| 1 | [[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/anamericantail_880.jpg]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:300: [[DramaticIrony "Look, there's no way that kid survived being lost\ |
| 3 | at sea and is now wandering around up above looking for us."]]]] |
| 4 | |
| 5 | Two characters are wandering around a busy and/or crowded location such as a large business office, and they continuously and unintentionally just manage to keep missing seeing each other, turning corners, ducking down into cubicles to peer at intriguing computer screens, and so forth. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Variables: |
| 8 | * The two may or may not be actively looking for each other. |
| 9 | * The act of seeing would either be very good for both of the duo, or very bad for one of them. |
| 10 | * The sequence sometimes ends with them never meeting, but usually they finally (''finally'') collide at the absolute best/worst/funniest moment. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Usually played for laughs, but can be used in an attempt to build suspense. Also used to execute and maintain a NotSoImaginaryFriend. In any event, as some of the examples below will indicate, it is a schtick that is very ''very'' easy for a plot-creator to painfully over-do. For works with contemporary, real-world settings, this trope may soon fall victim to the prevalence of [[TechMarchesOn cell phones]] and wind up [[DiscreditedTrope discredited.]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | ScoobyDoobyDoors is an overtly comedic and frantic version. BehindTheBlack is when only one of the two are within frame at any time (presumably RuleOfPerception is in effect). For the time-travel variant, see NeverTheSelvesShallMeet. See also FailedASpotCheck, HiddenInPlainSight, GaveUpTooSoon. See CloseCallHaircut for the attack version. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | The trope's name is a riff on one of [[Series/GetSmart Maxwell Smart]]'s many catch phrases, but he never actually engaged in it himself. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Compare SeeNoEvilHearNoEvil, when off-screen events aren't audible until they appear on-screen. |
| 19 | ---- |
| 20 | !!Examples: |
| 21 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 22 | |
| 23 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 24 | * When Marco arrives to Argentina in ''Anime/ThreeThousandLeaguesInSearchOfMother'' every time he went to a certain place, his mother had already left, missing her at every opportunity until the very last episode. |
| 25 | * In ''Anime/AfroSamurai'', after losing the headband to some thugs as a kid, the titular character finds out that the current Number Two is his swordmaster, whom he'd trained under for ''years''. In the manga, he even walks the earth for five years looking for it. |
| 26 | * The ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'' anime has a bonus episode adapting Justus and Eckhart's fruitless search for information about Myne in the lower city, during which Justus was hoping to get as far as exchanging a few words with Myne herself. Said episode adds two occasions upon which Justus just barely misses an opportunity that weren't in source material: arriving at the Gilberta Company to give it a look-over right after Myne leaves it and missing her coming back from grocery shopping with her mother because a loaf of bread big enough to obscure her face was left in her care. |
| 27 | * During the Soul Society invasion in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', Chad blows a hole through a wall while looking for his companions. Ichigo and Ganryu are on the other side of the wall, but not knowing Chad is responsible, they take advantage of the distraction and escape before the dust clears. When Chad sees the beaten-up Soul Reapers that they were fighting, he immediately concludes that he just missed Ichigo. |
| 28 | * Happens to Terry and Candy at least twice in ''Manga/CandyCandy''. |
| 29 | * In ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Accelerator ends up hanging out with Index and Touma hangs out with Last Order at the mall. At the end of the day, the two girls reunite with their proper guardians. Index and Last Order move past each other without noticing the other, and Touma and Accelerator do not see each other either. |
| 30 | ** Up until [[spoiler:World War III]], the story manages to prevent Accelerator and Touma from directly interacting with each other. One arc has the two trying to save Accelerator's MoralityPet Last Order while not recognizing each other's voices over the phone. The side story that introduces Shiage has the two obliviously working together to rescue Misuzu Misaka from a gang infiltrating the college she was attending, with the blackout that the gang causes preventing the two from seeing each other. |
| 31 | * This happens throughout chapter 9 of ''Manga/{{Dandadan}}'', as Momo and Ken search for the other during lunch break to hang out but keep barely missing each other. Eventually they think the other one is avoiding them, but eventually reunite with an AccidentalKiss at the end. |
| 32 | * This happens in the ''Manga/DeathNote'' anime; Light and Misa both wonder who the other Kira is while drinking in the same coffee house. |
| 33 | * ''Anime/DoraemonNobitasDorabianNights'' have Doraemon and gang crossing [[ThirstyDesert the Arabian Desert from the 1001 Nights]] looking for Shizuka, who was kidnapped by slavers after getting lost in the land of Arabian Nights. Halfway through their trek, Suneo unintentionally leads everyone through a wild-goose chase after seeing an oasis, which turns out to be a mirage. After getting a scolding from the gang, Suneo happens to see a ''second'' oasis, which he dismisses to be another mirage, but that ''happens'' to be the real deal. For added insult, the missing Shizuka is in that very oasis! |
| 34 | * In ''Manga/HonooNoAlpenRose'', [[spoiler: Jeudi and Leon ''barely'' miss the NotQuiteDead Lundi as they leave Austria and return to Switzerland. They find each other two chapters later, though.]] |
| 35 | * ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': |
| 36 | ** In ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'':, shortly after meeting Reimi and learning about the serial killer living in Morioh, Koichi mindlessly wanders into the street and nearly gets hit by a car... being driven by the killer he's looking for, Yoshikage Kira. |
| 37 | ** PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'': During the search for Polpo's fortune, Giorno and Mista get split up while pursuing a Stand-using assassin due to Giorno staying back to act as a lookout. They get further separated when Mista ends up getting into a TraintopBattle with the assassin on top of a delivery truck that's headed to the top of Capri island. After dealing with the assassin, Mista gets the driver to go back to the marina so he can report in to Bruno... and just after he's left, Giorno jumps into truck's passenger seat and tells the driver to take him to the top of the island so he can find his friend. |
| 38 | ** ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'': In the "Empress" arc, Joseph has his arm possessed by Empress and is frantically searching for Polnareff for help. However due to Nena constantly distracting him with her good looks, Polnareff never sees him and at one point the two are separated by a mere carpet. |
| 39 | * Chapter 45 of ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'' features a shot where Kaguya and Shirogane are literally within five feet of each other while rushing in opposite directions, not seeing each other because Kaguya just got out of a taxi and neither having any idea that the other was looking for them (Kaguya's cellphone wasn't working, so she couldn't tell everyone that she had already snuck out of her house). |
| 40 | ** This setup's payoff turns out to be [[spoiler: that the cast had already learned she'd snuck out, Shirogane was in too much of a rush to notice her because he was headed to where he'd predicted she'd end up - correctly, and their other friends were so close behind they picked Kaguya and Shirogane up in the very taxi she'd gotten out of]]. |
| 41 | * The first [[AllThereInTheManual sound stage]] of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' had both the protagonists and the [[HeroAntagonist Wolkenritter]] visiting [[HotSpringsEpisode a newly opened hot spring]] and missing a chance meeting with one another. This was mostly thanks to Nanoha and Fate spending [[ShipTease most of their time there washing each other's backs]] instead of wandering around the place with [[ThoseTwoGuys Alisa and Suzuka]]; Vita spends some time in the bath, with Arisa and Suzuka meeting Hayate, Shamal and Signum. |
| 42 | * In the final episode of ''Manga/{{Mitsudomoe}}'', an old lady reminisces about the time she met the Marui triplets and their father--just as the older versions of them walk right past her. |
| 43 | * ''Literature/MushokuTenseiJoblessReincarnation'': When Rudeus, Eris, and Ruijerd arrive in Zanto Port, they are unaware of the presence of Roxy, Elinalise, and Talhand who are searching for survivors of the mass teleportation incident in Fittoa (which include Rudeus and Eris, who themselves have been on TheHomewardJourney back to Fittoa). While Roxy has heard of Dead End, the party Rudeus has formed with Eris and Ruijerd, she does not know that Rudeus is their leader. At one point, Roxy spies on Eris and Ruijerd sparring, but does not recognize the former. And at another point, she very nearly crosses paths with Rudeus, whom she would recognize as he was once her student, but neither of them notice reach other. |
| 44 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'' has an amusing scene where Luffy and Buggy are ''standing next to each other'', and keep looking in exactly the wrong directions to actually see each other. They even have a short conversation without realizing who they're talking to. |
| 45 | ** Played with in the Whitebeard War, when Luffy passing out just minutes before [[spoiler:Shanks]] shows up. The latter knows they still ''could'' take the opportunity to meet again, but refuses and claims Luffy would as well because [[spoiler:Luffy promised he wouldn't meet Shanks again until he became King of the Pirates.]] |
| 46 | * ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'', courtesy of Team Rocket's scheme/s, has this happen at least twice: |
| 47 | ** "A Maze-ing Race": Ash and company are lost in a maze and have been split up. In one amusing sequence involving [[TheRival Paul]], in no particular order did Ash's, Dawn's and Brock's groups take turns asking him if he's found the other two groups, missing each other by less than a minute each. Since Paul is a major {{Jerkass}}, he doesn't tell them which way their friends went because he doesn't care. |
| 48 | ** "Jumping Rocket Ship" has Croagunk lost in Canalave City by himself, and travels by way of boat. Several times did he pass by a location where Ash and the others were a mere second ago. The group only managed to find Croagunk when his trainer Brock tried to hit on a girl at the end of the episode. |
| 49 | ** For something that doesn't involve Team Rocket for once, the recurring [[CoolShades sunglasses]]-wearing Krokorok, who faded from importance over 40 episodes prior, was revealed to have been stalking Ash and friends the whole time, only to miss them at every opportunity. (There was a quick flashback showing events of previous episodes and where Krokorok was around those times.)[[note]]The gap between appearances is better explainable when it's understood that Krokorok had been planned to have a regular appearance in the Team Rocket vs Team Plasma two-part episode that was postponed and then cancelled [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents following the 2011 Japanese earthquake.]][[/note]] |
| 50 | * In the ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' anime, Kaoru and Yahiko ''barely'' miss Kenshin when they arrive to Kyoto in search of him... However, few seconds after missing him they meet Misao, and thanks to her they're reunited with him very soon. (Note that this didn't happen in the manga, however.) |
| 51 | * ''Manga/StoryOfADumbPrefectAndHighSchoolGirlWithInappropriateSkirtLength'': During the SchoolFestival, Akina talks Izubuchi into looking for the mysterious man in a white lab coat who saved him in the past (actually [[spoiler:Tougo's dad]]), but just as he's about to find him, the man takes off his lab coat at his wife's urging. |
| 52 | * In ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'', after the TimeSkip Kaneki is considered a missing person and actively avoiding his MuggleBestFriend to protect him. In turn, Hide has become an intern at [[HunterOfMonsters CCG]] in order to search for Kaneki. Both end up attending the book signing event of Kaneki's favorite author, and miss each other by mere seconds. Kaneki steps onto one elevator, and as the doors close behind him, Hide steps off the neighboring elevator and looks around. |
| 53 | * ''Anime/YourName'': In the epilogue, it is shown that there are at least two instances where Taki and Mitsuha could have had their BigDamnReunion following the meteor impact at Itomori, only to miss each other. Fortunately, they eventually ''do'' manage to reunite. |
| 54 | * A cringe-worthy example in ''[[Anime/YuGiOh Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters]]'' is the byproduct of an exaggerated YouCantThwartStageOne. Second season BigBad Marik is looking to kidnap Yugi's friends by tricking them with an alias. Yugi and (reluctantly) Seto Kaiba go out to find them before Marik does, and at one point they're literally a street apart... but neither party sees each other because they're blocked from view by a parked taxi. Bonus points because the taxi was only present as part of Marik's ploy, being there ''just long enough'' for Yugi and Kaiba not to see what was happening, and he didn't even plan it ''or notice them himself''. |
| 55 | [[/folder]] |
| 56 | |
| 57 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 58 | * Seen in an issue of ''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers West Coast Avengers]]'', with most of the titular team stuck in ancient Egypt thanks to a defective time machine that can only take them further into the past. They try to contact and hitch a ride back home with any of several ''other'' time travelers known to live in or have visited that particular time period (including Rama-Tut, the early Fantastic Four, and Dr. Strange), but always just manage to miss them. |
| 59 | * Issue #56 of ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'' begins with Yorick and 355 in Paris, looking for Yorick's old girlfriend Beth [=DeVille=]. At the same time, Hero, the other Beth, Natalya, and Ciba are also in Paris looking for Yorick together. Yorick and 355 go into a pastry shop to get something to eat ''just'' before the other four women walk by the corner they were standing on. |
| 60 | -->'''Hero:''' This is pointless.\ |
| 61 | '''Ciba:''' What are you talking about, Hero? Five minutes ago, you said that you could ''feel'' that Yorick was close.\ |
| 62 | '''Hero:''' That was just bullshit to keep you guys on the hunt, Ciba. |
| 63 | * ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In the Creator/CarlBarks story "Double Masquerade", Donald Duck and Scrooge [=McDuck=] impersonate each other for separate reasons. (Donald wants out of being forced to [[ItMakesSenseInContext surf in winter]] and Scrooge wants to [[TheScrooge avoid donating money to a charity organization]]). Neither of them knows about the other masquerading as him and the two of them come quite close to finding out when they walk through a park. |
| 64 | * ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': In "The Pit" arc, the corrupt SJS sector chief Herman Roth goes on the run when he's exposed. Dredd and another Judge are among the ones looking for him when they miss him by a few seconds when he's smuggled out in a tanker truck by some criminal associates of his. He'd have been better off if they caught him--his partners in crime melt him to death because he's become expendable. |
| 65 | * In ''ComicBook/CaptainAmericaSteveRogers'', it's revealed that, during ''ComicBook/CivilWarII'', Cap attempted to hunt down and assassinate the Inhuman Ulysses to prevent him from revealing that he's actually a member of HYDRA. He ends up missing him when, mere seconds before he could, Tony Stark broke into New Attlian and kidnapped Ulysses himself. |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/{{Laika}}'': Liliana and her mother happen to be in the public market on the same day and time that Kudryavka, their dog who they love and miss, is caught by dogcatchers and delivered to the Soviet space program. At one point they are close enough that Liliana can hear Kudryavka howling. Sadly, they never encounter each other again. |
| 67 | * ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': In ''ComicBook/Supergirl1982'' issue #23, Linda Danvers is about to go into her apartment block when she decides she does not want spending hours wondering whether her boyfriend Phil Decker will or will not call her to clear things up, so that she turns around to go for a walk. Right after Linda leaves, Phil walks out of the building, having spent the whole afternoon waiting for Linda's return to clear things up. |
| 68 | [[/folder]] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 71 | * In ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', the Strawhats had just finished meeting [[spoiler:with representatives from three of the four Yonkos, with only the Red-Haired Pirates missing]]. Just after they go in separate directions, [[spoiler:Lucky Rox, who came to represent the Red-Haired Pirates]], steps out of a nearby bar trying to remember what he came to eat, before being distracted by a Megaton Lobster cookout. |
| 72 | ** Later, Jewerly Bonney spots Luffy and [[spoiler:Lucky]] at opposite ends of a restaurant table, with at least one of their faces covered up by the menu the entire time. When their order finally comes, both of them put down their menus and Bonney expects them to act in surprise, [[SubvertedTrope only for it to be revealed that they've been eating together the entire time]], with [[spoiler:Lucky]] having been the one to invite Luffy to the restaurant in the first place. |
| 73 | * ''Fanfic/LostToDust'': At one point, Yang Xiao Long and Cinder Fall bump into each other and apologize before going their separate ways. Neither of them recognized the other because they were both in disguise. |
| 74 | * ''Fanfic/TangledInTime'': Link was kidnapped as baby from his parents, Sir Raven and his wife, the former being the one who holds out hope of reuniting with their son. Sir Raven does not find out that the lost kid and the father at marketplace are his long-lost son and his son's kidnapper. |
| 75 | * In a fanfic for ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' called ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11680012/1/Ruby-Face Ruby Face,]]'' Shulk ends up being the one lost in the Mechon attack, rather than Fiora. However, due to certain circumstances, there are three separate occasions where Fiora and Reyn are [[spoiler: in the same area as Shulk, who is now half-Mechon, and there is even one point where they are face-to-face with the Mechon he now pilots]] |
| 76 | * ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13757033/8/Hell-Overfloweth Hell Overfloweth]]'': Hange misses meeting Mikasa, the one person Eren seems to be looking for, because Mikasa got distracted by a dead rat while peeing behind a tree. By the time she returns, Hange has already ridden off. |
| 77 | [[/folder]] |
| 78 | |
| 79 | [[folder:Films — Animated]] |
| 80 | * ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'': |
| 81 | ** In the first movie, Fievel is separated from his family on their way to America, and spends the rest of the movie looking for them, barely missing them on several occasions; this was partly because his sister Tanya is the only one really looking for him, while the parents believe [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat he's as good as dead or assume it's impossible he'd make it to America]], because Fievel fell off of a ship at sea. |
| 82 | ** In the sequel, ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West'', Fievel and Tiger walk past each other in the desert, under the assumption that the other is just a mirage. It doesn't even help that they address each other "Hi, mirage of Tiger", "Hi, mirage of Fievel". Of course, [[JustifiedTrope they did both suffer repercussions of being fooled by a mirage only moments prior]], with Fievel hugging a cactus patch he thought was his family (with painful results) and Tiger kissing an owl he thought was his girlfriend. As such, they were very inclined to not risk a repeat. |
| 83 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheChipmunkAdventure'', Dave comes ''very'' close to discovering the Chipmunks and the Chipettes during their 'Girls / Boys of Rock and Roll' number in Athens. And even afterwards he's not convinced ItsProbablyNothing: |
| 84 | -->'''Dave:''' I could have ''sworn''... No, the boys wouldn't have... ''would they?'' |
| 85 | * Kuzco and Yzma, albeit with menus, during the diner scene in ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove''. |
| 86 | * In ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'', Nemo pops out of the pipe not even ten seconds after Marlin swims by. |
| 87 | * In ''WesternAnimation/{{Hoodwinked}}'', the Wolf is trying to find a shortcut to get to Granny's house after Red Puckett escapes from him. He and Twitchy, by pure chance, end up in a mine cart high up in the mountains. By coincidence, Red also finds herself in a different part of the mine with [[CrazyPrepared Japeth]]. In fact, there are two points where the carts Red and the Wolf are traveling in pass each other, but neither party sees the other - Red's cart is going down a steep drop that goes under another track at the exact time that the Wolf and Twitchy are going over that track. Later, an explosion caused by Twitchy mistaking a stick of dynamite for a candle blows up part of the track behind his and the Wolf's cart. The resulting blast causes the cart right behind them - Red's cart - to go off the track and crash. |
| 88 | * ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc1'': Mike, Sulley, and Boo are hiding in a bathroom stall from Randall. Randall punches the stalls open one by one, and Sully flinches as every door opens. Before Randall can burst into the stall where the trio are hiding, however, his assistant Fungus [[CaptainObvious points out that Boo is on the front page]]. After a short discussion, Randall punches the door of the stall where Sulley, Mike, and Boo are hiding - but he isn't looking at the time, and the door closes before he can spot them. Then he yells at Fungus and chases him out of the bathroom, demanding that he get to work on his plan. |
| 89 | -->'''Randall''': You just keep the machine up and running, I'll take care of the kid. And when I find whoever let that kid out... THEY'RE ''DEAD''! ''(punches open the stall the trio is hiding in, but he isn't looking in their direction; the door closes again before he can notice them)'' WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?! COME ON! GO! MOVE! NOW!\ |
| 90 | '''Fungus''': ''(as Randall chases him out of the bathroom)'' No, I'm not here! I'm going right now!...\ |
| 91 | '''Sulley''': ''[-They're gone.-]''\ |
| 92 | (''A huge splash is seen in the stall Mike, Sulley, and Boo are hiding in'')\ |
| 93 | '''Boo''': Eww... |
| 94 | ** Later, Sulley hides underneath a table on the Scare Floor, and Randall materializes right beside him, but the bell rings before Randall can notice him. |
| 95 | * WesternAnimation/PeterPan and Captain Hook do this in the Franchise/{{Disney|AnimatedCanon}} cartoon around a rock, when Peter is pretending to be a water spirit. |
| 96 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheRugratsMovie'': Stu is speeding his car after finding out Grandpa Lou lost the kids. He's driving right behind the mattress delivery truck, unaware that the babies are in the truck in question. The truck door opens briefly, but Stu isn't watching the road at that moment, as he's talking to Grandpa ("We'll never find the babies with this ''jerk'' in front of us!"). Then the truck door closes shut just as Stu turns his attention back to the road. Then as Stu passes the truck, he [[NiceJobBreakingItHero inadvertently causes it to swerve and crash through the guard rail and plunge into the forest]]. Good thing the truck driver jumped out just in time. |
| 97 | * In Creator/DonBluth's ''WesternAnimation/{{Thumbelina|1994}}'', the title character spends a depressingly large amount of time walking ''away'' from her house. To be fair, ten feet is a lot when you're thumb-sized and struggle to see over ''grass''. |
| 98 | [[/folder]] |
| 99 | |
| 100 | [[folder:Films — Live-Action]] |
| 101 | * ''Film/AlphaDog'': The police actually track down Johnny to the motel where he's hiding out with his girlfriend, but he just went out for a pack of smokes when they knock on his door. His girlfriend is arrested for aiding and abetting, but Johnny escapes again, eventually deciding to RunForTheBorder. |
| 102 | * A particularly dark example in ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. [[spoiler: After Thanos [[TheBadGuyWins completes the Infinity Gauntlet]] and does his BadassFingersnap even with Thor jamming Stormbreaker into his chest, we see various heroes [[NoBodyLeftBehind disintegrate into ash.]] While almost everyone who goes through this has someone witnessing their deaths, [[DyingAlone Sam Wilson perishes while lying in tall grass]], just barely out of sight of James Rhodes (who continues to look around, calling his name) or anyone else who might be looking for him.]] |
| 103 | * ''Film/BabysDayOut'': At one point, the mother is watching a live news report, and when she turns her head away from the TV, the camera briefly tumbles over and shows Baby Bink. Of course, either everyone else watching also moved their heads away, or [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight nobody wondered why a baby was there alone.]] |
| 104 | * ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'': When Clara realizes that Doc still loves her, she bails from the train to run back to Hill Valley. However, Doc and Marty left moments earlier as when she makes it into town, the crowd is still gathered watching Buford getting arrested. Luckily for her, she finds the model showing their plan to travel back to 1985, and she takes a horse to catch up with them. |
| 105 | * In ''Film/{{Beethoven}}'s 2nd'', when the puppies are still being hidden from the father, there are several close calls where he almost finds one. |
| 106 | * ''Film/BoilerRoom'': In an alternate ending for the movie, a guy that Seth cheated out of his money goes to the J.T. Marlin offices with a gun to get revenge. He pulls up in the parking lot just when Seth himself is about to leave the company for his own reasons, and they bump into each other without recognizing the other person. |
| 107 | * Happens on several occasions in ''Film/TheEdgeOfHeaven'': The main character, Nejat, looks everywhere for a young woman, who happens to have been crashing unnoticed for weeks in the lecture hall where he teaches German literature. She, in turns, seeks her mother, and doesn't notice her when her car and the bus her mother is riding in are side by side in the street. |
| 108 | * ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'' is saved multiple times by this trope: |
| 109 | ** [[NonGivingUpSchoolGuy Principal Rooney]] happens to be watching the ball game Ferris was attending, but has his head turned away when Ferris is on screen. |
| 110 | ** Jeannie sees Ferris running home in her side mirror, but he's gone before she can show her mother. |
| 111 | ** Before that, he actually runs into the car. The papers Mrs. Bueller are holding fly into her face, preventing her from seeing him. |
| 112 | ** Ferris's dad sees him. ''Twice.'' Each time he looks back Ferris is gone (the first time replaced by Sloane in a PaperThinDisguise) and he decides [[ItsProbablyNothing it was nothing.]] |
| 113 | * In spite of coming within spitting distance of one another at various points throughout the film, [[Creator/BruceWillis Korben Dallas]] (the hero) never once meets or even sees [[Creator/GaryOldman Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg]] (the villain) in ''Film/TheFifthElement''. |
| 114 | * ''Film/FlodderInAmerika'': The Flodders and Sjakie immediately lose each other at JFK airport and have no idea where the other is for several days. At one point, they almost run into each other next to a supermarket, but Sjakie is hit by a car before they can be reunited. |
| 115 | * ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3'': PlayedForLaughs. Nebula, Mantis, and Drax are frantically attempting to board the High Evolutionary's ship because they think Quill and Groot are still trapped on board. As they're trying to get the bay door unlocked as the ship rockets into space, they just miss Groot and Quill falling out of the sky right behind them. It does turn out to be a good thing that they boarded the ship however, as they find a ton of genetically engineered children onboard which they then make it a mission to rescue as well. |
| 116 | * This pretty much launches the plot of ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper''. Kermit, Gonzo, and Fozzie are busy taking a picture of a chicken for an "exciting photo story" for the newspaper they work for, completely missing the jewel robbery behind them, and causing their editor-in-chief to reprimand them afterwards. Kermit later goes to interview to Lady Holiday, the victim of the heist. But he doesn't realize that she has just left for lunch, causing him to mistake her receptionist, Miss Piggy, for Lady Holiday. |
| 117 | * ''Film/Halloween1978'' features one of these as a MeaningfulBackgroundEvent. As Dr. Loomis finishes a conversation while in Haddonfield, Michael can be seen in the stolen car behind him. |
| 118 | ** Michael would replicate his feat during Act 1 of the similarly-named sequel ''Film/Halloween2018'' where he stalks a couple of influencers who visited him in the penitentiary that he later broke out of while they stop at a gas station, remaining in the background as he violently beats a mechanic to death for his jumpsuit without either of them realizing until shortly after when Michael ambushes and murdering them both in order to recover his signature mask ahead of his imminent reign of carnage. |
| 119 | * ''Film/HomeAlone2LostInNewYork'': Kevin's mother waits outside the unoccupied house where Kevin has set up his traps, in the hope of finding her son. She eventually gets a taxi so she can search elsewhere, seconds before Kevin shows up at the house. |
| 120 | * In ''Film/HomewardBoundTheIncredibleJourney'', the animals and their owners pass each other on the road without realizing it. |
| 121 | ** However, Shadow the leader suddenly got a feeling he should go back, but thinks [[ItsProbablyNothing it was nothing]]. |
| 122 | * ''Film/HotFuzz'': Both Frank Butterman and Tom Weaver are too wrapped in their newspapers to notice Sgt. Nicholas Angel walking right by them. |
| 123 | * ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'': "If she'd kept on going down that way, she'd have gone straight to that castle." |
| 124 | * ''Film/{{Leap Year|1921}}'': A comic sequence in which all three of Stanley's unwanted fiancées cycle in and out of his bedroom, ministering to him, each barely missing the others as they flit in and out. |
| 125 | * In ''Film/{{Lonesome}}'', the protagonists, who are separated by a quirk of fate while visiting a crowded AmusementPark, wind up searching for each other later, only to narrowly miss each other more than once. In one scene they are leaning against opposite sides of the same billboard. |
| 126 | * ''Film/TheMatrix'': Neo attempts to escape the agents during a bleary post-hacking morning at work, all the while taking the mysterious instructions over the phone he's just received in a [=FedEx=] package, though he eventually chickens out rather than risk a narrow ledge along the outside of the skyscraper. |
| 127 | * In ''Film/MightyLikeAMoose'', both Mr. and Mrs. Moose, who are each going out on adulterous dates, sneak home to change into formal wear. In a long sequence they both manage to walk around their house, entering and exiting the same rooms, without seeing each other. |
| 128 | * In ''Film/MiloAndOtis'', Otis the dog, while searching for his friend Milo the cat, goes to several places Milo has been, but he always arrives a little too late. |
| 129 | * ''Film/MinorityReport'' features an awesome sequence with Anderton and Agatha avoiding the Pre-Crime cops, utilizing Agatha's future-seeing prediction to place themselves at the right place and right time for seemingly random events to hide them from the cops. (Example: Agatha tells Anderton to stop right in the middle of the mall, in plain view. Just as the cops stop at an overhead walkway to look down, a man with balloons perfectly blocks their view of Anderton.) |
| 130 | * TheFilmOfTheSeries of ''Series/MyFavoriteMartian'', The Mars Rover Probe's batteries die within inches of a ridge, on the other side of which is the Martian civilization. |
| 131 | * Creator/BusterKeaton's silent comedy ''Film/TheNavigator'' shows two people repeatedly missing each other on a ship, in spite of the fact that they're also the only two passengers on the vessel. |
| 132 | * In ''Film/NoCountryForOldMen'', Anton Chigurh is able to track Llewelyn Moss via transponder to a motel room. While Chigurh is violently eliminating the [[TheCartel Mexicans]] occupying the room, Llewelyn is dragging the 50 lb. satchel through a ventilation duct in the opposite room. The gunfire and screaming mask the scraping sounds created by the bag. By the time Chigurh checks the vent, Llewelyn has left the motel and hitched a ride out of town. |
| 133 | ** In turn, Ed Tom and Wendell barely miss Chigurh at Llewelyn's trailer; the glass of milk he poured still has condensation on it. |
| 134 | * ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure'' is all about his attempt to get his bike back. While hitching a ride with an escaped convict, a truck carrying his bike pulls up beside them. Since Pee-Wee's laughing with the convict, he doesn't notice. Still laughing to the driver, he fails to notice the truck turn off at the next exit, while Pee-Wee rides on. |
| 135 | * The movie ''Film/SeeNoEvilHearNoEvil'' (not to be confused with [[SeeNoEvilHearNoEvil the trope of the same name]]) uses this trope during the climactic confrontation between Richard Pryor's character and the BigBad in the latter's office, with the two men sometimes unknowingly passing within a few feet of each other. This is justified by the fact that [[spoiler:both men are stone blind]]. |
| 136 | * ''Film/{{Serendipity}}'' has the two main characters constantly miss bumping into each other by this much as they're actively trying to find the other. |
| 137 | * Quite a few examples occur in ''Film/SesameStreetPresentsFollowThatBird'': |
| 138 | ** Shortly after seeing the news report about himself running away and Miss Finch looking for him, Big Bird walks away right before Miss Finch drives down where he just was. |
| 139 | ** Ernie and Bert happen to fly their plane just above the truck in which Big Bird had gotten a ride. |
| 140 | ** While Sam Sleaze drives searching for Big Bird, Sid sees the haystack where Big Bird s hiding and points it out to Sam, who remarks that they're not looking for a haystack. Of course, Sid didn't mention the haystack was moving, but he also had no way of knowing that Big Bird was hiding in it. |
| 141 | ** While Miss Finch chases Big Bird into a parade, most of Big Bird's friends who were looking for him see him, but are blocked by the crowds. The Count yells Big Bird's name, but the crowd drowns out his yells. Big Bird has no idea his friends are there. |
| 142 | ** When the Sleaze brothers trick Big Bird into getting into the "hiding" cage, Miss Finch and Big Bird's friends all drive by right as Big Bird is being put into the tent. In fact, Miss Finch is close enough to Big Bird that she could easily see where he is, but doesn't; meanwhile, Oscar briefly stops and complains about there being a carnival. |
| 143 | ** While the movie makes no mention of the adults thinking Snuffy is Big Bird's imaginary friend or any scenes with him and the others, there is one brief scene where he's just missed by Bob and Barkley, though it's not played for laughs. |
| 144 | * ''Film/StuartLittle'': Stuart arrives at the Little house just seconds after the whole family leaves on taxi to search for him. |
| 145 | * ''Film/TheTerminator'': |
| 146 | ** [[AgentScully Dr. Silberman]] scoffs at the idea of the Terminator, and he leaves ''just'' as the Terminator arrives at the station. He's looking at his pager when the Terminator first walks in. |
| 147 | ** Earlier, in Tech Noir, Sarah knocks over a bottle and bends down behind a table to pick it from the ground just as the Terminator turns to look in her direction. He sees her shortly after, so the trope only serves to draw out the suspense. |
| 148 | * In ''Under the Same Moon'', Carlitos and his friend are looking for his mother, and they walk right behind the bench where she is sitting. To be fair, he hadn't seen her in more than a year, so he might have forgotten how she looked from behind. |
| 149 | * In ''Film/{{Walkabout}}'', a teenage girl and her younger brother are lost in the Australian outback. At about the halfway point in the movie, we are shown that there is a farm house, just the other side of a hill from them. Of course they never see it. |
| 150 | * ''Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet'': The same examples from the original play below apply to this adaption, with one small difference; as Romeo is getting ready to ingest the poison, Juliet has just woken up and is within reaching distance of him. Romeo fails to notice this and downs the substance in front of her, only realizing his mistake mere seconds after. |
| 151 | * ''Young Girls of Rochefort'': Maxence looks everywhere for his soul mate, but can't find her. During the course of the movie, we realize that he actually knows the woman's mother, her former lover, her grandfather, her sister... and that he's been invited to meet her a few times but never could. Worse, the soul mate, Delphine, is actively looking for him on her side, but it doesn't change anything. At the end of the movie, they both go off to Paris by hitching a ride from the same group of trucks, but it's unclear whether they meet. Lampshaded by Delphine's former lover when he ironically quotes that "Paris is a very small town for those whose love is great" - he's the only one who knows that Maxence and Delphine have been just a few steps away from each other this whole time. |
| 152 | [[/folder]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 155 | %%* The entire plot of the novel ''Literature/TheAlchemist'' by Paulo Coelho. |
| 156 | * ''Literature/TheBeginningAfterTheEnd'': |
| 157 | ** PlayedWith in an instance of AdaptationalExpansion to Eleanor's birthday party in the {{Webcomic}}. It is revealed that Tessia had covertly visited the party so that she could leave behind a birthday present for Eleanor. While one of the maids with her asks Tessia why they are just leaving right after dropping off the present, Tessia tells her that she wants Arthur's focus to be on his sister that night, as she would soon be seeing him again in Xyrus Academy. |
| 158 | ** Near the end of Volume 10, [[spoiler:Caera arrives in the newly liberated Dicathen in order to enlist Arthur's aid for Seris's rebellion only for her to be detained by Bairon who [[MistakenForSpies believes she is a spy]]. Although Arthur could have validated Caera's statements and secured her release once he returned from the third ruin, his attention gets distracted by the sudden arrival of Avier, who is bearing summons from Aldir. This leads to a chain of events that sees Arthur getting stuck in the aether realm for two months in order to resurrect Sylvie, which in turn leads to Caera languishing in prison for much longer than she should have. Making her ordeal even worse is that Kezess ordered his forces to occupy Dicathen in the meantime as part of his deal with Arthur, and the asuras naturally treated Caera rather badly]]. |
| 159 | * ''Literature/BrotherCadfael'': Two people, who had never seen each other but are primary-importance characters, do this in one of the mysteries, to the point where one holds the other's stirrup ''not realizing who the other is''. |
| 160 | * In the Doctor-Lite ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'' novel ''Birthright'', the backstory of the immortal BigBad mostly consists of arriving at historically significant locations just as a mysterious blue box is dematerialising. |
| 161 | * There is one case in a ''[[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt Legend of Drizzt]]'' novel where Drizzt and Cattie-Brie are walking on one side of the street to meet Morik the rogue about Wulfgar (who went missing sometime last book), while, on the other side of the street, there is an elf going in the opposite direction to meet an informant to find out where Drizzt is, so [[WholesomeCrossdresser she]] can kill him. Neither party ever realizes the other was so close by, and Drizzt isn't even aware the elf exists until the climactic showdown. |
| 162 | * In ''Literature/LesMiserables,'' Thenardier and Patron-Minette are about to kill Jean Valjean, only to be stopped by InspectorJavert. Javert does not immediately recognize Valjean, allowing him to sneak out the window while Javert is focused on Thenardier. It's implied Javert never realized the old man's true identity. |
| 163 | * ''Literature/{{Momo|1973}}'': The titular girl spends months looking for her friends in the city. One day, she believes to see her friend Beppo standing on a bridge, but by the time she arrives at the bridge, he is long gone. |
| 164 | * In ''Literature/{{Poison}}'', the titular character goes out looking for her baby sister, who was kidnapped by fairies. On her way to the realm the fairies inhabit, she [[spoiler: passes a girl somewhere around her own age, but doesn't stop to talk to her.]] If she had, she would have quickly learned that [[spoiler:the girl was her sister, aged up and returned by the fairies.]] This may in fact be a subversion, because the quest for her sister was only a very small part of what Poison was supposed to be doing; she just didn't know it yet. |
| 165 | * In the fourth book of ''Literature/ThePowerOfFive'', Scarlett is leaving her home to go to Hong Kong ''just'' as Matt and Jamie are around the corner, and miss her by maybe a dozen meters. {{Lampshaded}}, of course. |
| 166 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': |
| 167 | ** In the second and third books, Arya always seems to come within hours, or occasionally minutes, of her home or family members only for something to keep her from reaching her destination. |
| 168 | ** At one point in the third book, Jon and Bran are passing through the same abandoned town at the same time, but are unaware of the other's presence. |
| 169 | * ''Literature/TheSwordOfSaintFerdinand'': GarcÃa de Vargas and Fortún Paja take Elvira to a safe house and leave. Unfortunately, Elvira is found and carried prisoner to Melgarejo Castle by Guzmán, GarcÃa and his brother's sworn enemy. Later that night Elvira manages to sneak out and flee on her own, right before GarcÃa and his brother -plus nearly one hundred soldiers- arrive to capture the fortress. |
| 170 | * ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': |
| 171 | ** In ''Literature/TheFallOfGondolin'': When Tuor and Voronwë reach the source of the Ivrin, they find the area has been completely defiled and ruined. Alarmed, the Elf deduces Glaurung, the Father of Dragons, has just been here, so they hightail it out of there. |
| 172 | ** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Gandalf returns to Bag End after escaping from Isengard, only to find out that Frodo has left six days prior. He then proceeds to travel to Bree and again arrives after Frodo and company have left - approximately around twelve hours earlier. He rides to Weathertop, gets ambushed by the Nazgûl and drives them off - three days before Frodo and company arrive there. After his resurrection, the Eagles fly him to Lothlórien but he arrives the day after the Fellowship left. |
| 173 | * ''Literature/TheWitchlands'': An ancient PortalNetwork come into play during the finale of ''Bloodwitch'', the third book in the series: |
| 174 | ** The first portal [[spoiler:Merik]] enters leads him to the Carawen Monastery. Unaware that [[spoiler:Iseult, Leopold, and Owl]] are just minutes away and that a battle is taking place on the frozen riven bellow him, he walks back through the door. |
| 175 | ** The second door [[spoiler:Merik]] tries leads to Azmir. Again, he's unaware that [[spoiler:Safi, Vaness, and the Hell-Bards]] are racing to the door, so he returns to the underground cavern. |
| 176 | ** After the battle in the Carawen Monastery is over, [[spoiler:Aeduan]] retraces [[spoiler:Iseult's]] path to the door. By that time, however, the PortalNetwork has already been destroyed, so he finds only a stone wall waiting for him. |
| 177 | * ''Literature/SplitHeirs'': Dunwin and Wulfrith, two quasi-SeparatedAtBirth identical twins (technically two of a set of triplets in which the third child was kept by their birth parents), where separated when the old shepherd who took them in literally sold Wulfrith at the market because he couldn't care for both. Clootie, the man who buys Wulfrith remains reliant on the small village holding the market for his own supplies after that and sometimes sends Wulfrith there. The brothers proceed to never run into each other, or have anybody get them mixed up for more than a decade until someone who knows their third sibling happens upon Dunwin, tells their mother, is sent back to get him and grabs Wulfrith instead. Clootie asks himself the question after remembering Dunwin exists and puts it down to how few and far between the supply runs were because of their fugitive life (he's a wizard and there is currently a BanOnMagic). |
| 178 | [[/folder]] |
| 179 | |
| 180 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 181 | !!!'''In General:''' |
| 182 | * Happens all of the time in [[KoreanDrama Korean Dramas]], usually with lovers or long-lost relatives. |
| 183 | ** Gung-ho prosecutor just misses mysterious vigilante in ''Series/TheCityHunter''. |
| 184 | ** ''Series/YouAreBeautiful'' is particularly egregious for this across the story arc. |
| 185 | ** In ''Series/WinterSonata'', Yuujin misses her engagement party while wildly looking for someone who looked like her first love. |
| 186 | %%** Even historical dramas are not spared, with ''Series/DongYi'' being an example. |
| 187 | !!!'''By Series:''' |
| 188 | * ''Series/TheBarrier'': One scene has two vehicles crossing each other at the checkpoint between the enclave for the elites and the rest of Madrid. The vehicle leaving the enclave in an ambulance [[spoiler:driven by one of the protagonists, while the back contains allies from the enclave posing as the patient and medical personel]]. The vehicle entering the enclave is a police car with one of the protagonists in the back. The person driving the ambulance and the person at the back of the police car don't see each other because the windows of the two vehicles are at different heights and neither has any reason to suspect that the other vehicle contains the other person. |
| 189 | * Happens a lot in ''Series/BassieEnAdriaan'', where the villains would often just barely miss the duo. |
| 190 | * In ''Series/BreakingBad'', Hank's search for Walt in "[[Recap/BreakingBadS2E2Grilled Grilled]]" leads him to Tuco's compound. He pulls in just as Walt and Jesse (who have spotted his car from a distance and think it's Tuco's cousins coming to kill them) hide near the back of the compound. After Hank kills Tuco in the ensuing gunfight, he fails to notice Walt and Jesse fleeing on foot while he advances on Tuco's body. |
| 191 | ** It happens again in "[[Recap/BreakingBadS3E6Sunset Sunset]]" when Jesse accidentally leads Hank right to the RV while Walt is still inside it. Walt struggles to force the door shut even as Hank tries to pry it open. Walt is saved from being discovered due to the timely intervention of Junkyard Joe arriving to get into a squabble with Hank over whether the RV is a domicile or a moving vehicle, and Walt then having Saul's secretary call Hank to tell him that Marie has gotten into a car accident. |
| 192 | ** And again (but with the roles reversed this time) in "[[Recap/BreakingBadS5E12RabidDog Rabid Dog]]" when, after [[spoiler:stopping Jesse from burning down Walt's house in anger, Hank convinces him to help him expose Walt's criminal activities as a better way to get back at him, and takes him away in his car]]. A literal couple of ''seconds'' after [[spoiler:Hank drove off, Walt's car shows up at the other end of the street, leaving Walt to discover his gasoline-soaked house and wonder where Jesse could've gone]]. |
| 193 | * Doña Florinda once asked ''Series/ElChavoDelOcho'' to find Quico for her and Doña Clotilde asked Quico to find El Chavo. The two boys kept missing each other until they gave up searching. Lampshaded with this exchange that happens twice in the ''exact'' same manner. |
| 194 | -->'''Doña Florinda/Doña Clotilde''': What happened? I just heard him.\ |
| 195 | '''Chavo[=/=]Quico''': Me too. |
| 196 | * An episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' had two identical twins who were SeparatedAtBirth killed in what appear to be separate incidents (robbery gone bad and suicide). They'd been living within a few blocks and using the same laundrette without meeting each other and various acquaintances had mistaken them for one another but they'd never met. [[spoiler: The ex-boyfriend of one twin murdered the other by accident (staging it to look like a robbery) and had to kill his actual target and make it look like suicide when he returned to her place and found her alive.]] Tragically, [[spoiler:had they lived just a week longer, one would have been teaching a night class the other was attending, most likely bringing them together at last.]] |
| 197 | * One episode of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' dealt with a husband-and-wife team of child abductors who would take children from public places and "raise" them as their own secret, highly-abusive family. By the present day, some of their victims have been missing for ''years'', and many of their parents had given up on finding them alive. At the end, three of the children are rescued, the others having died under the abusive care of their kidnappers. The eldest speaks to the parents of the last child to die, who are heartbroken to learn that the son they'd given up on had only died the previous day. |
| 198 | -->'''Father:''' He was alive ''yesterday''? |
| 199 | * ''Series/DashAndLily'': |
| 200 | ** Dash and Boomer plot to have Lily leave the notebook at the pizzeria Boomer works at so Boomer can see what she looks like. However, she comes in during the lunch rush and Boomer only catches the back of her coat as she leaves. [[spoiler:Subverted. When this scene is revisited, it turns out Boomer went after her and met her. He knows her identity for the rest of the show and keeps it from Dash.]] |
| 201 | ** At Priya's Christmas party, [[spoiler:Lily and Boomer]] miss each other by a few seconds. Had they met Lily would likely have realized "Notebook Boy" was at the party. |
| 202 | * An episode of ''Series/DharmaAndGreg'' had this in prequel form: the titular couple flash back to the days before their first meeting. The audience knows exactly when they'll meet again (on the subway in the first episode) but several times they almost, but not quite, run into each other. |
| 203 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 204 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E4TheRomans "The Romans"]], Barbara is sold as a slave and ends up working in Nero's palace. At the same time, the Doctor and Vicki are guests at the palace. Through the middle two episodes of the serial, they repeatedly just miss seeing Barbara (though Vicki does unwittingly save her life). |
| 205 | ** A rare dramatic example in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]]. The Doctor meets Madame de Pompadour at various points of her life. Eventually, he tells her he will come back and take her travelling with him, and she eagerly awaits his return. However, when he does come back, she has just died and her body is being taken from her mansion. |
| 206 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E6TheLazarusExperiment "The Lazarus Experiment"]]: The Doctor and Martha have just found Lady Thaw's body in Lazarus's office, Lazarus having drained her of life energy. They leave in one of the lifts to go look for Lazarus back at the party downstairs... and mere seconds after their lift leaves, Lazarus emerges from the other lift with Tish. |
| 207 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]]: Martha and Jenny arrive at Cooper's Field, where the Family of Blood has landed their invisible spaceship, just moments after {{Jerkass}} schoolboy Jeremy Baines has entered it. And they're standing just ''metres'' away from it, to boot. |
| 208 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]] has Donna and the Doctor both sneak into the same office building ''twice'', crash a product presentation, and creatively acquire a list of customers from two office workers with cubicles literally three metres away — and who print out the lists on the same networked printer — without ever seeing each other. This continues almost all the way to the climax of the episode. Other instances include Donna parking her car and walking away, and mere moments later the TARDIS appears right behind the car; running down intersecting streets and stopping just short of the actual intersection; and so forth. Donna even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the trope by listing off a number of bizarre events that she investigated, believing the Doctor to have been involved, but dismisses the one where the ''Titanic'' almost crashed into Buckingham Palace... which was the only one that the Doctor was ''actually present for''. [[spoiler:This was actually perfectly justified in-universe. Their many near misses were Dalek Caan's attempts to bring them back together.]] |
| 209 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight "Midnight"]]: [[spoiler:Rose Tyler]] briefly appears on a TV screen in the background mere moments after the Doctor looks away from it. |
| 210 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33PrequelPondLife "Pond Life"]]: In "August", the Doctor remote-erases a message he left on the Ponds' answering machine just moments before Amy arrives home at a time when she could really have used some consoling. |
| 211 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E8MummyOnTheOrientExpress "Mummy on the Orient Express"]]: Clara exits her sleeping compartment and knocks on the door of the Doctor's just moments after he came out, almost knocked on her door, and went out. |
| 212 | * In ''Series/TheFlash1990'', Officer Murphy doesn't believe the Flash is real because he never arrives in time to witness him in action. |
| 213 | * ''Series/{{Frasier}}'''s third season finale, "You Can Go Home Again", is a flashback to events before the pilot episode. Frasier and Niles are in Café Nervosa. Niles leans over to the next table to grab some napkins — and as he does so, his future love interest (and as yet unknown) Daphne leans over to his table to ask Frasier if he has finished with the sugar. |
| 214 | ** In "The Ski Lodge", Frasier is interested in Daphne's friend Annie but she initially doesn't reciprocate. During the end credits, Annie sneaks over and knocks on Frasier's door but when he doesn't answer she goes back to her room. As soon as her door is closed Frasier walks out of the kitchen completely unaware that he just missed his chance with her. |
| 215 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 216 | ** In Seasons 3 and 4, Bran Stark and his companions come close to Bran's brother, Jon Snow, several times, but circumstances stop them from getting his attention. |
| 217 | ** In "The Wars to Come", Brienne falls into despair and gives up on her quest to find Catelyn's daughters, Arya and Sansa Stark, and get them to safety. About a hundred yards away, a carriage bearing Sansa drives by. |
| 218 | ** Through the course of Season 5, Brienne vows to come to Sansa's rescue if she lights a candle in the high tower. She stays there, waiting, for several days. And Sansa manages to light the candle ''right as'' Brienne has turned her back to find and kill Stannis. |
| 219 | ** Finally averted in Season 6. After five seasons of the Stark children trying to reach Castle Black, [[spoiler: two of the Stark children finally reunite when Sansa finally arrives and is reunited with her brother, Jon Snow]]. |
| 220 | ** Played straight and averted in Season 7. [[spoiler: Both Bran and Arya make it to Winterfell right after Jon has left for Dragonstone, but Sansa is still there to welcome them.]] |
| 221 | * ''Series/GeneralAndI'': Bai Ping Ting and Chu Bei Jie are so close they can see each other. If either had happened to be looking at the right moment, a lot of misunderstandings could have been cleared up. |
| 222 | * In ''Series/{{Ghostwriter}}'': ''Lost in Brooklyn'', Safira is trying to find her long-lost brother Malenga. In Part Three, she leaves a message for him. He shows up and finds the message...while she's still walking away. If he had just walked a few steps forward (instead of stopping to read the message), he would have seen her. |
| 223 | * ''Series/H2OJustAddWater'': When Emma gets infected with a mermaid disease that starts mutating her into a sea monster, the others lose track of her while trying to find a cure. Lewis, Cleo, and Rikki run offscreen to start searching the marine park, only for Emma to walk into the scene when they turn their backs. |
| 224 | * The early episodes of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' where anyone with "special abilities" was within a few blocks of each other in New York City, and didn't even know it. |
| 225 | * ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' has been getting lots of mileage out of this trope. As of the fifth season, Ted has picked up an umbrella owned by the titular mother at a party, accidentally walked into and taught the wrong class that she was in, and briefly dated her roommate, and left just after seeing her... left leg. |
| 226 | ** In the 200th episode "How Your Mother Met Me", it occurs repeatedly with Ted and the Mother. |
| 227 | *** Both went to the St. Patrick's party and if the Mother had went to the dance floor, she could have been the one bumping into Ted instead of the random women. |
| 228 | *** After mistakenly believing she was in the wrong classroom, the Mother had ran out and was about to return, nearly bumping into Ted who was running to get to his right classroom. |
| 229 | *** Like the season 5 example, when Ted broke up with Cindy, he exited her room just as the Mother entered her bedroom. And after he left, the Mother emerged from her room. |
| 230 | *** When the Mother went out for drinks with Louis, she passed by Ted (who was wearing a green dress) with neither of them realizing it. |
| 231 | * ''Series/ICarly'': In "[[Recap/ICarlyS02Ep20ITwins iTwins]]", Sam is bummed when her girly twin sister Melanie visits, but Freddie assumes she and Carly are pranking him again and assumes Melanie is just Sam in disguise. Throughout the episode, Sam leaves right before Melanie arrives and vice versa, because she wants to avoid her as much as possible. In the end, when Freddie ''still'' refuses to believe it and forces Sam to admit Melanie doesn't exist, he leaves right before Melanie actually does show up. |
| 232 | * ''Series/ILoveLucy'': In "Lucy Misses the Mertzes", the Ricardos and Mertzes walk in and out of the Westport, Connecticut train station, just barely missing one another time and again. |
| 233 | * ''Series/IslandOfTheSeaWolves'': Blaze, an injured pup, is left behind by his pack. He awaits their return for a week before moving on. The next day, his father Jasper returns for him, only to find him gone. |
| 234 | * When Foggy of ''Series/LastOfTheSummerWine'' returned from several seasons of being absent, he spent a whole episode doing this with Clegg and Compo. |
| 235 | * ''Series/MadAboutYou'' ended its third season with a two-parter about an alternate world in which Paul and Jamie never met, because the location of their canonical MeetCute burnt down. The trope is played straight for almost the two full episodes, and only averted in the final scene. |
| 236 | * In season 3 of ''Series/TheMandalorian'', a group of imperial starfighters are sent up from inside the atmosphere of the planet [[spoiler:Mandalore]] to attack a light cruiser at roughly the same time as a group of opposing [[spoiler:united Mandalorian tribe]] assault transports are headed down from that very ship to provide reenforcements and close air support to the warriors attempting to retake the planet. Because the cloud layer is heavily polluted and electrically active, it blocks sensors and vision. So, despite likely passing within a few hundred meters of each other, neither realized the other was there. |
| 237 | * ''Series/{{MASH}}'': After learning that Trapper John had been sent stateside while Hawkeye was on R&R, Hawkeye races to the airfield to try to catch up with him in order to say goodbye before he leaves, but when he gets there, he learns that Trapper's plane had departed just ten minutes earlier. |
| 238 | * ''Series/LesMiserables2018'': Valjean and Cosette escape from Javert and his squad by climbing over the wall of a convent. The camera angle shows Cosette being pulled to safety just as Javert and company come around the corner. |
| 239 | * ''Series/{{Nevertheless}}'': After their first meeting, Na-bi thinks she sees Jae-on around. There is a shot where she goes down one side of a branching staircase and he goes up by the other side, and they miss each other by a few seconds. |
| 240 | * In an episode of ''Series/TheOfficeUS'', Michael plays tourist in Manhattan and goes to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He runs after a woman whom he thinks is Tina Fey (just from her haircut), and once it is revealed it is not her, the real Conan O'Brien walks by, just behind Michael. Needless to say, Michael is a bit upset when the cameraman tells him. |
| 241 | * In the fourth season première of ''Series/OrphanBlack'', Felix and Beth, a genetic twin of Felix’s foster sister Sarah [[spoiler:due to both being clones]], spend an entire scene in the same police station, but Felix never actually notices Beth. If he had, the entire plot of the show would have turned out quite a bit differently. |
| 242 | * ''Series/OurMissBrooks'': Miss Brooks keeps missing Mr. Boynton in "Mr. Boynton's Return". She finally catches him at the airport as he's about to leave town to visit his parents. Mr. Boynton decides to skip his flight, and spend the weekend in town so he can spend time with Miss Brooks. |
| 243 | %%* The Polkaroo, from ''Series/ThePolkaDotDoor'', is another kid-show example. Justified in that the character was played by one of the show's two hosts, so naturally only the other host could interact with him. |
| 244 | * One episode of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' has Turk and Carla chasing each other around the hospital, attempting to meet for a pre-arranged kiss. |
| 245 | ** Another episode has Turk and JD chasing each other around the hospital, attempting to meet for a hug after Turk's return from his honeymoon. They each end up in separate rooms, just next to each other. Then, somehow, JD ends up in the same room, one floor up. |
| 246 | * In the ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Movie" most of the episode involves Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine searching vainly for each other so they can meet to see a movie, and constantly missing each other by a few seconds. In the end, no one gets to see the full movie that they wanted to see. |
| 247 | * ''Series/SesameStreet'': |
| 248 | ** In what is probably the longest running example, spent over a decade (from 1971 to 1985) exhausting pretty much every conceivable variation of this trope with regards to [[NotSoImaginaryFriend popular character Snuffleupagus]]. He was perceived by the vast majority of the adult cast as a figment of Big Bird's imagination until extreme steps were taken to forcibly prevent him from once again fulfilling this trope by leaving the room just as the gathered adults were supposed to meet him. This finally came to an end in Season 17 when Elmo arrives to stay with Snuffy so he does not leave in time for him to be revealed. Behind the scenes, the evident reason for his final unveiling to the adult cast was due to fears about young viewers learning the wrong lesson about attempting to tell the truth. |
| 249 | ** In the special ''Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art'', the adults keep barely missing Big Bird at the beginning when they are trying to find him before the museum closes. And then there's the various scenes where the night guard barely misses Big Bird, Snuffy, and the Prince.... |
| 250 | ** In the episode where Slimey lands on the moon, a farmer constantly tells the others that his chicken is on the space ship heading to the moon with the worms, but everyone insists that there is no chicken there. At one point, when everybody else is talking and turning their heads away from the screen, the chicken appears on-camera. The farmer is the only one watching and tells everyone that his chicken is there, but when everybody looks, the chicken is again off-camera. |
| 251 | * In the Series 2 finale of ''Series/{{Skins}}'', Sid and Cassie just miss each other while he's searching for her in New York City when the screen goes black and the series ends for that generation of characters. |
| 252 | * On the ''Series/StargateUniverse'' episode "Lost", the abandoned characters locate and dial ''Destiny'' just moments before it leaves, and then we see its gate open... only for Rush's search party to come back empty-handed, blocking their gate from connecting. Then they dial again, but the ship leaves just before it opens, stranding them. |
| 253 | * In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever," Kirk and Spock go back in time to rescue [=McCoy=]. He makes his way to the soup kitchen where the two are working, and is escorted out of the room just as Spock shows up. |
| 254 | * In the early going of the original version of ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', Jenny at least twice just misses meeting up with Abby before they finally get together. Then in the third season the show became somewhat infamous for this trope, with Jenny and Greg repeatedly engaging in it over the course of the entire season. [[spoiler: They never do reunite, and Greg dies of smallpox.]] |
| 255 | * In one of the ''Series/WithoutATrace'' episodes where the VictimOfTheWeek is found dead, an agent blasts his supervisor for pulling him off the case to focus on another one. |
| 256 | -->"Twenty minutes. I missed her by ''twenty minutes''. I wanted you to know that." |
| 257 | [[/folder]] |
| 258 | |
| 259 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 260 | * Used in a heartbreakingly sad way in the music video for "Whiskey Lullaby" by Music/BradPaisley and {{Music/Alison Krauss|AndUnionStation}}. The cheating wife spends the first part of the video desperately searching for her husband so she can apologize. She keeps missing him as he sinks behind a car in an alleyway as she drives past and gets kicked out of a crowded bar on one side while she's looking on the other. If you've listened to [[DownerEnding the song]], you can guess what happens next. [[spoiler: She doesn't find him in time to keep him from committing suicide. She follows him shortly thereafter.]] |
| 261 | * The music video for Semisonic's "Closing Time" shows the singer and his wife trying to find each other in a neighborhood through two separate [[TheOner single shots]], placed side-by-side in split screen. They frequently look for each other in places the other just left, and wander into the same nightclub towards the end, but never meet. |
| 262 | * The music video for Music/DanielPowter's "Bad Day" features two strangers who live and work near to each other, but keep missing each other because of different timetables or because they look away when they are alone in their respective offices. [[spoiler: Until the end, where the guy covers the girl with an umbrella as she calls a cab.]] |
| 263 | [[/folder]] |
| 264 | |
| 265 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 266 | * In an instance that only becomes clear in hindsight, ''Theatre/{{Aida|JohnRice}}'' starts with a bunch of people walking around a modern day museum before going back in time to Ancient Egypt for the plot of the show. When the scene goes back to the museum at the end, you realize that the reincarnations of Aida and Radames kept missing each other in the earlier scene, but finally see each other at the very end of the play. |
| 267 | * Shakespeare: |
| 268 | ** ''Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors'' uses this for dramatic (and comedic) tension throughout, featuring two sets of twins separated at birth who eventually end up in the same city and confused for each other by the other characters until the end of the play when everybody meets up at last. |
| 269 | ** This is what kicks off the latter half of the events in ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', when Romeo hears news of Juliet's death from Balthasar before the letter by Friar Lawrence explaining Juliet's condition can make it to him. In some adaptions, the messenger makes it ''just'' as Romeo had already left. In a way, this is also the case in regards to the timing of Romeo's suicide and Juliet's awakening; had either of them been later or earlier respectively, the tragedy would not have occurred. |
| 270 | [[/folder]] |
| 271 | |
| 272 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 273 | %%* Sora and Donald Duck / Goofy from ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', the first time they're in Traverse Town. |
| 274 | * In ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' when Vyse and the two girls get split up after their ship gets destroyed they spend a day in a large town, sleep in the same inn ''next door to each other'', and even complete a dungeon together (without each other's knowledge) following this trope. |
| 275 | * In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', your character is looking for their father who left the Vault right before you. Every time you pick up his path, you learn that he was ''just'' there not a few hours before. |
| 276 | * Yuri and Flynn from ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia''. Flynn always seems to be just one town ahead of you... |
| 277 | * In ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVIIThePrincelessBride'', the player switches between two characters (mother and daughter) who miss each other along the plot line. |
| 278 | * In Chapter 7 of ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', you can't progress any further until you go find General White, who you might remember was standing around in the town from Chapter 1. When you get back there, he's gone, and another NPC will give you a clue to his new location. You end up visiting every location in the game that you've previously visited, and each time you learn that he ''just'' left and get another clue, until eventually... you run out of clues. He left without saying where he was going next! Forced to admit defeat, you return to your quest-giver and say that you could not find him. [[spoiler:[[FunnyBackgroundEvent Then he walks out of the house right behind you.]]]] |
| 279 | * In the ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight'' DLC ''Plague of Shadows'', it's shown that as Shovel Knight goes through the plot of ''Shovel of Hope'', Plague Knight is beating every level just a few steps ahead of him. In fact, it was Plague Knight who found all of the Relics that Shovel Knight uses in the game. Considering them nothing but worthless junk, he traded them to Chester in exchange for Arcana, with Shovel Knight showing up to buy the Relics a few minutes later. [[spoiler:They cross paths in the Explodatorium for Plague Knight's boss battle, of course, and again in the BossRush at the end of the game, only this time you're playing as Plague Knight fighting Shovel Knight.]] |
| 280 | * In ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth'', a couple of scenes show series protagonist Phoenix Wright and his sidekicks Maya Fey and Pearl Fey [[FunnyBackgroundEvent in the vicinity]] while Edgeworth investigates a crime scene. You would think that, as best friends and rivals, Miles and Phoenix would at least be aware of each other's presence. |
| 281 | * Played for tragedy in ''VideoGame/Mother3''. [[spoiler:As Flint leaves the area where he defeated the Mecha-Drago that killed his wife and one of his sons foolishly went to avenge, the camera moves down the cliff to reveal Claus's near-dead body. By the time Flint starts obsessively looking for any sign of at least his son's corpse, [[AllForNothing Claus has already been taken by Porky for his own means]].]] |
| 282 | * ''[[VideoGame/TrailsSeries The Legend of Heroes - Trails]]'': |
| 283 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky Trails in the Sky]]'', Joshua doesn't notice after the performance play in Chapter 2 that [[spoiler:Loewe]], an important figure from his past, was watching behind the audience before making his leave. |
| 284 | ** PlayedForDrama in chapter 3 of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZero'' with Estelle and Joshua coming ''this'' close to reuniting with [[spoiler: Renne]] only to miss her by a few minutes. |
| 285 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel]]'': Emma, while having her own secret mission, is also on the search for [[spoiler:her sister; Vita.]] [[OptionalCharacterScene If she is selected to be taken to Heimdall]] to pick up the festival costumes, she'll run off to follow a mysterious bird Rean saw, [[spoiler:immediately missing Vita who is disguised as the Trista radio host; Misty, as she has a quick conversation with Rean.]] |
| 286 | * ''VideoGame/Stay2017'': Quinn rushes into a restaurant [[spoiler:just as his unnamed love interest is leaving, a crowd of people separating them.]] |
| 287 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'': |
| 288 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII'': The Prince of Midenhall and the Prince of Cannock spend the first minutes of game looking for each other. The Hero arrives at Cannock Castle and finds out the Prince has gone to the Spring of Bravery. In the Spring of Bravery, he is informed the Prince has gone back to the castle. The Hero walks back to Cannock Castle and is said the Prince has headed towards Midenhall Castle to find ''him''. The Hero goes back to his home, and is said his cousin has returned to Cannock to meet him. The Hero makes his way back to Cannock, but he finds out the Prince has not yet arrived, so he heads towards Leftwyne, a town located midway between Midenhall and Cannock, where he ''finally'' runs into the Prince. |
| 289 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'': [[TheParagon Celestrian Corvus]] went missing 300 years ago (but the Celestrians aren't allowed to talk about it). [[spoiler: He's in the bottom-most floor of TheOubliette, which is the basement of Gittingham Palace, which is dead in the center of the territory of the Gittish Empire, which is the wasteland the Observatory is floating over -- Corvus is as under the Celestrians' noses as he could possibly ''get'']]. |
| 290 | * Early on in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankRiftApart'', when Ratchet is first thrown into Rivet's dimension, he briefly notices Rivet run off with Clank in Nefarious City. Neither of them notice him, and it's a while before Rivet even realizes there's another Lombax in her dimension. |
| 291 | * In the later stages of the titular war in ''VideoGame/MentalOmega'', one of the Allied Nations' prime objectives is the capture of [[BigBad Yuri]]. As you learn when playing ''Unthinkable'' (Epsilon mission 22), they came within ''inches'' of accomplishing their goal, since Yuri was only ''just'' able to use the Old Chronosphere to teleport himself to Moscow before the Allies' [[TimeStandsStill Paradox]] [[TacticalSuperweaponUnit Engine]] activated its Time Freeze, allowing the Allies to overrun the Epsilon bases protecting him. If they'd turned it on just a minute or two earlier, they'd have had him dead to rights. |
| 292 | [[/folder]] |
| 293 | |
| 294 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 295 | * In the ''WebAnimation/SimonsCat'' episode "Missing Cat", while Simon is out searching for the cat and putting up "Lost" posters near a tall bush, the cat shows up on the fence and goes into the bush while Simon's back is turned. Simon hears the noise and investigates the bush, but by then, the cat has crawled out the other side and come out from behind the nearby tree to where Simon had been previously standing. They don't realize the other's there and the cat runs off before Simon turns around. |
| 296 | |
| 297 | [[/folder]] |
| 298 | |
| 299 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 300 | * Webcomic/DominicDeegan [[http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-10-08 walks by a ring that could have saved the entire town and a long story arc.]] As Dominic is a Seer, this is a problem. |
| 301 | ** Later on, he explains why he overlooked it, and his friends point out that the way he ended up doing things worked out for the better anyway. |
| 302 | * A RunningGag for a while in ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace'' was Lancelot and Galehaut [[http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1338.htm keeping missing each other]]. |
| 303 | * In ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'', Fooker and Maddie are on a mission in Paris at the same time as Fooker's girlfriend Sharon and her friend Craig (who has been replaced by The German). Maddie becomes concerned about Fooker and Sharon meeting, partly due to her fear that Fooker will resign to go back to be with Sharon and partly because of unrequited feelings for him. With her intervention, a few such moments happen. Ultimately, however, she fails, and the two reunite, just before Justin arrives to replace Fooker. |
| 304 | * ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' used a cell phone variant. Justin was frantically trying to call Elliot, but [[http://www.egscomics.com/comic/2011-02-02 Elliot's phone was in his car]]. We see the phone ringing in the back of the car. As soon as it stops, the door opens, Elliot reaches in, and grabs a water bottle. As soon as he closes the door again, the phone resumes ringing. |
| 305 | [[/folder]] |
| 306 | |
| 307 | %%[[folder:Web Original]] |
| 308 | %%* [[http://bash.org/?287414 This]] bash.org quote. |
| 309 | %%[[/folder]] |
| 310 | |
| 311 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 312 | * The ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' episode "Bev Takes A Holiday" goes through this when twin sisters Bernice and Beverly unknowingly end up in the same house together. |
| 313 | * Happens for most of the ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode "Run For Your Ed," with the Kanker Sisters tearing up the cul-de-sac in search of their ship-in-a-bottle. The Eds have the MacGuffin, thanks to a sleepwalking Ed. The two groups finally meet up... but only after the entire cul-de-sac is in ruins. |
| 314 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourWorldsGreatestHeroes'' episode "[[Recap/FantasticFourWorldsGreatestHeroesWorldsTiniestSuperheroes World's Tiniest Superheroes]]", a shrunken Reed desperately tries to get Alicia's attention when she comes over for a date with Ben. She thinks she hears him, but then passes it off and leaves. |
| 315 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode "Helga Sleepwalks", Helga begins to [[{{Sleepwalking}} sleepwalk]] as a result of eating her father's pork rinds. She calls Phoebe to help her, since she's worried she might confess her true feelings towards Arnold. When Phoebe finds out that Helga has sleepwalked, she decides to find Helga and stop her. Helga goes inside a sandwich shop just as Phoebe stands outside it and decides she needs to take a shortcut to Arnold's house to stop her in time. |
| 316 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E5And6OnlyADream Only a Dream]]", Batman calls Superman to warn him about the [[DreamWeaver dream-stalking supervillain]] Dr. Destiny. He reaches his answering machine just a few minutes after he goes to sleep. |
| 317 | * ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': "Adventures in Rufus-Sitting" Kim's pursuit of Rufus always brings her within a few feet of Ron and his family in Paris. |
| 318 | * When Blythe is at Fashion Camp in ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012,'' she gets homesick just in time for her dad, the pets, and Mrs. Twombly to start really missing her. She gets to go home for a visit the same day the others decide to come up to surprise her. They even stop at the same gas station halfway through their respective trips. Then the same thing happens when they're returning [[spoiler:but this time they do manage to rendezvous.]] |
| 319 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Season 8's "The Mean 6" does this three times, with thanks to interference from the EvilDoppelganger lookalikes of the mane ponies. The first is when Mean Fluttershy insults the forest creatures and storms off before the real Fluttershy shows up, leading the animals to [[AnimalsHateHim shout at her angrily]]; the second is when Mean Twilight shows [[NoSympathy no remorse for Fluttershy crying]] and leaves just as the real Twilight comes in, igniting a heated argument between her and Pinkie Pie; and the last is when Starlight Glimmer runs off after Mean Applejack insults her, and Rarity goes off to calm her down right before Queen Chrysalis comes out of the bushes. |
| 320 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "Any Sport in a Storm" has Hunter showing up at Hexside incognito mere seconds after Luz and Amity (the only two people in the school who know what he looks like) left the club fair to attend an ''Azura'' book signing, meaning that no one is able to recognize him until he purposefully reveals his identity several hours later. |
| 321 | * ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': |
| 322 | ** This, combined with NoPeripheralVision and DeusExMachina, is why Linda Flynn-Fletcher never finds out what the boys are doing. |
| 323 | ** In "Unfair Science Fair Redux (Another Story)", Candace, having recently been stranded on Mars, comes across a rover and tries to contact help with it. Unfortunately for her, the scientist operating the rover has just snapped from watching red rocks for 20 years, and he decides to shut it down just as Candace comes into frame. |
| 324 | ** In "Thanks But No Thanks", when Candace realizes an old lady next door has witnessed all of Phineas and Ferb's big ideas and wants to introduce her to Linda so she can tell her everything. By the time Linda is brought out, the lady has left her window and Linda calls out Candace for her supposed imagination before leaving; once Linda has went back inside, the lady reappears seconds after. |
| 325 | * The [[WesternAnimation/PixarShorts Pixar Short]] ''Lava'' is about a volcano who wants a mate and sings about having "someone to lava". Meanwhile, a female volcano is forming beneath the ocean, listening to his song. She finally emerges right next to him, but facing in the wrong direction, and the male volcano can't call to her because he is going extinct and is sinking back into the ocean floor. [[spoiler:Fortunately, he manages to erupt back to life thanks to ThePowerOfLove and the short ends with the two of them together at last.]] |
| 326 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/Rugrats1991'' episode, "[[Recap/RugratsS2E2ChuckieVsThePottyTogetherAtLast Together at Last]]", Betty separates Phil and Lil after they argue, and lets Didi take Lil to Tommy's house to play with Tommy and Chuckie. The twins soon find themselves missing each other, and when Tommy, Chuckie, and Lil go to Phil and Lil's house to look for Phil, Phil goes to Tommy's house to look for Lil. Phil and Lil don't see each other because Phil goes over the fence as Lil goes under it. |
| 327 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "Trilogy of Error", Lisa goes to Moe's around noon knowing it's usually when Homer gets the urge to do so, needing a ride to school. However, she leaves out the back door just as soon as Homer comes in through the front, needing ice for his thumb. Luckily, she runs into Marge in the front anyway, who attempts to take her to school after overhearing Homer go on a drunken rant about the Blue Man Group. |
| 328 | * ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': |
| 329 | ** In "[[Recap/SpongebobSquarepantsS1E5PizzaDeliveryHomeSweetPineapple Pizza Delivery]]", [=SpongeBob=] claims that town is in same direction as the moss growing on a rock. Squidward doesn't believe him and insists on going the other way. As it turns out, the town was just past that rock, on the mossy side. |
| 330 | ** Another example is when Spongebob spends most of an episode looking for his ID badge, and it turns out that it was on his shirt all along, and he didn't notice because it was on backwards. |
| 331 | ** In "Hide and Then What Happens?", [=SpongeBob=] teaches Patrick how to play hide and seek, and while [=SpongeBob=] is counting, Patrick just goes home. When [=SpongeBob=] begins his search, his first guess is Patrick's house, but he dismisses it because it would be "too obvious", kicking off his long-winded search. Turns out his first guess was actually correct -- right after [=SpongeBob=] leaves, Patrick comes out of his house. |
| 332 | ** Happens [[RuleOfThree three times]] in "[=SpongeBob's=] Big Birthday Blowout", when Patchy the Pirate tries to deliver a present to [=SpongeBob=] for his birthday: |
| 333 | *** The first time, when [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick tour the surface world, the tour bus swerves right past Patchy. |
| 334 | *** The second time, when [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick leave the Trusty Slab, Patchy enters, asking Mr. Slabs if he can let Potty use the bathroom. |
| 335 | *** The third and final time, when the tour bus begins to descend back to Bikini Bottom, it runs over a lifeguard's foot. Just as Patchy is about to catch up, the lifeguard accuses Patchy of running over his foot and stops him. |
| 336 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' |
| 337 | ** Subverted in "Much Ado About Boimler", in which Tendi has created an artificial dog which is actually an AnimalisticAbomination. She regularly leaves the room just before her horrifed crewmates see The Dog shapeshift into a spider form or whatever, giving the impression she's unaware of this. It turns out she knows ''exactly'' what The Dog is capable of; she just didn't know regular dogs ''couldn't''. |
| 338 | ** In "Trusted Sources", the ship visits a PlanetOfTheWeek from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' where Picard ended the explotation of the drug-addicted Ornarans by the drug-producing Brekkians by refusing to help them repair their ships, and then left. The ''Cerritos'' arrives seventeen years later in an effort by Captain Freeman to actually go back and check on planets subjected to this kind of treatment by Starfleet, only to find that the Ornara is fine... after over a decade of agonizing withdrawal symptoms, as depicted on their mural of screaming faces. The Ornarans are polite but clearly do ''not'' want any more dealings with Starfleet. |
| 339 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': |
| 340 | ** Anakin Skywalker and General Grievous are contractually bound to this trope. Why? Because, in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Anakin and Grievous interact on the bridge of the ''Invisible Hand'' in a fashion that suggests they've never met before that moment. Sometimes this gets ''very'' close, like in the prisoner exchange in [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS4E4ShadowWarrior "Shadow Warrior"]]. |
| 341 | ** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E4DestroyMalevolence "Destroy Malevolence"]]: Anakin and Padmé depart the bridge of the ''Malevolence'' (after Anakin sabotaged the ship) in one lift just before a squad of battle droids enters via the other lift to check on the status of the repairs. |
| 342 | ** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS3E22WookieeHunt "Wookiee Hunt"]]: While stranded on Wasskah, the moon of Trandosha, by [[LizardFolk Trandoshans]] HuntingTheMostDangerousGame, Ahsoka, Jinx and O-Mer rescue Chewbacca, who builds a transmitter to try and contact Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld, for help. The transmitter seems to work, but then breaks, leading the group to leave the cave to try something else. Just afterwards, the transmitter starts up again, relaying a Wookiee transmission. |
| 343 | ** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS4E21Brothers "Brothers"]]: Wanted Darksider [[TheBrute Savage Opress]] runs out of a diner on an Outer Rim planet just before Anakin and Ahsoka enter in search of food that's not more military rations. The two Jedi even ask what happened, but the police droids investigating Savage's assault of a waitress assure them that they have everything in hand. |
| 344 | ** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS7E11Shattered "Shattered"]]: After [[spoiler:learning from Maul that Sidious is grooming Anakin to become his apprentice]], Ahsoka joins a meeting of Jedi Generals via hologram and, after reporting on the Siege of Mandalore, asks if she can speak to Anakin with the intent of warning him. Unfortunately, Mace Windu had already sent Anakin away [[spoiler:to give a progress report to Chancellor Palpatine - the very meeting where Palpatine will reveal his true identity as Sidious to Anakin, setting off the final chain of events leading to Anakin joining the Sith.]] Since this is the same Jedi meeting seen in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Mace sent Anakin away no more than a minute before Ahsoka appeared. This also occurs on a Meta level as Ahsoka, who had not yet been introduced to the saga when ROTS premiered, joins the meeting a second after the scene featuring it in the film ended. |
| 345 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': |
| 346 | ** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E09Legacy "Legacy"]]: After a long search, it turns out [[spoiler:Ezra's parents died just before the episode begins]]. |
| 347 | ** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS3E12Warhead "Warhead"]]: Zeb and the droids rig an Imperial infiltrator droid to self-destruct upon its return to the Empire, nearly getting [[spoiler:[[TheMole Kallus]]]] killed because he could have been on the Star Destroyer the droids were returning to. |
| 348 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsResistance'': [[Recap/StarWarsResistanceS2E8RendezvousPoint "Rendezvous Point"]] opens with the Colossus having to flee a battle with the First Order when the pilot Captain Doza was hoping to rendezvous with doesn't show up... only for her X-Wing to arrive ''just'' after the station's departure. |
| 349 | * ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'': In "The Pet" after the alien Wander tames wraps a teddy bear he gave it into a cocoon, Wander runs out of the scene seconds before Sylvia enters the room, which leads to her mistaking the teddy bear for Wander's remains. |
| 350 | [[/folder]] |
| 351 | |
| 352 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 353 | * Before their exact location was known, thirty-three Chilean miners trapped in a mine claim to have heard a drill go by a few feet from their cave. |
| 354 | * Two brothers, separated when sent to different foster homes at a young-ish age, spent about twenty years looking for each other. When reunited, they discovered they'd been living on the same street for two years, and eight months of that within a few blocks of each other. |
| 355 | * A girl named Lisa Dick was separated from her father and sisters due to her parents' breakup. Her sisters and father spent years looking for her. Eventually, the local newspaper printed a story about the search, with a recent picture of the family. The photo had been taken outdoors near a city street. Lisa then got into contact with her father. Sometime after this, she noticed that ''she herself'' was walking in the [[MeaningfulBackgroundEvent far background of the photo]]. ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' calls it [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18788_the-5-most-mind-blowing-coincidences-all-time_p2.html the second most mind-blowing coincidence of all time.]] |
| 356 | * When the contents of UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin's library were examined after his death, one of its books was found to contain a copy of Gregor Mendel's ground-breaking manuscript on genetic inheritance. Those particular pages were still uncut, indicating Darwin never got around to reading it. Many, many biologists have wondered WhatCouldHaveBeen, had Darwin gotten to read the paper that clarified the one part of his theory (patterns/mechanisms of heredity) for which he'd not found decisive evidence. |
| 357 | * Before cellphones became very prominent, it was common practice for groups of people out and about to arrange a place to meet if they get separated, in order to avoid this trope. |
| 358 | * In 1985, Robert Ballard mounted two expeditions to find the wreck of the ''UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic''. The first search was unsuccessful, but they later found that they had actually passed within a few hundred yards of the wreck. A previous failed expedition sponsored by Jack Grimm also came within two miles of it. |
| 359 | [[/folder]] |
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