Live-Action TV examples of twins switching places.
- All My Children's Adam Chandler would often do this with his brother Stuart (usually with Stuart being very reluctant to do so or unaware in the first place) to get the goods on people in either his or Stuart's life that he was suspicious of.
- An episode of Barney & Friends where the kids discover the girl they've been playing with is in fact two girls. And a season later, Ashley and Alyssa became part of the cast. Interestingly, not all of their episode appearances were together.
- The Bananas in Pyjamas episode "Switcheroo" has the Bananas trade pyjamas as a joke on the Teddies to see if they could tell which is which. It backfires when they slip up and answer to their own names rather than the other's.
- A set of twins from the 2002 UK Big Brother actually did that to their boyfriends. They took the other's boyfriend to the bedroom and indulged in foreplay and fondling and then swapped back and scolded them. So hot yet so wrong.
- The Australian Big Brother had a set of twins pretend to be one person. One twin would spend some time in the house while the other would be in his own room with books and TV and such. At any time Big Brother felt like, they would swap over, with only a couple of minutes to update each other on what was happening in the house. They managed to keep it up for two or three weeks until one of the twins cut himself in an accident.
- The American edition did this too with Adria and Natalie. In season 5, Project Do Not Assume, it was assumed that Cowboy and Nakomis were the twist because they turned out to be half-siblings. However; it was then revealed that someone else had a sibling in the house and they were pulling one of these. It was then revealed that to be Adria and Natalie, who switched places in the diary room until the reveal. There was also some brilliance from the crew, because it could have also been Diane or Drew, since they both had a twin sibling outside the house.
- This was repeated in season 17 with Liz and Julia as part of the BB Takeover. However, the cast was well aware of the Twin Twist.
- In Broad City, Trey's younger twin sisters are middle school teachers who pretend to be each other.
- On the 'Burke's Law episode "Who Killed the Movie Mogul?" loathsome movie producer Leo is murdered on set. At his funeral, everyone is shocked when his kindly brother Max shows up. He passes a lie detector test on not killing Leo but Burke notes how the near-sighted Max's glasses are clear, not actually corrective. It turns out Leo was angry Max wanted to push him out of the studio so tricked him into swapping places "like when we were kids." He then killed Max and decided to pose as him to continue running the studio.
- Castle pulls this off with two women that aren't even related in "Dance with Death", thanks to Magic Plastic Surgery and an untimely death on a train (the dead woman was a wealthy heiress who had various minor criminal convictions and hired a dancer with a strong resemblance to her to pose as the heiress and deal with the obligations she didn't want to deal with, the dancer taking the opportunity when the heiress died in a train accident).
- Chicago Med has an episode where teenager Jemma needs ovarian surgery. Her identical twin sister Emma is with her and it's clear the girls are far too obsessed with matching on everything from clothing to hair and Emma even wanting to also be on an IV. Emma openly asks she receive the same surgery just so she and Jemma can have matching scars. Dr. Charles appears to get through to them so they agree. As Jemma goes in for the surgery, Charles talks to Emma...who starts crying "I'm sorry, she talked me into it..." A horrified Charles bursts into the operating room to warn the doctors that it's Emma they're about to operate on. Thankfully, the surgeon hasn't gone too far and the proper twin is operated on, although the girls get their wish as Emma now has a scar just like Jemma.
- There's an episode of Coupling in which Patrick relates a story in which he'd been unknowingly dating twins for some time, to the point of near-complete exhaustion.Patrick: Yeah, it would have been worse if they'd been identical...
- One of the many things the original CSI makes extremely creepy. In the episode "Pirates of the Third Reich", the Neo-Nazi killer responsible for the murder of Lady Heather's daughter killed his twin for deciding to remain an adherent to the Jewish faith, then took his place at a sleep study clinic so he could gain access to victims for concentration camp-style experimentation.
- The plot of Deception (2018) is based on the premise that Cameron and Johnny Black were the identical twin sons of a stage magician who decided to use them in his act. He hid the existence of Johnny from the public and had the twins switch places as needed. After his death, the brothers continued the deception with Cameron being the face of the act and Johnny continuing as the twin no one knew about. The public learns the truth when Johnny is framed for causing a fatal car accident and goes to prison. We later learn that the Mysterious Woman behind the frameup knew about the twin scheme and was planning on framing Cameron but got it wrong due to not knowing which brother was really which. In the season one finale Johnny knocks out Cameron and impersonates him in order to escape from prison.
- On Desperate Housewives, Porter is late for a hearing when accused of a crime. When he finally shows up, his attorney ready to go...only for Tom and Lynette to berates Preston for being stupid enough to take his twin brother's place while Porter fled town. Preston briefly claims to be Porter only to be cut off by his parents asking if their sons actually think the two can't tell the difference between their own children.
- Another non-comedic example: A man murders his twin, then takes over his twin's life on Diagnosis: Murder.
- Parodied in Degrassi Junior High. A girl has to leave her date early, so she has her twin sister take her place half-way through. It's all for nothing, because the boyfriend is too busy hitting on another girl to notice.
- This is the main premise of the Polish series Dziewczyna i chłopak ("The girl and the boy"): a twin brother and sister switch places before going on summer vacation.
- The plot of the Chilean Soap Opera "Esa no soy yo" ("That one is not me") is triggered by the protagonist Judith, a hard-working woman with a Dark and Troubled Past, finding her twin sister Anahí dead in weird circumstances. Thinking that Anahí was killed because of her and fearing for her own life, Judith decides to pass herself as Anahí to protect herself and find out what happened; however, she soon finds out that Anahí had a Dark and Troubled Past of her own...
- Farscape: Early in season three John Crichton is split into two completely identical clones. In the next episode one of the Crichtons attends a secret meeting with a local politican and is severely injured when a bomb goes off. The second, un-injured Crichton steps in and can honestly tell the planet's ruler that he didn't meet with the politican.
- Early in Friends, Joey was dating Phoebe's Evil Twin Ursula. When Ursula stands Joey up on their date and wants nothing to do with him anymore, Phoebe poses as Ursula to break up with Joey on her sister's behalf and lets him down gently. He eventually recognizes Phoebe after kissing her, but is thankful for the gesture.
- Years later, Ursula pulls the same trick herself when she has sex with her ex-fiance, who mistook her for Phoebe whom he just started dating.
- Fringe: One episode had characters played by Shawn and Aaron Ashmore pull this one off — one twin presumed dead actually frozen in amber while the other assumes his identity for years. This is a variation in that one twin had developed into The Atoner because of his twin's status, and was developing a procedure to wake him up. He eventually gets Fringe division to freeze him in amber so that the formerly frozen twin could step back into his life without a hitch.
- Himmelsdalen: Siri does with her twin Helena in the first episode, switching places to leave the sanitorium without Helena knowing (she's been drugged).
- In one episode of Home and Away, Kirsty got Laura to take her place during an exam. Unfortunately for them, Dan had seen everything.
- House of Anubis: Patricia attempts to do this when she's scheduled for a dinner with Eddie and his father, who happens to be the school's dorky principal, Mr. Sweet. Her Polar Opposite Twin Piper just so happens to be staying at Anubis House in secret during this time, so the plan is for Piper to take her place on the date and impress Eddie's dad. Hilarity Ensues when she and Joy tag along to see how the date's going, with Patricia having to pretend to be Piper pretending to be Patricia when she's caught trying to eavesdrop. Eventually, they get caught in the act by a very unhappy Mr. Sweet.
- The InBESTigators: "The Case of the Soccer Saga" is driven by this; unlike most examples, the twins in question are mirror twins rather than perfectly identical.
- Intimate: Oskar is an actor suffering from a case of herpes, so he sends his identical twin Emil to show up on set on his behalf, while he takes on Emil’s job as a delivery boy. Oskar’s co-star and best friend Bruno immediately sees through it and plays along until Emil-as-Oskar outacts him, upon which he blows the ruse by pointing out Emil’s Identical Twin ID Tag: he’s got a Triple Nipple.
- Jeremiah: This is played with by Erin (Ingrid Kavelaars) and Lauren (Monique Kavelaars) during the episode Moon in Gemini, where one of them sleeps with Jeremiah. He thinks it's Erin at the time, but then becomes uncertain, though neither will say which it was (in the scene we see it's Lauren, who pulls down her hair (it was in ponytails) to appear like Erin, but he doesn't). Interestingly, this was the only time Monique Kavelaars ever acted, while Ingrid does so full-time.
- Played a part in the Jonathan Creek special "Black Canary"; years ago one of a pair of twins died when a trick they were practising went wrong, but it is revealed in the course of the special that the twin everyone believes died was actually the one that survived, the surviving twin taking her sister's place to spare her sister's family from the truth of her death.
- Kitchen Nightmares had an episode where twins owned the failing restaurant and the first action upon meeting Gordon Ramsay was for the one up front to shake his hand then go back, get his brother and pretend they were or weren't the same person.
- A grisly and totally non-comedic Twin Switch was the basis for an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: A woman finds the body of her twin sister and knows that the hit was meant for her, so she decides to make them think they succeeded by posing as her dead sister, fooling everyone, including the murdered twin's husband and daughter. It's not until the murdered sister's bones are found and autopsied (the supposed victim had some extensive dental work that was missing from the body) that the truth begins to come out.
- In another episode, one man is wrongly accused of rapes his twin brother committed (they were Separated at Birth). His twin had discovered and framed him.
- In yet another variation one half of a set of identical male twins is raised female because of a botched genital surgery. He asserts his maleness and either he or his twin kill their therapist. No way to know which what with the identical DNA.
- Notable is how on Liv and Maddie, the titular twins pull this but it almost never works as it turns out each is terrible trying to replicate the other. Maddie can never get Liv's higher voice and fashion right and Liv is totally out of her depth trying to replicate Maddie's smarts or basketball playing.
- Notable is the one time they tried it on their parents, it didn't fool them for a second.
- Bigger is when the girls' grandmother (played by none other than Patty Duke) came for a visit. Feeling something is off, Maddie soon finds it's not their grandmother but her own twin sister as the real grandma couldn't make it so sent her twin instead. Maddie actually calls out her mother on this with "you hate switches!" She agrees to keep quiet so as not to mess up Liv being honored at school. During the ceremony, guess who enters fresh off her flight from Africa...
- In Lucifer, Michael is Lucifer's twin brother, although he speaks with an American accent and is always hunched over, while Lucifer has a British accent and stands up straight. Their powers are also opposites: while Lucifer can compel mortals to reveal their deepest desires, Michael can compel them to reveal their greatest fears. When Michael comes to Earth while Lucifer is in Hell, he pretends to be Lucifer in order to sleep with Chloe. However, Maze quickly figures out that "Lucifer" isn't who he claims to be. And so does Chloe. Later on, Lucifer uses one of Maze's blades to carve a permanent scar on Michael's face to make sure this doesn't happen again.
- In the fourth episode of the fifth series of Misfits, Rudy One impersonates Rudy Two, the other aspect of his Literal Split Personality, in order to investigate who is responsible for Rudy Two's mysterious rapid aging. Due to the difference in their personalities, this is very difficult.
- In the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Sweet Amelia", Crabtree's Axe-Crazy Stalker with a Crush Amelia Ernst arrives at the station house to give herself up, saying she has seen the error of her ways, and also her twin sister Dorothy has left and she doesn't know where she is. It eventually transpires that Amelia has killed herself, and this is Dorothy seeking revenge on George for this.
- Matthew pulls this on NewsRadio when his twin brother Andrew came to visit. Trouble is, they didn't look alike, because they really weren't twins. In fact, they weren't even blood brothers; Matthew was adopted but never caught on.
- In a subversion of Matthew's normal stupidity, at the end of the episode it is revealed Matthew has known all along they weren't twins, but went with it because it is Andrew who was adopted.
- One episode of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency had a case involving identical twins trying to share one dentist's degree. One was considerably less talented than the other.
- In an episode of Northern Exposure Joel's streetwise never-before-metnioned twin brother Jules comes to town and wants to pull the twin switch for old times sake. Joel agrees on the condition that Jules not actual conduct any of Joel's business as a doctor. Then Joel gets arrested for a three-card monte scam and Jules has to fill in.
- Orphan Black features several clones all played by the same actress. Naturally, there are several instances where one clone impersonates another. There's even one scene where one clone impersonates another clone's impersonation of a third clone. These scenes are played for both drama and comedy.
- Most episodes of The Patty Duke Show, albeit the same actress played both twins with the help of Nerd Glasses and a Scottish Accent.
- In Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, Faran openly accuses Kelly of actually being Karen and they switched at the dance. It's up in the air whether or not Kelly is honest about being herself but telling even her mother calls her Karen.
- One episode of Property Brothers: Buying and Selling started off with Drew and Jonathan dressed as each other as a prank (the clients were big fans of the show). It failed, because there's just enough difference between the brothers' voices and hairstyles that the clients (big fans, remember?) caught on immediately.
- In the very first episode of Quantico, we learn that new recruit Nimah is actually a set of Always Identical Twins sharing the same post. One of the recruits saw her sister, Raina, pinning her hijab on differently than Nimah, to which she passes it off as ambidextrous.
- Saturday Night Live
- The sketch "Mirror Image" had two sisters, played by Amy Adams and Kristen Wiig, try this to divide schoolwork. The plan falls through, though, due to Wiig's character looking fatter, acting dumber, and behaving more crudely than Adams's.
- A similar sketch ran as a parody of Disney Channel sitcoms, featuring Chris Hemsworth and Taran Killam as "identical" twins who decide to switch places so Taran's twin can help Chris's pass a math test. Unfortunately, all of the girls in the class—including the teacher—immediately realize the truth and start pointing out how much hotter Chris's twin is by meanly comparing Taran to the muscular Chris.
- Scoundrels (2010): When Cal gets stuck with having to do two jobs at the same time, he asks Logan to take his place and pretends to be Cal to do Mr. Hong's job. Logan reluctantly agrees and wears a wig to pass as Cal. Things get complicated when he meets Patty Hong at the end of the job and they end up hitting off and sleeping together... while she still thinks he's Cal. Cal is only somehwat jealous (mostly because Patty brags she's a Sex Goddess) but Patty gets pissed when she finds out, and it takes some groveling from Logan to get her to forgive him.
- Sister, Sister far too many times to mention. In the first few seasons, Tia wore a mole to make her look identical to Tamera, but the mole was off by senior year, and was even talked about.
- Funnily enough, the girls have mentioned that this doesn't work for them in real life. They once tried it for laughs (faking the mole with mascara) and all their friends immediately recognized them.
- Actually Inverted in one episode—both sisters make plans to go out with a boy, who accidentally asked both out thinking that they were the same person. The three-person date was naturally a bit awkward.
- Subverted in another episode where one of their friends asks Tia why she's coming out of Tamera's classroom, blowing their cover. They switched so that Tia (the smart one) could take a test for Tamera.
- Katie and Emily switched in one episode of Skins, so that Emily could sit Katie's exam while she was sat at home moping. All of the teachers were fooled, but none of their fellow students.
- And Katie later pretended to be Emily to trick Naomi, although that was mostly over the phone.
- Actually, after watching the show for a while, it becomes almost ridiculously easy to tell them apart. They have subtly different mannerisms and dress-senses. It is almost as if they are two different people. note
- Stuck in the Middle: Harley Diaz and her friend Ellie Peters pull one in "Stuck in the School Photo".
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, many times in the earlier episodes. However, they haven't used it as much now that the one twin is clearly thinner and slightly taller than the other one.
- Lampshaded in one episode, when Zack suggested that one of them should take the place of their middle-eastern friend Sanjay at a ceremony that Sanjay didn't want to attend.Cody: Great! Except he looks nothing like us! *to Sanjay* His plans only work for twins.
- Lampshaded in one episode, when Zack suggested that one of them should take the place of their middle-eastern friend Sanjay at a ceremony that Sanjay didn't want to attend.
- Sunset Beach's Ben's Evil Twin Derek did this in order to take over his life.
- Supergirl (2015): Astra comments that when she and her twin sister Alura were kids, they liked to prank people by switching.
- An episode of Tales from the Crypt has a fake Twin Switch. A man (played by Joe Pesci) falls in love with a pair of beautiful twins, but they tell him that they promised each other that they'd only marry another set of twins. So he replies "But I do have a twin!", and makes up a story that he and his "twin brother" switch places every month, with one of them staying home and the other going on a business trip. So in this way he can date both twins, by doing a fake Twin Switch with himself at the end of the month. Of course, this being Tales from the Crypt, the twins find out eventually, and solve the problem with a chainsaw.
- Two of a Kind, starring the Olsen twins.
- At one point they switch because Mary Kate doesn’t want to go to tutoring lessons while Ashley has a crush on the tutor and wants to get closer to him. The gig is up once the original girl assigned fails a makeup test yet the girl he tutors shows drastic academic improvement.
- Mary-Kate invokes this after Ashley's new friend Nicole initially mixes them up, so she later pretends to be Ashley to break up their friendship because Ashley had been ditching her to spend time with Nicole.
- Twin, a 2019 Nordic Noir drama where a mother accidentally causes her husband's death and persuades his surviving twin to stand in for him to cover it up.
- Wonder Woman (1975): "The Deadly Toys" features Frank Gorshin as a toymaker who creates robots to duplicate real people - including Wonder Woman. After an epic Wonder Woman vs. robot Wonder Woman fight, the real Wonder Woman pretends to be the robot Wonder Woman to foil the evil plot!
- A sinister version of this occurs in the season one finale of The Worst Witch television series, where Miss Cackle's evil twin "Agatha" locks her sister in a cupboard and proceeds to masquerade as her to launch her revenge against Cackle's Academy.
- Korean drama series You Are Beautiful (and its Japanese remake Ikemen desu ne) is based around a girl taking her twin brother's place as a member of a rock group while he is having surgery abroad.
