History AwesomenessByAnalysis / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' is a blood spatter analyst able to deduce and recreate a crime scene or a relevant incident within seconds. He finds a match in Lundy, a legendary FBI investigator who is not fooled by some of Dexter's tricks and reverses some of them to deduce the true nature of the suspect: "Law enforcement".

* In an episode of ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', Cameron does this to win at pool on her first try. A perfectly {{Justified}} case, since, being a robot, she can not only calculate the angle and force needed for each shot, she can accurately achieve them.

* The highest-level agents in ''{{Series/Agents of SHIELD}}'' are able to do this both in combat and in interrogations; Bobbi deduces virtually everything about Bakshi and his motivations from a brief conversation, and figures out the rest of his plan from a minor slip in tense.
* In ''Series/{{Alphas}}'', Kat's Alpha ability is her insane procedural memory, allowing her to learn and keep complex skills remarkably quickly. Unfortunately, this being Alphas, there is the inevitable trade-off: her declarative memory (i.e. everything else) only lasts for about a month, max. She has no idea who she is, or what she's done in her life. This can result in weird situations where she knows that if she has done this before, she'll be able to do it now...but whether she's ever done it before is anyone's guess.

* Mac in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' insists that he's capable of this in his role as bouncer, calling it "an ocular pat-down." Being that Mac is a MilesGloriosus, he tends to just stare at people for a few seconds and declare them "clean" ([[FailedASpotCheck even when they aren't]]).

* Data of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is MADE of this trope. He can take in information, and process and understand it, so fast that his primary limitation is that the computer interfaces he uses to do this are simply not able to go as fast as he can (being made for organics). One outstanding example occurred when Starfleet was trying to reveal Romulan involvement in the Klingon civil war. When Picard's idea fell apart, Data conceived of a new method, researched it, implemented it, and used it to unmask the Romulan ships in the space of a few MINUTES, while dealing with a crew ready to mutiny while commanding a ship in battle.

* Throughout her time on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Cordelia was mainly a comic relief [[AlphaBitch queen bee]] type, a role she also filled for a while after spinning off to ''Series/{{Angel}}''. After developing beyond simple comic relief, it was revealed that Cordelia was the best cheerleader in Sunnydale for a reason: she has exceptional muscle memory and coordination, allowing her to perform complex physical routines (such as a martial arts kata) at full speed with relatively small amounts of practice.
** Angel himself displays this, having a photographic memory (implied to be part of his vampire super-senses) - in ''Supersymmetry'' he's able to review his own memory of an event and pick up on details he didn't consciously notice the first time around. Fred, a genius physicist, weaponises her intelligence directly (a giant machine that hurls axes in ''Fredless'' and a Rube Goldberg trap to take down Wesley in ''Billy'') and through strategy (during the Jasmine arc of Season 4, particularly when she frees Angel from her mind control by shooting him ''through'' Jasmine to ensure he's exposed to her blood)
* Tracy, [=AKA=] Dice, in an episode of ''Series/TheCape'' is a savant who perceives the world around her on a quantum level, allowing her to make extremely accurate predictions about the future and set events in motion by doing something seemingly innocuous. At one point, she drops a coin, which starts off a series of events that almost result in [[BigBad Peter Fleming's]] death. She is also able to walk right past any security by picking a moment when no one is looking.
** For some reason, the protagonist is immune to her calculations, allowing him to screw up her careful planning.

--> '''Legasov:''' Yes.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'''s River: "Also, I can kill you with my brain." And we see just how true this is in "War Stories", where River comes upon Kaylee, who is pinned down by gunfire from three separate enemies. River glances at their positions, does the math, takes Kaylee's pistol, and proceeds to headshot all three of them ''with her eyes closed''. Later {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by Kaylee during a discussion of the incident in "Objects in Space":
-->'''Kaylee:''' She just...did the math...
* A villain-of-the-week in ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' could predict events with great accuracy by analyzing everything around him. He used this to plan fatal accidents for his targets, starting the "domino effect" by innocuous actions (e.g. dropping a pencil). He fails to predict Olivia's actions, because [[spoiler: that episode took place in the Red universe and since Olivia comes from the Blue universe her behavior was subtly different to that of a native]].

* Subverted on ''Series/RedDwarf'', when a white hole was causing chaotic time jumps and needed to be plugged, Holly, whose IQ had been increased into the tens of thousands, calculated a trajectory to fire an explosive that would use one planet to knock another into the white hole. Lister looks at the plan, realizes she's playing pool with planets and manufactures his own plan using only his mad pool skills, performs a trick shot using three planets and their solar orbits, sinking the last one. "Played for and got".

** In "Time's Arrow", whilst trapped in the past Data gains money by hustling poker players, which the implication that he did so by counting cards, something he intentionally ''doesn't'' do during ship poker nights. In "Cause and Effect", Worf and Riker speculate if Data truly ''is'' randomizing the deck each time he's the dealer. It turns out one of the clues that allowed them to finally break the time loop the ''Enterprise'' was caught in was Data subconsciously rigging the deck.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Carbon Creek," the Vulcans survive on Earth by making money hustling pool.

* In ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', Ulana Khomyuk[[note]]a CompositeCharacter of the many scientists who worked with Legasov to deal with the disaster[[/note]] is one of the first people outside the region to figure out that something bad happened there after conversation with her assistant and analyzing some radioactive dust swabbed from the window. She initially dismisses Chernobyl as a source until she calls them to see if they have the same readings and no one answers. She also figures out the dangers of the "sand and boron" plan faster than anyone else by realizing that the bubbler pool and water from fire hoses will have collected beneath the plant, creating the risk of a steam explosion if it isn't drained before the corium reaches it.

AwesomenessByAnalysis in live-action TV.

* ‘’ In {{Series/Drake and Josh}}, Josh excels at pool because it’s only a simple matter of geometry and physics
* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' features a lot of this as you'd expect from a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Unlike a lot of examples, the series does show the amount of work Holmes puts in to studying and maintaining the mental skills he uses to make his deductions. It's also made clear that this skill can be taught to people who are willing to put in the effort to learn. So far he's taught both Joan Watson and Kitty Winter how to do this and [[FriendOnTheForce Detective Bell]] has also been shown to have picked up some of Holmes' analytical style. By contrast in Season 2, Sherlock expresses frustration with his brother, Mycroft, who he acknowledges has the raw intelligence and basic analytical skills but doesn't put any effort into developing them.

** [[HollywoodNerd Reid]] is frequently AwesomeByAnalysis. Oftentimes, ''handwriting'' analysis. He started high school at age twelve and was a frequent target for bullies until he became the basketball coach, broke down their opponents' shooting strategies, and gave them a winning record.

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' - many instances, of which there are a couple examples:

** [[HollywoodNerd Reid]] is frequently AwesomeByAnalysis. Oftentimes, ''handwriting'' analysis.

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct alphabetical order.

** Angel himself displays this, having a photographic memory (implied to be part of his vampire super-senses) - in ''Supersymmetry'' he's able to review his own memory of an event and pick up on details he didn't consciously notice the first time around. Fred, a genius physicist, weaponises her intelligence directly (a giant machine that hurls axes in ''Fredless'' and a Rube Goldberg trap to take down Wesley in ''Billy'') and through strategy (during the Jasmine arc of season 4, particularly when she frees Angel from her mind control by shooting him ''through'' Jasmine to ensure he's exposed to her blood)

* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' features a lot of this as you'd expect from a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Unlike a lot of examples, the series does show the amount of work Holmes puts in to studying and maintaining the mental skills he uses to make his deductions. It's also made clear that this skill can be taught to people who are willing to put in the effort to learn. So far he's taught both Joan Watson and Kitty Winter how to do this and [[FriendOnTheForce Detective Bell]] has also been shown to have picked up some of Holmes' analytical style. By contrast in season 2, Sherlock expresses frustration with his brother, Mycroft, who he acknowledges has the raw intelligence and basic analytical skills but doesn't put any effort into developing them.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'''s River: "Also, I can kill you with my brain." And we see just how true this is in "War Stories", where River comes upon Kaylee, who is pinned down by gunfire from three separate enemies. River glances at their positions does the math, takes Kaylee's pistol, and proceeds to headshot all three of them with her eyes closed''. Later {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by Kaylee during a discussion of the incident in "Objects in Space":

* In ''Series/{{Alphas}}'', Kat's Alpha ability is her insane procedural memory, allowing her to learn and keep complex skills remarkably quickly. Unfortunately, this being Alphas, there is the inevitable trade-off: her declarative memory (i.e. everything else) only lasts for about a month, max. she has no idea who she is, or what she's done in her life. This can result in weird situations where she knows that if she has done this before, she'll be able to do it now...but whether she's ever done it before is anyone's guess.

** Not quite: Parkman and his father both have Telepathy.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Used in about every third episode, when the Doctor (or some other smart hero, usually a companion) will come up with a last minute, slightly Series/{{MacGyver}}ish, down to the wire, last-ditch, just-crazy-enough-to-work scheme that, of course, works because he did something involving a lot of technobabble. In about a quarter of them, however, this is subverted, with something that looks really planned out and life-saving happening, and the Doctor admitting that he made it up as he went along.

** Another episode teaser shows the Solomons watching the lottery drawing, and hitting all the numbers. They then happily tear up the ticket (either not knowing or not caring about the money, they ARE aliens, after all), and make remarks about how easy the prediction was, since it's just physics.

* In ''Series/{{Alphas}}'', Kat's Alpha ability is her insane procedural memory, allowing her to learn and keep complex skills remarkably quickly. Unfortunately, this being Alphas, there is the inevitable trade off: her declarative memory (i.e. everything else) only lasts for about a month, max. she has no idea who she is, or what she's done in her life. This can result in weird situations where she knows that if she has done this before, she'll be able to do it now...but whether she's ever done it before is anyone's guess.

** Fleming's people have managed to analyze Tracy's brain and mapped it to a program that can be used to predict stocks with great accuracy. When Tracy demands that Fleming give her back what he "stole", he casually hands her the tablet with the software, then explains that it's just one of many. Besides, it's about to be released for public consumption anyway.

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' - many instances, of which here are a couple examples:
** "Tabula Rasa" -- Hotchner, under cross examination in court, profiles the lawyer who is questioning him, and ''shuts him down:'' "...Your vice is horses. Your Blackberry's been buzzing on the table every twenty minutes, which happens to be the average time between posts from Colonial Downs. You're getting race results. And every time you do, it affects your mood in court, and you're not having a very good day. That's because you pick horses the same way you practice law...by always taking the long shot."

** "Extreme Aggressor" (the pilot) has us meet Gideon for the first time giving a profile of a killer. At the end of the episode, [[spoiler:he walks into a gas station, and the cashier happens to fit the profile. He might've been about to dismiss it as a coincidence, if the cashier hadn't pointed a gun at his head.]] In the following episode, "Compulsion", he tells a group of students about how he told the killer what he knew about him, including the reason he stuttered. The team spends the entire episode trying to figure that out. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out Gideon was lying to the killer about that last part. DoubleSubverted because Gideon knew it would stall him long enough to make his move.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Used in about every third episode, when the Doctor (or some other smart hero, usually a companion) will come up with a last minute, slightly Series/{{MacGyver}}ish, down to the wire, last ditch, just-crazy-enough-to-work scheme that, of course, works because he did something involving a lot of technobabble. In about a quarter of them, however this is subverted, with something that looks really planned out and life-saving happening, and the Doctor admitting that he made it up as he went along.

* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' features a lot of this as you'd expect from a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Unlike a lot of examples the series does show the amount of work Holmes puts in to studying and maintaining the mental skills he uses to make his deductions. It's also made clear that this skill can be taught to people who are willing to put in the effort to learn. So far he's taught both Joan Watson and Kitty Winter how to do this and [[FriendOnTheForce Detective Bell]] has also been shown to have picked up some of Holmes' analytical style. By contrast in season 2 Sherlock expresses frustration with his brother, Mycroft, who he acknowledges has the raw intelligence and basic analytical skills but doesn't put any effort into developing them.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'''s River: "Also, I can kill you with my brain." And we see just how true this is in "War Stories", where River comes upon Kaylee, who is pinned down by gunfire from three separate enemies. River glances at their positions, does the math, takes Kaylee's pistol, and proceeds to headshot all three of them with her eyes closed''. Later {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by Kaylee during a discussion of the incident in "Objects in Space":
-->'''Kaylee:''' She just . . . did the math..

* In ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', Sylar's original super power was analysis. By "understanding how things work", he's able to take the super powers of others, and also rapidly master those superpowers while their original owners either [[HowDoIShotWeb had trouble using them]], or [[PowerIncontinence couldn't stop using them uncontrollably]].

** In Season 3, Peter absorbs Sylar's ability in order to use it to understand the show's plot. No, really. He's trying to avert a future he visited but realizes he isn't smart enough to take all the factors into account, especially since in the Heroes verse, the future has a way of putting itself back on track (sometimes).

* The titular character in the short-lived series ''Series/JohnDoe'' has this as a superpower: he knows everything (except anything about his own past) and has the intelligence to apply that knowledge in whatever situation he's in. The show showed that despite this he wasn't infallible: some situations could have multiple explanations and he didn't always chose the right one, with a prime example being an episode where he was asked to help figure out how a thief had managed to sneak a rare gem out of a museum without being seen on the security cameras. Doe quickly demonstrated how knowledge of where the cameras were and their limitations, a convenient sculpture, and use of the environment could pull it off. When the guard who actually stole it finally confesses, it turns out he simply swallowed the gem and walked out the front door.

* Eliot of ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' has a duel with the BadassIsraeli of a rival team this way: They see each other, and the possibilities for the fight run through their minds, ending in a draw. One shifts position slightly, and the fight runs again, differently. Eventually they decide to postpone actually fighting.

* Subverted on ''Series/RedDwarf'', when a white hole was causing chaotic time jumps and needed to be plugged, Holly, whose IQ had been increased into the tens of thousands, calculated a trajectory to fire an explosive that would use one planet to knock another into the white hole. Lister looks at the plan, realizes she's playing pool with planets, and manufactures his own plan using only his mad pool skills, performs a trick shot using three planets and their solar orbits, sinking the last one. "Played for and got".

** In "Time's Arrow", whilst trapped in the past Data gains money by hustling poker players, which the implication that he did so by counting cards, something he intentionally ''doesn't'' do during ship poker nights. In "Cause and Effect", Worf and Riker speculate if Data truly ''is'' randomizing the deck each time he's dealer. It turns out one of the clues that allowed them to finally break the time loop the ''Enterprise'' was caught in was Data subconsciously rigging the deck.

** Subversion: In ''Series/EngineSentaiGoOnger'', the villain Hiramekimedes is all about calculation, analysis, and fighting via mathematics. Several of his attacks are even based around angles of triangles. However, the Go-ongers and Go-on Wings always decimate him, with Go-On Gold explaining that it's precisely ''because'' Hiramekimedes is so logical that it's easy to predict his attacks. [[spoiler:This causes Hiramekimedes to go crazy and swing to the ''other'' extreme of Game Theory: the completely random player who attacks with random mathematical fallacies (like 4 divided by 189 is exactly 100). He beats the crap out of the logical Go-On Gold, but is defeated by Go-On Red because ''his'' attacks are not based on logic or randomness, but pure HotBlooded power]].

* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' features a lot of this as you'd expect from a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Unlike a lot of examples the series does show the amount of work Holmes puts in to studying and maintaining the mental skills he uses to make his deductions. It's also made clear that this skill can be taught to people who are willing to put in the effort to learn. So far he's taught both Joan Watson and Kitty Winter how to do this and FreindOnTheForce Detective Bell has also been shown to have picked up some of Holmes' analytical style. By contrast in season 2 Sherlock expresses frustration with his brother, Mycroft, who he acknowledges has the raw intelligence and basic analytical skills but doesn't put any effort into developing them.