To Be Continued: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Don't you hate the "To Be Continued"'s on TV? It's horrible when you sense the 'To Be Continued' coming. You know, you're watching the show, you're into the story. You know, there's like 5 minutes left and you realize 'Hey! They can't make it! Timmy's still stuck in the cave. There's no way they wrap this up in 5 minutes!'. I mean the whole reason you watch a TV show is because it ends. If I want a long, boring story with no point to it, I have my life. A comedian can't do that, see, I can't go 'a man walks into a bar with a pig under his arms. Can you come back next week?'"''|''[[Seinfeld]]''}}

 

See also [["Previously On..."]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* This is quite notable in old [[Anime]] and [[Toku]] shows. Some modern ones still do this!

** In current Toku, this has been changed. [[Kamen Rider]] shows a still of the last scene with borders that best reflect the current rider (For example, in [[Kamen Rider OOO]], a rocky border with the Core Medals that Eiji currently has), then a border forms on the scene. [[Super Sentai]] has a line that replaced "Tsuzuku" with "After this CM, stay tuned for the next episode preview!" (or something like it), starting with [[Engine Sentai Go-onger]].

* Every episode of ''[[Outlaw Star]]'' would end with the words ''TO BE CONTINUED'' blasting onto the screen, one after the other. (The last episode did this, then followed it with an epilogue, which in turn ended with "''SEE YOU AGAIN''".)

** Lampshaded by Brook, who's telling his story to the Strawhats, stopping briefly to declare "To be continued", only to be met with anger from Sanji.

** Sometimes the card arrived in a unique way; for example, at the end of Episode 26, when Luffy used Gomu Gomu no Axe on the Baratie deck, "To Be Continued" was launched into the screen by the weaves created from the impact.

** Edited out of most of the dub "Chronicles" episodes.

** The [[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon|Mystery Dungeon]] special episodes also end this way, even though only the second one ("Time and Darkness") was continued (indirectly) by episode 3 ("Sky: Beyond Time and Darkness").

** Which ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' did before they did.

*** Even before that, Hideaki Anno's previous series ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'' had the same ending screen.

## After Renton takes out military KLFs and then realizing that {{spoiler|actual people were piloting them}}, the episode ended with the sound of Renton puking all over the place.

## When Eureka finds out that Renton {{spoiler|isn't on the Gekko, [[Tear Jerker|right after]] [[It Got Worse|realizing she's in love with him]]...}}

## The penultimate episode has only Renton saying "To Be Continued".

** In fact, the Japanese voice actors picked up the habit for the DVD commentaries. They finish off with "To be continued!" every time.

* ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' ends every episode with a title card flashing "to be continued" on the screen, before it melts away like old, worn film and the [[Ending Theme]] starts to play.

* A good few episodes of ''[[Bleach]]'' end with a To Be Continued at the end of an episode.

** one or two episodes have even subverted this. For example, at the end of episode 27, Ichigo is by Ikkaku warned about Kenpachi, and the To Be Continued pops up over an image of Kenpachi with a sinister smile, then irises out. A few seconds later, it irises back in to a shot of a slightly bewildered Kenpachi, who has been led into another dead end by Yachiru.

* Episodes of ''[[Heroman]]'' end with large captions of "To Be Continued" in blocky, comic book title style text.

* In a lighthearted contrast with the Death Note/Evangelion/Nadia examples above, ''[[Kare Kano]]'' (also directed by [[Hideaki Anno]], like the latter two of the aforementioned anime), sets its "To Be Continued" in red, on a white background.

* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'': "See You Space Cowboy..."

* Cloverway added this phrase to some ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' episodes that did not originally have it.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** It's not an inspiration. It's a ''warning''. {{spoiler|The Monitors sought to control Story itself. Superman is leaving them a pointed reminder that they'll never be able to. Not forever.}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' started doing this at the ends of multiparters with the beginning of the second season of the revival.

** The most prominent example being the end of the penultimate episode of Season 4, ''The Stolen Earth'', in which {{spoiler|the Doctor and Donna have finally found the Earth and along with it, the Doctor's beloved former companion Rose, who has been lost on a parallel world for the last two seasons. The pair begin running towards each other as fast as they can, leading every Doctor/Rose shipper to believe they would finally share their first kiss and the Doctor would confess his feelings to Rose at last - at which point a Dalek appears around a corner, shoots the Doctor, spoils the reunion, and forces a regeneration, shocking fans who believed David Tennant would be continuing in the role for at least another year}}. Needless to say, it was a hell of a cliffhanger, and therefore, unlike every other episode to date of New Who, did not feature clips of the next week's episode, only the words TO - BE - CONTINUED. By the way, {{spoiler|the Doctor got better. }}

** [[Word of God]] stated that they had the chance to edit out the cliffhanger ending, but left it in as a [[Take That]] against Sci-Fi for backing out of a contract for a fifth season (and [[Kick the Dog|at the last possible moment, too]]).

* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' referred to this in his act (in a two part episode, of course). See above.

* Despite the arc nature of the show, ''[[Burn Notice]]'' only did this once: at the end of the penultimate Season 4 episode, when Michael regains control of an extremely volatile piece of information that puts him right in the crosshairs of the organization that burned him (that previously wanted to use him instead of killing him). With the revelation that he's brought a literal war on his head, as the organization has more resources and ability to act freely than anyone he's faced, along with a now-active desire to kill him, he announces that "Tomorrow is going to be a long day", and the episode ends with the trope.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Mother 3 played with this trope. After Lucas {{spoiler|pulls the final Needle and the dragon wakes up}}, after some events, the player is left with a black screen with simply "END ?" on it. No cast, no credits. Just that. A regular player can end the game right there, HOWEVER, a more curious gamer can find out that the player has entered "the world of MOTHER 3" and can control himself/herself for the true ending.

* ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'' featured "To be continued" at the ending credits. It was removed however in the DS remake of the game.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2]]'': A premiere for the serie, and a quite disturbing one, since the game ends with {{spoiler|a [[Bad Ending]] caused by a [[Time Crash]], along with Serah dying and Lightning being reduced to a crystal stasis. ''Good lord''.}}

* Done at the end of each episode of ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' aside from the ends of each act to make the parallels to being an interactive Anime or Japanese Drama series more obvious.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* To Be Continued on tommorow's ''[[G.I. Joe]]''!

* A "To Be Continued" showed up on a few episodes of ''[[Jem]]'', only the ones split into parts.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Show Parts]]