Double Meaning Title / Live-Action TV

Double-Meaning Titles in live-action TV.

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• The 2point4 Children episode "We'd Like to Know a Little More About You For Our Files" is about Bill's suspicions that David is seeing a Mrs. Robinson (and the punchline is that he's actually performing in a stage version of The Graduate ... and may or may not be having a relationship with his drama teacher), so the title appropriately references the Simon & Garfunkel song. But the focus on Bill's concern that she doesn't know where her son is spending his time, which leads to her following him and reading his Secret Diary, mean that the title also works entirely literally.
• 15/Love: The perfect title for a show about teens at a tennis-focused private school. New Tricks simultaneously explains one double meaning and then adds another one on top of it: "Love means nothing in tennis".
• Andor: The title of the episode "The Axe Forgets" comes from the proverb "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers," which is said in the episode.
  • It can refer to how the Empire hurt so many people, including the team members, without blinking an eye, and how the individual resentments that arose from this helped give rise to the Rebellion.
  • It can also refer to how Syril continues obsessing over Cassian for ruining his life while Cassian probably doesn't even know who he is.
• Angel has:
  • "A Hole In The World", which refers to The Deeper Well and Fred's death
  • "The Price", which refers to the consequences of using powerful magic and the loss of a team member (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce).
  • "Deep Down", which refers to both Connor's hidden motivations and agenda, and to Angel literally being buried deep down at the bottom of the ocean.
  • "Disharmony": There's "disharmony", or disagreement, between Angel himself and the rest of Angel Investigations, and Harmony Kendall, who was first introduced in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, makes her first appearance in the Angel universe. Additionally, Harmony's presence ends up causing further friction between the main characters, and it turns out she's a comically bad singer.
• Arrested Development is about a land developer who is arrested, and whose children suffer, in some way or another, from arrested development in the psychological sense. They also live in the demo house of a housing development that has been put on hold — arrested, as it were.
  • One episode had an in-universe example with the song "Big Yellow Joint", which was written in the 1960s about the Bluth family's banana stand, when it was still a popular hippie hangout spot. Two meanings of the slang term "joint" apply: "joint" as in "business establishment", and "joint" as in "hand-rolled marijuana cigarette" (referencing the giant banana on top of the stand, which the hippies thought looked like a yellow joint).
  • "Top Banana" revolves around Michael trying to prove he's fit to be the company president while using the banana stand as a bargaining chip.
  • "Key Decisions" has Michael trying to decide whether or not to go after Gob's girlfriend while Gob tries to perform an escape from prison trick...using a key.
  • "Charity Drive" revolves around a bachelorette auction for charity as well as Michael finally getting access to Lucille's car and trying to use it to offer Lucille's maid a ride home.
  • "Public Relations" has Michael hire a new public relations agent for the family while dating her publicly.
  • "Justice is Blind" revolves around Michael dating a blind District Attorney. It also serves as foreshadowing for The Reveal that Maggie isn't blind—her dog Justice is.
• The A-Team episode "Trouble Brewing". The two words of the title can mean that trouble is afoot (which it most certainly is); however, the sisters who are the victims of the episode are part of a drink business. Hence, they're having trouble brewing.
• The Big Bang Theory is obviously descriptive that most of the main characters are physicists but it is also the obvious Double Entendre, "The other kind of bang." A further analysis of the show is that the guys social life is expanding from a previously very narrow circle.
• The Bill episode "Identity Theft": the B-plot is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, they put a stop to a series of identity thefts. The A-plot is about a woman who's been engaged in increasingly wild behaviour because she thinks her life as a wife and mother has "stolen" the person she used to be.
• Several episodes of Breaking Bad have them:
  • "Phoenix" is a reference to Jane's birthplace, the name of the Mars Lander shown on TV, a reference to the Birth-Death Juxtaposition of Holly's birth and Jane's death, and a Cross Referenced Title with "ABQ".
  • "737", "Down", and "Over" all have pretty obvious meanings in their individual stories; "737" features Walt setting himself a goal of $737,000, "Down" features Jesse at his lowest point after getting evicted by his parents, and "Over" features Walt seemingly being cured of his cancer. But combined with the title of the season finale "ABQ", they also form the complete message "737 Down Over ABQ", foreshadowing the events of the finale, where Walt's actions cause a horrific plane collision over Albuquerque.
  • "I See You" is a reference to Leonel recognizing Walt and attempting to kill him, but also a play on the hospital term "ICU" (where much of the episode takes place).
  • "Open House" has Jesse's open-house party and Marie's open-house viewings.
  • "Shotgun" has Jesse riding shotgun for Mike, and being threatened with one by a stick-up guy.
  • "Face-Off" has Gus' conflicts with both Walt and Tio Salamanca coming to a head, and it ends with Gus getting half of his face blown off by a bomb.
  • "Buried" refers to both Walt burying his money at the To'hajiilee reservation, and Declan's buried meth lab, in which Lydia takes shelter while Declan's crew is massacred.
  • "Rabid Dog" makes an explicit parallel between Jesse Pinkman and Old Yeller... but also shows Hank continuing to act outside police protocol and betraying a more ruthless streak than we've seen from him before.
  • The series finale "Felina" has a doozy. It's a reference to Marty Robbins' song "El Paso" (the song playing on Walt's car radio in the opening scene), which is about a cowboy who dies in the arms of his lover, Felina, after being gunned down by his enemies. But it's also an anagram of "Finale", and a sly reference to the chemical formula "FeLiNa" ("Iron, Lithium and Sodium", which can be seen as shorthand for "Blood, Meth and Tears").
• The show The Brittas Empire:
  • "Blind Devotion" refers both to the fact that Colin will follow any of Brittas' orders without question, and also to the fact that he has been blinded for the episode but is still following orders and at work anyway.
  • The episode title "The Last Day" references both the fact that's it's the titular Gordon Brittas' last day as the leisure centre manager (before he heads to Brussels) and that it's also his last day alive (even if only briefly).
• The sitcom Brotherly Love features a man who comes home to help raise his brothers after their father dies. The show takes place in Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love."
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Who is "Seeing Red"?
    • Is it Tara, who's back together with her red-headed girlfriend?
    • Is it Warren, who's so angry at Buffy that he shoots her with a gun?
    • At the end of the episode we find out that it's Willow, who is so full of rage and magic that her eyes literally turn red.
  • "Bad Eggs" refers to both Villains of the Week — the Gorch brothers (who were mass murderers even before they were vampires) and, more literally, the parasitic eggs that take over the school.
  • "Flooded" refers to Buffy being overwhelmed with adult responsibilities, one of which is literal flooding in her basement.
  • "Helpless" refers to the loss of Buffy's powers leaving her unable to defend herself, but also to the fact that she is required to face the Cruciamentum alone, with no help from anyone.
  • "Chosen" refers to the creation of multiple "Chosen Ones", but also to the fact that this allows (as Buffy says) for each new Slayer to actively choose whether or not she wants to participate in the fight against evil.
  • Subverted with "Earshot", which uses its titles to contribute to its third-act-twist. It refers to Buffy's telepathic powers letting her overhear everyone's thoughts (including someone thinking "This time tomorrow you'll all be dead!") and seems like it will be a reference to Jonathan shooting up the school when he's seen assembling a rifle in a clock tower, until it is revealed that he's only planning on killing himself, and the real would-be mass-murderer is a lunch lady with a big box of rat poison.
• The Nickelodeon series Caitlin's Way refers to both the title character's way of doing things^note In other words, there's the "right" way, the "wrong" way, and "Caitlin's" way., as well as her "way" through life as she tries to make use of the second chance she was given (she had just been kicked out of Catholic school, and moves in with relatives as an alternative to juvenile hall). The episode "Caitlin's Trust" refers to both Caitlin questioning whether or not she can trust the Lowes after learning they were receiving government checks for letting her live with them and the trust fund they opened in her name, which they've been depositing those checks in.
• Castle:
  • The episode "3xK", is about a serial killer called the "Triple Killer." The killer gets his name because he usually kills three women at a time. The title can also refer to the the fact that there are three people involved in the murders.
  • "The Double Down" invokes both Castle's running bet that he and Beckett can solve their case before Ryan and Esposito solve theirs, and the later discovery that the two cases are connected due to the fact that the two suspects swapped murders.
  • "Hunt" refers both to Castle's hunt to save Alexis, and to "Jackson Hunt", the assumed name of the man who aids Castle in rescuing her. Who happens to also be his father.
• Chuck frequently combines this with Idiosyncratic Episode Naming and the occasional Pun-Based Title. For example, "Chuck Versus the Ring" refers not only to Ellie's wedding to Devon, but also the first appearance of third season Big Bad "The Ring".
• The Coupling episode "Split" is about Susan and Steve splitting up, and their simultaneous storylines are shown in Split Screen.
• Crashing: Pete's life is crashing down around him, so he's crashing on comedians' couches.
• CSI:
  • "Bad Words" is an episode in which one corpse was a woman found dead in a suspected arson with the word BITCH burnt into her floorboards and the other was a competitive Scrabble player who was killed for his method of using "bad words" (i.e. ones that are not tournament legal) to gain unfair advantage.
  • "Suckers" also refers to both plots of the episode. One involves a series of decoy crimes to conceal a more elaborate con ("a sucker born every minute"); the other involves vampire fetishists ("bloodsuckers").
  • "Fracked" most obviously refers to "fracking," a means of collecting natural gas which is central to the episode. However, the characters also note that the word kinda sounds like a curse (and Katee Sackhoff appears in the episode to drive that point home). Given that the episode ends with the killer himself mysteriously dead before the team can find a link to his bosses, the investigation can be considered well and truly fracked.
  • "Alter Boys" features two twin former altar boys as suspects, who end being mistaken for one another.
  • "Grave Danger" puts Nick in serious trouble... by burying him alive.
• The Daredevil (2015) episode "Cut Man" starts with a flashback to a young Matt stitching up his father's face after he endures a particularly nasty fight. That's the boxing definition: as the "cut man" is a medic who gives boxers quick first aid so that a fight can continue. Then there's a later scene involving Matt torturing a Russian for information by cutting his face with a knife, which provides the alternate meaning.
• An unintended one: On Freeview TV (Great Britain), Channel 39, one of myriad QVC-style shopping channels, advertises a weekly show as DIES WITH SUE WILSON. You need to tune in to discover it's about using decorative stamps and ink-pads for creative craft — a "die" in the sense of a pre-formed stamp with raised detail that captures the ink, so as to leave a pretty pattern on the paper when firmly pressed against it. But that title....
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Twin Dilemma": Anyone who has watched it will think of Romulus and Remus when hearing the title, but anyone who knows it as "the first Sixth Doctor episode" will think of regeneration and his mood swings.
  • "The Ultimate Foe": while all versions could refer to the Valeyard, "ultimate" could be taken to mean "greatest" (in which case it could also mean the Master, who does show up in the serial), or to just mean the Valeyard being revealed as the prime mover in the Trial of a Time Lord plot. Also, "ultimate" can mean "final", and the Valeyard is the Doctor's Enemy Without spawned from their final regeneration.
  • "Last of the Time Lords": At the beginning, it applies to the Master, who has spent a year ruling Earth as the last Time Lord (with the Doctor out of commission) when the episode starts. At the end, when the Master chooses to let himself die to force the Doctor to live with the anguish of being the Last of His Kind, it applies to the Doctor.
  • "Turn Left" describes an alternate timeline caused by Donna turning her car right rather than left at a junction, meaning she never meets the Doctor, and her attempts to restore the correct timeline where she turns left. Since in this timeline Britain gets a fascist government, it means that Donna is also trying to "turn left" in the political sense.
  • "The Eleventh Hour": It's the Eleventh Doctor's first episode, it's an hour long, and it's a reference to the common idiom meaning "at the last second" or "in the nick of time".
  • "The Big Bang" refers either to the Doctor rebooting the universe ("Big Bang 2" he calls it) or, as Steven Moffat suggested, to Amy and Rory's wedding night.
  • "A Good Man Goes to War": At first blush, it seems to be describing the Doctor, especially since the first several minutes of the episode find him amassing an army. However, he later claims that he is NOT a good man, making the title a reference to Rory instead.
  • "The God Complex" could refer to the mysterious hotel that was constructed as a prison for a minotaur alien that was once worshiped as a deity, or the Doctor's Chronic Hero Syndrome.
  • "The Power of Three" is about a series of synthetic black cubes spontaneously appearing all over Earth, but also about Amy and Rory trying to settle into normal lives without the Doctor, and the Doctor trying to get used to adventuring without them. The title can be taken as an allusion to the mathematical operation of bringing a number to the third power (i.e. cubing it), or to Amy, Rory and the Doctor's character dynamic as a Power Trio.
  • "Cold War" is set at the height of the Cold War, and is about finding an Ice Warrior in the Arctic.
  • "The Name of the Doctor" refers to the Doctor's true name (a major plot point in the episode), but also to the sworn moral code that his chosen name represents. The latter meaning doesn't become obvious until the Title Drop in the last scene, where the Doctor meets the War Doctor: one of his past incarnations, who broke that moral code.
    The War Doctor: What I did, I did without choice.
    The Doctor: I know.
    The War Doctor: In the name of peace and sanity.
    The Doctor: But not in the name of the Doctor.
  • "Flatline" refers to people dying and the two-dimensional nature of the monsters that kill them.
  • "The Pilot" is the name of the episode's antagonist, an alien determined to chase its designated "passenger" across all time and space. The title also refers to how the episode, and Series 10 as a whole, are designed to be a Jumping-On Point.
  • "The Woman Who Fell to Earth": Early in the episode, the Doctor falls to Earth from the TARDIS. At the episode's climax, Grace, Ryan's grandmother and Graham's wife, falls to Earth from a crane after destroying the alien data coil.
  • "Demons of the Punjab": At first, this seems to refer to the Thijarians, aliens in scary-looking black armor who are referred to as "demons" by humans who have seen them. By the end of the story, it is evident that the real demons are the sectarian hatreds aggravated by the partition of India.
  • "Kerblam!" is, firstly, the MegaCorp whose warehouse the Doctor and company infiltrate. Secondly, it's how the company's missing employees have been murdered, via explosive bubble wrap.
  • "Resolution" refers to Aaron's New Year's resolution to reunite with his estranged son, and the villain's resolution to try and conquer the Earth. It could also refer to Lin and Mitch resolving to act on their feelings for each other. Finally, given the episode's villain, it could be a reference to "Resurrection/Revelation/Remembrance of the Daleks".
• Dog with a Blog: The Season 2 premiere "Too Short" deals with Avery complaining she's the smallest of her friends when they have a growth spurt over the summer, and Tyler afraid to show his new Important Haircut.
• Elementary:
  • Ep 3: "Child Predator". Holmes is after a serial killer who targets children. The killer is a child who is the predator.
  • Ep 12: "M." neatly sums up all the different forces intruding on Holmes and Watson's lives: M. Holmes, Sherlock's father; the serial killer "M", whose real name is Sebastian Moran; and Moran's boss, Moriarty.
  • First season finale is called "Heroine". Heroin is the drug to which Sherlock got addicted after Irene Adler's death by Moriarty. However, the other meaning refers to Joan Watson. She is able to deduce Moriarty's weakness and sets a trap for the criminal where Sherlock failed, something Sherlock notes to his nemesis who had previously dismissed Joan as a mascot and beneath concern.
  • Season 2 Ep 23: "Art in the Blood". The story centres around a tattoo artist, but the title is also a quote from the original stories, in which Holmes refers to the fact his brother Mycroft shares his detective gifts, a fact that in Elementary continuity he only learns in this episode.
  • Season 3 Ep 14: "The Female of the Species". The story is about the theft of two female zebras, and the reveal that they were being used as surrogate wombs for an extinct species related to zebras. The episode opens with Joan's boyfriend being killed by a female mob boss she put away at the start of the season and ends with said mob boss herself being killed by Jamie Moriarty.
  • Season 7 Ep 10: "The Latest Model". The investigation is the murder of a model, in a manner superficially similar to a murder from many years earlier. Meanwhile, Sherlock trying to convince Odin Reichenbach that his method of taking out potential murderers based on their browser history is flawed, and urging him to find a new model.
• The Eureka episode "Crossing Over" is about objects crossing over from one time to another. It's also a Crossover with Warehouse 13.
• Fellow Travelers: The episode title "White Nights" refers to both the White Night riots and Hawkins Fuller and his friends snorting cocaine while partying at night on Fire Island.
• Fuller House: The title is a play on the previous show that focused on Danny Tanner, his brother-in-law Jesse and childhood friend Joey helping Danny raise his three daughters DJ, Stephanie and Michelle under one roof, making it a "full house". The premise here shifts to D.J., Stephanie and D.J.'s friend Kimmy, now all adults, helping to raise D.J.'s three boys as well as Kimmy's daughter in the original Tanner house making it slightly fuller than before. "Fuller" is also the surname of D.J.'s late husband, thus making the Tanner house now the "Fuller House".
• Many episodes of Game of Thrones have double-meaning titles:
  • Season One:
    • "A Golden Crown": Joffrey and his siblings' blond hair, which is the catalyst of the episode's major revelation and the molten gold used to crown Viserys.
    • "Fire and Blood": The words of House Targaryen, along with the dragon hatching ritual.
  • Season Two:
    • "A Man Without Honor": Theon, Ygritte or Jaime.
    • "The Prince of Winterfell": Theon or Brandon.
  • Season Three:
    • "Kissed By Fire": The Hound endures a Trial by Combat that also invokes Trial By Fire. Red-heads like Ygritte are called "Kissed by fire" by the Wildlings.
    • "The Climb": The Wildlings climbing the literal Wall and Littlefinger, the Tyrells etc climbing the metaphorical ladder.
    • "The Bear and the Maiden Fair": The folk song and Brienne's fight with a literal bear. This episode also focuses on several couples (i.e. Jon and Ygritte, Robb and Talisa, Jaime and Brienne, giving a third meaning.
    • "Second Sons": The mercenary group, and The Hound, Stannis, Tyrion and Samwell (in this case, the "lesser" son who was pushed aside in favour of his younger brother), all of whom are second sons, as well as Gendry, who — as an unacknowledged, largely unknown Baratheon bastard son —- is a secondary son of King Robert.
  • Season Four:
    • "Two Swords": The two swords forged from Ice, the Starks losing Ice but gaining Needle, and The Hound and Arya's relationship.
    • "The Children": The Children of the Forest; the Stark children (Jon, Bran, and Arya) having prospects which look good for once; the Lannister children (Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion) defying their father; and Daenerys putting her "children" in chains. Coincidentally, the episode first aired on Father's Day.
  • Season Five:
    • "The Sons of the Harpy": At first it's a straight up Antagonist Team Title concerning the group that is causing problems for Daenerys. In retrospect, this episode not only also focuses on Jon, but has the most blatant Foreshadowings of his real relationship with Rhaegar Targaryen, who we also happen to learn in this episode that loves playing the harp.
    • "Kill the Boy" refers to Maester Aemon's speech to Jon about growing into his adult responsibilities as Lord Commander ("Kill the boy and let the man be born!"), but it also subtly alludes to the Night's Watch plotting Jon's murder.
  • Season Six:
    • "Home": Several characters on their way (i.e. Sansa, Theon) or actually coming back (i.e. Daenerys, Euron, Bran via vision) home and Jon coming back to life.
    • "Oathbreaker": The Night's Watch members who mutinied and killed Jon being hanged, House Umber betraying the Starks, Jon deserting the Night's Watch (though technically he did not violate the rules).
    • "The Door": Characters entering new chapters in their lives, the literal way out of the Three-Eyed Raven's keep and Hodor, which actually means "hold(ing) the (said) door".
    • "Blood of My Blood": The term used between a Dohtraki khal and his bloodriders and a lot of focus on certain characters' relationship with their extended family members.
    • "The Broken Man": The return of the nearly killed Sandor Clegane and certain characters (i.e. Edmure, Theon and Jon) dealing with their respective trauma.
  • Season Seven: "The Dragon and the Wolf": We finally see Rhaegar and Lyanna getting married, get 100% confirmation that Jon is their child and that his name is Aegon Targaryen, and Jon consummates his relationship with Daenerys.
• Get Smart is a partial Character Title for CONTROL Agent Maxwell Smart a.k.a. Agent 86 (an Ironic Name, as Max, while intelligent, often comes off as a bumbling, incompetent fool). The title can either be read as 1) a declaration that, if the world needs saving, get Agent Smart on the case; 2) an imperative statement to Max to "get smart" or "wise up" to pull it off; or 3) the way the villains always use it, as in "take Smart out" or "kill Smart."
• Glee has several episode titles with multiple meanings.
  • Season 3's "Props", which refers to both the use of props during New Directions' Nationals performance and to Tina's subplot, in which she is fed of going unnoticed and being a living prop.
  • The season 4 opener, "The New Rachel", refers to both the election of New Directions' new lead soloist, called the "New Rachel", in the Lima plot, and to Rachel reinventing herself in the New York plot.
  • Season 5 has "Movin' Out" (a Billy Joel tribute episode that also focuses on certain characters facing their future after graduation), "Puppet Master" (referring to Blaine's controlling behavior and the use of actual puppets during the episode), "New Directions" (focused on the end of the Glee club, the graduation of its senior members, and serves as the last episode before the full-time move to New York) and "Tested" (as in relationships being put to the test as well as certain characters being tested for STDs).
• Invoked on Girls5eva. Dawn's song for the group, "Four Stars", has two meanings. There are four of them in the girl group, and the title refers to being less than perfect (ie. four out of five stars).
• Grace Under Fire, the sitcom about a divorced single mother, and Saving Grace, about a policewoman whose soul needs to be saved by a guardian angel. And yes, both women are named Grace.
• Grass: Identical to the below, right down to the pun. But funnier.
• The Green Green Grass: City Mouse moved to the countryside for his own protection after informing (or 'grassing') on some criminals.
• Haven:
  • "Harmony" refers to a person with a Magic Music ability and areas of the town being thrown into chaos when their sanity and insanity are inverted.
  • "Sketchy" refers to a person with an Art Initiates Life ability and a person involved in shady business dealings.
  • "Ain't No Sunshine" refers to a Living Shadow, a blind man's depression over the death of his wife, the blind man's final fate to be secluded in darkness indefinitely, and Nathan's depression when Jess breaks up with him.
  • "Fear & Loathing" refers to a girl with an I Know What You Fear ability who hates it, and a man who hates all the townspeople and wants the power to destroy and be feared by them.
  • "Roots" refers to some killer trees and a look into some characters' family histories.
  • "Friend or Faux" refers to the heroes dealing with a man and his homicidal duplicate, and the heroes finding that they are being conspired against by some of their supposed friends and co-workers.
  • "301" refers to the episode being episode 1 of season 3 (meaning #301 in production order), and plot 301 in the cemetery.
  • "Stay" refers to the Monster of the Week being a bunch of transformed dogs, and the revelation that Audrey will eventually vanish for 27 years (and is thus unable to stay).
  • "The Farmer" refers to a killer who harvests people's organs and a killer who skins people and collects the skins.
  • "Over My Head" refers to various ocean-related deaths, Nathan potentially endangering himself by trying to infiltrate The Guard, and Audrey seemingly not ready to recover her lost memories.
  • "Burned" refers to burned dead bodies being found, a little girl thinking her father abandoned her, and Nathan dumping Jordan.
  • "Reunion" refers to a high school reunion and the return of Audrey's long lost son and daughter-in-law.
  • "Thanks For The Memories" refers to several characters being shown memories of the past, and Audrey saying farewell to everybody.
  • "Fallout" refers to the aftermath of a meteor shower that bombarded the town and the consequences of Nathan's mistakes. Duke also literally falls out of The Barn.
  • "Survivors" refers to the Survivor Guilt suffered by a man who survived the meteor shower, and people slowly realizing Audrey is still alive.
  • "Bad Blood" refers to a man with a Bloody Murder ability and the hatred and animosity between several characters.
  • "Lost and Found" refers to the heroes' efforts to find missing children, their efforts to find the missing Audrey, and Lexie's efforts to find who she is and where she belongs.
  • "The New Girl" refers to two girls who are new in town, Jennifer Mason and Lexie DeWitt, and Wade moving on from his cheating wife and going out with Jordan.
  • "Countdown" refers to a literal countdown people are experiencing before they get Taken for Granite, and the heroes running out of time before their ruse is exposed.
  • "Lay Me Down" refers to people being killed in their dreams (similar to the poem "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep"), and Duke being forced to kill his psychotic brother and "put him to rest".
  • "Crush" refers to areas of the town being subjected to high pressure and crushed, and Nathan and Audrey's attraction to each other.
  • "Shot in the Dark" refers to the film crew of the Show Within a Show Darkside Seekers, who mostly operate at night, and various characters having to take a leap of faith.
  • "See No Evil" refers to a curse based on the Monkey Morality Pose that causes people to spontaneously get their eyes, ears, and mouths sewn shut, and the villainous Mara mocking several characters for not being able to see the truth like she can.
  • "Speak No Evil" refers to the curse from the previous episode "See No Evil", Duke in utter denial when people tell him his girlfriend Jennifer is dead, and several characters leaving others Locked Out of the Loop.
• Hell's Kitchen is the name of the L.A. restaurant owned and operated by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay where aspiring chefs compete for a top position at one of Ramsay's restaurants. However, it also alludes to the massive duress and Training from Hell contestants endure under Ramsay's scrutiny namely during a dinner service where he's in his Hair-Trigger Temper/Mean Boss mode. With all the tension among contestants and Ramsey, one idea could be that if Hell had a kitchen, this would be it. You could also say it's because the kitchen can get "hot as hell" with the tons of food cooking.
• Home Improvement, a sitcom about family man who hosts a home improvement show, refers to both the physical improvement of houses and the improvement of one's family life.
• Hot Ones features interviewer Sean Evans asking celebrity guests sometimes deep and personal ("hot") questions as they feast on chicken wings doused in increasingly hot and spicy sauces.
• The iCarly episode "iGot a Hot Room" refers to the episode conflict, where Spencer accidentally sets Carly's bedroom on fire, and the resolution, where Carly's bedroom gets an awesome (figuratively "hot") makeover.
• On The Inside Man, the "Masquerade" episode refers to the fact that the office is holding a masquerade party, but also that Mark is putting on a masquerade and is secretly there to steal information, though he's beginning to have second thoughts about this.
• In From the Cold's finale title, "Motherland" could refer to Svetlana being revealed to be Anya's mother or Anya being revealed to still be working for Russia.
• Just Shoot Me!, a sitcom about a woman who ends up with a miserable job at a fashion magazine ('shoot' being a synonym for 'taking a picture').
• In Kamen Rider OOO, "OOO" is pronounced like "oh's", with "oh" being the Japanese word for "king" (early publicity material made reference to a "Multi-King"); it also sounds like "owes", referencing how he steals coin-like Medals from the villains to power his abilities, and pays part of them to the Big Good; "OOO" visually resembles the set of three Medals that he uses to transform; and it also resembles the infinity symbol with an extra loop, which is claimed within the series to mean a step beyond infinity.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit usually has episode titles with double or even triple meanings. This is sort of impressive, when you consider that all episodes since the second season have had one-word titles.
  • One of the most impressive examples is "Sick", a one-word adjective title that applies to five different characters — a manchild who sleeps with children, a boy who was molested by said manchild and acts out twisted fantasies, the father who bullies said boy into silence in exchange for hush money, a girl who's physically sick with leukemia which actually turns out to be mercury poisoning, and the grandmother who's poisoning said girl to garner sympathy for herself.
  • “Selfish” also applies to three of its episode’s characters: the Casey Anthony analogue who was more interested in partying than caring for her baby daughter (but didn’t kill her); the mother of the boy who got the baby sick who refuses to vaccinate the boy but doesn’t take any alternate precautions either; and the baby’s grandmother, who’d rather sue and eventually even fight everyone else than help her family move on.
  • The other Law & Order shows do this as well.
• The Leverage episode "The Bottle Job" is a Bottle Episode. They also describe the con they're running as "The Wire in a bottle". Finally, it's the episode where Nate falls Off the Wagon.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: In Elvish Sindarin, Udûn, the title of the episode 1x06, means "dark pit" or "hell", but is another name for Utumno, the first dark fortress of Morgoth.
• A number of Lost episode titles employ this. For instance, "Recon" could be short for "reconnaissance," or it could mean "con again." Also, the title of the series refers to the characters being spiritually as well as literally lost.
• The "Mad" in Mad Men can be a pun on ad men, which is what the main characters are; short for Madison Avenue, where the show takes place; or it may refer to the madcap existence of the cast.
  • The episode "5G" features a character (Don's long-lost stepbrother Adam) staying in room 5G of a hotel, who is offered $5,000 (five grand, or five G's) to disappear.
• Malcolm in the Middle: Malcolm is the middle child at home (even though, for the first three seasons, he's actually the third of four children) - but is also caught between his family and the Krelboynes, not fitting well into either environment.
• Manifest does this with its Idiosyncratic Episode Naming. Every episode is named for term used in aviation that also references the episode's events. E.g. "Pilot" is the first episode, "Reentry" has the passengers trying to get back to their lives after missing five years, "Unclaimed Baggage" has them dealing with relationships that have moved on without them, etc. Even "Manifest" itself refers to both the list of passengers on the plane and the idea of something unknown becoming evident, like the passengers' visions and the overall Myth Arc.
• Many of the episode titles for The Middle have these, often crossing plotlines too:
  • Season 7's "The Rush" refers to the Rush events where the students seek to interact with each other and join sororities or fraternities. It also refers to Sue desperately trying to make up for all the time she lost struggling to make friends in that one night.
  • Season 8's "Hoosier Maid" refers to the maid that Frankie wins free service from for a month and also refers to the fact that she has to keep switching them out because each one shows some kind of incompatibility with the house. In other words, the title becomes "Who's Your Maid." In a very subtle way, both the fact that Axl and his roommates don't clean up after their messes in their Winnebago to the point that they're secretly staying in the strict temporary housing with Sue and her roommate Lexie and that when they're all eventually thrown out, it helps Axl and his guys to accept their living arrangements as they are and for Sue and Lexie to move into the apartment they considered getting. Also, Axl's actions indirectly lead to this so in other words, he's their maid. Also, in some way or another by the end, everyone realizes that when it comes to whatever they call home, they have it "made".
  • "Swing and a Miss" refers to the plotline of the trials Mike and his company's softball team face and to Lexie's failed attempt to get Axl interested in her during Spring Break amidst puffed up hair, a rash and an allergic reaction. Also by the end, it refers to Axl's attempt to reciprocate Lexie's feelings when he finds out from Sue, but runs into his ex-girlfriend Devin before he can do so.
  • "Exes and Ohhhs": Refers to Axl encountering his ex-girlfriends at one party and taking it as needing to figure out what exactly went wrong with each of them. Also refers to him realizing that he can't hold on to his dying relationship with April anymore and needs to end it. In terms of another plotline, refers to Sue realizing that if she has feelings for Sean Donahue, she needs to admit them to him.
  • "The Par-tay": Refers to Brick wanting to attend a college party instead of doing any of the stuff he normally does when he goes to visit Axl. Also refers to the fact that it was during a party that Axl was unsuccessful in reciprocating Lexie's feelings for him and in the aftermath of another party that Axl does actually kiss Lexie and they experience their Relationship Upgrade.
  • "The Confirmation": Refers to Brick needing to get his long overdue Confirmation, the "confirming" of the switch at birth to the kid who didn't even realize he and Brick had ever been switched and Brick "confirming" that despite circumstances, he's happy with the family he was born to and has lived with. In terms of the B plot, it refers to Axl, after the stress of secretly dating Lexie gets to him revealing the truth to Sue and Brad and thus "confirming" Axl and Lexie as being together.
  • The show itself, about a middle-class family living in middle-America, primarily told from the POV of a middle-aged mom.
• Midsomer Murders: "Bantling Boy" is both the name of the racehorse seemingly at the centre of the murders, but also describes the murderer Peter Craxton and the motive for the killings, as Barnaby realises just before the denouement when he discovers that 'bantling' is an archaic term for 'bastard'.
• Mr. Young: Refers to both the main character Adam Young and to the fact that as a 14-year-old genius, he's surprisingly "young" as a high school Science teacher.
• The Murder, She Wrote episode "The Grand Old Lady" is about a murder on the Queen Mary ocean liner in the forties, which a titled English mystery writer helps to solve. Near the start, Lady Abigail calls the ship "a grand old lady", and at the end Jessica uses the phrase to describe Lady Abigail herself.
• The Murdoch Mysteries episode "What Lies Buried" is about a body literally found buried under the station house, with the resultant investigation unearthing many secrets about the station personnel.
• The Other Kingdom's title can naturally refer to the fact that there's a second kingdom away from the magical land of Athenia, but the more subtle meaning of the title is that said kingdom's inhabitants are referred to as "others" by the Athenians and Astral's journey to the human world is about her getting to properly learn about humanity's nature.
• Pointless: Besides the usual meaning of the term, the idea is to get a low score by finding answers literally worth no points.
• Press Gang: About a group of children who run a school newspaper, some of whom have been forced into doing the job as punishment for misbehaviour. The original treatment played on the pun even more, with two warring school gangs being forced to work together. However, this was toned down to two occasionally-sparring characters for the final show.
• Psych is the name of Shawn Spencer's detective agency, which is itself a double meaning that's explained in the first episode: he's a psychic detective, but he's not actually psychic and is just tricking everyone. Psyche!
• The "Really" part of The Really Loud House refers to the fact that it's a Live-Action Adaptation of The Loud House, and emphasizes the chaos of the titular family's lifestyle.
• The Japanese Super Sentai series Rescue Sentai GoGoFive might be one of the most multi-layered titles ever. It's official name in Japanese is KyuuKyuu Sentai GoGo 5. KyuuKyuu is Japanese for "Rescue" (they were a team of rescue workers), however Kyuu is also the number 9, making it "99" (the year is was made.) At the same time, "Go" is the number 5, making GoGo Five "555," which is the number for emergency aid (similar to 911.) Also, "kyuukyuu" is the onomatopoeia for an ambulance's siren.
• The Sandbaggers: The title of "A Special Relationship", the season 1 finale, refers both to the "special relationship" between the American and British intelligence services and the growing relationship between Neal Burnside and Laura Dickens.
• Scènes de ménages: In French, a "scène de ménage" is an expression designating a fight — or shouting match — between a couple. The opening credits play on this by showing all the characters throwing various household items at each other. However in the series proper, although they can happen such fights are quite rare, thus making the title non-colloquial: it is mostly about ordinary, slice-of-life scenes between couples.
• Scrubs, a Work Com that sometimes dips into dramedy territory about medical interns ("scrubs" referring to the clothing doctors wear on the job, as well as a slang term for new and inexperienced people). It has nothing to do with the Scrub trope, however.
• Sherlock: "The Reichenbach Fall" refers to both Sherlock's fall from glory as the 'Reichenbach Hero' when Moriarty turns both the press and the police force against him, and the literal fall he takes at the end of the episode to fake his death. It also echoes the Reichenbach Falls, the site where Holmes' final confrontation with Moriarty took place in the original novels.
• Shine a Light:
  • "The Great Relief" both refers to the arrival of relief lighthouseman Lionel Parrott, and the fact that it is a great relief for Wally and Les to get some time away from each other.
  • "The Chips are Down" both refers to the serious situation Wally and Les are in (running out of food) and the fact that their chip supply is literally down.
• The Smoke is about firefighters in London ("the Smoke" is a nickname for the city).
• The Sopranos:
  • "Boca" (Spanish for "Mouth") revolves around Uncle Junior's relationship with his mistress in Boca Raton, Florida, but it also involves a sensitive bit of word-of-mouth gossip that Tony exploits to damage Junior's reputation. For the hat trick: the gossip involves Junior's willingness to give his mistress oral sex, which is seen as unmanly in the Mafia.
  • "Eloise", the penultimate episode of Season 4, includes a pivotal scene where Meadow and Carmella have brunch at the Plaza Hotel under the famous painting of the eponymous character of Eloise at the Plaza. More subtly, though, the title alludes to Carmella's dissatisfaction in her marriage and to the Unresolved Sexual Tension between her and Furio, which evokes the tragic love affair of Abelard and Heloise. The latter meaning is made clearer in the following season, when Carmella takes an interest in the letters of Abelard and Heloise shortly after separating from Tony.
  • "Rat Pack", which can refer to the famous Rat Pack from the 60s, a picture of which Tony receives as a present, though the same episode also focused on the FBI's multiple informants within the Mafia, making them a "rat pack" too.
• Star Trek
  • Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Galileo Seven", which refers not only to the shuttlecraft, but the seven people aboard her. This reference was sadly missed by the writers of Star Trek: Enterprise when naming the episode "Shuttlepod One".
  • Most episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "It's Only A Paper Moon". Nog becomes a Shell-Shocked Veteran and refuses to leave the holosuite, running the Vic Fontaine program constantly. The episode title is one of the swing standards sung by Vic, but also reflects Nog retreating into an unreal world. There was also the episode "Defiant," the name of the ship assigned to DS9, which was stolen by Tom Riker (Will's transporter "clone"), who attempts to join the Maquis with her.
  • The Star Trek: Voyager episode "Counterpoint"; it could refer to the classical music that plays (in-universe) through the episode, the interplay between Janeway and Inspector Kashyk, or the pattern they discover to the wormhole appearances.
• A meta-example is found in the Stargate Atlantis episode "Grace Under Pressure". The obvious meaning of the title refers to McKay staying focused and calm while under both the literal pressure of the water over his submerged jumper and the mental pressure of figuring a way out his situation. The title is also a reference to the Stargate SG-1 episode "Grace" where an alone and concussed Sam Carter hallucinates other characters to help her out of a dangerous situation.
• St. Elsewhere: "Hearing" refers to both the struggles of the deaf radiologist Lee Tovan to gain the respect of his supervisor Al Kleckner and Peter White facing a hearing before the Medical Board for improperly dispensing drugs.
• Superstore: "Labor" is about Cheyenne going into labor with her baby, and about the workers of Cloud 9 seeking fair labor standards such as maternity leave, resulting in a union buster - er, "labor relations consultant" - coming in to dissuade them from unionizing.
• Suits: The lawyers are "suits," and they deal with lawsuits. The guys also wear suits, so this would be a triple meaning title, actually.
• S.W.A.T. (2017): "Pride". It indicates both the LGBT+ Pride event that gets targeted, and also Deac's pride that prevents him asking for help with his financial woes.
• Taboo: The title can refer to several taboo acts in which Byronic Hero James Delaney engages, including incest and cannibalism.
• A classic example is the Channel 4 Historical Re-Creation show That'll Teach 'Em. On the one hand, the title implies the obvious nature of the show; sending teens back in time to experience life in a post-war boarding school, but it also gives a rather dark hint of what the teens have let themselves in for...
• Transparent: The family matriarch opens up to her family (becomes more "transparent") that she's a transgender woman (i.e. a trans parent).
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • The episode Time Enough At Last stars Henry Bemis, a man absolutely obsessed with reading but hardly seems to get the chance to do it. His boss, his wife, the entire world seems to conspire against him reading, but considering he does it to the detriment of his marriage and his job, they're not exactly wrong. One day, when Bemis goes down to the bank vault during his lunch break to read and ends up surviving a nuclear attack. As seemingly the last man on Earth, Bemis now has time enough to indulge in his favorite activity... and time enough to mourn the world he'd been shutting it out until it was too late. Especially after his glasses fall off his face and shatter, leaving him unable to read at all.
  • "Printer's Devil" refers to both the Devil (as Mr. Smith) being employed as the reporter and linotype operator of The Dansburg Courier and an old term for a printer's apprentice.
• Two and a Half Men has Alan's hot bimbo ex-wife landing a lead role on "Stiffs", a Forensic Drama with gratuitous fanservice ("Stiff" being a slang term for a corpse and of course a reference to the fanservice).
• The Upper Crusts: The third episode's title, "One Door Opens", refers both to how Lord Seacroft's new job is a metaphorical door opening so he can earn enough to keep his council house, but also refers to how as a doorman, he will be opening doors.
• Vida: "Vida" means "life" in Spanish, though it may also refer to the sisters' mother, Vida, which is short for Vidalia.
• The Walking Dead is used to describe both the zombies and the survivors who have lost themselves but continue on as if living normal lives.
• WandaVision's title can be interpreted in several different ways: as a portmanteau comprising the main characters' names (Wanda Maximoff and Vision), as a nod to the show being a send-up of classic TV sitcoms (Wanda-(tele)vision), and as a reference to Wanda's Reality Warper powers shaping Westview in accordance to her vision.
• Weeds is a sitcom about a marijuana dealing widowed soccer mom in the suburbs. "Weed" is a slang term for marijuana, can also refer to suburban housing developments springing up like weeds, and also refers to "widow's weeds".
• The White Collar episode title "Forging Bonds" refers to both creating fraudulent financial instruments and building interpersonal relationships.
• The Wild Wild West is set during the days of the American Frontier (a.k.a. "The Old West"), but the title might also nod to the daring and adventurous nature of the show's protagonist, James West.
• Will & Grace refers to the main characters names, but both words are also virtues that the main characters may or may not possess.
• The X-Files episode,"Terma" fits. In Buddhism, "Terma" means hidden texts. Chris Carter felt that it symbolized hidden truth. In Russian, "Terma" is a word for "prison", and Mulder and Krychek were held in a Russian prison. In Latin, it means "death".

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