Mr Exposition / Live-Action TV

• At the beginning of every 'Allo 'Allo! episode, Rene breaks the Fourth Wall to explain to the viewer what's been going on. In one subversion he starts off by discussing the doings of some of the townspeople, before saying "You have never met these people, nor are you ever likely to. I am simply giving you the local gossip because with my own affairs I don't know where to start."
• Hannibal on The A-Team would explain the bad guys' plot to the rest of the A-Team and the audience in every single episode. In the Season 2 finale, "Curtain Call," when Murdock gets shot in the shoulder, Hannibal spends the majority of a scene explaining why bits of cloth and such caught in the bullet hole were more likely to cause an infection than than the bullet itself. Then he explains what would happen to Murdock's body as the infection begins if they cannot get supplies in time.
• In Auction Kings, the experts will usually give a detailed history of the piece they're looking at. If there's no history to be found, they'll explain why that is.
• Babylon 5 : Delenn; whenever she begins a speech with, "As you know," expect a recap of the whole season thus far.
• Dietrich in Barney Miller was The Smart Guy and a Renaissance Man, so when the squad encountered things like an amygdalectomy patient, a heart attack, or an atomic bomb, he was usually the one to provide relevant detail. It became a Running Gag; as soon as a visitor said an unfamiliar word, Barney would turn to Dietrich with resignation. (Also played with, such as the episode Tontine where Wojo pipes up with the definition — because Dietrich told him on the way over.)
• Col. Tigh in Battlestar Galactica (2003) often performs the role of Mr. Exposition, although in one episode, President Roslin subverts this by annoyedly thanking him for his insight. Anders managed to be one of these for one episode, finally explaining what the deal with the Final Five was, as well as some background on the Cylons in general. This being BSG, everything was working against him, and only got about halfway through it. Cavil filled a somewhat similar role in the same episode, but he also didn't spill the beans completely.
• On the reality television front, there are scenes on the show Billy the Exterminator that are clearly meant to explain things to the viewer but the way they are explained come in unnatural situations, such as explaining the consequences of not getting rid of a pest to his mother, who not only should already know this, but is the one giving him the assignment from the office. There are also times when Billy and his brother, who also works for the company, are explaining things to each other that they should already know.
• Brass parodied this at every opportunity. Any character could and would exposit, usually ending the speech "...as you well know".
• Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the dream sequence episode "Restless" he even gets to deliver the exposition in the form of a song.
  • Which is exactly what he's trained to do for many years. Watchers are supposed to tell the Slayer how to kill the evil monster.
    • Ex-watcher Wesley filled this role on Angel, though the science stuff was shared with Fred.
    • Deconstructed with Andrew in an episode of Angel. He explains "vampyres" and the nature of Slayers to Angel and his team, much to their annoyance as they already know pretty much everything.
  • In later seasons, Willow, Tara, and Anya filled this role sometimes, especially if Giles wasn't around — Willow and Tara would exposit about magic, Anya about demons she met in her thousand-year lifespan.
  • Dawn was heading this way in Season 7. She even referred to herself as "Junior Watcher" in the finale.
• Burn Notice practically ran on this trope, with Michael providing exposition via an 'as a spy...' voiceover explaining Team Westen's actions at least once every episode.
• Charlie's Angels: The original bad boy of exposition, The Voice himself, Charlie.
• On Chuck, this job most-often falls to General Beckman.
• In Chernobyl, Professor Valery Legasov spends a lot of time explaining how nuclear energy works and the details of what went wrong in Chernobyl and why. Mostly he is explaining to Shcherbina, the Soviet bureaucrat who's been sent to supervise the response to the accident but doesn't know the technical details (much like the audience).
• Dr. Reid does this often in Criminal Minds.
• Captain Jim Brass, the Homicide detective from CSI has been affectionately nicknamed "Captain Exposition" by the fandom, even though all he does is deliver factual data on the victim du jour (such as name, occupation, family, circumstances of death...).
  • Many of the others as well,on all three shows.
• In Doctor Who, the Doctor frequently has a traveling companion from modern Earth who would be in the dark if the Doctor didn't explain everything. That seems to be the main function of the cohort; a "Watson" to his "Sherlock".
  • Notoriously, the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy used to hand off the technobabble to his assistant, Ace, who would deliver the exposition in the form of a question, allowing the Doctor to a) avoid learning his lines, and b) nod wisely and say "That's right, Ace. You're learning."
  • This trope itself is mentioned by Missy in the end of Season 10 as she says that Bill and Nardol are her companions, Exposition and Comic Relief.
  • Lampshaded in the Peter Capaldi episode "Last Christmas", when Santa Claus starts explaining what is happening, prompting the Doctor to shout, "Line in the sand! I do the scientific explanations!"
• Fantasy Island: Mr Roarke telling Tattoo the guests' backstories.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Jorah Mormont; at least in the first season, as a seasoned advisor and mentor, he mainly exists to inform Daenerys, who is a newcomer, and us about the customs of the Dothraki and other such things. He also takes on this role in Season 3, alongside Missandei. Fully aware of this, the producers even refer to him jokingly as "Jorah the Explorer."
  • Petyr Baelish is also a big vehicle for exposition.
    • Petyr really takes this role and runs with it like he's training for the exposition Olympics in S1E6, in the scene where he advises Ned about the Mountain, dropping As You Know and Captain Obvious statements left and right. He even feels the need to point out the sigil of Ned's wife's house to him, which, given the importance of heraldry in Westeros, and the prominence of House Tully in the social order would be like saying "The swoosh. That's the symbol of Nike. Doesn't your wife work there?"
  • Jojen explains Bran's powers in his second scene, after two whole seasons went with little to no explanation.
  • Salladhor explains Stannis's post-Blackwater situation to the recently rescued Davos in the Season 3 premiere.
• Horatio Hornblower: The show used written text at the opening titles, explaining the political situation or the situation at sea. Additionally in "The Even Chance", Midshipman Archie Kennedy explains Horatio and the audience his view on The French Revolution and present situation in France ("Louis was captured just before Christmas. What do you think they'll do with him? You can't kill a King." — Oh, Archie!). He also informs us later that the French has killed their king.
• Future Ted in How I Met Your Mother, usually in order to provide shortcuts to the main plot of an episode by pausing the action to explain a bit of essential backstory to his kids. Varies a lot in its delivery, sometimes segueing to a series of flashbacks or cutaway gags to explain something, sometimes tossing in a tidbit of relevant information (e.g., stopping to tell his kids that Marshall had a temporary filling put in that day, which wasn't seen in the episode, so that the story makes sense).
• Winston in Human Target. Mostly justified, since there's a new mission every week, and someone's got to fill Chance in on the details. There is a certain amount of "Remember, once you get inside..." purely for the audience's benefit though. He's also usually working Mission Control, so it's not his only job.
• iCarly: Wendy. Tells the gang that another TV show is stealing their bits. Explains that Freddie gave up a sea trip to get rid of Carly's old friend who was trying to break them up.
• On Impractical Jokers, at times each of the guys will explain what's happening to the audience, especially when it involves in-jokes between themselves. However, Murr seems to take the role of Mr. Exposition on himself more often than the others, either speaking directly to camera or using thinly veiled "conversation" with the other guys, telling them things they clearly already know.
• Gillian Foster in Lie to Me, usually to explain the academic aspect behind detecting emotion to Ria Torres, but to the extent that it often sounds like a textbook excerpt.
• Loki (2021) has Miss Minutes, a cartoon clock that serves as the mascot of the TVA. When Loki arrives at their headquarters, a video is played for him where she explains the Time Variance Authority, the Time-Keepers and the idea of -- and dangers of -- branching timelines.
• Lost:
  • Daniel Faraday fits the bill, though he doesn't quite know everything. Nor does he tell all that he does know. Nor does he think everybody else would understand if he tried. After the episode "The Variable", he becomes a posthumous Mr. Exposition once his journal outlives him.
  • In Season 5, his mysterious mother Eloise Hawking suddenly turns into this. "316" opens with a huge lecture by her about how the Island was found, why it's so hard to find the Island, what they need to do to return... followed by a shorter scene where she tells Jack even more detail about why he has to return...
• Lost Girl has Trick, who is constantly consulting his collection of ancient books to explain what is going on.
• Merlin has Gaius, the old court physician. He rarely ever has a line that isn't explaining something to someone. Sometimes the dragon gets in on this trope as well.
• Murdoch Mysteries does this frequently, with various characters giving Murdoch or anyone else investigating the case of the week information about suspects, past events, or what motivates the killer of the week.
• Joel and the Robots of Mystery Science Theater 3000 humorously pointed this out while watching a movie, labeling two cop characters "Sergeant Exposition" and "Captain Backstory".
• MythQuest's Max Asher is one. He is a professor of either Egyptology or archaeology, but he explains to Brother–Sister Team Alex and Cleo anything they need to know about any myth they encounter.
• Henry from Once Upon a Time is constantly spelling things out. At first, it made sense for him to be explaining things to protagonist Emma, but now it's just straight up talking to the audience.
• Out of this World (1962): "Little Lost Robot": Mr Black and Walensky are more prominent in this adaptation, and the story uses this expansion to have Mr Black rant about more things, such as how terrible robots are, and how Dr Calvin thinks she's got a new test for the robots.
• Some of the discussion about the history of an item or company on Pawn Stars is clearly designed to give insight to the viewer, particularly in situations where it seems both the broker and the customer should already know what they're being told about the item.
• This was Zordon's role in the first few seasons of Power Rangers, summoning the Rangers in order to tell them about the Monster of the Week that they would have to fight.
• The titular character of the kids game show Raven is this, seeing as he is the host.
• Holly and Kryten in Red Dwarf. Note the redundancy; the producers did, and when they needed to get rid of a character for the sixth season, Holly was Put on a Bus with the rationale that the exposition could be given to Kryten. The writers later found themselves in the same position again, when the newly-introduced Kochanski became Ms. Exposition, and Kryten was relegated to the servile mother-figure that he'd grown out of over the course of the series.
  • They never really explained why a robot programmed to clean toilets was an expert on GELFs and time dilation in the first place; although this could (and Word of God says does) explain why Lister remembers the defunct timeline from "White Hole" in "Demons & Angels", when the former episode ends with Kryten explaining he won't.
  • Lampshaded in one of the show's "blooper" compilations where host Kryten testily responds to a viewer question about his getting a fact wrong in the episode "DNA", something along the lines of "I'm sorry, I must have been absent the day they gave the lecture on cellular genetics at Toilet University! In other words, I made a MISTAKE, OK?!"
• All the main characters on Scorpion not called Paige Deneen or Cabe Gallo are this, for the benefit of the audience who otherwise wouldn't have a clue what they're up to that episode.
• Alfred Gogh and Miles Millar cast Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan on Smallville because of her "rare ability to deliver large chunks of expositionary dialogue conversationally."
• Stargate SG-1 has a complete and energetic crew of Exposition People, ready to service your every plot related need. We have:
  • Samantha Carter, for technological and astronomical info;
  • Daniel Jackson, for historical, linguistic and cultural info;
  • In the earlier seasons, Teal'c for Goa'uld and Jaffa info;
  • And of course we have Jack O'Neill, for all your smart-to-layman translation needs.
  • Colonel Mitchell even got in on this, excitedly describing the relevant bits of previous missions when similar situations arise. The in-universe explanation is that he read all of SG-1's mission reports while he was in the hospital recovering from an injury acquired while saving SG-1's asses in the Season 7 finale. This is most definitely for the audience's benefit since the people he's usually talking to — Teal'c, Sam, and Daniel — were all actually there for those missions.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • Data was the main choice for any Technobabble plot exposition, although really nearly any character on the various Star Trek shows was at some time forced into that role.
  • Once she had been added to the show, Guinan became the mouth through which the writers often introduced backstory information, i.e. about the Q, the Borg, etc.
  • Usually, Data and Geordi did technical exposition, Worf what another ship is about to do/is doing/did, and Troi the emotional state or motives of whatever grouchy alien they ran into that week. In Real Life, exposition to the CO is what each section is supposed to be doing.
  • Subverted with Data sometimes in that for a long time, Data did not know when it was appropriate (or not) to do the infodumpage.
  • Data lampshades this in the second part of the very first episode, While reminding the crew of something they should already know, he interrupts himself to say "I'm sorry, sir — I seem to be commenting on everything."
  • Avoided entirely with Troi because her empathetic suggestions were universally uselessly vague. (e.g. "Troi, can you tell why they might be shooting laser death missiles at us?" "I sense... Pain. Pain... and anger.")
• In Star Trek: The Original Series, Spock the Omnidisciplinary Scientist usually filled this role — including much knowledge about history. In the fourth movie The Voyage Home, he's aware of the "colorful metaphors" used on 20th-century Earth.
  • One exchange in the episode "I, Mudd":
    Spock: Whatever method we use to stop them, we must make haste. They have only to install some cybernetic devices aboard the Enterprise, and they'll be able to leave orbit.
    McCoy: How do you know so much?
    Spock: I asked them.
    McCoy: ... Oh.
  • In the episode "Balance of Terror", Spock gives an infodump about the history of the long-ago war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire and the current situation between the two governments.
• All the Supernatural characters have been this at some point, although recently it's been mostly Bobby being the sensible one (most notably, Tall Tales and Dream a Little Dream of Me) and doing the explaining.
• In Switched, Ukon is an "expert" on the red moon phenomenon. She keeps track of the moon's phases and how the "unique terrain" affects the phenomenon. She is the person who explains the Ayumi what has happened to her, as well as the fact that she cannot merely undo the switch by killing herself in front of Umine.
• Lois Habiba in Torchwood: Children of Earth. The series attracted many viewers who were unfamiliar with the previous two series, and Lois served to explain the origins of the Torchwood Institute to these new viewers.
• Trailer Park Boys: The character of Sara on the Canadian comedy series served this function in the early seasons, explaining many of the goings-on in the trailer park and putting things into context for the audience. Her doing this was justified by the series being framed as a documentary filmed by a camera crew following the main characters around, so it only made sense that the documentary crew would try and find a way to explain things to the audience.
• CJ Cregg, the White House press secretary on The West Wing. She patiently reports every single piece of news, including those with not the slightest connection to the US Government.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway?:
  Colin Mochrie: Finally, I caught up with you! I'm a mob hitman... They call me Jimmy the Exposition.

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