Unknown Rival / Live-Action TV

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• Back in 2006, the rivalry between 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had an element of this, with 30 Rock being the unknown one. Funny how that worked out. See this advertisement, for example.
• Angel:
  • Although Angel knows precisely who Lindsey is, he doesn't take him very seriously as a threat during the show's final season, while Lindsey sees himself as Angel's archrival. They eventually team up against a bigger threat, and in the end, when Lorne shoots Lindsey on Angel's orders, the only thing Lindsey's angry about is that he apparently wasn't important enough for Angel to kill personally, which was simultaneously a little sad and deeply, hilariously pathetic.
  • Subverted with Sahjhan in Season 3 who wants revenge against Angel, who has no idea who he is. In Season 5 it's revealed Sahjhan really just wanted to keep Connor from killing him in the future, which he does.
  • Played for Laughs in "Harm's Way". Someone has set Harmony up for murder, and eventually, it turns out to be...some other vampire chick who works at Wolfram and Hart. Apparently, she's ticked that Harmony got the job she wanted just because Harmony already knew the boss.
• On A.P. Bio, Jack is obsessed with destroying Miles Leonard, the man who got the coveted Harvard job Jack had long wanted. In a phone conversation, it becomes clear Miles has absolutely no idea Jack hates him this much and even considers them friends while the series revolves around Jack's plans for "revenge."
• Arrested Development The Bluths and Stan Sitwell.
• Arrow:
  • The fourth season has Oliver discovering that many of the threats he's been facing over the years were secretly the work of Damien Darkh and HIVE who are upset the Arrow has spoiled their plans but never made themselves known.
• Not quite unknown, but in The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon spends a good deal of mental energy seething against his "arch-rival" Wil Wheaton. Wheaton, for his part, just laughs off Sheldon's challenges and easily defeats him whenever they come into contact. Lampshaded when Sheldon finds a new target for his wrath.
  Sheldon: You've already signed something for me, Brent Spiner. Your name on my list. From this moment on you are my mortal enemy!
  Wil Wheaton: Don't worry, it doesn't take up a whole lotta your time.
• While this type of dynamic isn’t uncommon on Reality TV, a notable example of it was on Big Brother Season 23. The houseguest Azah clearly viewed Hannah as her biggest rival and really didn’t want her in the game, notably sending her home the one time she got power despite this significantly lowering her own chances of winning (as it left the all-male alliance with the two biggest competition threats fully intact in the endgame). Meanwhile Hannah actually liked Azah a lot and wanted to bring her to the final two after losing her ally Tiffany, and seemed confused and heartbroken by Azah’s decision to target her, only finding out just how much Azah didn’t like her after the game was already over.
• Blackadder: In the first season, Prince Harry is too thickheaded to see Prince Edmund's (who is also very thickheaded) very obvious attempts to one-up him and become the heir of the throne. Heck once Edmund became the Archbishop as part of the also obvious political machinations of their father, Harry being mindblowingly religious starts treating Edmund as if he was the Chosen One and asking him for spiritual guidance.
  • Played with in the fourth season as Baron von Richtofen believes himself the Worthy Opponent to Flasheart, talking of their epic rivalry and assuming they'll have a conversation of mutual respect before a duel of honor. Sadly for the Baron, Flasheart just sees him as another German to shoot.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • The Trio start out this way. They gradually are noticed more and more, culminating in Warren's accidental killing of Tara. That got the Scoobies' attention. Specifically, Willow's. Is Warren taken seriously as a villain? Yep. Is he alive? Not so much.
  • And then there was Harmony who no-one took seriously at first. She eventually got the gang's attention... well for a moment, but once Buffy saved Dawn, Buffy completely forgot about her. Harmony continued to think Buffy was after her though, even asking Spike to harbor her. Harmony even hid in a coffin when Buffy came to Spike's crypt once thinking that Buffy had found her and was going to kill her. Buffy was actually there to question Spike as usual and had no idea Harmony was even still around.
• The final season of Chuck has Nicolas Quinn. He's got a major vendetta against Chuck and the rest of Team Bartowski — and none of them knew he even existed until about halfway through the season. Why's he so pissed off at them? Well, he was the CIA's first candidate for the Intersect...until Bryce Larkin showed up. Afterwards, he went rogue and became a freelance mercenary, only for Chuck and company to take down all of his employers (FULCRUM, The Ring, and Volkoff Industries) one after the other.
• Cobra Kai:
  • Miguel Diaz and Robby Keene actually start out as these to each other. Robby resents Miguel initially because his father, Johnny Lawrence has ended up forging a father-son bond with Miguel while he walked out of his life on day one. Miguel, on the other hand, thinks his girlfriend Samantha LaRusso (whose father Daniel beat Johnny in the 1984 All-Valley) assumes Sam is stepping out of him with Robby (in reality Robby simply started hanging out with the LaRussos to get back at his dad, because he hates Daniel, but then Daniel eventually took him under his wing and started teaching him karate). Subverted by the end of Season 1, where the two finally come face to face and end up becoming actual rivals to each other, much like Daniel and Johnny.
  • A straighter example would be Hawk and Robby. Hawk absolutely hates Robby for insulting his mohawk at the All-Valley and kicking Miguel off the balcony, and is disturbed when Robby joins Cobra Kai and quickly gains Kreese's favor as the top student. Robby on the other hand, doesn't take him seriously, given his reserved hatred for Johnny and Miguel, as well as his far superior skill as a fighter. However by season 4, they actually do become legitimate rivals to each other after Hawk intimidates Robby's Morality Pet, Kenny, and this later gets intensified when Robby has his Cobra Kais gang up on Hawk and forcibly shave his mohawk. As a matter of fact, this later reaches its peak when they both face each other in the All-Valley Boys' Final, to which Eli wins in Sudden Death.
  • Robby manages to become one to his own dad. Robby clearly resents Johnny for abandoning him all these years before the events of the series, even when Johnny expresses a desire to change for the better. As a matter of fact, for all the times Robby has hated his dad, it has never been reciprocated, and it clearly shows when they actually both get into a physical confrontation at the Reseda Cobra Kai dojo (with Robby now a student under Kreese) — to which Johnny easily annihilates Robby in combat despite refusing to fight him.
  • Kenny Payne eventually becomes this to Hawk and Robby (mind you, his former mentor). Hawk, being the reigning All-Valley boys' champion, sees Kenny as nothing more than a Miles Gloriosus who is way out of the former's league when it comes to combat skill — explicitly shown when he can't even land a hit to him in the waterpark. Though it's also worth noting that they do eventually face off in the Sekai-Taikai qualifier to which Kenny wins (albeit through an unfair advantage from another ref bribed by Silver, using an illegal move to injure Hawk, as well as Hawk going a little too easy on him). As for Robby, while Kenny outright starts hating him after the former defects from Cobra Kai and eventually mentors Anthony, Robby has nothing but sadness as to what Kenny has become under Silver, even refusing to fight him in the Final Battle at Silver's dojo.
  • In season 5, Mike Barnes' immense hatred for Terry Silver is clearly justified, as the latter goes all the way to burn down his furniture store simply because he was helping Daniel expose him. While Silver does acknowledge his presence, he doesn't actually take him seriously even when Barnes dares himself to fight him, reserving more of his resentment for Johnny, Chozen, and Daniel.
• On The Colbert Report the following exchange takes place:
  Colbert: Ted Nugent has condemned your generation as lazy and apathetic. Your response?
  NYU Student: Who's Ted Nugent?
• Community:
  • Dr. Rich gained one in Jeff due to his Nice Guy persona and gifted ability at pottery.
  • Jeff and the Black Rider during Season 2's Paintball Episode(s).
  • This extends to Real Life where Community views itself and Glee as Dueling Shows. They make fun of them and its fans constantly bash Glee. Glee has never mentioned Community once and its fans seem unaware of the rivalry entirely.
• Deus Salve O Rei: Lucrézia absolutely loathes Catarina because Rodolfo, the former's husband nurtures a crush on the latter, despite being married himself and Catarina not really caring about his affections one way or the other, so she looks down on both Rodolfo and Lucrézia.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Ramsay Snow/Bolton was this initially with Jon Snow. Before becoming Warden of the North, Ramsay was rather interested in Jon Snow, who didn't even know much about Ramsay beyond being a Bolton bastard son. Ramsay mentions Jon Snow to his father, citing that despite his bastardry, Jon is still a Stark and is a threat to their rule. Later, he tells Sansa (whose eyes light up upon hearing this) that her half-brother Jon Snow has become Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, citing this as proof that bastard children can rise high in the world. Locke, the man he sent to assassinate Jon, gets it even worse; he's killed off by a third party before Jon realizes he isn't a friend and leaves so little impression everyone immediately forgets he existed.
  • Joffrey absolutely despised Robb Stark. While Robb in return wants to kill Joffrey, he considers Tywin to be his true threat. Fitting form, Joffrey considers Robb Stark's death his greatest victory even though he didn't play any role in it.
  • Viserys Targaryen to Robert Baratheon. When Robert hears that Daenerys is pregnant, he goes berserk and calls for her assassination, but when giving the order, he throws out "and that fool Viserys" almost as an afterthought. Viserys, however, saw Robert ("the Usurper") as his Arch-Nemesis.
  • Oberyn Martell to Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane. Oberyn has spent 15 years planning to kill Clegane for killing his sister and her children on the orders of Tywin Lannister. Clegane? He doesn't even seem to know him. Responding with "Some dead man" when Oberyn asks if he knows who he is. He barely even seems to recall the murder at first, only remembering the details right before he pops Oberyn's head like a grape.
• The Good Place: At one point, a visual list of Eleanor's shames, quirks, and other embarrassments is brought up. Among many other things, Eleanor has a one-sided rivalry with Barefoot Contessa and Princess Jasmine, while Neil Degrasse Tyson apparently has a one-sided rivalry with her.
• Happens a couple of times on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
  • In "The Gang Reignites the Rivalry," the gang are eager to reignite their "heated feud" with a rival bar that ended after a ten-year ban from flipping cups. They march over to mock the owner, Art Sloan, who got them banned a decade ago. Sloan is now a successful restaurant owner, barely even remembers them, and has far more important things to do than waste time on some stupid contest.
  • The 13th season premiere has the gang working on plans with new hire Cindy to get more customers. She comes up with a plan to shut down Murphy's, the bar around the corner. Cindy is thrown to realize that not only do the gang not know Murphy's does five times more business than Paddy's but they don't even know this bar exists.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Nico Saiba built her entire pro-gaming career around getting revenge for when she lost a match to then champion M, her first and only defeat. Her plans were significantly complicated by M retiring from gaming to pursue a medical career and completely forgetting about her until a while later after she barged in to settle the score in present.
• In the cold open for "Appa's Lump" in Kim's Convenience, Enrique, one of Mr. Kim's regulars, declares out of nowhere that he is ending his boycott of the titular store and is willing to bury the hatchet with a hug. Mr. Kim is just as befuddled as the audience.
• Leverage: In Season 3, the team is recruited/blackmailed into going after Damien Moreau, a financier of several criminal organizations who also used to be Eliot's boss. While the heroes continue their crusade against the rich and corrupt who prey on the poor and vulnerable, they also take on cases that allow them to make a few dents in Moreau's operation. Moreau is largely unaware of the Leverage team's existence until he confronts Nate in the penultimate episode of the season.
  Moreau: Who are you?!
  Nate: You know how it feels like you're being poked by a stick over these last six months or so? I'm that stick.
• Lost: Danny Pickett immediately takes a dislike to Sawyer when he's assigned to guard him and Kate while the two are prisoners of the Others and forced to work on their runway, which only grows when he blames Sawyer for his wife Colleen's death at the hands of Sun, even though Sawyer was still imprisoned at the time and had nothing to do with it. For his part, Sawyer doesn't think of Pickett as anything more than a Mook for the Others and is baffled as to why the man hates him so much.
• Love and Destiny: Tian Lei Zhen Jun sees himself as Jiu Chen's rival. Jiu Chen barely acknowledges Tian Lei Zhen Jun at all, except when he attacked Ling Xi.
• Mad Men:
  • Ted Chaough (pronounced like "Shaw") declares himself the rival to Don Draper. Don had never even heard of the man when they first meet, although Chaough's challenge leads Don to do some things to prove who's the better adman.
  • When Ken Cosgrove gets a short story of his published in a national magazine, Pete Campbell jealously attempts to get a story of his own published, even coercing his wife into meeting with an ex-boyfriend of hers who's a publisher. When Ken and Pete are named joint heads of accounts, Pete resents having to share the position, while Ken seems perfectly happy to share. Then when Roger and Don approach Pete about starting a new agency, Pete asks if they approached Ken with the opportunity first.
• Mad TV took quite a few shots at Saturday Night Live, but the only time SNL ever even referenced MADtv was a Weekend Update bit where Seth Meyers made a joke referencing his brother Josh being a cast member on that show.
• Merlin (2008):
  • An interesting example is Nimueh. Though she is a formidable opponent, most of her evil plans are done from a distance, and Prince Arthur never discovers who she truly is after she pulls a Decoy Damsel on him. She interacts only once with King Uther (who would be her major foe) but then dies in the season finale without any sort of confrontation with either Uther or Arthur. In fact, it's unclear whether they even know that she's dead.
  • It happens again with Morgana. As of the end of Series 4, Arthur has no idea that Morgana killed Uther, resurrected Lancelot, enchanted Guinevere to cheat on Arthur, or brainwashed Merlin into trying to kill Arthur.
  • A Love Triangle variation occurs when Princess Mithian arrives at Camelot in the hopes of marrying Arthur. At this stage Guinevere is in exile, and although Mithian eventually tumbles to the idea that Arthur isn't interested because of another woman (asking "who is it that trumps a princess?" and "what great family does she come from?"), Guinevere never learns of Mithian's existence at all. Mithian does return in Series 5, but it's unclear in Gwen knows that Mithian was Arthur's former fiancee or if she just thinks of Mithian as a political ally that Arthur feels duty-bound to help.
• Mighty Med: In the first season, Kaz and Oliver are unaware of Wallace and Clyde secretly being supervillains out to destroy the hospital, especially the fact they're two halves of the most powerful supervillain Catastrophe. They realize by the season finale.
• Million Yen Women: Shin, who is having trouble getting his novels sold, is established quite early to hate Yuzu Hanaki, Japan's current best-selling author. Later, Ryuichi, a literary critic who loves Yuzu's work and hates Shin's, writes a review praising Yuzu's work and contrasting it to Shin's. After reading the review, Yuzu is shown asking Ryuichi who Shin is, indicating that Shin wasn't even on his radar up to that point.
• A few examples on Once Upon a Time:
  • While Emma knows Regina doesn't like her in the first season, she doesn't know that Regina is the Evil Queen who wants Emma dead (or at least out of town) before Emma finds a way to break the Dark Curse Regina put over Storybrooke.
  • Likewise, Mary Margaret is baffled as to why Regina hates her, not remembering she's Snow White and led a rebellion against the Evil Queen.
  • Zelena was outraged to learn she was Regina's half-sister, convinced the woman had taken the power and glory Zelena should have had which led to Zelena becoming the Wicked Witch of the West. She then works various plots to destroy Regina and prove herself the better. For her part, Regina has absolutely no idea Zelena even exists before finally clashing.
  • The show's seventh season returns to the Season 1 concept as Henry, Jacinda and Roni are unaware they are the Author, Cinderella and Regina and that Victoria is Lady Tremaine who wants to crush them for what they did to her back in the Fairy Tale World.
  • Victoria believed Weaver (aka Rumplestilskin/Gold) was a corrupt cop working for her. In reality, he's playing a long game to take her down. Then he regains his memories and now is really after her.
  • Victoria/Tremaine believes her daughter Drizella is also cursed to think she's modern girl Ivy. She has no idea Drizella/Ivy remembers who she is and is working her own secret plan against her mother.
• The Disney series Pair of Kings has Lanny constantly attempting to kill or at least banish his cousins, Brady and Boz (and later Boomer) so he can become king of their island nation. Not only are his cousins oblivious to his scheming, they treat Lanny as a goofy friend, which just infuriates him more. The only ones who are at least aware are Mason and Mikayla.
• In Power Rangers Wild Force, Jindrax sees himself as having a grand rivalry with Taylor. Taylor... doesn't. After their Enemy Mine moment before Jindrax and his partner Toxica ride off into the sunset, Jindrax expresses regret that their "famous rivalry" is over, and Taylor graciously says "Well, you were a... worthy opponent, I guess."
• In Psych, Detective Carlton Lassiter has been chasing an art thief named Pierre Despereaux for much of his career, always trying to outsmart the criminal he considers his greatest rival. When Despereaux is finally arrested (thanks to Shawn), Carlton gloats at Pierre that he is the victor. Pierre looks at him in confusion and tells him that he has no idea who he is.
• Played with on Revenge as Hamptons "queen" Victoria Grayson rightly views newcomer Emily Thorne as wanting to get into this life. However, Victoria is unaware that Emily is really Amanda Clarke, out to avenge the destruction of her father by ruining the lives of the Graysons and their associates. Often, when something bad happens to the family, Emily has managed to hide her tracks so Victoria thinks someone else was behind the scheming. The few times Victoria is suspicious of Emily, she thinks the woman is simply trying to worm her way into the Grayson fortune, unaware Emily's entire goal is to bring them down.
• In the sixth season of Rizzoli & Isles Jane finds herself being stalked by someone who sets fire to her apartment, sends threatening messages and arranges for Maura's abduction. It turns out to be Alice Sands, a former classmate of Jane's from the police academy who had long been used to coming in first thanks to her demanding father but ended up always behind Jane in training. When Jane graduated top of the class, the woman's father basically disowned her and her life went downhill, all of which she's blamed on Jane, who's amazed as she never even knew the woman in the academy and didn't know they were "competing." When Alice is arrested, she launches into a major speech on how she was always in Jane's shadow and grew to hate the woman. Jane flatly tells her, "You know what I remember about you from the academy? Nothing." Despite that, Alice still seems to consider her and Jane as major enemies.
• Towards the end of the first season of Rome, Boisterous Bruiser Titus Pullo has turned to working as a thug for hire after leaving the Roman Legion, and performs a killing for hire, only to have an emotional breakdown soon afterward, at which point he is captured. When Octavian pleads with Julius Caesar to help Pullo, Caesar responds that he can't because the man that Pullo killed was apparently a vocal critic of Caesar and people are already speculating that Caesar was involved, (Pullo having been a soldier in a Legion that Caesar once commanded, after all) and if he goes to aid Pullo his political opponents will take it as confirmation that Caesar really was behind the whole thing. When asked if Caesar was involving in killing his critic, Caesar archly responds "I did not know the man existed until he no longer did." Subverted at the end of the episode, when Caesar's loyal servant Posca goes to Pullo's underworld boss with a bag of coins and tells the boss not to use veterans for their jobs in the future.
• Saturday Night Live The 2015-2016 Saturday Night Live season has a sketch where Kyle Mooney declares it his life's mission to displace Kanye West as the greatest rapper of all time and his plans to beat him in a rap battle. The punchline is that at the end of the sketch, Kanye is entirely unaware Kyle is challenging him to a battle.
• On Shameless (US), Frank meets Faye, an attractive rich woman and follows her to her mansion. Faye ties Frank up and demands he tell her how he told the cops back in 1993 that Faye's fiancee was his crack dealer, sending him to jail for a crime that never even happened. But Faye's revenge is marred by how Frank is such a massive drunk/addict that even when shown videotape of the trial, he can't recall any of this.
  Frank: Do you have any idea how many millions of brain cells I've destroyed since the '90s? I'm so sober right now, I can't even make anything up!
• In an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, local doctor Julian Bashir discovers that the valedictorian of his class is coming to the station. While he doesn't exactly consider her a 'rival', he is rather shocked to find she doesn't even recognize him. This is eventually subverted when she reveals that whoever pointed out the salutatorian to her accidentally pointed to a random Andorian Julian had been talking to at the time; in other words, she did respect Bashir but just didn't know what he looked like.
• Star Trek: Picard: In Season 3, a mysterious woman named Vadic is hellbent on getting revenge on Picard and all his friends, saying she will make them and everyone they love suffer. They have no idea who she is and what her grievance with them is. It turns out that they had never met her before. Her grievance is that she is a Changeling whose race has been persecuted by the Federation, and she's just looking for someone to blame.
• In his first appearance on The Suite Life on Deck, Bailey's ex-boyfriend Moose is entirely unaware that Cody a) has feelings for her and b) sees him as a romantic rival. Throughout the episode he is kind to Cody, doing things such as thanking him for trying to make Bailey feel less homesick and being reluctant to arm wrestle him for fear of injuring him. Cody, on the other hand, continually tries to show him up to impress Bailey, only to fail at every event, which Moose sees as fun competition.
• Suits:
  • Harvey Specter is a star lawyer in one of the top law firms in New York City. He represents scores of famous athletes helps close billion dollar deals. During one case he runs into Travis who proclaims himself Harvey's rival and vows to crush Harvey. Harvey never heard of the guy before and is hardly intimidated by this 'rivalry'. Sure enough, whenever Harvey and Trevor face off against each other in a legal case, Harvey wins.
  • In Season 7, Harvey and Mike face off against a young up and coming attorney on a case. The man snaps on how he's finally going to show up Harvey and the man is intimidated by him. When Harvey states he has no idea who the guy is, the attorney stares at him and then snorts as he realizes Harvey is serious. He then relates how he and Harvey worked together at the district attorney's office for three years and he was the one doing serious work while Harvey just did flashy stuff. Donna, of course, remembers the guy quite well, warning Harvey the man is out to show him up and Harvey is thrown how he could inspire hate from a guy without even knowing it.
• The Arch-Enemy of the Thunderbirds and Big Bad of the whole series is The Hood, an international terrorist, saboteur and Diabolical Mastermind bent on stealing the secrets of International Rescue for his own nefarious aims, to which end he is more than willing to engineer disasters and endanger thousands of innocent lives in order to lure them into a trap; on top of this, he's the older brother of their butler Kyrano and the Evil Uncle of their sidekick Tin-Tin, and can use Mind Control to manipulate and torment the former for his evil ends...and despite all of this, International Rescue is barely aware that he even exists, and even in the later episodes the closest they get is realizing that "someone" who uses disguises is out to get them.
• Played with in V.I.P. when a noted Russian-trained assassin is after one of the firm's targets. Tasha, the former KGB agent, talks of how she's fought with this woman several times and they have an intense rivalry going. The killer is defeated thanks to Val (who's only posing as a bodyguard when she's really a goofy Valley Girl) and Tasha informs the killer she's beaten. To her shock, the killer says she's never met Tasha before but "you have beaten me once more, Valerie Irons." Apparently, the woman's pride and ego leads her to believe a "world-class bodyguard" like Valerie must be someone she tangled with before. She's led away as Tasha vainly tries to explain that she's the woman's rival, not Val.

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