History ButForMeItWasTuesday / LiveActionTv

* Invoked on ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' when Fin is confronted by a man who snaps Fin put him in jail for 23 years. Fin replies, "I put a lot of guys away for a lot longer. You're gonna have to be more specific." The man presses on it being in a Queens neighborhood in 1999, with Fin replying, "you know how many collars I made there?" and claiming his memory is bad. It's when the man shares his street name of "Dutch" that Fin puts it together. At first, Dutch doesn't believe him until Fin rattles off details of the arrest.

* In ''Series/WolfHall'', Thoms Cromwell needs men to convict as lovers of Anne Boleyn, so he picks men who (among other, more personal reasons) are "guilty, though not necessarily as charged." One of them is Will Brereton, who flouts the law on his Welsh holdings. When Cromwell brings up an incident in which Brereton blocked efforts to prosecute a member of his household who killed a man over lawn bowling, Brereton blithely says "the game can get very heated." Cromwell alludes to this when he continues onto a later incident.

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'' has an ongoing theme about how the Galactic Empire from ''Franchise/StarWars'' has tendency to fall into this.

** Nemik points at that the Empire finds it easier to hide behind a flood of non-stop small tyrannies and atrocities as opposed to one big incident that would massively inflame people galaxy-wide into resisting it. However, each one of those incidents creates a few people who become willing to stand up to the Empire as a result, often without the Empire knowing it. For example, the Empire building a massive prison complex over water fouls most of the local water, depriving some local fishermen of their living. Later, when a couple of those fishermen encounter escapees from said prison, they're perfectly happy to aid the prisoners escape and get off world just to stick it to a clueless Empire.
** Even Imperials aren't immune to getting this treatment from the Empire. Of the seven participants in the Aldhani heist, one is an ex-Stormtrooper and another is a current Imperial officer. When Lieutenant Gorn's participation in the heist is revealed to his commanding officer, the Commandant, it's clear that the Commandant has no idea what Gorn's beef is that motivated him to take part in the heist, or that the Commandant was pushing Gorn's BerserkButton multiple times a day when expressing racism and disgust towards the locals.
** Cassian says on several occasions that the Empire is too arrogant and self-satisfied to bother ''actually'' paying attention to anyone other than themselves, to remember the people they hurt, or to learn from their mistakes. He's repeatedly proven right. He himself is a case, as several times throughout the show his past file is mentioned, and Imperials quote the part about him assaulting some Imperial officers at 13, absolutely clueless as to ''why'' he did so. His [[ParentalSubstitute adopted father]] was wrongly shot by Imperials who mistook him for a protesting rabble rouser and then was left hanging in the town square [[MakeAnExampleOfThem so he'd be an example to others]]. From there Cassian was conscripted into serving/supplementing Imperial troops who were fighting other ordinary people who were rebelling against the Empire's tyranny, with many of Cassians fellow conscripts perishing as a result. It's clear that either none of this is recorded in his file or that the Imperials who review it don't bother looking at it if it is.

* ''Series/NedAndStacey'': In the pilot, Stacey comes to Ned's apartment to confront him about him stealing a speech from her and using it out of context in a commercial.

* ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'': In a Season 6 episode, Alex joins the lacrosse team and is promptly cold-shouldered by one of the other players for what Alex assumes is no reason. Turns out that, years earlier, Alex tripped her and broke her leg and nearly blinded her with a laser pointer.

** Even Imperials aren't immune to getting this treatment from the Empire. Of the seven participants in the Aldhani heist, one is an ex-Stormtrooper and another is a current Imperial officer. When Lieutenant Gorn's participation in the heist is revealed to his commanding officer, the Commandant, it's clear that the Commandant has no idea what Gorn's beef is that motivated him to take part in the heist, or that the Commandant was pushing Gorn's BerserkButton multiple times a day when expression racism and disgust towards the locals.

* On ''Series/GreysAnatomy'', Meredith is before a panel to decide whether she should be allowed to keep her medical license. She's stunned to see one doctor is the man who refued to run a CT scan on Meredith's husband, Derek, which cost him his life. Meredith is further stunned to realize the doctor obviously doesn't remember Meredith despite being the one to tell her about Derek dying. When the man brings up Meredith's capability as a mother, Meredith stands up to rattle off a series of names then says they're the "spouse or partner of every patient I couldn't save." The guy ''still'' doesn't get it until Meredith point blank brings up Derek's name and the night and "you killed my husband and you don't even remember it!" The man's shock contributes to a stroke that ends up killing him..with Meredith ironically being the one to immediately suggest "give him a CT scan."

** Buffy herself is a heroic example of that trope: in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E12ANewMan A New Man]]", Riley is praised for single-handedly catching 17 creatures.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': Halbrand has a major grudge against Adar for unspecified reasons, only narrowly being dissuaded from giving him an ImpromptuTracheotomy by Galadriel reminding him that VengeanceFeelsEmpty. Adar, however, has no clue who Halbrand is and tries to goad him by speculating what he could've done to make Halbrand hate him so much.

* ''Series/{{Blade}}: The Series'': [[MagnificentBastard Marcus Van Sciver]] has spent decades plotting revenge against the pureblood Damek, who brutally murdered his wife in front of him and then had Van Sciver sent to a bunch of feral [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], who ended up turning him. Eventually, Marcus confronts Damek and starts a fight. Right before Van Sciver kills him, Damek simply laughs, saying he doesn't even remember her; after all, he's a couple thousand years old and likely can't remember a hundredth of the people he's killed.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'': The beginning of the episode "Cor-Ai" goes like this. A man tries to put Teal'c (the [[HeelFaceTurn recently reformed]] [[TheDragon Dragon]] of [[AGodAmI Apophis]]) on trial for killing his father. It takes Teal'c a while to even remember visiting the planet. In this case, though, ''both'' are portrayed sympathetically, and Teal'c is remorseful even when he doesn't recall what exactly he did.

** In "Duet", Kira confronts the Cardassian war criminal Gul Darhe'el about his brutal actions during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. At one point, Darhe'el simply says "What you call genocide, I call a day's work." [[spoiler:It turns out he's actually invoking this trope intentionally; he's really Darhe'el's assistant, posing as him in an attempt to make Cardassia own up to their brutality and appease his own conscience, and he's intentionally trying to wind up the Bajorans so they won't ask too many questions and discover the ruse -- but given the way many Cardassian officers talk about the Bajorans, it's entirely possible he's conveying the real Darhe'el's sentiments.]]
** The episode "One More Unto The Breach" reveals that Martok was denied an officer's rank by Kor because Martok was common-blood. Martok holds a grudge against Kor for this for years, but Kor doesn't remember the specific incident. He does admit that it sounds like something he would do, and later revelations in the episode imply that the onset of Klingon Alzheimer's may have something to do with his forgetfullness.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' season 1 episode "The Battle", we learn of a confrontation between a younger Jean-Luc Picard and the Ferengi back when he was captain of the USS ''Stargazer'' where Picard used a desperate tactic to confuse his attackers and then destroy them. While Picard himself hasn't forgotten it -- this incident cost him his ship, after all -- he knows it's barely a footnote in larger Federation history, and as such expresses surprise to find out that the Ferengi refer to this event as the "Battle of Maxia" as if it were a grand battle.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' implies a heroic version of this in [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E21Deadlock "Deadlock"]]. By the end of the episode, Ensign Kim and Naomi Wildman have both died, and have been replaced by ReplacementGoldfish from an alternate universe version of the ''Voyager'' schismed from the "real" ''Voyager'' mere hours before where they were the only survivors of the alternate ship's destruction. Janeway advises Kim not to think too much about it.
-->'''Janeway''': We're Starfleet officers, Harry. Weird is part of the job.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' gives us "Death's-Head Revisited", where a Nazi officer revisits a concentration camp seventeen years after the war. He runs across a former inmate, and a battle of wills begins. It's not until the end that the officer remembers that he ''killed'' the inmate in question the night the Allies liberated the camp -- the implication being that he'd killed so many people that he simply ''forgot'' until then.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' season 1 episode "The Battle", we learn of a confrontation between a younger Jean-Luc Picard and the Ferengi back when he was captain of the USS ''Stargazer'' where Picard used a desperate tactic to confuse his attackers then destroy them before they were taken. Picard expresses surprise to find out that the Ferengi refer to this event as the "Battle of Maxia" as if it were a grand battle.

** In "Duet", Kira confronts the Cardassian war criminal Gul Darhe'el about his brutal actions during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. At one point, Darhe'el simply says "What you call genocide, I call a day's work." [[spoiler:It turns out he's actually invoking this trope intentionally; he's really Darhe'el's assistant, posing as him in an attempt to make Cardassia own up to their brutality and appease his own conscience, and he's intentionally trying to wind up the Bajorans so they won't ask too many questions and discover the ruse.]]

* Quite often, the marks on ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' are totally unaware of the amount of lives they've destroyed. In some cases, team will use either the names or even the actual people who have been ripped off and lost most everything as part of their revenge con and the crooks honestly have no idea who all these names are.

** Cassian says on several occasions that the Empire is too arrogant and self-satisfied to bother ''actually'' paying attention to anyone other than themselves, to remember the people they hurt, or to learn from their mistakes. He's repeatedly proven right. He himself is a case, as several times throughout the show his past file is mentioned, and Imperials quote the part about him assaulting some Imperial officers at 13, absolutely clueless as to ''why'' he did so. [[spoiler:His [[ParentalSubstitute adopted father]] was wrongly shot by Imperials and then left hanging in the town square [[MakeAnExampleOfThem so he'd be an example to others]]. From there he was conscripted into serving/supplementing Imperial troops who were fighting other ordinary people who were rebelling against the Empire's tyranny, and it's clear that either none of this is recorded in his file or that the Imperials who review it don't bother looking at that if it is.

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'' titles an episode "The Axe Forgets" after the proverb "The axe forgets but the tree remembers". The episode is about how individuals' resentment at the Empire's torrential abuses and exploitation led to the formation of rebel cells, and [[ForegoneConclusion will eventually give rise to the Rebel Alliance.]]

** A RunningGag is that A-Train doesn't remember running Robin over or his apology to Hughie, which allows Hughie to completely slip beneath his notice for quite some time. [[spoiler:Homelander also doesn't remember the face of the man whose wife he raped and impregnated.]] Exploited by Hughie [[spoiler: when he pretends to have had sex with Ezekiel in a club.]]

* ''Series/BreakingBad'' and ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': In the former, Walt and Jesse kidnap Saul Goodman and threaten to shoot him into a shallow desert grave. It's played for laughs and they don't think much of it after the fact. The latter show reveals that Jimmy [=McGill=](Saul's real name) is deeply traumatised from his desert experiences and being held captive by Lalo, and getting kidnapped by those two reawakened all the PTSD he'd tried to keep buried. They also [[OnceMoreWithClarity replay]] said scene from Saul's point of view, and it's shot like a horror movie.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. Subverted in "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS3E8RumoursOfDeath Rumours of Death]]" when Avon interrogates a TortureTechnician whom he thinks killed [[LostLenore Anna Grant]]. When the man denies it, Avon assumes this trope is in play. It turns out the torturer remembers his victims because he's proud of his work [[spoiler:and the reason he doesn't remember Anna Grant is because she's a [[TheMole Security agent]], so was never arrested.]]