Uncanny Family Resemblance / Live-Action TV

• Our Miss Brooks: In the episode "The Dream", Miss Brooks has a daughter that looks just like her, while Mr. Conklin has a grandson that looks just like him. A Justified Trope, as it is All Just a Dream
• The Koenig brothers in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., all of whom are played by Patton Oswalt. A Running Gag is that each brother refers to another as "the shorter one". The other Running Gag is that the brothers constantly drop hints they're clones or possibly androids, usually deliberately in order to mess with people.
• In Arrested Development, Andy Richter plays Donnie Richter, a teacher... and also his identical brother Andy himself... and his other three identical brothers Rocky, Emmett, and Chareth (he's apparently one of a set of quintuplets).
  • George and Oscar Bluth look identical (they are both played by Geoffrey Tambor), except the former is bald and the latter has long silver hair. This is very convenient for George, who escapes prison and subsequently avoids being detected by wearing a wig to impersonate his brother.
• All My Children has Lily and Ava, identical half-sisters.
• In 'Allo 'Allo!, Rene is supposed to be shot dead by the Germans but manages to wrangle his way out of it. The explanation? He spends the rest of the series posing as his identical twin brother, also called Rene. Of course half the cast know the truth but they never let slip to the other half.
• In Are You Being Served?, John Inman, who regularly played Mr. Humphries, also portrayed his mother in a film.
• Elizabeth Montgomery as witchy cousins Samantha and Serena on Bewitched. Jeannie and her sister, also named Jeannie, on I Dream of Jeannie was essentially a straight-up lift.
• Blackadder: Each of the four series featured a member of the Blackadder family in a different historical era, all played by Rowan Atkinson. Baldrick, Melchett and George were given the same treatment. Specifically, Edmund Blackadder's Scottish cousin MacAdder appeared in the episode "Duel and Duality".
• In Blake's 7 Tarrant is revealed to have a brother who looked exactly like him for no apparent reason and is killed off in the episode he is introduced in without even meeting Tarrant despite having been separated for years.
• A 1992 Blossom episode during which grandpa Buzz tells Blossom how he met her grandmother Ruby in World War II. In the flashback sequence, Mayim Bialik plays Ruby (a member of the Women's Army Corps) while David Lascher (who plays Blossom's boyfriend Vinny) doubles as a younger Buzz.
• The Brady Bunch:
  • In the episode "Sergeant Emma", Alice goes out of town for a week and has her identical cousin Emma come to fill in for her. Emma is a retired Women's Army Corp sergeant who proceeds to run the Brady household like an Army barracks. Hilarity Ensues.
  • The episode "You're Never Too Old" has Robert Reed and Florence Henderson as Mike and Carol's respective grandparents.
• The Mayor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer exploits this trope the same way as Robert Gadling above. Oddly it seems that he's pretty much always been Mayor and no one ever caught on. Well, demon sacrifices aside he IS a really good Mayor…
• In El Chavo del ocho Doña Florinda is exactly like her niece Popis and Chilindrina is exactly like her great-grandmother Doña Nieves, in both cases played by the same actresses.
• Invoked in Community episode Basic Genealogy:
  Annie: [about Abed's female cousin] Does she look like you but with a wig and lipstick?
  Abed: No, that's Halle Berry.
• In the Dad's Army episode "My Brother and I", Captain Mainwaring's degenerate drunken brother Barry, also played by Arthur Lowe, makes an appearance.
• In the Diagnosis: Murder episode "Inheritance of Death", Dick Van Dyke played most (if not all) of the elderly members of the Nash family.
• A Different World: Jasmine Guy playing Whitley Gilbert and Whitley's cousin Lisa.
• In the Diff'rent Strokes sixth season episode "The Van Drummonds", Conrad Bain plays both Mr. Drummond and his female cousin Anna, while Dana Plato plays Drummond's daughter Kimberly and Anna's son Hans.
• When Earl's sister, Pearl, visited on Dinosaurs, it was played by the same full sized puppet only dressed as a girl. No one really saw the resemblance.
• Doctor Who:
  • Freema Agyeman had a minor role as Cyber-controlled Torchwood employee Adeola Oshodi in "Army of Ghosts". When she was subsequently cast in the following season as Martha Jones, they explained it away by having Martha mention in her first episode that Adeola was her cousin.
  • Also done with Eve Myles, who first appeared in an episode centered around Charles Dickens. Myles was later cast as Gwen Cooper in the spin-off Torchwood. When the members of Torchwood 3 appeared on Doctor Who, it's explained that the earlier character is a distant relative of Gwen's, further influenced by some Timey-Wimey Ball effect that makes them identical.
• In Donkey Hodie, whenever a relative of Purple Panda's is shown, it appears to be the Purple Panda puppet (or an extra Purple Panda puppet) wearing a different outfit.
• Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant comment upon this trope in behind-the-scenes material for Extras, musing on introducing a sister for Gervais' character in the show's sitcom-within-the-sitcom — played by Gervais, with the only difference being an alternate pair of glasses. Indeed, the sister appeared in this manner in the Extras Christmas Special.
• Larry "Grand-Ma-Ma" Johnson, in commercials and in Family Matters. Also in Family Matters, Jaleel White playing Steve Urkel, and his cousin Myrtle.
• In Friends, all of Joey's 7 sisters, while not played by the same actor, had almost identical appearance, hair style (dark and voluminous) and even similar names. This is a plot point in the "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister", when Chandler makes out with one sister and can't figure out which one.
  Chandler: I wasn't sure which one Mary-Angela was. (all of Joey's sisters gasp) Look, I'm sorry okay, I was really drunk, and you all look really similar.
• F Troop has regular appearances by Corporal Agarn's various family members, all very much played for laughs (with accents) by Larry Storch.
• In the early '90s, General Hospital brought back fan favorite Anthony Geary, not as his iconic character Luke Spencer — whom he refused to play if he were not accompanied by the equally legendary Laura — but as Luke's lookalike distant cousin Bill.
• One episode of The Golden Girls had Bea Arthur play her character Dorothy's grandmother in a flashback.
• Good Luck Charlie: A video of Bob from his high school basketball days shows that he looked exactly like his son P.J. does today, only with longer hair.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Lord Rickard Karstark's facial structure is almost a dead ringer for Ned's somber look in his later years (as portrayed by Sean Bean), and his hair is tied up in the same way as Jon Snow's in Season 6. It does tie a lot into how Jon looks more legitimately a Stark despite not being Ned's direct descendant.
  • Tommen grew up to look identical to his first cousin once removed (on both sides, of course) Martyn Lannister in the next season as Chapman had played the small role of Martyn in Season 3 before taking over the role. But given how much incest is in their family, can anyone blame them?
• Thrice on Hannah Montana. Miley Cyrus plays Miley Stewart and her visiting cousin Luann Stewart. At the same time, Billy Ray Cyrus plays both girls' fathers, Robbie Ray and Bobby Ray. In another episode, Moises Arias plays both Rico and Rico's rival Australian cousin, Angus.
• On Haven, Audrey looks eerily like her mom, Lucy, who was in the town in the 80s. Given recent revelations, there may be a reason for that. Audrey is Lucy. She is apparently immortal and has amnesia.
• Played straight on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, where Iolaus had a look-alike cousin in two episodes. Inverted, however, with Kevin Todd Smith playing both Iphicles and Ares. Both are half-brothers to Hercules, but they aren't related to each other.
  • Jodie Rimmer played Lilith on Young Hercules and daughter Seska on Hercules. Lampshaded by Seska referring to her mother as a "wild one" back in the day.
• Ali Larter on Heroes played Nikki Sanders, a hero with super strength and multiple personalities. After Nikki was killed in season two, Larter went on to play Tracy Strauss, who had the ability to freeze objects and who was apparently Nikki's twin sister. There was supposedly a third "twin", Barbara, but she has not been seen and it is unsure whether she has powers.
• On Kyle XY, Kyle is identical to his father Adam and Jessi is identical to her mother Sara, and well-cast adult actors were given to justify this. Both characters could have easily been clones, given the circumstances of their gestations, but each was later given the other biological parent.
• LazyTown: "Robbie's Dream Team": Subverted. Bobby, Tobby, and Flobby all wear the same outfit as Robbie and they do seemingly share the same last name, but any other signs of familial connection are glossed over.
• Le cœur a ses raisons:
  • All three of the Montgomery triplets (two boys and a girl) are played by Marc Labrèche.
  • Played With: Anne Dorval plays both Criquette and Ashley, but the costumes are so different, and her portrayal of each twin is so full of character, that it's actually hard to see that it's the same actress.
• MacGyver (1985): Jack Dalton and his father, Jack Sr., in "Ma Dalton".
• In The Man from U.N.C.L.E. first season episode "The Bow-Wow Affair", series regular Leo G. Carroll played both his regular role as U.N.C.L.E. chief Alexander Waverly, and a one-time role as Waverly's cousin, Quentin Lester Baldwin.
• Married... with Children:
  • Marcy D'Arcy's cousin, Mandy. This is lampshaded by Bud and Peggy, who start discussing this trope:
    Bud: Identical cousins. There's no such thing.
    Peggy: Well, sure there is! Samantha and Serena; Patty and Cathy...
  • Ed O'Neill also played Al Bundy's father in a couple of dream sequences.
• Martin Lawrence in Martin playing his mother. And although not related, Martin looked a lot like his neighbor Shenaenae, Gina's brat neighbor Roscoe, Gina's coworker Bob from Accounting, Otis, Dragonfly Jones, Jerome, and Elroy.
• An unusual one in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Richard Schaal played boyfriend-from-the-past Howard Arnell in an early episode; Howard and Mary had a disastrous date. Then about six months later, Mary starts dating Paul Arnell, Howard's brother, also played by Schaal. They break up after one episode, and about six months after that, Mary encounters Howard again (Schaal again) at a high school reunion event.
• On M*A*S*H, Gary Burghoff once played Radar's mother in a home movie.
• The season 9 episode Dead Letters of Midsomer Murders features two actors returning from the pilot, playing relatives of their original characters (who had been murdered in the pilot). That someone looks much like their sister might not be so strange, but someone looking very much like their cousin (including hairstyle and clothing sense) despite never having met their relative does help to explain why Barnaby is confused by their appearance.
• In the finale of Mighty Med, this is revealed to be why Hapax the Elder looks exactly like Alan, as Hapax is Alan's paternal grandfather.
• Two episodes of Murder, She Wrote featured Emma MacGill, Jessica's identical cousin who was a music hall star in London.
• The Nanny: In "Fran's Roots", the flashback to Fran Fine's childhood has Fran Drescher playing her onscreen mother Sylvia. However, the natural brunette Drescher wears a blonde wig to better resemble Renee Taylor.
• In North and South (U.S.), Madeline's mother was her identical double. The resemblance was so great that a man who had only seen Madeline's photograph recognized her as being the daughter of a woman whose painting was hanging in a whorehouse he had visited some years before. The difference is that the woman in the painting is considerably darker, and Madeline (Lesley-Anne Down) was blackmailed by the man because he knew she was secretly African-American.
• In Outlander, gentle, mild-mannered Frank Randall and his vicious, sadistic 6-times great-grandfather Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall look so much alike as to be played by the same actor (Tobias Menzies). This is even more uncanny when later it is revealed Black Jack is not actually Frank's direct ancestor, but his 6-times great-uncle, since he had married his deceased brother's pregnant sweetheart in order to prevent the baby from growing up as an illegitimate child.
• The Patty Duke Show: Patty Duke has an identical cousin. Somewhat justified since Kathy and Patty Lane's fathers (played by William Schallert) were identical twin brothers.
  • Frequently spoofed. Full House occasionally subverted this by having one of the Olsen twins play Michelle and the other play a cousin from Greece. Joey even sang a line from the theme song of The Patty Duke Show when explaining to the girls why they look so much alike.
  • Similarly, during the mid-1980s, Kids Incorporated had Renee Sands play her character of the same name as well as British cousin Samantha on a couple of episodes.
• In The Persuaders! episode "A Death in the Family", Roger Moore plays three members of his usual character's family, including a woman. This is lampshaded at the end when Danny Wilde's aunt arrives, played by... his co-star Tony Curtis.
• The Pretender: Andrea Parker plays her character's mother in flashbacks throughout the entire series run, and is shown in many old photographs of her during present day scenes. Lampshaded by every character of the week who knew her mother as an adult and meets a grown-up Miss Parker for the first time: "You know, you look just like her!''
• In Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula plays his character's own father (albeit in makeup) in the episode The Leap Home.
  • In the pilot episode, another actor played his father at a younger age, while a different young actor played Sam, with Scott Bakula's voice dubbed in whenever he spoke.
  • Bakula also played his father in one scene in the episode "Promised Land" when Sam Leaped into someone else in his hometown.
• The short-lived 1960s sitcom The Second Hundred Years featured Monte Markham as both modern day urbanite and his crotchety old grandfather, an Alaskan gold miner who had been trapped in the ice for 67 years, and recently thawed.
• Newman of Seinfeld in "The Bottle Deposit", while figuring out how to transport bottles and cans to Michigan, considers a photo of his mother, which is actually Wayne Knight in a wig. In another episode, Frank Costanza finds a photo of someone who looks exactly like him and figures it must be his cousin Carlo. He flies to Italy to meet him, only to find out his name is Guiseppi. Guiseppi/Carlo is played by Jerry Stiller, and rather poorly done by Seinfeld standards.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • Brent Spiner plays Data, Lore, B4, and their creator Dr. Noonien Soong. Justified in that the first three are androids whose faces were formed from moulds of the face of their creator, Soong. Spiner came back on Star Trek: Enterprise and played, yes, Dr. Soong's great-grandfather, Arik Soong. And then again in Star Trek: Picard as Dr Soong's son, Altan. And again in the second season of Picard as another, even earlier Dr. Adam Soong in the 21st century. Possibly the first one involved in genetic engineering, which might explain the resemblance that's lasted over three hundred years...
  • Picard's nephew René is identical to Picard himself as a child, obviously because they're both played by the same actor. This gets funnier when Picard says that his nephew looks exactly like his brother as a child, which would seem to indicate that Jean-Luc and Robert were identical non-twin brothers. A more cynical viewer might start wondering just how close Jean-Luc and his sister-in-law were around the crucial time.
• In Star Trek: The Original Series William Shatner played Kirk's brother George Samuel Kirk in one episode. The only distinction between both characters was that George had a mustache.
• The Steve Harvey Show: Cedric the Entertainer plays Coach Cedric Robinson and Grandma Pudding.
• In a few live-action segments of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Mario and Luigi were visited by many relatives who all looked like them (for example, their mother was obviously Mario's actor in drag).
• Teen Wolf's Kira shares a very strong resemblance to her mother as a young woman, to the extent where her mother in a flashback episode is played by the same actress as Kira.
• In one episode of That's So Raven, Raven-Symoné played about 3 or 4 roles (including her uncle, her grandma, and her baby cousin).
• The villain in "Reign of Terror", an episode of The Time Tunnel set in The French Revolution, is played by Whit Bissel, a series regular as General Kirk, the military head of the Time Tunnel project. Kirk is confused as his family is from Scotland, but eventually discovers there was a previously unknown French branch.
• In Twin Peaks Laura Palmer and her dark-haired cousin Madeline (a nod to Vertigo) are both played by Sheryl Lee.
• In the Wonder Woman TV series (1975), the first season takes place in 1942, where Wonder Woman attaches herself to love interest Steve Trevor, played by Lyle Wagner. In Season Two, the show is retooled to take place in modern times. Lyle Wagner plays Steve Trevor again, but this is supposed to be the original Steve Trevor's son.
• Everyone in Paul Pfeiffer's family on The Wonder Years has black hair and glasses, in a rare example of this being done with different actors. It's kind of like Milhouse's family on The Simpsons; Milhouse is also based on Paul in appearance and as the protagonist's best friend.
• Every member of the Balowski family on The Young Ones was played by Alexei Sayle. Various Balowskis of varying degrees of sanity appeared, but the most common was the boys' Russian-emigre landlord Jerzei.
• The second and third installments of The Princess Switch have Duchess Margaret Delacourt of Montenaro and her identical, blonde cousin Lady Fiona Pembroke. Fiona tries to pose as Margaret and usurp her position but runs afoul of Margaret's American döppelganger Stacy de Novo. All are portrayed by Vanessa Hudgens sporting different wigs.
• In The Sandman (1989), Lady Johanna Constantine, an English noblewoman, is the ancestor of established DC character John Constantine, an English occultist. The Sandman (2022) gender flips John into another Johanna, and has both the modern-day occultist and their 19th-century ancestor played by Jenna Coleman.

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