Next Time, Try the Truth: Britain's Most Misleading 'Coming Up' Trailers, Ranked

Picture it. It is 10:28pm on a Tuesday. The duff-duffs have landed, the screen has faded to black, and a voice — smooth, urgent, faintly smug — tells you that 'next time' someone will regret everything. You sit up. You make a mental note. You might even say 'ooh' out loud to an empty room. Then Thursday arrives, and what actually happens is 27 minutes of somebody arguing about a chippy order. That, right there, is the great British telly con trick of our age: the end-of-episode trailer.

We are not short of telly in 2026. We have more channels, more streamers, more 'content' than any of us can reasonably digest. And yet the 'next time' montage remains the wild west of scheduling: a lawless little pocket of telly where cause and effect go to get a pint and never come back. So here at Paam TV we have done the only sensible thing. We have watched far too many of them, taken notes, and ranked the worst offenders. You are welcome.

The Soap School of Emotional Bait-and-Switch

Soaps are the spiritual home of the misleading teaser, and they know exactly what they are doing. EastEnders is the reigning champion of the duff-duff bait-and-switch. The trailer will show Sharon slapping someone into next week, Phil staring at a hospital ceiling, and Kat screaming in a way that suggests the Queen Vic has finally fallen into the sea. Next episode? Ian Beale has a disagreement about a chip shop. The scenes in the teaser do technically happen, but they are sliced, diced and reassembled by someone with a flair for the dramatic and no interest in context.

Coronation Street prefers the inflation method. Everything is 'explosive'. A week is never just a week; it is a 'week of reckoning'. David's world will 'collapse' — which, on closer inspection, means a leaky flat roof and a passive-aggressive comment from Gail. Emmerdale goes for the rural apocalypse angle. 'A death rocks the village' sounds like a Shakespearean tragedy. It is usually a character we met twice, or a barn owl with a storyline. None of this is illegal. It is just deeply cheeky.

The Ranking: Britain's Most Misleading 'Coming Up' Merchants

1. EastEnders — the undisputed king of the out-of-context slap. The teaser would have you believe Walford is days away from martial law. The episode is usually a custody row and a bacon sandwich.
2. Coronation Street — 'explosive week' inflation. If every week is explosive, mate, nothing is explosive. We are immune now.
3. Emmerdale — the 'death rocks the village' tease that turns out to be a retired vet's goldfish. Or similar.
4. Love Island — 'tomorrow night' promises a recoupling that is somehow still 48 hours away. Time works differently in that villa.
5. Netflix auto-play — not a trailer in the traditional sense, but the most sinister entry on this list. More on that below.

Why We Keep Falling For It

Because we are hopeful, basically. Telly is a habit, and the 'next time' trailer is the little nudge that keeps the habit alive. It is designed not to tell you what happens, but to make you feel like something will happen. There is a difference, and the difference is usually three episodes of filler and a character returning from a trip to Leeds.

There is also the watercooler fear. If you skip the teaser, you might miss the bit everyone is talking about at work. Except you won't, because the bit everyone is talking about never actually happens in the way the teaser suggested. The teaser is not a promise. It is a retention tool with a nice voiceover. It is made by people who know we will tune in anyway, and who are banking on our short memories and our long-standing loyalty to a soap we have watched since we were small enough to sit on a beanbag.

The Streamer Problem: Spoilers Before the Credits

And then there is the streaming lot. At least a soap teaser lies to us after the episode has finished. Netflix and friends have started auto-playing a spoiler-heavy preview before the credits have even settled. You are still emotionally recovering from a character's death, and the algorithm has already queued up a montage of the next episode, complete with the character who is definitely not dead. It is the telly equivalent of someone telling you the ending of a book while you are still reading the acknowledgements.

We have a 'skip intro' button. We have a 'skip recap'. Where is the 'skip spoiler' button? Nowhere, because the spoiler is the point. The streamer wants you to keep watching, and it will happily trample the emotional landing of the episode you just watched to make that happen.

What a Truthful Teaser Would Look Like

We are not asking for much. A truthful teaser would be specific without being spoilery. 'Next time: a wedding, a confession, and a very bad parking decision.' That tells you the vibe without telling you the plot. It respects the fact that you are a grown adult who can handle a little ambiguity. It does not promise a death and deliver a damp squib. It does not show you the best 11 seconds of the next 58 minutes and call it a day.

Or Just... Nothing?

The best 'next time' trailer, frankly, is the one that does not exist. Let the ending land. Let the credits roll. Let us sit with whatever just happened before the algorithm shoves the next thing down our throats. We are capable of coming back next week without being told that 'everything changes'. Everything does not change. Ian Beale still has a chip shop. And we will still be here, watching, moaning, and falling for it all over again.