History WhatTheHellIsThatAccent / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* While Creator/LeonardNimoy spoke with his natural American accent on Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries, in his role on ''Series/MissionImpossible'' as master of disguise Paris he had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaMso75ddb8 this brilliant moment]].

** They also rhyme "scone" with "on", while Canadians generally follow American English and say it like it's spelled.

** Another episode has Phoebe and Monica having this reaction to one of their friends coming back from England with a new accent. Monica attempts an awful impression of it ("Monica dah-ling it's U-mah-da cooling"). Chandler remarks "is that meant to be a British accent". Ironically when we see the friend (played by Jennifer Coolidge) her English accent is quite decent. Well, sort of -- some of the vowels are correct (for RP, anyway) and consistent. It's probably exactly right considering it's portrayed as irritatingly fake.

* ''Series/Mongrels'': Marion the cat speaks with an accent that sounds like of Persian, Polish and German; WordOfGod is his voice actor, Dan Testell, based it on the voice of Iranian-British comedian Omid Djalili.

** Peter Purves plays a character in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E8TheChase "The Chase"]] who lives in New York City, yet speaks with what sounds like a very poor attempt at a Southern U.S. accent.

** Kendra's accent is, according to WordOfGod, a very region-specific rural Jamaican accent but isn't recognized as such by Jamaicans.(Perhaps unsurprisingly, just ''where'' this rural Jamaican region supposedly is has never been revealed.) When Kendra asks Buffy "You tink he tell us?" and Buffy replies "I tink we make him," even ''Buffy'' sounds more convincing!

** Ironically, some American fans of the show initially reacted this way to Fitz-Simmons' real accents (which are just the actors' natural accents), because RealityIsUnrealistic and they weren't [[IAmVeryBritish speaking in RP]].

* Averted by Officer Crabtree in ''Series/AlloAllo'' where much of the joke is that his supposed "French" is wildly wrong.

** Shae, who is equally mystifying to Tyrion in-universe. She describes her own accent only as "foreign". Her accent is actually German, albeit complicated by the fact that Sibel Kekilli, the actress portraying her, tries to mask her accent by giving it a distinct South-European tinge. Resolved in-universe in Season Two, when Cersei pegs her accent as Lorathi. It helps that Jaqen H'gar, the only other Lorathi character, also uses a German accent.[[note]] However, it should be noted that in the books, Jaqen H'ghar's accent actually reminds Arya of Syrio Forel, who in turn was portrayed by Miltos Yerolemou, an English actor of Greek descent, in the series and spoke with a Greek accent accordingly.[[/note]]

--->'''Flashback!Sophie:''' Ai, wai'er, I was vey wunnerin' 'fyou could yea' und' my dingaling.\\
'''Present!Sophie:''' ...I hate you all.

** This is pretty common on ''[=SNL=]'' -- some cast members are very, very good at accents, while others... are not. A couple of examples of the latter camp include Jason Sudeikis as Richard Dawson in a ''Series/FamilyFeud'' sketch, Creator/SethMeyers as Prince Charles, and any time Creator/ChristopherWalken has hosted.
*** Of particular note was Creator/LouisCK, whose skit involved [[https://youtu.be/-jaqg-NMz9A him as a Historical Recreationist actor portraying a Polish man]] - his accent was so bad that he and Creator/KateMcKinnon corpsed several times during the scene.

* Foreign Accent Syndrome (See RealLife section below) is referenced on an episode of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. J.D. is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEnoFh4bFSw really bad at doing accents.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Troi. Marina Sirtis said that she purposefully tried to make an alien accent since she was [[HalfHumanHybrid half-Human/half-Betazoid]], and especially in the earlier seasons, you can almost see her struggling to keep it up. The fact that none of the Betazoid characters used anything even slightly similar also drew attention to it. That accent was replaced by something closer to a British accent (which is her native accent) in later seasons and then dropped altogether in the movie. Marina Sirtis was brought up in London to a Greek Cypriot family. It has been suggested that she was deliberately speaking in the sort of British accent first-generation Greek immigrants would have used: a hybrid of Cockney and Cyprus.\\\
Originally, Denise Crosby was chosen after reading the part of Troi, [[TheHeart the empath]], and Sirtis read for CommieLand descendant and security-focused Tasha Yar ([[WhatCouldHaveBeen ...yiiiikes]]). By the time season one began, they had accents that might have made sense if their roles hadn't been swapped. Troi's mother was cast as if this change hadn't happened at all. There was a fan-theory for a while that Troi had a peculiar Earth accent she'd picked up from her ''father'' ...then Ian Troi appeared in a flashback and he didn't have it either.
** Handwaved later on by a comment Lwaxana made: telling Deanna that she should have been around more when she was growing up, so she didn't spend so much time with her nanny, because she picked up the nanny's accent.

Originally, Denise Crosby was chosen after reading the part of Troi, [[TheChick the empath]], and Sirtis read for CommieLand descendant and security-focused Tasha Yar ([[WhatCouldHaveBeen ...yiiiikes]]). By the time season one began, they had accents that might have made sense if their roles hadn't been swapped. Troi's mother was cast as if this change hadn't happened at all. There was a fan-theory for a while that Troi had a peculiar Earth accent she'd picked up from her ''father'' ...then Ian Troi appeared in a flashback and he didn't have it either.

* In Arrow, Thea Queen speaks with an accent that really doesn't sound like anything American that is also not Willa's Holland natural accent. One can only assume it's a Star City accent.

** The Centauri and Minbari, in particular, seem to have a selection of accents. Turhan Bey used his native Austrian accent when portraying the Centauri Emperor, lending some credence to the quasi-Eastern European accent affected by Jurasik as Londo. Theodore Bikel used his native Yiddish accent when playing a Minbari, Reiner Schone as Dukhat used his native German accent, and John Vickery affected a pronounced upper-class British purr as Neroon. In the last case, it was actually pretty useful, as John Vickery played a Human in another episode using a more Mid-Atlantic accent. He has a pretty distinctive voice, so the different accents helped keep the two characters separate.

* In the ''Series/HawaiiFiveO'' season 9 premiere "Nine Dragons" provides a salient lesson in the dangers faced by English actors who spend the majority of their careers playing a FakeAmerican. Michael Anderson Jr. plays a [=CID=] man in Hong Kong whose English accent wavers distractingly. (He made other appearances, each time playing a FakeAmerican.

** Natalie, the female protagonist from ''Film/{{Werewolf}}'', and several other characters from that film to varying degrees.[[note]] Adrianna Niles is a former Polish model.[[/note]]

* In the ''Series/HawaiiFiveO'' season 9 premiere "Nine Dragons" provides a salient lesson in the dangers faced by English actors who spend the majority of their careers playing a FakeAmerican. Machael Anderson Jr. plays a [=CID=] man in Hong Kong whose English accent wavers distractingly. (He made other appearances, each time playing a FakeAmerican.