Cliffhanger Copout: Difference between revisions

* The first season of ''[[Prison Break]]'' ended with the main characters running through a field after their getaway plane left without them, while cops close in from almost every direction. In the beginning of the second season, it's revealed that they got away by...running through a forest and maneuvering around a moving train, which stops the cops from chasing them. It's made worse by the fact that the first season ends at night, but the second season begins during the day, raising the question of what, exactly, happened in what must have been several hours between the episodes.

* Episode Two in the first season of ''[[Twin Peaks]]'' ends with Agent Cooper having a dream from which he learns the identity of [[Mystery Arc|who killed Laura Palmer]]. Cooper immediately wakes up from the dream to call up Sheriff Truman that he knows who the murderer is but teases that the answer could "wait 'till morning." Come the next episode, taking place that following morning, Cooper recaps all the events from the dream that ended with Laura Palmer whispering the name of her killer in his ear. Then, once he's asked who the killer is, Cooper nonchalantly responds "I don't remember."

** Season 1 finale: Jones [[Faking the Dead]] causes all the deputies to kill each other in surprise.

*** Season 2 premiere: It was [[All Just a Dream]] [[Dream Within a Dream|Within A Dream]].

** One season one episode ended with Jamie killing herself {{spoiler|(though we later find out Nina actually did it)}}, after being discovered as [[The Mole]], right before the [[Big Bad]] at the time calls her for an update, followed by the show going on hiatus for a couple weeks. The following episode didn't address this at all. Yeah, you can easily assume they just didn't answer the phone and he hung up, but it still feels cheap to get no acknowledgement that there even was a cliffhanger.

* In the series finale of the original ''[[Dallas]]'', JR Ewing takes out a gun after being convinced by a reflection of the Devil in his mirror that his life is meaningless now that he lost Ewing Oil. JR holds the gun in his hand, and his brother Bobby hears a gunshot from downstairs. Bobby runs up, opens the door to JR's room...and as the TV movie "JR Returns" would later explain, JR shot the mirror and climbed out the window, then fled to Paris to hide out for six months. ''What???''

'''Captain Trunk:''' Hammer, you can't defuse that bomb!

'''Narrator:''' Tonight's episode takes place five years before that fateful explosion. }}

* Season 3 of ''[[Charmed]]'' ends with Piper and Prue seriously wounded and Phoebe, Leo, and Cole trapped in the underworld with Phoebe having given her oath to stay there forever. Season 4 opens with Piper and Phoebe in the attic discussing Prue's death. How did the three trapped in the underworld escape? How did Leo get home in time to save Piper? Were there any consequences for Phoebe breaking her oath? The latter two questions get some explanation at the beginning of Season 4, but the exact details of the characters' escape from the underworld itself are never made clear.

[[Category:Writer Cop Out]]

[[Category:Older Than Television]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]