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* ''Series/{{Belgravia}}'': During the "present-day" events after the Waterloo prologue, it's abundantly clear that Anne Trenchard is hiding something about the death of her daughter Sophia. At the end of the first episode, it's revealed that Sophia died giving birth to Charles Pope, the Trenchards' grandson by Sophia's ill-fated secret marriage to Viscount Bellasis, the son of the Earl and Countess of Brockenhurst.
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* ''Series/PowerRangersCosmicFury'': Blue Ranger Ollie is [[BrainwashedAndCrazy turned evil]] by Lord Zedd and the spell isn't broken until the penultimate episode.
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%% * ''Series/TheShield'': Ended the first episode by showing Vic to be not merely a [[AntiHero semi-corrupt cop]] who [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight bends the rules]] against deserving criminals but one who [[MoralEventHorizon kills in cold blood a fellow officer]] the audience was led to believe would be a main character because the officer was secretly working for [=IAB=] to bring down Mackey and the Strike Team's corrupt activities.
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* ''Series/BigSky'': The first episode ends with Cody being [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]] by his partner [[DirtyCop Rick]], who is Ronald's accomplice. Even bigger twist, Cody was played by the [[DeadStarWalking biggest named star]], Creator/RyanPhillippe, on the show, and advertisements had led people to believe he was going to be the lead character, even giving him a starring credit. Turns out it's his estranged wife and mistress that are the real leads.
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You can read a million things about "Buffy" without ever learning Jesse existed. His existence and death don't matter at all to the show.
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* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Jesse [=McNally's=] death. He's initially set up to seem like one of the main characters (Creator/JossWhedon even wanted to include him in the opening credits, but didn't have the budget to make an alternate version) but is killed halfway through the pilot.
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* ''Series/OnlyMurdersInTheBuilding'' has Charles, Oliver, and Mabel begin an investigation when Tim, who lives in their apartment building, dies under mysterious circumstances. The first episode ends with a look around Mabel's apartment. We see a photograph that reveals that she and Tim were childhood friends, something that adds an additional layer to her part of the investigation.
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%% * ''Series/{{Perception}}'': Dr. Pierce has schizophrenia and he occasionally interacts with people who are revealed to be hallucinations including his friend Natalie.
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%% * ''Series/{{Perception}}'': ''Series/Perception2012'': Dr. Pierce has schizophrenia and he occasionally interacts with people who are revealed to be hallucinations hallucinations, including his friend Natalie.
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* ''Series/DarkMatter'': The main characters, a group of six amnesiacs who [[YouAreNumberSix use numbers as names]] because they can't remember their given ones after emerging from stasis, are the people who were coming to wipe out the mining colony on the planet below, not the people who were supposed to bring the colonists weapons to defend themselves with, as the crew assumed based on their cargo hold being full of (hijacked) weapons. "The Raza" that the colonists fear have been hired by [[MegaCorp Ferrous Corp]] to exterminate them is not a race of scary alien mercenaries like the people think, but the name of the main characters' ship. With the exception of MysteriousWaif Five, the only non-adult on the ship, whose given name remains unknown as she has no profile, the crew are all notorious criminals and mercenaries with long rapsheets ranging from kidnapping, theft and piracy to murder, recovered from the ship's database at the end of the first episode. Dealing with this information and how to redeem their criminal pasts forms the premise of the show from then on.
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* ''Series/DarkMatter'': ''Series/DarkMatter2015'': The main characters, a group of six amnesiacs who [[YouAreNumberSix use numbers as names]] because they can't remember their given ones after emerging from stasis, are the people who were coming to wipe out the mining colony on the planet below, not the people who were supposed to bring the colonists weapons to defend themselves with, as the crew assumed based on their cargo hold being full of (hijacked) weapons. "The Raza" that the colonists fear have been hired by [[MegaCorp Ferrous Corp]] to exterminate them is not a race of scary alien mercenaries like the people think, but the name of the main characters' ship. With the exception of MysteriousWaif Five, the only non-adult on the ship, whose given name remains unknown as she has no profile, the crew are all notorious criminals and mercenaries with long rapsheets ranging from kidnapping, theft and piracy to murder, recovered from the ship's database at the end of the first episode. Dealing with this information and how to redeem their criminal pasts forms the premise of the show from then on.
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* ''Series/ThisIsUs'': The advance publicity for the show, and even an epigram shown at the beginning of the premiere, emphasized that the main characters share a birthday (implying, but never outright stating, that they share no other specific connection), on which the first episode takes place. These characters are a man whose wife goes into labor with triplets, a disillusioned actor and his twin sister, and a black man confronting the biological father who abandoned him (the three other birthday celebrants are white). Only in the last scene is it revealed that the triplet childbirth takes place in 1980, and the other three characters ''are'' the triplets -- the couple having adopted an abandoned blac baby when one of the originals didn't survive -- and their "present-day" scenes are taking place in 2016. Anyone describing the show after that would call it the story of one multigenerational family.
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* ''Series/ThisIsUs'': The advance publicity for the show, and even an epigram shown at the beginning of the premiere, emphasized that the main characters share a birthday (implying, but never outright stating, that they share no other specific connection), on which the first episode takes place. These characters are are: a man (Creator/MiloVentimiglia) whose wife (Creator/MandyMoore) goes into labor with triplets, triplets; a disillusioned actor (Creator/JustinHartley) and his twin sister, sister (Creator/ChrissyMetz); and a black man (Creator/SterlingKBrown) confronting the biological father who abandoned him (the three other birthday celebrants are white). Only in the last scene is it revealed that the triplet childbirth takes place in 1980, and the other three characters ''are'' the triplets -- the couple having adopted an abandoned blac black baby when one of the originals didn't survive -- and their "present-day" scenes are taking place in 2016. Anyone describing the show after that would call it the story of one multigenerational family.
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* ''Series/MayfairWitches'': At the end of the first episode, it turns out that Deirdre and Patrick are Rowan's biological parents.
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* ''Series/MayfairWitches'': At the end of the first episode, it turns out that Deirdre and Patrick are Rowan's biological parents. [[spoiler:Or so it seems, as it later turns out that Rowan's biological father was actually Cortland.]]
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* ''Series/MayfairWitches'': At the end of the first episode, it turns out that Deirdre and Patrick are Rowan's biological parents.
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* The first episode of ''Series/AppleTreeYard'' ends with an especially nasty twist; while at a work party Yvonne's co-worker, George, confesses he has feelings for her and tries to initiate sex with her. When Yvonne rejects him, he brutally rapes her. Matters are further complicated due to the fact Yvonne has been having an affair, so she's reluctant to go to the police both because it could implode her and her lover's personal lives, and because she thinks the police won't take her as seriously because she's an unfaithful wife.
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* AJ, the nine-year old title character from ''Series/AJAndTheQueen'', acts like a misogynistic, rap-loving street rat during the first episode. The end of the episode reveals AJ's a {{tomboy}} disguised as male to appear tougher.
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* AJ, the nine-year old title character from ''Series/AJAndTheQueen'', acts like a misogynistic, rap-loving street rat during the first episode. The end of the episode reveals AJ's a {{tomboy}} [[SweetPollyOliver disguised as male a boy]] to appear tougher.
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* ''Series/ChoujuuSentaiLiveman'': Five minutes into the first episode, the two members of the supposed FiveManBand are dead, leaving the titular team as a PowerTrio. Although if you paid attention to the intro and saw only three Livemen in it, [[SpoiledByTheFormat this twist may not come as that much of a surprise]].
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%% * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Sam Winchester's [[Recap/SupernaturalS01E01Pilot beloved fiancée]] is pinned in the cellar and burns the same way Sam and Dean's mother died years before.
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** Since the show was heavily advertised as being about two brothers on the road, Sam Winchester's [[Recap/SupernaturalS01E01Pilot beloved fiancée]] is clearly [[StuffedInTheFridge doomed]]. At the end, she's pinned in the cellar and burns the same way Sam and Dean's mother died years
** Season 4 introduces a new demonic threat named Castiel, who makes his first appearance at the very end of the episode. While a surprise at the time, show ran so long that newer viewers, even casual ones, know that Castiel is not a demon but rather an angel, and he becomes a main character.
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More work is needed here, but I'm not a Trekkie (or Trekker) so I'll leave it to someone who actually knows the franchise.
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** In ''Deep Space Nine'' the wormhole opening is a part of the opening credits. The first episode doesn't have the wormhole open at the end to keep First Episode Twist unspoiled.
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** In ''Deep Space Nine'' the wormhole opening is a part of the opening credits. The first episode doesn't have the wormhole open at the end to keep First Episode Twist the twist unspoiled.
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* ''Series/{{Reboot}}'': Near the end of the first episode, it's revealed that Hannah, the showrunner for the reboot of ''Step Right Up'', is the abandoned daughter of the original showrunner Gordon, and the show was based off the life Gordon had with his new step-family. Hannah even wrote a similar twist into her pilot script for the reboot.
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* ''Series/{{Reboot}}'': ''Series/{{Reboot|2022}}'': Near the end of the first episode, it's revealed that Hannah, the showrunner for the reboot of ''Step Right Up'', is the abandoned daughter of the original showrunner Gordon, and the show was based off the life Gordon had with his new step-family. Hannah even wrote a similar twist into her pilot script for the reboot.
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* ''Series/{{Reboot}}'': Near the end of the first episode, it's revealed that Hannah, the showrunner for the reboot of ''Step Right Up'', is the abandoned daughter of the original showrunner Gordon, and the show was based off the life Gordon had with his new step-family. Hannah even wrote a similar twist into her pilot script for the reboot.
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* ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': Pre-airing publicity made much of Isa Briones's role as Dahj, the frightened young woman who seeks Picard's help. So it's all the more shocking when she's brutally killed by Romulan assassins in the first episode. It turns out that Briones's main role will be as Soji, Dahj's twin sister, who's introduced in the final moments of the episode.
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* ''Series/OnceUponATimeInWonderland'': The White Rabbit is [[TheMole a mole]] for the Red Queen; also, the Red Queen and Jafar faked Cyrus's death.
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* ''Series/ResshaSentaiToQger'': At the end of the first episode the ranger the new ranger team are told "You are as good as dead" by their boss's talking puppet. The next episode has them realize that they have lost all of their memories except for ones about the time they spent together as kids. Solving the mystery of what happened to them and why they are "as good as dead" becomes a major part of the show's plot.
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* ''Series/ResshaSentaiToQger'': At the end of the first episode the ranger the new ranger team rangers are told "You are as good as dead" by their boss's talking puppet. The next episode has them realize that they have lost all of their memories except for ones about the time they spent together as kids. Solving the mystery of what happened to them and why they are "as good as dead" becomes a major part of the show's plot.
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* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': TheStinger in the first episode reveals that Dr. Harrison Wells wasn't actually crippled as he claimed to be when he stands up from his wheelchair.
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%% * ''Series/SixHundredSixtySixParkAvenue'': Gavin Doran is an evil supernatural entity. Jury's still out on whether or not he is actually TheDevil.
* AJ, the nine-year old title character from ''Series/AJAndTheQueen'', acts like a misogynistic, rap-loving street rat during the first episode. The end of the episode reveals AJ's a {{tomboy}} disguised as male to appear tougher.
* ''Series/{{Alias}}'' begins with its hero Sydney working for a department of the CIA known as SD-6, with a fiance named Danny and an unknowing father named Jack. Over the course of the first episode, Sydney admits to Danny that she's a spy, and SD-6 murders him, SD-6 is revealed to be not the CIA as she and most of its other agents believe but a NebulousEvilOrganisation, Jack is actually a member of SD-6 and a double agent for the real CIA, and Sydney joins him as a double agent, initially to avenge Danny's murder. This then sets up the '''real''' initial status quo for the series, which practically all publicity for home video releases and reruns makes clear.
%% * ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'':
%% ** ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum'': Lana, who came to the Briarcliff asylum to investigate, is committed against her will. Also a Second Episode Spoiler, in that Sister Mary Eunice is possessed by the devil.
%% ** ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryFreakShow'', Elsa Mars secretly wears prothesis as she's legless below her knees.
* The first episode of ''Series/AndiMack'' has Andi's adult sister Bex moving back home, whereupon Andi is shocked to learn that [[FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo Bex is actually her mother]] and the people she's been calling Mom and Dad are actually her grandparents. Most of the drama going forward revolves around the fallout of this revelation and Andi's efforts to track down her biological father.
%% * ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': This show wasted no time in revealing that Oliver's mother Moira is a villain and the shipwreck that got him marooned on an island for five years and resulted in his father's death was the result of a sabotage she was a part of.
* Promotional materials of ''Series/Avenue5'' portray Captain Clark as a competent and heroic leader, suited for dealing with emergencies. The first episode reveals he's actually a congenial, but completely useless, actor hired to entertain passengers, with the actual captain dying before we even see his face uncovered.
** There's also a twist for the characters on the show, as they find out that Captain Clark isn't a steadfast American, but instead is British.
* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'''s first episode deals with the men's training in Toccoa under DrillSergeantNasty Herbert Sobel. It's not until the end of the episode that we discover Sobel is KickedUpstairs thanks to his incompetency. David Schwimmer being part of only two episodes would give that away.
%% * ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': The miniseries ends with the revelation that Boomer is a Cylon, which is central to her character in the main series. There's also the fact that nobody in the Colonial Fleet has any idea how to get to Earth, despite Adama's [[MotivationalLie claims to the contrary.]]
* ''Series/BloodDrive'': Aki, Christopher's partner in [[LawEnforcementInc Contracrime]], is actually an android built by [[MegaCorp Heart Industries]], with a different Aki model kidnapping him at the end of the episode and experimenting on him in subsequent ones.
* ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'': The random chubby thug that Jimmy Darmody makes small talk with in the pilot is a [[YoungFutureFamousPeople then]] [[HistoricalPersonPunchline unknown]] UsefulNotes/AlCapone. The two masked guys that hijack the convoy in the opening scene are Al and Jimmy.
* [[Recap/TheBoysS01E01TheNameOfTheGame The first episode]] of ''Series/TheBoys2019'' hypes up [[SupermanSubstitute Homelander]] as the BigGood and the TokenGoodTeammate of the Seven. The final scene reveals that [[BewareTheSuperman he's anything but]], and his status as TheHeavy makes him one of the biggest antagonists throughout the series.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'':
** This show is very difficult to describe without including the fact that Walter is diagnosed with cancer in the first episode.
** However the show manages to make it a SubvertedTrope with the first scene of the pilot. Most people know that Walt "breaks bad" and starts cooking methamphetamine before they watch the series, and expect the first scene of the pilot, with its intense action to be a flashforward to a much later part of the series, even the final scene. However that scene is reached well before the end of the pilot, and the series progresses far past that point. Even if someone has had the plot completely spoiled for them, the first scene of the pilot would still throw them for a loop (unless one of the main things they remembered was Bryan Cranston losing his hair).
* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': The fact that Captain Holt is gay is treated as a surprise reveal for both the characters and the audience in the pilot. As it's often referred to in later episodes, it becomes this for anyone who missed the pilot.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Jesse [=McNally's=] death. He's initially set up to seem like one of the main characters (Creator/JossWhedon even wanted to include him in the opening credits, but didn't have the budget to make an alternate version) but is killed halfway through the pilot.
%% * ''Series/{{Caprica}}'': Zoe is in the robot. Zoe and Tamara get blown up.
* ''Series/Charmed1998'':
** The first episode has Piper dating a man called Jeremy. He looks like he's set up to be her love interest, until he's revealed to be a warlock and therefore the first enemy the Halliwells have to vanquish. Him not being part of the main cast would make this twist a little more obvious to new viewers.
** The Season 3 premiere introduces a District Attorney Cole Turner as a potential love interest to Phoebe. Then it's revealed he's a demon. A huge part of his character is [[DatingCatwoman Phoebe's love swaying him from his mission]].
** Season 4 introduces a new character played by Creator/RoseMcGowan right after Prue is KilledOffForReal. It's not until halfway through the premiere that she's revealed as their half-sister -- and therefore a potential Charmed One. There's also genuine doubt as to what side she'll choose when she gets her powers. Naturally Paige being a series regular for five more seasons would give this away.
%% * ''Series/{{Continuum}}'': The [=Liber8=] terrorists escape execution by time-travelling back to 2012. Kiera is pulled back with them.
* ''Series/CrashZone'': The first episode is all about the question: which of the five kids gets the job? The second episode likewise has a lot of tension about the fate of [[ArtificialIntelligence Virgil]]. All of these characters end up becoming regular protagonists.
* ''Series/{{Crisis|2014}}'': In the very first episode, the apparently mild-mannered and inoffensive Francis Gibson turns out to be the mastermind of the hostage-takers.
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': In the first episode we are introduced to new CSI Agent Holly Gribbs, the show makes it seem that she'll be one of the major players in the series, only for her to be [[SacrificialLamb shot and killed on assignment]] by the end of the first episode.
* ''Series/DarkBlue'': The first episode revolves around trying to pull main character and team member Dean out from a long undercover gig, with no idea if he's still loyal to the badge or [[BecomingTheMask become his criminal undercover persona]], until the bust at the end when he kills his target in the line of duty.
* ''Series/DarkMatter'': The main characters, a group of six amnesiacs who [[YouAreNumberSix use numbers as names]] because they can't remember their given ones after emerging from stasis, are the people who were coming to wipe out the mining colony on the planet below, not the people who were supposed to bring the colonists weapons to defend themselves with, as the crew assumed based on their cargo hold being full of (hijacked) weapons. "The Raza" that the colonists fear have been hired by [[MegaCorp Ferrous Corp]] to exterminate them is not a race of scary alien mercenaries like the people think, but the name of the main characters' ship. With the exception of MysteriousWaif Five, the only non-adult on the ship, whose given name remains unknown as she has no profile, the crew are all notorious criminals and mercenaries with long rapsheets ranging from kidnapping, theft and piracy to murder, recovered from the ship's database at the end of the first episode. Dealing with this information and how to redeem their criminal pasts forms the premise of the show from then on.
* ''Series/DeadToMe'': Judy and Jen bond at a grief counseling group, where Jen is trying to deal with the sudden hit-and-run death of her husband. Turns out Judy is the one who killed him.
* ''Series/DeathInParadise'': Camille, who seems to be a random thief and a major suspect, is actually an undercover police officer and becomes TheLancer to Detective Poole. The opening makes this pretty obvious though. Speaking of which, the fact that Pool's assistant for the pilot isn't in the opening and isn't in any later episode gives away that [[DirtyCop she's the Killer of the Week.]]
* ''Series/Deception2018'': Superstar magician Cameron Black has a twin brother, Jonathan, who's been kept secret from the public to help Cameron with his illusions. When Jonathan is framed for a woman's death, the secret is exposed to the world. Notable in that ''none'' of the promos for the show hinted at this although the series opening explains it to the audience.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** Susan and her doctor grandfather are time travellers from another planet, and the Doctor steals Ian and Barbara away in his time machine the TARDIS so they wouldn't tell anyone.
** Also, many serials had a surprise twist at the end of their first episode (usually the reveal of the villain/alien/monster) that were central to the rest of the story. These are almost always spoiled by the DVD cover now.
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock "Earthshock"]] is a standout; back in the day the title was ambiguous enough that people didn't know what the story was about, who the villains were, and they were hiding behind proxies and standins and the climax of the first episode revealed that TheBusCameBack for the Cybermen, who hadn't been seen in over a decade! Nowadays it's known as the one where the Cybermen kill [[AlasPoorScrappy Adric]].
*** This is most obvious with serials where the Master was the villain, particularly during Anthony Ainley's tenure. Since the Master was a MasterOfDisguise, he'd spend most of the first episode or two in heavy makeup and they even used a pseudonym for Ainley in the closing credits. Now he's on the cover.
** For example, it wasn't until the second episode of the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks second serial]] we got to meet the mysterious inhabitants of the mysterious apparently deserted city on a planet covered with radiation. They're called the Daleks. And that serial is now named after them.
* NBC's ''Series/{{Dracula|2013}}'' reveals at the end of the pilot episode that Dracula and Van Helsing — traditionally portrayed as [[ArchEnemy archenemies]] — are in this interpretation [[EnemyMine working together]] against the [[AncientConspiracy Order of the Dragon]].
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'':
** The pilot episode built suspense around which passenger was leaking information to the Alliance. Every passenger except TheMole went on to be a regular cast member...not that you [[SpoilerOpening couldn't have guessed from the credits]].
** And River Tam is "The Girl In The Box", proclaimed by every Fox ad.
** Kaylee also gets shot, and there's a big fakeout where Mal tells Simon she died -- only to reveal [[MoodWhiplash she's alive and well]]. Jewel Staite being part of the main cast would give this away.
** To make matters worse, the pilot [[ExecutiveMeddling wasn't actually the first episode Fox showed]]. There's a reason fans accuse the network of [[ScrewedByTheNetwork assassinating the series]].
%% * ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Harrison Wells doesn't actually need his glasses and wheelchair, and is actually from a BadFuture where, in 2024, the Flash disappears and [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths the sky turns red]]. It's not yet clear if his goal is to ensure that it comes to pass or prevent it from happening.
%% * ''Series/FlashForward2009'': Everyone who fell asleep and survived the global blackout either:
%% ** Had a FlashForward, a vision of themselves on the same date/time 6 months in the future.
%% ** Or had no FlashForward, [[YourDaysAreNumbered suggesting they would be dead before the date came to pass]].
* ''Series/FridayNightLights'' has star quarterback Jason Street get injured and paralyzed during the first game of the season, ending his promising football career.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': The pilot is about a young FBI agent trying to save the life of her partner/lover after his infection by a bioweapon by recruiting a MadScientist and [[MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter his son]]. Of course it all turns out to basically be a ShaggyDogStory, she saves him only to have him [[ShootTheShaggyDog die in a car accident ANYWAY]], be revealed to be a [[TheMole double agent]] and play a bit of a [[PosthumousCharacter posthumous]] role in a few later episodes but be mostly forgotten with the assembled team taking over as the focus.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Much like its source material, the twist that much of the subsequent plot of the show hinges on occurs early on with the reveal of Cersei and Jaime Lannister's incestuous relationship at the end of the {{pilot}}, which Bran is pushed out of a window for discovering.
* ''Series/GetSmart'': The pilot included Max meeting for the first time his unnamed contact 'Agent 99'. The surprise reveal that she was a hot chick and ActionGirl loses a lot of impact for anyone who knows anything about the show after that.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': The first episode surprises us by revealing that Eleanor Shellstrop is accidentally in the "wrong" place. Later episodes build on this to make it even clearer just how wrong her place is.
* ''Series/TheHandler2003'': The first episode of this short-lived show has the handler assign his new recruit to investigate a gang leader. When it seems like she's in over her head, he comes in and reveals that the gang leader is another of his agents and it was only a training exercise. The agent posing as the gang leader is another regular. This revelation works better due to the fact that the agent posing as the gang leader is played by a virtual unknown, Hill Harper, who [[Series/{{CSINY}} isn't that unknown anymore]].
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': We find out at the end of the pilot episode that HRG is Claire Bennet's father and that she is adopted. Their relationship becomes one of the most prominent running story arcs throughout the series.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': In the pilot, Ted meets and begins a long relationship with Robin; at the end, narrator Future!Ted tells his kids "And that's how I met your Aunt Robin." In other words, she is ''not'' the mother of the title.
%% ** Within the context of a single episode, the trope pops up again. When Ted refers to a woman as "Blah-Blah" because he forgot her name, then it is a good indication she is not their mother.
%% * ''Series/JackAndBobby'': The commercials teased that one brother would become President while the other would die before it happened. The narration at the end of the pilot revealed that Bobby would become President, Jack would die, and Bobby would marry Courtney.
* ''Series/Jericho2006'': The last shot of the pilot is a view of mushroom clouds, setting up the series for survival in a post-nuclear-apocalypse America.
%% * ''Series/TheKilling'': Rosie is, in fact, dead. Though the title still kind of gives it away up front.
%% * ''Series/KyleXY'': The protagonist having no memories and no experiences of human life are central to the rest of the series.
* All of the advertising for ''Series/TheLastManOnEarth'' made it seem like Phil, the protagonist, was the only living human on the planet, and the entire series would be a one-man show. Then, at the very end of the pilot, Carol is introduced, and subsequent episodes would go on to introduce more and more characters.
%% * ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': Rip was lying through his teeth on the team being "legends". He actually chose this specific group because none of them had any major effect on the timeline and were thus expendable. Also, the Time Masters never gave the okay for his mission to stop Savage and thus Rip is doing this on his own.
* ''Series/LifeOnMars2006'': This show is about a police detective who is struck by a car in 2006 and wakes up in 1973. If you were one of the very lucky few ''not'' to know the premise of the show before you sat down to watch the first episode, then the sequence in which this happens was one of the most surprising "Wait. What? WHOA!" moments ever, transforming what initially appeared to be a rather uninspired by-the-numbers cop show into an intriguing OntologicalMystery.
* ''Series/{{LOST}}'':
** The first (unseen) appearance of the monster about halfway through the pilot made it clear that there was much more to the island than it seemed, which set the stage for the rest of the series.
** [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Originally]], the writers were planning on having another twist in the pilot, casting a big-name actor as Jack (they specifically had Creator/MichaelKeaton in mind) only for him to be a DecoyProtagonist and a DeadStarWalking to show that AnyoneCanDie. Jack instead became one of the main characters.
%% * ''Series/LostGirl'': Bo is a succubus, and chooses not to join either the Light or Dark Fae.
* ''Series/MadMen'': At the end of the first episode, Don Draper, who starts off the episode by spending the night with a woman he has a relationship with in the city, is characterized by gossips throughout the ad agency he works for as a womanizer, and later attempts to charm a female client who he meets for dinner, returns to a home in suburbia where he greets his wife and two children. There'd been no indication throughout the episode that he was married.
* ''Series/TheMandalorian''[='s=] [[Recap/TheMandalorianS1E1Chapter1TheMandalorian first episode]] was said to have a "massive spoiler" for the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe before it even premiered. It turned out that the title character [[InterspeciesAdoption adopts]] a baby from the same [[ShroudedInMyth mysterious species]] as [[OldMaster Yoda]], who is being sought by the Imperial remnant. Under Creator/GeorgeLucas there was an ExecutiveVeto over giving any firm information about the species, and its only other canonical member is another powerful Jedi named [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Yaddle Yaddle]].
* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': In the pilot episode, Joe Blake is a young American adult who has been living under Nazi occupation for several years when he decides to join the underground resistance. By the end of the episode, it's already revealed to the audience that he's really a Nazi spy attempting to infiltrate them.
* ''Series/{{MANTIS}}'' keeps the title hero in shadow for the first half of the pilot, suggesting he could be another character who is very physically fit, while wheelchair-bound industrialist Dr. Miles Hawkins is a shady industrialist with his own agenda. Then Dr. Hawkins applies the M.A.N.T.I.S. suit to himself, revealing that the suit enables him to walk on two feet.
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:''
** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Simply put: [[Film/TheAvengers2012 #Coulson]][[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse Lives!]] -- which is revealed by the first scene of the pilot, the briefest of teasers/trailers for the same, and the fact that the series happens at all.
** Another, more minor ''Agents of SHIELD'' example: in the opening scenes of the pilot, a character called [=FitzSimmons=] gets mentioned several times as a candidate for recruitment onto Team Coulson, with the name treated as a singular. When they eventually show up on-screen and are [[TheDividual actually two people named Fitz and Simmons]] — with the gag being that they're so [[ThoseTwoGuys joined at the hip]] they even answer to the blended name — it's treated as a minor reveal to the audience and to Coulson.
** Promotional materials of ''Series/Loki2021'' imply that the show's premise is about Alternate Timeline Loki (from ''Film/AvengersEndgame'') being arrested by the TVA and recruited to fix the damage he caused by stealing the Tesseract and creating a new timeline. In reality, the first episode reveals that not only does this Loki get arrested and the branching timeline pruned within a short few minutes after his escape, but he is recruited by Mobius and the TVA to hunt for ''another'', more malicious alternate version of himself.
* ''Series/TheMessengers'', Joshua finds out his pregnant wife had an affair with his father and thus their unborn baby may be his brother. The end of the pilot also reveals that the man who fell on earth is Satan.
* ''Series/MillionYenWomen'': The series of opens six months into the situation that was imposed upon Shin: living with five women he doesn't know because someone invited them to do so. However, there are a few strange details about Shin himself that seem to have nothing to do with his unusual living arrangement, such as him getting harassed via his fax machine and treating it a normal occurrence, handwriting his stories while living in twenty-first century Japan, and refusing to kill the characters of novels he writes. At the end of the episode, it turns out that his father in on death row for murdering his mother, her lover and a policeman. The series being a PsychologicalThriller, this fact inevitably becomes an integral part of the plot.
* ''A Minute With Stan Hooper'' has the titular reporter travelling to a small town where he spends the rest of the series and meets Pete and Lou Peterson, who own a local store. He decides to interview them, thinking they're brothers who went into business together. Near the end of the interview, the Petersons reveal they're actually a married, gay couple. They also become series regulars and their homosexuality is not kept secret afterwards.
* ''Series/MisterEd'': Ed doesn't talk until halfway through the first episode, at which the talking comes off as a surprise. And he didn't give his "Hello, I'm Mister Ed" greeting until after the first few episodes.
* ''Series/ModernFamily'': This show was initially advertised as being about three separate examples of "modern" families: a typical suburban nuclear family-of-five, headed by Phil and Claire; a newlywed interracial couple, Jay and Gloria, with a [[MayDecemberRomance large age gap]], raising the wife's son together; and a gay couple, Cameron and Mitchell, who'd just adopted a baby. The end of the pilot revealed that they were all one big modern family: Jay is the father of both Claire and Mitchell via a previously-unmentioned first marriage. It is impossible to watch any subsequent episode of the show without picking up on this very quickly.
* ''Series/{{Nikita}}'': Alex is set up throughout the first episode as a possible main rival to Nikita, a girl in the same position she was once in as she's recruited by Division to stay out of jail. At the end we learn that she's working with Nikita, as her agent inside Division.
* In the first episode of ''Series/TheNoddyShop'', Kate and DJ discover a mysterious box and decide to open it, revealing goblins that unleash chaos in the shop, and it also contains dolls of [[WesternAnimation/NoddysToylandAdventures Noddy and Big Ears]]. Both of these also get spoiled in the opening theme before they actually happen, with Noddy appearing at least twice and the goblins appearing as Gertie sings about them. To make matters worse, in North America, '''Noddy is the title of the show itself'''.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** Emma is the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White. Throughout the first episode, it's also left up in the air as to whether Regina's Storybrooke counterpart is as evil as the Enchanted Forest one -- as she's presented as a concerned but well-meaning stepmother. The end of the episode has her taking the gloves off, as she becomes the antagonist of the first season.
** The Season 3 premiere has Henry finding a Lost Boy played by Robbie Kaye, who appears to be trying to escape from Peter Pan and the others. It's not until the end of the episode that he's [[ActuallyIAmHim revealed to be Peter Pan]] -- and the main antagonist of the season.
%% ** "New York City Serenade", the midseason premiere of Season 3, keeps the season's villain hidden until the very last scene -- when it's revealed to be the Wicked Witch of the West.
%% * ''Series/OrphanBlack'': Sarah, Beth, Katja, and several other characters are all clones. Technically this isn't explicitly revealed until the start of the third episode, but it's heavily implied by the ending of the first one.
* ''Series/{{Outlander}}'': The central conceit of the show is that protagonist Claire Beauchamp accidentally travels back in time to 18th century Scotland. It's pretty hard to talk about the show in any meaningful way without spoiling this premise.
%% * ''Series/{{Oz}}'': Dino Ortolani [[DecoyProtagonist who was set up as the protagonist]] is killed.
%% * ''Series/{{Perception}}'': Dr. Pierce has schizophrenia and he occasionally interacts with people who are revealed to be hallucinations including his friend Natalie.
%% * ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'': Alison has been DeadAllAlong and is not A.
* ''Series/PrisonBreak'': The last minute of the pilot reveals that Michael Scofield tattooed the plan of the prison on his body in order to free his incarcerated brother. And before that, midway through the pilot, there's the revelation that Michael Scofield (the soft-spoken, well-to-do structural engineer) and Lincoln Burrows (the hard-edged thug on death row) are brothers.
* In the premiere of ''Series/PublicMorals'' it is established that the cops of NYPD's Public Morals Division and TheIrishMob have a very cozy [[DirtyCop "arrangement"]] and great care is taken so that nothing disrupts it. The relationship is further highlighted by the fact that Mr. O, a local Irish gangster, is the father of Sean O'Bannon and uncle of Terry Muldoon, two cops working for PMD. He is killed in the final moments of the first episode and the beginning of the second episode reveals that the murder was committed by Rusty Patton, the son of TheDon of TheIrishMob. Everything the first episode set up is about to be turned upside down as the O'Bannon and Muldoon clans seek revenge.
* ''Series/{{Raines}}'' is about a homicide detective who solves crimes by conversing with an imaginary version of the victim. He also interacts with his former partner whose career ended due to an injury sustained in a shootout. The first episode ends with the revelation that his ex-partner was killed in his career-ending shooting and is another figment of Raines' imagination.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** Lister is the [[EverybodysDeadDave last human alive]] and is stranded 3 million years into deep space, accompanied by the hologram of his dead bunkmate Rimmer and a creature that evolved from his pet cat, known as Cat. Naturally, watching the pilot episode means waiting for this situation to establish itself. The original trailer for the show carefully avoided revealing that everyone except Lister would be killed off, only using footage from before the accident that kills the crew and, after providing short bios for Lister and Rimmer (not mentioning the Cat at all) saying that viewers would have to tune in to find out about the rest of the cast.
** An early plan for the show, discussed in DVD commentaries, was to take this idea even further. The senior staff of the ship would have been played by well-known actors and the first episode would focus on them, right up to the point where they all died and attention shifted to characters who had been treated as little more than extras up to that point.
* ''Series/ResshaSentaiToQger'': At the end of the first episode the ranger the new ranger team are told "You are as good as dead" by their boss's talking puppet. The next episode has them realize that they have lost all of their memories except for ones about the time they spent together as kids. Solving the mystery of what happened to them and why they are "as good as dead" becomes a major part of the show's plot.
* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': Ben Matheson's keychain that he gives to Aaron is a device that can undo the effects of the worldwide blackout and restore power to nearby electronics. Nate appears to be a well-meaning stranger who offers Charlie water and later saves Charlie's life, but he's revealed to be an incognito militia member. Miles' army buddy from the pre-blackout time is Monroe, aka, the present-day BigBad General Monroe and head of the militia. All this is revealed in the [[Recap/RevolutionS1E1Pilot pilot episode]].
* ''Series/{{Ringer}}'': Siobhan faked her death to get away from people trying to kill her.
* ''Series/{{Roswell}}'': The first scene of the first episode has Max, the main protagonist, heal Liz, the main love interest, from a gunshot wound, thus revealing himself to be an alien. (The "missing" gunshot wound plays a key part in most of the first season, including explaining why the sheriff, FBI, and local alien hunters all suspect Max.)
* ''Rude Awakening'': Seemed to be a comedy about a HardDrinkingPartyGirl along the lines of ''Series/AbsolutelyFabulous'', but in the first episode turned out to be a comedy about 12-Step Programs.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': At the end of the first episode, Creator/MarkGatiss' sinister character is revealed to be Mycroft Holmes, not Moriarty as we'd been led to believe.
%% * ''Series/TheShield'': Ended the first episode by showing Vic to be not merely a [[AntiHero semi-corrupt cop]] who [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight bends the rules]] against deserving criminals but one who [[MoralEventHorizon kills in cold blood a fellow officer]] the audience was led to believe would be a main character because the officer was secretly working for [=IAB=] to bring down Mackey and the Strike Team's corrupt activities.
%% * ''Series/{{Spooks}}'': The series is set up as if it's going to follow a specific set of spies, except that one of them doesn't make it past the second episode.
* ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'':
** ''Series/StargateSG1'': Daniel and Jack come out of retirement, and the Stargate goes to more than one other planet. Those aren't exactly spoilers so much as departures from the movie. However, Teal'c [[HeelFaceTurn changing sides]] and Kowalski dying in the second episode would certainly be spoilers.
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': That guy named Sheppard will turn out to be very important. Robert Patrick, on the other hand, is a DeadStarWalking.
%% ** ''Series/StargateUniverse'': The Senator makes a HeroicSacrifice.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** In ''Deep Space Nine'' the wormhole opening is a part of the opening credits. The first episode doesn't have the wormhole open at the end to keep First Episode Twist unspoiled.
** Which they distinctly ''failed'' to do in the opening credits for the first episode of the seventh season, which revealed the existence of Ezri Dax a good forty minutes before she shows up at the end of the episode.
--->NICOLE deBOER as EZRI DAX\\
''(40 minutes later...)''\\
'''Ezri:''' It's me, Dax.
** Also failed to do in the opening credits of the first episode of the fourth season, which revealed that Worf had joined the regular cast a good twenty minutes before he turned up and a good ''ninety'' minutes before he joined the station's crew.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': We're introduced to a new ship and new crew on a seemingly routine mission just as we'd seen in [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]] and [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]], only to have the ship lost on the other side of the Galaxy on the first episode, thus setting the premise of the series.
** Perhaps more surprising is nearly the entire introduced senior staff of the ship (including the First Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Navigator, and Chief Engineer) being killed off before even the midpoint of the pilot episode. Several apparent guest characters (the crew of another ship, the convict acting as their guide, the two aliens they meet) end up becoming the new senior staff. Also, the fact that Tuvok is TheMole among the Maquis crew is obvious to anyone who has seen another episode the moment Janeway mentions her chief of security is undercover there.
%% * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Sam Winchester's [[Recap/SupernaturalS01E01Pilot beloved fiancée]] is pinned in the cellar and burns the same way Sam and Dean's mother died years before.
%% * ''Series/{{Survivors}}'': The [=BBC=] remake had headline stars Shaun Dingwall and Freema Agyeman, the latter even playing a character carried over from the seventies series, unexpectedly dead by the end of the first episode.
* ''Series/{{Taxi}}'': For much of the first episode, Louie De Palma, played by then-unknown Danny [=DeVito=], shouts his usual bile from inside an elevated dispatcher's cage that only reveals his face. At the climax, he emerges from the cage and appears at the bottom of the steps, and is revealed to be incongruously short for his personality -- estimates vary but [=DeVito=] is well under 5 feet tall. It's a trick that only works once, ever.
%% * ''Series/TeenWolf'': The last minute of the pilot reveals that Allison's dad is a werewolf hunter.
%% * ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'': John Connor's new classmate Cameron is a Terminator sent to protect him.
* ''Series/ThisIsUs'': The advance publicity for the show, and even an epigram shown at the beginning of the premiere, emphasized that the main characters share a birthday (implying, but never outright stating, that they share no other specific connection), on which the first episode takes place. These characters are a man whose wife goes into labor with triplets, a disillusioned actor and his twin sister, and a black man confronting the biological father who abandoned him (the three other birthday celebrants are white). Only in the last scene is it revealed that the triplet childbirth takes place in 1980, and the other three characters ''are'' the triplets -- the couple having adopted an abandoned blac baby when one of the originals didn't survive -- and their "present-day" scenes are taking place in 2016. Anyone describing the show after that would call it the story of one multigenerational family.
* ''Series/TinMan'' just has three episodes, but the first keeps Azkadellia's history with DG quite vague until the last five minutes -- where it's revealed that the two are actually sisters. Naturally this is a major plot point of the remaining episodes -- DG appealing to sisterly love to save Azkadellia.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'':
** Begins with Gwen as a Cardiff police officer, observing the title mysterious Black Ops team. Afterwards, she becomes a team member.
** Also, the second-in-command -- who'd been featured in the credits and in publicity for the series just like all the others -- is revealed to have gone insane, and commits suicide at the end of the pilot episode.
** In a definite and obvious example of this trope, the revelation that Captain Jack is now immortal. In the first episode, this is very surprising. Thereafter it's used constantly.
* The very first joke in ''Series/UnhappilyEverAfter'' is one of these. Jenny is saying goodbye to a man, talking about how even though the divorce is over, they've been through so much, and they can still be friends, on the most harmonious of terms, etc. Then it turns out that, ha ha, the man is her divorce lawyer, not her ex-husband, and of course she's not going to be that friendly with her ex-husband. But of course, if you've ever seen any other episode of the show, you are already familiar with the ex-husband, for he's a main character (Jack, played by Geoff Pierson). So the joke is based on making the viewer think that the man is her ex-husband, but of course this requires that you haven't seen any of the rest of the show. Or other sources of information (like the trailers advertising the show!) that would let you know which characters are which.
* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'': The first episode frames Teddy Floods as a guest because he's riding the same train that brought the guests to the park, reacting to the town as if it's new to him, getting propositioned by several hosts, and making reference to having returned to town after an absence. Then, it turns out that he's actually a host.
* ''Series/WhiteCollar'': The basic premise is that a con man is released from jail into the FBI's custody to help solve crimes. Therefore, the entire first quarter or so where the Federal Agent main character is debating whether to actually release him or not is completely pointless.
%% * ''Literature/TheWorstWitch'' uniquely has one from the first episode of the ''second'' season. Sybil, the crying first year is in fact Ethel Hallow's younger sister.
%% * ''Series/ZNation'': The first episode slips one in, with Citizen Z stating his real name is Simon.
----
* AJ, the nine-year old title character from ''Series/AJAndTheQueen'', acts like a misogynistic, rap-loving street rat during the first episode. The end of the episode reveals AJ's a {{tomboy}} disguised as male to appear tougher.
* ''Series/{{Alias}}'' begins with its hero Sydney working for a department of the CIA known as SD-6, with a fiance named Danny and an unknowing father named Jack. Over the course of the first episode, Sydney admits to Danny that she's a spy, and SD-6 murders him, SD-6 is revealed to be not the CIA as she and most of its other agents believe but a NebulousEvilOrganisation, Jack is actually a member of SD-6 and a double agent for the real CIA, and Sydney joins him as a double agent, initially to avenge Danny's murder. This then sets up the '''real''' initial status quo for the series, which practically all publicity for home video releases and reruns makes clear.
%% * ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'':
%% ** ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum'': Lana, who came to the Briarcliff asylum to investigate, is committed against her will. Also a Second Episode Spoiler, in that Sister Mary Eunice is possessed by the devil.
%% ** ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryFreakShow'', Elsa Mars secretly wears prothesis as she's legless below her knees.
* The first episode of ''Series/AndiMack'' has Andi's adult sister Bex moving back home, whereupon Andi is shocked to learn that [[FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo Bex is actually her mother]] and the people she's been calling Mom and Dad are actually her grandparents. Most of the drama going forward revolves around the fallout of this revelation and Andi's efforts to track down her biological father.
%% * ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': This show wasted no time in revealing that Oliver's mother Moira is a villain and the shipwreck that got him marooned on an island for five years and resulted in his father's death was the result of a sabotage she was a part of.
* Promotional materials of ''Series/Avenue5'' portray Captain Clark as a competent and heroic leader, suited for dealing with emergencies. The first episode reveals he's actually a congenial, but completely useless, actor hired to entertain passengers, with the actual captain dying before we even see his face uncovered.
** There's also a twist for the characters on the show, as they find out that Captain Clark isn't a steadfast American, but instead is British.
* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'''s first episode deals with the men's training in Toccoa under DrillSergeantNasty Herbert Sobel. It's not until the end of the episode that we discover Sobel is KickedUpstairs thanks to his incompetency. David Schwimmer being part of only two episodes would give that away.
%% * ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': The miniseries ends with the revelation that Boomer is a Cylon, which is central to her character in the main series. There's also the fact that nobody in the Colonial Fleet has any idea how to get to Earth, despite Adama's [[MotivationalLie claims to the contrary.]]
* ''Series/BloodDrive'': Aki, Christopher's partner in [[LawEnforcementInc Contracrime]], is actually an android built by [[MegaCorp Heart Industries]], with a different Aki model kidnapping him at the end of the episode and experimenting on him in subsequent ones.
* ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'': The random chubby thug that Jimmy Darmody makes small talk with in the pilot is a [[YoungFutureFamousPeople then]] [[HistoricalPersonPunchline unknown]] UsefulNotes/AlCapone. The two masked guys that hijack the convoy in the opening scene are Al and Jimmy.
* [[Recap/TheBoysS01E01TheNameOfTheGame The first episode]] of ''Series/TheBoys2019'' hypes up [[SupermanSubstitute Homelander]] as the BigGood and the TokenGoodTeammate of the Seven. The final scene reveals that [[BewareTheSuperman he's anything but]], and his status as TheHeavy makes him one of the biggest antagonists throughout the series.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'':
** This show is very difficult to describe without including the fact that Walter is diagnosed with cancer in the first episode.
** However the show manages to make it a SubvertedTrope with the first scene of the pilot. Most people know that Walt "breaks bad" and starts cooking methamphetamine before they watch the series, and expect the first scene of the pilot, with its intense action to be a flashforward to a much later part of the series, even the final scene. However that scene is reached well before the end of the pilot, and the series progresses far past that point. Even if someone has had the plot completely spoiled for them, the first scene of the pilot would still throw them for a loop (unless one of the main things they remembered was Bryan Cranston losing his hair).
* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': The fact that Captain Holt is gay is treated as a surprise reveal for both the characters and the audience in the pilot. As it's often referred to in later episodes, it becomes this for anyone who missed the pilot.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Jesse [=McNally's=] death. He's initially set up to seem like one of the main characters (Creator/JossWhedon even wanted to include him in the opening credits, but didn't have the budget to make an alternate version) but is killed halfway through the pilot.
%% * ''Series/{{Caprica}}'': Zoe is in the robot. Zoe and Tamara get blown up.
* ''Series/Charmed1998'':
** The first episode has Piper dating a man called Jeremy. He looks like he's set up to be her love interest, until he's revealed to be a warlock and therefore the first enemy the Halliwells have to vanquish. Him not being part of the main cast would make this twist a little more obvious to new viewers.
** The Season 3 premiere introduces a District Attorney Cole Turner as a potential love interest to Phoebe. Then it's revealed he's a demon. A huge part of his character is [[DatingCatwoman Phoebe's love swaying him from his mission]].
** Season 4 introduces a new character played by Creator/RoseMcGowan right after Prue is KilledOffForReal. It's not until halfway through the premiere that she's revealed as their half-sister -- and therefore a potential Charmed One. There's also genuine doubt as to what side she'll choose when she gets her powers. Naturally Paige being a series regular for five more seasons would give this away.
%% * ''Series/{{Continuum}}'': The [=Liber8=] terrorists escape execution by time-travelling back to 2012. Kiera is pulled back with them.
* ''Series/CrashZone'': The first episode is all about the question: which of the five kids gets the job? The second episode likewise has a lot of tension about the fate of [[ArtificialIntelligence Virgil]]. All of these characters end up becoming regular protagonists.
* ''Series/{{Crisis|2014}}'': In the very first episode, the apparently mild-mannered and inoffensive Francis Gibson turns out to be the mastermind of the hostage-takers.
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': In the first episode we are introduced to new CSI Agent Holly Gribbs, the show makes it seem that she'll be one of the major players in the series, only for her to be [[SacrificialLamb shot and killed on assignment]] by the end of the first episode.
* ''Series/DarkBlue'': The first episode revolves around trying to pull main character and team member Dean out from a long undercover gig, with no idea if he's still loyal to the badge or [[BecomingTheMask become his criminal undercover persona]], until the bust at the end when he kills his target in the line of duty.
* ''Series/DarkMatter'': The main characters, a group of six amnesiacs who [[YouAreNumberSix use numbers as names]] because they can't remember their given ones after emerging from stasis, are the people who were coming to wipe out the mining colony on the planet below, not the people who were supposed to bring the colonists weapons to defend themselves with, as the crew assumed based on their cargo hold being full of (hijacked) weapons. "The Raza" that the colonists fear have been hired by [[MegaCorp Ferrous Corp]] to exterminate them is not a race of scary alien mercenaries like the people think, but the name of the main characters' ship. With the exception of MysteriousWaif Five, the only non-adult on the ship, whose given name remains unknown as she has no profile, the crew are all notorious criminals and mercenaries with long rapsheets ranging from kidnapping, theft and piracy to murder, recovered from the ship's database at the end of the first episode. Dealing with this information and how to redeem their criminal pasts forms the premise of the show from then on.
* ''Series/DeadToMe'': Judy and Jen bond at a grief counseling group, where Jen is trying to deal with the sudden hit-and-run death of her husband. Turns out Judy is the one who killed him.
* ''Series/DeathInParadise'': Camille, who seems to be a random thief and a major suspect, is actually an undercover police officer and becomes TheLancer to Detective Poole. The opening makes this pretty obvious though. Speaking of which, the fact that Pool's assistant for the pilot isn't in the opening and isn't in any later episode gives away that [[DirtyCop she's the Killer of the Week.]]
* ''Series/Deception2018'': Superstar magician Cameron Black has a twin brother, Jonathan, who's been kept secret from the public to help Cameron with his illusions. When Jonathan is framed for a woman's death, the secret is exposed to the world. Notable in that ''none'' of the promos for the show hinted at this although the series opening explains it to the audience.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** Susan and her doctor grandfather are time travellers from another planet, and the Doctor steals Ian and Barbara away in his time machine the TARDIS so they wouldn't tell anyone.
** Also, many serials had a surprise twist at the end of their first episode (usually the reveal of the villain/alien/monster) that were central to the rest of the story. These are almost always spoiled by the DVD cover now.
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock "Earthshock"]] is a standout; back in the day the title was ambiguous enough that people didn't know what the story was about, who the villains were, and they were hiding behind proxies and standins and the climax of the first episode revealed that TheBusCameBack for the Cybermen, who hadn't been seen in over a decade! Nowadays it's known as the one where the Cybermen kill [[AlasPoorScrappy Adric]].
*** This is most obvious with serials where the Master was the villain, particularly during Anthony Ainley's tenure. Since the Master was a MasterOfDisguise, he'd spend most of the first episode or two in heavy makeup and they even used a pseudonym for Ainley in the closing credits. Now he's on the cover.
** For example, it wasn't until the second episode of the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks second serial]] we got to meet the mysterious inhabitants of the mysterious apparently deserted city on a planet covered with radiation. They're called the Daleks. And that serial is now named after them.
* NBC's ''Series/{{Dracula|2013}}'' reveals at the end of the pilot episode that Dracula and Van Helsing — traditionally portrayed as [[ArchEnemy archenemies]] — are in this interpretation [[EnemyMine working together]] against the [[AncientConspiracy Order of the Dragon]].
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'':
** The pilot episode built suspense around which passenger was leaking information to the Alliance. Every passenger except TheMole went on to be a regular cast member...not that you [[SpoilerOpening couldn't have guessed from the credits]].
** And River Tam is "The Girl In The Box", proclaimed by every Fox ad.
** Kaylee also gets shot, and there's a big fakeout where Mal tells Simon she died -- only to reveal [[MoodWhiplash she's alive and well]]. Jewel Staite being part of the main cast would give this away.
** To make matters worse, the pilot [[ExecutiveMeddling wasn't actually the first episode Fox showed]]. There's a reason fans accuse the network of [[ScrewedByTheNetwork assassinating the series]].
%% * ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Harrison Wells doesn't actually need his glasses and wheelchair, and is actually from a BadFuture where, in 2024, the Flash disappears and [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths the sky turns red]]. It's not yet clear if his goal is to ensure that it comes to pass or prevent it from happening.
%% * ''Series/FlashForward2009'': Everyone who fell asleep and survived the global blackout either:
%% ** Had a FlashForward, a vision of themselves on the same date/time 6 months in the future.
%% ** Or had no FlashForward, [[YourDaysAreNumbered suggesting they would be dead before the date came to pass]].
* ''Series/FridayNightLights'' has star quarterback Jason Street get injured and paralyzed during the first game of the season, ending his promising football career.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': The pilot is about a young FBI agent trying to save the life of her partner/lover after his infection by a bioweapon by recruiting a MadScientist and [[MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter his son]]. Of course it all turns out to basically be a ShaggyDogStory, she saves him only to have him [[ShootTheShaggyDog die in a car accident ANYWAY]], be revealed to be a [[TheMole double agent]] and play a bit of a [[PosthumousCharacter posthumous]] role in a few later episodes but be mostly forgotten with the assembled team taking over as the focus.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Much like its source material, the twist that much of the subsequent plot of the show hinges on occurs early on with the reveal of Cersei and Jaime Lannister's incestuous relationship at the end of the {{pilot}}, which Bran is pushed out of a window for discovering.
* ''Series/GetSmart'': The pilot included Max meeting for the first time his unnamed contact 'Agent 99'. The surprise reveal that she was a hot chick and ActionGirl loses a lot of impact for anyone who knows anything about the show after that.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': The first episode surprises us by revealing that Eleanor Shellstrop is accidentally in the "wrong" place. Later episodes build on this to make it even clearer just how wrong her place is.
* ''Series/TheHandler2003'': The first episode of this short-lived show has the handler assign his new recruit to investigate a gang leader. When it seems like she's in over her head, he comes in and reveals that the gang leader is another of his agents and it was only a training exercise. The agent posing as the gang leader is another regular. This revelation works better due to the fact that the agent posing as the gang leader is played by a virtual unknown, Hill Harper, who [[Series/{{CSINY}} isn't that unknown anymore]].
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': We find out at the end of the pilot episode that HRG is Claire Bennet's father and that she is adopted. Their relationship becomes one of the most prominent running story arcs throughout the series.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': In the pilot, Ted meets and begins a long relationship with Robin; at the end, narrator Future!Ted tells his kids "And that's how I met your Aunt Robin." In other words, she is ''not'' the mother of the title.
%% ** Within the context of a single episode, the trope pops up again. When Ted refers to a woman as "Blah-Blah" because he forgot her name, then it is a good indication she is not their mother.
%% * ''Series/JackAndBobby'': The commercials teased that one brother would become President while the other would die before it happened. The narration at the end of the pilot revealed that Bobby would become President, Jack would die, and Bobby would marry Courtney.
* ''Series/Jericho2006'': The last shot of the pilot is a view of mushroom clouds, setting up the series for survival in a post-nuclear-apocalypse America.
%% * ''Series/TheKilling'': Rosie is, in fact, dead. Though the title still kind of gives it away up front.
%% * ''Series/KyleXY'': The protagonist having no memories and no experiences of human life are central to the rest of the series.
* All of the advertising for ''Series/TheLastManOnEarth'' made it seem like Phil, the protagonist, was the only living human on the planet, and the entire series would be a one-man show. Then, at the very end of the pilot, Carol is introduced, and subsequent episodes would go on to introduce more and more characters.
%% * ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': Rip was lying through his teeth on the team being "legends". He actually chose this specific group because none of them had any major effect on the timeline and were thus expendable. Also, the Time Masters never gave the okay for his mission to stop Savage and thus Rip is doing this on his own.
* ''Series/LifeOnMars2006'': This show is about a police detective who is struck by a car in 2006 and wakes up in 1973. If you were one of the very lucky few ''not'' to know the premise of the show before you sat down to watch the first episode, then the sequence in which this happens was one of the most surprising "Wait. What? WHOA!" moments ever, transforming what initially appeared to be a rather uninspired by-the-numbers cop show into an intriguing OntologicalMystery.
* ''Series/{{LOST}}'':
** The first (unseen) appearance of the monster about halfway through the pilot made it clear that there was much more to the island than it seemed, which set the stage for the rest of the series.
** [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Originally]], the writers were planning on having another twist in the pilot, casting a big-name actor as Jack (they specifically had Creator/MichaelKeaton in mind) only for him to be a DecoyProtagonist and a DeadStarWalking to show that AnyoneCanDie. Jack instead became one of the main characters.
%% * ''Series/LostGirl'': Bo is a succubus, and chooses not to join either the Light or Dark Fae.
* ''Series/MadMen'': At the end of the first episode, Don Draper, who starts off the episode by spending the night with a woman he has a relationship with in the city, is characterized by gossips throughout the ad agency he works for as a womanizer, and later attempts to charm a female client who he meets for dinner, returns to a home in suburbia where he greets his wife and two children. There'd been no indication throughout the episode that he was married.
* ''Series/TheMandalorian''[='s=] [[Recap/TheMandalorianS1E1Chapter1TheMandalorian first episode]] was said to have a "massive spoiler" for the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe before it even premiered. It turned out that the title character [[InterspeciesAdoption adopts]] a baby from the same [[ShroudedInMyth mysterious species]] as [[OldMaster Yoda]], who is being sought by the Imperial remnant. Under Creator/GeorgeLucas there was an ExecutiveVeto over giving any firm information about the species, and its only other canonical member is another powerful Jedi named [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Yaddle Yaddle]].
* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': In the pilot episode, Joe Blake is a young American adult who has been living under Nazi occupation for several years when he decides to join the underground resistance. By the end of the episode, it's already revealed to the audience that he's really a Nazi spy attempting to infiltrate them.
* ''Series/{{MANTIS}}'' keeps the title hero in shadow for the first half of the pilot, suggesting he could be another character who is very physically fit, while wheelchair-bound industrialist Dr. Miles Hawkins is a shady industrialist with his own agenda. Then Dr. Hawkins applies the M.A.N.T.I.S. suit to himself, revealing that the suit enables him to walk on two feet.
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:''
** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Simply put: [[Film/TheAvengers2012 #Coulson]][[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse Lives!]] -- which is revealed by the first scene of the pilot, the briefest of teasers/trailers for the same, and the fact that the series happens at all.
** Another, more minor ''Agents of SHIELD'' example: in the opening scenes of the pilot, a character called [=FitzSimmons=] gets mentioned several times as a candidate for recruitment onto Team Coulson, with the name treated as a singular. When they eventually show up on-screen and are [[TheDividual actually two people named Fitz and Simmons]] — with the gag being that they're so [[ThoseTwoGuys joined at the hip]] they even answer to the blended name — it's treated as a minor reveal to the audience and to Coulson.
** Promotional materials of ''Series/Loki2021'' imply that the show's premise is about Alternate Timeline Loki (from ''Film/AvengersEndgame'') being arrested by the TVA and recruited to fix the damage he caused by stealing the Tesseract and creating a new timeline. In reality, the first episode reveals that not only does this Loki get arrested and the branching timeline pruned within a short few minutes after his escape, but he is recruited by Mobius and the TVA to hunt for ''another'', more malicious alternate version of himself.
* ''Series/TheMessengers'', Joshua finds out his pregnant wife had an affair with his father and thus their unborn baby may be his brother. The end of the pilot also reveals that the man who fell on earth is Satan.
* ''Series/MillionYenWomen'': The series of opens six months into the situation that was imposed upon Shin: living with five women he doesn't know because someone invited them to do so. However, there are a few strange details about Shin himself that seem to have nothing to do with his unusual living arrangement, such as him getting harassed via his fax machine and treating it a normal occurrence, handwriting his stories while living in twenty-first century Japan, and refusing to kill the characters of novels he writes. At the end of the episode, it turns out that his father in on death row for murdering his mother, her lover and a policeman. The series being a PsychologicalThriller, this fact inevitably becomes an integral part of the plot.
* ''A Minute With Stan Hooper'' has the titular reporter travelling to a small town where he spends the rest of the series and meets Pete and Lou Peterson, who own a local store. He decides to interview them, thinking they're brothers who went into business together. Near the end of the interview, the Petersons reveal they're actually a married, gay couple. They also become series regulars and their homosexuality is not kept secret afterwards.
* ''Series/MisterEd'': Ed doesn't talk until halfway through the first episode, at which the talking comes off as a surprise. And he didn't give his "Hello, I'm Mister Ed" greeting until after the first few episodes.
* ''Series/ModernFamily'': This show was initially advertised as being about three separate examples of "modern" families: a typical suburban nuclear family-of-five, headed by Phil and Claire; a newlywed interracial couple, Jay and Gloria, with a [[MayDecemberRomance large age gap]], raising the wife's son together; and a gay couple, Cameron and Mitchell, who'd just adopted a baby. The end of the pilot revealed that they were all one big modern family: Jay is the father of both Claire and Mitchell via a previously-unmentioned first marriage. It is impossible to watch any subsequent episode of the show without picking up on this very quickly.
* ''Series/{{Nikita}}'': Alex is set up throughout the first episode as a possible main rival to Nikita, a girl in the same position she was once in as she's recruited by Division to stay out of jail. At the end we learn that she's working with Nikita, as her agent inside Division.
* In the first episode of ''Series/TheNoddyShop'', Kate and DJ discover a mysterious box and decide to open it, revealing goblins that unleash chaos in the shop, and it also contains dolls of [[WesternAnimation/NoddysToylandAdventures Noddy and Big Ears]]. Both of these also get spoiled in the opening theme before they actually happen, with Noddy appearing at least twice and the goblins appearing as Gertie sings about them. To make matters worse, in North America, '''Noddy is the title of the show itself'''.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** Emma is the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White. Throughout the first episode, it's also left up in the air as to whether Regina's Storybrooke counterpart is as evil as the Enchanted Forest one -- as she's presented as a concerned but well-meaning stepmother. The end of the episode has her taking the gloves off, as she becomes the antagonist of the first season.
** The Season 3 premiere has Henry finding a Lost Boy played by Robbie Kaye, who appears to be trying to escape from Peter Pan and the others. It's not until the end of the episode that he's [[ActuallyIAmHim revealed to be Peter Pan]] -- and the main antagonist of the season.
%% ** "New York City Serenade", the midseason premiere of Season 3, keeps the season's villain hidden until the very last scene -- when it's revealed to be the Wicked Witch of the West.
%% * ''Series/OrphanBlack'': Sarah, Beth, Katja, and several other characters are all clones. Technically this isn't explicitly revealed until the start of the third episode, but it's heavily implied by the ending of the first one.
* ''Series/{{Outlander}}'': The central conceit of the show is that protagonist Claire Beauchamp accidentally travels back in time to 18th century Scotland. It's pretty hard to talk about the show in any meaningful way without spoiling this premise.
%% * ''Series/{{Oz}}'': Dino Ortolani [[DecoyProtagonist who was set up as the protagonist]] is killed.
%% * ''Series/{{Perception}}'': Dr. Pierce has schizophrenia and he occasionally interacts with people who are revealed to be hallucinations including his friend Natalie.
%% * ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'': Alison has been DeadAllAlong and is not A.
* ''Series/PrisonBreak'': The last minute of the pilot reveals that Michael Scofield tattooed the plan of the prison on his body in order to free his incarcerated brother. And before that, midway through the pilot, there's the revelation that Michael Scofield (the soft-spoken, well-to-do structural engineer) and Lincoln Burrows (the hard-edged thug on death row) are brothers.
* In the premiere of ''Series/PublicMorals'' it is established that the cops of NYPD's Public Morals Division and TheIrishMob have a very cozy [[DirtyCop "arrangement"]] and great care is taken so that nothing disrupts it. The relationship is further highlighted by the fact that Mr. O, a local Irish gangster, is the father of Sean O'Bannon and uncle of Terry Muldoon, two cops working for PMD. He is killed in the final moments of the first episode and the beginning of the second episode reveals that the murder was committed by Rusty Patton, the son of TheDon of TheIrishMob. Everything the first episode set up is about to be turned upside down as the O'Bannon and Muldoon clans seek revenge.
* ''Series/{{Raines}}'' is about a homicide detective who solves crimes by conversing with an imaginary version of the victim. He also interacts with his former partner whose career ended due to an injury sustained in a shootout. The first episode ends with the revelation that his ex-partner was killed in his career-ending shooting and is another figment of Raines' imagination.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** Lister is the [[EverybodysDeadDave last human alive]] and is stranded 3 million years into deep space, accompanied by the hologram of his dead bunkmate Rimmer and a creature that evolved from his pet cat, known as Cat. Naturally, watching the pilot episode means waiting for this situation to establish itself. The original trailer for the show carefully avoided revealing that everyone except Lister would be killed off, only using footage from before the accident that kills the crew and, after providing short bios for Lister and Rimmer (not mentioning the Cat at all) saying that viewers would have to tune in to find out about the rest of the cast.
** An early plan for the show, discussed in DVD commentaries, was to take this idea even further. The senior staff of the ship would have been played by well-known actors and the first episode would focus on them, right up to the point where they all died and attention shifted to characters who had been treated as little more than extras up to that point.
* ''Series/ResshaSentaiToQger'': At the end of the first episode the ranger the new ranger team are told "You are as good as dead" by their boss's talking puppet. The next episode has them realize that they have lost all of their memories except for ones about the time they spent together as kids. Solving the mystery of what happened to them and why they are "as good as dead" becomes a major part of the show's plot.
* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': Ben Matheson's keychain that he gives to Aaron is a device that can undo the effects of the worldwide blackout and restore power to nearby electronics. Nate appears to be a well-meaning stranger who offers Charlie water and later saves Charlie's life, but he's revealed to be an incognito militia member. Miles' army buddy from the pre-blackout time is Monroe, aka, the present-day BigBad General Monroe and head of the militia. All this is revealed in the [[Recap/RevolutionS1E1Pilot pilot episode]].
* ''Series/{{Ringer}}'': Siobhan faked her death to get away from people trying to kill her.
* ''Series/{{Roswell}}'': The first scene of the first episode has Max, the main protagonist, heal Liz, the main love interest, from a gunshot wound, thus revealing himself to be an alien. (The "missing" gunshot wound plays a key part in most of the first season, including explaining why the sheriff, FBI, and local alien hunters all suspect Max.)
* ''Rude Awakening'': Seemed to be a comedy about a HardDrinkingPartyGirl along the lines of ''Series/AbsolutelyFabulous'', but in the first episode turned out to be a comedy about 12-Step Programs.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': At the end of the first episode, Creator/MarkGatiss' sinister character is revealed to be Mycroft Holmes, not Moriarty as we'd been led to believe.
%% * ''Series/TheShield'': Ended the first episode by showing Vic to be not merely a [[AntiHero semi-corrupt cop]] who [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight bends the rules]] against deserving criminals but one who [[MoralEventHorizon kills in cold blood a fellow officer]] the audience was led to believe would be a main character because the officer was secretly working for [=IAB=] to bring down Mackey and the Strike Team's corrupt activities.
%% * ''Series/{{Spooks}}'': The series is set up as if it's going to follow a specific set of spies, except that one of them doesn't make it past the second episode.
* ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'':
** ''Series/StargateSG1'': Daniel and Jack come out of retirement, and the Stargate goes to more than one other planet. Those aren't exactly spoilers so much as departures from the movie. However, Teal'c [[HeelFaceTurn changing sides]] and Kowalski dying in the second episode would certainly be spoilers.
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': That guy named Sheppard will turn out to be very important. Robert Patrick, on the other hand, is a DeadStarWalking.
%% ** ''Series/StargateUniverse'': The Senator makes a HeroicSacrifice.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** In ''Deep Space Nine'' the wormhole opening is a part of the opening credits. The first episode doesn't have the wormhole open at the end to keep First Episode Twist unspoiled.
** Which they distinctly ''failed'' to do in the opening credits for the first episode of the seventh season, which revealed the existence of Ezri Dax a good forty minutes before she shows up at the end of the episode.
--->NICOLE deBOER as EZRI DAX\\
''(40 minutes later...)''\\
'''Ezri:''' It's me, Dax.
** Also failed to do in the opening credits of the first episode of the fourth season, which revealed that Worf had joined the regular cast a good twenty minutes before he turned up and a good ''ninety'' minutes before he joined the station's crew.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': We're introduced to a new ship and new crew on a seemingly routine mission just as we'd seen in [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]] and [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]], only to have the ship lost on the other side of the Galaxy on the first episode, thus setting the premise of the series.
** Perhaps more surprising is nearly the entire introduced senior staff of the ship (including the First Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Navigator, and Chief Engineer) being killed off before even the midpoint of the pilot episode. Several apparent guest characters (the crew of another ship, the convict acting as their guide, the two aliens they meet) end up becoming the new senior staff. Also, the fact that Tuvok is TheMole among the Maquis crew is obvious to anyone who has seen another episode the moment Janeway mentions her chief of security is undercover there.
%% * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Sam Winchester's [[Recap/SupernaturalS01E01Pilot beloved fiancée]] is pinned in the cellar and burns the same way Sam and Dean's mother died years before.
%% * ''Series/{{Survivors}}'': The [=BBC=] remake had headline stars Shaun Dingwall and Freema Agyeman, the latter even playing a character carried over from the seventies series, unexpectedly dead by the end of the first episode.
* ''Series/{{Taxi}}'': For much of the first episode, Louie De Palma, played by then-unknown Danny [=DeVito=], shouts his usual bile from inside an elevated dispatcher's cage that only reveals his face. At the climax, he emerges from the cage and appears at the bottom of the steps, and is revealed to be incongruously short for his personality -- estimates vary but [=DeVito=] is well under 5 feet tall. It's a trick that only works once, ever.
%% * ''Series/TeenWolf'': The last minute of the pilot reveals that Allison's dad is a werewolf hunter.
%% * ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'': John Connor's new classmate Cameron is a Terminator sent to protect him.
* ''Series/ThisIsUs'': The advance publicity for the show, and even an epigram shown at the beginning of the premiere, emphasized that the main characters share a birthday (implying, but never outright stating, that they share no other specific connection), on which the first episode takes place. These characters are a man whose wife goes into labor with triplets, a disillusioned actor and his twin sister, and a black man confronting the biological father who abandoned him (the three other birthday celebrants are white). Only in the last scene is it revealed that the triplet childbirth takes place in 1980, and the other three characters ''are'' the triplets -- the couple having adopted an abandoned blac baby when one of the originals didn't survive -- and their "present-day" scenes are taking place in 2016. Anyone describing the show after that would call it the story of one multigenerational family.
* ''Series/TinMan'' just has three episodes, but the first keeps Azkadellia's history with DG quite vague until the last five minutes -- where it's revealed that the two are actually sisters. Naturally this is a major plot point of the remaining episodes -- DG appealing to sisterly love to save Azkadellia.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'':
** Begins with Gwen as a Cardiff police officer, observing the title mysterious Black Ops team. Afterwards, she becomes a team member.
** Also, the second-in-command -- who'd been featured in the credits and in publicity for the series just like all the others -- is revealed to have gone insane, and commits suicide at the end of the pilot episode.
** In a definite and obvious example of this trope, the revelation that Captain Jack is now immortal. In the first episode, this is very surprising. Thereafter it's used constantly.
* The very first joke in ''Series/UnhappilyEverAfter'' is one of these. Jenny is saying goodbye to a man, talking about how even though the divorce is over, they've been through so much, and they can still be friends, on the most harmonious of terms, etc. Then it turns out that, ha ha, the man is her divorce lawyer, not her ex-husband, and of course she's not going to be that friendly with her ex-husband. But of course, if you've ever seen any other episode of the show, you are already familiar with the ex-husband, for he's a main character (Jack, played by Geoff Pierson). So the joke is based on making the viewer think that the man is her ex-husband, but of course this requires that you haven't seen any of the rest of the show. Or other sources of information (like the trailers advertising the show!) that would let you know which characters are which.
* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'': The first episode frames Teddy Floods as a guest because he's riding the same train that brought the guests to the park, reacting to the town as if it's new to him, getting propositioned by several hosts, and making reference to having returned to town after an absence. Then, it turns out that he's actually a host.
* ''Series/WhiteCollar'': The basic premise is that a con man is released from jail into the FBI's custody to help solve crimes. Therefore, the entire first quarter or so where the Federal Agent main character is debating whether to actually release him or not is completely pointless.
%% * ''Literature/TheWorstWitch'' uniquely has one from the first episode of the ''second'' season. Sybil, the crying first year is in fact Ethel Hallow's younger sister.
%% * ''Series/ZNation'': The first episode slips one in, with Citizen Z stating his real name is Simon.
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