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| 6 | |
| 7 | ->''If they'd shown us that last time, I wouldn't have spent all week worrying about him.'' |
| 8 | --> -- '''Tom Servo''', ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' |
| 9 | |
| 10 | {{Cliffhanger}}s tend to be a vital part of any serial story. They stop the action or drama right when tension is at its highest, leaving an audience on the edge of their seats in anticipation of a conflict resolution and wanting to stick around to see what happens next. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | The best cliffhangers pick up the story right where it left off and provide a clear resolution based on everything that was shown to have occurred to viewers in the previous installment. And then there's these... |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Unfortunately, sometimes writers may discover that they've written themselves into a corner with no way to resolve a cliffhanger based on how the prior episode, chapter, film, or story ended. When this problem arises, the writer may make a [[AuthorsSavingThrow saving throw]] to cheat his way out of the problem in one of a few ways: |
| 15 | |
| 16 | * Facts about a character's circumstances are {{ret|con}}roactively {{Hand Wave}}d between installments (e.g., the hero tied up in a burning building who was completely unable to break his bonds before a ceiling collapses in the previous episode suddenly becomes strong enough to break them and escape in the resolution.) Depending on the circumstances, this can lead to some pretty glaring {{Plot Hole}}s. |
| 17 | * What is seemingly promised to happen at the conclusion of one installment turns out to be something else entirely or an [[TheUnreveal Unreveal]] at the beginning of the next chapter. |
| 18 | * A new episode starts after a cliffhanger, and the shocking new issue is not addressed or acknowledged, and things plod on normally as if nothing ever happened. The new information may be picked up and addressed later in the episode (probably with a reminder since we had a week to forget about it), but it never seems so crucial or urgent as it did at the end of the last episode. |
| 19 | * More JustForFun/{{egregious}}ly, the StoryArc leading up to the cliffhanger is {{aborted|Arc}} and/or explained away as AllJustADream. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | If handled well enough, most viewers may not notice it, or even care all that much if they take the MST3KMantra to heart. If not, a lot of people are going to feel duped and not very pleased with what they were rewarded with for their dedicated viewership. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Can be observed frequently in old {{Film Serial}}s of the 1930s-40s; it also makes this trope just slightly OlderThanTelevision. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | See also WhatCliffhanger, when circumstances surrounding the cliffhanger are deliberately vague and without any sense of drama or suspense to motivate viewers to stick around for more. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | May often involve the use of a VoodooShark. Compare RedHerringTwist. PseudoCrisis is a subtrope. Contrast OnceMoreWithClarity, in which new facts about the situation are revealed ''without'' retroactively changing the old ones. Has nothing to do with the movies ''Film/{{Cliffhanger}}'' or ''Film/CopOut''. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | ''Also, this being an EndingTrope, be prepared for'' '''**Spoilers Ahead!**''' |
| 30 | |
| 31 | ---- |
| 32 | !!Examples: |
| 33 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 36 | * ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': Goku claims he saw a pod ship near Freeza's spaceship and took off before Freeza's spaceship hit the lava. The episode where Freeza's spaceship falls into the lava clearly shows Goku watching Freeza's ship fall into lava up in the air and then the planet explodes. [[AdaptationInducedPlothole Note that in the manga, that scene doesn't happen.]] |
| 37 | * In ''Manga/FairyTail'', Wendy gets hit by a spell and vanishes into thin air at the end of the chapter. At the start of the next, she's just inside Horologium, who conveniently popped up right then and is clinging to the ceiling. Pretty funny that, before we realize that Wendy is safe and not hit by Hades' attack, Hades keeps a very calm face, as if Wendy disappearing was supposed to happen. |
| 38 | * ''Manga/GetterRoboArc'': In the manga, after [[TheLancer Kamui]] witnesses a BadFuture where monstrously evil Getter-evolved humans destroy the universe, he pulls a FaceHeelTurn and kicks off a plan to wipe out humanity before it can happen. Kamui is so powerful and [[GodzillaThreshold the situation so dire]] that Hayato cracks open the radiation-proof sarcophagus built around the mutated Getter Robo G, unleashing a WalkingWasteland MechanicalAbomination which apparently ruled over a planet of wormlike humans in another BadFuture ([[AmbiguousSituation or maybe the same one]]). This cliffhanger was to be continued in Part 2, only for Creator/KenIshikawa to [[AuthorExistenceFailure die before writing anything]]. The anime adapts this cliffhanger, with the further complication that another team member [[IChooseToStay chose to stay behind]] in the BadFuture with no way back... and then ends on a TimeSkip to a few years ahead where the team are somehow together again and [[AndTheAdventureContinues fighting a new threat on Mars]]. |
| 39 | * ''Manga/MariaNoDanzai'': Chapter 14 ends with Kiritaka's father Detective Taiichiro enquiring about Maria. Chapter 15 resolves this by having him head to the nurse's office [[spoiler: where he finds out that Maria is currently on leave, resolving the cliffhanger in a rather unclimactic fashion.]] |
| 40 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' gives us the Great Snake Escape. Deidara decides to [[TakingYouWithMe self destruct and take Sasuke with him]], setting off an absolutely enormous explosion, and Sasuke is out of chakra. The next chapter reveals that Sasuke somehow summoned Manda the Boss of All Snakes and most powerful of the Summons, mind controlled it, jumped in its mouth, and teleported it away; all things take large amounts of chakra, ''which Sasuke had just been shown to be out of in the previous chapter'', and he did all this in the time it took the explosion to reach him when it had already gone off right next to him. |
| 41 | * ''Anime/PokemonHorizonsTheSeries'' infamously ends episode 22 on the Galar Mine collapsing and trapping Friede and Captain Pikachu inside... only for the following episode to show Cap being treated in the Pokémon Center and Friede having escaped with no explanation. |
| 42 | * ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'': PlayedForLaughs during Kiyone's introductory episode in ''Tenchi Universe''. Pre-commercial break, Kiyone has Ryoko at gunpoint with an epic battle apparently about to start. Post-break, they're [[TastesLikeFriendship calmly eating lunch together]]. Seconds later, Kiyone {{lampshade|Hanging}}s that this makes no sense and challenges Ryoko again. |
| 43 | [[/folder]] |
| 44 | |
| 45 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 46 | * ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'': Inverted in a 1960s story. At the end of one issue, our hero jumps out of a plane, wearing a parachute. At the start of the next issue, Captain America is falling through the air with no parachute (and no explanation of where the parachute went). The first few pages explain how the Captain survives this. Creator/StanLee later admitted that when he wrote the later issue, he had forgotten how he ended the earlier issue. |
| 47 | * ''ComicBook/CinemaPurgatorio'' parodies the way film serials of the 40s and 50s would depict the hero facing certain doom, then resolve it in an unlikely, unsatisfying, or even contradictory way in the next installment. Joe Casey and his gang repeatedly blatantly kill the Flame of Remorse and his girlfriend Dita, only for the act to be undone in increasingly absurd fashion -- e.g. when the Flame of Remorse is thrown off a tall building it's suddenly shown to be a single-story grocery store and his fall is cushioned by boxes of egg cartons being unloaded. |
| 48 | * ''Comicbook/CountdownToFinalCrisis'': One such instance features [[ComicBook/TheFlash Wally West]] employing a JackBauerInterrogationTechnique on Pied Piper and the Trickster by yanking a pair of cuffs attached to the two that's programmed to shock the both of them if something happens to it, and threatens to continue it until they tell him what happened to his murdered cousin Bart Allen. The following issue reveals that Piper and Trickster just imagined Wally pulling on the cuffs. |
| 49 | * ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'': Vol. 4, #3 had Hal Jordan fly into the Yellow Central Power Battery with a Green Lantern (the object), with the goal of basically forcing the thing to enter its failsafe mode and shut down once a Green Lantern enters it. This plan was even devised by Sinestro himself, who created the Yellow Central Power Battery. Instead, the Power Battery disintegrates him, with it even saying "disintegration compete". The next issue instead opens with the Power Battery recognising that Hal isn't Sinestro, and instead aborts its attempt to transport Hal to the anti-matter universe (why it was doing this is not explained). |
| 50 | * ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk1968'' #116 ends with The Leader pushing a button to launch an American nuke in an attempt to start WorldWarIII, so he can [[TakeOverTheWorld rule over what's left.]] Meanwhile, The Hulk is [[AntiInterferenceLockUp trapped in a "cage of living plasti-thene".]] Come #117, and apparently, the button needs to be pushed ''twice'' to actually launch, giving the Hulk a chance to escape and SaveTheWorld. |
| 51 | * ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'': |
| 52 | ** In issue 24 (Volume 2), the kids have finally dragged Chase back, they've beaten their foes once and for all, and they're tired and weary as they arrive home...To find Iron Man and a bunch of mooks waiting. In Issue 25, they begin by...Meeting with the Kingpin. WordOfGod tells their appropriate response: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin They ran away]]. |
| 53 | ** At the end of their ongoing series, the last shot is of Chase getting hit by a truck, away from the rest of the group. He apparently survives and reunites with the others off-screen, and he is totally fine by the time they run into Daken in his series. Daken even asks what happened to him and all Chase answers with is "[[UnexplainedRecovery I got better.]]" |
| 54 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': |
| 55 | ** One issue of ''ComicBook/TheCloneSage'' was hugely emotional for Peter Parker; him asking his clone to take care of his wife, and in general as heartfelt a sendoff as you could ask for a beloved character. The first thing that happens in the following issue is his corpse convulsing back to life with his super-powers restored. |
| 56 | ** The "[[ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderMan1963 Gathering of Five]]" arc ends with Green Goblin receiving a massive power boost and killing Spider-Man. The following issue it's revealed Gobby had gone crazy and most of the previous issue had been his hallucinations. |
| 57 | * ''ComicBook/{{Viz}}'': Routinely done deliberately and for laughs in the "Billy the Fish" strip. Typically, the villain who is menacing the club will turn out to be just a cardboard cutout with a tape recorder on the back or that one of the club had arranged for Jeremy Beadle to play a trick on his teammates. |
| 58 | * ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'': Vol. 3 #46 ends with a Mandroid about to sever Logan's neck and spine with an adamantium buzzsaw. The next issue opens the same way, except the Mandroid realizes the buzzsaw he's holding isn't made of adamantium and can't cut through. |
| 59 | * ''Comicbook/XMen'': |
| 60 | ** In the middle of ''ComicBook/TheDarkPhoenixSaga'', Cyclops is struck down by a psychic bolt. The issue ends with the other X-Men exclaiming, "Cyclops is dead!" The next issue begins with Cyclops staggering back up, and the other X-Men saying, "[[UnexplainedRecovery Look, Cyclops is alive!]]" |
| 61 | ** ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen'' #100 has Jean Grey in the cockpit of a damaged shuttle, flying through a massive radiation storm which we have been explicitly told several times ''will'' kill her. The issue ends with the radiation shielding giving out, and Jean faces certain, horrific death...two months later, issue #101 comes out, and the ''cover itself'' reveals Jean's fine and dandy. [[TookALevelInBadass More than that, actually.]] Ultimately subverted in that [[HumanoidAbomination what survived isn't actually Jean Grey]]. |
| 62 | [[/folder]] |
| 63 | |
| 64 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 65 | * ''WebAnimation/TurnaboutStorm'': ''Part 3 - Phoenix'' ends with [[Franchise/AceAttorney Phoenix]] starting to ask a favor to [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Twilight's]] owl before cutting to black. Come ''Part 4'', and it's revealed that it was just to help him get books to study more about Equestria on his own. Useful, yes; but not the case-changing development that would be expected. |
| 66 | [[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:Film — Live-Action]] |
| 69 | * ''Film/TheLawnmowerMan'' ended with the villain transferring his mind into cyberspace and causing all telephones in the world to ring, to inform people of [[DeusEstMachina his new condition]]. In the sequel, that scene is shown again. From the following scene and throughout the entire movie, the villain is back in his actual body. |
| 70 | * Lampshaded at the end of ''Film/JMenForever'' (a GagDub AffectionateParody of {{Film Serial}}s) when Agent Barton mourns all the J-Men who died in order to take down the evil Lightning Bug. The Chief just laughs, and we get a montage of Cliffhanger cop-outs showing how [[NotQuiteDead all the J-Men survived their predicaments]]. |
| 71 | * ''Film/{{Bullshot}}'' spoofed this by having the hero caught in an [[RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts overly complicated inescapable deathtrap]], only to appear later with an equally complicated explanation of how he escaped. |
| 72 | -->"When you directed Dobbs to the room where I was paralyzed there was one small thing you hadn't accounted for — that he would be wearing a regimental club tie which is 100% silk! The static electricity temporarily neutralized the forcefield, giving me time to take advantage of the inflammable properties of the brandy that you offered me earlier. Within the small amount of neck movement available to me under the magnetic paralysis, I formed my nasal cavity into a type of Liebig condenser, thereby concentrating the alcohol fumes in one place. I then forced the fumes down each nostril with such intensity that they were combusted by the lighted end of the dynamite, thus forming a natural blowtorch which completely severed the fuse, rendering the dynamite totally harmless. The rest was easy." |
| 73 | * Near the end of ''Film/StandClearOfTheClosingDoors'', Ricky follows a man in a dragon jacket into a tunnel that floods while he's in there. The next scene shows Ricky walking on the beach, completely unscathed, with no explanation for how he survived. |
| 74 | * ''Film/ResidentEvilRetribution'' had a rather good cliffhanger SequelHook with the heroes teaming up with Albert Wesker (having a recent HeelFaceTurn), locking themselves up in the White House with what remained of humanity, facing down a massive horde of T-monsters under the command of the Red Queen. ''[[Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter The Final Chapter]]'' throws all of that out of the window with a voiceover narration where it's revealed Wesker faked his redemption. The fates of the ''Retribution'' cast were only [[KilledOffscreen glossed over]], with Alice being an only survivor again. |
| 75 | * ''Film/{{Hatchet}}'' ended with one of the two survivors falling into the swamp. When she gets back to the boat, her fellow survivor is already dead, and his disembodied hand that "helped" her up is actually being held by Victor Crowley, leaving the girl at the mercy of the serial killer. The beginning of ''Hatchet II'' shows that the girl managed to fight him off and escape. |
| 76 | * ''Film/{{Misery}}'' has Annie Wilkes vent about this trope. She explains to Paul that her favorite superhero [[Film/KingOfTheRocketMen Rocketman]] was seemingly killed in a fiery crash in one episode, but that the next installment had him leap from the vehicle just before it crashed and caught fire. She mentions that all of the children cheered except for her because [[SuddenlyShouting "he didn't get out]] [[LargeHam of the Cockledoodie Car!!!"]]. This exchange is notable because it's one of the first clues that [[MaskOfSanity Annie isn't quite right..]] |
| 77 | * ''Film/ThisDay'': The [[Film/ThreeHundredSixtyFiveDays previous film]] ended on a big cliffhanger; Laura's car was seen entering a tunnel and not emerging from the other side, while Massimo had simultaneously learned a rival crime family had targeted Laura for assassination. While most viewers knew Laura wasn't going to die, it was uncertain what happened to Laura and how she would get out of this mess. However, the start of this film completely glosses over it and skips ahead to Laura and Massimo's nuptials, with the only explanation being that Laura got into a car accident and came out unscathed save for a miscarriage. |
| 78 | * ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' ends with Bond's vendetta unresolved, with Mr White still at large and the Quantum organisation still active. This thread is completely abandoned in the next film ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', and when it's ultimately taken up again in ''Film/{{Spectre}}'', Quantum is simply retconned as being a daughter organisation to Spectre and receives no further attention. |
| 79 | [[/folder]] |
| 80 | |
| 81 | [[folder:Film Serials]] |
| 82 | * ''Film/{{The Batman|Serial}}'' [[FilmSerial cliffhanger serials]] of the 1940s were very much guilty of this time and time again. |
| 83 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7SyRZlsbP8 Chapter 13, "Eight Steps Down"]], ends with Batman stuck in a DeathTrap where [[TheWallsAreClosingIn spiked walls are closing in]] on him which is cut away from just before the walls are about to crush our hero with no hope in sight for rescue. Then, the beginning of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muRg_TGzCqs Chapter 14, "The Executioner Strikes,"]] shows Robin appearing ''much earlier'' during the same scene with more than enough time to slip Batman a crowbar to brace the walls moving in. |
| 84 | ** In turn, the conclusion of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tld8Tm9mt8 Chapter 14]] shows Batman locked in a box and dropped in an alligator pit only for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbCRVZCCC_g the next chapter]] to show that Robin managed to break Batman free in secret much earlier and had put a hapless {{Mook|s}} back in the box in Batman's place. |
| 85 | ** The conclusion of Chapter 10 and beginning of Chapter 11 show Batman miraculously jumping out from a car before it careens off a bridge and [[EveryCarIsAPinto bursts into a fireball]]. |
| 86 | ** Another particularly bad one: Batman falling several stories and visibly slamming into the ground is resolved by it not being Bruce in the suit, but a minor villain who decided to put it on for no apparent reason. This was actually telegraphed in the scene right before the cliffhanger actually showing Bruce walking away and putting on his hat, but it's blink-and-you-miss-it. |
| 87 | ** Another episode ends with Batman in a plane that crashes in a fiery explosion. The next episode shows him just staggering out of the wreckage a little dazed while the mooks who were also on the plane both died from the crash. |
| 88 | * This was so common in the ''Film/UnderseaKingdom'' serial that Website/{{Wikipedia}} [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undersea_Kingdom#Cliffhangers keeps a list of these.]] When [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Joel and the Bots]] watched the first two chapters in the serial where the cliffhanger saw Crash and Billy trapped on top of a cliff while it collapses underneath them from missile fire, the resolution in the following installment shows Crash and Billy climbing back down from the cliff before the collapse, prompting Tom Servo to [[ShoutOut reference]] the line from ''Literature/{{Misery}}'', "How did they get off the cock-a-doodie cliff? This is ''wrong!''" |
| 89 | * ''Film/ThePurpleMonsterStrikes'' (Republic, 1945) has quite a few of these, but the most insulting is the cliffhanger to Chapter 7, "The Evil Eye": a bomb is wired to an electric eye in a doorway, with the {{Love Interest|s}} BoundAndGagged inside. TheHero arrives, and we ''clearly see him'' step into the electric eye, which triggers the 5-second timer and the building blows up. In the next episode, we're shown that the DamselInDistress manages to ''de-gag herself'' and alert the Hero ''just before'' he steps into the electric eye, and he then ''jumps over it''. A moment later, once safely out of the building, he turns and shoots a {{Mook|s}} back in the building, and ''he'' falls into the electric eye and sets off the bomb. Cop out, indeed. |
| 90 | ** Close second would be the end of Chapter 9, "The Living Dead", which featured the Hero in a closing spiked cage similar to the Batman example above. The cliffhanger showed the spikes closing in nearly to the point of puncturing the hero's body...the next episode backed the walls up considerably so the hero could use his gun as a stopper, holding the spiked wall at bay until the pressure ''broke the cage''. |
| 91 | * In ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', when Joel and the Bots had to view chapters from the Commando Cody ''Film/RadarMenFromTheMoon'' serial, Joel would always make some kind of comment whenever it came time for the HandWave of the previous chapter's conclusion to reveal itself. For instance, during Chapter 4 (aired alongside ''Film/RobotMonster'') [[note]](Cody chasing bad guys across a bridge and gets blown off by a boobytrap...except that he dived out of the car in time {really})[[/note]]: |
| 92 | -->'''Joel:''' That scene wasn't in last time...\ |
| 93 | '''Crow:''' That's cuz they didn't get the film back from the drugstore yet.\ |
| 94 | '''Servo:''' (''announcer voice'') Upon further review the refs find that Cody is ''dead''. The play stands: Cody is ''dead''. |
| 95 | ** This happens in Chapter 2 as well, when Cody just manages to roll out from behind the panel just as Retik shoots it. |
| 96 | * ''Film/TheGreenHornetSerials'' had plenty. |
| 97 | ** ''From "The Green Hornet"'' |
| 98 | *** Chapter 3 ends with the Hornet in a crashing plane. In Chapter 4, the Hornet somehow acquires enough time and altitude to bail out safely. Having a parachute in the first place is ''not'' a copout, as we see him put it on in Chapter 3. |
| 99 | *** At the end of Chapter 7, the Hornet and his opponent are in the back of a truck when the bridge gives out underneath them. At the start of Chapter 8, both men fall out of the truck just before it reaches the bridge. |
| 100 | *** In Chapter 9, the Hornet is trapped by Axford and Jenks. Axford shoots through the door of the storage closet the Hornet is hiding in, breaking some chemical bottles. The chapter ends with the Hornet passing out from the fumes. When Chapter 10 starts, Reid has enough time to ditch his disguise before pretending to pass out. |
| 101 | *** Chapter 11 ends with the Hornet and a crook fighting in a caboose, which derails when the other crooks uncouple the end cars. They are clearly seen in the caboose as it tumbles. Chapter 12 shows both men falling out of the caboose before it derails. For bonus copout points, the crooks wanted to uncouple the cars to put pressure on a shipping company. The recap scroll says the company’s cars were uncoupled, but when one crook reports back to Monroe he says the train broke apart ''behind'' the target cars, and the shipping company’s cars got through safely. |
| 102 | *** Chapter 12 ends with the Hornet and an extortionist fighting in a burning office. When Chapter 13 starts, there's no sign of fire...''and'' both the Hornet and the crook have forgotten about last chapter's confession. |
| 103 | ** ''From "The Green Hornet Strikes Again!"'' |
| 104 | *** Chapter 5 ends with a warehouse full of illegal munitions being bombed, and the Hornet at Ground Zero. Chapter 6 starts with the Hornet having enough time to take cover in the basement. |
| 105 | *** Chapter 7 ends with the Hornet’s plane crashing after being an accidental test subject for a new antiaircraft weapon. At the start of Chapter 8, he has just enough time for a no-parachute bailout. |
| 106 | *** In Chapter 11, the Hornet and some truck hijackers are fighting when the truck goes over a cliff. There's a different camera angle spliced in for Chapter 12, showing the Hornet jumping out at the last minute. |
| 107 | *** There’s another warehouse with illegal explosives in Chapter 12. The chapter ends with the Hornet ramming a racketeer's car through the warehouse door, hitting the explosives, and big boom. Chapter 13 gives him enough time to see the crates of explosives and dive out before the car hits them. |
| 108 | *** Chapter 14 ends with the Hornet and a racketeer fighting in the racketeer's open car, which goes off the road and wrecks during the fight. Chapter 15 starts with the Hornet being knocked out of the car just before the accident. |
| 109 | * One ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers'' serial ended with Buck's friend Buddy collapsing after being shot as he was about to jump out of a window. The next serial starts with the shot missing, and Buddy escaping out of the window. |
| 110 | * The 1943 serial ''Film/{{The Phantom|1943}}'' is ''relatively'' honest. It makes heavy use of the kind where the cliffhanger is edited to make the situation appear more dire than it actually is, with the recap revealing that help was already on the way, or there was an escape tunnel just out of shot, or whatever. However, it always plays fair in that it only ever conceals information, never outright changes the events between chapters. |
| 111 | * The 1946 serial ''The Crimson Ghost'' features the titular VillainProtagonist seemingly dying at the conclusion of every chapter, only for the supervillain to inexplicably return in the subsequent chapter as if he only suffered a minor defeat. |
| 112 | [[/folder]] |
| 113 | |
| 114 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 115 | * Used InUniverse and {{discussed|Trope}} in ''Literature/{{Misery}}''. Paul Sheldon publishes a ''Misery'' novel where the title character dies of illness and gets buried at the end--then a psychotic fan, Annie Wilkes, forces Paul to write a sequel to undo this development. In Paul's initial draft, he blithely ignores the funeral and has the characters exposit that Misery made a full recovery, but Annie isn't happy with this, either. She illustrates how much she hates this kind of copout by describing an incident from her childhood when her favorite film serial pulled a similar trick. Since the last Novel ended with Misery's burial, Annie insists that the new novel should start with a way of getting the heroine out of her grave, fair and square, and Paul can't help but agree. He eventually comes up with the idea that Misery was NotQuiteDead from a bee-sting allergic reaction and was BuriedAlive, and is quite proud of the idea. |
| 116 | --> '''Annie Wilkes:''' The bad guy stuck [Rocketman] in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out, but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned, and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But'' I ''didn't cheer. I stood right up and started shouting, 'This isn't what happened last week! Have you all got ''amnesia''? They just cheated us! This isn't fair! '''HE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCK-A-DOODIE CAR!'''' |
| 117 | * Creator/GarthNix's ''Literature/TheSeventhTower'' series is also guilty of this. A particularly annoying one in the first book involves the main character falling over backwards at the end of one chapter and being caught immediately at the beginning of the next, which also means mining [[WhatCliffhanger an utter non-event for drama in the first place]] ''just'' for the sake of not having it come to anything. |
| 118 | ** Garth Nix actually does this quite regularly in his novels. There's a {{Cliffhanger}} at the end of pretty much every chapter, and it usually comes to nothing. |
| 119 | ** Another particularly annoying one occurs in ''[[Literature/KeysToTheKingdom Lord Sunday]]''. Dr Scamandros, while tending to the injured Leaf, takes his hat off. Suzy is under the impression she has died and he took it off as a sign of respect. The chapter ends there ''just'' to fool the reader into thinking the same thing. |
| 120 | * A meta-example occurs in the Creator/HarlanEllison short story "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?"; the protagonist, locked in an inescapable interrogation cell, recalls a magazine serial he'd read as a kid in which the hero has escaped between installments via the use of this trope, and how disappointed he'd been. And then, this: |
| 121 | --> "Later, comma, after he had escaped from the interrogation cell, Enoch Mirren was to remember that moment, thinking again as he had when but a child: what a rotten lousy cheat that writer had been." |
| 122 | * ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'': In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's story inside a story, "Scourge of the Spaceways", John Serling ends one season in an unsurvivable DeathTrap. He starts the next season out of the DeathTrap and, hero that he is, is too modest to tell people how he managed to escape. Then the next adventure starts. |
| 123 | * When ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun'' was first published as four separate books, each of the first three books ended with a cliffhanger. In each case, the next book began some time after the resolution of the cliffhanger, with what exactly happened [[NoodleIncident never explained in detail]]. This may have been a protest on Gene Wolfe's part against the novel being DividedForPublication. |
| 124 | * From the ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants'' series, book 9 ends with Tippy Twinkletrousers apparently killed from being stepped on by a giant zombified student. Book 10 reveals the former left out a scene between, in which it turns out the giant zombie was so incredibly slow that Tippy had time to scream three times, go shopping, then buy a giant novelty ketchup pack and place it beneath the foot. |
| 125 | * When Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail had a disagreement with a publisher, [[GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld who owned the rights]] to his ''Rocambole'' novels, he ended the last novel with an [[TorchTheFranchiseAndRun unresolvable cliffhanger]] -- the hero was chained, locked in a cage and dropped to the sea. Newly hired authors tried to write a believable sequel, but any attempt to extricate Rocambole looked too far-fetched. The publisher had to renegotiate with du Terrail. And what did the original author do? He just started the next novel with [[RefugeInAudacity Rocambole swimming to the shore]]. |
| 126 | * Parodied in ''Literature/BoredOfTheRings''. Wizard/flim-flam artist Goodgulf is last seen plummeting to his death. Later in the story he suddenly reappears, but is oddly cagey about the circumstances of his uncanny resurrection. Legolam the elf excitedly demands the story of how he survived the clutches of the ballhog, lived through the flames, recovered from the fall into the boiling pit, and escaped the bloodthirsty narcs to find his old comrades. |
| 127 | ---> As the stars grew brighter in the velvet sky overhead, the elf, dwarf, and Ranger gathered around the radiant sage to hear the tale of his miraculous, impossible salvation. "Well," began Goodgulf, "once out of the pit..." |
| 128 | * ''{{Literature/Goosebumps}}'' was notorious for doing this several times a book, often at the end of nearly every chapter. |
| 129 | ** The series for the most part is an anthology but some will have sequels with Stine not even trying to make an attempt to explain or resolve the prequels PlotTwist or how the protagonist escaped. |
| 130 | [[/folder]] |
| 131 | |
| 132 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 133 | * A season finale of ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' involved Harry being kidnapped by a deranged man played by Creator/PhilHartman. By the time the next season started, [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Phil wasn't with us anymore.]] The show had no choice but to gloss over the circumstances of Harry's kidnapping with no real resolution. |
| 134 | * At the end of the second season of ''Series/TwentyFour'', President David Palmer is infected with a virus transmitted by an assassin who shakes his hand as he's getting into his limousine. As the season ends, he's lying on the ground dying as Secret Service swarms over him, and the last sounds heard are his fading heartbeats. Cue the opening of the third season, and it turns out that Palmer's fine, and that he found and "punished" those responsible. ([[AllThereInTheManual The intervening events are covered]] by the tie-in [=PS2=] game.) |
| 135 | * The third season of ''Series/ThirtyRock'' ended with Jack having just discovered his real father, played by Creator/AlanAlda. He reveals he needs a kidney, so Jack creates a "Music/WeAreTheWorld"[=-esque=] fundraiser to get him one. Then the next season starts with no mention of Jack's father. A throwaway line in season five eventually confirmed that Jack did manage to give his father a kidney - Music/ElvisCostello's. Similarly, Kenneth must have somehow escaped the Chinese assassin in the second-season finale, since he's alive in the third season. |
| 136 | * ''Series/{{Angel}}'': |
| 137 | ** Angel sleeps with Darla despite the GypsyCurse that says he will [[CantHaveSexEver turn evil if he has a perfect moment of happiness]]. At the end of the episode there's a CallBack to the last time this happened, on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', with Angel waking up in bed clutching his chest in pain. The following episode explains that it wasn't ''quite'' perfect happiness, so Angel kept his soul, but no explanation is given for his physical symptoms. |
| 138 | ** The Season 4 episode [[Recap/AngelS04E14Release "Release"]] ends with Angelus defeating Faith, drinking her blood, and declaring that he's going to turn her into a vampire. The following episode, [[Recap/AngelS04E15Orpheus "Orpheus"]], [[OnceMoreWithClarity opens with a flashback]] of Faith drugging herself with the titular drug as a back-up plan for defeating Angelus. |
| 139 | * ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': |
| 140 | ** The show had one of its own in Season Three when the MidSeasonTwist showed Ra's al Ghul thrusting a sword through Oliver's chest, then kicking his lifeless body off the side of a mountain. When the next episode aired, somehow the stab wound moved to the shoulder area, and Oliver managed to land on a nice soft snow bank not too far down the mountain side. |
| 141 | ** In the season finale, "Lian Yu", Prometheus has rigged the entire island of Lian Yu with explosives that are set to go off after his death. The island is showered with explosions, and Oliver and his son William are the only ones clear from the blast zone, leaving the fate of everyone else in question. Come the following season's premiere the only casualty of the explosions is William's mother and Oliver's ex, minor character Samantha, while almost everyone else was relatively unharmed, with Thea and Diggle being the only ones to even have any sort of injury. Some people have gone on to compare it to ''Series/{{Dynasty|1981}}'''s "Moldavian Massacre" cliffhanger, with both shows even airing the cliffhangers at the end of their respective fifth seasons. |
| 142 | * On ''Series/BabylonFive'', one episode ends with Sheridan imprisoned on Mars, being psychologically tortured in an attempt to brainwash him, with no hope of rescue or escape in sight. The next episode opens with Sheridan, no worse for the wear, sitting calmly in his quarters with Dr. Franklin, sipping coffee and discussing his daring escape. [[SubvertedTrope Then it turns out]] that it's all a hallucination, and his interrogator has drugged him to the gills hoping he'll reveal valuable intelligence on the Resistance. |
| 143 | * A regular feature of the '60s ''Series/Batman1966'' series. Famously, every other episode would end with the Dynamic Duo in a diabolical DeathTrap, struggling against their bonds, desperately casting about for a means of escape, or glaring in fear and/or determination at their impending destruction while the narrator fretted about their certain doom. The next episode would begin with the Caped Crusaders escaping the trap, sometimes through legitimately inventive means, but just as often through copouts like "[[TheCavalry someone shows up to rescue them]]," "[[AssPull they'd prepared something earlier in the day and we didn't show you]]" or the ever-popular "[[ForgottenSuperweapon they use a Bat-gadget they have on them for just such an emergency that they apparently briefly forgot they had during their moment of panic at the end of the last episode.]]" If they were unconscious at the end of the previous episode, they'd generally just wake up. On one occasion they were saved by a power outage; on another, by an '''eclipse'''. |
| 144 | ** A particularly notable instance was a CrossOver with ''Series/TheGreenHornet'', in which the Hornet and his sidekick Kato are actually fed through a machine that turns them into human-sized postage stamps! The cliffhanger is that the villain's thugs are about to do the same to Batman and Robin. The next-episode solution is...they fight off the thugs. And it turns out the Hornet and Kato managed to roll off the conveyor belt going through the stamp machine and were hiding inside it. [[VoodooShark Where did those human-sized stamps with their images on them in the previous episode come from?]] |
| 145 | * The two-part ''Series/{{Baywatch}}'' Season 5 premier ended with Hobie getting into a huge fight with Mitch after nearly dying during an earthquake, and subsequently leaving to go live with his mother. He returned within the first 6 minutes of the very next episode, saying that he'd gotten over his fear of earthquakes. |
| 146 | * At the end of one episode of the second season of ''Series/TheBridge2011'', a group of armed AnimalWrongsGroup terrorists attack Saga in her hotel room. At the beginning of the next episode, she [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomps them]] in seconds. |
| 147 | * Season 3 of ''Series/Charmed1998'' ends with Piper and Prue seriously wounded and Phoebe, Leo, and Cole trapped in the underworld with Phoebe having given her oath to stay there forever. Season 4 opens with Piper and Phoebe in the attic discussing Prue's death. How did the three trapped in the underworld escape? How did Leo get home in time to save Piper? Were there any consequences for Phoebe breaking her oath? The latter two questions get some explanation at the beginning of Season 4, but the exact details of the characters' escape from the underworld itself are never made clear. The whole thing is justified in a meta-sense since Prue's actress Shannen Doherty left the show in between seasons so any plans the writers may have had were thrown out the window. |
| 148 | * One episode of ''Series/Charmed2018'' had the girls temporarily trapped in a PrisonDimension, where they saw evidence of its demonic inhabitants escaping into our world. When they get back, Jordan rushes in and says that there's a monster outside. The next episode is filler that doesn't mention this at all. |
| 149 | * ''Series/{{Community}}'': The second season ends with Pierce declaring he's done with the study group and walking out on them, leaving audiences to wonder what this would mean in the next season. The resolution is...Pierce walking into the study room, explaining he'd changed his mind, and asking them to take him back. Probably deliberate, since it wasn't considered likely that Pierce would be gone from the group for good. HilariousInHindsight seasons later when [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Chevy Chase's strained relations with the rest of the cast and crew finally broke]], leading his character to [[BusCrash get in the way of a passing bus]]. |
| 150 | * ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'' does this frequently. |
| 151 | ** Season 8 ends with Larry and Leon fleeing to Paris, but Season 9 starts with Larry back in LA. |
| 152 | ** Season 9 ends with Larry being chased by the Ayatollah, which is completely ignored in Season 10. |
| 153 | * In the series finale of the original ''Series/{{Dallas}}'', JR Ewing takes out a gun after being convinced by a reflection of the Devil in his mirror that his life is meaningless now that he's lost Ewing Oil. JR holds the gun in his hand, and his brother Bobby hears a gunshot from downstairs. Bobby runs up, opens the door to JR's room with a look of shock on his face...and as the TV movie "JR Returns" would later explain, JR shot the mirror and climbed out the window, then fled to Paris to hide out for six months. |
| 154 | * ''Series/{{Dexter}}''. Several instances of something occurring that could have completely damned Dexter or caused problems were resolved a minute into the next episode. Of course, just as many times they were legitimate problems that Dexter spends the episode dealing with, but that just makes the Cliffhanger Copout and PseudoCrisis events stand out all the more. |
| 155 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'' has done this numerous times, largely due to volume. ''Every'' non-terminal episode of the classic series ended in a cliffhanger, and terminal ones sometimes did too. |
| 156 | ** Part Two of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks "Genesis of the Daleks"]] is a well-known example. Sarah Jane is leading a prison escape up a giant scaffolding tower, when she slips and falls in a dramatic freeze-frame. Unfortunately, Part Three begins with her landing on a previously-unmentioned plank just below. The most frustrating thing is that she clearly fell on the outside of the tower, but the plank could only have been on the inside. |
| 157 | ** The Creator/PeterDavison era in particular was mocked for the number of cliffhangers which had the Doctor and/or a companion about to be killed by a [[TheDragon Dragon]] or {{Mook|s}}, only for a superior villain to turn up as soon as the next episode started and order their lives spared. |
| 158 | ** Famously, in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]], you actually see the Doctor and Peri get shot, execution style, and [[WhatCliffhanger fall down dead]]. The following episode resolves the conflict [[PseudoCrisis ten seconds]] in, when it is revealed that the executed parties were [[ActuallyADoombot actually robot look-a-likes]]. (Though it's worth noting they ''do'' play fair - the moment of the switch is shown in the episode and [[RewatchBonus plainly obvious]] on a rewatch, and the life-like robots were already established.) |
| 159 | ** A notorious cliffhanger from the Sixth Doctor story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E3TheMarkOfTheRani "The Mark of the Rani"]] involves the Doctor hurtling down a hill strapped to a gurney, headed for a mine's pithead. The reprise inserts shots not shown in the cliffhanger of the guest hero running toward the gurney, so that the resolution can be him saving the Doctor before he falls in the pit. |
| 160 | ** The most (in)famous, not to mention [[LiteralCliffhanger literal]], example is probably from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E4Dragonfire "Dragonfire"]]; in which the Doctor ''dangles himself over a precipice'' on his brolly and starts losing his grip, gurning ridiculously while we see shots of an abyss under his feet. This happens for no obvious reason other than because the episode was coming to an end. In the next episode a friend suddenly appears and helps lower him onto another ledge that was not present in the abyss shot. |
| 161 | *** According to the script editor, the ledge he was on was supposed to come to an end, prompting him to try to get to the next one down and misjudge the distance, but the set was incorrectly realized so that it looked like he just decided to go over the edge. The new series pulled an AuthorsSavingThrow on this one, revealing it as one of several cases where the Great Intelligence altered events in the Doctor's timeline to try to kill him. |
| 162 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]] ends with the Ninth Doctor and every other person in the room electrocuted by the Slitheen at a lethal level. Seconds into the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E5WorldWarThree following episode]] the Doctor manages to rip off the badge that carries the shock, tells the Slitheen that since he's not human it's not lethal to him, and runs off. |
| 163 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]: The [[TheNthDoctor Ninth Doctor]] and his companions are cornered by a horde of childlike gasmask zombies. The virus seems to pass by touch, so one touch will turn them all into zombies. The conclusion opens with the Doctor telling the zombies to [[RefugeInAudacity go to their room]], and it works. |
| 164 | ** At the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen "Rise of the Cybermen"]], the Doctor tries to convince the Cybermen who've cornered his group that they're surrendering, only for the Cybermen to ignore this and ominously chant "Delete! Delete!" as the episode ends; when the following episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E6TheAgeOfSteel "The Age of Steel"]] begins, the Doctor suddenly pulls a tool out of nowhere which kills the Cybermen then and there. Because if the Doctor had this tool at his disposal, there was little reason to try and surrender and even less to hesitate for about 10 seconds before killing the enemy; they don't even suggest that he was possibly trying to buy enough time until the tool was fully charged to destroy the Cybermen, which actually ''make sense'' if it's the case. This is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the "tool" actually being the TARDIS's charging power cell, whose use as a weapon started the charging process all over again. For obvious reasons, the Doctor was reluctant to cut off his ultimate escape route. |
| 165 | ** At the end of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth The Stolen Earth]]", the Doctor is shot, dragged to the TARDIS by his companions and starts to regenerate, meanwhile Sarah Jane Smith is facing down two Daleks unarmed. 15 seconds into the following episode, series finale "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]", the Doctor heals himself using the regeneration energy without changing, 15 seconds after that two characters who haven't appeared for two seasons appear to rescue Sarah Jane. This is helped a bit by the show later confirming that it did indeed count as a regeneration, bringing the Doctor one step closer to true death after his thirteenth life. |
| 166 | ** This happened in regards to Donna in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]". [[ItMakesSenseInContext The Doctor had previously wiped her memories of him and warned if she ever started to remember she would burn to death.]] At the end of episode one she starts to remember and her head starts to hurt...and at the beginning of episode two she just gets knocked out. Turns out it was all just a defence mechanism. |
| 167 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow "The Beast Below"]] ends on the Doctor getting a phone call from UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, who asks for his help as the shadow of a Dalek approaches, suggesting he's in immediate danger. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks "Victory of the Daleks"]], it turns out that the Doctor and Amy arrive a month after Churchill made the call, and he's since gotten used to having the [[FalselyReformedVillain "Ironsides"]] around. He just wanted the Doctor's opinion on them, but now he's made up his mind. |
| 168 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens "The Pandorica Opens"]] ends with the Doctor locked in an inescapable prison specifically designed to hold him. Next week, the pre-credit teaser actually adds an ''extra'' cliffhanger to the excitement by revealing that somehow Amy and the Doctor exchanged places. Post credits, the Doctor from the future, already out of the Pandorica, just goes back in time and lets himself out (putting dead Amy inside the preserve her). He only got out in the first place because [[StableTimeLoop Rory was able to let him out using the Doctor's sonic screwdriver (which only happened because the Doctor got let out)]]. |
| 169 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]] ends with Amy shooting the person in the spacesuit a.k.a. the little girl. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E2DayOfTheMoon "Day of the Moon"]], it turns out that she missed, and the episode begins three months after the event. |
| 170 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks "Asylum of the Daleks"]] ends with the Doctor having accidentally wiped himself from the memories and histories of the Daleks, with the implication that this is going to create a whole new dynamic between them. The [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor next appearance]] of the Daleks reveals that...they've just regained their memories of him off-screen. |
| 171 | ** The new series episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]] suggests an in-story justification for ''every single case'' where a seemingly inescapable death was resolved in anticlimactic fashion: the Great Intelligence trying to sabotage the Doctor's timeline only for one of Clara's temporal doppelgängers to undo the damage. |
| 172 | ** Played with in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent "Heaven Sent"]]: the Doctor finds himself in peril, only for the story to cut back to him entering the TARDIS, safe and sound. If turns out he is still very much in peril, but that imagining himself back in the TARDIS explaining to his companion how he got out of that tight spot is his method of finding out how to actually do it. |
| 173 | ** At the end of "The Halloween Apocalypse", the TARDIS is about to be hit by the Flux, a NegativeSpaceWedgie that is destroying the universe, with the doors flying open to expose the Doctor and companions to it. At the start of "War of the Sontarans", the Doctor and companions are in Sevastopol during the Crimean War, and the TARDIS is sealed up behind them. Neither the Doctor nor anyone else has the slightest idea what just happened. |
| 174 | * The "Moldavian Massacre" on ''Series/Dynasty1981'' is an (in)famous case of this. At the end of the fifth season, two major characters (Amanda and Prince Michael) get married in a ceremony attended by nearly the entire main cast in the country of Moldavia (an archaic name for Moldova). However, a group of terrorists crash the ceremony and spray the entire audience and newlyweds with bullets, with the final image of the season being everyone lying on the ground motionless. This cliffhanger was done ostensibly so the producers had an out if any cast members wanted to leave. When the show, returned, however, it was revealed that only two minor characters had died. This is often cited as the reason for the show's ratings decline, as it slid from first to seventh place after the conclusion to the cliffhanger was revealed. |
| 175 | * ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': The first season ended with John Crichton and D'Argo adrift in space with Aeryn unable to rescue them due to enemy ships in the vicinity. The second season opens with D'Argo jolting awake and John explaining that Aeryn was eventually able to scoop them up and drop them to safety at their current location. Part of the issue is that "Mind The Baby" was actually meant to be the ''second'' episode of the season. After filming the original premiere, which involved the rest of Moya's crew on a side-journey to [[PlanetOfHats a planet full of lawyers]], the producers felt it wasn't strong enough to justify making the audience wait an extra week for the resolution of the cliffhanger. The original episode was shuffled to later in the season (and framed as a flashback) which left John and D'Argo's rescue feeling rather abrupt and anti-climactic. |
| 176 | * ''Series/TheFlash2014'': |
| 177 | ** Season 1 ended with a singularity opening up above Central City and Barry Allen/the Flash racing up to stop it, as a RunningGag {{Homage}} to his last run in ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths''. Season 2 showed that the city had suffered minimal damage, and the Flash survives and has been secretly mending the actual damage. However, stopping the singularity did have one casualty: Ronnie Raymond, one-half of Firestorm. |
| 178 | ** "Enter Zoom" ends with The Flash brutally beaten by Zoom and his final words of the episode are Barry telling his friends in a blind panic that he can't feel his legs. Cut to the start of the next episode and the first shot is Barry walking again (albeit only a few steps before tiring) and a couple of throwaway lines about how much he's healed in a week. While it is worth noting that the majority of the episode is spent with Barry still healing, the immediate cliffhanger of Barry being crippled is totally jumped. Watching the episodes back to back leads to the "cliffhanger" lasting as long as the closing credits. |
| 179 | ** Season 4 has a subversion, which ended with the Flash and Iris' KidFromTheFuture Nora finally introducing herself, and telling them that, by helping her father during the battle against the Thinker, she may have accidentally messed with the timeline. Throughout the first episode of Season 5, Barry immediately figures out that Nora made up the broken timeline story just so she can spend time with him. Then it's later revealed that Nora ''did'' cause new problems when the SerialKiller Cicada had a vastly-different origin (and even identity) from what she remembered from ''her'' history books. |
| 180 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 181 | ** In the series' ColdOpen, a Night's Watch ranger comes face-to-face with a [[EldritchAbomination White Walker]] who's just killed his two comrades, but in the very next scene he's running around the North hundreds of miles to the south, with no explanation of how he escaped. This is also an AdaptationInducedPlotHole since in the books the survivor is never spotted by the White Walkers. |
| 182 | ** The Season 2 finale features Sam Tarly cowering ineffectually behind a rock as a horde of White Walkers and their undead wight minions advance towards the Fist of the First Men, ending just as one of the passing White Walkers turns to look right at him. The opening of Season 3, however, show Sam running through the dim snowy wilderness before being attacked by a single wight that still manages to almost kill him before he's rescued. While the battle was obviously [[BattleDiscretionShot skipped for budgetary reasons]], it still never explained how Sam managed to survive an entire undead army that had ''already seen him''. |
| 183 | ** Theon and Sansa end Season 5 attempting to escape Winterfell by leaping from its high walls with only the briefest shot of a [[SoftWater very thin skiff of snow]] to imply they might survive and miles of open ground to cross before they reach any cover. Come Season 6, however, and they're already running through the forest without so much as a twisted ankle and their captor, who has a whole army and loves HuntingTheMostDangerousGame, sends just six men after them. |
| 184 | * Spoofed on ''Series/TheGoodies'' when our three heroes escape a DeathTrap set up by MadScientist Rat Fink Petal via the entirely unexplained use of Graham's fruit peeler. Unfortunately Petal is waiting outside the door, so they end up strapped to another deathtrap and have to escape on screen (though [[RuleOfFunny no less improbably]]). |
| 185 | * A number of cliffhangers on ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' would pique viewers' interest that one thing would happen and then would give them something entirely different. |
| 186 | ** The episode "Truth & Consequences" from Volume 2, for example, ends with Hiro charging at Peter, who refuses to believe Hiro's claims that Adam Monroe is dangerous and is even willing to protect him, suggesting that the two characters were going to fight each other. The beginning of the following episode, "Powerless", shows Hiro, after his charge, deciding to just teleport around Peter and try and talk to him some more to convince him that Adam is evil. |
| 187 | ** One episode ends with a powerless Sylar directly in the sights of a sniper rifle while kissing Elle. The next episode starts with Sylar and Elle in bed naked, clearly having had sex in the interim, and the sniper is ''still waiting''. |
| 188 | * ''Series/HikoninSentaiAkibaranger'': |
| 189 | ** Episode 3 ends with Mitsuki announcing that she's leaving the team, and her comrades reacting in shock. Episode 4 opens with Mitsuki clarifying that she's leaving the team...for a three-day martial arts course, and that she'll return as soon as it's over. |
| 190 | ** At the end of season 1, everyone [[NoticingTheFourthWall figures out that they're in a TV show]] and try, unsuccessfully, to keep the show from ending. When the show did eventually get a second season, it would be pretty hard to keep a good plot going with the characters actively trying not to resolve the plot, so the second season began by shamelessly {{Retcon}}ning out all the metafictional stuff from the first season's plot and changing the ending entirely. Only at the end of the second season is the fictional nature of the world brought back into play. |
| 191 | * In the second season of ''Series/{{House}}'', a two-part episode concludes with Foreman cured of a brain infection, but apparently left with brain damage and impaired motor function. Five minutes into the following episode, Foreman walks into House's office as normal, makes a passing comment about the weeks of rehabilitation he needed to regain proper control of his limbs, and other than House making the odd snarky remark about the whole thing, it's never referenced again. |
| 192 | * ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': "The Gang's Still in Ireland" ends with Dennis, isolated in an old, remote castle and suffering a nasty case of [=COVID=], gets CabinFever and starts trying to murder Dee in a scene out of a slasher film. It's followed by the episode "Dee Sinks in a Bog," in which we see that Dennis [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome passed out due to fatigue from his illness and doesn't pose any actual threat]]. |
| 193 | * The eighth episode of ''Series/IZombie'' ends with Ravi being bitten by an infected zombie rat. Despite the implications that he would become a ZombieInfectee, the next episode has him quickly conclude that rat-bites are not infectious after showing no symptoms and the incident is forgotten. |
| 194 | * ''Series/{{JAG}}'': The 3rd season cliffhanger in "To Russia with Love", has the Mig-29 with Harm and Mac in it being hit by a missile, while the plane from the viewer’s POV was inside a cloud. In the next season resolution, in "Gypsy Eyes", we see that they managed to eject before the plane exploded. |
| 195 | * ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' |
| 196 | ** One episode of Season 1 ended with a recently-HeelFaceTurn Mick Rory telling his teammates the Time Masters have now sent their deadliest agent, the Pilgrim, to eliminate the Legends not by merely killing them, but by RetGone. The scene then cuts to young Mick's own past, not noticing the Pilgrim standing right behind him, ready to shoot. The next episode sees the Legends rescuing young Mick JustInTime. |
| 197 | ** Season 2 ended in a TimeCrash and the Waverider crash-landing in LA now besieged by dinosaurs. Season 3 is an ImmediateSequel where the Legends wander the streets, wondering how they are going to fix this mess. The Legends' former leader Rip Hunter then shows up and introduces his new organisation the [[TimePolice Time Bureau]], who promptly sends the dinosaurs back to their own time. |
| 198 | ** Season 3 ended with John Constantine angrily telling the Legends off for setting Mallus free; he may have been defeated, but the gates of hell ''have'' been opened, unleashing new horrors. Season 4 began with the Legends anticipating these new threats, but nothing came, making them believe that Constantine may have just been exaggerating. However, later in the first episode, did the hell creatures start showing up, as [[KillerRabbit magical creatures]]. |
| 199 | * ''Series/LondonsBurning'' subverts and uses the trope straight in the same situation. One episode finished with a sewer explosion knocking one of the firemen on his back and sending a manhole cover flying into the air. Viewers saw a shot of the cover flying end over end...and landing straight on the hapless firemen's head, all from his point of view. The next episode opened with the same shot but finished with him waking up, as it was AllJustADream. Then it turned out it really '''had''' happened (subverting this trope), but the cover only landed near him despite how it looked previously (looping back to play the trope straight), causing him to have recurring nightmares. |
| 200 | * Parodied in ''Series/MadeInCanada''. A series of Cliffhanger events were made at the end of one season. The first episode of the next season had one of the characters, Richard, narrate that at the end of each season when a series might get cancelled, the characters are usually put on cliffhangers as a means to ensure that the series has closure, but if the series continues, it results in the authors being written into a corner as they make lame excuses. Richard then enumerates the lame excuses for the last season's cliffhanger. |
| 201 | * ''Series/MartialLaw'' had a ReTool-induced copout. The end of season 1 saw Sammo and BigBad Lee Hei falling out of a helicopter over the ocean. Sometime during the summer, though, it was decided to retool the show, and instead of season 2 picking up off where the first had ended, it opened with a regular episode, with only scant allusions to a resolution to the previous events--Sammo asking if someone who's trying to kill him with a bomb is seeking vengeance for Lee Hei's death, and a fellow officer asking Sammo, "Hey, you fell out of a helicopter into the Pacific and survived...how much worse could a bomb be?" |
| 202 | * ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': |
| 203 | ** As some of the the FilmSerial examples may suggest, whenever the gang watches back-to-back chapters of an old serial short film, someone will ''always'' [[LampshadeHanging point out]] the copout. Tom Servo will always go into Annie's "He didn't get out of the cock-a-doodie car!'' speech as well, with Kathy Bates' inflections. |
| 204 | ** In Season 11, Jonah is about to ''probably'' spit out the "I Do" to complete his ShotgunWedding to Kinga Forrester when Max unleashes Mecha Reptilicus, who eats Jonah. Season 12 starts out with Jonah tossing off a tattered helmet as he returns to the Satellite of Love, eager to tell the Bots how he survived. They really don't care. Twice. And neither do Kinga or Max when he tries to tell them, too. |
| 205 | * The first season of ''Series/OneHundredDeedsForEddieMcDowd'' ended with a cliffhanger wherein Eddie was faced with a choice between saving Justin or himself. The second season opened with absolutely no acknowledgement or resolution to that cliffhanger. |
| 206 | * In the sixth series of ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'', an episode closes with two characters locked in the same cell whose showdown had been teased throughout their character arcs all season and only acted out up to that point through proxies. Within 90 seconds of the next episode starting they're returned to their respective cell blocks with no confrontation besides a stare off. |
| 207 | * ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': One episode in season four ended with Finch looking at a street camera and telling The Machine that it was time for him and it to talk. Come the next episode...and it was like the cliffhanger had never happened. No mention is made of the conversation, it's not even revealed how they ''could'' have had a conversation, and it's never brought up again. |
| 208 | * ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'': In the two-part premiere, "A Zeo Beginning", Part 1 ends with the Rangers asking Alpha 5 what happened to Zordon, and he indicates that something happened to him in the Command Center's implosion. At the beginning of Part 2, the same scene is played, but Alpha 5 gives a completely different response. |
| 209 | -->'''Adam:''' What about Zordon? \ |
| 210 | '''Kat:''' Yeah…is he…? \ |
| 211 | '''Alpha 5:''' Oh…I’m so sorry Power Rangers. I guess I should have told you right away...\ |
| 212 | ''[On next week's episode…]'' \ |
| 213 | '''Adam:''' What about Zordon? \ |
| 214 | '''Kat:''' Yeah…is he…? \ |
| 215 | '''Alpha 5:''' Ai yi yi! Don’t even think it! Zordon is just fine! |
| 216 | * The first season of ''Series/PrisonBreak'' ended with the main characters running through a field after their getaway plane left without them, while cops close in from almost every direction. In the beginning of the second season, it's revealed that they got away by...running through a forest and maneuvering around a moving train, which stops the cops from chasing them. It's made worse by the fact that the first season ends at night, but the second season begins during the day, raising the question of what, exactly, happened in what must have been several hours between the episodes. |
| 217 | * ''Series/RedDwarf'' had several episodes ending in cliffhangers, and resolved the majority of them with Cliffhanger Copouts: |
| 218 | ** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIBalanceOfPower Balance of Power]]" ends with Lister triumphantly saying he passed the chef's exam, and thus now outranks Rimmer. "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIWaitingForGod Waiting for God]]" reveals in Holly's OpeningNarration that he was lying. |
| 219 | ** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIParallelUniverse Parallel Universe]]" ends with [[MisterSeahorse Lister becoming pregnant]] after sleeping with his female AlternateUniverse counterpart. This was [[HandWave briefly explained]] in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIIBackwards Backwards]]" as part of an OpeningScroll of UnreadablyFastText, which also resolved the foreshadowing from the first series' second episode that Lister will eventually have twin sons. |
| 220 | *** The writers did intend to spend the Series III premiere resolving that cliffhanger, but found that they couldn't make it funny enough and decided to just skip ahead. They also took the opportunity to explain away Kryten joining the cast and Holly [[TheOtherDarrin changing appearance]]. |
| 221 | ** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIOutOfTime Out of Time]]" ended with the entire crew aboard Starbug as it was destroyed by their future selves. A quick gag at the beginning of "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIITikkaToRide Tikka to Ride]]" reveals that this caused a paradox which hit the ResetButton. |
| 222 | *** Although one of the outtakes videos also included an alternate ending in which Rimmer destroys the time drive himself, causing the future selves to disappear as they no longer had a time machine with which to travel back. |
| 223 | ** The cliffhanger ending of "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIOnlyTheGood Only the Good...]]" -- in which Rimmer is trapped aboard Red Dwarf as it disintegrates from a metal-eating virus and the rest of the crew have abandoned ship or escaped into the Mirror Universe -- was emphatically ''not'' resolved by the miniseries ''Recap/RedDwarfBackToEarth'', which instead begins with a title card saying "Nine Years Later". Given that the ship is intact and all the main characters are present and/or accounted for (though not alive in the once again holographic Rimmer's case), it's ambiguous whether ''Back to Earth'' even follows the cliffhanger or if it follows an alternate ending.[[note]]"Only the Good..." had an alternate ending which can be seen on the DVD's [[DeletedScene Deleted Scenes]] in which the crew manage to find an antidote to the virus and clearly survive[[/note]] |
| 224 | *** The Series X finale, "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonXTheBeginning The Beginning]]", finally addresses the Series VIII cliffhanger, with Rimmer claiming credit for saving Red Dwarf. He is [[TheUnreveal interrupted]] before he's able to explain how he did it. Twice. |
| 225 | * ''Series/{{Reno 911}}'' ended every season with a cliffhanger, and more often than not would start the next season with a cop out. |
| 226 | ** Season 1 finale: Jones FakingTheDead causes all the deputies to kill each other in surprise. |
| 227 | *** Season 2 premiere: It was AllJustADream [[DreamWithinADream Within A Dream]]. |
| 228 | ** Season 3 finale: Wiegel's serial killer boyfriend is about to be put to death, but the phone in the execution chamber rings, raising the possibility that he's been granted a stay of execution. Meanwhile, Dangle and Garcia are trapped in a car during a snowstorm, and the pre-credits teaser shows two firefighters opening up the car, only to react in horror while one says "Oh my god." |
| 229 | *** Season 4 premier: It was just a wrong number, and Wiegel's boyfriend is immediately killed. Dangle and Garcia are also totally fine, and the firefighters were reacting to the sight of [[NotWhatItLooksLike the two men huddling together while naked in order to keep warm]]. |
| 230 | ** Season 4 finale: Dangle is about to enter into a gay marriage-analogue with another man when Garcia comes in, professes his love, and steals him away. |
| 231 | *** Season 5 premiere: He was just kidding, and would like to remind Jim that gay marriage is illegal. |
| 232 | ** Season 5 finale: All the deputies are riding on a squad car they decorated as a float as it drives into a massive fireball. The final shot is of a police funeral. |
| 233 | *** Season 6 premiere: [[SubvertedTrope Garcia, Clementine, and Kimball are all dead.]] |
| 234 | * ''Series/TheRookie'' |
| 235 | ** Season 1 finale Bradford is infected by a bioterrorist's lethal pathogen and is being rushed to the hospital after collapsing. Season 2 starts with the ambulance being attacked by another terrorist only for Bradford to burst out of the ambulance, no worse for the wear, and gun them down. |
| 236 | ** Also Season 1 to 2, Bishop's future at the department was on the line due to an investigation and the decision was still in the air. When her actress quit between seasons, Bishop simply left the LAPD and joined the ATF instead. |
| 237 | * ''{{Series/SCTV}}'' parodied the trope extensively with the fake Republic serial "Six-Gun Justice", using every version of it imaginable -- from false suspense (the bomb mistakenly dropped on Don, Maggie and Cheaplaffs turning out to be a dud) to changing details between episodes (the heroes fitting between the spokes of a falling wagon-wheel chandelier, when in the recap it's shown to drop at an angle and break their necks), to absolute nonsense casually hand-waved (the heroes escaping from the exploding powder keg underneath them by [[BeyondTheImpossible "the shock of the explosion loosen[ing our] ropes"]]). |
| 238 | * ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'' ended Season 2 on a BolivianArmyCliffhanger, with the ship being sunk in a war on an alien planet, and most of the remaining crew trapped aboard an alien sub that's about to go full Death Star--[[TakingYouWithMe so they blow it up while still aboard]]. When the show was OnlyBarelyRenewed, all but a couple of the regulars were returned to Earth intact: they'd been swept out into the alien sea, which somehow put them into ''healing comas'' rather than drowning them, and were rescued by the friendly alien rebels. Meanwhile, the underequipped rebels somehow restored the blown-apart seaQuest to mint condition, ''dumped it in an Iowa cornfield'', and were never heard from again. |
| 239 | * Every season of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' does this: |
| 240 | ** "[[Recap/SherlockS01E03TheGreatGame The Great Game]]" ends with John and Sherlock being held at gunpoint from all angles with no possible escape in sight, with Sherlock pointing his gun at a bomb near Moriarty. In "[[Recap/SherlockS02E01AScandalInBelgravia A Scandal in Belgravia]]", Moriarty decides to let them go because someone called him with "a better offer". |
| 241 | ** [[Recap/SherlockS02E03TheReichenbachFall "The Reichenbach Fall"]] ends with Sherlock jumping from a rooftop to his apparent death, even featuring a closeup of his blood-stained corpse, before the final shot reveals he's somehow alive. [[Recap/SherlockS03E01TheEmptyHearse "The Empty Hearse"]] proceeds to play with the trope relentlessly, showing multiple flimsy explanations (such as Sherlock suddenly being attached to a bungee cord, and "his" corpse actually being Moriarty's in a LatexPerfection mask) that turn out to be the crackpot theories of Anderson and his group of Sherlock fans. It's finally subverted at the end of the episode, when Sherlock himself explains to Anderson exactly how he did it (and WordOfGod confirms he was telling the truth). |
| 242 | ** "[[Recap/SherlockS03E03HisLastVow His Last Vow]]" ends with Sherlock about to be ReassignedToAntarctica, only to be pulled back when a video message seemingly from Moriarty surfaces, suggesting that he's NotQuiteDead. The ChristmasSpecial, "[[Recap/SherlockSpecialTheAbominableBride The Abominable Bride]]", firmly establishes that no, Moriarty really ''is'' dead, and someone else is impersonating him. Who that person is, and what they have planned for Sherlock, becomes the DrivingQuestion of Season 4. |
| 243 | ** [[Recap/SherlockS04E02TheLyingDetective Episode 2 of the fourth series]] ends with the BigBad firing a gun at Watson. By the start of [[Recap/SherlockS04E03TheFinalProblem the next episode]], Watson shows up with Sherlock, no worse for wear, and it turns out it was just a tranquilizer shot. Never mind that a tranquilizer gun, unlike a firearm, shouldn't have produced a loud bang and a cloud of smoke. |
| 244 | * ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': the Season 3 [[SeasonFinale finale]] "[[Recap/SmallvilleS03E22Covenant Covenant]]" ends with Chloe's house exploding the instant she closes the door upon entering it, but a {{flashback}} in the second episode of Season 4, "[[Recap/SmallvilleS04E02Gone Gone]]", shows her escaping, with the time between closing the door and the explosion miraculously expanding to fit Lex's men getting her to safety. |
| 245 | * ''Series/{{Spooks}}'': The first series finale ended with Tom's laptop turning out to have had a bomb planted in it before he took it home, and his family having jammed the front door shut thanks to the security system he'd had installed to, ironically, keep them safe. He's warned about this by an ex-IRA source that's shot shortly afterwards, with the implication a new IRA splinter faction is on the rise. The second series opens with an explosion revealed to be from totally different terrorists that went off at the same time, while Tom's turned out to be a dud. The whole case is then turned over to "Section C" and the last we hear no progress had been made. |
| 246 | * ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'': |
| 247 | ** {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''Series/StargateSG1'''s infamous [[Recap/StargateSG1S10E6200 "200"]] episode. The alien scriptwriter has the characters running away from some aliens with 11 seconds to get to the gate. The team runs up to a cliff face and see a massive army of Jaffa between them and the gate. The real SG-1 call the writer out on such an obvious copout and provide the page quote for ViewersAreGeniuses. |
| 248 | --->'''Mitchell:''' Okay, this could be a problem.\ |
| 249 | ''(Cut to the team safe and sound in the gate room...)''\ |
| 250 | '''Mitchell:''' Wow, that was close, huh?\ |
| 251 | '''Daniel:''' Oh yeah.\ |
| 252 | '''The ''Real'' Daniel:''' ''(voice over)'' Are you serious?!\ |
| 253 | '''Martin:''' ''(voice over)'' What? |
| 254 | ** One episode of ''Series/StargateUniverse'' has a small group of people stuck on a planet with no way to get to the ship where the rest of the cast is on for various reasons. Next episode a brief mention is given to them but nothing is done to solve the problem, however the ship breaks down around a third of the way through and suddenly the characters reappear no worse for wear. |
| 255 | * ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. Lampshaded in the holodeck program ''The Adventures of Captain Proton!'' (a homage to 1930's sci-fi {{Film Serial}}s) where the players gripe over how the PreviouslyOn segment dramatically shows their rocketship bursting into flame. |
| 256 | -->'''Kim:''' We didn't burst into flame in the last chapter! Why are these recaps so inaccurate?\ |
| 257 | '''Paris:''' Well, they brought people back to the theaters.\ |
| 258 | '''Kim:''' Cliffhangers!\ |
| 259 | '''Paris:''' The lost art of hyperbole... |
| 260 | * ''Series/TheTimeTunnel'' sometimes changed the context in which a cliffhanger took place at the beginning of the next episode. For example, you find that the heroes weren't in as much danger as you thought they were, or, at least, that it was a different kind of danger than you thought. |
| 261 | * The second episode of ''Series/TrueDetective'''s second season ends on a completely unexpected cliffhanger that had people talking for a week, as it seemed as if Colin Farrell, billed as the star of season 2, was killed by a man in a bird mask with a shotgun. In the next episode it turned out the shotgun was loaded with riot rounds, leading [[http://kotaku.com/true-detective-s-massive-cliffhanger-was-a-letdown-1716002979 several critics]] [[http://www.vox.com/2015/7/5/8899279/true-detective-recap-colin-farrell-ray-lives to call the show out]] for turning a game-changing twist into a total copout. |
| 262 | * The second episode of ''Series/TwinPeaks'' ends with Agent Cooper having a dream from which he learns the identity of who killed Laura Palmer. Cooper immediately wakes up from the dream to call up Sheriff Truman that he knows who the murderer is but teases that the answer could "wait 'till morning." Come the next episode, taking place that following morning, Cooper recaps all the events from the dream that ended with Laura Palmer whispering the name of her killer in his ear. Then, once he's asked who the killer is, Cooper nonchalantly responds "I don't remember." |
| 263 | * The midseason finale of ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' Season 6 showed Rick and company escaping from their house into a herd of walkers. As they try to silently move past the walkers, Sam starts calling for his mom, causing the walkers to become louder and more angry. Later, the midseason premiere opens with scenes from the previous episode, again showing Sam calling to his mom, only this time the noise isn't suggested as provoking the walkers, and the group manages to evade the herd without incident. |
| 264 | * ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': "Phantom of the Roller Coaster: Part 1" ends with [[SecretIdentity Diana Prince]] inside her car looking back, just before an enormous truck smashed it...[[NoOneCouldSurviveThat with her inside]]. Part 2 begins with an already transformed Wonder Woman outside the car lassoing the perpetrators. |
| 265 | * ''Series/WynonnaEarp'' ends the first season with Waverly being possessed by a demon unbeknownst to the rest of the group, then pulling out a gun and pointing at Wynonna's face before the screen cuts to black and a gunshot sounds. The second season starts with the reveal she was pointing it at [[StabTheScorpion another demon standing somewhere behind Wynonna]]. |
| 266 | * Near the end of the 4th season finale of ''Series/TheXFiles'', the audience sees Mulder alone in his apartment, crying hysterically with his gun in his hands. We cut away just before hearing his gun go off. The next scene is a flash forward in which Scully has apparently been called to his apartment to identify the body of a white male who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She identifies it as Mulder. The next season begins by revealing that Scully was lying, the body is not Mulder's, and the whole crying holding his gun thing was ''not related to anything''. Made even worse that Creator/ChrisCarter lied to Creator/GillianAnderson when instructing her how to play that final scene, telling her that Mulder was alive, but Scully genuinely thought he was dead. Since Anderson is a great actress but Scully isn't, her tearful and quite moving statement about Mulder's death feels very cheap in retrospect. |
| 267 | * ''Series/{{Yellowjackets}}'': Younger Lottie ends Season 1 by wearing the Antler Queen headdress and summoning "the darkness to set them free" in French for Misty and Van. Come Season 2, she doesn't wear the veil, her pursuit of the "darkness" is no deeper than guided breathing in the woods, and Misty has minimal interest in the burgeoning cult. [[spoiler:Ultimately, it's Van who falls deepest into the cult, and triggers the first cannibal hunt in "[[Recap/YellowjacketsS2E8ItChooses It Chooses]]" while Lottie is recovering from serious injuries.]] |
| 268 | |
| 269 | [[/folder]] |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder:Professional Wrestling]] |
| 272 | * Several episodes of Raw in 2012 built towards a storyline involving Zack Ryder, John Cena, Kane and Eve Torres. Kane was trying to get Cena to "embrace the hate" and did so by targeting his friend Zack and Eve who was Zack's girlfriend. One development of this had Eve being held prisoner in an ambulance so Cena could save her. She kissed him in the heat of the moment...conveniently enough for Zack to walk by and see. Afterwards she tearfully broke it off with him, claiming they were JustFriends. The entire scenario screamed Kane manipulating Eve to mess with Cena and Zack. But the next week... |
| 273 | ** Eve out of nowhere claimed that she had been using Zack all along to further her career and was intending to do the same with Cena. Kane disappeared from the storyline completely. Fan theories state that Kane being behind the whole thing was the original idea...but the live crowds gave Eve an insane amount of heat for kissing Cena. So the writers likely saw potential and decided to turn her heel instead. |
| 274 | * The 2018 WWE feud between Samoa Joe and AJ Styles was centered around Joe making references to Styles' wife and his one-sided attraction. This led to a segment of him standing at their front door (with Styles watchting through video from the ring), ringing the door bell and creepy-joyfully chanting "Oh Wendy!", with the show fading out. The next week, General Manager Paige explained, that he did nothing more than that and the police arrived shortly thereafter. |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 278 | * ''Radio/BleakExpectations:'' On occasion, Pip Bin will wind up in imminent danger which he survives by utterly implausible means (for example, series 2 episode 2 ends with him falling over a cliff. Episode 3 has him survive by falling onto a ''mattress orchard''). This series being what it is, this is all played completely for laughs. That, and since the series is an elderly Pip Bin recounting his life, he ''has'' to survive. |
| 279 | [[/folder]] |
| 280 | |
| 281 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 282 | * Due to his constant {{schedule slip}}s, the writer of the ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' web-serials was forced to {{ab|ortedArc}}andon quite a few arcs he set up as the big cliffhangers of the story chapters. The most notable cases are: |
| 283 | ** The League of Six Kingdoms being reformed (this time by four members), and leading their colossal army against the city of Metru Nui. When we cut back to them, they have apparently given up on their plans, and continued to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the story. |
| 284 | * ''Bionicle's'' SpiritualSuccessor ''Toys/HeroFactory'' is not much better at it. Two consecutive storylines have ended with cliffhangers ([[BigBad Von Nebula]] acquiring the plans of the Hero Factory and the mind-controlling Brains still being around) that have been subsequently ignored. Instead, the 2014 story ended with yet another Cliffhanger, unrelated to these. |
| 285 | [[/folder]] |
| 286 | |
| 287 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 288 | * The 4th Episode of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead: Season Two'' ended with the main characters in a MexicanStandoff against another group of survivors. The protagonists outnumbered them, but despite this the other survivors were highly intimidating, implied to have once been connected to the Russian Mafia, and before anything can happen, one of your teammates dies of exhaustion and turns into a zombie. In spite of this, the only deaths at the start of the next episode were minor characters on ''their'' side. All the protagonists walked away alive. |
| 289 | [[/folder]] |
| 290 | |
| 291 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 292 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', where one page ends with the doctor being held at gunpoint by a police officer as he is about to retrieve a missile. On the next page (published days later), the words "HE IS A NINJA" fill half the page, then the story continues as normal. |
| 293 | * The ''{{Webcomic/Morphe}}'' webcomic had to go on a brief hiatus in 2014 while the creators dealt with a couple conventions and prepared a large amount of content for a coming update. Prior to the hiatus the comic ended with one of the main characters, Billy Thatcher, [[http://morphe.thewebcomic.com/comics/2034197/chapter-4-page-36-thatcher-silenced/ being shot in the head.]] After the hiatus the scene is reversed and it is revealed and replayed with Billy getting shot in the shoulder instead, revealing Amical had turned back time "one turn" and altered his actions. |
| 294 | [[/folder]] |
| 295 | |
| 296 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 297 | * {{Invoked|Trope}} in a front-page article on Website/SomethingAwful in which [[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/red-wedding-blimp.php an irate fan of a radio serial]] vows to never tune into the program again after the latest chapter had the hero's arch-nemesis kill off several main characters...until the show's writers "fix what they had done", "like they did when the mummy stole the rocket, but it turned out Joyce was on a different rocket". |
| 298 | * {{Parodied|Trope}} in the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "cliffhangers", where Strong Bad is asked to "resolve all the cliffhangers, please". Coach Z trips before he can unmask the Thnikkaman, approaching meteors turn out to be old avocados, and Homestar is reminded that he can't be pregnant because he's male. Then the cartoon ends with an actual cliffhanger when Strong Bad's computer gets "Lappy-napped". |
| 299 | -->'''Strong Bad:''' Sweet Lady Irony, why do you mock me?! |
| 300 | * Happens frequently in ''WebAnimation/ShaggyDogStories'', where many episodes (especially earlier ones) will end on a cliffhanger, and the following episode turns out to be totally different. |
| 301 | * Happens fairly often in ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' and is always PlayedForLaughs. The worst offender is probably Chapter 41; Chapter 40 ended with Zhang Fei and Cao Ren facing off for a duel. Chapter 41 begins with Zhang Fei realizing that, due to a continuity error in [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms the original novel]], he should be somewhere else entirely. After [[NoFourthWall consulting the book]], both parties agree to pretend the whole thing never happened. |
| 302 | * ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheShisnoTrilogy'': "It Just Winked At Me" ends with Tucker and Sister at held at crossbowpoint by medieval knights. We don't see them again until a few episodes later, where we find that Tucker had somehow become king of {{Camelot}}, redubbed Cameltoe, with the knights believing his sword is {{Excalibur}}. |
| 303 | * ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'': |
| 304 | ** The episode [[Recap/RWBYV5E7RestAndResolutions "Rest and Resolutions"]] ends with the villains entering a camp with the intent of fighting their way in. When the show returns to this plot in [[Recap/RWBYV5E9APerfectStorm "A Perfect Storm"]], the villains suddenly just want to talk and there's no mention of any of them ever having drawn weapons. |
| 305 | ** The episode [[Recap/RWBYV6E11TheLadyInTheShoe "The Lady In The Shoe"]] has both Ruby literally hanging onto the cliffside with her scythe while the airship that has Oscar and Maria inside it is shot down with a missile. The next episode, [[Recap/RWBYV6E12SeeingRed "Seeing Red"]], has Ruby just pull herself up while the airship is revealed to be just fine. |
| 306 | ** The Volume Seven episode [[Recap/RWBYV7E5Sparks "Sparks"]] sees its cliffhanger ending completely resolved off-screen before the next episode, [[Recap/RWBYV7E6ANightOff "Night Off"]], which subsequently happens yet again before the next episode, [[Recap/RWBYV7E7WorstCaseScenario "Worst Case Scenario"]]. |
| 307 | [[/folder]] |
| 308 | |
| 309 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 310 | * In one ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' episode Dr. Robotnik ties up Tails' tails, making it impossible for him to fly. He then throws him and Sonic into a volcano, with Tails saying something like "I can't untie my tails!!" After the break, Tails unties his tails and they both escape. |
| 311 | * Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh''. Abe is launched out a high window by a bean-can explosion and sad music plays while he plummets. The scene pauses just as he is about to hit the ground with his face. When they come back, Abe is seen hovering just over a pool, where he falls in harmlessly. |
| 312 | * ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'', whose stories were serialized in seasons two through four, had a rather egregious one in "The Duel". The end of episode three had DM and Penfold in a room with [[TheWallsAreClosingIn the walls closing in on them]]. When episode four commences, Penfold just happens to have a large spanner that DM gave him for Christmas. DM uses it to stop the walls. |
| 313 | * In the 1980s ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'' series, the cliffhangers in all multi-part stories were invariably resolved about 10 seconds into the next part - often while showing the short recap and having a character doing something they had not previously been doing (such as escaping being bound) or standing in different positions. Frequently, any cosmetic changes to characters (such as being covered in gunge or wearing different than usual clothes or their hair being styled differently than normal) were not carried over into the next episode, as each episode was seemingly produced by a different group of animators. |
| 314 | ** For instance, the cliffhanger for the third part of "Bright Lights" had Zeb, TheDragon to that week’s villain, preparing to take Molly’s shadow with Lofty unable to help her. However, at the start of the fourth part, Zeb wastes so much time that Lofty is able to break free of her restraints and save Molly, escaping before Zeb can take either of their shadows. |
| 315 | * Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty''. After Season 2 ended with Rick put into an intergalactic prison, Season 3 starts with him at a Shoney's, saying "And that's how I escaped from space prison!" to his family. However, he then asks Jerry to fold himself 12 times, which he does. It then turns out that Rick hasn't actually escaped yet, and he's been placed in a simulation based on his memories. Then played straight at the end of the episode, when the reason he was arrested is retconned to be part of his greater plan. |
| 316 | * This is very common in ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'', as the animation has little continuity within the same episode, much less between them. One specific example: an episode of the Upsidaisium arc ended with Bullwinkle holding a chunk of Upsidaisium and floating off into the sky. In the next episode, Rocky suggests Bullwinkle use his pick to break bits off of the chunk until he descends slowly, and he lands safely. In the previous episode, Bullwinkle was not holding a pick. |
| 317 | ** This also rather blatantly occurred during the Wossamatta U arc. One episode ends with Bullwinkle (playing for the eponymous college's football team) a mere foot away from inadvertently scoring the winning goal for the opposing team after chasing a disguised Boris without thinking about where he was going, after which the entire opposing team tackles the confused Bullwinkle before he can do anything as the game ends seconds later. The next episode opens by revealing that Boris had slipped away to the other end of the stadium behind the other goal (though, granted, this was at least foreshadowed), and Bullwinkle, looking for something to throw at Boris, decided to throw the football he was carrying at Boris before Hard Knox's team tackled him, with Rocky intercepting it and winning Wossamatta the game just in time. |
| 318 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' {{invoke|dTrope}}s the trope at the end of a chapter from a "Radioactive Man" film serial from the 1940s being screened at a comic convention. Earth is shown in the middle of an EarthShatteringKaboom, already clearly split in two by an atomic bomb when the action freezes and a narrator asks, "Will Radioactive Man be able to save the Earth in time?" |
| 319 | * The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Members Only" ends with Kyle and Ike running out of the house, with their mother, Sheila, screaming after them to come back. The next episode opens with them back at home, with Sheila yelling at them. So apparently she just...ran after them and grabbed them? Seems like a bit of a letdown. |
| 320 | * ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries''. Often, a weapon aimed at Spider-Man indicated he was in immediate danger before cutting to a commercial break; following the break, Spider-Man simply jumped out of the way. |
| 321 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': Part 1 of [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsHeroesOfMandalore "Heroes of Mandalore"]] has Sabine's mother and brother apparently being vaporized by a new Imperial weapon. The episode ends with Sabine arriving at the scene and finding no survivors, only some charred suits of Mandalorian armor, seemingly confirming their fate. Part 2 immediately begins with Sabine's mother and brother showing up alive and explaining that they managed to get out of the weapon's range before it was fired. |
| 322 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'' pulled them on a regular basis, such as in the episode "20,000 Leaks Under the City", where Splinter is ''clearly seen'' falling down a waterfall, and when the show returns from the commercial break [[AdBreakDoubleTake it rewinds]] and he's caught before he falls. |
| 323 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'': |
| 324 | ** The two-parter "Desertion of the Dinobots" from the G1 cartoon does this. The first episode ends with Spike and Carlie in the space bridge, with Shockwave shooting into the opening doors, causing a massive explosion. The beginning of part two has him firing a single shot that simply makes their car disappear, with ''no'' explosion at all. |
| 325 | ** In the episode "Day of the Machines", a robot grappling with Optimus Prime slaps a control circuit card on him that puts him under the control of a Decepticon-hijacked supercomputer, which gloats about its victory over the Autobot leader as the scene goes to commercial. Upon returning to commercial, the computer has a couple more seconds to gloat before Optimus reveals he'd swapped out the control card the drone was wielding, with an inert one. Despite the fact that ''no opportunity for such an action'' had been visible during the prior struggle. |
| 326 | * ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': The Season 2 finale ends with Megatron and Starscream standing in the ruins of the Autobot base before panning to Optimus Prime's hand, broken and sparking, sticking out of the wreckage, the clear implication being that he's dead. At the start of Season 3, it is revealed that Optimus was still alive, albeit heavily damaged, and his rescue from the ruins by Smokescreen is a further copout, as he was last seen going through the Ground Bridge to an unknown location, and he wasn't even the last one to leave the base. |
| 327 | * Many ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots'' episodes start with one, to the point where it could be a RunningGag. |
| 328 | [[/folder]] |
| 329 |
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