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"Ever notice how something dramatic seems to happen around here every eight minutes? I can't be the only one noticing this."
Oh no! A bad guy has walked in on a member of a group running an Impossible Mission, or something has otherwise Gone Horribly Wrong in the plan.
This happens right before a commercial break, usually about 40 minutes into an hour-long show. Fortunately, right after the commercials, the hero or team will quickly dispose of the crisis and it will have no effect on the rest of the episode.
Examples:
Advertising
- In one Corn Pops commercial, a man is eating cereal on a balcony with skyscrapers in the background. The cereal box, on the rail, suddenly begins to topple and fall. In dramatic slow-motion he reaches for it but is too late. Then it turns out that he wasn't on a balcony at all, he was just on a hill overlooking the city and the ground was right on the other side of the rail.
Anime and Manga
- In Yu-Gi-Oh!, a commercial break (or in extreme cases, the end of a two-parter episode) would often hit just as Yugi/Joey/whoever we're rooting for appeared to be panicking over the seemingly unstoppable card their opponent du jour has just pulled out. When we returned, our hero would then quickly produce just the cards needed to win, earlier fear forgotten.
- In Busou Renkin, Kazuki sends himself and Victor up to the moon at the end of an episode, effectively "killing" the both of them. The other characters spend an entire episode angsting about it, until the beginning of the next episode, when they simply send some people up to get him. Of course it doesn't end that easily, but you have to wonder why they didn't just do that in the first place.
Film
- Every James Bond film.
- In Oceans Eleven, one of the 11 is tasked with sneaking into the vault, jumping to avoid the sensors in the floor, then placing explosives on the door to let the other robbers in. During the last bit, he gets his hand stuck, leaving him without cover, right as the guys are on the other side of the door about to blow it. After playing it for all the suspense they can...the detonator's batteries are dead. Then, once that's been resolved, they blow the door open...and find their inside man safe inside, wondering what took them so long.
- Babel was guilty of this trope: showing the nanny verging on panic when she realizes the children she was looking after have run away. Cut to another scene. Cut back to the nanny, now in a police station. Policeman: "You sure are lucky we found those kids, ma'am."
Literature
- Almost every chapter of the children's series The Werewolf Chronicles ends like this. Gasp! Someone's grabbing the hero from behind! ... oh, wait, it's only a tree branch. Never mind.
Live Action TV
- This happened in virtually every episode of Mission Impossible. The IMF always planned for such possibilities, and sometimes intentionally worked the reveal into their con game.
- The Amazing Race is absolutely horrible with these. Very occasionally there will be a real Commercial Break Cliffhanger, but for every single other commercial break there well always be a Pseudo Crisis. I'm not exaggerating.
- In one episode of the '70s version of Battlestar Galactica, at the end of the episode the cast were hiding in a snowy valley, while a group of Cylons passed by in single file. As the last one was passing by, Muffin the dagget barked. The Cylon stopped and looked towards the noise... TO BE CONTINUED. Next week, the Cylon just wandered off.
- The original Doctor Who did this incessantly between parts of their serials. Perhaps the most infamous example came in The Deadly Assassin, when an enemy grabbed the Doctor from behind and started to drown him at the end of an episode. The next week, the man lost energy for no apparent reason, and the Doctor threw him off with ease.
- And Genesis of the Daleks, where Sarah loses her grip of a ledge and screams as she plummets... actually, no, there's a ledge six inches below her, and she continues to climb.
- One of the most egregious - Dragonfire, where in the last few minutes of an episode the Doctor, for no apparent reason, climbs onto a ledge and dangles there by an umbrella handle.
- In the made-for-TV adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time, a commercial break comes just as Meg, her father, and Calvin have landed on the planet Ixchel, just barely escaping from the grasp of The Black Thing. Suddenly, over the horizon comes horrible eyeless monsters! The music rises, oh no! Commercial. Come back, and Calvin and Dr. Murry are calmly discussing their plight with the sightless creatures, whom we automatically understand are just really ugly good guys.
- Played for laughs in one episode of Police Squad! Just before commercial break, Frank Drebin drinks from a glass as he speaks with a woman who we saw drug someone in the teaser. Suddenly the music cues up as he starts gasping and clutching at his throat. After commercial break, it is revealed that his drink went down the wrong pipe.
- Happens Once Per Episode, and is arguably the only source of tension, on Destination Truth.
- A particularly irritating one happened in the third season of Dexter. An episode ends with Dexter suddenly becoming the target of the season's Big Bad, and then being violently bound and shoved into the trunk of a car. Cut to credits. Well, it looks like this season's finally starting to heat up! Next episode, it turns out that he was being taken to his bachelor party. Yes, Dexter's cop buddies sneaked up behind him, bound and gagged him, and shoved him into a trunk for what was probably a drive across town. Wow.
- In Angel, the title character completely despairs of being able to do good in his Crapsack World, and has sex with his old flame Darla hoping for a moment of perfect happiness that will end his curse and let him be the evil, soulless Angelus again. The episode ends with him clutching at his chest, just like he did the last time his soul was removed in parent show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in the next episode we find that he still has his soul: not one moment of happiness that whole night! No reason for his chest clutching is given.
- Parodied on SCTV's Six-Gun Justice (a parody of old Western movie serials, the type that were not only made, but set, during WWII). An episode ends with the heroes tied up and yelling in fear as a bomb is dropped on them. Next episode: the hero says, "Lucky that bomb was a dud!"
Video Games
- King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride alternates gameplay between Queen Valanice and Princess Rosella. At the end of the first chapter Valanice is threatened by a giant monster. As you play as Rosella for chapter two you worry how you're going to get Valanice out of this situation. Start chapter three and you realize that you can just feed a desert fruit to the monster, and he'll go away. Talk about a blatant plot device for the sake of a cliffhanger...
- Speaking of blatant plot devices, Valenice getting arrested for stealing the moon is even worse in this troper's opinion. Then again, this one might actually be justified by the fact that it's Falderal, and it isn't supposed to make sense.
Webcomics
- Webcomics that update week-daily enjoy breaking for the weekends for this exact same reason.
- Even ones that update more frequently will still usually have some kind of minor pseudo-crisis or at least punch line at the end of every installment. This can make for interesting pacing when the work is published as a book, because something notable happens at the end of every page, even if it's all one continuous narrative.
- Sluggy Freelance once ended a Friday strip with Riff being attacked by zombies
 . The following Saturday and Sunday are Filler strips, so Sluggy fans had to wait three days to find out what was going to happen. And when Monday comes around ... it turns out the zombie attack was just Torg "punking" Riff with a zombie head on a stick.
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