History YankTheDogsChain / LiveActionTV

* On ''Series/LandOfTheLost'', the Marshalls come close to returning to their own world several times, but never quite make it. [[spoiler:Well, except for Rick at the start of Season 2.]]

** Even Fargo gets a bit of that. After three seasons as the ButtMonkey of the town, he's overjoyed to discover that in the altered timeline, he's the head of Global Dynamics. Fargo assumes he'll now be treated with respect and admiration from everyone...only to discover that in this reality, he's an arrogant egomaniac and near-tyrant of a boss whom everyone hates.

* ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'': No matter what, any chance for Carole to get a better standing in life than having to [[NonResidentialResidence raise her family and live in the leisure centre]] will be yanked from her by the end of the episode, usually thanks to Brittas. Her husband wants to get back together with her? Brittas accidentally gives him the belief that she's having an affair and spreading rumors about him being impotent, leading to him storming out on her. A boyfriend wants to give her one of his houses? Tim accidentally kills him. The original writers eventually ThrowTheDogABone by giving her the opportunity to give singing lessons for a man in Austria...only for the replacement writers to reveal that said man cheated on her, leading to her return back to the Leisure Centre.

* YankTheDogsChain: One-shot suspect Randall Fishbeck worked for VictimOfTheWeek Professor Stein for fifteen years without ever getting the slightest bit of credit or recognition for his research and is clearly bitter about it (especially after Stein dedicated his last book to his pet turtle instead of Randall). Then, Stein gets murdered ''seconds'' before he can give a speech that includes a tribute to Randall. And to add insult to injury, Randall ends up being targeted by the killer. * Rimmer, TheChewToy of the ''Series/RedDwarf'' universe, is simply ''not allowed'' to be happy. On the rare occasions he's thrown a bone it usually gets stuck in his throat.

* Rimmer, TheChewToy of the ''Series/RedDwarf'' universe, is simply ''not allowed'' to be happy. On the rare occasions he's thrown a bone it usually gets stuck in his throat.

* The end of ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth''. The Guns fall silent just seconds before they are due to go over the top to certain death and they think the war is over, that they lived through it, The Great War, 1914 to 1917... [[TearJerker/{{Blackadder}} oh damn]].
** 'Course, really, this only counts for poor Baldrick, George and Darling. Blackadder knew damn well the whole while, as would anyone else with a little knowledge of trench life during the Great War. Honestly, it's part of the power of the moment that the audience already ''know'' there's a chain being yanked.

*** Even so, he was trying his best to get out. It just didn't work. The real punch is for Darling, who was at his desk at Command, safely away from the lines until Melchett decided he wouldn't want to miss the "fun".

*** In Season 4, Sansa is finally free from King's Landing but because she's wrongfully accused for killing Joffrey, she carries a large bounty on her head. Then she finds out that she's essentially under the thumb of Littlefinger and Lysa Arryn. The former is a ManipulativeBastard who caused Joffrey's assassination and her aunt Lysa is a willing dupe and insane to boot.
*** This happens to Sansa ''again'' in Season 5. Despite all of the misfortune and psychological abuse she suffered, the one thing Sansa had managed to avoid (despite encountering a string of wannabe perpetrators) up to that point was getting raped. She runs out of her luck during her wedding night with Ramsay.

* This is the foundation for first season finale of ''Series/{{Eureka}}''. After the initiation of a risky experiment, the movie suddenly cuts to a world where the sheriff and Allison are happily married (which any other episode would tell you that it is no more than {{Shiptease}} and love triangle material), his daughter is graduating, Henry, the man who the town constantly relies on, is in charge of GD, the {{Jerkass}} Nathan Stark left town, [[spoiler:Beverly no longer works for the Consortium...]], and most importantly, [[spoiler: Henry's love interest, Kim, is alive and well]]. During the episode the sudden appearance of objects that should not exist in that way gives evidence to something a viewer would already know, that this was not meant to be. [[spoiler:Turns out that Henry had gone back in time to save Kim after the experiment had gone horribly wrong. In order to prevent the paradox from ruining time, the Sheriff had to stop Henry from saving the life of the woman he loved as well as give up a future in which he and everybody he knew was happy. Talk about a DownerEnding]]. Thanks to this fact, this episode was the equivalent to a HeroicBSOD for most of the characters involved... and caused the mess of agendas and conspiracies that is Season 2.

** In the mid-series finale of season 4 [[spoiler:they finally make a truce with some Cylons and make it to Earth 3 minutes before the end - and in those 3 minutes it is revealed that Earth is a irradiated wasteland]]. This proves to be too much for [[spoiler:Dualla]], who has had more than her share of misery all series, to the point that [[spoiler:she [[DrivenToSuicide turns her gun on herself]] soon after coming back to Galactica]].

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' is full of those. In the mid-series finale of season 4 [[spoiler:they finally make a truce with some Cylons and make it to Earth 3 minutes before the end - and in those 3 minutes it is revealed that Earth is a nuclear wasteland]].
** Afterward, [[spoiler:Dualla's chain has been yanked enough and [[DrivenToSuicide she shoots herself]]]].