Frame Up / Live-Action TV

• Accused: In "Alison's Story" Alison is framed as a drug dealer by her husband and his police captain father so she'll lose custody of their kids. Thankfully, this is revealed, she's acquitted, and they get arrested.
• Accused (2023):
  • In "Naataanii's Story" Derrick's FBI handler has him murdered to frame the rest for felony murder, claiming that he'd been armed and placing a gun by his side afterward to sell the facade. He likewise gets the guard they had taken captive to give false testimony claiming Derrick took the gun they left behind. Had it not been for the bailiff recording the entire conversation having realized something was wrong, the agent would have gotten away with it.
  • In "Morgan's Story" Jason has Eric, his NYPD detective brother, plant cocaine in Morgan's trunk to frame her as a drug dealer in addition to having his informant claim he'd bought it from her before.
• All Rise: The series finale has Emily's client turn out to have been framed for murdering her husband. He's the person who did it, having fled to Mexico, while faking his death this way.
• Arrow: In season 3, Ra's al-Ghul, impressed with Oliver Queen's tenacity, desires for him to be his heir and the new leader of the League of Assassins, making a threat-veiled-as-prediction that Starling City would turn on him. When Oliver refuses, he decides to have his men dress up like the Arrow and start killing criminals, making good on his threat.
• Astrid: In "Invisible", a woman is murdered, with the eyelids closed after, and the forensic evidence leads to her pot dealer, who lives in the same building and is awaiting trial for assault. However, he insists he's innocent, and something feels off to Astrid. She discovers a total of thirteen murders where the eyelids were closed afterward and the defendant was convicted based solely on forensic evidence and insisted on their innocence. She concludes they're dealing with a Serial Killer who frames innocent people for his murders. Ironically, when the killer realizes she's onto him, he kills her mentor Mr. Gaillard and stages the scene to make it look like she did it, but she intentionally leaves clues that lead the team right to him.
• Babylon 5: Garibaldi is framed for sabotaging one of the station's hangar bays, and has to find who is responsible before he gets cornered by the Security staff... or the numerous enemies he's made amongst the criminal world of the station. The bad guys turn out to be members of a xenophobic "Pro-Earth" organization, including the second-in-command of the security detail sent to capture him.
• Batwoman (2019):
  • At the end of "A Mad Tea-Party", Jacob is framed for murdering Catherine.
  • In "Armed and Dangerous", the bodycam footage showing Luke being shot is photoshopped to show that he'd pulled a gun, when he really only had his cell phone. Ryan has to find the metadata with Sophie's help before it gets erased to show it's doctored.
• Blake's 7: In "The Way Back", Blake is framed for molesting children rather than simply prosecuted for political "crimes" or killed, to discredit him rather than making a martyr.
• The Blacklist:
  • At the end of Season 2, the Cabal uses Liz as an unwitting carrier for a virus engineered to specifically kill a senator, then use circumstantial evidence in conjuncture with this to frame her as a Russian Deep Cover Agent. She then has to spend half of Season 3 on the run until Reddington can arrange a way to outgambit the Cabal and clear her name.
  • In Season 9, Cooper is drugged by an unknown person, who then steals his personal firearm and uses it to kill a man whom Cooper's wife once had an affair with. Cooper then has to spend much of the rest of the season trying to find the evidence to exonerate himself, even as the true culprit blackmails him with threatening to lead the police in his direction.
• Happens a few times in Blindspot either for the team or an innocent person.
  • The biggest example is the season 4 finale as, en route to Iceland to stop a terrorist cyber-attack, the team learn too late that criminal mastermind Madeline has been brilliantly setting them up with various events throughout the season and now has convinced the authorities that the entire team is behind this attack and on the run, turning them into fugitives.
• Bones:
  • Brennan is framed for murder by hacker Christopher Pelant in season 7’s finale/season 8’s opener. She runs away with help from her dad, and Pelant also tries to force her colleagues off the case, but they find the evidence to exonerate her.
  • Booth is caught in a conspiracy in season 9’s finale/season 10’s opener. Three special ops agents storm Booth and Brennan’s home and severely injure Booth. But he is arrested for allegedly killing them when they were serving warrants and spends three months in prison until Brennan blackmails the corrupt judge involved to get him freed. Add in Sweets being murdered and the group gets determined to clear Booth and find the actual guilty parties.
• In The Boys (2019), after Butcher's wife dies, a Vought Amoral Attorney attempts to force him to sign a non-disclosure agreement and threatens to frame him for his wife's murder if he refuses. Butcher responds by calmly asking him if he'd like to never see his wife again either and driving his thumbs into the man's eyeballs.
• The fourth season finale of Brooklyn Nine-Nine has Jake and Rosa trying to bust a corrupt cop only to have her expertly frame them for robbery. At the trial, the woman brilliantly manages to not only destroy their "airtight" alibis but make it look like both are on the take and then sets up a "surprise witness" for the unit to find only to have him testify the duo are corrupt. The season ends with the two sent to jail and season five opens with the rest of the gang trying to prove them innocent.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In the second season finale "Becoming", after Kendra is murdered by Drusilla, Buffy shows up at just the right time for the cops to assume that she was the one who killed Kendra, with Principal Snyder being all too eager to support that thought. By the time of the third season, Buffy has been cleared of all charges.
• In an episode of Bull, a medical examiner is accused of falsifying evidence in the trial of a serial rapist/murderer, since her DNA analysis of a pubic hair found on the victim matched the suspect. However, when the same hair was analyzed by three other labs, they did not find a match. Eventually, Bull and his team manage to prove that it was the man's lawyer, who falsified the evidence against the medical examiner in order to have all of her other cases thrown out, including the one against his brother. That he would be throwing an innocent woman in prison doesn't appear to matter to him.
• Burden of Truth: Kodie along with many other parents are given drug tests that falsely show them using alcohol or drugs to get their kids taken away. A neighbor was also paid to make up parental neglect that he would anonymously report against Kodie by her younger daughter's grandmother, so she could gain custody.
• The Capture: Shaun insists he was framed for assaulting and kidnapping Hannah with faked video evidence. Not only is he right, Hannah was part of the conspiracy, to expose intelligence agencies faking videos so they could get terrorists convicted.
• Carnival Row: Piety Breakspear kidnaps her own son, then frames Ritter Longerbane as the party behind it.
• Charmed (2018): After Trip is accidentally killed, Charity plants evidence at the scene of his death to implicate him in the recent Halloween murders, to Mel's shock and his partner Niko's grief.
• Clarice: Joe Hudlin is framed as the sole party behind the crimes the FBI is investigating, with a supposed suicide note left after his murder (made to look like he killed himself).
• Colony: In the past, McGregor was framed for trying to blow the lid on the government conspiracy with the aliens. A huge amount of child porn was planted in his bunker.
• The Confessions of Frannie Langton: It turns out that the doctor who supposedly performed Marguerite's autopsy lied and forged his notes claiming Marguerite's cause of death was stabbing, but it's actually a laudunum overdose which she killed herself with. However, they can't prove this as the doctor who really did the autopsy and found the real cause of death won't testify, with the judge ruling the evidence to be inadmissible while the jury must disregard it.
• Control Z: Raúl frames Javier for the hackings, throwing off suspicion from himself.
• Conviction (2016):
  • The wife of a victim in "Dropping Bombs" murdered him for having an affair by using a bomb a militant Islamophobe designed, implicating him in the process.
  • Earl Slavitt in "A Different Kind of Death" was framed not only for murder, but the original crime he supposedly committed it in revenge for.
• A recurring plot point of several episodes of Crazy Like a Fox, including "Is There a Fox in the House?" and "Suitable for Framing".
• Creepshow: In "Okay I'll Bite" Bunk submits a false affidavit claiming Elmer tried to kill Polish Frank in the hospital with a drug injection, ending his chance for parole so Elmer's forced to stay inside to keep making heroin for his drug ring.
• Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa: One of the suspects in "Dali's Cocoon", a college acquaintance of Himura and Arisugawa, insists that he's innocent of the crime even though all of the evidence points to him. Arisugawa is right to believe him, as it's revealed that the culprit set him up as a fall guy after the victim, who had intended to kill the culprit, tried to use the suspect to set up his alibi.
• CSI: Warrick Brown in "For Gedda". He cleared his name only to get shot just afterward by the real killer.
• CSI: NY:
  • Sheldon Hawkes in "Raising Shane". Serial killer Shane Casey paid a guy to dress like Hawkes and rob a bar, then the money was planted in Hawkes' own hoodie.
  • Probably also applies to Mac, when Clay Dobson jumped off a building and framed Mac for pushing him.
• Played distressingly straight in Dancing on the Edge when Louie, who was initially excluded as a suspect since he was across town when it happened, becomes the prime suspect in Jessie's murder.
• Danger 5: The team is set up by Hitler (now an Agent at the FBI) as Communist fanatics who killed Holly's parents and kidnapped her. The police searching for her is just a scheme for Hitler to get Holly and eliminate Danger 5.
• Daredevil (2015):
  • The plot of season 1 is kicked off when Wilson Fisk has Karen Page framed up for murder when she attempts to blow the whistle on corrupt activities at Union Allied.
  • After Wilson Fisk kills Anatoly Ranskahov, he has a piece of fabric planted on the body so that Anatoly's brother Vladimir will think Matt is responsible. This is to distract Vladimir while Fisk makes preparations to send bombers to wipe out Vladimir's entire operation. After the bombings themselves, Fisk runs a smear campaign with his connections in the Bulletin to paint Matt as responsible for them, and for the shooting of Detective Christian Blake.
  • In an effort to ruin Matt's life and get revenge on him for the events of seasons 1 & 2, Fisk does this to both his personas—Matt Murdock and Daredevil—in season 3:
    • He initially just tries to have Matt killed, but when this fails multiple times, he takes advantage of his status as an informant to the FBI to falsely "inform" them that Matt is a crooked lawyer who worked for him on various illegal schemes; the FBI agents take this at face value and start hunting for Matt, leaving his civilian identity a wanted fugitive.
    • Since Fisk has figured out by now that Matt is Daredevil, he has his Dragon, Ben "Dex" Poindexter, attack multiple respected institutions (namely, a newspaper office and a church) and kill or maim numerous civilians there while wearing a Daredevil costume in order to turn the press and the public against Matt's superhero identity as well.
• Dark Desire: Darío's father was framed for murder by his relatives with the aid of a corrupt police detective so they could get his money. Later Esteban (that same detective) also works to frame Darío then Leonardo for murdering Brenda.
• Dead Man's Gun: In "Buryin' Sam", Sam and his partner Theodore drum up business by stealing a horse and plant it the corral of a suspected horse thief: leaving a deliberate trail for the marshal to follow, knowing one of them will die in the ensuing shootout.
• Subverted on the first season finale of Designated Survivor. FBI agent Hannah wakes up in a van filled with explosives in the parking lot of FBI headquarters. She manages to drive the van to the river to explode but is arrested with agents saying they found blueprints, explosives and other evidence in her apartment. The conspiracy had assumed that Hannah was investigating them on their own and this will destroy her credibility. What they don't know is that Hannah reports directly to President Kirkman who trusts her completely and doesn't buy this set-up for an instant. Thus, Hannah is only in handcuffs a few minutes before her boss shows up with a Presidential order to let her go.
• Doctor Who:
  • "Voyage of the Damned": Max Capricorn plots to crash the space Titanic on Earth, destroying billions of lives, in order to frame his own company who voted him out.
  • "Face the Raven": Rigsy is framed for murdering an alien woman named Anah, as part of Ashildr's plan to lure the Doctor to the trap street.
  • "Spyfall" has this happen twice in part 2:
    • When Daniel Barton realizes Ryan, Graham and Yaz are still alive and travelled to the UK on his plane, which the Master had blown up the cockpit of in an attempt to kill the trio, he uses his vast resources to frame the companions for the bombing of the plane, making them fugitives as they try their best to undermine the Evil Plan.
    • The Doctor's plan to escape 1943 Paris involves having Noor Inayat Khan send a wireless message intended to be intercepted by the Nazis implicating the German officer the Master is impersonating as a Double Agent. This gets him held at gunpoint as the Doctor escapes and steals his TARDIS, leaving him on The Slow Path back to the present.
• A major plot point in Dong Yi — the innocent secret society Geom Gye are framed for murders they didn't commit, and are exterminated.
• The Endgame: Val's husband is serving time in prison for theft when he was an FBI agent, though he'd actually been framed by Elena.
• Euphoria: Nate has Tyler framed by coercing him into falsely confessing he assaulted Maddy, and blackmailing Jules into claiming she witnessed it.
• The Family: Willa framed Hank to insure he was convicted of Adam's murder. It turns out he was innocent. Hank later makes it look like John beat him up as revenge for crossing him.
• The Flash (2014):
  • Barry's father Henry Allen was arrested for the murder of his wife Nora after the Reverse-Flash stabs her with a knife, making it look like he'd done it since no other normal adult was around.
  • In the Season Four mid-season finale, Barry himself ends up framed. Clifford DeVoe, AKA "The Thinker" transfers his mind to a new body and leaves his old one in Barry's apartment to frame him for his murder.
• Forever:
  • Adam frames Henry for murder in "Skinny Dipper" and frames a mental patient as the fall guy, tricking Henry into thinking Abe's life is in danger and Henry can save him by 'killing' the man he thinks is his immortal stalker — leading to Henry killing a mortal for the first time.
  • In "Diamonds Are Forever," an ex-con is framed for a jewelery store robbery before being killed. However, Henry's knowledge from the autopsy combined with a Sherlock Scan of the robbery scene suggests his innocence early into the episode.
• Forever Knight in one of the early season 2 eps, Nick is framed for murder by LaCroix, whom Nick still thought was dead. Things got worse when the DNA Natalie substituted for Nick's vampire blood turned out to belong to the real killer.
• The Frankenstein Chronicles: Lord Hervey frames John for Flora's murder near the end of the first season.
• Both the TV series The Fugitive and the film start with a medical doctor framed for murder.
• Game of Thrones: Tyrion finds himself the victim of this twice. He is framed for Joffrey's poisoning, even though Tyrion looks extremely confused after his nephew's death. It's ultimately a rather poor job, considering that anyone who knows Tyrion would know that, if he did have Joffrey killed, he'd be smart enough not to be holding the poisoned goblet and looking on in Stunned Silence not five feet from the victim. The first time, he's falsely implicated by Littlefinger as having ordered an attempt to murder Bran Stark. He gets acquitted in a trial by combat however.
• Gang Related:
  • Los Angelicos frame RMF as having murdered several Metas soldiers to extort an arms deal from them at a good price.
  • Jessica is later murdered under Javier's orders while it's made to appear like the Metas were behind it, since she knew Ryan was their mole in the LAPD.
• Gotham Knights (2023):
  • The three youthful criminals Harper, Cullen and Duela are framed for Wayne's murder by robbing the place just as he's killed. The payment for them comes from Turner's account so he's arrested too.
  • Joe Chill says he was framed for murdering Thomas and Martha Wayne, having gotten hired simply to mug them (using an empty gun) then both were shot making it look like he'd done it. Turner believes this, and it appears to be true, but can't stop his execution.
• Guilt: Bruno is about to do this with Neville, then sees he's left-handed. As the killer was right-handed, it wouldn't stand up. Later Grace attempts to do this with Finch, putting Molly's missing phone in his car. However, a video recording uncovers this.
• The Handmaid's Tale: Serena has Nick frame Ray Cushing after he starts looking into June's escape too closely, to get rid of him.
• The title character of Hannibal is fond of this tactic. Early in season one, he implicates Nicholas Boyle (whose sister was killed by Garret Hobbs) in one of his copycat killings. He later pins the death of Dr. Sutcliffe on Georgia. In the finale, he frames Will for several of his murders. When Will is exonerated partway through season two, he switches targets to Chilton. That last one involved a drugged FBI trainee he'd been holding prisoner for years in advance.
• Hardball: In "Sorry Salwa", Tiff loses a handball battle to Salwa, so she uploads an embarrassing video of Ms Crapper dancing - and frames Salwa. Salwa is banned from handball at school.
• In season two of Harrow, a mysterious figure sets out to make Harrow's life a living hell. as part of this, he plants stolen drugs in Fern's apartment and then calls the police, getting her arrested.
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (2021): Margot frames Dylan for all the murders she committed with planted evidence, and Allison backs it up.
• Intergalactic: Ash is framed for stealing with doctored video footage (it was actually her boss).
• In the Dark: Darnell is framed for murdering Tyson using planted DNA evidence.
• JAG: In "Ares", The Mole planted floppy discs with corrupted software code from the eponymous weapons system with an innocent colleague, to steer attention away from his own planned escape.
• Jake and the Fatman: In "It Had to Be You", a psychiatrist who is a serial rapist plants evidence on one of his patients to frame him as the rapist. Later, he steals the car of one of his victims and uses it to fatally run over the patient, in an effort to frame the victim and close both cases.
• In the episode "Watching the Detectives" of Justified, Detroit criminal Robert Quarles conspires with Dixia mafia foot soldier Wynn Duffy to frame lawman US Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens for the murder of Raylan's ex-wife's estranged husband. Quarles actually murdered Gary (the estranged husband), but Quarles and Duffy get their crooked FBI connection, Special Agent Barkley, to launch simultaneous local and federal investigations which keeps Raylan stuck in the Marshal's office in Lexington while Quarles and Duffy are free to operate their fledgling criminal empire in Harlan.
• Jonathan Creek: In "The Eyes of Tiresias", wealthy businessman Andre Masson, who is about to be exposed for massive fraud and has discovered that one of his business associates, Craig Downey, is sleeping with his wife, decides to commit suicide in such a way that he will frame Downey for his murder as revenge for the affair. He simulates and records the sounds of a break in, himself pleading for his life, and a gunshot, burning it onto a CD that he plants in Downey's home; while there, he also steals one of Downey's contact lenses. Masson then writes up several journal entries, where he lies that Downey has been threatening to kill him. Afterward, Masson calls for a lunch meeting and, while all of his associates (including Downey) are outside his office, goes through with his suicide, which he stages with the exact same sounds on the recording; his associates run to the other side of the mansion and find his dead body. Not only do the police discover fake journal entries, but they also find Downey's contact lense near Masson's body, making him the prime suspect. Masson's plan is that the police will then conduct a search of Downey's flat and discover the CD recording; they will subsequently conclude that Downey killed Masson earlier in the day, recorded it, then set the comupter to play said recording while he's outside the office with everyone else, giving himself the perfect alibi. The entire plan is incredibly convoluted and complex, which is entirely the point; nobody will think that anyone would actually go through so much trouble to frame somebody, especially when the conclusion Masson wants them to come to is much more plausible. The entire thing would have worked perfectly, if it weren't for one thing that Masson could not have foreseen; a few days before the suicide, Downey's flat is burgled and all of his CDs, including the one containing the recording, are stolen. The CDs end up being placed for sale in a market stall, where the one containing the recording is purchased by an elderly woman under the assumption that it is a Frank Sinatra album; it begins to play that night just as she begins to fall asleep, leading to her believing that she had dreamed of Masson's death before it had even happened.
• Kamen Rider Dragon Knight : Kit earned a reputation of a thief during the year following his father´s disappearance prior to the story´s start. He is a troublemaker, all right, but not an actual criminal. His supposed criminal records were set up by Xaxiax as a bad reputation would keep people away from him, which would make him easier to manipulate.
  • Brad Barett, a former motocross racer was framed for sabotaging his rival´s machine to win the race. Xaviax has evidence that can prove Brad´s innocence. Interestingly enough, Brad is essentially a good guy like Kit and while brash and obsessed with winning, he would not cross the line into criminal offense.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • In two episodes, Stabler gets falsely accused of being sexually abusive.
    • In the episode "Doubt", the accusation is made by an emotionally disturbed woman who is either traumatized by a real case of abuse or simply an attention-whore who realized just how much attention a false accusation can give her. In either case, she recants her accusation against Stabler and the audience never gets to know if the guy she accused of rape got convicted or not - the episode ends as the jury is about to read the verdict.
    • In the episode "Delinquent", a young sex offender makes up a nonsense accusation against Stabler, and then tries to get his own charges dropped in return for dropping those he made against Stabler.
  • The second-season episode "Taken" starts off with a young woman stumbling out of an elevator during a hotel opening. The staff shuttles her off to the side, and a suspect (who is on the sex offender registry as a pedophile) is later arrested. Turns out it's a scam to get money from the hotel, the supposedly under-age "victim" was in her 20s rather than her mid-teens, the sex was consensual, and the "suspect" was a patsy set up by the girl and her family. Unfortunately, by the time anyone remembers that they have an innocent man in jail, the "suspect" had already been killed in prison (pedophiles being very unpopular in prison populations). Fortunately, that made the woman and her accomplices legally culpable for murder. Disturbingly enough, Munch is the only one who is bothered by the suspect's death (as opposed to being glad the woman and her accomplices didn't get away) and takes the trouble of informing the dead man's ex-girlfriend (who, it turns out, was the same girl the suspect purportedly "molested" when they both were teenagers, he 17 and she 15 and who, it also turns out, was still in love with him and had been for nearly a decade).
• LazyTown: "Swiped Sweets": Robbie frames Sportacus for stealing and eating Bessie's cake.
• Liar (2017): In season two, Andrew frames Laura for murder with Oliver blackmailed into assisting him.
• Line of Duty:
  • Deputy Chief Constable Michael Dryden insists someone is doing this to him in series 2. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Dryden was the one who orchestrated the police convoy ambush, as it would result in the death of Tommy Hunter (who was blackmailing him with incriminating photos of him engaging in sexual acts with a 15 year old) and the prosecution of Lindsay Denton (a former fling and stalker who he forced to have an abortion). However, it is revealed he was being set up, and it was actually Dot who organised the ambush to silence Tommy so he couldn't reveal Dot as his mole in the police service. Dryden's only crime was paedophilia.
  • In order to cover his own tracks, DI Cottan puts together a profile of "The Caddy" listing various likely assumptions about who is is. Amongst them are: he is likely a detective, aged 35 or under, his skill in remaining anonymous suggests he has training and experience in counter-terrorism, and that he has a London/South East accent, all characteristics of DS Steve Arnott. He later kills Lindsay Denton in Steve's car, and leaves it abandoned with her corpse inside, and has one of his minions who works in Strategic Firearms Command alter weapons logs to make it appear that Arnott never returned the pistol he checked out, the same pistol Cottan used to murder Denton.
  • Tim Ifield believes someone framed Michael Farmer for the kidnapping and murder of two women, given that there is virtually no forensic evidence connecting him to the "trophies" found in his house. He doesn't quite accuse Huntley herself of actually framing him, but of charging him anyway as a convenience to wrap up the case and further her own career.
    • Tim actually tries this himself after ostensibly killing Roz. After deciding that there's no way he can get away with "self-defence", he dresses up as Balaclava Man and gets himself caught on camera while shopping for tools to dismember Roz with. The assumption being, if Roz is ever found, the CCTV will make Balaclava Man the prime suspect and divert suspicion away from Tim.
  • After killing Tim, Huntley plants his DNA on the body parts of Leonie Collersdale, one of the earlier victims of Balaclava Man, to make it appear that he was involved in her death.
  • In order to divert attention away from her, Huntley accuses the surviving kidnap victim of killing Tim Ifield when a visit for sex went wrong and using her skills as a cleaner to hide the evidence. Even worse, Fleming was present in the interviews with Hana, which makes it look like she was trying to discredit the investigation in her capacity as an undercover AC12 officer.
  • Maneet acquires DC Desford's login details and uses them to access and make copies of DI Cottans dying declaration to give to ACC Hilton. When confronted by this, Jamie demands a transfer, claiming he has been treated unfairly since joining the team, chiefly focusing on Hastings chastisement of him after the Huntley interview went awry. Becomes a case of Framing the Guilty Party when it turns out that Desford was working with Hilton.
  • In retaliation for Nick authorising the doctors to amputate her arm, Roz has him arrested in suspicion of the murder of Tim Ifield, as he was in the area the night he was killed. However, this was only because he was following Roz, believing she was having an affair, and later lied about his whereabouts to protect both her and her job.
  • When Hastings approaches ACC Hilton with new evidence in the Farmer case that implicates Huntley, Hilton responds by showing him video footage of Cottans dying declaration, in which he claims the lead officer in the crime syndicate's surname begins with H. Hilton then states he intends to have proceedings brought against Hastings in light of this, as he was Cottans superior officer for two years. This is despite the fact Hiltons own surname begins H and Hastings is the opposite of corrupt.
  • The whole of series 5 is one big frame-up.Gill sets up John Corbett to believe Hastings is H, then plants him in an undercover role in an OCG with the express aim of bringing H down. This is after she has been informed of the connection between Corbett and Hastings, involving the former's mother, Anne-Marie Mc Gillis - a police informant who suspiciously went missing right around the time Hastings requested a transfer out of the RUC. When Corbett's dogma to reveal Hastings blows his cover and gets him killed by the OCG, the finger points squarely at Ted. To further consolidate this, Biggeloe sleeps with Ted to steal hair follicles to plant on Corbett's body, plays on his marital woes to stress him out, and forces DCC Wise to take AC12 off the case, making him act desperately to save face. It only fails thanks to Corbett's secret recording of his meeting with Biggeloe, in which she tells him about Hastings and H, and the plans for Operation Peartree.
  • In Series 6 Farida Jatri is framed for aiding organized criminals by her ex-girlfriend Joanne Davidson, who'd really done this. Later on, Davidson frames her boss Ian Buckels for leaking being the link to organized criminals (which, again, is really her).
• Happens a lot on Melrose Place from making someone look like they're cheating on a lover to screwing up a business deal with a lot of wild stuff.
  • Matt gets involved with Paul, a doctor who says his marriage is over as he knows he's gay. Coming to the house, Matt finds the alarms on and the police show up just as he discovers the body of Paul's wife. Interrogated, Matt confesses to the affair but is thrown when the police say they have reports of Matt stalking Paul and his wife. Paul bursts in to angrily snap at Matt, who claims his innocence. But when Paul rants on how Matt has been stalking them and now has killed his "beloved" wife, Matt realizes Paul did it and has been setting up Matt this whole time.
  • It's bad enough in season 4 when Peter is wrongfully accused of killing a patient. But then he finds himself carted off by a nutso Kimberly (who is under another personality called "Betsy") who puts him in an insane asylum with the idea he's crazy and thinks he's a famous surgeon.
• Merlin (2008): In "Queen of Hearts", Morgana frames Gwen for using magic on Arthur.
• Double subverted in the fifth-season Modern Family episode "Spring-a-Ding Fling." Gloria accuses Lilly of having broken the glass on her phone. Lilly maintains to both Gloria and Jay that, contrary to what they believe, Joe (an infant at the time) can walk and reach high enough to have gotten to Gloria's purse. When they see Joe walk for the first time at Lilly's prompting, they believe her. Later she confesses to the camera that she actually did it and framed Joe, to the point of taking Joe's shoes off and making fake footprints in spilled baby powder.
  • But in the show's stinger one of her dads asks her why Joe's shoes are on the wrong feet.
• Murder in the First: Ernie Knubbins plants evidence making one of his subordinates appear to be behind the murder of an undercover cop, then has him murdered while in custody so he can't say otherwise.
• The Murders:
  • In "The Long Black Veil" to cover up Kate letting her gun get stolen and used in a murder, her partner Mike planted bullets from a different gun against a suspect in the case, so her mistake wouldn't get revealed. This leads to his death later helping Kate, which she blames herself for.
  • "In My Feelings" reveals that Kate's father had gone along with his partner planting evidence against a murder suspect, so he'd been convicted.
• In the NCIS episode "Frame-Up", Anthony DiNozzo has a murder pinned on him by Abby's lab assistant Chip as revenge for Di Nozzo having gotten him fired from his job at a medical analysis company a few years prior.
• Next (2020):
  • Next puts out a fake Amber alert saying Ty kidnapped his son Ethan when the two go off the grid to get away from its scrutiny. Ty's nearly beaten up by a group of men before the local police chief intervenes, the alert having been canceled when this ploy gets discovered.
  • Next leads the police to suspect one of the protestors outside FBI headquarters has a gun so they'll use their tasers on him. Within seconds of this occurring, Next has digitally edited the video of the incident captured by the other protestors and released it on Youtube to make it seem as if the man was killed by the police, further inflaming tensions.
• Once Upon a Time: In the late first season, Regina frames Mary Margaret for killing Kathryn. The case is about to go to trial, and looks hopeless, when Kathryn is found alive.]]
• One of Us is Lying: TJ is framed by Simon Says for murdering Giselle using evidence planted in his car.
• Only Murders in the Building: The trio are framed for murder at the end of Season 1 which then kick-starts Season 2's plot. It's revealed the perpetrators had framed another person for murder too.
• Orange Is the New Black: After they accidentally shoot Piscatella, the CERT team makes it look as if he was really shot by the inmates. At first it doesn't implicate any single person, since multiple inmates' prints were on the gun, before Taystree is implicated with false witness statements.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "Judgment Day", Declan McMahon is framed for the murder of Caitlin Channing, a former police officer turned guard at Dawlish Security who discovered that he had a criminal record and had him fired from the company. After he learns that his brother Dooley is going to be fired for getting him the job, Declan goes to Caitlin's apartment to talk to her, but she's already dead. When the police arrive, he's covered with her blood. The true killer is a 16-year-old Championship Pizza delivery boy named Joey. His presence in the building is readily apparent on the CCTV footage, but it's doctored by Jack Parson, the producer of the reality show Judgment Day, to remove all traces of Joey. However, they miss Frame 259, which shows a reflection of Joey's trousers. Jack frames Declan as Joey is too young to receive the death penalty and therefore cannot be featured on Judgment Day, which would have interfered with his plan to create a ratings bonanza and get a full 22-episode order for the series.
  • In "Free Spirit", the disembodied spirit of Kevin Lockwood has his vengeance when he frames Dr. Rachel Harris for the murder of Dr. Kate Thornton. Both women were part of Project Free Spirit which led to his spirit being separated from his body. However, Lockwood holds Rachel directly responsible for his current condition since she was the one who actually killed his body while Kate merely delivered the order issued by the US government. Lockwood took possession of Rachel's body and gave Kate a lethal dose of an unspecified drug that the Sleepy Order Sanitarium had in stock. He later took control of Dr. David Strickland's body and goaded Rachel into attacking him. Just as she was about to stab him, the police arrived and he claimed that she killed Kate. The episode ends with Rachel in a prison cell being mocked by Lockwood, now in the body of a guard.
  • In "Afterlife", Stiles' claims he was framed for eleven murders by the US Army. Eventually, the people who did it admit this.
• Player: Hae-ju threatens to sue Kim Seong-jin for sexual harassment. He retaliates by hiring detectives to plant drugs in her suitcase then has her arrested.
• The Power (2023): After killing Viktor, Tatiana murders Solongo and then makes it appear like she's his killer.
• The Practice: In the episode "Hammerhead Sharks", the defendant turns out to have gotten set up, as he insisted, by the real killers.
• Prodigal Son: Malcolm is framed for murdering Eve's murderer with DNA planted on the guy's body. Although reluctant, the police arrest him for it and he's forced to find evidence exonerating himself.
• Proven Innocent:
  • Heather Husband, one of Maddie's old classmates, still refuses to believe that she and her brother Levi are innocent, and in the first episode, she and her husband Brian decide to frame Levi for assault so that he'll lose his job and get sent back to jail.
  • Kaufman frames a man previously acquitted of serial murders with faked emails indicating he killed Adele's stepmother, ensuring her acquittal on the charge.
  • In "SEAL Team Deep Six", Rachel Clarke was framed by the real killer of her training officer.
• Pure: Anna is framed by Hector Estrada to make it look like she's the boss of the drug operation. Thankfully, it's uncovered by Abel who turns over the evidence for the police.
• The first half of the first season of Quantico deals with Alex being framed for a terrorist bombing and having to clear her name.
• Renegade is about a cop framed for murdering his lover, and is constantly trying to confront the bad cops who framed him.
• Romper Stomper: Kane makes Jago's accidental death look like murder at the hands of Muslims by spray-painting Islamic slogans and symbols on his wall, adding to anarchist graffiti already there.
• The Rookie (2018): Nolan is framed for corruption by the Armenian mob with evidence planted in his house.
• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace:
  • Xiyue and A Ruo conspire to have Ruyi framed for poisoning Qiying.
  • Yuyan frames Ruyi for having an affair with a priest. Later Yuyan frames Yunche for stealing her underwear.
  • On Yanwan's orders Jiuxiao tampers with Yongxuan's saddle to make his horse throw him. Yongqi is nearby when the accident happens, leading to him getting the blame for it.
  • Yanwan frames Yuyan for setting her dog on Jingsi.
• Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators: In "Time Decays", the murderer frames Frank for the murder: testing the Victim of the Week from Frank's phone, wearing Frank's trainers to leave his footprints at the crime scene, and beating the victim to death with Frank's walking pole, which also had Frank's blood on it.
• Sister Boniface Mysteries: In "My Brother's Keeper", the killer plants the stolen painting in Alfie Lynch's room to frame him for the theft and Gerry Ardwell's murder.
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand: Batiatus first kidnaps the high-ranking Magistrate Titus Calavius. Then Batiatus' servant, Ashur, pretends to turn on him and leads Solonius to where Calavius is being held. As they approach, Ashur abandons Solonius and he finds Calavius tied up. Solonius draws a knife to cut him loose, only to find his throat has already been slit. At the moment, the authorities arrive and accuse him of murder even though he and his knife are clean. It was all Batiatus' plan to get Solonius sentenced to death.
• The Spencer Sisters:
  • In "The Virtuoso's Vexation" the caretaker of a private school is framed for theft by a student, with his criminal history helping to sell the frame up. He gets fired, but then rehired with apologies when the frame up is later revealed.
  • The poisoner from "The Diva's Disaster" had implicated a famous woman in the poisoning to throw the police off, while being Beneath Notice at first.
• Star Trek:
  • It happens in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Court Martial" — Ben Finney fakes his death and frames Captain Kirk for his murder. However, Finney did not count on a) Spock discovering the computer that held the damning evidence had been tampered with and b) Finney's daughter turning over the letters he had written blaming Kirk for denying him his own command.
  • Played with in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Perspective" — Riker is accused of murdering a scientist working for the Federation in a fit of jealousy. It turns out the scientist was trying to murder Riker (via transporter accident) because he feared his plan to sell his research to another galactic power would be exposed. But the energy beam he used reflected off Riker's transporter beam and destroyed the station's power core, which made it look like Riker used his phaser to blow up the core. Attempted murder of the innocent party turned into a frame job of the same one!
  • In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Ex Post Facto", Tom Paris is framed for the murder of an alien scientist. The culprit turns out to be an agent for an enemy species in cahoots with the scientist's wife.
• Strange Empire: Slotter claims that all attempts to pin the murders of the men on him are this. He is of course a lying liar who lies. His men commit a real frame-up on two innocent Blackfeet men, claiming that both were found with the loot they took from the men.
• Supergirl (2015):
  • In the episode "The Darkest Place", Vigilante Man Philip Karnowsky murders a crook who Guardian has just captured, making National City think that Guardian is responsible.
  • In season 4, Lex Luthor has Red Daughter pose as Kara to attack the White House and make it look like Supergirl has gone rogue.
• Taken:
  • In "High Hopes", Owen Crawford has Jesse Keys arrested as a spy in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 24, 1962. He tells the commander of the Hill Air Force Base that Jesse received secret information from Lt. Wiley and planned to pass it on to the Soviet Union in the hope of turning the tide in the Crisis.
  • In "Maintenance", Marty Erickson tells Eric Crawford that his father Owen had him obtain a car for him from the Groom Lake motorpool on October 28, 1962, the night that Anne and Bowen were murdered. After the car was returned, it had 417 additional miles on it. This was the exact distance, round trip, from Groom Lake to the location of the murders. Eric tells the police of Erickson's supposed involvement and he is arrested as an accessory before the fact. This clears the way for Eric to take over the project.
• Tidelands (Netflix): Cal was framed for murdering Durborrow, who supposedly died in a fire she set. He was dead already though, having been killed by Murdoch. This was set up by her mom Rosa to get rid of her.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "The Convict's Piano", Mickey Shaughnessy framed Eddie O'Hara for murder in 1928 because he was his rival for Ellen's love.
• The Twilight Zone (2019): In "Meet in the Middle", this is what happened to Phil when Annie uses him to kill her abusive husband.
• Occurs several times on Walker, Texas Ranger:
  • "An Innocent Man" (Season 2) had Walker trying to prove the innocence of an electrician named Woodrow Wilton for killing multiple women before he is executed. The real perpetrator, Leon Muncie, was always looking for one sucker after another to frame, but Walker was able to stop him in time.
  • Season 4's "The Lynching" detailed a mentally-impaired young man named Jonah Nelson (played by Eric Bruskotter) being framed for killing Wilma Casey (whom he had been living with at the time) and then robbing her. Because of how well-known Casey was in her town, it was enough to rile up the other residents in an attempt to kill him, whether it's hanging him or lighting a house on fire while he was still inside, along with Walker and the sheriff. The real culprit turns out to be his Evil Uncle, Earl, and after Walker shames the entire town for almost killing an innocent man, they're all forced to apologize. In addition, Casey left everything to Jonah after she died.
  • Season 5's "Texas vs. Cahill" sees Alex being accused of killing one of her ex-boyfriends, who is the defending attorney in her current trial, and being sent to a women's prison where she has to contend with vengeful female inmates she previously prosecuted. Walker, Trivette and her father, Gordon, later prove that her current defendant, Lane Tillman, framed her for the crime.
  • "Lost Boys" in Season 7 had Jesse Estrella, Carlos's nephew, being framed for the murder of Dallas Police Detective Bill Sadler following a raid on an electronics warehouse. After the real perpetrator, Johnny Blade, left the gun in the hands of Jesse's best friend, Bobby Landrum, after the murder, Bobby hid it in Jesse's dresser in a bout of panic. When Blade demands that he return his gun, Jesse is then given the Sadistic Choice of either keeping quiet of what happened or his mother, Theresa, dies. It soon goes From Bad to Worse when Carlos and Theresa find the gun first, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang at which point Jesse is blackmailed into confessing to Sadler's murder, even the defense attorney, Lawrence Patterson, was in on it. In short, Blade was going to kill Theresa and Jesse anyway (Blade doing so to Theresa and the imprisoned gang members doing so to Jesse, respectively). Luckily, after being overcome with guilt for selling out his best friend, Bobby confessed to everything and Jesse is released, leading up to Blade and Patterson being arrested.
  • Season 9's "Deadly Situation" detailed rookie Sage City, Texas, cop and aspiring Ranger Glenn Cooper (a descendant of the legendary Hayes Cooper and distant cousin of Walker's) busting three of his own for the theft of 300 kilos of cocaine from a recent drug bust, as they were working for a drug dealer named Chick Winslow. However, the three dirty detectives framed Glenn and his partner (whom they'd kill afterwards) for their crime in an effort to silence them, thanks to the fourth party involved, their boss, Lieutenant Shell, tipping them off after Glenn gave him the original copies of the evidence the following morning after the bust. Though Shell had destroyed the original photos Glenn gave him, he is eventually found out after Sydney and Gage arrest the three detectives and recover the extra copies Glenn hid at a library before said detectives could get them, first, then as they and Trivette arrest Winslow, Shell goes on to kill himself instead of being arrested by his boss and Walker.
  • "Desperate Measures" (also in Season 9) had a woman named Lara Pope being framed for a murder committed by her mob boss ex-husband, Garrett. Garrett killed his business partner after Lara supposedly had an affair with him to cover up his shady business practices, and her defense lawyer was in on the whole thing, having testified against her. Lara was one of four female inmates who escaped from the prison bus en route to the Gatesville Women's Prison after it was ambushed by the boyfriends of two other convicts. While the other two escapees continued their bank robbery spree, Lara was left to fend for herself along with her cellmate, Hitch Harrelson, and when Walker and his team receive word of the women escaping, he believed the Pope case was mishandled and asks Alex to look into it. Her defense attorney doesn't face any consequences, but he does die in a car accident. Near the end of the episode, Lara was released on a personal recognizance bond after Garrett is arrested, but due to her lawyer's misconduct and with new evidence gathered, she was likely to get a full dismissal.
• Why Women Kill: Rita planned to murder her husband Carlo. Alma's plot got to him first, which she uses to frame Rita, along with planting the poison syringe used in Rita's purse.
• Wild Bill:
  • In "Piano Man" Si was framed for Blair's crimes, who had put him at the scene of a murder he committed.
  • In "Dead Men Don't Return Library Books" Alma manages to frame her father, who vanished years ago, in a string of burglaries, hoping the police can find him as she needs a liver transplant while they share a rare blood type.
• Wild Cards (2024):
  • In "Show Me the Murder" Hailey Chen-Lin, one of the suspects, gets framed by the real culprit with the murder weapon planted inside her truck. She's cleared before long though.
  • It's revealed Cole was demoted due to being framed for possessing drugs.
• You (2018): At the end of season 1 Joe successfully frames Dr. Nicky for Beck's murder, after Joe buried her body on his property. He also hid his box of incriminating evidence in an old drainage, which includes Benji's teeth and Peach's phone, implicating Nicky in both their murders as well.

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