For official couples, proposals work just as well.
A trailer hook that exploits Shipping for all its worth, used mostly in children's shows. This is a much more merciful way to attract attention than Tonight, Someone Dies, though it usually falls victim to one of two problems with trailers:
- Unlike the other trope, where the "someone" can be kept a secret, the couple that kisses here is almost always announced, ruining the effect come air time. The reasoning seems to be: Who's going to watch it unless you show it to them?
- While an impending death promises a drastic change in the status quo, the impending kiss could turn out to be accidental, be All Just a Dream, be an attempt to distract their enemies, happen while the participants are both drunk, or otherwise be still worth nothing at the end of the episode.
Hey, Ain't No Rule that says you can't tease the shippers who haven't learned they should Never Trust a Trailer.
Compare Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss, when a same-sex kiss is used as a ploy to boost ratings.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Pokémon the Series: XY: One of the episodes invoked this trope with its Japanese title: "Ash and Serena's First Date!? The Vow Tree and the Present", along with the leak that Ash and Serena were going shopping without Clemont and Bonnie. The dub title, "Under The Pledging Tree" was more indicative of the episode's actual nature as a Christmas-Surrogate,note with the shopping trip being for presents for their Pokémon. Although there was one legitimate tease regarding an item Ash picked up along the way...
- The trailer for the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid OVA has a shot where it looks like Kobayashi and Tohru are about to kiss. In reality, Kobayashi was telling Tohru to come closer so she could give a drunken rant about her maid outfit. Of course, anyone who had read the relevant chapter of the manga (chapter 10 for those interested) would know the outcome ahead of time.
Films — Live-Action
- Our Miss Brooks, the cinematic finale of the long-running series of the same, features Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton finally getting together. The trailers took appropriate advantage.
- Trailers for the reboot of Star Trek (2009) seemed to imply a steamy, passionate sex scene between Kirk and Uhura; however, all it ended up being was an Academy hook-up between Kirk and an Orion girl, which Kirk didn't even get to consummate.
- A trailer for Batman & Robin showed Robin and Poison Ivy leaning in for a kiss while a voiceover of Bruce warned Dick that Ivy was trying to kill him. Many fans are aware of Ivy's signature Kiss of Death ability, meaning a kiss between her and Robin would mean death for the young hero, and she does use this ability many times in the film. The kiss between her and Robin does happen, but Robin survives thanks to wearing a rubber lip to protect himself from Ivy's poison.
Live-Action TV
- Fans of The Avengers (1960s) who love the palpable Will They or Won't They? tension between Steed and Peel probably are all too thrilled when they pull out their DVD of the episode "Who's Who?" for the first time and see an image of their favorite couple engaged in not just one of Emma's playful pecks, but a full-on sexy makeout session. Trick is "Who's Who" is a body swap episode. Emma and Steed have their minds in the bodies of the villains and are tied up in a warehouse somewhere, while the villains are the ones in Steed's flat, in Steed and Peel's bodies, getting comfy and kissing while they live it up and continue with their evil plot. Of course, since it's just the same sets of actors switching roles, that's STILL Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg full-on frenching each other, so do with that what you will.
- The Big Bang Theory
- In 2014, Channel Nine in Australia promoted "The Table Polaization" as a "kiss aftermath" episode, even referring it as “the television event of the year”. Even if there was a kiss in a prior episode, it could’ve just been for a brief joke.
- Bones:
- The tease for the Christmas episode revealed that Booth and Brennan may kiss (with the camera slow motioning them closer together) which would have ruined the long-awaited moment, but it did NOT explain the conditions of the kiss in which Booth and Brennan were coerced into doing it under the mistletoe by someone else. Though after that nudge they did stay lip-locked for a fair bit longer than the mistletoe dictated.
- Another trailer showed the two actors naked in bed but the situation turned out to be part of a novel written by Dr. Brennan/Booth's hallucination while in a coma.
- A trailer for the hundredth episode in Australia showed both kisses from the episode, one of which was a flashback, the other in which Brennan cuts it off – but of course they didn't show this. In the US, they just showed them leaning in.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- The promo for "Something Blue" showed Buffy and Spike kissing due to "something stronger than fate" while quickly glossing over Willow accidentally casting a spell on them.
- The promo for "Tabula Rasa" had a shot of Anya kissing Giles - without a single hint that this was an Amnesia Episode where all the main characters forget who they are.
- Castle had a pic of the kiss from "Knockdown" doing rounds in every media 7 weeks before the airing.
- A CSI promo teased fans of Grissom and Sara by calling them by their fandom name, calling it "The moment GSR fans have been waiting for".
- Doctor Who did this in its season trailers for (new) seasons two through six, with a different companion each time. It's a good lesson in why you should Never Trust a Trailer. Rose was possessed, the Doctor snogged Martha as part of a plan to distract the Judoon, Donna was giving his system a "shock", and Amy was trying to have Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex which he was emphatically uninterested in. River was the only trailer-kiss that turned out to be completely genuine.
- The very last scene of the very last episode of Gilmore Girls shows Luke and Lorelei kissing, which would have been the touching resolution to the suspenseful season-long Will They or Won't They? arc. Except that they'd been showing it in the previews for weeks.
- Glee:
- The show did this for Season 2 episode "Blame It On The Alcohol". It ended up being between Blaine, who is gay, and Rachel while they were very drunk. Blaine spent the episode questioning his sexuality, but in the end he was gay all along.
- Surprisingly, they did not do it for the famous Kurt/Blaine kiss in "Original Song," which undoubtedly contributed to the maniacal excitement that followed.
- The Season 4 episode "I Do" teased fans with hookups between popular broken-up couples Finn and Rachel and Kurt and Blaine (the latter of which actually got a couple kisses in the episode), as well as between Santana (an out lesbian) and her best friend Quinn (who is straight, but has a very large gay following).
- The season two finale of The Good Wife featured a long-awaited hookup between Alicia and Will. Would've been a delightful surprise — except that the trailer for the episode had already spoiled the Elevator Going Down.
- Twisted horribly, like most tropes, in Hannibal. The trailer for "Futamono" showed Alana in bed with Hannibal Lecter, who is still believed innocent by almost all of the characters, triggering a fandom-wide case of Bile Fascination.
- House had one of these trailers during Season 5. Clip here.
It was, indeed, All Just A Hallucination.
- iCarly: Trailers teased a potential kiss between Sam and Freddie for the episode "iTwins". "iSaved Your Life" didn't bother teasing a potential Carly/Freddie, and showing them actually kissing. Also done that way with Griffin and Carly for "iDate a Bad Boy". Melanie and Freddie in "iTwins" showed their kiss, but teased the idea that Melanie was fake and didn't exist and that Freddie was actually kissing Sam.
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: A strange sort of anti-Ship Tease, as it showed Elliot kissing someone else besides Olivia, but the relationship never went anywhere.
- Previews for Lost's fourth season finale showed Sawyer and Kate about to kiss, and the writers promised a major kiss. However, the Sawyer/Kate kiss was only one of two; the major kiss turned out to be Desmond and Penny.
- Make It or Break It had this with a couple of episodes in its second season, notably the episode "Rock Bottom" where Payson, at the peak of her crush, kisses her coach Sasha.
- The Grand Finale of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: As if no one could see the Last Minute Hook Up coming from two seasons away.
- Nickelodeon advertised "Kisses and Misses Night" one Valentine's Day, a stream of new episodes of various shows, all of which fitted this trope.
- Promo materials (including the trailer and a still photo) for a Season 3 Once Upon a Time episode play this trope for all it's worth, highlighting a kiss between Hook and Emma, much to the delight of the pairing's fanbase.
- Skins:
- In every promo for Naomi's episode in series three, the scene of Cook and Naomi making out was played up as though they were going to have sex. Needless to say, they didn't—but Naomi and Emily did end up having sex.
- And then there's the aftermath of Emily's S4 episode, which left Naomi and Emily's relationship in serious trouble; the preview for the next episode, Cook's, showed Naomi and Cook making out again. It was an entirely platonic between friends thing and was immediately followed by a Ship Sinking.
- The teaser for the Stargate SG-1 episode "Grace". The kiss turns out to be an Indulgent Fantasy Segue within a hallucination.
- The X-Files:
- The promos for "Triangle" played up a Mulder/Scully kiss, though in reality, the kiss was between Mulder and a hallucinated past version of Scully, not Scully herself. When Mulder and Scully do kiss for the first time, in "Millennium", the kiss is never mentioned in the promos at all.
- Trailers for the first film tease the audience with a shot implying that Mulder and Scully kiss, though in the movie, they get interrupted just before lips touch.
Visual Novels
- Lovestruck previews the CGs from upcoming episodes on a schedule banner two to three days before the episodes in question are released. In the first season or two of a route when the romance is still in the buildup stage, this means that the preview banner invariably spoils the first kiss of the route... although if the characters aren't shown actually locking lips, it's just as likely to turn out to be an Almost Kiss to further prolong the Unresolved Sexual Tension.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender loves this:
- Sokka and Yue in the penultimate episode of Season 1
- Aang and Katara in the Season 2 Locked in a Room episode
- Zuko and Mai in the official preview for Season 3
- Sokka and Suki in the trailer for "The Boiling Rock"
- The series' Grand Finale trailer shows the staff are still up to their old tricks and that, unsurprisingly, the shippers still haven't learned their lesson.
- And the PR department strikes with no mercy for The Legend of Korra by doing this with Korra and Mako.
- In Danny Phantom, the exact same thing can be said for Danny and Sam.
- An episode of Drawn Together was advertised like this, but it's meaningless anyway, as characters kiss and have sex with each other all the time.
- The Fairly OddParents! "Wishology" trilogy promos featured Trixie, in a wedding dress, about to kiss Timmy. Naturally, this sent two reactions through the fanbase: one hoping it was All Just a Dream, and the other hoping for a Relationship Upgrade. As it turns out, said scene was a dream, but by then they had kissed for real the previous night.
- The School Play episode of Hey Arnold!: At least they were honest about the circumstances.
- The original Grand Finale movie of Kim Possible, So the Drama, had a Last-Minute Hookup between Kim and Ron. It would have been more poignant had Disney Channel not been advertising the seconds leading up to the kiss for several weeks at that point.
- Parodied on an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart laments missing the episode of Itchy & Scratchy where "they finally kiss."
- Total Drama World Tour pretty much revealed every kiss in the season in one of the first previews. One significant one is the reveal of Gwen and Duncan's kiss.
