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5* The first season finale of ''Series/NineOneOne'' had a terrible traffic accident in which a motorcyclist was [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe torn in half]]. This is featured in the promo which implies that the paramedics will make a miracle rescue and somehow save his life. What actually happens is they admit there's nothing they can do but make the victim comfortable as he dies.
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9* ''Series/AdventuresInWonderland'': The TV promo for "Christmas in Wonderland" makes it look like the episode is all about the quirky Wonderland Christmas traditions, and how even though they're different from the familiar traditions, [[TrueMeaningOfChristmas the spirit is the same]]. Actually, the quirky Wonderland traditions are only shown for comedy at the beginning of the special, which is mostly about the Queen being depressed because it never snows in Wonderland and the other characters [[LetThereBeSnow trying to make it snow on Christmas Eve for her.]] It also implies that building a "sourdough bread house" is one of the weird Wonderland traditions. Actually, it's part of the White Rabbit's attempts to recreate the non-Wonderland traditions Alice has described: he wants to make a gingerbread house, but doesn't have time to make gingerbread, so he uses sourdough instead.
10* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'':
11** Promos for the episode "The Well" promised that it would be a tie-in to ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'', and even showed footage of Thor, Asgard, and the Dark Elf ship that attacked London in the film. Not only did none of these characters or vehicles appear at any point in the episode, but the "tie-in" itself consisted of the agents cleaning up debris from the battle in London before immediately moving onto a completely unrelated plot about a Norse hate group. A LOT of people were pissed about this episode.
12** The TV spots for "The Bridge" made it seem like Melinda was being cold to SixthRanger Mike, telling him "You shouldn't be here." The clip was spliced together from two entirely different scenes, and at no point in the actual episode is Melinda ever rude or dickish to him.
13** ABC released the first 17 minutes of the Season 5 premiere "Orientation" online, in which the agents appear to have been mysteriously sent deep into outer space to an abandoned craft. Most the crew is dead, and the confused agents are being stalked by an alien monster. Once you watch the full episode though, it turns out [[spoiler: the agents have been on Earth the entire time. Instead of being sent through space, they were sent hundred of years into the future, where Earth has been rendered uninhabitable and the surviving humans are slaves of the Kree. The monster was in a less-protected section of the station, and is one of the few animals able to survive on the surface of Earth now. The season is less an ''Film/{{Alien}}'' ripoff and more about surviving in a dystopian future and figuring out how to get back to their own time.]]
14* ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'': One episode preview has Dom complaining about how low they're flying, followed by a cactus being splattered against the window. The cactus was removed from the actual episode.
15* Intentionally invoked with ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryRoanoke'', which didn't confirm its subtitle until after the premiere. Of the 26 teaser trailers released before the first episode, only [[https://youtu.be/P16tvGFhGbY one]] of them was representative of the show's theme.
16* ''Series/AmericanIdol'' had one OnTheNext promo that showed Barney the Dinosaur auditioning for a brief couple seconds. Needless to say, when he didn't appear in the next episode, some were thoroughly disappointed.
17* ''Series/AmericasGotTalent'' usually includes a teaser featuring a mediocre contestant crying during an elimination round, bookended with clips of the judges admonishing someone. 95% of the time, the contestant is actually crying TearsOfJoy because they're so happy to have made it through.
18** Teasers for upcoming episodes also sometimes feature contestants who never appear or only pop up weeks later.
19* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'':
20** A trailer for an early episode where Beka thinks she's found a way to Tarn Vedra plays up the Vedran aspect and makes it look like the plot is that the Vedrans are a sinister group tormenting the crew. In the episode they never actually reach Tarn Vedra and all of the problems they had came from Beka overdosing on a stimulant.
21** A mid-series episode has Dylan jump into a ship with its crew of one to get him out of a hairy situation. The bad guys come gunning for him and the captain says "do you have a plan B?" Dylan confidently replies "I always have a plan B. You were plan B." In the promo for the episode the question "do you have a plan B?" was followed by Dylan worriedly saying "You ''were'' plan B." Same line but different message.
22* ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
23** In the middle of the Jasmine arc, there was an OnTheNext promo that centered around Angel and Fred kissing, with the announcer going on about how the crisis will drive them together... in the actual episode, the kiss turns out to be a FakeOutMakeOut and no romance comes of it.
24** Another trailer showed Darla, Angel chained against a wall, Angel jousting and the implication that this was all centered around her machinations. While those things actually do happen, the joust is for a minor character and by the time Angel ends up on that wall [[spoiler: it's actually part of a test to save Darla who is dying of disease]].
25* Season 5 of ''Series/NoReservations'' was bloated with this. Every episode pointed out that he was going to have a bad time at his destination but on the actual show, it was always just a minor moment of discomfort that took place in the first half of the episode, surrounded by Tony loving the place.
26* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' plays around with this in which the clips at the end of each episode were almost ''never'' actually featured in the next, but sometimes became important in their own right.
27** Sometimes those clips ''would'' appear on the next episode, but the viewer would never expect it [[Music/PeterAndTheWolf because of so many falsities, they would never expect the truth.]]
28** Also, in one third-season episode, trailers advertised 3-D, that "the shocking final moments" would be live, and that "[[TonightSomeoneDies one of these people will die]]". Well, they did come through! ...In underwhelming ways:
29*** On the 3D, it lasts for about one shot.
30*** The old racist lady dies. The narrator made a point to mention it.
31*** For the final scene, only that one 5 second part was done live.
32** Sadly, this trope may have led to the show's cancellation. The original TV-spots didn't quite present the show as they should have.
33* Trailers for the ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' episode "Sara" made spliced two different shots from different scenes in the episode together to make it look like Laurel blames Oliver [[spoiler: for her sister's death and threatens him with a gun.]] Not only does this never happen in the episode [[spoiler: but despite the trailer's implications Laurel never once thinks Oliver is Sara's killer or involved somehow.]]
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37* ''Series/BabylonFive''
38** The trailers for each new episode - reproduced on the [=DVDs=] for your viewing dissonance - always tried to make it sound much more of an action 'n' explosions show than it actually was. Sometimes this almost worked, most times you'd wonder if it was the same show, and sometimes, you'd wonder if if was the same universe.
39** The trailer for ''In the Beginning'' describes the situation as "ambassadors from a hundred worlds use Earth as a pawn in alien war games" along showing with scenes of a battle. The only thing accurate in that statement is that there are ambassadors and they are aliens. Humans weren't being manipulated and it wasn't some alien power struggle; due to a massive [[CultureClash misunderstanding]] a human ship attacked a Minbari ship and a war started over it.
40* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'':
41** In an interesting case, the trailer featured D'Anna [[spoiler:telling Roslin that she's the final Cylon who has yet to be revealed. However, the cut revealing who she was talking to caused some speculation that Roslin actually wasn't the person she said it to. It turned out D'Anna ''was'' talking to Roslin, but was just playing a prank on her. Of course, had Roslin been the final Cylon]] this would have been a major case of both TrailersAlwaysSpoil and LyingCreator (as showrunner and producer Ron Moore had officially declared that [[spoiler:Roslin is ''not'' a Cylon]]).
42** Another episode's trailer has [[spoiler:Tom Zarek]] state that Saul Tigh is dead and Bill Adama is facing execution. [[spoiler:In the actual episode, both men were alive and well and Zarek was only lying to Roslin as part of a last-ditch gambit when his mutiny was falling apart.]]
43* ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'' had an OnTheNext trailer that showed (in order): A woman looking into her hand mirror and realizing that [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Mitchell has no reflection]], A TorchesAndPitchforks mob of neighbors shouting and throwing things at the outside of the main characters house, and George saying "We were kidding ourselves to believe we could fit in here. We.. are MONSTERS!". The not so subtle implication was that the Vampire, Werewolf and Ghost would all be outed and they'd have to deal with the ramifications of that. In the episode itself Mitchell was accused of pedophilia because the woman's son accidentally borrowed a vampire porn/snuff film from him. TheMasquerade remains unbroken, except for the boy and his mum finding out about Mitchell at the end [[StatusQuoIsGod before promptly leaving and telling the neighbors that they made a mistake]].
44* NBC promoted ''Better Late Than Never'' (both the series itself and the individual episode) with a shot of the veteran entertainers visiting the border between UsefulNotes/SouthKorea and UsefulNotes/NorthKorea. Their guide, Jeff, tries to take a selfie and accidentally drops his smartphone on the North Korea side of the border and causes a minor international incident. This scene plays out as advertised, but afterwards Jeff reveals that he was never going to take four entertainment legends to the most contested border in the world and the whole thing took place on a movie set as a joke.
45* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'':
46** The 2009 Christmas special featured a clip of Leonard's mother kissing Sheldon as if it were a huge plot point. In the actual episode, she was drunk and curious. It was more of a gag than anything.
47** Promos for the third season finale did this as well. They had the announcer ask what the guys would do for the finale with Sheldon saying "We're going to blow up the moon." In the actual episode, Penny's date asks if that's what they're going to do and Sheldon actually says "You'd be crazy to think we're going to blow up the moon."
48** The original trailer for "The Plimpton Stimulation" had the narrator saying "this is the episode you've been waiting for," then showed scenes of a hot woman in the guys' apartment and a scene of Sheldon giggling childishly, as if he was attracted to her. Needless to say, or it wouldn't be in this category, Sheldon had no romantic interest in her whatsoever (she was a fellow physicist he'd invited to stay with him) and the giggling was taken out of context. (Dr. Plimpton did have sex, but with Leonard, and later, Raj).
49*** (But not Howard, or for that matter Leonard, Howard and Raj at the same time. [[ReallyGetsAround Though not for lack of trying.]])
50** For whatever reason the Australian promos all try and play the episodes for drama. Several treat Sheldon's "we can't be friends anymore" moments as shocking swerves that will change the show forever instead of a one-time gag about the roommate agreement that barely factors into the plot. One of the most infamous instances were the “kiss aftermath” adverts during the seventh season, claiming to be “[[BlatantLies the television event of the year]]”.
51** The promo for "the Flaming Spittoon Acquisition" had the narrator say something like "sorry [[PortmanteauCoupleName Shamy]] fans" and showed a scene of Sheldon chastising Amy in the comic book store, then had him in Penny's apartment saying "how about you and me go on a date" implying he wanted to get together with her. While he does ask her out in the episode [[spoiler: it was never serious and part of a plan to make Amy jealous; indeed, the episode ends with Sheldon & Amy solidifying their relationship in their own unique way.]]
52** During the story arc where Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard are working on a secret government project, promos for one episode showed them entering the lab and discovering the government stripped it clean of their research, then they went back to the apartment to find that stripped clean as well. While the empty lab is definitely the result of the government taking back the project, the empty apartment is actually because they went to the wrong one.
53* Creator/TheWB's ''Series/BirdsOfPrey2002'' kept employing this trope week after week to the point where it actually played a large part in causing the show's demise in the eyes of many critics, in retrospect. To elaborate, the show centered around the full-grown daughter of Franchise/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} fighting crime alongside ComicBook/BlackCanary and the former ComicBook/{{Batgirl}}, TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture...or today (the show was kinda vague about it), with guidance from [[BattleButler Alfred]], while a manipulative [[Characters/HarleyQuinnTheCharacter Harley Quinn]] hid in plain sight, and plotted to avenge ComicBook/TheJoker by getting back at the Bat-Family. Cool...except that the show kept promising "Next week...*cut to silhouetted images of Batman or a Batarang on a wall*" and promising that Batman would be returning to Gotham, with much hype and fanfare...and then every week it'd turn out that the trailer had just lied. The show employed this so much, and so shamelessly, that viewers en masse got sick and tired of being lied to every week, and the vast majority stopped watching by midseason. The ratings got so abysmal that the show was suddenly yanked off the air without warning (not that anyone was watching by that point), though The WB ''did'' air the already-filmed season finale as the GrandFinale a few months later.
54* ''Series/{{Blindspot}}'' had an episode guest-starring Creator/RondaRousey as a tough woman involved with a serious crime. Promos claimed she would prove to be Jane's ultimate match. When she and Jane finally face each other in combat, [[spoiler: the fight lasts less than a minute and that's because her partner accidentally shoots her in the leg.]]
55* ''Series/BlueBloods'': The trailer for the season 3 premiere made a valiant effort to convince us that [[TonightSomeoneDies Tonight Danny and Jackie Get Blown Up]]. [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt They didn't.]]
56* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': The Verizon [=FiOS=] info for one particular episode states that the cast is working undercover at a bar to help solve a case; additionally, ads hyped the fact that [[{{UST}} Booth and Bones would wind up in bed]]. Actually [[spoiler: the episode was AllJustADream because a comatose Booth was hearing Bones read the rough draft of her latest novel and his mind was inserting his friends as various characters, including himself and Bones as a HappilyMarried couple.]] The trailers were, in fact, just as deceptive for that episode.
57* ''Series/BreakingBad'' had an in-universe example in one episode. Jesse goes off on a rant about how frozen meals ''never'' look or taste as good as they do in the commercials or on the box, and asks "Whatever happened to truth in advertising?"
58* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
59** The episode ''[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E6BandCandy Band Candy]]'' has all the adults in Sunnydale start acting like teenagers, including Giles. The promo for this episode made it look as though Giles would become a threat to Buffy, as Giles is a FormerTeenRebel who used to summon demons for the fun of it. In the actual episode, Giles quickly realizes that Buffy would effortlessly beat him, and the scenes from the promo where Giles chases after Buffy are actually clips of them ''both'' chasing after Ethan Rayne.
60** At the end of Season 4, there was a long preview hyping the next season's premiere, saying that Buffy would face her deadliest, strongest, most legendary foe ever... {{Dracula}}. The hype blitz continued during the entire off season, with every ''Buffy'' rerun containing a promo for the Buffy vs. Dracula showdown, commercials for it even ran in unconnected commercial spots, often during primetime. In all, it was built up as Dracula obviously being the BigBad for the coming season, or perhaps even multiple seasons, so epic was the ad campaign for the upcoming meeting. When the episode finally came... it was a one-shot, essentially a gag episode, where Dracula's arrival was treated largely as a joke and Buffy doesn't actually defeat him, but essentially ''mocks'' him into laying down and playing dead. He was never heard from on the TV series again, reappearing only in comics once or twice. Hard to say whether it was just a really deceptive ad campaign or a rather mean-spirited TakeThat.
61* Australia's Network Ten does this to just about every show they have. Take for example their ads for ''Series/BurnNotice'' which always end by asking if this is the episode where Michael's plan fails, followed by footage of an unrelated car exploding from later in that episode.
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65* ''Series/{{Caprica}}'': In the midseason finale, Amanda Graystone attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge. In a trailer for the next half-season, her husband Daniel was seen angrily throwing a holographic avatar of Amanda to the couch and shouting "I want you to be real!". The obvious interpretation was that Amanda had actually died and Daniel was trying to create a ReplacementGoldfish (as had already been successfully done with his daughter Zoe and Joseph Adama's daughter Tamara), making this a case of TrailersAlwaysSpoil. Except, when the half-season aired, it turned out that [[spoiler:Amanda had survived but was estranged from Daniel, and the Amanda avatar was created to test the ReplacementGoldfish program before mainstream use]].
66* ''Series/{{Castle|2009}}'': In the previews for the episode "Nikki Heat", we see Castle hold a diamond ring in a box and ask an unseen person "Will you marry me?". In the actual episode, Castle is just giving Ryan advice on how to propose to his (Ryan's) girlfriend.
67* ''Series/ChicagoFire'' frequently gets promoted with footage of the firefighters responding to an emergency with the narrator asking if this is the call that ends the firefighter's life or career. Not only does the character normally survive, the incident rarely has any bearing on the episode's plot. One notable exception is [[spoiler: when Jimmy Borelli gets too close to an exploding car, ending his firefighting career.]]
68* ''Series/CodeBlack'' had an episode with the paramedics responding to a boating accident. One of the victims falls into the water surrounded by leaking fuel which then catches fire. The promo implies that the paramedics will pull off a daring rescue while braving the flames, but instead all they can do is watch helplessly as the victim burns to death.
69* ''Series/ColdCase'' overlaps this with TonightSomeoneDies: one episode had a plot where one of the detectives had gone missing and the others were looking for him. The trailer had a scene where they encounter a body, with one of them pulling away the sheet and reacting appropriately. [[spoiler: Of course, it wasn't their friend, but a homeless guy who had jumped off a building, and had no importance to the plot whatsoever]].
70* ''Series/ControlZ'': In the second season trailer, there is a hooded figure that is supposedly the avenger, who attacks Javier and pays a visit to Gerry. We can also see Alex gagged and tied inside a classroom, making her a victim of the avenger. Ironically, the figure turns out to be Raúl, who ''isn't'' actually the perpetrator. His attack to Javier was to make sure that Sofía was fine and the reason behind visiting Gerry was to convince him to hide from the police. At least for the time being. In addition, [[spoiler:Alex is the ''actual'' avenger as she had orchestrated her own kidnapping to avoid suspicion]]. During Rosita's birthday party, Raúl can be heard telling Sofía that there is something he wants to show her, with the scene transitioning to his house where Sofía replies "I'm surprised that you're still a hacker". However, in the episode where he actually says it, Raúl only took Sofía outside to see Javier and Natalia kissing, as she previously thought that she and Raúl were a couple, when it was actually an alibi Natalia used to hide the fact that he was hiding Gerry at his house.
71* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': CBS had a promo for the episode "All In The Family" with Danny shielding a woman from another person with a gun, then the screen cutting to black and the sound of a gunshot. In reality, [[spoiler: he managed to convince the person with the gun to not kill him or the woman he was protecting (Rikki Sandoval, mother of Reuben, the boy who was killed) and no one was shot.]] The gun sound was in fact a sound effect added in.
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75* A Brazilian cable TV trailer had a promo for ''Series/DawsonsCreek'' which had Dawson saying the words ''I love you'' to Pacey, then leaning towards him. The voice-over even joked about ''Dawson borrowing some of Jack's genes'' (all the trailers in that network were really humorous and tongue-in-cheek) It turned out that episode had Dawson and Pacey reading one of Dawson's movie scripts, and he's not leaning towards Pacey, he's just reaching for the script. Though the ''reading the script'' scene was the first one in the episode, so for half a minute you thought Dawson was really professing his love for Pacey.
76* During the 2009 opilio crab season, ''Deadliest Catch'' had an OnTheNext promo that included the captain of the ''Cornelia Marie'' calling for a Coast Guard helicopter, leading the viewer to assume an emergency. The reality? The captain was calling to ask what the ice conditions were like while preparing to leave the harbor.
77** [[spoiler: Anything involving Capt. Phil and emergencies is now HarsherInHindsight now that he's dead, although that happened while he was in port.]]
78* The trailer for Season 2 of ''Series/{{Defiance}}'' made it look like Nolan and Stahma were kissing. In truth, she just gave him a chaste peck for saving her life from a roller bomb.
79* Teen Nick mastered this trope for their ''Series/{{Degrassi|TheNextGeneration}}'' promos, ''especially'' for Season 10.
80** Fiona standing at the edge of the roof (is not a suicide attempt, she just finds it dramatic to think on the roof). Anya's pregnant (no she's not), Clare's getting a boob job (no she isn't). In the final episode of 2010, they showed Jenna looking like she was in labor at a party(she wasn't) Then they continue with this in the trailers for the 2011 premiere, as if everybody forgot what the actual situation was. The best being an ad playing on ShipTease, with the two actors ''practicing'' on the copier for the show. That couple never happened in the series, ever.
81** Another implied that Declan and Clare would hook-up (it turned out to be AllJustADream).
82* ''Design Star'' on HGTV does this. It is pretty much a guarantee that whoever looks like they are in trouble at the end of the episode is fine, and vice versa. For example, in a recent episode, the judges say, "This is not your best work" and it cuts to a dismayed-looking [[spoiler: Karl]]. In the actual episode, [[spoiler: the criticism is directed at Kellie, who ends up going home, and Karl's look is his stunned relief in having been declared "safe" for the next week]].
83* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': One preview ended by promising "a twist so shocking, we can only hint at it," followed by the first line from the chorus of Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl": "I kissed a girl, and I liked it." The obvious implication was that one of the housewives would become a lesbian, or at least question her sexuality for a while. The episode did at least follow through with ''two'' lengthy girl on girl kisses, but it was part of a minor comic relief subplot where Susan's lesbian boss mistakes her for being interested, and the misunderstanding is entirely cleared up at the end never to be brought up again.
84* ''Series/{{Detectorists}}'': By the time series two came round, it was well-established that the show was a gentle, slow-paced character comedy. So the BBC trailer was PlayedForLaughs with fast cuts, clips very obviously taken out of context to make them look more dramatic, and topped off with InAWorld-style narration.
85* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'': A trailer for one episode asked "Which one of these suspects is the ice truck killer". The "suspects" seem to have been chosen completely at random, two are very well established characters who couldn't be the killer barring some bizarre TwistEnding. Another has the notable handicap of being ''dead''. The [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil process of elimination]] would seem to point to the fourth suspect who, having been only introduced in the previous episode, seems the natural candidate anyway, but since whoever made the trailer has clearly not watched a second of the show it would probably be hopelessly naive to think so. Another one asked if this was the episode were Dexter would be found out, which only did not happen, but had absolutely nothing to do with the plot.
86* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
87** Let's just say that all the ''Doctor Who'' trailers tell us these days is the title of the episode and a few big shocks that WON'T be happening in the episode.
88*** This only applies to the UK though. On the Sci-Fi Channel, [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the trailers frequently give away huge twists]].
89** The Sci-Fi trailer for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E5EvolutionOfTheDaleks "Evolution of the Daleks"]] showed the Doctor standing below a hovering Dalek urging it to kill him [[spoiler: followed immediately by a shot of someone standing in the same place, in the same position (arms spread, looking up) being blasted by the Dalek. Of course, this wasn't the Doctor but a secondary character, though you couldn't tell because of the "glowing skeleton" effect that victims of a Dalek blast get in the new series. Anyone watching the trailer would swear the Doctor was just exterminated.]]
90** A trailer for the 2007 episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood "The Family of Blood"]] showed [[spoiler:John Smith getting married and having children. In the episode itself, this was just a Last Temptation to the life he could have if he didn't turn back into his usual self.]]
91** The ad for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]] puts a great deal of emphasis on a blonde girl backflipping through a row of lasers. The scene was actually [[spoiler:a three-second filler with no real importance to the plot (except to further showcase the amazing talents of the Doctor's offspring)]].
92*** The Australian trailer kept repeating "Father and daughter REUNITED!", even though Jenny was actually a newborn clone who took her first breaths in the episode. (May also be a misunderstanding of the fact that the Doctor's original companion was his ''granddaughter''.)
93** Let's not even get ''started'' on [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]]...
94** The BBC One trailer for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]] ends with the {{Blatant Lie|s}} of someone knocking four times just like TheProphecy said, in the actual episode however, [[spoiler:it was LampshadeHanging and the Doctor stopped the villain from knocking a fourth time.]] The trailer repeated the first knock.
95** Suffice it to say, no one was really surprised when the ads for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]] featured Wilf ominously informing the Doctor, "The Master is going to kill you!"... [[spoiler:and in the actual episode — guess what? — he didn't!]]
96** We can't even trust promo shots: almost all the photos of the Eleventh Doctor's companion Amy Pond showed her wearing a policewoman's uniform, leading many to believe that that would be her job; turns out she works as a kissogram, and the uniform was just a costume she switched into when the Doctor showed up in her house.
97** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E10VincentAndTheDoctor "Vincent and the Doctor"]]:
98*** The "Next Time" trailer for the episode ended with a coffin topped with sunflowers, implying it was Vincent's. In the actual episode, it's the coffin of a girl whose death by the MonsterOfTheWeek Vincent is blamed for, and who is never seen. It's also a reference to a lost Creator/VincentVanGogh {{painting|s}} of the same subject matter.
99*** One BBC trailer made the episode look like a ''Film/GirlWithAPearlEarring''-style romance with an artist being revitalized by a new muse.
100** The preview trailer for Series Six (played at the end of the [[Recap/DoctorWho2010CSAChristmasCarol 2010 Christmas Special]]) has two examples: a shot of three Nazis bursting into a room [[spoiler:while one episode ''did'' take place in Nazi Germany, this scene never occurs]], and a naked River Song winking at someone (presumably the Doctor). [[spoiler:Again, no sign of that anywhere in the new series.]]
101** The trailers for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E6TheAlmostPeople "The Almost People"]] suggested that [[spoiler: Ganger!Doctor]] was a villain, when in reality [[spoiler:he was generally good and helpful throughout the entire episode, even pulling a HeroicSacrifice at the end]].
102** Season 7 trailers showed a clip from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks "Asylum of the Daleks"]] with Rory surrounded by a group of blown up Dalek shells, leading him to ask "Who killed all the Daleks?" Implying this was the end of the episode. [[spoiler:It wasn't, it was only the halfway point. They were merely half-active and insane by Dalek standards.]]
103** The trailer for [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]] has the War Doctor's line "Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame." In this context, it makes the War Doctor sound villainous. In the episode proper, we learn [[HeroicSelfDeprecation he's referring to himself]] as the lesser man, and the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors as the great ones.
104** The "Next Episode" clip for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven "Death in Heaven"]] (the Series 8 finale) has Clara say "I am not Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald never existed!" implying a rather dark twist. [[spoiler:She's merely trying to stall for time against the Cybermen by claiming to be The Doctor. There very much is a Clara Oswald.]] For that matter, TrailersAlwaysLie was deliberately invoked for this and its predecessor "Dark Water", making Clara look worse than she was to hide the massive plot twists of [[spoiler: Danny Pink's death]] and [[spoiler: Missy's true identity]] until "Dark Water"'s transmission.
105** The trailer for Season 9 prominently featured the shot of Creator/MaisieWilliams removing her Knightmare mask in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E6TheWomanWhoLived "The Woman Who Lived"]], with the Doctor knowingly exclaiming "You!", and Maisie calmly responding "What took you so long, old man?" Since the trailer was shown before anyone knew ''anything'' about her character, that scene understandably gave fans the impression that she would be playing a character from the Doctor's past, fueling speculation that Romana or Susan Foreman would be returning to the show. The trailer left out the fact that "The Woman Who Lived" is ''not'' the character's introduction. The Doctor acts like he knows her because he first meets her in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E5TheGirlWhoDied "The Girl Who Died"]], the episode before "The Woman Who Lived"; for those who are curious, she is a Viking girl [[spoiler:whom he saves from the grave in a way that makes her functionally immortal, and who from there must take The Slow Path]].
106** The "Next Time" for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent "Hell Bent"]] showed what looked for all the world like [[spoiler:someone being forced to regenerate. While a regeneration ''does'' take place in the episode, it happened because the Time Lord in question was ''shot'' -- no one was force-regenerated]]. In addition, [[TrailersAlwaysLie most promotional materials focused on the first 20 minutes of the episode]] and the Doctor's [[spoiler: return to Gallifrey for the first time post-Time War]] to hide the twist that he [[spoiler: wants to save Clara Oswald's life ''after she already died'']], which drives the remainder of the story and was ''not'' what many fans expected from the story's setup.
107** The Series 10 trailer that aired after [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio "The Return of Doctor Mysterio"]] included an exchange from late in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E5Oxygen "Oxygen"]] where the Doctor, after being asked who he is, responds with a BadassBoast that he's the "man who will save all your lives, and you'll spend the rest of them wondering who I was." When the episode actually aired, it became clear that the shot had been edited [[spoiler:to make the Doctor's eyes look normal, as partway through he gets [[TemporaryBlindness blinded]] after having to go on a spacewalk without a helmet, leaving him with ProphetEyes for most of the rest of the episode]].
108** The trailers for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E7ThePyramidAtTheEndOfTheWorld "The Pyramid at the End of the World"]] made it look like [[spoiler:the imminent threat of WorldWarIII was how the Monks were going to get permission to take over the Earth. It's actually misdirection — the real threat that may bring about the end of the world is the accidental creation and release of deadly bacteria from a lab]].
109** The trailers for the next episode, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand "The Lie of the Land"]], focus on [[spoiler:Bill and Nardole having to [[StormingTheCastle storm the castle]] to find the BrainwashedAndCrazy Doctor, and Bill having to shoot him in the chest, which causes him to partially regenerate]] — all of which happens in the ''first half'' of the episode. The ''real'' climax is something different. As with "Hell Bent", TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot hit this one hard when fans realized they weren't getting what was promised!
110** One much-circulated still for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E1TheWomanWhoFellToEarth "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"]] shows the Doctor staring out at something in front of Yaz, Ryan, Graham and Grace. Trouble is, the Doctor's in her new costume, which in the episode she only chooses after [[spoiler:Grace's funeral]].
111** One they were upfront with before the episode aired: according to Creator/RussellTDavies in ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' #585, the dark and stormy sky behind Creator/NcutiGatwa in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_fZE4f4JAg the first teaser for the 2023 specials]] was invented specifically for the teaser to hide his actual location, because it would give away too much, and doesn't appear in the final scene.
112** The trailer for the next batch of specials that was attached to the end of "[[Recap/DoctorWho2022CENThePowerOfTheDoctor The Power of the Doctor]]" included shots of Creator/NcutiGatwa's Doctor standing in front of a background of cloudy skies. When the shots finally happened in "[[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle The Giggle]]" it turned out the background had been edited to hide that he was actually standing on the helicopter pad of a U.N.I.T. building.
113* ''Don't Forget the Lyrics'':
114** {{Creator/FOX}}'s promo monkeys tried to make a contestant's brief moment of discomfort much more dramatic than it actually was. [[http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3155892&view=findpost=8540647 (Source)]]
115** And also [[http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3155892&view=findpost=8854345 promoting the same show]], they managed to combine this with TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The promos said that a contestant would win more money than anyone else, and said contestant only actually ''tied'' for the biggest win.
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119* ''Series/EastEnders'' during the early 00s featured a number of intentionally misleading trailers. For example, one suggested that Saskia would kill club owner Steve; when the actual episode rolled around, the exact opposite happened. Much later, after Matthew was framed by Steve for Saskia's murder, a specially filmed trailer suggested that Matthew would get his revenge by setting up explosive death traps -- in reality, his actual revenge plan was slightly less violent.
120* There was an episode of ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' about an explosion in an office caused by a bomb that was planted four years earlier. An Australian promo made it sound as if UsefulNotes/BarackObama was involved and hinted that it may have been an attempt to assassinate him before he became President, when in fact he only played an incidental part in Franchise/SherlockHolmes' deduction of the bomb's age.
121* Promotions for the ''Series/EmeraldCity'' episode [[Recap/EmeraldCityS1E6BeautifulWickedness "Beautiful Wickedness"]] implied that Lucas would be [[DistressedDude horribly tortured]] by Eamonn or West. [[spoiler:Eamonn considers it for about two seconds and decides against it. West warns that her magic will be "painful" but abandons the use of that spell when she sees she's fighting ''Glinda's'' magic]].
122* ''Series/{{ER}}'': There is a preview for one episode where a main character seems to suffer a very serious heart attack, with ominous music and worried onlookers. In the actual episode it turns out to simply be gas.
123* ''Series/{{Eureka}}'': Sci-Fi Channel actually used expectations about never trusting a trailer to its advantage for the fourth episode of season three, and at the same time did slip in a little bit of a lie. The trailer proclaimed "One of these people won't make it through [the episode]", including flashing up a character we'd never seen before, clearly a one-shot throwaway character, using your expectation that they threw him into the preview to be technically correct when one of "these characters" didn't make it through. [[spoiler: Well, he didn't. But neither did Nathan Stark, series regular.]]
124* ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris'' did this all the time in the later seasons. They weren't even subtle. No editing, just stuff that didn't happen. One episode trailer had Drew in a school talent show, getting booed off the stage and people throwing things at him. Never happened, not even if a dream before hand about how things might go. He just showed up and rocked.
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128* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': [[ScrewedByTheNetwork As part their infamous treatment of the show]], Creator/{{FOX}} heavily promoted the show as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQQ_pI9gRIY&ab_channel=Nintendementia an action comedy]]. While there's some of this, it's still a mostly serious SpaceWestern.
129* ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'': The commercials on ABC were prone to this, with the one for "The Ecstasy of Agony" implying Iona would be the one torturing Henry against his will, and "Skinny Dipper" making a bigger deal out of Henry's watch being in the cab and implying Henry's immortality would be revealed.
130* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'': The trailer for the season 5 episode "First Date" seemed to show Niles finally confessing his love for Daphne, shocking her to the core. The trailer has him saying to her "I wanted to tell you." Turns out his "confession" was about another woman whom he wasn't even dating (when Niles predictably chickened out telling Daphne the actual truth).
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134* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
135** Trailers and promotional material for season four heavily featured King Joffrey Baratheon. Joffrey died in the second episode (out of ten). Several scenes in the trailer referring to "the king", or Cersei Lannister referring to her son, were revealed to be actually about Joffrey's younger brother and successor, Tommen.
136** The trailers for the fifth season and the episode "Hardhome" were edited to imply there would be another major battle between the Night's Watch and the Wildlings to conceal the presence of the White Walkers.
137* ''Series/{{Glee}}'' did this a lot by leaking the titles of songs that would be performed in the upcoming episodes...reading too much into the lyrics and what they may or may not indicate about your favorite couple is not advised.
138* ''Series/GilmoreGirls'':
139** A season four episode featuring Rory and Paris on Spring Break had a promo from Creator/TheWB which almost asserted that they would become a couple during a SweepsWeekLesbianKiss scene and managed to get a ''New York Post'' writer to write a hilarious and badly-researched article dissecting said promo and getting most of the sexualities of the characters all wrong. In reality the kiss was PlayedForLaughs (Paris just wanted to experience Spring Break at its most heightened absurdity, and Rory stumbled around confused after it happened).
140** The most egregious example for this show has to be the promo for season three's "The Big One" -- in the episode, Paris reveals to Rory that she [[TheirFirstTime lost her virginity to her boyfriend Jamie]] and questions Rory about her own first time. Rory reveals that she [[PurityPersonified hasn't slept with her current boyfriend]], nor her previous one, stating that "it's just not the time." The promo, however, shamelessly edited it to "It was just...time," heavily implying that she [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys sleeps with her ne'er-do-well boyfriend Jess]] in the episode.
141* A trailer for one episode of the New Zealand series ''Series/GoGirls'' has a main character being told by her boyfriend that she's fat, ugly, and that he's gay. In actuality, this was a daydream of what she was expecting him to say-- what he actually does is ask her to marry him.
142* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'': A Season 1 episode trailer made it look like Bruce finding the future Batcave would be a major plot point. In reality, that scene probably lasted less than a minute, and was at the very end of the episode.
143* ''Series/GreysAnatomy'': In the trailer for the fifth season opener, Nurse Rose told Dr. [=McDreamy=] that "I'm carrying your child." In the actual episode, [[spoiler: she immediately follows those words with an admission that she was only kidding.]]
144** And in the trailer for the seventh season finale, Meredith walks in on a cleaned-out bedroom after having a fight with Derek, during which he said he couldn't live with someone who'd [[spoiler:screwed up his Alzheimer's trial]]. In the actual episode, the room isn't even Derek's, and Meredith actually asked that character to move out earlier in the episode.
145** The trailer for a late-tenth season episode showed [[spoiler: Burke was returning, making it look like he was still in love with Cristina and wanted her to run away with him.]] In the actual episode [[spoiler: he's actually offering her to take over his job as he's retiring.]]
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149* ''Series/HellsKitchen'':
150** A trailer for one episode of Season 4 did a rather spectacular version of this. The trailer showed that one chef sliced off a portion of his thumb, the team couldn't find it, and mentioned that two professional critics were attending that night's service - with the narrator all but saying that the severed portion of finger would end up on a critic's plate. As it turned out, the finger incident happened in the first part of the show, and was already resolved by the time dinner service rolled around - there was never any risk involved.
151** The trailer for the final episode of Season 1 featured a clip of Michael yelling "Piss off!", but it was almost made to look like he was fighting with Ralph; when the episode actually aired, it was revealed that Michael was simply imitating Chef Ramsey's mannerisms, and Ralph was laughing along with it.
152** Season 5 does this a ''lot''. Near the end there's a cliffhanger that's resolved immediately the next week.
153** ''Any time'' you see an ambulance or fire engine in the "Next on". Expect it to be either A. a complete over-dramatization of something minor (with no ambulance or fire engine in the actual episode) or B. part of a challenge.
154** One episode made a big deal out of the Red Team freaking out over some blood, making it look like somebody got badly injured. In the actual episode, the blood came from a cow carcass they were carrying.
155* Late in ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys''' run the trailers practically guaranteed that a particular episode was the finale of the series. Turns out Hercules ''did'' retire...for about five seconds.
156* ''Series/HomeImprovement'' during its last few seasons was notoriously misleading with its advertisements.
157** In the season 6 premiere, Jill catches her her oldest son, Brad, in a compromising position with his girlfriend Angela. The advert for the episode shows the pair getting caught in the act and Jill asking, "What if Angela gets pregnant?", followed by a glimpse of Brad's serious expression and a ''shocked'' look from his mother (heavily implying that a TeenPregnancy plot is about to unfold). The reality? [[spoiler: Brad and Angela never actually have sex, Jill's statement about pregnancy is actually spoken to her husband (to convince him to have "the talk" with Brad), and her "shocked reaction" is in response to Brad yelling at her and storming out of the room.]]
158** In another episode from a later season, Jill hires a professional (played by Tom Wopat) to install granite countertops, only to find that he's the same man who once flirted with her at the gym and tried to ask her out. Nothing happens between them, and Jill actually ''fires'' the guy because his behavior makes her so uncomfortable. The advertisement, on the other hand, shows the two of them kissing passionately (which actually happened during a DreamSequence in a previous episode), Jill tearfully confessing "He ''kissed'' me!" (which he does -- without her consent, right before she fires him), and Tim opening the front door and coming face to face with the flirtatious handyman (who just returns to the house to get his tools, at the very end of the episode).
159* ''Series/{{House}}'' does this far too often.
160** For example, the trailer for an episode during the Tritter arc had the following exchange:
161--->'''House''': This test isn't exactly FDA-approved.
162--->'''Wilson''': You committed a crime! Do something!
163*** The reality, however, was more like this (somewhat paraphrased):
164---->'''House''': This test isn't exactly FDA-approved. [the test goes exactly as planned with no ill effects]
165---->'''House''': [much later] Hey, Wilson, Tritter is still bugging me about my drug habits, which, AsYouKnow, I did some illegal stuff to support.
166---->'''Wilson''': You committed a crime! Do something!
167---->'''House''': I don't wanna, cause I'm a JerkAss.
168** Also, the [[http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1545148137?bctid=1861222283 trailer]] for the season 5 ep. Lucky Thirteen made Thirteen's sex scene look way hotter than it was
169** Can't forget the various romances that also were teased to come to a culmination including House making out with Cameron in Season 3. [[spoiler: She turned out to only be trying to distract him long enough to stab him with a needle to get a blood test]]
170** Another part of the trailer for this episode shows House saying he has brain cancer [[spoiler: when later in the episode he reveals it was a con to get drugs implanted in his brain]]
171** The end of Season Five did this the most because all the revelatory stuff it showed such as House sexing up Cuddy [[spoiler: was solved very quickly because it was all a narcotic induced hallucination]]
172*** This trope has been so overdone for House, anytime you see House getting "some" in a trailer it would be safe to assume shenanigans.
173** The episode with the suicidal author. Turns out, he was just trying to prove that she was still suicidal to extend her psychiatric watch.
174--->'''Author''': You really think I believe you're going to help me commit suicide?\
175'''House''': I'm giving you a choice.
176** The ad for the sixth season showed Cuddy with House's voice saying that ''she had said yes, but he heard no'' which could be seen as that House had proposed to Cuddy and she had said yes. [[spoiler: Turns out that he was talking to Wilson about how Cuddy had given him permission for an insane treatment on his patient and House was having second thoughts about it]].
177* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'':
178** The original, pre-pilot trailers put a lot of emphasis on Robin, talking about how she changes everything in Ted's life, so on and so forth, making it blatantly obvious that she's the "mother" of the title. She's not.
179--->'''Future Ted:''' And that kids, is how I met...[[BaitAndSwitch your aunt Robin]].\
180'''Son:''' What!? I thought this was about how you met ''Mom!''\
181'''Future Ted:''' I ''told'' you, it's a long story!
182** Newer trailers in Germany feature only various scenes of Barney, letting it appear as if he were the main character.
183** Both American Season 7 recaps (one's for the Season 7 finale, the other's for the Season 8 premiere) are completely untrustworthy. What makes this really JustForFun/{{egregious}} is that these aren't trailers, but recaps. They're supposed to help you get caught up on the series, and they fail at doing this. They both show Robin telling Barney she might be pregnant, and if so, he's the father, but leave out the part that [[spoiler:Robin's not pregnant, and is in fact infertile.]] Both recaps also leave out important cliffhangers that viewers are already supposed to be up to speed on. The Season 7 finale recap leaves out the cliffhanger befroe the finale that [[spoiler:Lily's going into labor in NYC while Marshall is stuck in Atlantic City, stone drunk.]] The Season 8 premiere recap leaves out the finale's cliffhanger of [[spoiler:Ted running off with his old flame, Victoria, on the [[RunawayBride same day she's getting married to somebody else.]]]]
184* ''Series/HenryDanger'': In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P6wMxXASTE promo]] of "Thumb War", Captain Man and Kid Danger get trapped in a rocket that sends them to space, but in the episode, The Thumb buddies were the ones who got sent to space.
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188* ''Series/ICarly'':
189** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFTsGQFtM1U For the episode ''iStart A Fan War'']]. After months of fandom speculation that this episode would be a [[{{Shipping}} ship-centric]] episode that would involve shipping development, the first trailer appeared to confirm that not only would it involve the ships (using both popular ships by their PortmanteauCoupleName), but that it would actually end the ShipToShipCombat in regards to which became canon. This was not what happened, as the show ended with an AuthorFilibuster about how shipping was not what the WordOfGod wanted to focus on. Obviously, neither ship was even vaguely developed positively. The WordOfGod released a blog post later that made it appear to be a miscalculation by the marketing department of Nickelodeon, who either didn't realize that the episode didn't actually do anything they claimed, or something, and release the trailer like that to hype up the episode.
190** It happened again in the episode ''iGet Banned.'' In the trailer, it shows Carly spitting out a smoothie followed by T-Bo telling her she's banned from the Groovy Smoothie. This makes it look like Carly got banned for bad-mouthing his smoothies on the show. However, the scenes were played backwards, T-Bo banned Carly because she yelled at him, and she was spitting out a smoothie she tried to make herself after getting banned.
191** The trailer for "iSpace Out" promoted a special about the cast going to space, complete with graphics of Carly as an astronaut. The actual episode isn't a special, and most of it has the cast undergoing tests on Earth to see if they ''can'' do a web show in space. [[spoiler:They can't, because Carly gets "space madness" while sleeping in a simulated space station and disqualifies them from the running, meaning the trailer's promise was a lie.]]
192** The show would often advertise regular episodes like ''iSpace Out'' and ''iOMG'' as specials.
193* The commercial for the series finale of ''Series/InPlainSight'' ended with Marshall telling Mary he loved her, playing it up like they would end up officially a couple. [[spoiler:They didn't: Marshall did tell Mary he loved her, but in a way that's more akin for one's sibling or best friend than a love interest.]]
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197* During the hype blitz in the lead-up to the 2010 ''Juno Awards'' (the Canadian SpearCounterpart to the Grammys) the trailers stated that Music/{{Nickelback}} and Hedley would be giving performances. Neither of them did. Nickelback didn't even show up (though that may have been caused by the fog...), but Hedley did, even presenting an award and taking part in the finale song. However with almost all live awards shows, the {{Stock Phrase|s}} "scheduled to appear" nearly always appears in promos; this covers the network in case a fan who staked their entire being on a performer being on an awards show can't sue them or the promoters.
198* Each episode of ''Series/JudgeJudy'' opens with a {{precap}}. What's the problem with it? More often than not, there are more than one cases per episode, but the precap is entirely fixated on the first one featured. It doesn't matter if it ends before the first commercial break, or is not the most interesting case, the precap always presents the first case as if it's the only one in the episode.
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202* ''Franchise/KamenRider'':
203** The trailer for ''Series/KamenRider555'' made us believe that there world be a lead female Rider for the first time. Though the {{Transformation Trinket}}s in this series do get passed around rather freely, and occasionally end up in the hands of women, there are no recurring female Riders; in fact, the female lead trying and failing to transform is actually something of a RunningGag.
204** ''Series/KamenRiderDecade'': At the end of the last episode came a fifteen-second trailer for the GrandFinale [[TheMovie Movie]]. The trailer shows an EvilTwin of the main character, the sidekick (who closed out the series BrainwashedAndCrazy) seemingly killing TheRival by [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice punching THROUGH his gut]], the female lead trying to kill the hero with a sniper rifle, and more. In the actual film, none of this happened as depicted, though two concepts (the female lead opposing the hero and a tagalong character becoming a Rider) were merged together. Reportedly, the movie ''was'' going to be like that, but they were forced to basically abandon the entire plot and start over from scratch. The trailer scenes finally showed up in the Director's Cut...as part of a dream sequence the female lead has at the start of the movie.
205** ''Series/KamenRiderBuild'': In Episode 4, the main character finds evidence that the kindly café owner who's been helping him out is actually part of Faust, the NebulousEvilOrganisation that experimented on him and [[EasyAmnesia erased his memories]]. The preview for Episode 5 includes an audio clip of the owner seemingly admitting "I'm a member of Faust". In the actual episode, however, the owner denies the accusation, and his statement is a disbelieving "Me? A member of Faust?" before he busts up laughing. However, [[spoiler:he admits that he ''pretended'' to aid Faust in the past so he could double-cross them, stealing one of the two panels that came off of [[MacGuffin Pandora's Box]] and rescuing his daughter from them.]] [[spoiler:It's double subverted a few episodes later when we find out that the owner actually ''is'' part of Faust and lied about being a good guy. Though as the series progresses we learn that the truth is...a good deal more complex than a standard FaceHeelTurn.]]
206* Trailers for the NBC show ''Series/{{Kings}}'' ignored the heavy religious overtones and the fact that the story was based loosely on that of King David. NBC apparently was afraid that religious audiences would find fault with their retelling, and that secular viewers wouldn't want to watch a show with its basis in the Bible.
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210* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'':
211** One trailer used a shot of Olivia looking surprised with a shot of Elliot and Dani about to kiss, adding up to sexual tension at its max. In the actual episode, Olivia never saw the kiss, which was just an [[AccidentalKiss accidental quickie]] after the two had a few drinks. The trailer made more fans {{squee}} than the episode.
212** ''SVU'' does this a lot, actually, putting small shots together in trailers or just taking them out of context and making them seem far more interesting than they actually are.
213** Another particularly bad ''SVU'' example: the trailer showed identical twin boys pressed against opposite sides of a wall, as the voiceover said "How can they tell which one committed the murder... when they have ''identical DNA?!''" Not only was this not what the episode was about at all, not only was the aforementioned visual the last shot of the episode, ''not only'' was it that this spoiled the major twist of the episode (that the murder suspect's sister had been [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory born a boy and raised as a girl after a botched circumcision]]), but it also spoiled the additional twist at the end of the episode (when the two collaborate to kill the doctor responsible). In fact, the question that the voiceover dramatically asks in the trailer is never even answered in the episode, and it's strongly suggested they'll go free.
214** Yet another notorious example was a trailer for an episode where Stabler went undercover and got shot by smugglers he was investigating. The trailer made it look as if Stabler was at death's door, with a shot of Benson pleading for him to survive. Not only did Stabler survive the shot in the actual episode, but he was out of the hospital and even helped nab the bad guys one commercial break later.
215** In one trailer the main focus was on the fact that Olivia was going to take a pregnancy test. That, along with the writers on twitter teasing the fan base, lead to the intense fan speculation that she was pregnant. Of course in the end the pregnancy test was negative and took up about 20 seconds of screen time. However; a shot in the promo showed Olivia holding a baby and smiling which fans for the most part ignored. That baby turned out to be her future adopted son and fans realized they had seen the beginning of the biggest personal arc in the characters history in a trailer that they had ignored at the time.
216** The trailer for a Season 17 episode made it seem like the episode was going to be about Benson's son Noah going missing. In the actual episode, he briefly wanders off on a playground and is found before the end of the teaser; the bulk of the episode centers around a case involving a missing, and later murdered, teenager that wasn't even hinted at in the trailer.[[note]]The series would use this premise for real two seasons later.[[/note]]
217** Another trailer showed a shadow of someone pointing a gun at Olivia as she was sleeping. It turned out to be her ward Calvin Arliss playing with a water pistol.
218** One trailer had Cragen tell Olivia that she was "Dismissed", making many people think that she was going to get fired. Instead, while Cragen was pretty pissed at her, he was basically saying "Get out of my sight"
219** The Australian network who show this (Network Ten) basically make ''all'' their SVU trailers into one of these two versions:
220*** Elliot does something to a perp that he shouldn't out of anger and it could cost him his career.
221*** Benson gets too emotionally involved in a case, does something she shouldn't, jeopardises the case and it could cost her badge.
222** One of the USA Network’s standard promo for the show has what appears to be Elliot casually asking Fin what his favorite form of torture is while the two are relaxing and playing cards. However this scene never appeared on the show. The clip of the card game is from the episode Class while the torture question was from Uncle and asked to a suspect Elliot was trying to get to confess.
223* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow''
224** The first tease trailer seems to be just a "proof of concept" thing due to several things not making into the show proper:
225*** Oliver gets a whole new costume while Barry has his logo modified. The trailer shows them wearing their previous outfits.
226*** It shows Oliver and Barry assembling the team, while the series opens with Rip Hunter as the moving force. Oliver appears for two scenes in the pilot, while Barry doesn't appear at all.
227*** Notably nearly everything about Sara Lance/White Canary made it into the show:
228*** It suggests that she has no idea that Ray is a SizeShifter. She was actually part of Team Arrow's rescue mission when Ray was captured by Damien Dahrk because he couldn't grow back to his normal size.
229*** It also shows her costume including a normal-length white jacket. It's a BadassLongcoat in the show proper, which she doesn't even wear until the sixth episode.
230*** In it, she was shown being NakedOnRevival and alone, doing a dramatic SexySurfacingShot out of the Lazarus Pit. During her actual resurrection, a ceremony was first held by the League of Assassins, with its members, her sister and Thea in attendance. She was wearing her old costume sans jacket, wig and DominoMask when that happened.
231** A later trailer for the show also featured Rip assembling the team, but it's an entirely different scene than the one used on the show and we never see how he got them in the same place to begin with.
232** The promo for "[[Recap/LegendsOfTomorrowS3E17GuestStarringJohnNoble Guest Starring John Noble]]" made it seem like the "Grodd attacking Obama" angle would last a majority of the episode, when in reality it is resolved almost as quickly as it was introduced, with Obama appearing in two more scenes following.
233* The trailer for ''Series/LifeOnMars2008'' is shot like a ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'' parody. Seriously, watch it. This seems entirely in keeping with the UK version.
234* ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
235** A preview for the episode "Stranger in a Strange Land" promised that three huge questions would be answered in it. These turned out to be the meaning of Jack's tattoos, what happened to the children the Others kidnapped, and what happened to Cindy the flight attendant. Those last two have the same answer so many viewers argued they shouldn't count as separate questions, and it's not like many people were chomping at the bit about the first one either. The producers immediately said they never intended the episode to be one that was full of reveals like that, and blamed the network for unduly raising the viewers' hopes when it became one of the show's most unpopular episodes.
236** A preview for the episode "Outlaws" made it look like Sawyer was pointing a gun at Jack. The clips of Sawyer pointing the gun and the clips of Jack looking scared were actually taken from two entirely different scenes. Sawyer spent the entire episode hunting a freakin' boar.
237** Season six has done this. The trailers for the first five or six episodes mixed footage from all of them together, in a attempt to make a fairly slow moving and talky arc seem more exciting. Jack destroying the mirrors in the lighthouse was in pretty much every trailer despite not happening until episode five. The ad for "The Last Recruit" showed [[spoiler:Sayid]] aiming a gun at [[spoiler:Desmond]] and firing; in the episode, he doesn't fire it and [[spoiler:Desmond]]'s fate is left ambigious.
238** Trailers for "Dr. Linus" made it look like Ben was [[TonightSomeoneDies going to die]] in it. Ben [[spoiler: not only survives, but makes it to the final episode alive.]]
239* The UK advertisement for the final episode of ''Series/LostGirl'' actually showed a clip from "Death Doesn't Become Him", an episode from Series 2 (of 5).. and in that clip, the main character is possessed.
240* ''Series/{{Lucifer}}'': The Season Six trailer implied that the main plot would be about a mysterious new angel who's set herself up as the new ruler of Hell and is attempting to kill Lucifer for unknown reasons. She turns out to be Lucifer and Chloe's KidFromTheFuture who doesn't actually want to kill Lucifer, she's just angry with him for disappearing before she was born. The real plot is Lucifer trying to bond with her and avoid becoming an absentee father (the thing that he hates more than anything else).
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244* ''Series/MadMen'':
245** The main character Don Draper [[DeadPersonImpersonation changed identities with a dead guy during the Korean War]] and has been hiding it ever since. A promo for the season two episode "A Night to Remember" had Joan Holloway announcing, "Someone people think is dead is not dead," in a context intended to make it look like she was going to find out his secret and out him (or threaten to, or something). In fact, she'd spent the episode reading TV scripts for work and was talking about an upcoming storyline on a soap opera.
246** Series creator Matthew Weiner is notoriously closemouthed about upcoming episodes, and accordingly, the previews these days have become so impenetrably cryptic they ''have'' to be [[TheWalrusWasPaul somewhat tongue-in-cheek]], featuring very short, disconnected and completely unrevealing clips like people hanging up phones, putting on their coats and uttering only the most generic lines: ''"Get the door." "Where are you calling from?" "I'm sure you'll figure something out."'' The Internet has produced many parodies.
247* ''Series/MadamSecretary'': The trailer for "The French Revolution" makes it look like the scene is very emotional when the FBI ask Liz and Henry, "You want us to just let him go?", implying that [[spoiler:their stalker]] is someone close to them. In reality, [[spoiler:this is a matter-of-fact scene where they are discussing letting a patsy of their actual stalker go so that they can use him. And their actual stalker turns out not to have any connection to them, either]].
248* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'''s Season 3 Trailer made it look like the films were being used to reform Nazi America by combining the dystopian parts with the best parts from worlds similar to ours. Nope; that Nazi Peace flag was just the Lebensborn gearing up for mass-assassination. And the Nazis aren't sending scouts into other worlds, they're ''failing'' to use test subjects in the prototype. Horribly. And most of the resistance doesn't even want to think about these worlds that are far better off, let alone believe they exist.
249* The commercials for the American ''Series/MasterChef'' only featured Gordon Ramsey as the judge. They completely failed to mention that there's two other judges involved in this.
250* The first episode of ''Series/MedicalInvestigation'' had the team investigating a series of patients whose skin has turned blue. The promo shows Dr. Connor asking "What do these people have in common?" with Miles replying "They're blue." When Dr. Connor asks this question in the scene, no one has an immediate answer. Meanwhile, Miles is called away to examine a baby who's come down with an ailment himself. Coincidentally, the whites of his eyes have also turned blue which is what Miles was referring to in his line.
251* ''Series/{{Medium}}'':
252** The Season 5 finale was billed as the main character's "last vision". Which it was...on NBC. The show took a ChannelHop to CBS that fall.
253** Promos for the first season finale showed Joe becoming panicked when he loses one of his daughters in a store. This turns out to be a dream...of Joe's oddly enough.
254** Summaries of the series finale claimed that Allison and Joe would become increasingly pulled apart by the responsibilities of their new jobs. In reality, they're separated when [[spoiler: Joe dies in a plane crash]].
255* Trailers for the NBC ''Merlin'' miniseries implied there was going to be a big huge battle between the title character and [[TheFairFolk Queen Mab]]. In reality, while there was some shrieking, a few fireballs thrown, and other cool magical effects, the whole thing actually ended with [[spoiler:[[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve everyone just turning their backs on her and forgetting her]], [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly refusing to believe in her]]]]. A very effective and creative way to defeat a villain, but it was probably rather disappointing for those who wanted to see Mab turned into a crispy critter.
256* BBC's ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' show wasn't much better.
257** One trailer had Merlin dramatically reveal to the court that he was a wizard. In the actual episode, no one believed him and the scene had no impact on the plot.
258** The trailer for another episode made it look very, very much like Arthur was going to find out about Merlin's magic. And just before the episode started, the announcer said 'it had to happen eventually!'. Everyone got very excited about this. Turns out what Arthur saw was just ambiguous enough for him to believe Merlin hadn't done anything.
259* ''Series/{{Monk}}'' did this for a trailer for the seventh season finale. Narrator: "You'll never believe what he finds [at the site of his wife's murder]..." What did he find? [[spoiler: Nothing. In fact, the episode was about him admitting that there wasn't anything to find.]] Though to be fair, no one believed it.
260* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'': Most trailers will always show footage from the flashback scenes, giving you the impression the show is just about an idiot doing stupid things. This isn't really deceptive, the show got a lot of mileage out of pretending it didn't approve of Earl being a colossal jackass for RuleOfFunny because he could fix it in the non-flashback part of the episode.
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264* One ''Series/NashBridges'' episode was promoted with a shot of Nash's 'Cuda exploding followed with a shot of him saying "Now you have my attention." tensely. In actually, the car that gets blown up is a kit car replica bought by recurring villain Tamera Van Zandt and Nash's response is a series of "Dammit"s. (Although fans of the series know his response to his car getting destroyed would be closer to the latter than the former.)
265* The trailers for the 1990's Swedish miniseries ''Nattens barn'' made it seem like a vampire/supernatural story (by incorporating footage from the protagonist's fantasy sequences and dreams), while it was in fact a perfectly realistic series about a PseudoRomanticFriendship between two {{Goth}}s.
266* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'':
267** The preview for the season six finale made it look like Ziva was going to kill Tony on her father's orders.
268** "Under Covers", which has a giveaway title as it is, was played out as being an actual hookup between Tony and Ziva. It's really too bad that the big reveal was five minutes in, and that it was a repeat.
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272* NBC at one point promoted an episode of ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' as a HalloweenEpisode, with scenes of Dunder Mifflin in the spirit of the season. Turns out that any Halloween-related material was relegated to the ColdOpen in the first few minutes of the show; it was a regular episode all along.
273* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
274** The promo for ''Last Rites'' made it look like Zelena was about to dump several episodes worth of character development and become a villain again. She does This is actually the episode that cements her having a HeelFaceTurn.
275** The Season 5 finale trailer wold have you believe the episode is all about Regina coming to terms with [[spoiler: Robin's death]] and potentially becoming evil again. This sub plot has about five minutes screen time in the two part finale.
276** The trailer for "Awake" implies the episode is about the Charmings going back in time to raise Emma themselves so she never becomes the Saviour. There is a plot about Snow and Charming trying to get to a child Emma to raise her but it is a standard flashback.
277* ''Series/OneTreeHill'' had a promo that outright stated that Peyton was going to once again have feelings for Nathan. Cue the episode where Nathan and Peyton become partners on a project and spend the rest of the episode having fun with no mention of romance at all.
278* ''Series/{{OZ}}'': The fourth season went on hiatus following the stunning death of Simon Adebisi at the hands of the formerly pacifistic Kareem Said. When the show returned, one of the promos featured Said shouting "Adebisi lives!" In the actual episode the line didn't signify that Adebisi was actually alive; Said said it after killing someone else as a statement that his years in prison had turned him into a violent murderer just like Adebisi. It was still a powerful scene, but the previews had viewers feeling ripped off anyway.
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282* The ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' episode "The Crossing" had a promo that was not necessarily untruthful, just misleading. The promos fully divulged the fact that one of their police contacts would be killed. The promo wasn't wrong, [[spoiler: it just implied that the victim would be Fusco when instead it was Carter.]]
283* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
284** In the lead-up to the ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' 3-parter "The Wedding," in which Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa get married, Fox did a promo of the "Someone's getting married...who could it be?" variety, and seemed to suggest that it might be one of the Rangers, perhaps Billy, or even [[OfficialCouple Tommy and Kimberly!]] Never mind the fact that they're all supposed to be [[{{Squick}} teenagers]]...
285** In May 1995, the actors who play the Rangers out of character did a few rather ambiguous promos for a Creator/FoxKids special entitled ''Talkin' It Out''. From the way [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-CiRa5VUU the]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MjEUOQ4rns promos]] were put together, they seemed to suggest that the special was about the cast pushing the difference between reality and TV-programming fantasy for a good 30 minutes[[note]]the special ran commercial-free, even preempting an episode of ''Carmen Sandiego''[[/note]]. When it aired, however, it turned out that the Rangers were barely even in it, only appearing during a short introduction to briefly discuss what we were about to see, and suggest to younger viewers that they watch with their parents. The remaining 29 minutes involved [[Series/AmericasMostWanted John Walsh]] interviewing children about the then-recent Oklahoma City bombing and how it affected them.
286** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eyiXThY3Y trailer]] for ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' that was featured in the VHS tape for ''Anime/DigimonTheMovie'' seemed to be made for a very different show entirely.
287*** Most of the footage shown is from ''Series/MiraiSentaiTimeranger'', the Sentai series ''Time Force'' was based on, with no mention or scene of Ransik who was the actual BigBad of ''Time Force''.
288*** The trailer states that "five special Rangers" are sent back in time to capture an escaped criminal mastermind. In the show, the original Red Ranger Alex is [[spoiler: supposedly]] killed in action and the other four Rangers - who were ''fired'' for failing to stop Ransik's escape in the first place - steal the [[TransformationTrinket morphers]] and hijack a ship to travel to the past after Ransik. It is in the past where they meet an ancestor of Alex and recruit him as their new Red Ranger.
289*** The trailer's claim that the Rangers' time machine had never been tested would be contradicted by the three episode arc revolving around the [[SixthRanger Quantum Ranger]] which revealed that Time Force (the organization) had been experimenting with time travel long before.
290*** Speaking of the Quantum Ranger, the trailer suggests his identity will be an ongoing mystery in the show. It wasn't. The Quantum Ranger debuts an episode before he gets his powers and his identity is only a mystery for about five seconds to four of the Time Force Rangers who didn't see him morph for the first time.
291*** The trailer implies the Rangers will be hopping from one era to another in pursuit of bad guys. The actual show had about seven episodes out of forty were time travel occurred.
292** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nElpSINfVog This]] trailer for the ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai: Clash of the Red Rangers'' DVD refers to [[Series/PowerRangersRPM the Red RPM Ranger]] as a new Ranger. In fact, he's SoLastSeason. Though with ''RPM'' being ScrewedByTheNetwork and a ChannelHop between the seasons, he likely ''was'' new to most of the viewers.
293* ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'': ABC Family's trailer of the season finale switched out which characters were in a car accident.
294* The ''Series/{{Psych}}'' episode "Lights, Camera, Homocito" had Shawn going undercover on a telenovela. Promos implied that Shawn was in over his head in the acting department or not understanding Spanish by having his co-star rattle off a line in Spanish and Shawn replying "Que?" In actuality, Shawn does pretty well as an actor and understands Spanish perfectly. The "Que" was in the telenovela's script.
295* The SDCC 2017 ad for ''Series/TheDefenders2017'' and ''Series/ThePunisher2017'' had a scene of Frank Castle with his signature skull saying "looks like I got here just in time." But the footage [[spoiler:from Frank's attack on Billy Russo's men at David's lair from episode 11]], and the line itself actually appears much earlier, and in a much funnier context, as [[spoiler:a quip Frank makes upon interrupting Colonel Bennett in the midst of BDSM]].
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299* During the middle of ''Series/RedDwarf'''s run they had an intro sequence that made it look more like some kind of high-adventure show than an irreverent comedy with a sci-fi backdrop.
300* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'':
301** The trailer for the sixth episode, "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E6SexAndDrugs Sex and Drugs]]", suggested that the price to heal Nora's infection was Charlie's freedom, and Drexler would make her a sex slave--at least for one night. That was only the editing, though. While he was clearly attracted to her, [[spoiler:when he said, "I want her," he did want her - to kill his neighbor who's been torching his opium poppy garden.]]
302** "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E9Kashmir Kashmir]]". [[spoiler:Monroe's meeting with Miles exists only in Miles's mind.]]
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306* The trailers of the Columbia Tristar Home Video reprints of the obscure direct-to-video series ''Secret Adventures'' has hidden the fact that [[spoiler: it is a Christian series]].
307* The trailers for ''Series/SecretGirlfriend'' implied that the show would primarily be about two pervy slacker guys trying to get women to perform activities of a sexual or suggestive nature, completely ignoring the fact that the ''viewer'' is experiencing the ''actual'' protagonist's experiences (kind of like ''Film/BeingJohnMalkovich'') and is about the nameless protagonist's attempts to deal with a psycho near-ex-girlfriend who won't stay broken up, a cute girl he likes but wants to protect from the first woman, and the zany antics of his two best friends (the aforementioned slackers).
308* Previews for ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' are usually either uninformative or edit the footage together in a very misleading way. For example, there were numerous previews hinting that Amy and Ricky had feelings for each other or that they were going to get together long before [[spoiler: they finally became a couple in season three]].
309* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' had the infamous official Korean trailers that make it appear Sherlock and John's relationship is the focus of the series. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFR_Z30d5nQ Any]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN4xBm44KH0 of]] them.
310* Promos for the 1975 ABC game show ''Showoffs'', which had clips taken from the pilot episode taped in May 1975, had to be severely edited because its intended host – Larry Blyden, a popular game show panelist of the early 1970s and who had just finished a stint as moderator of ''Series/WhatsMyLine'' – was killed in a car accident while vacationing in Morocco. The intended promos featured Blyden on-camera congratulating a winning contestant. Bobby Van – a stage veteran and popular Goodson-Todman game show panelist – was quickly hired as host, and the hastily edited promos included his name.
311* NBC's promos for the mini-series ''The '60s'' made it seem like Jeremy Sisto gets Julia Stiles pregnant when in actuality their two characters don't even know each other. Sisto actually plays one of Jordana Brewster's love interests.
312* ''Series/SleepyHollow'': Fox's trailers prior to the premiere strongly suggested that this would be a dark, brooding, action-packed supernatural horror series, through the use of dark camera shots and pounding background music. Now that the pilot has aired, it's clear that the "action-packed supernatural horror" part is entirely correct--but the trailers entirely failed to show that it's also ''funny''. The FishOutOfTemporalWater plotline is frequently played for laughs, there are plenty of witty one-liners in the dialogue, and the general tone of the show is more ''{{Series/Grimm}}'' than it is grim.
313* ''Series/TheSopranos'' tended to do this a lot, with the trailers playing up the mob violence that was rarely the center of the upcoming episode.
314** The trailer for the final episode on A&E promised "You won't believe how it ends!" In case you were one of the people who missed the controversy at the time, [[spoiler:[[NoEnding it didn't.]] The show just cut to black, leading many people to call their cable company and complain.]]
315* ''Series/SoYouThinkYouCanDance'':
316** One episode was promoted by {{Creator/FOX}} with a clip of Nigel Lythgoe shouting "Get off the stage!", suggesting that he was so angry at a contestant's performance he wanted them to leave. As shown in the actual episode, however, he was shouting out of enjoyment, and telling them to get off the stage because they'd made it to the next round.
317** One of the later episodes of the Australian version's first season was promoted with the audience booing and leaving the set, with the voiceover saying that someone would perform so badly that the audience would walk out. What actually happened was that the judges asked the audience to leave for a short amount of time (I can't remember why, I think it had something to do with the voting).
318* For several weeks there, the trailers for ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' alluded to replicator involvement. "Or is it a Replicator trap?" "Is he really back from the dead, or is it another Replicator?" Needless to say, Replicators weren't even mentioned in those episodes.
319* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
320** A preview for one episode revolving around the team being trapped in an unpleasant version of a LotusEaterMachine, with the trailer using Carter's line "How do we know this is real?" as if it were a serious question and dramatic concern. In the actual episode, this is just the set-up for a final joke to cap off what's otherwise a particularly dark episode.
321** In one episode, it was hyped up that a team member would end up dying and a clip of O'Neill falling to the ground wounded in battle was shown (it ended up being the doctor who died). To be fair, the episode itself actually implied that up until the last five minutes or so. So it wasn't just the creators of the ad, but the writers as well who intended the audience to be misled.
322** An episode was set up with Carter finding herself alone on a ship with only illusions to help her. The trailer made it look like she and O'Neill would end up kissing, but in the actual episode it was only a fantasy of hers that passed through her mind for a second- two at the most.
323* ''Series/StargateUniverse'' follows the trend for one episode. Footage of the crew running down the hallway is accompanied by the usual urgent voice overs, as if they're running to avert some disaster. In the actual episode, it turns out it's just the crew working out during the opening montage.
324* ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' implied in pre-release publicity the USS ''Enterprise'' had crash landed on an alien world, but it [[Recap/StarTrekStrangeNewWorldsS1E09AllThoseWhoWander turned out to be a sister ship]] to the ''Enterprise'' that had crashed.
325* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' examples:
326** For ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'''s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXpO25EIErw first trailer]] the announcer mispronounced almost EVERY SINGLE NAME of the characters [[note]](only getting Janeway, Paris, Kim, and Neelix right)[[/note]]. And considering that one of the characters is named "[[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Doctor]]", this is especially bad. The announcer also mispronounces words ending with "er" as ending with "a", such as "fighter" as "fighta" and "voyager" as "voyaga". [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And they also called Harry Kim the communications officer,]] [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer when he's actually the Chief of Operations]]. Notably, at least two episodes had been filmed at that point, as the trailer had shown clips from the two-part pilot, so it wasn't an issue of the characters' names not being known at the time. The actors had already said who they were.
327** One later trailer was particularly bad in this respect, being designed around the line "He violated me" in such a way as to make it sound very much as though Seven was going to be raped by a crew member; the trailer even featured a "Who did it?" sequence with flashes of various male crew members' faces. The actual episode, however, was just about an alien culture trapping her in a laboratory for study and stealing some of her nanoprobes. The plot ''does'' play at DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything, with Borg nanoprobes replacing date rape, but it was still incredibly misleading.
328** Special shout-out to the trailer for "Virtuoso." Not only does it have zero footage from the episode it is advertising, but it has Chakotay essentially ordering the audience to enjoy themselves.
329** "Resistance" had a trailer implying that Captain Janeway would dress slutty and even sell her body to protect the ship. [[spoiler: in the episode it's a 30-second scene that's basically a DistractedByTheSexy moment.]] Even Kate Mulgrew and some of the crew called them out on it.
330** In regards to ''Voyager'', a website designed to nitpick the show refers to this phenomenon as PAL, for Previews Always Lie. [[http://www.nitcentral.com/members/glossary.htm#pal See here.]]
331** In a comparatively minor case, SPIKE's trademark preview for ''Voyager'' makes it out to be an action-packed, phasers-firing thrill ride. "Network for Men" and all that.
332*** ''Voyager'''s action quotient is such that it's not entirely unwarranted. Now, when they tried to do the same with ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''...
333** A trailer for some season 7 ''Voyager'' episode during its run that featured Kim saying "Ambassador Spock" in a shocked voice, leading me and many in the audience to tune in in hopes that everyone's favorite Vulcan would show up. As it turns out, Spock was mentioned briefly in one conversation and that 'shocked take' wasn't even in the episode.
334** Another trailer similarly name-dropped Captain Picard; the interview review The Cynic pithily remarked "dropping Picard's name will not get them Picard's ratings."
335** There's also the trailer for "Survival Instinct" which showed brief flashes of Borg-related stuff and culminated in Seven of Nine declaring "I will...return...to the Borg." In reality, two words were omitted from the line she actually said, which (omitted words emphasized) was, "I will '''not''' return '''them''' to the Borg." "Them" referred to three other ex-Borg whose still partially-Borgified brains suffered a major malfunction, and the only way for them to survive longer than a month was to let them be re-assimilated.
336** The trailer for "Tsunkatse" plays up a fight between Seven of Nine ("Voyager's Battle Babe") and an alien played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. In the episode, that was treated as more-or-less a warm-up for the real climactic fight (which didn't involve a professional wrestler).
337** At least twice, a promo has used the voiced-over line "Has ''Voyager'' entered a parallel universe?" while showing the crew dealing with weird alternate versions of themselves. In one instance, they were actually dealing with scam artists posing as them, while another time the weird alternate versions were characters in a holo-novel.
338** The trailer for one ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode showed the Enterprise being destroyed... or so we thought. Turns out it's a ship of the same class, called the ''Odyssey'' (Justified, maybe, in that WordOfGod says that the point of it happening in the episode was to tell the viewers "This might very well happen to the ''Enterprise''" and to make them think of the familiar ship in that situation).
339** A trailer for Deep Space 9 on the CBS Reality channel showed how to do it when you've no idea which show you're talking about. It went on strangely in poetic terms, including the line "When the universe sleeps...Enterprise wakes (and basically saves us all)." Huh?
340** The trailer for the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Cogenitor", about an alien species with 3 genders, made it look like a comedic sex romp by focusing solely on the brief comic relief moments in the episode, such as Phlox offering to show Trip photos of tri-gendered sex and Malcolm awkwardly flirting with an alien. In actuality, it's one of the darkest episodes in ''Trek'' history, raising complex questions about human rights and moral relativism, capped off with a deeply tragic ending.
341** The trailer for "Bounty" is based around the line "T'Pol's in heat, and she needs relief" while showing her behaving in a blatantly sexual manner. T'Pol does go through the ''Pon Farr'' in this episode (thanks to an alien pathogen), but that's the B-plot; the A-plot, and the reason the episode is called "Bounty," is Archer being captured by a Tellarite bounty hunter. (The Klingons put a price on Archer's head after he escaped from their gulag Rura Penthe several episodes earler.)
342** For "Similitude," the trailer shows what looks like Trip's dead body in a casket; the voice-over then says something about what Trip left behind, along with clips of what looks like Trip snogging T'Pol, followed by her holding a baby. Turns out those clips all feature Trip's clone, Sim, who does ''not'' have sex or a baby with T'Pol. The clips in question are also shown out-of-order. The real Trip has very little screen time. And no sex, either.
343** UK TV channel Virgin 1 marketed ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' on the basis of the handful of relatively sexy moments that make up the 4 seasons. While it might have featured more blatant sexual situations than the previous ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series, the show was still pretty tame by most modern standards.
344** Even after a decade off TV, some things never change! ''Series/StarTrekPicard'''s second season premiere ends with a preview of the upcoming season, and in it, Q seems to say "We're never too old for second chances." You'll wait in vain to hear this later, because the line is stitched together from two totally different ones! [[note]]He'd already said "second chances" in episode 1; the rest is from the episode 2 line "We're never too old to be students of our own behavior, Jean-Luc."[[/note]]
345* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' had a trailer which makes it look like Dean set Jessica on fire.
346** And let's not forget the one that makes it look like the Crossroads Demon seduces Dean. And the episode summary even said that.
347** Previews for season nine made it looked like [[spoiler: Bobby, who had died back in the seventh season, had mysteriously been resurrected and was aiding the boys again.]] As it turns out though, this wasn't the case: [[spoiler: "Bobby" was actually just a figment of a dying Sam's imagination and represented the part of him that felt it was his time to go.]]
348* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' does this religiously, especially in ''Samoa''.
349** They tried to edit it so that people were thinking about eliminating Russell..except for some incredibly odd reason, seeing the episode brought out ''no'' talks about actually ''doing'' it.
350** One of the early seasons of ''Survivor'' featured an episode trailer that vaguely described some kind of horrific accident occurring, while flashing footage of ''crocodiles''. An accident did actually occur (a contestant passed out due to smoke inhalation, was burned by their campfire, and had to be evacuated), but involved no attack by a wild animal of any kind.
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354* ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' had a few notorious trailers that were aimed at the sleaziest element of Creator/SummerGlau's fanboy fanbase, using a few uncharacteristic and decontextualised shots to suggest that the show would be non-stop fanservice by her.
355* ''Series/That70sShow'': A commercial for one episode featured a scene where Donna told Eric [[WhamLine she had to leave him.]] It turns out [[spoiler: this scene was part of a dream sequence. Perhaps the show's only dream sequence played like a normal scene. Although they didn't get married, they remained a couple until Creator/TopherGrace left.]]
356* ''Series/TopGear'' plays with this, especially since season 3. Their previews are not only useless, but also mislead on what the episodes actually mean.
357--> ...Hammond falls on a valley...
358** Top Gear Season 16 had a preview which went, "Tonight! I wear a hat! Richard wears a hat! And James! Wears a hat!". And true to their word, they all did!
359* The reality series ''Series/TotalDivas'':
360** One scene that appeared in almost all of their commercials for season 2, a scene of Wrestling/SummerRae slapping Wrestling/NatalyaNeidhart across the face. The commercial made it appear as though Summer slapped Nattie because Nattie said Summer dresses like a stripper. In the actual episode, the slap occurs after Nattie insults Summer for being [[OldMaid 30 and still single]].
361** Previews for Season 3 featured a conversation between Mark Carrano and Ariane, with him saying "you won't be a Diva anymore" - implying she's at risk of being fired. In the episode where it happens, the conversation is about what might happen if Ariane goes back to NXT to train (and hypothetically losing her spot on TV).
362* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' has an odd case, a sales pitch to the sponsors of the series, where Creator/RodSerling outlines a few episodes from the first series. When talking about ''Escape Clause'' it splices in footage of a car being hit by a train, planes crashing and he talks about homicides. The actual episode has none of these things.
363* ''Series/TwentyFour'' does this cleverly in the trailer for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb9vOMJXXVU the 13th hour of Day 7.]] Scenes show the President being taken hostage, Jack fighting off a task force that's invaded the White House, a character [[spoiler: (Bill)]] being caught in an explosion, and the results of said explosion leaving Jack falling to the ground and choking up. That's not the lie part: all that stuff happens. What sets this apart is it all occurs ''in the first ten minutes'', rather than the entire episode as the trailer implies. Most of the episode is spent on Jack following a lead on who was collaborating with the White House attackers.
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366[[folder:U]]
367* The main ad for ''Underground [=BBQ=] Challenge'' on Food Network Brazil made it seem like the show was entirely about the rivalry between the neighbors from the Austin, Texas episode, showing very little of host G. Garvin.
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369
370[[folder:V]]
371* ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'': One season 4 episode was advertised as being the return of much-loved character Katherine. She only appeared as a hallucination. Though this ended up having its own payoff when [[spoiler:Katherine appeared for real later in the season, with nothing in the previews to suggest it would happen.]]
372* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': The Australian promos described the show as "What would you do if your best friend was murdered, and YOU were accused of being the murderer, and the whole school hated you?", which is inaccurate. Veronica was never a suspect for Lilly's death.
373* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' did this multiple times during its run.
374** One year, Nickelodeon aired promos for "Crush Week" starring Music/JustinBieber and the ''Victorious'' girls. One of the new episodes to premiere that week was "The Wood". The promos hinted the possibility of Tori and Beck becoming "more than friends" (read: a couple), showing a scene of her calling Beck on her phone, expressing love and offering to tickle his tummy. Almost immediately, fans of the Beck and Jade pairing that is currently present on the show raged and bashed the thought of said idea. Then, when the episode aired, it had next to nothing to do with love or pairings. It was a fusion of two clips-one with Tori calling her aunt about their puppy, another with Beck ordering a pizza. This made Jade think Tori was hitting on Beck, causing them to [[HilarityEnsues ensue hilarity]]. Thus, the Beck/Jade shippers got worked up for nothing. Although at least that was what actually happened in the episode itself, with a reality show cutting those two conversations together in-universe, it wasn't created by the promo department.
375** The promos for "Jade Gets Crushed" make it seem like the premise of the episode is Jade going on a rampage. Really, she's significantly nicer in the episode than usual.
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377
378[[folder:W]]
379* ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'':
380** In the season 2 trailer, aside from having scenes that [[MissingTrailerScene never appeared in any episode]], it implies that Rick and Shane have a serious falling out while engaging a horde of walkers. They do, but not until much later in the season and in a completely different context and setting (the situation with Randall). The scene in the trailer is from a deleted sequence where they go to the Vatos retirement home and see that everyone's died and become a walker.
381*** The S2 trailer implies that Shane and Andrea, and possibly Dale and T-Dog, separate from the group and go off on their own. This is discussed but never acted upon in the premiere, and it becomes a moot point because everyone moves to Hershel's farm.
382** The season 3 trailer has a shot of Rick and The Governor seemingly walking towards each other at the front gate of the prison, and Rick saying, "We took it... this is ours. We spilled blood for it." The shots of the characters are from two different episodes (The Governor walking towards the National Guard convoy in "Walk With Me" and Rick speaking with Oscar and Axel in "Killer Within"). The two characters never actually meet until very late in the season.
383** The season 4 trailer:
384*** An early shot has Bob Stookey standing outside the Big Spot, then hearing screams from inside and going in. It's not the case in the final episode - he's simply standing outside and walks in when he knows the coast is clear. There's a walker attack, but it's actually caused by ''him'' when he tries to take a bottle of alcohol.
385*** The trailer implies that the attack on the cellblock was caused by a saboteur, while in the episodes themselves, the group figures out that it's been caused by a virus almost immediately afterwards. A later scene has Glenn seemingly telling Maggie that they should abandon the rest of the group and go off on their own, but it's actually a scene where he's telling her to stay at the prison while he and the others go on a supply run in the premiere.
386** The season 5 trailer makes it look like Rick's group is reluctantly joining forces with the Terminus group to get to Washington, using footage of Bob pleading with them and dialogue from Rick seemingly threatening Gareth and saying he doesn't trust him. In the show, Bob is ignored, and Rick's dialogue is actually referring to Father Gabriel Stokes, an unrelated character. Neither group ever seriously considers the possibility of a team up, and [[spoiler: the Termites are massacred in the premiere, with the few survivors dying only a couple episodes later]].
387** The season 6 trailer implies that a horde has made their way into Alexandria, and various characters (including Jessie and Carol) are trying to hide from them. However, the shots in question are from a completely different incident ([[spoiler:the Wolves breaking into the town and massacring residents]]). While a horde ''does'' arrive at the front gates of the town, it doesn't occur until after [[spoiler:the Wolves]] have been taken care of. Moreover, the shots of Carol seemingly hiding are actually her springing into action and becoming a OneManArmy in order to secure the town's armory and save residents.
388*** It also massively plays up the Rick vs. Morgan conflict, to the point of making it look like Morgan is staging a revolt against Rick and Rick seemingly preparing to shoot Morgan when it fails. In the actual show, they learn to trust each other pretty quick. They do have [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism vastly different viewpoints]] which lead to some disagreements on how to handle various threats to the community, but they always talk it out and nothing violent ever happens between them. [[spoiler: Morgan does end up getting in a fight with Carol, however]].
389* Previews of episodes of ''Series/TheWall'', including those within the actual episodes, tend to manipulate clips to make it look like the balls are going to fall in the million dollar space or other high-value amounts as a hook for audiences to tune in, when the clips are actually just mashing together entirely separate ball drops or leaving out the disappointing bits and the actual result tends to be anticlimactic. For instance, if balls head in the general direction of the right side of the board where the biggest dollar amounts reside, then skitter over to the left or the middle, those unfortunate outcomes will be doctored up. This also works to its favor, as it can prove to be a mislead before the balls ''actually'' land in these spaces.
390* ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds1988'' has a rather dated example: The original "OnTheNext" trailer for the episode "Candle in the Night" showed the aliens desperately tracking a rogue device to stop it falling into the hands of the humans, asking, "Can the team use the aliens' own episode against them? A View to a kill, on the next episode of ''War of the Worlds''!". Answer: No. Because they're ''not even looking for it'': it's a BottleEpisode about the team organizing a surprise birthday party. The events of the trailer refer to a throwaway B-plot about the aliens trying to find a lost probe.
391* ''Series/WandaVision'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTL3OZkVMHQ The 2020 Super Bowl trailer]] shows clips from the episode "[[Recap/WandaVisionEpisode8PreviouslyOn Previously On]]" without context, including a shot of [[spoiler:Wanda recreating Vision]] with [[spoiler:the spell effects removed]], leaving just Vision writhing and Wanda making odd gestures for no apparent reason.
392* ''Series/TheWestWing'': In the network promo for the Season 4 episode "Election Night," there is a shot of Democratic strategist Will Bailey standing outside the campaign office in a thunderous rainstorm, shouting "NOOO" to the high heavens. In the actual episode, he is in fact shouting "NOW" in an attempt, however serious, to predict (and possibly cause?) the torrential rain that begins seconds later, thus leading to depressed voter turnout and increasing the chances that his liberal candidate, who is dead, might actually win in conservative Orange County.
393* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' in October 2010, ran a trailer hinting at a $1,000,000 win a few days later. It showed a contestant hitting the Million-Dollar Wedge (which must be taken to the BonusRound, where one of the Bonus Wheel's 24 envelopes is replaced with a $1,000,000). The contestant in the clip actually lost the Wedge to Bankrupt, and with it, the chance at getting her million.
394* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pr4_7bUVwg trailer]] for the 2017-18 season of ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'' showed Chris Harrison telling a contestant they are only one question away from $1,000,000, but it can be seen from the different lighting and camera angle that his delivery of that line was staged just for this promo. In fact, not one contestant managed to reach the $500,000 question that season.
395* ''Wildfire'' provides a sleazier example. A trailer showed one character inviting another to a TwoPersonPoolParty, with a clear implication of sex. Since this was on primetime TV before the {{Watershed}}, in the actual episode the line was immediately followed by a blunt refusal.
396* One trailer for ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough'' featured some Wrestling/{{WWE}} Divas as guest stars, and showed one of them slapping Jeremiah with the implication that he'd done something untoward to deserve it. In truth, he was just drunk and being goofy, and ''asked'' to be slapped in a moment of euphoria.
397* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'': The promo for "Alex Charms A Boy" makes it looks like Alex sadistically charms some random boy into falling in love with her. In the actual episode, the boy becomes her boyfriend the old fashioned way, and she only puts a charm on him to get him to paint her.
398* ''Series/{{Workaholics}}'' plays this straight with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wbGDM8QtPM this trailer.]]
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400[[folder: Z]]
401* ''Series/ZTheBeginningOfEverything'''s first season trailer employs ManipulativeEditing with the audio of Zelda discovering that Scott has used some of her writing in his book. The trailer makes it look like a huge argument - when in the actual episode, Zelda is ''flattered'' to discover this, and thanks Scott for making her part of his book. Overall the trailer makes their relationship look like it's full of rows and fights, when there's less of that in the actual series.
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