This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Meta Four: Cut the following examples because they're more about the Wire Dilemma than this trope:
- Echoed in Morpheus' offer of pharmaceuticals to Neo (The Matrix).
- Averted in Justice League when Flash must disarm a bomb that is hooked up to a direct video link of the Joker, who taunts the hero every time he tried to pull the right wires ("Not that one, you'll blow us all to smithereens"). With seconds to spare, Flash picks up the device and super speeds it out of down town Las Vegas to a remote desert region, where it blows up harmlessly.
- In a recent episode of Fringe, Olivia is presented with a bomb that she must defuse with her mind. The cackling madman points out that there are no red wires or blue wires. There are only black wires, and all of them will detonate the bomb.
- Parodied in Monk where the titular character is disarming a time bomb, being guided by the bomb squad by phone. He is asked to cut the red wire, only problem is that there are two red wires. It doesn't actually matter which wire he cuts since both will break the circuit but he stresses about it for the entire length of the timer until settling on cutting them both simultaneously.
