http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thepretender.jpg

->''There are pretenders among us. Geniuses with the ability to be become anyone they want to be. In 1963, a corporation known as the Centre isolated a young pretender named Jarod and exploited his genius for their research.''\\
\\
''Then, one day, their pretender ran away...''

Boy genius Jarod was raised in a secret science-with-a-capital-$ laboratory (known, in a further example of the series' [[NoNameGiven remarkable reticence with full names]], only as "the Centre") where his talents were put at the service of the highest bidder. As an adult, he discovers that everything he's been told about his (supposedly long-dead) parents is a lie, and breaks out of The Centre to find his real family.

->''"Are you a doctor?"''\\
''"I am today."''

Jarod is a mental chameleon: he can "become anyone he wants to be". This doesn't just cover language, culture, mannerisms; given a well-stocked library and week, he can teach himself the skills needed to pass as anything from a janitor to a brain surgeon. In addition to his own search, each episode sees him using his abilities to uncover some crime or injustice. When he finds the person responsible, he puts them through a non-lethal version of what their victims endured, attempting to convey what his abilities allow him to grasp intuitively. (Sabotaged that safety line? Set up that industrial accident? Buried your enemy alive? Let's see how ''you'' like it...)

Jarod has a relatively mild case of RaisedByWolves. Although he functions normally in social situations, his secluded upbringing meant that popular culture largely passed him by. In early seasons, every episode contained a sequence where Jarod discovered and gleefully explored something -- slinkies, Twinkies, Mr Potato Head, Curious George -- that everyone around him takes for granted. This thing would then be incorporated into Jarod's plan for teaching the Villain of the Week a lesson, or used to send a taunting message to the Centre agents trying to track him down and take him 'home'.

->''"The Centre wants him '''alive'''."''\\
''"Preferably."''

The remaining regular characters are the team trying to track Jarod down. They themselves come across as relatively sympathetic characters; the recurring villains of the series are their superiors and colleagues, who threaten them as much as they do Jarod.
The core members of the team are:
*Snarky team leader Miss Parker, whose issues with her own parents (her emotionally-distant father is the head of the Centre; her mother's murder when she was a girl was never solved) form an ongoing part of the series.
*Sydney, a psychiatrist who was Jarod's handler and surrogate parent, and is often caught between his duty as he sees it and his genuine affection for Jarod.
*Broots, TheLabRat and PluckyComicRelief. A basically ordinary guy who somehow wound up working for the Centre, Broots is often the audience's surrogate in reacting to the Centre's oddities; perhaps for this reason, he managed to remain normal to the end, the only regular character with no MysteriousPast and no previously-unknown relatives suddenly appearing from the woodwork.

Miss Parker gets her own nemesis in the second season, as her team's lack of success in catching Jarod prompts the creation of a rival team under the charming sociopath Mr Lyle. (Renewed menace to Jarod also, since Mr Lyle has considerably fewer scruples than Miss Parker.) In addition to being her professional rival, Mr Lyle's presence eventually squishes Miss Parker's personal hopes as it's revealed that he is, literally if fraternally, her EvilTwin, and therefore the son her father has always wanted, rendering moot Miss Parker's attempts to fill that gap which had shaped her adult life.

Family was a recurring theme on the series. Many episodes explored fatherhood in various ways. Also that whole thing with the unexpected relatives.

Early seasons of ''The Pretender'' were marked by a real sense of playfulness. Later seasons, as the series lost its humour, and it became increasingly apparent that the writers had no real idea where any of the ongoing mysteries were actually going, were much less fun.
----
This series provides examples of:
*AlongCameASpider: Especially in the early seasons, Jarod was fond of doing this to Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots.
*AndIMustScream: A drunk doctor hits a bum. He injects him with something that paralyzes him, making him indistinguishable from dead, and when the bum is bought in for autopsy, kills him on the table. Jared does the same thing, deliberately, except he makes sure the doctor is awake and can see what's going on. [[spoiler:He was just screwing with him, and the hospital staff were in on it. The evidence was given to the police.]]
*BillyNeedsAnOrgan: There is a terrible, terrible episode with this plot premise.
*BolivianArmyCliffhanger: The season finale that ends with SL-27 blowing up with everybody inside. [[spoiler:Everybody survives except a couple of mooks.]]
*CharacterNameAlias: Whenever he does a pretend, Jarod adopts the surname of a relevant real-life person or fictional character: examples include Jarod Wright, test pilot; Jarod [[AChristmasCarol Marley]], in the Christmas episode; and Jarod Shatner -- in honor of the host of ''{{Rescue 911}}'' -- when he was working in a search-and-rescue team.
*CloningBlues: "Donoterase"
*CoincidentalBroadcast: Used and subverted in "Meltdown".
*ConMan: Jarod, using his powers for good.
*CorruptCorporateExecutive: The Centre's bosses.
*CutShort
*TheDanza: The Centre's {{mooks}}, when they get names at all.
*DarkActionGirl: Miss Parker
*DoTheyKnowItsChristmasTime: "Not Even A Mouse"
*ElvisImpersonator: in "Curious Jarod"
*EngineeredPublicConfession
*EverythingIsOnline / MagicalDatabase: Jarod manages to get a great many files from the internet...even things that most likely weren't available online in 1996.
*EvilAlbino: Mr White
*EvilCounterpart: Mr Raines & Sydney, Miss Parker & Mr Lyle
*EvilTwin: Mr Lyle
*FakeGuestStar: Jon Gries as Broots
*FakeGunshot: In "A Stand Up Guy", Jarod, pretending to be a gangster, shoots an FBI agent in cold blood -- but it turns out that he's actually pretending to be an FBI undercover agent, and the 'shooting' was a set-up to establish his bona fides with the mob.
*FlashBack: Flashbacks to Jarod's time at the Centre appear frequently for plot or theme reasons.
*FoodProp: The inedible fruitcake trope was Jarod's new discovery in "Not Even A Mouse".
*HeWentThatWay: In the pilot episode, Miss Parker and Sydney nearly catch Jarod, but are misdirected in this fashion by somebody he helped earlier in the episode.
*HistoricalInjoke: Jarod's [[RaisedByWolves childhood as a Centre test subject]] has left him rather ignorant of popular culture, but also privy to a '''''lot''''' of weird history.
** He recognizes a Magic Eye image immediately -- because he unofficially created the underlying technology.
** He's intimately familiar with the {{Apollo 13}} incident -- because he came up with the gravity slingshot used to rescue them.
** He can smell a conspiracy from across a continent -- because his assessment of the death of JFK was that a single gunman couldn't have fired enough shots.
** He knows how to [[NeverSuicide recognize a suicide]] -- because he realized that Marilyn Monroe didn't want to die alone.
** He knows the Trilateral Commission is up to no good -- because he knows they came to the Centre for a number of projects.
*IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim: "Hazards", when Sydney faces the Nazi scientist who experimented on him and his brother when they were children.
*InstantExpert: Justified in Jarod's case; this is the whole point of his character.
*TheLabRat: Broots
*LocationDoubling: The Centre is in Delaware, but the exteriors are really in Toronto.
*LukeIAmYourFather: One clear-cut instance -- Mr Lyle -- and half a dozen near-misses.
*MadScientist: Several of the Centre's employees, definitely including Mr Raines and arguably also including Sydney.
*TheManBehindTheMan: The head of the Centre starts out as the BigBad, then is revealed to answer to an international conspiracy of {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s.
*MissingFloor: Sub-level 27
*{{Mooks}}: The Centre's "sweepers".
*MysteriousPast: Any recurring character who didn't have one to start with gained one sooner or later, except for Broots.
*NewOldFlame
*NoNameGiven: To a ridiculous extent; see the trope page for multiple examples.
*NothingPersonal: in "Someone to Trust"
*OpeningNarration
*TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Miss Parker's determination to be the one to catch Jarod had moments of this.
*RaisedByWolves
*SarcasticConfession: If anybody asks Jarod how he learned some impressive skill, he will tell them; since he usually learned it by [[ButIReadABookAboutIt reading books]] and {{MacGyvering}} training aids, his reply is always taken as a joke. It gets better when he is called on a skill in a later episode; when one of his "[[WeHelpTheHelpless projects]]" asks him how he leaned to drive so well, he honestly answers, "Indianapolis!" (It turns out he learned how to race at [[IKnowMortalKombat an ARCADE]] in Indianapolis...)
*SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Miss Parker, complete with the obligatory "What happened to you?" "I grew up" conversation in the first episode.
*SternChase
*StuffBlowingUp: Three out of four season finales, plus various in-season examples.
*TechnicalPacifist: Jarod
*UncannyFamilyResemblance: Miss Parker and her mother
*VaderBreath: William Raines
*VanInBlack: The Centre goes in for shiny black [=SUVs=] with tinted windows.
*VivaLasVegas: "Cold Dick"; "Curious Jarod" happens to be set in Vegas, but doesn't have most of the 'Vegas episode' tropes.
*WalkingTheEarth
*WeHelpTheHelpless: Jarod considers it his duty to do so, as just about every project he did for The Centre was ultimately used to help some megalomaniac profit at the expense of innocent people.
*WellDoneSonGuy: Miss Parker's father, of the will-never-say-it subtype.
----
<<|AmericanSeries|>>