History Main / FakedRipVanWinkle

** Subverted in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E8FutureImperfect Future Imperfect]]", in which Riker wakes up to be told that he is recovering from an amnesia-inducing sickness some sixteen years in his own future, where he is now Captain of the ''Enterprise'' and has a wife and son. He realises something weird is going on because his "wife" is a woman who only ever existed as a fictional holodeck creation, and discovers that he is actually being subjected to a VirtualRealityInterrogation by the Romulans. [[spoiler:The twist here is that this is just a second layer of VR - he is actually in a simulation created by his "son" from the first layer, actually a lonely alien child who wanted someone to play with -- the apparent Virtual Reality Interrogation plot was the simulation trying to adjust to his suspicions of what was really happening.]]
*** Interestingly, many of the things Riker found odd (though not impossible) in the first fake scenario came true as the franchise continued.
* ''Series/{{V 1983}}''. In "The Deception", the Visitors make a captured Mike Donovan think he's woken up ten years on when humanity has defeated the alien invaders. Holographic technology is used to make the Visitors appear as his friends, but Mike sees a newspaper with the Star Child who, unknown to the Visitors, has undergone a PlotRelevantAgeUp, meaning she'd be much older than the picture shown.

* Another small-scale version turns up on the 1990 ''Series/Zorro1990'' remake, wherein the entire pueblo, led by Don Diego, works to buy time for an unjustly accused man by pretending that the Alcalde's been delirious for a week and the hanging's already happened. That this elaborate scheme is unraveled by the Alcalde noticing that a recent wine stain on his carpet hasn't dried yet does not speak well of Diego's scheming ability (especially since he-as-Zorro caused the stain in the first place).

** {{Inverted|Trope}} in the episode "A Fishful of Dollars". After being drugged, Fry awakens in a shoddily constructed pizzeria set, where "employees" have him convinced that he is back in the year 2000 in an attempt to get Fry's PIN number. Given Fry's brainless nature, it works.
** Happens unintentionally in "The Cryonic Woman". Fry and his old girlfriend freeze themselves to go to the year 4000, and when they wake up in a deserted wasteland they assume civilization has collapsed. Only later do they find out that they were really only frozen for a week or two, and civilization is doing just fine. The wasteland is actually contemporary Los Angeles.

* Ellen in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-09-27 wakes up]] after dreaming the first six years of [[CloningBlues memories of her alternate universe counterpart]], and is momentarily scared that she slept through six years. (Elliot's "you're finally awake" comment doesn't help.)

* A short version is done to Stringfellow Hawke in the "Echoes of the Past" episode of ''Series/{{Airwolf}}''. He's told a mission is underway to rescue his brother from Vietnam, then a crash arranged. When Hawke wakes up in hospital, he's told almost a year has passed (there's a fake news story [HilariousInHindsight involving the divorce of Prince Charles and Lady Diana]]) and during this time his brother was successfully rescued (a lookalike is used), though his friends Dominic and Archangel were killed during the mission. So now Hawke can give up the location of Airwolf as agreed, right? As it turns out, Hawke was suspicious from the start as he woke up with the same callus on his hands as when he "crashed," meaning it can't be nearly a year in the future.