History OlderThanTheyLook / LiveActionTV

** PlayedForLaughs in ''Recap/RedDwarfThePromisedLand'' [[spoiler: Cat’s older brother BigBad Rodon is played by Ray Fearon who is several decades younger than Danny John Jules being in his 40s at the time of filming. Cat explains worrying about the very idea of having to work [[YoungerThanTheyLook aged him beyond his years]]. There’s some FridgeLogic about Rodon’s age considering the aforementioned 200 year TimeSkip but it is hinted that Felis sapiens (besides Cat) age slower than humans]].

** An in-universe example would be Grogu, known to fans as "Baby Yoda" or "the Child". Grogu looks, and for the most part behaves, like a toddler. But he's of the same alien race as Yoda, who reached 900 years before dying, and in the pilot we learn that he is actually 50 years old, making him the oldest of the heroes.

*** In the pilot episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E1EncounterAtFarpoint Encounter at Farpoint]]" Dr. McCoy arrives to inspect medical facilities on the new "Enterprise". Even though at that point he is 137 years old, his outward appearance is of someone a few decades younger.

** In ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'' episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekS2E10JourneyToBabel Journey to Babel]]'', Spock's father Sarek appears to be a man of about 40 to 50 Earth years of age, but is actually much older, being over 102 years old in 2268 when the episode takes place. Dr. [=McCoy=] asks him why he had retired, noting that Sarek was still young for a Vulcan.[[note]]Original Sarek actor Mark Lenard was just six years older than original Spock actor Leonard Nimoy.[[/note]]

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'': Thanks to a curse, all of the fairy tale characters were frozen in time for 28 years, meaning for example that Snow White and her daughter Emma look like they're the same age.
** Various other characters in the series fit this trope as well. Rumplestiltskin is hundreds of years old due to acquiring immortality when he became the Dark One. Physically he looks no older than a man in his 40s or 50s. (In fact, the actress who plays his mother is 15 years younger than Robert Carlyle.) Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and other inhabitants of Neverland are also centuries old while retaining a youthful appearance.

** [[spoiler:A very similar plot forms one episode of ''Series/{{Psych}}''.]]

** Although he more accurately falls into Really700YearsOld when it comes to apparent age vs actual age (he claims to be around 900), the Doctor also occasionally falls into this trope when it comes to apparent age vs ''mental'' age: for example, the Eleventh Doctor appears to be his mid-20s, but mentally is more like a wise and learned (as well as cranky, [[ShellShockedVeteran shell-shocked]] and somewhat senile) elderly grandfather. And this is actually implied to be ''inverted'' with the First Doctor, who looks to be in his 60s (and puts up a somewhat convincing front), but is [[ImmortalImmaturity mentally closer to a rebellious, immature youth]] who's sticking it to TheMan.

** ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'' gives us Dr. Kat Manx, who looks to be in her mid-twenties, but is actually 147-Earth years-old.

** Nearly all the regular vampire characters in both shows are a century or more old but look the same age as when they became vampires. This trope applies to vampires in general, really, though very few in the Buffyverse seem to make it [[Really700YearsOld past their first hundred years]] without getting staked.

** In ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'' episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekS2E10JourneyToBabel Journey to Babel]]'', Spock's father Sarek appears to be a man of about 40 to 50 Earth years of age, but is actually much older, being over 102 years old in 2268 when the episode takes place. Dr. [=McCoy=] asks him why he had retired, noting that Sarek was still young for a Vulcan.

** T'Pol from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' appears to be in her late twenties but, being a Vulcan, is actually much older. In the first season episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E23FallenHero Fallen Hero]]'' visiting Vulcan Ambassador V'Lar tells Archer and Tucker that she and T'Pol are the oldest people on the ''Enterprise'' at the moment, although T'Pol's age is kept ambiguous at that point. In the third season finale T'Pol mentions that she is 65 years old.

** T'Pol from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' appears to be in her late twenties but, being a Vulcan, is actually much older. In the first season episode ''Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E23FallenHero'' visiting Vulcan Ambassador V'Lar tells Archer and Tucker that she and T'Pol are the oldest people on the ''Enterprise'' at the moment, although T'Pol's age is kept ambiguous at that point. In the third season finale T'Pol mentions that she is 65 years old.

** T'Pol from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' appears to be in her late twenties but, being a Vulcan, is actually much older. An early episode has her be ambiguous about her age, only saying she is the oldest person on the ship. In the third season finale she mentions that she is 65 years old.

** In ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'' episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekS2E10JourneyToBabel Journey to Babel]]'', Spock's father Sarek appears to be a man of about 40 to 50 Earth years of age, but is actually much older, being over 102 years old in 2268 when the episode takes place. Dr. McCoy asks him why he had retired, noting that Sarek was still young for a Vulcan.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** In the episode "Rascals", Keiko O'Brien is temporarily turned into an adorable 12-year-old. The fact that she still wants to be treated like a wife {{squick}}s Miles out a bit. Three other crewmembers - Picard, Guinan, and Ro - are similarly altered, but none of them are in relationships at the time, though they all happily exploit this trope to retake the ship from a hostile Ferengi takeover.
** The O'Briens seem to get more than their fair share of this trope. There's another ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space 9]]'' episode, "Hard Time", where an alien race sentences O'Brien to a 21-year virtual prison sentence. He experiences all 21 years of his brutal, tortuous prison term in only a few days, making him mentally 21 years older; 21 really, really crappy years older. And even their daughter gets an OvernightAgeUp treatment due to a NegativeSpaceWedgie. This time, she actually spent those years growing up in a wilderness, and the O'Briens realize that the non-verbal wild-woman she has become cannot be undone, so they return her to the wilderness that has become her home. In doing so, this older Molly finds the young Molly minutes after she was lost in the anomaly and returned her to her parents, her correct age.
* T'Pol from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' appears to be in her late twenties but, being a Vulcan, is actually much older. An early episode has her be ambiguous about her age, only saying she is the oldest person on the ship. In the third season finale she mentions that she is 65 years old.
* Tuvok of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' likewise appears to be in his 30s at the beginning of the series, but is actually over 100 years old in 2371 and had been married to his wife T'Pel for over 67 years at that point in his life.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'': The novels reveal that Alfred Bester is in his seventies by the time we first see him.

* ''Series/{{Earth 2}}'', hotshot pilot Alonso Solace says he's spent more time in cold sleep (en route to planets) than he has awake, making him much older chronologically than the twenty-something he looks.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' / ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'': Barry Allen is 25-years-old in the first season, but looks like a teenager. [[ComicBook/GreenArrow Ollie]] repeatedly ribs him over this, such as jokingly telling Felicity that he's instructed the bartenders at his party to ask Barry for an I.D. before serving him drinks. This is due to Barry being a rare example of ''not'' using DawsonCasting. Grant Gustin is in his mid-twenties, and so is Barry.

* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'': In one episode, when Eric goes to Hollywood to work on a sitcom he meets an actress who plays a little girl on the show but is actually 42-years-old. She then hits on him by grabbing his ass.

* ''Franchise/{{Highlander}}'': Upon surviving a serious injury, or "first death", an Immortal can become multiple-millennia-old and will still look like the same age they were when they became Immortal and can only be killed by [[OffWithHisHead decapitation]]. For example, Kenny is 800-years-old, yet he is physically a child due to this.

-->'''Sally''': You don't think public radio pays for those experimental skin treatments, do you? ''(to others)'' Look at her! 108-years-old!

* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'': Victor looks like he's in his 50's while he's actually 95, thanks to the elixir he took. Same with Rufus, who looks about 40 but is ''also'' 95. Similarly, Robert Frobisher-Smythe looked about 50 when he was [[ItMakesSenseInContext released from the tank]], but was really over 100-years-old. When the curse was broken, he started to look his actual age.

* ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'': Akiko Narumi is 20-years-old, but looks much younger, in part due to her height and childish behavior. Shotaro even mistakes her for a ''middle schooler'' in the first episode, and continues calling her that as an insult throughout the course of the show.
* ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'': Amatsu Gai is 45-years-old but his appearance is within his 20s, which he overzealously guards and takes pride in by calling himself an ''eternally 24-years-old''. A RunningGag is someone (like [[RobotGirl Is]]) pointing this discrepancy out, which he absolutely loathes.

** An episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' features a girl named Janie Spear with Turner's Syndrome, so even though she is 17-years-old, physically, she looks like a 12-year-old child. The episode focuses on her relationship with a 30-year-old employee of her father's; since she's seventeen it is fine but some of the detectives are uncomfortable with what they think this says about [[PaedoHunt her boyfriend's taste in girls]].

** An in-universe example would be Grogu, known to fans as "Baby Yoda" or "the Child". Grogu looks, and for the most part behaves, like a toddler. But he's of the same alien race as Yoda, who reached 900 years before dying, and in the pilot we learn that he is actually 50-years-old, making him the oldest of the heroes.

* ''Series/OddSquad'': Oprah is at least 231-years-old. Considering that her actress, Millie Davis, was 13 when playing her as the Big O, and Oprah as a character was stated to physically be 7-years-old when she was an Odd Squad Director, it would mean that she's 237-years-old. In the position of the Big O, she has the ability to control her aging, but remains her current age out of personal choice.
** Orla is 499-years-old, turning 500 in "Orla's Birthday". She is an ancient Odd Squad Investigation agent who served as the guardian for the 44-leaf clover, a legendary artifact of the organization, before joining the Mobile Unit department along with Opal, Omar and Oswald. She is easily the oldest of the group despite appearing to be the same age as them, and due to being used to living in ancient times, she is [[FishOutOfTemporalWater unfamiliar with the modern world.]]

** Played with in the case of Olive. The ColdOpen of "Skip Day" has her remarking on being young again as she and Otto watch two men transform into young boys thanks to a vehicular FountainOfYouth before they run off to ride bikes together. A confused Otto tries to get her to elaborate, but she simply realizes what she's said and leaves the place, with Otto still confused as he follows her. "Party of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1" also has her stating that [[TheyDontMakeThemLikeTheyUsedTo they don't make the Odd Squad kid cars like they used to,]] implying that she may be far older than she appears to be. While she is established to be 12-years-old, it's not elaborated on if she's hundreds of years old like Oprah and Orla, millennia old like Orville, or if she really is 12.

** In ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'', this is one of the perks of being bonded to an Energem. As a result, Koda looks like in his 20s, but is actually 100,000+-years-old. [[spoiler: James Navarro, who is Tyler's then-missing father, looks ten years younger than his actual age. The villain Heckyl is later implied to be ''millions'' of years old despite looking to be in his 20s as well.]]

** Justified initially with Lister. He would technically be 3 million-years-old, but since [[HumanPopsicle he was put in stasis]] (which time cannot penetrate) in his early 20s, he’s still young despite the hundreds of centuries that have past by. Less justified in Series VI, where Lister and the Cat are put in hibernation for 200 years and from what we see apart from Lister’s hair, nails and toenails growing to long massive Hagrid-size hair, he along with Cat still look young. Even in the revival series despite Creator/CraigCharles and Creator/DannyJohnJules being in their late 50s and early 60s, ironically they’re still younger than their characters’ actual ages which are well into the triple digits InUniverse.

* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': Nate Walker might look like twenty-something, but the actor playing him, Creator/JDPardo, is actually 33-years-old. Tom Neville looks like he's in his forties, but the actor playing him, Creator/GiancarloEsposito, is actually 55-years-old. Captain Riley looks like he's twenty-something, but the actor playing him, Creator/OmidAbtahi, is actually 34-years-old.

* T'Pol from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' appears to be in her late twenties but, being a Vulcan, is actually much older. An early episode has her be ambiguous about her age, only saying she is the oldest person on the ship. In the third season finale she mentions that she is 65-years-old.

* ''Series/TokumeiSentaiGobusters'': Masato Jin, who is 40-years-old but due to his physical body being stuck in hyperspace can only appear as an avatar of himself at 27, the same age he was when transported to hyperspace. His body, which is preserved in a chamber there, also hasn't aged.

* ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'': Number Five has a TimeTravel mishap and his body reverts to being 13-years-old. He reveals later that he is actually fifty-eight.

* ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': Wonder Woman is over 2,500-years-old, but looks like she's in her early 20s

--> '''Wonder Woman:''' I will be 2,527-years-old on my next birthday

-->'''Sally''': You don't think public radio pays for those experimental skin treatments, do you? ''(to others)'' Look at her! 108 years old!

* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'': Victor looks like he's in his 50's while he's actually 95, thanks to the elixir he took. Same with Rufus, who looks about 40 but is ''also'' 95. Similarly, Robert Frobisher-Smythe looked about 50 when he was [[ItMakesSenseInContext released from the tank]], but was really over a hundred years old. When the curse was broken, he started to look his actual age.

** An in-universe example would be Grogu, known to fans as "Baby Yoda" or "the Child". Grogu looks, and for the most part behaves, like a toddler. But he's of the same alien race as Yoda, who reached 900 years before dying, and in the pilot we learn that he is actually fifty years old, making him the oldest of the heroes.

** In ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'', this is one of the perks of being bonded to an Energem. As a result, Koda looks like in his 20s, but is actually 100,000+ years old. [[spoiler: James Navarro, who is Tyler's then-missing father, looks ten years younger than his actual age. The villain Heckyl is later implied to be ''millions'' of years old despite looking to be in his 20s as well.]]

** Justified initially with Lister. He would technically be 3 million years old, but since [[HumanPopsicle he was put in stasis]] (which time cannot penetrate) in his early 20s, he’s still young despite the hundreds of centuries that have past by. Less justified in Series VI, where Lister and the Cat are put in hibernation for 200 years and from what we see apart from Lister’s hair, nails and toenails growing to long massive Hagrid-size hair, he along with Cat still look young. Even in the revival series despite Creator/CraigCharles and Creator/DannyJohnJules being in their late 50s and early 60s, ironically they’re still younger than their characters’ actual ages which are well into the triple digits InUniverse.

* ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'': Number Five has a TimeTravel mishap and his body reverts to being thirteen years old. He reveals later that he is actually fifty-eight.

** The titular Carly always looked at least a few years younger than she was. She was 13 in the first season and looked like she was about 11, and in the final season, she was around 18, but looked 15 at the absolute oldest. Even in the [[Series/ICarly2021 2021 revival]] when she's 26-going on-27, she still looks like she could pass for late teens. (And keep in mind that Carly's actress, Creator/MirandaCosgrove, is a year older than her character.)

** Ahsoka Tano appears in Chapter 13, making her 46 by the time of this appearance (the character was 17 at the start of ''The Clone Wars''). She was played by Creator/RosarioDawson, who was 39 at the time of filming, and easily looks like she could pass for 10 years younger than that.

** The titular Carly always looked at least a few years younger than she was. She was 13 in the first season and looked like she was about 10 or 11, and in the final season, she was around 18, but looked 15 at the absolute oldest. Even in the [[Series/ICarly2021 2021 revival]] when she's 26-going on-27, she still looks like she could pass for late teens. (And keep in mind that Carly's actress, Creator/MirandaCosgrove, is a year older than her character.)

* ''Series/SeventhHeaven'': Beverley Mitchell, who played middle daughter Lucy, was actually one year ''older'' than Jessica Biel, who played oldest daughter Mary. Biel was 14 and easily looked 16 or 17, while Mitchell was 15 and looked 10.

* ''Series/SeventhHeaven'': Beverly Mitchell, who played middle daughter Lucy, was actually one year ''older'' than Jessica Biel, who played oldest daughter Mary. Biel was 14 and easily looked 16 or 17, while Mitchell was 15 and looked 10.

* On ''Series/ShakeItUp'', Rocky and [=CeCee=] are checking out the hotel of 16-year-old pop star Justin Starr and accidentally photograph him kissing his older manager. They then accidentally send the photo out to their contacts who spread it fast. Justin is actually happy as he can now tell the truth: He's actually 24 and his "manager" is his wife. This leads to both girls unleashing an epic SpitTake.

** The O'Briens seem to get more than their fair share of this trope. There's another ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space 9]]'' episode, "Hard Time", where an alien race sentences O'Brien to a 21-year virtual prison sentence. He experiences all 21 years of his brutal, tortuous prison term in only a few days, making him mentally 21 years older; 21 really, really crappy years older. And even their daughter gets an OvernightAgeUp treatment due to a NegativeSpaceWedgie. This time, she actually spent those years growing up in a wilderness, and the O'Briens realise that the non-verbal wild-woman she has become cannot be undone, so they return her to the wilderness that has become her home. In doing so, this older Molly finds the young Molly minutes after she was lost in the anomaly and returned her to her parents, her correct age.

** Alfred Fellig a photgrapher who unfortunately gained immortality by tricking Death from "Tithonus". He's over 200 but looks about 65.