History Retcon / LiveActionTV

-->Sam: He also said you were a scientist.
--> (Martin shoots a look at Frasier)
-->Frasier: Oh, what did it matter? You were dead!
** Penny was originally said to have been married six times. Later seasons retconned that into only ''engaged'' six times, and married four.

* ''Series/BetterCallSaul'', which is a prequel and spinoff to ''Series/BreakingBad'', has some minor cases of this.

** A minor example concerning Anya's demon friend Halfrek. She was played by Kali Rocha who had appeared in another episode as Cecily, one of Spike's human love interests. In her next episode when she and Spike appeared on screen together they had Halfrek say "William?" and then the two avoided each other's gaze, implying Halfrek and Cecily to be the same person. Also Halfrek's flashback scene in "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E5Selfless}} Selfless]]" was changed from the Renaissance to the Russian Revolution to support this.

* In ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' the sisters constantly had to fight the risk of exposing their magic to the public. The season 3 finale revolves around them trying to get a demon to turn back time for them to reverse this. But season 6 adds in entities called The Cleaners whose job is to fix things whenever magic is exposed. They claim they've been watching the sisters from the beginning. They would have been really useful three years ago. One also wonders why they didn't step in to stop the bad future in "Morality Bites".

*** The first mention of Leo's bosses identifies them as "a group of elder Whitelighters, called The Founders." The Founders title is immediately dropped, labeling them the Elders, and when a teenage witch is admitted into their ranks, it proves that even Elder is a NonindicativeName and that they aren't even Whitelighters (who are regular humans who died committing an act of Good), meaning everything Leo said was wrong.

** [=NuWho=] Series 7 and 50th Anniversary Special "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]" managed to retcon in an entire new Doctor. When it was revealed that a secret hidden Doctor, played by Creator/JohnHurt, existed, fan theories melted down the Internet (including on this very wiki) as to who he really was. One fan theory that was roundly rejected was that he was the Doctor who fought in the Time War and destroyed both his planet and people and the Daleks as well, thus the epic guilt that caused him to try and forget that persona. The problem there was that the Doctor had spoken frequently about his involvement in the war, and the action he took to destroy both sides, leaving himself as the sole survivor, and the massive guilt he feels. None of that was a secret, so why would the body he used to do it in be one? Of course, once the fiftieth anniversary special aired, it turned out that that was indeed who John Hurt's Doctor was, meaning that every line of dialogue establishing that Creator/ChristopherEccleston's Doctor was the ninth, Creator/DavidTennant's the tenth, Creator/MattSmith's the eleventh, etc., were all lies that the Doctor was telling so that he could try and forget the version of himself that committed the heinous act that he had no trouble talking about in all three of his subsequent forms. On the other hand, the Tenth Doctor's line about regenerating "half a dozen times" since the last time he saw Sarah Jane has a new meaning now: he didn't forget about the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]" after all. The series itself at least tries to avert the numbering controversy arising from this retcon by having the Eleventh Doctor point out that his John Hurt incarnation renounced the name of the Doctor, feeling that he didn't deserve that title after what he did in the Time War. Thus, while he was the ninth ''incarnation'' of our favourite Time Lord, he ''wasn't'' the ninth ''Doctor''. Although, confusingly, the end credits name him "The War Doctor".

** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius The Brain of Morbius]]" displays the faces of previous incarnations of the Doctor at one point, including several others in addition to those of the first three Doctors. These were retconned to have been Morbius' previous incarnations just a handful of stories later in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]", in which the Fourth Doctor informs Borusa that he's only had three "[[UnusualEuphemism face lifts]]", and in which the twelve-regeneration limit was established. [[spoiler:Re-retconned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]], which makes those previous reincarnations of the Doctor after all. ]]

** The revelation made late in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' that Dr. Bashir is a genetically engineered superhuman causes numerous conflicts with earlier episodes, and basically makes him an awful person through FridgeLogic. For instance, the episode reveals that he could win every game of darts against O'Brien. Not only does this make their entire friendship seem like a farce, since playing darts is the chief activity they're seen enjoying together, but it contradicts the episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E17Visionary}} Visionary]]" where O'Brien's foreknowledge of where Bashir's darts are going to hit was used to show that he had really been to the future. Then the episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E18DistantVoices}} Distant Voices]]" is centered around an alien probing his mind and drawing out his deepest secrets, but him knowing himself to be the product of illegal genetic engineering never comes up.

** It's revealed right from the start that Regina got the Dark Curse from Rumplestiltskin, thereby implying that he's the one who created it. But then Season 4 reveals that he just stole it from the cave where it had been hidden, suggesting that he didn't have anything to do with its creation. This is confirmed in Season 6, with the revelation that it was actually the Black Fairy, the show's UltimateEvil [[spoiler: and Rumple's mother]], who actually created the curse.

** It's worse than that, though. The original series finale also [[spoiler: implies an entire alternate universe in which many of the events of the show, long before the final season, must have been totally different in order to explain the different sexualities and relationships (Mark/Darlene? How did THAT happen?)]] but there's no time to explain that. Then the revival [[spoiler: makes entirely different retcons, throwing out most of the final season, removing certain characters, changing Harris's age, etc]]. Then when the show transitions to ''Series/TheConners'', ''even more'' changes are made, [[spoiler: officially declaring that Jerry and Andy and Fred never existed, that Darlene apparently never went to college, etc]]. The showrunners have described it as a "multiverse" from which they can assemble whatever version of the characters they want, but the end result is that [[ContinuitySnarl no one knows]] what elements of the original show are canon anymore.

* ''Series/{{Alias}}'': "Hey you know the man you loved that died and you grieved over? Yeah, know he's alive remember, and we totally knew about it all the time, even though you cried lots in private over his loss." Explainable in-universe, however, since the enemy is dangerous enough to be able to successfully bug even the private homes of the characters for long periods of time before being uncovered. Having experienced that in the past, it would be sensible for that kind of charade to continue in private just to be on the safe side.

** The Time Lords' binary vascular system was introduced in the Third Doctor's [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace first story]] and has remained a consistent feature of Gallifreyan biology ever since, despite the fact it was indicated that the Doctor only had one heart in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E3TheEdgeOfDestruction the third story of the show]]. An accepted explanation by fanon and [[Main/ExpandedUniverse books and audio]] is that Time Lords only gain the second heart after their first regeneration.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E3TheSeaDevils "The Sea Devils"]], the Doctor points out that the cave creatures from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians "Doctor Who and the Silurians"]] should have, in fact, been named the "Eocenes" instead of the "Silurians", because of the epoch they originated from, which is the real-life author (same for both stories) correcting his earlier mistake when he was called on it after the broadcast of the first story. Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely that that they could have come from the Eocene period, either.

* Several times in ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'':
** The 1994 Christmas Special shows Julie working at the centre in 1991 mere days after it first opened. This contradicts Series 1, which had the long-lost Angie working there instead.
** Initially, Carol's twins were a boy and a girl (Tom and Emily). However, by series 5, Tom had turned into a girl, Jessica.
** Also, initially, Helen and Gordon had three children, Jonathan, Tom, and an unnamed third child. This increases to to five with the birth of Matthew and Mark in Series 3. However, Gordon claims to have only 4 children in 'Curse of the Tiger Woman'.