History Main / CliffhangerCopout

** In the season finale, "Lian Yu", [[spoiler:Prometheus has rigged the entire island of Lian Yu with explosives that are set to go off after his death. The island is showered with explosions, and Oliver and his son William are the only ones clear from the blast zones, leaving the fate of everyone else in question.]] Come the following season's premiere [[spoiler:the only casualties of the explosions are William's mother and Oliver's ex, minor character Samantha, while almost everyone else was relatively unharmed, with Thea and Diggle being the only ones to even have any sort of injury.]] Some people have gone on to compare it to ''Series/{{Dynasty}}'''s "Moldavian Massacre" cliffhanger, with both shows even airing the cliffhangers at the end of their respective fifth seasons.

* The "Moldavian Massacre" on ''Series/{{Dynasty}}'' is an (in)famous case of this. At the end of the fifth season, two major characters (Amanda and Prince Michael) get married in a ceremony attended by nearly the entire main cast in the country of Moldavia (an archaic name for Moldova). However, a group of terrorists crash the ceremony and spray the entire audience and newlyweds with bullets, with the final image of the season being everyone lying on the ground motionless. This cliffhanger was done ostensibly so the producers had an out if any cast members wanted to leave. When the show, returned, however, it was revealed that only two minor characters had died. This is often cited as the reason for the show's ratings decline, as it slid from first to seventh place after the conclusion to the cliffhanger was revealed.

* InUniverse: Annie Wilkes of ''Literature/{{Misery}}'' absolutely '''hates''' it when authors do this, telling the story about her favorite cliffhanger serial from when she was a kid, quoted above, to Paul Sheldon after he did a similar thing while writing the manuscript for Annie's personal ''Misery'' novel. Paul had ended the last novel with Misery's burial, so Annie insisted that the new novel would start with a way of getting the heroine out of her grave, fair and square. He eventually comes up with the idea that Misery was NotQuiteDead from a bee-sting allergic reaction and was BuriedAlive, and is quite proud of the idea.

* InUniverse: Annie Wilkes of ''Literature/{{Misery}}'' absolutely hates it when authors do this, telling the story about her favorite cliffhanger serial from when she was a kid, quoted above, to Paul Sheldon after he did a similar thing while writing the manuscript for Annie's personal ''Misery'' novel. Paul had ended the last novel with Misery's burial, so Annie insisted that the new novel would start with a way of getting the heroine out of her grave, fair and square. He eventually comes up with the idea that Misery was NotQuiteDead from a bee-sting allergic reaction and was BuriedAlive, and is quite proud of the idea.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': Season 3 ends with Chloe's house exploding the instant she closes the door upon entering it, but a flashback in the second episode of Season 4 shows her escaping, with the time between closing the door and the explosion miraculously expanding to fit Lex's men getting her to safety.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks "Asylum of the Daleks"]] ends with the Doctor having accidentally wiped himself from the memories and histories of the Daleks, with the implication that this is going to create a whole new dynamic between them. The [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoct next appearance]] of the Daleks reveals that... they've just regained their memories of him off-screen somehow.

* In the two-part Season Two finale of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', Twilight Sparkle and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza (she prefers Cadence) are cornered by a hypnotized trio of bridesmaids and then cuts to commercial. It's quickly revealed later that they easily distracted the bridesmaids by throwing a bouquet at the trio and letting them fight for it while they escaped.

* ''Film/TheBatman'' [[FilmSerial cliffhanger serials]] of the 1940s were very much guilty of this time and time again.

** The episode [[Recap/RWBYV5E7RestAndResolutions "Rest and Resolutions"]] ends with the villains entering a camp with the intent of fighting their way in. When the show returns to this point [[Recap/RWBYV5E9APerfectStorm "A Perfect Storm"]], the villains suddenly just want to talk and there's no mention of any of them ever having drawn weapons.

* ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'' tends to do this from time to time. [[Recap/RWBYV5E7RestAndResolutions Episode ends]] with the villains entering a camp with the intent of fighting their way in? By the time the show focuses [[Recap/RWBYV5E9APerfectStorm back to them]], turns out they just want to talk and there's no mention of one of them drawing weapons. [[Recap/RWBYV7E5Sparks Riots]] and [[Recap/RWBYV7E6ANightOff Grimm]] both get resolved [[Recap/RWBYV7E6ANightOff off]][[Recap/RWBYV7E7WorstCaseScenario screen]] in one Volume, two episodes in a row.

* {{WebAnimation/RWBY}} tends to do this from time to time. [[Recap/RWBYV5E7RestAndResolutions Episode ends]] with the villains entering a camp with the intent of fighting their way in? By the time the show focuses [[Recap/RWBYV5E9APerfectStorm back to them]], turns out they just want to talk and there's no mention of one of them drawing weapons. [[Recap/RWBYV7E5Sparks Riots]] and [[Recap/RWBYV7E6ANightOff Grimm]] both get resolved [[Recap/RWBYV7E6ANightOff off]][[Recap/RWBYV7E7WorstCaseScenario screen]] in one Volume, two episodes in a row.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', where one page ends with the doctor being held at gunpoint by a police officer as he is about to retrieve a missile. Then, in the next page that was published days later, he is driving away in a car with the missile in the back with simply "He is a ninja" as explanation.

** Season 9 ends with Larry being chased by the ayatollah, which is completely ignored in Season 10.

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty''. After Season 2 ended with Rick put into an intergalactic prison, Season 3 starts with him at a Shoney's, saying "And that's how I escaped from space prison!" to his family. However, he then asks Jerry to fold himself 12 times, which he does. It then turns out that Rick hasn't actually escaped yet, and he's been placed in a simulation based on his memories.
** Then played straight at the end of the episode, when the reason he was arrested is retconned to be part of his greater plan.

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': [[spoiler: The Season 2 finale ends, with Megatron and Starscream standing in the ruins of the Autobot base before panning to Optimus Prime's hand, broken and sparking, sticking out of the wreckage, the clear implication being that he's dead. At the start of Season 3, it is revealed that Optimus was still alive albeit heavily damaged, and his rescue from the ruins by Smokescreen is a further copout, as he was last seen going through the Ground Bridge to an unknown location, and he wasn't even the last one to leave the base.]]

* The season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' zig-zags this: [[spoiler: The episode ends, with Megatron and Starscream standing in the ruins of the Autobot base before panning to Optimus Prime's hand, visibly damaged and sparking, sticking out of the wreckage, the clear implication being that he's dead. When season 3 resumed it is revealed that he was still alive albeit heavily damaged and nearly died 4 episodes later. However his rescue from the ruins by Smokescreen is somewhat of a cop out, as he was last seen going through the Ground Bridge to an unknown location, and he isn't even the last one to leave the base.]]

** At the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen "Rise of the Cybermen"]], the Doctor tries to convince the Cybermen who've cornered his group that they're surrendering, only for the Cybermen to ignore this and ominously chant "Delete! Delete!" as the episode ends; when the following episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E6TheAgeOfSteel "The Age of Steel"]] begins, the Doctor suddenly pulls a tool out of nowhere which kills the Cybermen then and there. Because if the Doctor had this tool at his disposal, there was little reason to try and surrender and even less to hesitate for about 10 seconds before killing the enemy; they don't even suggest that he was possibly trying to buy enough time until the tool was fully charged to destroy the Cybermen, which actually ''make sense'' if it's the case. [[JustifiedTrope This is justified by the "tool" actually being the TARDIS's charging power cell, whose use as a weapon started the charging process all over again. For obvious reasons, the Doctor was reluctant to cut off his ultimate escape route.]]

* The second episode of ''Series/TwinPeaks'' ends with Agent Cooper having a dream from which he learns the identity of [[MysteryArc who killed Laura Palmer]]. Cooper immediately wakes up from the dream to call up Sheriff Truman that he knows who the murderer is but teases that the answer could "wait 'till morning." Come the next episode, taking place that following morning, Cooper recaps all the events from the dream that ended with Laura Palmer whispering the name of her killer in his ear. Then, once he's asked who the killer is, Cooper nonchalantly responds "I don't remember."

* Happens fairly often in ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms,'' and is always PlayedForLaughs. The worst offender is probably Chapter 41; Chapter 40 ended with Zhang Fei and Cao Ren facing off for a duel. Chapter 41 begins with Zhang Fei realizing that, due to a continuity error in [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms the original novel]], he should be somewhere else entirely. After [[NoFourthWall consulting the book]], both parties agree to pretend the whole thing never happened.