Impersonating the Evil Twin: Difference between revisions

** In ''The Enemy of the World'', the Doctor visits Earth during the year 2030, and is discovered to bear a shocking resemblance to a South American dictator named Salamander. The "good guys" ask him to impersonate Salamander and infiltrate his organization. At the end of the story, with his evil plans in ruins, Salamander makes an unsuccessful attempt to escape in the TARDIS by impersonating the Doctor.

** Done also in ''The Android Invasion'' when the Doctor pretends to be his android double and successfully fools the other androids. He also succeeds in reprogramming his double to assist him, a fact which is only revealed after the double has done a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] in front of his horrified companion.

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode "Dopplegangland," Willow pretends to be evil vampire Willow. She gets caught due to being insufficiently evil, which one supposes you could call an error in the impersonation. However, it initially works well, and has an effect on helping the Scoobies' strategy, because the [[Mirror Universe]] [[Evil Twin]]'s mooks don't know her much either and also are scared of her.

* On ''[[Knight Rider]]'', Michael Knight impersonates his evil twin, Garth, in "Goliath". Revealed when his [[Beard of Evil]] is torn off.

** Lampshaded at the end of "Mirror, Mirror", when Spock points out that Good Kirk and co., being civilized, were successfully able to pretend to be savages, while their savage counterparts lacked the self-control necessary to pull the reverse stunt.

** In the Expanded Universe, Mirror Kira has now been replaced by a crazy Cardassian from this universe, who was surgically alternated years ago to resemble the Kira over here in part of a failed intelligent scheme. (Although this Cardassian was never seen in the series, an episode had Kira asserted to be her and surgically altered 'back'.) This attempt appears to have inexplicably worked, despite the replacement not being the correct species, from the correct universe, or even an alternate universe version of that person, and thus having obvious gaps in knowledge.

** Averted in the pilot, where Arturo does a fairly reasonable impersonation of his otherworld Communist general counterpart. The soldier lets him through, but still shows the wherewithal to call command and ask where the said general is.

** Unfortunately, this trope was played all too straight as the series wore on.

** To further confuse the point, the Flash ''really is'' Lex Luthor (on ''[[Smallville]]''). That is to say, Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Luthor in ''Smallville'', is also the voice of the Flash.

** It's averted in the same episode by the fact that Dr. Fate, whose magic was involved in the mind switch, immediately points out that Luthor's mind has ended up in Flash's body. Luthor, for his part, doesn't even ''try'' to act like the Flash. And when he takes of his mask, he has [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"no idea who he is."]]

** The trope is then subverted when the league are surrounded by the police; Lord Batman shows up and calls them off, escorting the League to safety. Superman at first thinks it's really their own Batman obeying this trope, [[Actually, I Am Him|but it turns out that it really is Lord Batman]].

* Scarlett from ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' is a [[Master of Disguise]], but was typically horrible at actually impersonating somebody. In one episode, she attempts to impersonate an evil scientist's wife/partner. The trope is subverted in that she is immediately spotted because she did not greet "her" husband by insulting him. Typically Scarlett will get caught one way or another. Her evil counterpart -- [[The Baroness]] -- and [[Master of Illusion|shapeshifter/illusionist]] Zartan are much more competent.