History MindScrew / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' has "Won't Get Fooled Again": Crichton is suddenly on Earth again, having apparently crashed his module and never gone through the wormhole...except he starts to see his crew mates around, acting extremely out of character, and no one seems to notice that they're, well, aliens. It just gets weirder from there, involving Rygel in bondage, D'Argo as a CampGay, repeated recurrences of Crichton's dead mother, Crais as a high-heels wearing police officer, and Scorpius trying to get Crichton to pay attention to him. [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed that Crichton was kidnapped by a Scarran who's been frying his brain in order to get the information Scorpius wants out of his head]]

** It stops being quite so freaky once you realize that all of his really big acts end the same way: "What is Criss doing, he's almost out of time before... OH MY GOD! HE'S DEAD! CRISS ANGEL IS DEAD, HE'S... oh wait there he is in the crowd."
*** I'm sorry, but YourMileageMayVary. After all, no matter how many times it happens this way, there is no possible way he COULD have done those.

* ''{{Lost}}''. They can fill the rest of this page with arguments back and forth about whether or not ''Lost'' is "really" that much of a Mind Screw, but, in all honesty, this trope is pretty much the show's whole reason for being. Either ''Lost'' ''is'' a Mind Screw, or else this either isn't a trope or ''Lost'' isn't a show. I'll leave it up to you to decide which. Like ''Lost'' does. Some examples from the show include its dream sequences and some particularly odd bits surrounding a cabin. One trippy episode was even set to be directed by DarrenAranofsky.

* ''{{Lost}}''. They can fill the rest of this page with arguments back and forth about whether or not ''Lost'' is "really" that much of a Mind Screw, but, in all honesty, this trope is pretty much the show's whole reason for being. Either ''Lost'' ''is'' a Mind Screw, or else this either isn't a trope or ''Lost'' isn't a show. I'll leave it up to you to decide which. Like ''Lost'' does.

* ''{{Lost}}''. They can fill the rest of this page with arguments back and forth about whether or not ''Lost'' is "really" that much of a Mind Screw, but, in all honesty, this trope is pretty much the show's whole reason for being. Either ''Lost'' ''is'' a Mind Screw, or else this either isn't a trope or ''Lost'' isn't a show. I'll leave it up to you to decide which. Like ''Lost'' does. Examples:
** In the early season 1 episode "Walkabout", part of the past of main character John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) is revealed through flashbacks. However, it is not revealed until the last flashback scene of the episode that Locke [[spoiler:had been confined to a wheelchair for four years]], which is helped by the fact that he [[spoiler:regained the use of his legs]] following the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, which started the show's main narrative, thus having shown no hints of his previous condition until this episode.
** The opening scene of the season 2 premiere appears to be taking place in a sunny apartment, causing the viewer to wonder if this is a flashback, and for which character. However, just before the opening title sequence, it turns out that this scene is [[spoiler:actually taking place inside the "hatch" on the island that has been blown open in the season 1 finale]].
** The season 2 episode "Dave" suggests that all the events of the entire show might have actually [[spoiler:taken place inside the mind of Hurley, a main character who had previously been an inmate in a mental ward]]. However, WordOfGod says that this will ''definitely not'' be the ultimate resolution for the show, because it's considered a "bad idea" outside a "what if" one-off story. Still, in a case of ExecutiveMeddling, ABC rejected the original draft for this episode, fearing that it was offering a solution for the show as a whole rather early in the game. It's unknown what changes, if any, have been made to the plot to address ABC's concerns.
** The opening scene of the season 3 premiere repeats the concept of the previous season premiere, this time supposedly taking place in a small suburbian neighborhood, only to be revealed at the end of the scene to be [[spoiler:taking place in the secret home village of the mysterious "Others", with Oceanic Flight 815 breaking apart right above their heads]].
** The opening scene for the season 3 episode "Not in Portland" inverts that, this time by [[spoiler:showing a scene with Juliet (a member of the "Others") sitting on a beach, then entering a worn-out building and meeting Ethan, another member of the "Others", thereby implying that the scene was taking place on the island. Instead, it turns out the scene is actually taking place in Miami, before Juliet was recruited by the "Others"]].
** The first flashback for Locke in the season 3 episode "The Man from Tallahassee" again plays with viewers expectations, this time by implying that Locke is already [[spoiler:confined to a wheelchair]] by this point. However, the scene eventually ends with him standing up and walking away, and it's not until the last flashback of the episode that he actually [[spoiler:ends up in a wheelchair]].
** The first flashback scene for the character of Nikki in the controversial season 3 episode "Exposé" is eventually revealed to be part "Exposé", a ShowWithinAShow Nikki was guest-starring on (with Billy Dee Williams [[TheCameo playing himself]]). The original idea for the episode was to have ''all'' Nikki flashbacks be part of the fictional show, and only reveal their true nature by the end of the episode. However, [[AbortedArc those plans for Nikki's story were cut short]] [[TheScrappy due to negative fan backlash towards her character.]]
** The season 3 finale features a number of flashback scenes with a really devastated, bearded Jack. Only at the end of the two-hour episode it turns out that [[spoiler:all the "flashbacks" in this episode were actually flash-''forwards'', and the Jack shown in those scenes actually made it off the island, as did Kate, whom he meets at the end]].
** The season 4 episode "Ji Yeon" apparently features [[spoiler:flash-forwards for the Korean couple Jin and Sun, who seem to have made it off the island, with Sun delivering her baby by the end of the episode. Only then it turns out that all the "flash-forward" scenes for Jin, who was never shown together with his wife in this episode's flashes, were actually flash''backs'', and Jin is considered ''dead'' in Sun's flash-forwards.]]
** In the season 4 finale [[spoiler:Ben spins a donkey wheel... and the Island disappears! But we know those people still there are alive because in the future, John Locke will have a funeral ''outside the Island''!]]
** The season 5 finale ends in such a way, that NOBODY can predict what will happen. It ends with [[spoiler:Juliet successfully activating a nuclear explosion directly on top of a massive pocket of electromagnetic energy. We don't even see the explosion...just a fade to white. Whether or not this destroys the island or the energy is anybody's guess]].
** On top of that, a moment in the season 5 finale fits exactly with the original meaning of Mindfuck - [[spoiler: We discover that the Locke we've been following since he got back to the island is actually a mysterious entity which opposes Jacob. This completely changes not only the viewers perception of Locke over the season, but the viewers perception of the ghosts all through the show.]]
** Challenge: try to explain the plot of ''Lost'' while drunk. Hard mode: try it while sober.
** All the above ignores the fact that the very first episode contains them crashing on some tropical island, encountering a polar bear, and then a Smoke Monster. And then, how is it that so many people seem intimately connected with one another, often unknowingly. And what the heck's with Hurley's "Numbers". Or the "Statue". Or freakin' Jacob...

** In "The Wedding of River Song," the entirety of time is taking place at the same time because River [[spoiler:prevented the Doctor's unpreventable death]]. Which means the Doctor has to [[spoiler:recruit the Teselecta (which he never would have met had he not tried to avert his death) to avoid his death to ensure his death in the eyes of the universe. Meaning he has to cause his death to avoid his death to cause his death to avoid his death to cause his death...]]

* ''StElsewhere'': [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall#The_Tommy_Westphall_Universe_hypothesis The Tommy Westphall Universe hypothesis]]. It is best just to ignore it.

* Though ''{{Firefly}}'' is notable for being ''extremely'' straightforward in most respects, the scenes in the episode "Objects in Space" involving River's hallucinations can be considered a mild MindScrew. It gets worse in [[TheMovie the Big Damn Movie]], where River's hallucinations become much more pronounced and vivid.

* {{Farscape}} has "Won't Get Fooled Again": Crichton is suddenly on Earth again, having apparently crashed his module and never gone through the wormhole...except he starts to see his crew mates around, acting extremely out of character, and no one seems to notice that they're, well, aliens. It just gets weirder from there, involving Rygel in bondage, D'Argo as a CampGay, repeated recurrences of Crichton's dead mother, Crais as a high-heels wearing police officer, and Scorpius trying to get Crichton to pay attention to him. [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed that Crichton was kidnapped by a Scarran who's been frying his brain in order to get the information Scorpius wants out of his head]]

* OnceUponATime, (June the 11th, 1934, to be more precise,) in [[{{UsefulNotes/Sweden}} Sweden]], a child was born. This wasn't especially uncommon in itself, but it just so happened that this child was named Staffan Westerberg... One day, when he was 41 years, 2 months and 22 days old, (in other words, it was now September the 1st, 1975,) [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime Staffan became the producer and show host]] of what was ([[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids supposedly]]) a children's show, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Vilse i Pannkakan, Lost in the Pancake]]''. This show featured finger puppets that Staffan played with, all of them with [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Names]], like the titular main character, Lost. It also included, amongst many other things, a CorruptCorporateExecutive potato, a [[{{Hobos}} Hobo]], a firefighter who [[FireMenAreHot gets it together]] with a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent motorized angel]] and, naturally, a moose; [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs all living on the titular pancake]]. Oh, and the show was actually AnAesop about society and politics... These days, [[NightmarefuelStationAttendant Staffan Westerberg]] is [[NiceJobBreakingItHero singlehandedly blamed for the psychological problems of the entire 70's generation.]]

** The first flashback scene for the character of Nikki in the controversial season 3 episode "Exposé" is eventually revealed to be part "Exposé", a ShowWithinAShow Nikki was guest-starring on (with Billy Dee Williams [[TheCameo playing himself]]). The original idea for the episode was to have ''all'' Nikki flashbacks be part of the fictional show, and only reveal their true nature by the end of the episode. However, [[AbandonedArc those plans for Nikki's story were cut short]] [[TheScrappy due to negative fan backlash towards her character.]]

** The series finale of ''BattlestarGalactica'', FULL STOP. "That just raises FURTHER questions!"
*** Agreed. I mean really, is defining your frigging state of reality too much to ask for? (I mean, really, were half the main characters paranoid schizophrenics or were the writers just high on ether?)

* Classic ''DoctorWho'' managed its MindScrew with the middle four episodes of [[StoryArc Trial of a Time Lord]] (it being called ''Mindwarp'' should have been a clue). The final two episodes of the arc attempted to clear up the MindScrew elements. Due to a number of reasons, especially ExecutiveMeddling and AuthorExistenceFailure, it failed miserably.

* ''ThePrisoner'' ended with such a colossal mind screw that fans reputedly harassed series star Patrick [=McGoohan=] for months demanding his explanation of the series. How bad was it? Well, any really, ''really'' bad MindScrew will get compared to ''{{Evangelion}}'', right? Okay, so now realize ''ThePrisoner is what {{Evangelion}} gets compared to''!

*** Thankfully, [[WordOfGod Moffet has stated]] that it was supposed to be this way, as the arc isn't done yet. The Silence arc will carry over into Series Six, and will explain the cracks, the voice, River Song, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the ducks]].

** Also, the Troughton story "The Mind Robber". Episode one was written in a hurry with no budget (hence the 'void' set and the robot costume re-used from a version of 'Rossum's Universal Robots'. The weird dream-like setting of episode 1 coupled with the metafictional setting of the rest of the story and the disappearance of one of the characters at the end gave the impression that episodes 2-5 were all a dream.

* The ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episodes "Far Beyond the Stars" and "Shadows and Symbols" heavily imply that the events of the entire series may have simply been the imaginings of a mentally unstable African-American pulp-fiction writer in the 1950s. "Shadows and Symbols" does, however, state that it was a "false vision" the Pah Wraiths attempted to use to trick Sisko.
*** It has been said in the series companion book that there was discussion for the final scene of the final episode to be Benny Russell holding the series script standing in a studio lot (presumably at Paramount), which would have been the Mind Screw to end all Mind Screws.
**** It would also have been an Audience Screw, invalidating not just the show they were watching but other shows with it (both ''TNG'' and ''Voyager'' had used elements from ''Deep Space Nine'', after all). Good thing they thought better of it.
***** And the original Star Trek series, too. In fact the whole Benny Russell mindscrew has elements of the infamous ending to StElsewhere which suggested the entire series (and the many that crossed over with it) were a figment of a young boy's imagination).

* Elsewhere in the ''Trek'' franchise, ''NextGeneration'', ''{{Voyager}}'', and ''{{Enterprise}}'' had their share of these episodes -- and most can be traced back to one inveterate Mind Screwer. Brannon Braga absolutely ''loves'' stories like this. The results are mixed: Braga's Mind Screws include some of the best ''and'' worst episodes of these shows.

**** It would also have been an Audience Screw, invalidating not just the show they were watching but other shows with it (both TNG and VOY had used elements from DS9, after all). Good thing they thought better of it.

** In something of a similiar vein, one early draft of the episode "Little Green Men" (In which Quark goes back in time and causes the 1940s Roswell incident) featured a quick segment of a Lt. Roddenberry being inspired by the episode events to write a science fiction story...

** One of the greatest Mind Screws in TNG is the episode ''Remember Me.'' To put it simply:

** Another DS9 ep that does this is "Rapture." Because they never really explain whether the visions were actually an important message from the Prophets, and Sisko would have been fine without the surgery, or if they really were hallucinations from the accident and the surgery was necessary.

* OnceUponATime, (June the 11th, 1934, to be more precise,) in {{Sweden}}, a child was born. This wasn't especially uncommon in itself, but it just so happened that this child was named Staffan Westerberg... One day, when he was 41 years, 2 months and 22 days old, (in other words, it was now September the 1st, 1975,) [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime Staffan became the producer and show host]] of what was ([[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids supposedly]]) a children's show, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Vilse i Pannkakan, Lost in the Pancake]]''. This show featured finger puppets that Staffan played with, all of them with [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Names]], like the titular main character, Lost. It also included, amongst many other things, a CorruptCorporateExecutive potato, a [[{{Hobos}} Hobo]], a firefighter who [[FireMenAreHot gets it together]] with a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent motorized angel]] and, naturally, a moose; [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs all living on the titular pancake]]. Oh, and the show was actually AnAesop about society and politics... These days, [[NightmarefuelStationAttendant Staffan Westerberg]] is [[NiceJobBreakingItHero singlehandedly blamed for the psychological problems of the entire 70's generation.]]

* OnceUponATime, (June the 11th, 1934, to be more precise,) in [[{{Cloudcuckooland}} Sweden]], a child was born. This wasn't especially uncommon in itself, but it just so happened that this child was named Staffan Westerberg... One day, when he was 41 years, 2 months and 22 days old, (in other words, it was now September the 1st, 1975,) [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime Staffan became the producer and show host]] of what was ([[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids supposedly]]) a children's show, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Vilse i Pannkakan, Lost in the Pancake]]''. This show featured finger puppets that Staffan played with, all of them with [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Names]], like the titular main character, Lost. It also included, amongst many other things, a CorruptCorporateExecutive potato, a [[{{Hobos}} Hobo]], a firefighter who [[FireMenAreHot gets it together]] with a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent motorized angel]] and, naturally, a moose; [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs all living on the titular pancake]]. Oh, and the show was actually AnAesop about society and politics... These days, [[NightmarefuelStationAttendant Staffan Westerberg]] is [[NiceJobBreakingItHero singlehandedly blamed for the psychological problems of the entire 70's generation.]]

** It has been said in the series companion book that there was discussion for the final scene of the final episode to be Benny Russell holding the series script standing in a studio lot (presumably at Paramount), which would have been the Mind Screw to end all Mind Screws.
*** It would also have been an Audience Screw, invalidating not just the show they were watching but other shows with it (both TNG and VOY had used elements from DS9, after all). Good thing they thought better of it.
**** In something of a similiar vein, one early draft of the episode "Little Green Men" (In which Quark goes back in time and causes the 1940s Roswell incident) featured a quick segment of a Lt. Roddenberry being inspired by the episode events to write a science fiction story...

* Reality TV example: Criss Angel's ''Mindfreak''. Much like the name of the trope itself, it is also watered down version of the term best used to describe his feats.

*** Agreed. I mean really, is defining your frigging state of reality too much to ask for? (I mean, really, were half the main characters paranoid schizophrenics or were the writers just high on ether?)
* ''{{Lost}}''. They can fill the rest of this page with arguments back and forth about whether or not ''Lost'' is "really" that much of a Mind Screw, but, in all honesty, this trope is pretty much the show's whole reason for being. Either ''Lost'' ''is'' a Mind Screw, or else this either isn't a trope or ''Lost'' isn't a show. I'll leave it up to you to decide which. Like ''Lost'' does. Examples:

*** To answer the question about the [[spoiler:simulation of a gynecologist, Alice is using her VR module to imagine the pregnancy she's not allowed to have being aboard the ship.]] Maybe. [[spoiler:We conspicuously never see her break character or take off the module. And there are a lot of unncessarily details: magazines, waiting room, that make her seem less in control of the program.]] In essense, it's a question that may never be answered.