History OffscreenMomentOfAwesome / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In "A Dog, a Squirrel, and a Fish Named Fish", while we never actually see the fight between Connie and Brenda, we do get confirmation that Connie made sure Brenda found out what happens when you badmouth her [[AffectionateNickname Moon Pie]].
-->'''Mary:''' Really, Mom? This is how you put out the fire?\\

** In "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS03E11CeremoniesOfLightAndDark Ceremonies of Light and Dark]]", 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...

* 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.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The Last Great Time War. It could be argued that it's one chapter where less is more and nothing could really do it justice, but still, if it was done right, on a proper budget, that could have been the most iconic moment of New Doctor Who. Check out Ten's brief description of it in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]".
** However, Creator/RussellTDavies (who came up with the concept of the Time War) has gone on record as saying that what happened in the Time War is ''impossible'' to depict with modern technology, and that's part of the reason it's never shown.
** Came close to being shown in the audio drama Dark Eyes. Also many fans think the 50th anniversary will show this.
** Infamously done in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion The Invasion]]". Halfway through the serial, the UNIT commanders decide it's about time they rescued Professor Watkins from Vaughn's men. Cut to a scene in which some soldiers are talking about what an epic and dangerous operative that was, and that they're lucky Watkins is now safe in their custody.
** Madame Vastra makes her debut in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar A Good Man Goes To War]]" coming home after she has finished tracking down and ''eating UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper!''
** Well, the special gave us ''some'' of the Time War, but mostly Daleks blowing things up. None of the things Ten mentioned back when making cryptic references showed up, but again, it's already been decided by production that nothing could ''ever'' bring home its full intensity.
** Judging by the revelation that the War Doctor's only 800 when the Time War ends, and the Ninth Doctor is 900 in the first season of the revived series, whatever he was up to in that missing century was almost definitely an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
** Not to mention River Song's many adventures with the Doctor while they were a married couple. Though River is a major character in Series 5, 6, and 7, her on-screen adventures with the Doctor only show us a tiny fraction of the time that they spent together, and we never really get to see how they got close enough to fall in love. Of the thirteen episodes in which River plays a central role, in fact, only ''nine'' of them take place at times when they both know each other.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor The Name of the Doctor]]" reveals that the Second and Eighth Doctors had an adventure together somewhere in America.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** 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, "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS2E9Blackwater Blackwater]]".

** In an early episode of the third season, Tyrion rewards Podric for his loyalty by arranging for him to meet with three beautiful whores and paying for it. To Tyrion's shock, Podric's performance was apparently so good that the whores refused to take his payment and gave him the time for free. Tyrion and Bronn immediately sit Podric down to start pressing him for "details"; these details are never revealed to the audience.
** The sack of Yunkai happens almost completely offscreen. Dany's three champions fight off an initial wave of guards, then report back that they've fomented a slave uprising. Later, the sack of Meereen only shows a single master getting swarmed by angry slaves in a narrow alley.
** In "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS6E8NoOne No One]]", Brynden Tully stages a one-man last stand against Lannister soldiers, and Arya fights a Faceless Man assassin in the dark with Needle. Both fights are performed off-screen.
** Rodrik Cassel killing two Ironborn before getting captured by Lorren and his men.

** Turned UpToEleven and parodied in the ''Buffy'' Season 3 episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E13TheZeppo The Zeppo]]": The gang is fighting what is described as the worst threat they have ever faced, an EldritchAbomination bent on destroying the world. This is a barely-seen background plot. The main plot is Xander learning an {{Aesop}} about confidence. Double-parodied in that Xander's subplot is ''also'' an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome for all the other characters in a TheGreatestStoryNeverTold fashion, as he's running around trying to get out of the way of the out-of-context fallout from the main plot while chasing down a gang of undead juvenile delinquents bent on blowing the Hellmouth wide open. He decides not to tell anyone else about this, as he now knows full well that he is made of awesome, without validation from anyone else.

* This is spoofed in an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1''. The team is on top of a steep cliff with the Stargate on a hill about 50 stories below. Said hill is [[UpToEleven full of Goa'uld ships, cruisers, troopers, everything you can think of]], and "We only have thirty seconds to make it!" before the time-dilation field activates and traps them on the planet. Cut to the heroes back on earth emerging from the Stargate: "Oh, that wasn't so hard.". We then cut back to the ''real'' team (the previous scene was from Martin's movie), who point out how ''stupid'' that was, as there was no way they could have escaped in thirty seconds even if the valley ''hadn't'' been filled with Jaffa. Martin decides to revise the time limit to [[EngagingChevrons thirty-eight]] seconds, because [[ComicallyMissingThePoint thirty is a round number, which seems too arbitrary.]]

* PlayedForDrama and [[PlayedForHorror Horror]] in ''Series/{{Moon Knight|2022}}'' - the moments are only offscreen because Steven suffers from [[SplitPersonality Dissociative Identity Disorder]] and the attendant AlternateIdentityAmnesia, so he is unaware of his more badass Marc Spector persona. Every time Steven [[MissingTime 'skips' forward]] past one of these presumably awesome moments, he's understandably disoriented and terrified.

** Another episode, ''Bloodbath'', has a hitman out to kill Abby. The team tracks down the van that she got carried off in, and arrive just in time to see that she has just finished tasering the crap out of the guy.

* This trope was used hilariously on ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', in the episode about the man on a bicycling vacation who winds up in the USSR. (It was one of the few episodes with one ongoing plot throughout the episode.) The vacationer is in the USSR, about to be recaptured by the Soviet army. Then there's a cut to a caption saying "Scene Missing," and then he's safely back in England.

* In an eighth-season episode of ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'', Jack Bauer goes to assault Novakovich's safehouse, but the entire scene is skipped. The viewer only sees the aftermath (Novakovich and all but one of his guards dead with blood all over the place).

* This is spoofed in an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1''. The team is on top of a steep cliff with the Stargate on a hill about 50 stories below. Said hill is [[UpToEleven full of Goa'uld ships, cruisers, troopers, everything you can think of]], and "We only have thirty seconds to make it!" before the time-dilation field activates and traps them on the planet. Cut to the heroes back on earth emerging from the Stargate: "Oh, that wasn't so hard.". We then cut back to the ''real'' team (the previous scene was from Martin's movie), who point out how ''stupid'' that was, as there was no way they could have escaped in thirty seconds even if the valley ''hadn't'' been filled with Jaffa. Martin decides to revise the time limit to [[EngagingChevrons thirty-eight]] seconds, because [[ComicallyMissingThePoint thirty is a round number, which seems too arbitrary.]]
** In "Family" O'Neil tracks an informant into the Goa'uld palace and takes him down. The Jaffa arrive and order the palace sealed. The scene then cuts to the next morning at the rest of the team's hideout, and O'Neil comes barging in wearing a Serpent Guard's armor and helmet, leaving it up to the audience to figure out how the hell he got the armor and escaped.
** In ''Recap/StargateSG1S3E10ForeverInADay'', a number of S.G. teams are attempting to hold off a large number of Amunet's Jaffa. However, the scene goes from them fighting to Daniel with Amunet/Sharee, his wife. The rest of the episode takes place in Daniel's mind until the end, where it is described the Jaffa have been defeated.
* In the [[SeasonalRot second season]] of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', we hear an awful lot about the legendary adventures of samurai Takezo Kensei. When we finally meet Kensei, and find out that Hiro has to help him live those adventures, it's not unreasonable to assume that the adventures will actually be, y'know, ''seen'', right? One episode actually starts in the middle of a giant samurai battle, then goes back to talk about the leadup to the fight, then goes directly to the aftermath.
** The fight between Sylar and Peter (only heard from behind a door) in "Five Years Gone".
** Sylar vs. Peter and Nathan in the Volume 4 finale. Fifteen seconds or so of blue flashes and sound effects while Claire struggles to get in...almost exactly consistent with the Sylar vs. Peter fight in "Five Years Gone".

** Turned UpToEleven and parodied in the ''Buffy'' season 3 episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E13TheZeppo The Zeppo]]": The gang is fighting what is described as the worst threat they have ever faced, an EldritchAbomination bent on destroying the world. This is a barely-seen background plot. The main plot is Xander learning an {{Aesop}} about confidence. Double-parodied in that Xander's subplot is ''also'' an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome for all the other characters in a TheGreatestStoryNeverTold fashion, as he's running around trying to get out of the way of the out-of-context fallout from the main plot while chasing down a gang of undead juvenile delinquents bent on blowing the Hellmouth wide open. He decides not to tell anyone else about this, as he now knows full well that he is made of awesome, without validation from anyone else.

** Another one from Giles in the season 5 episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E19ToughLove Tough Love]]". Giles, Willow, and Anya capture one of Glory's minions and are about to interrogate him for information. Giles tells Willow and Anya to get some rope to tie him up, and the minute they turn around, the camera focuses on them, and we hear a SickeningCrunch and the minion painfully and frantically agrees to tell them everything. Giles' response to their questions?

* HBO's ''Series/{{Rome}}''. Any battles the characters are going to, they either get shipwrecked or we only get to see some blurry images (save for the episode "Philippi", which shows the titular battle in full). Of course, action costs money!
** Except for the season 2 episode "Philippi" where 15 minutes in they gear up to begin the battle, and you assume they're just going to skip it like every single other battle, right? No, the rest of the episode is the Battle of Philippi in all of its glory (which is pretty glorious as it's two battles in real life [[HollywoodHistory condensed into one for the show)]].
** The Battle of Actium, a battle that, depending on how your count those these things, is still a contender for largest naval battle ever, is depicted in its entirety with a scene of Mark Anthony fleeing in a row boat with smoke in the background.
** Antony's [[Theatre/JuliusCaesar friends-romans-countrymen]] speech after Caesar's funeral singlehandedly turns the Roman people against the conspirators and installs him as the sole ruler of the city. We only hear a description of the scene told by one very minor character to a slightly-less-minor character, and a few later references by others who were there.
-->'''Antony:''' [[BadassBoast I got a bit carried away]]
* Probably one of the worst offenders in recent history is ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'''s series finale. The whole episode builds up to Captain Archer's final speech that will inaugurate the creation of the Federation. He steps up to the podium, goes to say his first words...''and the camera cuts to Troi and Riker looking on before shutting the program down moments later''. The cast themselves repeatedly took shots at the episode in interviews during filming.
** Many episodes of ''Enterprise'' ended with the crew resolving the week's plot offscreen, even if it was something people would have liked to see. This included delivering ambassadors, resolving complex negotiations, defeating the enemy or various character moments that could have been interesting or cool. Instead, most of the resolutions are explained via Archer's log near the end of the episodes. Usually, though, it was the wrap-up of the thing they were on their way to do when the episode's REAL plot interfered. What a one-shot ambassador said when he got to the thing at the place once it was all over... you're less likely to hear it than in TNG.
* In the first season of ''Series/GossipGirl'', Serena's mother takes her to meet [[spoiler: the parents of the boy she "killed"]], something she was so wrecked with guilt over that she fled New York to become a different person. It takes place completely offscreen.
** At the end of Season 2, [[spoiler: Georgina gets everyone's money back from Poppy after Serena's former friend's ponzi's scheme robs half of the up east side, but we never find out how. She just drives off in her limo, and when she returns at the end of the season, she has the money back]].
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' has this in "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E2TheEnterpriseIncident The Enterprise Incident]]", where the supposed Romulan prisoners involved in an exchange pull disruptors on Scotty. Scotty just gives them a disapproving look. Later we learn that they're safely in the brig, the episode having skipped over Scotty giving the two of them an epic beatdown.
** There's also an example in "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E4MirrorMirror Mirror Mirror]]" where Kirk, [=McCoy=], Uhura and Scotty get exchanged in a [[TeleporterAccident Transporter Malfunction]] with their selves from an EvilTwin universe. The quartet, having managed to evade detection in the Mirror Universe, worry about what their replacements would be up to on their ''Enterprise.'' The scene cuts to the Mirrorverse Kirk and party getting tossed into the Brig by [[BadassBookworm Spock]] who, it is implied, took like five seconds to work out what had happened and is already working on how to set it right.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** 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.
** In "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E10Believers Believers]]", Ivanova and a RedShirt go out in Cobras to escort a damaged passenger liner to Babylon 5. Ivanova chases and destroys a raider ship, then her scanner shows dozens more raiders approaching. We cut away as Ivanova has an OhCrap moment. Later she and the liner arrive at the station with her fighter (in Garibaldi's words) having taken enough damage to put it in the shop for a week. She pretty much laughs it off, leaving the audience to imagine the presumably epic dogfight for themselves.
** In "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS03E11CeremoniesOfLightAndDark Ceremonies of Light and Dark]]", 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...
---> '''Marcus:''' Bugger! Now I have to wait for someone to ''wake up''!

** Not to mention River Song's many adventures with the Doctor while they were a married couple. Though River is a major character in Series 5, 6 and 7, her on-screen adventures with the Doctor only show us a tiny fraction of the time that they spent together, and we never really get to see how they got close enough to fall in love. Of the thirteen episodes in which River plays a central role, in fact, only ''nine'' of them take place at times when they both know each other.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
** Season 8 builds up an epic confrontation with Doomsday, a being that can easily kill Clark and would need special tricks to defeat. The finale has them finally fighting: Clark air-body checks Doomsday into the some facility the League has rigged with explosives. The explosives are set off, and Doomsday is buried underground. We see how it happens, but this trope is VERY much still in play as we do not see 1) how Clark managed to survive (he even Lampshades this), nor 2) any actual fight beyond Doomsday punching Clark a couple times and the aforementioned air-body check. Then it cuts to the next day. Clark mentions offhand as part of the dialogue that he beat Doomsday, but ''we never see how''.
** A more minor example is when Clark's AlternateUniverse EvilTwin shows up. Earth-1 Clark is trapped in the other universe, leaving the others to deal with Earth-2 Clark on their own. The fight seems to start with only Tess and Lois, and by the time our Clark gets back, Watchtower is almost destroyed, the two of them and Oliver (who showed up offscreen) are beat to heck and using kryptonite weapons, yet are somehow ''still alive''.

* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'':
** At the end of the episode "Frame-Up", Abby takes down [[spoiler:Chip]], 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.
** Another episode, ''Bloodbath'', has a hitman out to kill Abby. The team tracks down the van that she got carried off in, and arrive just in time to see that she has just finished tasering the crap out of the guy.
** 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.
* In ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers,'' we only see bits and pieces of the epically-epic universe-spanning battle with the forces of good and evil 10,000 years ago that Zordon and his contemporaries keep referring to. In fact, ''many Franchise/PowerRangers'' incarnations are minor resurgences of much larger battles; "X,000 years ago, there was a planet/galaxy/universe-spanning war we don't have the budget to show you much of, and now one guy from that war [[SealedEvilInACan just got un-canned]] and only has enough power to [[MonsterOfTheWeek send monsters one by one]]" is the setup for as many series as not.
** The epic wars only get more epic as the same numbers get used for "X,000 years ago." 10,000 years ago when everyone remotely connected to Lord Zedd was having their heyday, and Zordon was a master wizard kicking ass and taking names, and Earth was involved to ''some'' degree, [[Series/PowerRangersJungleFury it turns out]] the original Dai Shi, the three Overlords, and ''eight'' Phantom Beast Generals and their Phantom Beast Warriors were out, at their full power, and waging all-out war against humans. 3,000 years ago, Earth had to deal with the [[Series/PowerRangersWildForce Orgs]] and [[Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm Shimazu]] while the rest of the galaxy was dealing with [[Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy Scorpius]]. 20 years ago, [[Series/PowerRangersSamurai the Nighloks]] busted out as they apparently do with some regularity, while at the same time, the [[Series/PowerRangersMysticForce forces of the Underworld]] were tearing apart the dimension next door (mostly unnoticed by humans.) Countdown to Destruction is a taste of what it had to have been like. See GreatOffscreenWar for a full list.
** ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'' saw Scott from ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' come and visit. Over the course of the episode, most of the Samurai Rangers are briefly sent into ''RPM'''s universe and they report meeting the other RPM Rangers, but we never see what happens there.
* Happens on ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' fairly often, for no apparent reason except presumably the special effects budget.
** In an important episode of season 3, Chuck and Casey are the BigDamnHeroes coming in to rescue Sarah. Chuck goes to find her and the villain himself, and shortly after he appears, we hear gunfire and explosions in the background. The villain says "I see you brought Casey", and that's all we see of the fight. No Casey blowing things up or beating people up himself, just noise and the villain pointing out Casey's habit of destruction.
** 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?
* ''Series/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]].

* Used deliberately in the first-season finale of ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles''. 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.
* On ''Series/{{Bones}}'', the [[spoiler: UST that makes up the bulk of the character interaction gets resolved ''completely off-screen''.]] This was most likely due to [[RealLifeWritesThePlot the writers needing to do a rush job after the actress became pregnant.]]
* ''Series/ClarissaExplainsItAll'' often had Clarissa's decision on how to resolve the plot fulfilled offscreen.
* ''Series/ElizabethR'' was originally intended to have an epic Spanish Armada scene, but because of the budget, a Courtier ran into the Palace and '''told''' the Queen about the Armada.
* ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' has the Legend War, a battle in which '''every member of every Franchise/SuperSentai team''' joins forces to fight off an evil space empire that wants Earth. What we ''do'' get to see is cool, but it could have been so much greater. According to WordOfGod, before that fight there was a battle where over 100 Sentai mecha and giants took on the invasion fleet, with many being destroyed or killed; they wanted to show this in TheMovie but weren't able to. The only indication that this happened is in the opening of the Gokaiger/[[Series/TensouSentaiGoseiger Goseiger]] crossover movie, where we see the Goseiger fighting the empire while their destroyed mecha lies in the background.
* This happens frequently on ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' 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."''
** Happens again with the Cross My Heart Job, specifically the events that led to them being in the airport with no resources. Eliot even got into an underwater fight.
* ''Franchise/KamenRider''
** The finale of ''Series/KamenRiderHibiki'' is this in its entirety. There is a huge buildup to a massive battle. Even the beginning of said battle is shown [[spoiler: and the rest of the battle is skipped, while we get to see what happens one year after the battle. It is rumored that the battle was filmed, but not shown due to the Retool caused by ExecutiveMeddling.]]
** Spoofed to hell and back in the net movies for ''Franchise/KamenRider'''s [[MilestoneCelebration 40th anniversary movie]]. The video discussing [[Series/KamenRiderRyuki Kamen Rider Scissors]] suggests that his FinishingMove is so awesome it wrecks a restaurant and leaves ''Series/KamenRiderOOO''[='s=] main characters so stunned that afterwards all they can do is childishly play with toys. Of course, in reality, Scissors is regarded as one of the weakest Kamen Riders ever, and his finisher is simply a human cannonball attack.
* In ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', Damon giving blood to Caroline to heal her in 02x01. Especially awesome as this time last year he was compelling her and taking blood from her.
* Similarly to the ''Series/{{Bones}}'' example above, in ''Series/TheXFiles'', after seven seasons of waiting, Mulder and Scully's UST is resolved off-screen.
* Toward the end of the first season of ''Series/{{Glee}}'', Kurt Hummel wins the Cheerios a national championship via singing a fourteen-minute Music/CelineDion medley. In French. We don't get to see it.
* An unusual example with ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' - it's not hard to imagine why Vecepia and Natalie won ''Marquesas'' and ''Samoa'', respectively. It was rather obvious around day 20s why Vecepia would win compared to Neleh, and Natalie's game was [[EntitledBastard Russell Hantz shooting himself in the foot]]. However, in ''South Pacific'', Sophie allegedly did ''something'' that earned her a vote of 6-3-0. We did not see this, as [[SpotlightStealingSquad Coach and Ozzy, especially Ozzy, denied her any screentime]].
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** 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, "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS2E9Blackwater 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 "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS1E9Baelor 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 after he led a small party to ambush the latter, but not before the Lannister kills 10 men in the ambush.
** In an early episode of the third season, Tyrion rewards Podric for his loyalty by arranging for him to meet with three beautiful whores and paying for it. To Tyrion's shock, Podric's performance was apparently so good that the whores refused to take his payment and gave him the time for free. Tyrion and Bronn immediately sit Podric down to start pressing him for "details"; these details are never revealed to the audience.
** The sack of Yunkai happens almost completely offscreen. Dany's three champions fight off an initial wave of guards, then report back that they've fomented a slave uprising. Later, the sack of Meereen only shows a single master getting swarmed by angry slaves in a narrow alley.
** In "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS6E8NoOne No One]]", Brynden Tully stages a one-man last stand against Lannister soldiers, and Arya fights a Faceless Man assassin in the dark with Needle. Both fights are performed off-screen.
** Rodrik Cassel killing two Ironborn before getting captured by Lorren and his men.
* Occurred in the episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' where Freddie is about to throw down in a street rules spell-off to win back his title, which then skips to Freddie, Niles & Frasier alone in the alley with the reclaimed trophy.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' plays with this when Steve Martin and Bill Murray spend several minutes exclaiming several variations of "What the hell is that?", as they stand and gawk at some strange (and unseen) object.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** A serious one happens in 4.01, when Dean [[spoiler: wakes up in his own coffin, having no idea how he got out of Hell. As it turns out, Castiel went into Hell to rescue his soul and then rebuilt his body. In a later episode, Castiel describes this event as having been the results of hundreds of angels laying siege to Hell.]]
** In 7.01, a Dr. Weiss catches Dean breaking into his house and threatens him with a shotgun. Dean tells him that he doesn't want to hurt anyone; the doctor says, reasonably enough, that he's the one with the gun. The next scene shows Sam and Bobby coming in to find the doctor bound and gagged in his own kitchen.
** In "Scoobynatural" Castiel returns from a successful quest in the middle east, only to offhandedly mention he thinks he might be married to the Djinn's queen.
** Pulling stuff like that is kind of par for the course for Dean. It's just usually we get to '''see''' it.

* Canadian tv movie ''Net Worth'' has Detroit Red Wings player Marty Pavelich sent to the minors for supporting a players union. He later tells his former teammates that he's quitting hockey instead. "[Red Wings General Manager Jack] Adams gives me the news and I said 'Go piss up a rope, Jack.' I finally told him off."
* 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. 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...
* Lexi Mason from ''Series/FallingSkies'' killed a mech by calling down a bolt of lightning in season 4. The problem? She did it during a time skip in the first episode and we never get to see it.
* During the end of the [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 Arandelle arc]] on ''Series/OnceUponATime'', Elsa, Anna and Kristoff routing Hans' latest coup attempt takes place off-screen, as does [[CallBack Anna punching out Hans again]].
* On ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' Mr. Feeny assigns Shawn Hunter, a poor kid, the senior class project of attending the Super Bowl on only a couple of weeks notice. He gives Shawn no input on how to manage it and no real hope of accomplishing it (it's meant to be a character lesson). The end of the episode shows that Shawn did indeed make it to the Super Bowl but with no explanation on how he got there or how he obtained entrance.
* The disastrous turkey drop on ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' was done by having news reporter Les Nessman [[OhTheHumanity describe the carnage]] to the camera.
* No big-time heroics are shown in ''Series/TheTick2001'', with most episodes taking place between their crime fighting. Whenever the team is about to do something heroic they just cut to the aftermath.
* On ''Series/SiliconValley'', Hooli airs a UFC fight on their new streaming platform even though it isn't ready. What happens in the match is apparently the greatest KO in UFC history, but it's not seen by any of the viewers through the stream's atrocious lag and resolution.

* 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 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.
* 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.
* 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 the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E07OnceMoreUntoTheBreach Once More Unto the Breach]]", Dahar Master Kor commands a single Klingon Bird-of-Prey to delay 10 Jem'Hadar attack ships so the other four Klingon ships of the squadron can escape. The battle is not shown but is described by a Klingon sensor officer - Kor knocks all 10 enemy ships out of warp, prevents them from going into warp, and then engages them for several minutes until the fleeing Klingon ship moves out of sensor range. The four other Klingon ships manage to make it back to the front line.

* 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.

* In 7.01 of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', Dr. Weiss catches Dean breaking into his house and threatens him with a shotgun. Dean tells him that he doesn't want to hurt anyone; the doctor says, reasonably enough, that he's the one with the gun. The next scene shows Sam and Bobby coming in to find the doctor bound and gagged in his own kitchen.

* 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 the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E07OnceMoreUntoTheBreach Once More Unto the Breach]]", Dahar Master Kor commands a single Klingon Bird-of-Prey to delay 10 Jem'Hadar attack ships so the other four Klingon ships of the squadron can escape. The battle is not shown but is described by a Klingon sensor officer - Kor knocks all 10 enemy ships out of warp, prevents them from going into warp, and then engages them for several minutes until the fleeing Klingon ship moves out of sensor range. The four other Klingon ships manage to make it back to the front line.

** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E20Spiral Spiral]]", we have the BigBad, [[PhysicalGod Glory the HellGod,]] engaging in a epic against an army of 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.

* In ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers,'' we only see bits and pieces of the epically-epic universe-spanning battle with the forces of good and evil 10,000 years ago that Zordon and his contemporaries keep referring to. In fact, ''many Franchise/PowerRangers'' incarnations are minor resurgences of much larger battles; "X,000 years ago, there was a a planet/galaxy/universe-spanning war we don't have the budget to show you much of, and now one guy from that war [[SealedEvilInACan just got un-canned]] and only has enough power to [[MonsterOfTheWeek send monsters one by one]]" is the setup for as many series as not.

* Occurred in the episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' where Freddie is about to throw down in a street rules spell-off to win back his title, which then skips to Freddie Niles & Frasier alone in the alley with the reclaimed trophy.

** The series likes to use this trope to show off how Badass Reese is. A scene will open with Reese casually talking on the phone to Finch, Carter or Fusco and as the camera pans out we see that he is surrounded by 5-6 mooks that are on the ground recovering from the beatdown he just gave them. From previous fight scenes we know how good a fighter Reese is and we are left to imagine what cool thing he did in the fight we did not get to see.

* In a Season 3 Episode of ''Series/SchittsCreek'' Moira Rose gives a speech to the Regional Municipalities Conference that results in a large funding boost for several nearby small towns. We never see the speech, but we do see reporters asking her about it and other conference goers cheering her and wanting to buy her many drinks.

** More of a parody of this trope than anything else, as Creator/JossWhedon had been hinting at an "epic non-crossover" between the two shows ever since ''Buffy'' switched networks. The joke was that while the two shows had crossed over in previous years, this was no longer possible with ''Buffy'' on UPN (until the networks came to agreement and did crossovers anyway.)

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' has this in "The Enterprise Incident", where the supposed Romulan prisoners involved in an exchange pull disruptors on Scotty. Scotty just gives them a disapproving look. Later we learn that they're safely in the brig, the episode having skipped over Scotty giving the two of them an epic beatdown.
** There's also an example in ''Mirror Mirror'' where Kirk, Mc Coy, Uhura and Scotty get exchanged in a [[TeleporterAccident Transporter Malfunction]] with their selves from an EvilTwin universe. The quartet, having managed to evade detection in the Mirror Universe, worry about what their replacements would be up to on their ''Enterprise.'' The scene cuts to the Mirrorverse Kirk and party getting tossed into the Brig by [[BadassBookworm Spock]] who, it is implied, took like five seconds to work out what had happened and is already working on how to set it right.

** In "Believers" Ivanova and a RedShirt go out in Cobras to escort a damaged passenger liner to Babylon 5. Ivanova chases and destroys a raider ship, then her scanner shows dozens more raiders approaching. We cut away as Ivanova has an OhCrap moment. Later she and the liner arrive at the station with her fighter (in Garibaldi's words) having taken enough damage to put it in the shop for a week. She pretty much laughs it off, leaving the audience to imagine the presumably epic dogfight for themselves.
** In the episode "Ceremonies of Light and Dark", 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...

* The Last Great Time War on ''Series/DoctorWho''. It could be argued that it's one chapter of Doctor Who where less is more and nothing could really do it justice, but still, if it was done right, on a proper budget, that could have been the most iconic moment of New Doctor Who. Check out Ten's brief description of it in "The End of Time".
** However, Russell T. Davies (who came up with the concept of the Time War) has gone on record as saying that what happened in the Time War is ''impossible'' to depict with modern technology, and that's part of the reason it's never shown.

** Infamously done in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion The Invasion.]] Halfway through the serial, the UNIT commanders decide it's about time they rescued Professor Watkins from Vaughn's men. Cut to a scene in which some soldiers are talking about what an epic and dangerous operative that was, and that they're lucky Watkins is now safe in their custody.
** Madame Vastra makes her debut in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar A Good Man Goes To War]] coming home after she has finished tracking down and ''eating UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper!''

** "The Name of the Doctor" reveals that the Second and Eighth Doctors had an adventure together somewhere in America.

** 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''.

*** 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 after he led a small party to ambush the latter, but not before the Lannister kills 10 men in the ambush.

** In "No One," Brynden Tully stages a one-man last stand against Lannister soldiers, and Arya fights a Faceless Man assassin in the dark with Needle. Both fights are performed off-screen.

* In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Once More Unto the Breach", Dahar Master Kor commands a single Klingon Bird-of-Prey to delay 10 Jem'Hadar attack ships so the other four Klingon ships of the squadron can escape. The battle is not shown but is described by a Klingon sensor officer - Kor knocks all 10 enemy ships out of warp, prevents them from going into warp, and then engages them for several minutes until the fleeing Klingon ship moves out of sensor range. The four other Klingon ships manage to make it back to the front line.

* On ''Series/SiliconValley'', Hooli airs a UFC fight even though the streaming platform isn't ready. What happens in the match is apparently the greatest KO in UFC history, but it's not seen by any of the viewers through the stream's atrocious lag and resolution.

* During the end of the [[Disney/{{Frozen}} Arandelle arc]] on ''Series/OnceUponATime'', Elsa, Anna and Kristoff routing Hans' latest coup attempt takes place off-screen, as does [[CallBack Anna punching out Hans again]].

** More of a parody of this trope than anything else, as Whedon had been hinting at an "epic non-crossover" between the two shows ever since ''Buffy'' switched networks. The joke was that while the two shows had crossed over in previous years, this was no longer possible with ''Buffy'' on UPN.(until the networks came to agreement and did crossovers anyway.)

** Turned UpToEleven and parodied in the ''Buffy'' season 3 episode "The Zeppo": The gang is fighting what is described as the worst threat they have ever faced, an EldritchAbomination bent on destroying the world. This is a barely-seen background plot. The main plot is Xander learning an {{Aesop}} about confidence. Double-parodied in that Xander's subplot is ''also'' an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome for all the other characters in a TheGreatestStoryNeverTold fashion, as he's running around trying to get out of the way of the out-of-context fallout from the main plot while chasing down a gang of undead juvenile delinquents bent on blowing the Hellmouth wide open. He decides not to tell anyone else about this, as he now knows full well that he is made of awesome, without validation from anyone else.
** In the Fifth Season Penultimate Episode, We have the BigBad, [[PhysicalGod Glory the HellGod,]] engaging in a epic against an army of 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.
** Willow and Tara's duet about dishwashing. Xander and Anya's dance with coconuts.
** Giles singing and playing his guitar in the hotel. The room service chaps joined in on that one.
** Another one from Giles in the season 5 episode "Tough Love." Giles, Willow, and Anya capture one of Glory's minions and are about to interrogate him for information. Giles tells Willow and Anya to get some rope to tie him up, and the minute they turn around, the camera focuses on them, and we hear a SickeningCrunch and the minion painfully and frantically agrees to tell them everything. Giles' response to their questions?

* In a Season 3 Episode of ''Series/SchittsCreek'' Moira Rose gives a speech to the Regional Municipalities Conference that results in a large funding boost for several nearby small towns. We never see the speech, but we do see reporters asking her about it and other conference goers cheering her and wanting to buy her many drinks.

* In ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers,'' we only see bits and pieces of the epically-epic universe-spanning battle with the forces of good and evil 10,000 years ago that Zordon and his contemporaries keep referring to. In fact, ''many PowerRangers'' incarnations are minor resurgences of much larger battles; "X,000 years ago, there was a a planet/galaxy/universe-spanning war we don't have the budget to show you much of, and now one guy from that war [[SealedEvilInACan just got un-canned]] and only has enough power to [[MonsterOfTheWeek send monsters one by one]]" is the setup for as many series as not.