History UnexpectedCharacter / LiveActionTV

** Most had Rosario Dawson pegged as Echo, White Tiger, or even Elektra. Nobody considered the possibility of her playing an obscure character like Claire Temple.

* ''Series/WandaVision'' surprised many when the cast included the return of CIA Agent Jimmy Woo from ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'' and scientist Darcy Lewis from the ''Film/{{Thor}}'' movies, both fairly minor characters, and a fully-grown Monica Rambeau from ''Film/CaptainMarvel2019'', though that one at least is a proeminent comics character. Yet it all paled compared to something the crew compared to the spoiled example in ''The Mandalorian'' above: [[spoiler:Wanda's twin brother, Pietro a.k.a. Quicksilver BackFromTheDead... only it's the version from the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''!]]

* ''Franchise/Buffyverse'':
** In season 5 of ''Series/Angel'', Giles sent a member of [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer the Scooby Gang]] to help Angel. [[TheHero Buffy]]? [[TheLancer Willow]]? [[TheHeart Xander]]? [[HeelFaceTurn Faith]]? [[BadassNormal Dawn]]? Nope. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Andrew]]. This is justified however, as Andrew explained that the group didn’t want to work with Angel anymore after his decision to join Wolfram & Hart, meaning that it would make sense for them to send one of their least useful members who also didn’t have a history with Angel.

* ''[[Series/TwentyFour]]''

* ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24: Live Another Day]]'' has [[spoiler: [[HijackedByGanon Cheng Zhi]] as the main antagonist.]] Although fans were expecting some familiar faces to show up other than Jack, Chloe, Audrey, and James Heller, he was genuinely the last person anyone was expecting to see.

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'' is about "story book characters", which the creators consider to be all fictional characters, but the show puts a ''heavy'' emphasis on FairyTale ones, particularly Literature/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs. So it surprised quite a few people when [[{{Literature/Frankenstein}} Dr. Frankenstein]] showed up. And the ''last few seconds'' of Season 3 suddenly introduce [[spoiler: Queen Elsa from ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'']] (although admittedly [[spoiler:Elsa]] is an adaptation of the title character of the Creator/HansChristianAndersen story ''[[spoiler:Literature/TheSnowQueen]]'').

** Episode 9 begins with a cameo appearance of [[Series/PowerRangersRPM Doctor K]], who helps the team to figure out a way to save Mayor Daniels.
** Episode 10 and 11 was another ''Metal Hero'' crossover adaptation as we get the American version Series/SpaceSheriffGavan Type-G as Captain Chakku.
** Everyone knew they were going to adapt the three dinosaur Ranger teamup from the ''Go-Busters vs. Kyoryuger''. No one expected the lead-up to not only give us a proper Beast Morphers/Dino Charge team up, but also bring back Keeper and Sledge!
** You think we'd get a breather after that, right? NOPE. Suddenly, we find out that Evox is more than just some snake-like virus. He's actually ''the Venjix Virus resurrected'', finally completing a SequelHook nearly ten years old!

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'' is about "story book characters", which the creators consider to be all fictional characters, but the show puts a ''heavy'' emphasis on FairyTale ones, particularly Literature/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs. So it surprised quite a few people when [[{{Literature/Frankenstein}} Dr. Frankenstein]] showed up. And the ''last few seconds'' of Season 3 suddenly introduce [[spoiler: Queen Elsa from ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'']] (although admittedly [[spoiler:Elsa]] is an adaptation of the title character of the Creator/HansChristianAndersen story ''[[spoiler:Literature/TheSnowQueen]]'').

** ''Series/OnceUponATimeInWonderland'' does something similar; upon hearing it was about Wonderland, who would ever expect ''[[Disney/{{Aladdin}} Jafar]]'' as a main character?

*** One in particular was shocking enough to get some major discussion after the fact (as the secret was kept until it showed on TV) was the [[Film/JusticeLeague Snyderverse]] version of the Flash. In other words, the Arrowverse is connected to the DCEU.

** In an early episode of ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'' the Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles make an appearance. This is even unexpected in-universe, as both the Power Rangers and the Ninja Turtles assumed the other group were just fictional characters.

** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaSteel'' adapted a [[Series/MetalHeroes Metal Hero]] crossover episode featuring [[Series/SekaiNinjaSenJiraiya Jiraiya]] (who becomes a new character called Sheriff Skyfire).

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon "Fugitive of the Judoon"]] featured the surprise return of [[spoiler:Captain Jack Harkness, 9 years after ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' and 10 years after [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]].]]

** Series 12 premiere [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]] kicks things off with a {{cliffhanger}} involving [[spoiler:the return of the Master]]. While pre-publicity had revealed that recurring antagonists the Judoon and Cybermen would be back for the season, absolutely ''nothing'' hinted at [[spoiler:the Master]], especially since series 11 had gone out of its way to avoid using old enemies.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'''s debut episode shocked the ''Franchise/StarWars'' fandom when the bounty target was revealed to be a [[spoiler:a fellow member of Yoda's species, and a baby at that. This is significant as the franchise shied away on expanding the lore related to Yoda or his species.]]

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'''s debut episode shocked the ''Franchise/StarWars'' fandom when the bounty target was revealed to be a [[spoiler:a fellow member of Yoda's species, and a baby at that. This is significant as the franchise shied away on expanding the lore related to Yoda or his species.]]

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' is a major offender. While [[TropesAreTools sometimes the cool and unexpected DCU characters who have never appeared in live action television may be awesome to watch]] and being a LongRunner may justify some of it, other times it is out of nowhere and somewhat jarring when they were never involved with Superman before.

** Nobody expected that the brothers would ever [[http://screenrant.com/supernatural-scooby-doo-episode-season-13/ team up with]] [[Franchise/ScoobyDoo the Mystery Inc. gang]] of all characters, especially considering they're from an ''animated'' show targeted toward a completely different demographic.

-->''"With just three episodes left till the series finale, let's spend some time getting to know Booster [[GoshDangItToHeck Freaking]] Gold."''
** In the second to last episode, "Prophecy", BlackManta, CaptainCold and SolomonGrundy.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', "Death Wish" When a being identifying himself as Q shows up wanting to die, we definitely expect John de Lancie to show up at some point. But who would have expected JDLQ to conjure up ''Will Riker'' to help him argue against Quinn's request to die?

* Let's be honest: Who expected Kelley Wentworth, Kimmi Kappenberg, and Jeff Varner to appear on another season of ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' despite how none of those three made it to the merge in their original seasons?

** Davros does this ''all the damn time''; it might as well be his defining character trait. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks "Genesis of the Daleks"]] was unexpected because the Daleks had previously been established as the end result of [[ILoveNuclearPower nuclear-bomb-induced mutations]], not the [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic creations]] of one MadScientist. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E1DestinyOfTheDaleks "Destiny of the Daleks"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks "Revelation of the Daleks"]] [[JokerImmunity were unexpected]] because, well, he'd ''[[DeathIsCheap died]]'' in his previous appearances. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks "Remembrance of the Daleks"]] he randomly shows up as the Dalek Emperor, only to get about three minutes of screen time before exploding. And his appearance in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]] required him doing something that was explicitly stated to be impossible just to show up (though it was a nice bit of foreshadowing for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]]). [[spoiler:His latest unannounced return was [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice "The Magician's Apprentice"]], having been a well-kept secret by the production team.]]

** The Master is a frequent subject of this, appearing halfway through to turn out to be TheManBehindTheMan on one alien scheme after another. During Creator/AnthonyAinley's tenure, the production team sometimes went so far as to conceal his presence in a story by using his current alias as the character name and turning his actor's name into an anagram. This was deliberately inverted in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E3FrontierInSpace "Frontier in Space"]], however, when [[spoiler:the Master turned out to be working for the Daleks.]]

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks "Asylum of the Daleks"]] starts off with [[spoiler:Creator/JennaLouiseColeman showing up several episodes earlier than expected, seeding her character's story arc]].