Basic Trope: A reveal, usually late in the story, that the strange planet it all took place on was actually Earth itself.
- Straight: The alien space captain K'Thaag and her alien bretheren are stranded on a strange planet devoid of intelligent life. Eventually they figure out it is Earth, and that they landed long after humanity went extinct.
- Exaggerated: Not only does the story take place on Earth, K'Thaag and her people turn out to have been Human All Along.
- Downplayed:
- K'Thaag and her bretheren had crashlanded, and could not be 100 percent sure they had landed on Earth due to faulty scanners, but in the end they prove that it has to be Earth after all.
- K'Thaag and her bretheren crash land on a planet that appears to be a wasteland devoid of intelligent life. It's revealed to be Earth when the Statue of Liberty is seen poking out from the ruins... but humans as a species are still alive and kicking; only New York got destroyed.
- Justified: K'Thaag's people had a different name for the planet than humans do, and did not have the equipment to do archeology work in an unfamiliar enviroment until late in the story.
- Inverted: A group of humans always refer to the planet they live on as Earth. Turns out later that it is actually a terraformed Mars, or a planet in another solar system altogether.
- Subverted: The planet K'Thaag and her crew lands on looks awfully familiar to Earth, but it eventually turns out the story takes place in a different solar system than ours (Alpha Centauri, for instance).
- Double Subverted: The planet they did land on got colonised by humans thousands of years ago, who then wiped themselves off of the planet before K'Thaag arrived, setting up the same Green Aesop as if it actually had been Earth all along.
- Parodied: From the moment a human astronaut lands it is glaringly obvious that he is on Earth, but he fails to make the connection even as he stumbles across the Statue of Liberty, the CN Tower, and the Great Pyramid of Giza. He finally clues in when he finds his favorite beverage and acts like it's a big shocking reveal.
- Zig-Zagged: The planet turns out to be Earth when K'thaag seems to find iconic landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and the Great Pyramid of Giza... only to reveal that it's actually a planet-wide theme park based on history and culture from Earth, complete with replicas of iconic landmarks.
- Averted: The planet is never revealed to be Earth; it just happens to look similar enough that there are reasons for and against that theory.
- Enforced: The creators of the series don't have a big enough budget to actually create sets that look like a distant planet, so they record scenes out in the open and justify any buildings left in the background of shots by claiming they are "ruins" from before humanity went extinct.
- Lampshaded: "Didn't there use to be a species called humans who lived here?"
- Invoked: K'Thaag's ship is not capable of FTL flight, so she sets the autopilot to Mars before going into cryosleep. Another crew member pursuing their own agenda tampers with these instructions before going to sleep themselves. Neither of them realise they ended up on the wrong planet until some time has passed.
- Defied: (Continuing from Invoked:) K'Thaag wakes up and gets over her cryosleep grogginess just in time, and manages to avoid the ship landing on Earth at the last minute.
- Discussed: "Oh, so we missed our target and ended up on Sol III instead? What difference does that make to us right now?"
- Conversed: "If her next line is 'You blew it up!' I'm taking a shot."
- Implied: K'Thaag and her crew never find out what they are, but some Earth-like buildings are seen in the ruins.
- Played for Horror: K'Thaag unearths evidence that it was not the humans that caused their own destruction. It was something monstrous which is still lurking somewhere on the planet...
- Played for Drama: Humans went extinct due to a huge war, and the planet is littered with abandoned family photos and toys.
- Played for Laughs: An astronaut lands on Earth but everything he sees that could possibly identify it as Earth is taken out of context. Every familiar landmark is either badly damaged or obscured by something in such a way that it looks like something from an alien planet. He eagerly explores this "alien" world outrageous claims about familiar things and collecting random everyday objects as "alien artifacts." He then eagerly hops back into his ship expressing how excited he is to return to Earth and show everyone his treasures from the "alien planet."
Back to Earth All Along.
