10 TV Shows That Cruelly Teased What We Really Wanted To See

With the show largely being centred around Charlie Sheen's leading character for much of its run up until Season Eight, Two and a Half Men was always going to struggle to retain viewing numbers in the wake of the star's controversial departure in 2011.

So, in an attempt to boost numbers as the show came screeching to a halt in 2015, show creator Chuck Lorre couldn't resist teasing the return of the star we'd all been longing for. Performing a U-turn on the storyline that depicted the character as dead, it was revealed that Charlie Harper was in fact still alive and had been kept prisoner by Rose all this time.

Then, just as it looked like the familiar figure of Sheen/Harper was about to end the show with a dramatic return upon escaping Rose's clutches, the character - clearly played by a stand-in - had a piano dropped on his head. The camera then pans to Lorre sitting in a chair, who turns to the lens and utters the word "winning", delivering one last slap in the face to both Sheen and fans of the one-time leading character.