GlossaryCraft technique
Teaser
Also: cold open · tag
A teaser is the pre-title scene in a television script, named for its job of teasing the audience into the episode. In hour drama it is the engine that sets up the week's story; the closing counterpart, the tag, is a short scene after the final act that lands a button or a hook into next week.
In TV structure, the teaser opens the episode before the main titles, and the tag (or "stinger") closes it after the last act break. Together they bracket the act structure.
The teaser's purpose is momentum and the tag's is resonance: one launches the episode, the other leaves the audience with a final beat — a laugh, a twist, or a cliffhanger pulling toward the next episode.