History ExactWords / LiveActionTV

* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Ministry of Virtue", the VictimOfTheWeek's fellow {{Mail Order Bride}}s swear that none of them wanted to kill her, and they don't know why anyone would, and Murdoch's lie detector comes up clean. When he interviews the woman who runs the Virtue Ministry, he gets the same results, including that she's telling the truth when she says the man who broke her alibi couldn't have seen her leave her hotel early. [[spoiler:Because in fact, she's the supposed victim, who killed the organiser rather than go through with the marriage. She didn't leave the hotel early because she was never there, and the others don't know why anyone would kill her because they know nobody did.]]

* ''Series/{{Belgravia}}'': Everything Charles Pope knows about his background is true... FromACertainPointOfView. His father was a soldier who was killed at Waterloo, and his mother died in childbirth, so the Reverend Pope and his wife adopted him. The bigger details however are more complex, namely that the businessman who took Charles under his wing is his grandfather, and his true father was a BlueBlood whose family had no idea Charles existed.

* In ''Series/DeadBoyDetectives2024'' Esther sold her soul to Lillith for eternal life. It took a few decades for Esther to realize she should have specified she wanted [[AgeWithoutYouth eternal ''youth'' to go with it]] so now murders young women to steal their youth.

* In ''Series/DeadBoyDetectives'' Esther sold her soul to Lillith for eternal life. It took a few decades for Esther to realize she should have specified she wanted [[AgeWithoutYouth eternal ''youth'' to go with it]] so now murders young women to steal their youth.

* ''Series/{{Belgravia}}: Everything Charles Pope knows about his background is true... FromACertainPointOfView. His father was a soldier who was killed at Waterloo, and his mother died in childbirth, so the Reverend Pope and his wife adopted him. The bigger details however are more complex; one of which is that the businessman who took Charles under his wing is his grandfather, and his true father was a BlueBlood whose family had no idea Charles existed.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E4MarcoPolo "Marco Polo"]]: Ping Cho promises Marco that she won't tell the TARDIS crew where the keys are hidden. She doesn't promise that she won't take them herself and give them to the TARDIS crew.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E1TerrorOfTheAutons "Terror of the Autons"]]: Jo Grant tells the Doctor that she took her A-levels in science. As she herself points out later, she said she ''took'' them, not that she ''passed''.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E6TheKingsDemons "The King's Demons"]]: Turlough, asked whether he can call on Hell, says that of course he can, and [[AgentScully so can Hugh]], and Hugh's more likely to get a response.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E3SilverNemesis "Silver Nemesis"]]: The Doctor allows the Cyber-Leader to give commands to the superweapon and has the superweapon confirm that it understood those commands. At no point does he instruct it to follow them.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]: Ex-Time Agent Captain Jack Harkness offers to sell Rose a Chula warship that he's parked in WWII London. It turns out that the warship is, in fact, an ambulance. Jack defends himself by pointing out that they have ambulances in wars.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]]: The clockwork droids were ordered to repair the ship with ''whatever'' parts they could find. As the unlucky crew found out, they considered human parts acceptable...
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E6TheAgeOfSteel "The Age of Steel"]]: John Lumic insists on postponing his own cyber-conversion until "his last breath". Since his life support has just been damaged, the Cybermen immediately take him to a conversion chamber.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]]: Adipose. ''The fat just walks away.'' (By which we mean converted into baby fat aliens thanks to those "miraculous" pills, which then waltz out of your house in the middle of the night.)
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii "The Fires of Pompeii"]] combines it with LoopholeAbuse. At the end of the episode, as the town of Pompeii is about to be consumed by the famous volcanic eruption, Donna begs the Doctor to save at least one of the doomed Romans. The Doctor reminds her that the people of Pompeii were already destined to die, and that he risks damaging the time-stream if he changes history. [[spoiler:In the end, he relents and saves one average middle-class Roman family. Average people are usually forgotten by history -- so he technically didn't ''change history''.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Stratagem"]]: The ATMOS in the UNIT jeep was programmed to do precisely the ''opposite'' of whatever the Doctor told it. So he [[LogicBomb tells it to]] drive into the river.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]]: The ForeverWar between humans and Hath has been going on for "many generations" when the Doctor arrives. Due to cloning machines creating full-grown humans and Hath in seconds, said war has gone on for "many generations" despite having only lasted a week.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]]: The message sent before the Library was sealed off 100 years before said "4,022 people saved. No survivors." The odd nature of the message is discussed, especially since there are no bodies to be found. [[spoiler:It turns out that they were specifically ''saved'' to the ''hard drive'' of the Library's computer, because it couldn't handle all those people trying to teleport away to escape the [[LivingShadow Vashta Nerada]] at once. As a result, there was no one technically alive in the Library anymore.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E14TheNextDoctor "The Next Doctor"]]: The titular character[[spoiler:, being a human who merely ''thinks'' he's the Doctor thanks to TraumaInducedAmnesia and an ExpositionBeam,]] does this a couple times.
*** His "sonic screwdriver" is just an ordinary screwdriver. As he explains, it's "sonic" because it makes a noise, and he then taps it against the doorframe to demonstrate.
*** His TARDIS ([[FunWithAcronyms Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style]]) is his transport through time and space. He's referring to the time to himself and space away from others that it grants.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]]: When the Doctor asks where Amelia's parents are, she replies "I don't have a mum and dad." One would assume she means they died, but the end of the season reveals that her mum and dad were wiped from history by the crack in the wall, which in turn resulted in Amelia ''literally'' never having had parents.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E5FleshAndStone "Flesh and Stone"]]: While talking to the Angels, the Doctor tells River to "get a grip". She thinks he's complaining about her not wanting him to sacrifice himself to save everyone, but he gives a bit more information and repeats the phrase. [[spoiler:Understanding, River helps Amy get a handhold and gets one herself just as the ''Byzantium''[='s=] ArtificialGravity fails and the Angels plummet into a NegativeSpaceWedgie while our heroes hang on for dear life.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E2DayOfTheMoon "Day of the Moon"]]: Played for laughs when UsefulNotes/RichardNixon asks if he will be remembered. The Doctor responds in the affirmative but provides no details... then adds, "Say hi to David Frost for me."
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor "The Name of the Doctor"]]:
*** The prophecy "The Doctor has a secret that he will take to his grave, and it is discovered." No, the speaker didn't mean that the Doctor's secret had been discovered, he meant that he'd managed to find the Doctor's grave -- the one point in the future that the Doctor had sworn never to visit.
*** At the end of the episode, Clara and the Eleventh Doctor encounter a mysterious figure and the Doctor reveals that the man is him. Clara is confused and expresses how that can't be as she's seen all eleven of the Doctor's faces. The Doctor's response is that [[spoiler:"I said he was me. I didn't say he was the Doctor." As was later revealed in [[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor "The Night of the Doctor"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], this unknown man was the Doctor's ninth incarnation, but he stopped calling himself "Doctor" as he felt he no longer had the right to that name due to fighting in the Time War. As such, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors are the ninth, tenth, and eleventh incarnations to call themselves "the Doctor", but his tenth, eleventh, and twelfth lives]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]] features a "truth field" that prevents people from telling lies. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver on the wooden Cyberman and tells it that he has sent a signal to [[ReversePolarity reverse the direction of its weapon]]. The Cyberman knows the Doctor can't be lying, so it reverses its weapon and fires...
--->'''The Doctor:''' I probably should have mentioned, this doesn't work on wood.
** A non-comedic example in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater "Dark Water"]]. After [[spoiler:Danny is hit by a car and dies]], Clara puts the Doctor to sleep and takes the TARDIS to a volcano, where she threatens to throw all the keys to the TARDIS into lava unless the Doctor agrees to [[spoiler:save Danny]]. Then she finds out the whole thing has been a ruse and took place in her mind. Then, knowing she has betrayed the Doctor's trust, she asks what he plans to do. His response is a deadpan "go to hell". As she turns to leave, he expresses confusion over why she's leaving. After all, he did answer her question. That is exactly where he plans to go to [[spoiler:find Danny]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa "Rosa"]]:
*** The Doctor uses this tactic when she has to hide two non-white companions, Ryan and Yaz, from a racist police officer in a "Whites Only" motel in '50s Alabama. When the officer describes the two with slurs, the Doctor simply responds that she doesn't know anyone who fits that description, and when the officer says that it's illegal to "harbour coloureds" in a room there, the Doctor responds that she's not harbouring anyone who doesn't have a right to be there.
*** During the same scene, Graham claims his name is [[ImMrFuturePopCultureReference "Steve Jobs"]]. When the officer asks Graham if he's disrespecting him, Graham says "Steve Jobs would never disrespect a Montgomery police officer." Of course, this says nothing about whether ''Graham'' would.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E4ArachnidsInTheUK "Arachnids in the UK"]]: At the end, as Yaz is leaving her flat on an errand, she promises to tell her mum about the Doctor "after she gets back"... and then she hops back in the TARDIS with Ryan and Graham.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E6DemonsOfThePunjab "Demons of the Punjab"]]: Yaz's grandmother Umbreen told her daughter, granddaughters and son-in-law she was the first woman married in Pakistan. She never said who to.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]]: Former [=MI6=] analyst O suggests to the Doctor that she should be looking for [[spoiler:the "spymaster" behind the whole conspiracy]]. Then, during Part 1's climax:
--->'''O:''' [[spoiler:I told you to look for the spymaster, didn't I? [[TheReveal Or should I say]] the spy... ''[[TheMaster Master]]?'']]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E4NikolaTeslasNightOfTerror "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror"]]: UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison persuades a number of civilians to get off the streets by claiming that UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla is experimenting with his Wardenclyffe Tower and there's a chance they could all be blown up. While both statements are true, he lets them assume that correlation equals causation when in reality Tesla's experiments are trying to save them all from being blown up.
** [[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle "The Giggle"]]: [[spoiler:The Toymaker said that, since he played one game against the First Doctor and one game against the Fourteenth Doctor, "your own rules have decreed I play the third game with the next Doctor." However, because he didn't decree that he would *only* be playing against the next Doctor, he sets off an unprecedented bi-generation, something unheard of outside of Gaifreyan myth.]]
** A meta-example: when Creator/NcutiGatwa was announced in 2022 to be taking over the role of the Doctor in ''Series/DoctorWho'', the show's website and social media avoided numbering his incarnation (presumed to be the Fourteenth) in stark contrast to the announcement of his predecessors. This was intentional, as [[spoiler:Creator/DavidTennant's return to the role for the 60th-anniversary specials]] bumped him up to Fifteenth.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': When Sauron isn't being MetaphoricallyTrue or giving a SarcasticConfession, he's abusing exact words. [[spoiler:When Galadriel thinks the crest he's carrying means he's the heir to the Southlands, Sauron as Halbrand never outright says he's part of the lineage while talking about how the line carries with it the burden of having sworn to loyalty Morgoth. When Sauron vaguely references his family losing the war, he never actually claims to be the heir, clearly relying on Galadriel assuming he's talking about the bloodline.]]

** In "Double Trouble", Oprah orders Otto to "[[TongueTwister keep the other two doubles out of trouble.]]" His response is to dare her to try saying it ten times fast...and she does exactly that, speaking the phrase ten times while speeding her voice up to chipmunk levels, which leaves Otto in a slack-jawed state of shock.
---> '''Oscar:''' She is one impressive lady!

** Early in season four, Oz leaves town to try and gain greater control over his werewolf side. When he returns, having (apparently) succeeded, he asks Willow if they can pick up where they left off. "I talked to Xander, and he said you didn't have a new guy." "No. No new... guy."

** Jesse gets furious at Gus because two of his trusted underlings are using a kid as their assassin (and is the one who murdered his friend Combo). He won't accept their apologies until Gus can promise "no more kids" in the drug business. Gus [[FalseReassurance assures]] Jesse there will be no more kids in the business. Jesse begrudgingly agrees, but is horrified when later that night he finds the kid has been shot to death now that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's outlived his usefulness]] (whether Gus himself ordered it or the two underlings did it of their own accord is left ambiguous however).

** Skyler, worried for their safety, asks Walt if the people he works for [[spoiler:killed Gale]]. This is right after the episode where Skyler made Walt promise complete transparency, so, after a moment's pause, he says "definitely not". He leaves out the details where [[spoiler:Gale was killed]] under ''his'' instructions, because it would've been him on the chopping block otherwise.

* ''Series/TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance'': After the Skeksis are forced to retreat from the battle of Stone-In-The-Wood the Emperor asks the Chamberlain what happen to General skekVar, Chamberlain answers "Friend General perished at Stone-In-The-Wood, I'm just glad I was with during...final moments". While these are both correct statements, what the Chamberlain doesn't say [[spoiler: is that he ''murdered'' skekVar for [[EvilIsPetty replacing him as the Emperor's advisor]]]].
* ''Series/{{Daredevil 2015}}'':

*** At the end of the episode, Clara and the Eleventh Doctor encounter a mysterious figure and the Doctor reveals that the man is him. Clara is confused and expresses how that can't be as she's seen all eleven of the Doctor's faces. The Doctor's response is that [[spoiler: "I said he was me. I didn't say he was the Doctor." As was later revealed in [[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor "The Night of the Doctor"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], this unknown man was the Doctor's ninth incarnation, but he stopped calling himself "Doctor" as he felt he no longer had the right to that name due to fighting in the Time War. As such, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors are the ninth, tenth, and eleventh incarnations to call themselves "the Doctor", but his tenth, eleventh, and twelfth lives]].

** At the start of season 6, Barry is told by the Monitor that "The Flash must die" in the coming [[Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019 Crisis]]. Barry spends the season preparing for it, including ensuring his friends can take up defending Central City. In the Crisis, Barry is prepared to sacrifice himself...[[spoiler: until the Flash of Earth-90 steals his speed and sacrifices his own life to stop an anti-matter cannon. As Flash-90 points out, the Monitor never said ''which'' Flash had to die to save the universe.]]

** In "The Night In Question", Jo has arrested [[spoiler: a small-town sheriff]] for murder. Reece makes a point of mentioning that "no one with a badge" is to go anywhere near him until Internal Affairs arrives. Henry has to be [[ObliviousToHints hit over the head with the message]], but they send him in to question the man.

*** Joffrey swears to grant mercy if [[spoiler: Eddard Stark]] confesses to treason. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, Joffrey considers a quick beheading merciful.]] Later, he says his mother told him never to strike his lady, so he orders Ser Meryn to strike Sansa instead... with a gauntlet.
*** Mirri Maz Duur says her blood magic will save Drogo's life, [[spoiler: but only brings him back as an EmptyShell]].
*** Melisandre promises to give Stannis a son in "The Night Lands" and gives birth to [[spoiler: a living shadow assassin]] a few episodes later. In a meta example, the dialogue of that scene is also deliberately vague about whether Stannis has a daughter because the producers had not yet decided if Shireen would be AdaptedOut.

* In the TV adaptation of ''Series/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'', Jonathan asks the Gentleman With Thistledown Hair to bring his wife back to life. The Gentleman says that "circumstances" aren't right for him to do this, and then asks Jonathan where the body is and how long it's been there, obscuring that [[spoiler: the "circumstances" he has in mind are that he knows perfectly well she's not actually dead]].

* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Ministry of Virtue", the VictimOfTheWeek's fellow {{Mail Order Bride}}s swear that none of them wanted to kill her, and they don't know why anyone would, and Murdoch's lie detector comes up clean. When he interviews the woman who runs the Virtue Ministry, he gets the same results, including that she's telling the truth when she says the man who broke her alibi couldn't have seen her leave her hotel early. [[spoiler: Because in fact, she's the supposed victim, who killed the organiser rather than go through with the marriage. She didn't leave the hotel early because she was never there, and the others don't know why anyone would kill her because they know nobody did.]]

** A general rule is that if you're making a deal with Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold, you have to pay attention to what's being said. A prime example of this is when Regina works with him to frame Mary Margaret for [[spoiler:Kathryn]]'s murder. Except [[spoiler: Kathryn]]'s not dead; she was merely abducted for a while. When Regina demands to know why he didn't live up to their deal, Gold points out that Regina asked for something "tragic" to happen to [[spoiler:Kathryn]]. And [[MetaphoricallyTrue in his opinion]], abduction ''is'' tragic.

* Dillon invokes this in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' when Ziggy becomes the Green Ranger. "You told him to protect the morpher by any means necessary. [[spoiler: Bonding to it himself was the only way he could do it]]."

* Sherlock uses this in the ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' episode [[Recap/SherlockS03E01TheEmptyHearse "The Empty Hearse"]] to mess with John's head during a tense moment. When they're stuck in a hidden subway car rigged with explosives, Sherlock is forced to tell John that he has no idea how to defuse a bomb. [[spoiler: He really doesn't. He does, however, know that bombs usually have "off" switches, and that switching a bomb off is just as good as defusing it.]]

*** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E12 I of Newton]]", a math professor named Sam inadvertently summons a devil who plans to steal his soul. There's a [[ChessWithDeath game they must play first]], though--Sam gets to ask three questions about the devil and his powers, then give the demon a final question that must be answered or a task that must be performed; if he can't do it, Sam's soul is free. The devil invokes this trope first by counting Sam's surprised "Really?" as one of the three questions. Sam then turns the tables by asking questions that reveal that the devil can travel anywhere in the universe (and even places in alternate realities) and still be able to return to his original location. With this information, Sam provides the perfect, impossible, and Exactly Worded task: [[spoiler: get lost!]]

* In Season 2 of ''Series/AVerySecretService'', Calot, Jacquard and Moulinier are sent to rescue their fellow agent Clayborn, but they return without her. As the new trainee wonders why their mission is considered a success in spite of that, Jacquard retorts that [[spoiler: a pregnant woman cannot possibly an agent, therefore there was no longer an Agent Clayborn to bring back home]].

-->'''Casey:''' You're gonna love Florence Super Max. 23-hour lockdown, no visitors, no mail, no phone calls. No human contact for the ''rest'' of your life.
-->'''Morton:''' You can't do that to me!
-->'''Casey:''' Why don't you wave bye to all of your fans?
-->'''Morton:''' We made a deal!
-->'''Casey:''' And it's a masterpiece. How do you like ''my'' work?

* ''Series/MoonKnight2022'': In the finale, Marc and Steven agree to help [[JerkassGods Khonshu]] fight [[BigBad Ammit]] as long as he frees both of them from his servitude afterwards. Khonshu agrees, and honours his word when the fight is over. [[spoiler:That is, he sets ''Marc and Steven'' free. The two aren't aware that they have a third alter, Jake Lockley, who still acts as Khonshu's fist of vengeance.]]

-->[[spoiler: Violet Hart]]: I did say it[[note]]a tin of opium[[/note]] was ninety-nine percent pure. The one remaining percent was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curare curare.]]

-->'''Gabe''': You are in charge of supporting the sales staff. You are required to hand out those leads, Michael.\\
'''Michael''': Well, if that's what I'm required to do, I will do exactly that.\\
'''Gabe''': Ok good --\\
'''Michael''': Exactly that.\\
'''Gabe''': Good.\\
'''Michael''': Exactly that!\\
'''Gabe''': Why do you keep repeat--\\
'''Michael''': ''(hangs up)''

--->'''Larry''': I said, when I nod my head, you hit it.\\
'''Balki''': But --\\
'''Larry''': What's the big deal? I nod my head! You hit it! Hit it! Do you understand!?\\
'''Balki''': ''[crying]'' Yes...

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': When Sauron isn't being MetaphoricallyTrue or giving a SarcasticConfession, he's abusing exact words. [[spoiler:When Galadriel thinks the crest he's carrying means he's the heir to the Southlands, Sauron as Halbrand never outright says he's part of the lineage while talking about how the line carries with it the burden of having sworn to loyalty Morgoth. When Sauron vaguely references his family losing the war, he never actually claims to be the heir, clearly relying on Galadriel assuming he's talking about the bloodline.]]
* ''{{Series/Salem}}'': In "Ashes, Ashes", Increase promises Mercy's girls that if they testify against Alden they'll be spared the fires. After they do, he has them all hanged and tells them they have been spared "the flames of this world and the next."

-->'''Malcolm:''' What did the Prime Minister actually say to you?
-->'''Hugh:''' He actually said, "This is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing."
-->'''Malcolm:''' ''What'' did he actually say?
-->'''Hugh:''' He said, "This is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing."
-->'''Malcolm:''' ''Should'' be doing. "Should" does not mean "yes".

* ''Series/BlueBloods'': A SerialKiller who has been tormenting Danny warns him that he's going after his family. He rushes home and is confused to find that his wife and kids are safe. Until the FBI agent working with him reminds him of the guys preferred demographic of "18-22 year old females" and he realizes that his niece Nicky is the target.

* On ''Series/That80sShow'', Corey gets coerced into writing an eulogy for "Silverpants", a fellow clubgoer whom nobody actually knew beyond his very superficial party lifestyle. (He was mostly known for his pants.) What little he finds out isn't flattering (such as how the guy liked to feel up waitresses and then pass the blame on someone else), but his not-girlfriend Tuesday manages to spin it into something vaguely nice-sounding. ("He touched people.")

* On ''Series/TouchedByAnAngel'', angels obviously can't lie, but Monica, Tess, and Andrew are able to carefully select words to get a point across without giving away what they are.

*** A great example is "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]" where corrupt CEO William Feathersmith agrees to sell off his fortune for a chance to go back to 1910 and rebuild his empire again. He tells Miss Devlin that he wants to look exactly like he did at that time, which she agrees to. Feathersmith soon finds his faulty memory is preventing him from pulling off the deals he wants and suffers health issues with a doctor noting he seems to have serious heart problems. Feathersmith confronts Devlin on that who points out he only said he wanted to ''look'' younger. He never said anything about his body and thus internally, he's still 75 years old carrying on like a much younger man.
*** The punchline of the classic episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan To Serve Man]]": [[spoiler:"It's a ''cookbook!''"]]

*** In "I of Newton", a math professor named Sam inadvertently summons a devil who plans to steal his soul. There's a [[ChessWithDeath game they must play first]], though--Sam gets to ask three questions about the devil and his powers, then give the demon a final question that must be answered or a task that must be performed; if he can't do it, Sam's soul is free. The devil invokes this trope first by counting Sam's surprised "Really?" as one of the three questions. Sam then turns the tables by asking questions that reveal that the devil can travel anywhere in the universe (and even places in alternate realities) and still be able to return to his original location. With this information, Sam provides the perfect, impossible, and Exactly Worded task: [[spoiler: get lost!]]
*** The episode "A Small Talent for War" has aliens claiming to have created humanity announcing that they were going to end the experiment and destroy the species after concluding the titular talent was all humans had achieved (and marking the nuclear standoff as a particular disappointment). The governments of the world rush through a global peace treaty and announce total nuclear disarmament to prove we can do better... only for the aliens to explain it was the "small talent" part they had a problem with. Humans were supposed to be a warrior race, and by the aliens' standards we never got very good at it and were far too reluctant to fight.

* On ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', Music/WeirdAlYankovic played a CelebrityEdition in 1994. He made it to the BonusRound, where he was told that he had 10 seconds to figure out the right answer to the puzzle. Cue him saying the right answer of NO HARM DONE so slowly that it indeed took up the entire 10 seconds.
* ''Series/TheWheelOfTime'':