Blatant Lies/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Blatant Lies in Live-Action TV? No-Siree-Bob...

  • In Human Target, Winston is faced with disarming a remote timer, which will trigger enough C4 to level the building around him. Faced with two wires and no clue, his only hope is Geurerro, a seedy freelance agent he calls over the phone... who doesn't have a clue either.

Winston: * hearing something 'plink' in the background* Did you just flip a coin?!
Guererro: ...No.

  • In Sliders, whenever the team lands on a new world and has to explain why they don't know what's going on, they use the excuse "We're from Canada." We've hardly ever seen it fail. Although one time they had to pretend to be illegal immigrants from Canada the entire episode, who had snuck south into Mexico for work. (Thanks to the non-existence of America in the middle, and Mexico ending up with California.)
    • The British show Goodnight Sweetheart uses something very similar. The main character constantly switches between 1941 and the modern day, meaning that he often ends up in the past with technology that shouldn't exist in that time. When anyone asks him about it, he invariably claims the gadget comes 'from America'. Everyone believes this without question, which is probably Truth in Television.
  • In the famed Harlan Ellison penned Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" where Kirk and Spock travel back to the Great Depression, Kirk tries to explain Spock's vaguely alien appearance by saying he's from China; then he has to justify his pointed ears by claiming he got his head stuck in a "mechanical rice picker" as a child.
  • In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data, having been transported back through time to 1893 San Francisco, explains his uniform and skin color with the excuse that he's French. The fact that he can speak French fluently helps. Another TNG episode has Data in the holodeck in a pastiche of the 1920s or thereabouts; this time, he explains his skin tone with "I'm from South America."
    • The second one works because Holodeck characters are literally programmed to accept even the most spurious of Hand Waves.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Garak is always very adamant that he didn't have anything to do with all those murders at the Romulan embassy. He was really just a gardener who just worked there purely by coincidence.
    • He makes it clear with his first introduction that he's just "plain, simple Garak," a tailor on Deep Space Nine, and definitely not a spy. It becomes rapidly apparent that most of what he says is a lie of some sort.

Bashir: What I want to know is, out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?
Garak: My dear doctor... they're all true.
Bashir: Even the lies?
Garak: Especially the lies.

  • Some Saturday Night Live sketches hinge on the trope for comedy:
    • The classic Coneheads sketches feature the eponymous aliens making transparent lies to hide the obvious fact that they're not human. "We are from France" was their Beam Me Up, Scotty catchphrase, originally said to explain why they hadn't paid taxes. Amusingly, though there's no actual city or village by this name, "Remulak" sounds plausible as a town name from southwestern France (but it would be likely spelled "Rémulac").
    • The John Belushi sketch "Don't Look Back In Anger" is a big lie that shows him as the only surviving member.
    • Jon Lovitz's recurring character "The Liar" makes obvious lies in a cartoonish manner, following each with, "Yeah, that's the ticket!"
  • In Pushing Daisies, when Olive questions Chuck about why she and Ned don't touch each other (because Ned brought her Back From the Dead, and she would die again if he did):

Olive: Do you have some kind of deadly food allergy to Ned?
Chuck: I'm going to say yes.

    • In "Pie-lette", some time after Ned visited the morgue posing as a dog expert, he visits again:

Coroner: Aren't you the dog expert?
Ned: No.

    • Every lie Ned tells, basically.
  • In Stargate SG-1, the Stargate Program and the SGC is officially "Analysis of Deep Space Radar Telemetry". Carter's father, Major General Jacob Carter, obviously didn't believe her in "Secrets". Which leads to the hilarious event where Sam was receiving a medal for saving the world—with deep space radar telemetry. Of course Carter, being a physicist, is at least plausible. O'Neill, whose explanation for everything is "magnets" makes this even more of a blatant lie when he talks of the cover. Consider that he's a retired Air Force Colonel who took part on several special forces mission and came back from retirement to work with... Deep Space Radar Telemetry. Considering O'Neill is a known fan of Astronomy, it's SLIGHTLY more plausible. Now, Dr. Jackson, an ARCHAEOLOGIST, on the other hand...
    • What makes it even better is that the medal they received for saving the world was the Air Medal. Which is awarded "for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight." You know, like analysts of deep-space radar telemetry tend... to do...
      • I think Carter eventually did save the world using Deep Space Radar Telemetry...
    • Also note that Daniel is also a linguist. Presumably they asked him to translate stuff most definitely not related to aliens.
    • In the episode where the award is being given, a reporter approaches Jack to ask about a comment he'd overheard to the effect of "I can travel through the Galaxy without getting lost..." Jack explains his comment away by talking about a very large class of airplane called a Galaxy. The reporter clearly doesn't buy it.
    • And Teal'c would be so impossible to explain that they just keep him on base and avoid the issue.
    • On one occasion when Teal'c did leave the base, O'Neill explained him away as "a simple technical sergeant." When asked what Teal'c specialty was, O'Neil responded: "speech writing."
    • In a later episode, he moves out of the Cheyenne base and attempts to set up a civilian life. When anyone asks about his manner of speaking, or why he's ignorant of customs, or the inlaid gold tattoo on his head, he tells them he's from "Mozambique."
    • Daniel Jackson, upon meeting an oncoming Goa'uld ship, identifies himself as "The Great and Powerful Oz".
  • In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cameron can't get through the metal detectors in the school she attends. John explains this away off-handed by saying she's got a metal plate in her head, believed because of Cameron's odd behavior (it's technically true, though John neglects to mention that her entire head is metal plates). Later on, when a guidance counselor calls Sarah to comment on Cameron's... odd behavior around the campus, she explains that a tornado did it.
    • Probably a rather subtle Wizard of Oz reference on Sarah's behalf. The series is peppered with them.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer was full of this: "gangs on PCP" (group of vampires); "slipped and fell on a barbeque fork" (vampire bite resulting in loss of blood, consciousness, and memory); "office broken into by a pack of wild dogs" (students possessed by hyenas eating the principal); "neck rupture" (vampire bite); "gym full of asbestos" (full of vampires)... By the sixth season, it's gotten to the point where the official line is "Mayhem caused; monsters definitely not involved."
    • It was on fullest display during Anya and Xander's wedding, where the various demons sitting on the bride's side were explained as being "circus people".
    • Non-"Sunnydale Syndrome" example: during the episode where Buffy turns invisible, Xander goes to Spike for information and walks in on the two of them having sex. Spike's explanation is that he's exercising...naked...in bed. Xander seems to buy it, possibly for the sake of his sanity. "You know, jokes aside, you really should get a girlfriend."
    • Giles apparently used to tell girls he helped to found Pink Floyd. He probably didn't mention that this must have been when he was 11.
  • On the new Doctor Who series, it's stated at the end of "World War Three" that Blatant Lies are used at first, along with people's natural Weirdness Censor, by the British government and UNIT to paper over the Doctor's various adventures. In a later subversion of the trope, it's ultimately shown that no one in London is buying what Downing Street is selling anymore, to the point where the city is nearly deserted on Christmas Eve in Voyage of the Damned due to a sudden pandemic of Genre Savviness.
    • Twice, when the Tenth Doctor is grieving, on being asked if he's okay replies, "I'm always all right." Lampshaded by Donna when she asks if "All right" is Time Lord speak for "Not all right at all."
    • The Doctor himself does this to Amelia in "The Eleventh Hour."

Doctor: You know when grown-ups tell you, "Everything's gonna be fine" and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
 Amelia: Yeah.
Doctor: Everything's gonna be fine.

    • And another one:

Doctor: Remember, we are observers only, no matter what happens. In all my travels, that's the one rule that I've always stuck to.

    • Anytime the Doctor says anything, keep in mind River Song's first rule: The Doctor lies.
    • The overuse of perception filters in series 5 may be due to perception filters being a metaphor for Eleven lying to himself and Amy by pretending everything is okay. Amy begins to see through Eleven in the second half of the series, and is confused by what she sees at first.
    • In "A Christmas Carol" the Doctor tries to pull his psychic paper trick with the line, "I am widely acknowledged as a mature and responsible adult." It shorts out the paper.

Doctor: Finally, a lie too big.

    • Used as a Tear Jerker in A Good Man Goes To War. Upon meeting a dying girl who met The Doctor when she was younger, and expects The Doctor to know who she is, the following exchange takes place:

Lorna: Doctor...
The Doctor: [Smiling delighted] You helped my friends. Thank you.
Lorna: I met you once. In the Gamma forest... You don't remember me.
The Doctor: Of course I do, Lorna. I remember everyone. Hey, we ran - you and me!
Lorna smiles weakly and dies. The Doctor composes himself.
The Doctor: ...Who was she?
Vastra: I don't know, but she was very brave.
The Doctor: ...They are always brave. [swallows his own shame] They are always brave...

    • In the original series "Dalek Invasion Of Earth" arc, Barbara convinces the Daleks that the resistance forces are attempting an immediate assault... working together with the Boston Tea Party, and General Lee and Hannibal are poised to perform a synchronized cavalry strike on the Dalek base. The Daleks, having never heard of those, assume the worst.
  • Used for dramatic effect in the series finale of The Wire. Dukie hits up Prez for some money, saying he's going to take a GED. Prez points out that he's too young to take that test but acquiesces anyway, and they part on the unspoken agreement that Dukie is about to spend his life as a homeless drug addict and they will never see each other again.
    • Clay Davis was also a frequent source of these. His impassioned speech on the stand while on trial for corruption was perhaps the biggest.
  • Used often in Smallville during the earlier seasons, when any questions Clark Kent was asked about his interest in the caves or any Native American symbols that were related to his Kryptonian heritage were met with "It's for a term paper"—to the point where Lex Luthor himself actually lampshades it later.
    • At one point Clark uses it as an offensive tool, saying he wanted to write a term paper on a project Lex was funding, which Lex had lied about earlier prior to Clark's finding and dismantling it.
  • In The Middleman, used to explain away both their identity and any of the situations they get into.
  • In Being Human (UK), Mitchell and George's landlord wonders why their flat is almost entirely empty, the real reason being that George is a werewolf and accidentally destroyed most of the furniture when he transformed the night before. Eager to make up an excuse, George gives a long rambling explanation about minimalist living. The landlord says he would have just figured they were redecorating.

George: ... That would have made more sense.

  • This is supposed to be what sets Whacked Out Videos apart from other, similar shows.
  • Commandant Klink gets so many Blatant Lies fed to him by Hogan's Heroes that he should just put on a bib every time the colonel comes into his office.
  • Forever Knight's Nick Knight tells his coworkers he has an unfortunate combination of light sensitivity and food allergies to explain away why he's never seen during the day and doesn't eat... food.
    • One episode features the other characters finding wine bottles full of blood in Nick's refrigerator. He claims he uses the blood to thin paint.
  • Dead Like Me has George using every excuse she can to get out of work for her reaps. Plausible the first few times I am sure but it is a very consistent thing for years. (Trying to see an executive, she claims that it's "about his son, who drugged me, and then videotaped it while homeless people had sex with my unconscious body.")
  • Averted in Firefly. In the first episode, Jayne, the ship's resident amoral mercenary, mouths off and is told to leave the room. He claims that "[He] isn't paid to talk pretty", but leaves. Simon asks what Jayne does, and Capt. Reynolds responds: "Public Relations." Given the kind of public the crew is used to dealing with, Jayne deals with them pretty well.
    • Especially if the public involves whores.
  • In one Primeval episode Jenny "explains" a prehistoric crocodile [dead link] on a rampage in central London as a charity fun-run gone wrong. This is one of her more plausible explanations.
  • Lost's Benjamin Linus does this almost constantly. If you listen to Ben a lot you realize that he lies just for the hell of it, such as when he tells Jack his mother taught him to read or said he was a Pisces. Even when the truth would be fine, he lies anyway.
  • In the Top Gear truck driving challenge, Richard Hammond's cargo (a small car) had fallen out of the trailer during the alpine course. Afterwards, when Jeremy Clarkson showed up:

Jeremy Clarkson: This is totally... so anyway, how was your car?
(beat as May and Hammond exchange glances)
James May: Car's...
Richard Hammond: (interrupting May) Stolen! That's what it is, I've just thought of it now: stolen. The damnedest thing.

    • Top Gear throws out lies like this on a regular basis, especially if a host thinks it'll make their car (or cars in general) sound better. After one challenge where a train, bike and motorboat beat a car across London during rush hour, all three hosts banded together to claim that the footage had been edited, going so far as to claim that the Thames didn't exist and Jeremy Clarkson had died violently during the race (stated by Clarkson himself).
    • This exchange between Jermey and Cameron Diaz.

Jeremy: What do you drive?
Cameron: A Prius.
Jeremy: Oh, I love the Prius.
(Studio audience cracks up)

  • Happens somewhat in Knight Rider. Michael Knight made up various stories about who/what both KITT and himself are during the run of the show. On the other hand, a surprisingly large number of guest stars, after displaying initial shock and surprise, accepted the idea of a talking, sentient supercar surprisingly quickly. Far better than Michael himself did despite being hand-picked for the job.
    • Several villains even point out "Up until X years ago, Michael Knight didn't exist". They don't really find this too terribly odd beyond the mention, but given the frequency this happens you'd think The Foundation would have found a way to fix that in the background check systems.
  • Scrubs. The Almighty Janitor loves this trope. One of the most memorable, when he was explaining how he knew sign language:

Janitor: I used to hang out at the zoo a lot, and there was this one gorilla who knew sign language. I learned it so I could talk to him. Well it turned out he only knew a few words. Big. And boobs. He liked'em big and hairy. But I always remembered him, because he inspired me.
J.D.: Was any of that true?
Janitor: Someone would have to read it back to me.

    • This happens a whole lot in Scrubs, since a lot of the dialogue is improvised. There are a ton of outtakes where the actors are just making crazy stuff up, getting progressively more ridiculous, and then one of them comes out of character and goes 'ha, no, there's no way we can use that'.
  • Red Dwarf's Kryten Subverts this trope somewhat by audibly engaging his "Lie Mode" software:

Rimmer: Kryten -- will this work?
Kryten: Lie Mode. (pause) Of course it will work, sir. No worries.
(winks to Lister) Hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of Angling Times, sir.

    • On another occasion:

Kryten: Are you of the school that, when faced with bad news, prefers to hear that news naked and unvarnished, or are you of the ilk that prefers to live in happy and blissful ignorance of the nightmare you're facing?
Rimmer: Ignorance, every time.
Kryten: Congratulations sir! You've come storming through your medical with flying colors! See you next time.

    • Of course, he also plays it straight in the episode "Camille", which is when he first gains the ability to lie. He actually says (while lying himself blue in the face): "You have to believe me! I'm a mechanoid! Mechanoids can't lie!"
    • He does it again the "The Last Day", where he shuts down the replacement robot by telling it that there is no Silicon Heaven and no afterlife for androids. When the rest of the crew question Kryten about why the "newer model" couldn't handle that revelation and his could, this happens:

Kryten: Well, I knew something he didn't.
Lister: What?
Kryten: I knew I was lying! No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?

  • Common on Monty Python's Flying Circus.
    • The Dead Parrot sketch.
    • The Argument Clinic too, especially when John Cleese's character starts to spew Blatant Lies in order to scam more money out of his client.

John Cleese: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.

    • Hell, one sketch plays on the fact that everybody assumes a pair of pilots are blatantly lying when in fact they are telling the truth. It equates to something along the lines of

This is your pilot speaking, there is absolutely no need to be alarmed. The left engine is definitely not on fire. There is no need to panic

  • Happens too many times to count throughout Blackadder, but some of the more memorable are when Blackadder single-handedly rigs an election in the third-season opener.

Announcer: The Acting Returning Officer, Mr. E. Blackadder, of course. And we're all very grateful, indeed, that he stepped in at the last minute, when the previous Returning Officer accidentally brutally stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving.
(and again, moments later...)
Blackadder: I took over from the previous electorate when he, very sadly, accidentally brutally cut his head off while combing his hair.

  • Like they live and breathe, they use Blatant Lies on Hannah Montana. Even lampshaded on occasion (usually by Lilly).
  • At least one third of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are dedicated to exposing the prevalent lies spewed by politicians and the media, frequently by showing clips one after the other, where whoever they are targeting says exactly the opposite of what they are currently saying. The fact they have enough material to fill out about 10 minutes of their show every day is depressing.
  • Supernatural: In the season 1 episode the benders, Dean enlists the help of a cop to help him find Sam by pretending to be a cop. Unknown to him the cop ran the number on the badge Dean gave her and this happened.

Cop:It says here your badge was stolen. And there’s a picture of you. [she turns the computer to reveal a heavy-set African American man]
Dean: I lost some weight. [laughs nervously] And I got that Michael Jackson skin disease...

    • Castiel forces Archangel Michael to teleport away with a flaming bottle of holy oil right in front of an Lucifer, while calling him an "assbutt".

Lucifer: Did you just molotov my brother with Holy Fire?
Castiel: Umm... no?

Teacher: (rips mustache off) Yes it is!
Will: No it's not!

  • In the British comedy series The IT Crowd Blatant Lies are featured several times. Some notable examples:
    • In "Yesterday's Jam" Jen, the new manager of the IT department, lied in her application, saying she had "a lot of experience with computers", and is successful with these lies just because her new boss doesn't know a lot about computers either. During that episode, she gets caught a few times more (pretending to talk on a disconnected phone, or typing on an unplugged PC).
    • In "Calamity Jen" Jen lies about her shoe size so she can buy a nice pair of shoes (destroying her feet). When a fire breaks out in the IT office, they put an old hollowed-out monitor in front of it just before the boss enters the room, making him shout "nice screensaver!".
    • "The Haunting of Bill Crouse" is almost completely based on a Blatant Lie told by Moss when he was supposed to get rid of an annoying coworker for Jen. He tried making up excuses and finally settled for "She's dead", making him believe he's being haunted by Jen whenever he sees or hears her.
    • In "The Speech" Roy and Moss explain to Jen that the internet is a small black box with a blinking red light on top. When she later explains this in a speech, none of the listeners seem to suspect anything. When the box is destroyed, a panic breaks out.
  • Every episode of Lie to Me is full of them. One hilarious example, however, is a known drug dealer saying: "All I told them to do was run product... and by product I mean chewing gum."
  • Many eccentric news pundits will feed this trope into their Chewbacca Defense generator to fill some airtime or to shut up an opponent that they couldn't defeat otherwise.
    • One mildly funny example is a segment Bill O'Reilly did about a shooting in a Washington DC Holocaust Museum. He said that since his guest/opponent was a democrat, and that democrats were, in some way responsible for the shooting, that his guest had blood on her hands. He then said that she had different beliefs than he did, that he respects that and would never cast judgment upon her for that, and then screamed "BUT YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS."
  • While you would expect a lot of blatant lies from a show about con artists like Leverage is, one exchange between the team members fits this trope perfectly: Eliot called Sophie to ask for advice while she was on vacation, and asked her not to tell Nate he'd called. Parker, who'd just done the same thing, asked Eliot who it was. His reply: "cable company."
  • Used as a Running Gag in Allo Allo, where Rene was frequently surprised by his wife while making out with one of his cafe's hot waitresses. After an initial moment of confusion, he would roll his eyes and tell her a Blatant Lies ("You stew-pid woman! Can you not see that ..."). She always fell for it.
  • Most criminals on Castle lie to some degree, but one episode have Beckett/Castle interrupt the Irish mob in the process of beating a rival gang member to death, resulting in this (paraphrased) exchange with the victim:

Victim: Can I be real with you detective?
Beckett: Oh, please do.
Victim: The truth is, I fell, and they were just helping me up.
Castle: And your head?
Victim: Before I fell, I hit my head on the wall, which is why I fell.
Beckett: And the burns on your hands?
Victim: After I hit my head... and I fell.. I put my hand out onto the grill, you know, to catch my fall.
Castle: Thanks for keeping it real.

  • In an episode of Chuck, Devon has to explain a day's absence to Ellie. He decides to go with the story that he was jogging in the park when he noticed a cat in a tree, which turned out to be a bear, which then attacked him, leaving him with no choice but to decapitate it. When, surprisingly, Ellie doesn't buy it, Chuck leaps in with the no less blatant but slightly more believable lie that Casey had been arrested for public intoxication, and Devon had spent the day trying to get the charges dropped.
  • Example occurs in Community episode "The Politics Of Human Sexuality" after Troy 'wins' his race with Abed:

Troy: [Breathless and exhausted] "How'd you like... those apples?"
Abed: [Clearly not breathless and exhausted] "I don't like those apples. I'm so upset. It was clearly a fluke that I won those other games."

    • In a later episode, a therapist attempts to convince the gang that their entire time at Greendale College was a shared delusion. This would be a lot more believable to take in if their wasn't certain evidence to the contrary, such as pictures on a phone, families who have been to college, and Annie wearing a Greendale backpack during this whole conversation. Needless to say, the therapist turned out to be a fraud.
  • The Christmas episode of Misfits has this gem from Nathan.

Nathan: We may have done sod all with our powers, but we never abused them. We never raped or murdered anyone.
Curtis: [Alisha] raped me, and we killed loads of people.

  • In Lizzie McGuire, Matt McGuire ends up faking a lot of his geneaology report due to jealousy towards his mute friend Lenny for being related to someone famous (in Lenny's case: Chrispus Adducks, the first casualty of the Boston Massacre). He does this by claiming to be related to George Washington, Davy Crockett, and Elvis. Although everyone else didn't see through the lies about Washington and Elvis (except for Lenny), one person besides Lenny did in regards to Crockett.
  • Glee
    • Half the things Sue says are funny because of this trope.

"You know, William, that's what one Hubert Humphrey said back in 1968 at the start of the Democratic National Convention. But then hippies put acid in everyone's bourbon, and when an updraft revealed Lady Bird Johnson's tramp stamp, and tattoos above her ovaries, Mayor Richard J. Daley became so incensed with sexual rage that he punched his own wife in the face, and spent the next hour screaming 'sex party' into the microphones of all three major networks."

  • Battlestar Galactica And they have a plan. Damn open credits.
  • Almost any competitive reality show will have at least someone lying through their teeth if it means getting them an advantage over the other people. Depending on the show, people can get away with it or suffer for their actions with interest.
  • Kitchen Nightmares has this in full spades. Gordon Ramsay visits a restaurant that is in need of serious help and in nearly every episode, the owner, the chef, or just anybody working in the place will lie to Gordon's face whenever he asks something that is related to their problems, such as if the food is made fresh or is frozen. This is usually the people trying to hide a bigger problem or downplay them.
  • There is at least one in every episode of Miranda, who often then lampshades it by turning to the camera to contradict herself. In the Christmas episode, she's sharing a bed with Gary, and rolls over, doing the dreaded 'breast clap'. Her response to him wondering what it was? "A duck quacking."
  • Psych uses this trope frequently. The lyrics to the theme song even point out that "I know you know that I'm not telling the truth." The premise of the series is founded on this trope as Shawn is a fake psychic detective. In the pilot, when Shawn is pressed by the police to explain how he solved a crime, Shawn lies, "Okay, okay. Fine, you win. I got the information, because... I’m a psychic."
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