ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' guest starring. When she gets kidnapped, mention is made of the rest of Team Gibbs coming to help. However, they are never seen in the episode. When Abby does talk to them, she is by way of a video screen, with the camera on Abby from behind the screen, probably due to the unavailability of the ''NCIS'' cast. Made worse by the fact that Gibbs is always at his most {{Badass}} when Abby is in trouble.
* At the end of the ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "Frame-Up", Abby takes down Chip, her lab assistant [[spoiler: who had framed Tony for murder]] and hog-ties him off-screen. Before the scene cut away from them, [[spoiler:Chip had been lunging at Abby with a knife]].

* Used deliberately in the first-season finale of ''TheSarahConnorChronicles''. It would have been amazing to see Cromartie finally bust loose and wipe out two SWAT teams and an FBI agent by himself - the only problem is that there was no money in the budget left for such a scene. Working under the gun, Josh Friedman had a solution: a SWAT officer goes flying out of the second-story hotel room Cromartie is in and falls into a pool, and for the next several seconds, all the audience sees are bodies falling in one after the other. It only cuts back to the aftermath when everyone (save for Ellison) is dead. When asked by his superiors what happened, Ellison can't even give them an answer.