History CrapsackWorld / LiveACtionTV

* ''Series/TheDefenders'': The ''Creator/{{Netflix}}'' shows give us a much darker, more violent and corrupt world than we would expect in a regular [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] movie.

** ''Series/ThePunisher'' gives us the titular character fighting highly corrupt military conspiracies involved in heroin trafficking and human rights violations. In the second season, gives us a corrupt company that is involved in many murders. It certainly doesn't help the fact that the series was inspired by some of Punisher's darkest comics.

** ''Series/ThePunisher'' gives us the titular character fighting highly corrupt military conspiracies involved in the trafficking of heroin and human rights violations. In the second season, we are introduced to a corrupt company that is involved in many murders. It certainly does not help the fact that the series was inspired by some of Punisher's darkest comics.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'': The first series starts off with him accidentally (more like not) lopping off his uncle's head (said uncle absolutely despised him despite not knowing him at all and was willing to use him as arrow fodder because of it), and throughout the series Blackadder just keeps sliding further down the social food chain. It is a case where the ugliness of all ages is this being PlayedForLaughs. The first season is TheDungAges pretty much with dirt, poverty, the plague, crime-infested counties, dung, wars at the drop of a hat, a warmongering king who causes wars at the drop of a hat, witch hunts and more dung. Even the Prince of the Realm himself isn't safe from the violence much of the time mostly because of the aforementioned cruel kings, ruthless witch-hunters and bloodthirsty criminals. The second season gives emphasis on the reign of terror of the Queenie and how easy it is to end up beheaded and like in the first season there are equally horrible people who vie for her position and as for the heads of the Anglican Church they turn out to be depraved loan-sharks. Also the only available remedy for most ailments is leeches. The third season has the retarded Prince living in luxury while everything outside the palace is pretty much a hell-hole filled with intellectual psychopaths, political psychopaths and higway-men who are also psychopathic. This is complicated by the fact that it is ridiculously easy to rig at the elections. And the fourth well is self-explanatory considering that it was the bloodiest world in history at the time and the incompetence and sociopathy of the heads. Human life has little to no value and those who survive the insane orders that they receive have to live in squalor and have rats as snacks to live anothey day.

* ''Film/Yuma1971'': Yuma Territory is so corrupt and violent that at least three lawmen have been driven away from the territory by the time of the film's start. The nearby Army base is corrupt and filled with embezzlement, which leads to the local Native American tribe starving.

** Earth also becomes one during [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords the Year That Never Was]]. With the help of the Toclofane, the Master has enslaved the human race, forcing them to build monuments to him (including carving his face onto Mt. Rushmore) and millions of galactic [=WMDs=] to prepare for war with the rest of the universe. He's destroyed New York, frozen the Nile, poisoned the Caspian Sea, created radiation pits in Europe, erected fusion mills in China, and burned Japan to the ground. The entire planet is also under constant surveillance through the Archangel network. The Doctor, Captain Jack, and Martha's family all remain prisoners onboard the Valiant, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking stuck listening to the Master playing the same songs over and over again.]]
** Earth becomes one in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]], where Donna Noble never meets the Doctor and he drowns when [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride the base beneath the Thames is flooded.]] Without him around, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones all but one of the people inside the Royal Hope Hospital die when it's teleported to the Moon]] (including Martha Jones, [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, Maria, and Clyde]]), London is destroyed and Southern England is irradiated when [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned a replica of the Titanic falls from the sky]], sixty million Americans are killed by [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime the Adipose]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem the Sontarans' plan]] is only narrowly stopped by the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' team at the cost of their own lives, Captain Jack is stranded on Sontar, England begins [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything shipping minorities off to "labour camps"]][[note]]with [[FridgeHorror the Cybermen theme]] in the background[[/note]], and just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, TheStarsAreGoingOut.

** Earth becomes one in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]], where Donna Noble never meets the Doctor and he drowns when [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride the base beneath the Thames is flooded.]] Without him around, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones all but one of the people inside the Royal Hope Hospital die when it's teleported to the moon]] (including Martha Jones, [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, Maria, and Clyde]]), London is destroyed and Southern England is irradiated when [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned a replica of the Titanic falls from the sky]], sixty million Americans are killed by [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime the Adipose]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem the Sontarans' plan]] is only narrowly stopped by the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' team at the cost of their own lives, Captain Jack is stranded on Sontar, England begins [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything shipping minorities off to "labour camps"]][[note]]with [[FridgeHorror the Cybermen theme]] in the background[[/note]], and just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, TheStarsAreGoingOut.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'': The first series starts off with him accidentally (more like not) lopping off his uncle's head (said uncle absolutely despised him despite not knowing him at all and was willing to use him as arrow fodder because of it), and throughout the series Blackadder just keeps sliding further down the social food chain. It is a case where the ugliness of all ages is this being PlayedForLaughs. The first season is the Dung Ages pretty much with dirt, poverty, the plague, crime-infested counties, dung, wars at the drop of a hat, a warmongering king who causes wars at the drop of a hat, witch hunts and more dung. Even the Prince of the Realm himself isn't safe from the violence much of the time mostly because of the aforementioned cruel kings, ruthless witch-hunters and bloodthirsty criminals. The second season gives emphasis on the reign of terror of the Queenie and how easy it is to end up beheaded and like in the first season there are equally horrible people who vie for her position and as for the heads of the Anglican Church they turn out to be depraved loan-sharks. Also the only available remedy for most ailments is leeches. The third season has the retarded Prince living in luxury while everything outside the palace is pretty much a hell-hole filled with intellectual psychopaths, political psychopaths and higway-men who are also psychopathic. This is complicated by the fact that it is ridiculously easy to rig at the elections. And the fourth well is self-explanatory considering that it was the bloodiest world in history at the time and the incompetence and sociopathy of the heads. Human life has little to no value and those who survive the insane orders that they receive have to live in squalor and have rats as snacks to live anothey day.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' show that Earth, itself, used to be a really crappy place to live. ''TNG'' showed in its very first episode that Earth had become embroiled in nuclear war at some point in the 21st century, leading to a period of time known as the "post-atomic horrors", when civilization collapsed and anarchy reigned. In the ''[=DS9=]'' two-part episode "Past Tense", America was shown to have not been much better before then: in the [=2020s=], the US government "solved" the problem of poverty by forcing the impoverishedto live in "sanctuary districts", walled-off ghettos where the jobless and mentally ill were forced to live in cramped, squalid conditions. Off-hand conversation suggests the rest of the world wasn't doing any better.

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'': Set in a world where you are born with no power and an easy victim to demons and warlocks, with good powers but too weak to do much and now a target of said demons and warlocks, with bad powers where you have no choice to be good and live in a darwinist underworld, or are the Charmed Ones who are powerful but targeted by virtually all the forces of evil until you either die or kill enough powerful demons that they decide to bide their time and wait to try and kill the next generation.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen Pete's]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E6TheAgeOfSteel World]], an AlternateUniverse where London has a curfew imposed by armed soldiers, a MegaCorp that beams its approved version of the news directly into people's heads, and a brief mention of New Germany... and that's just the little we know.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia The year 100 Trillion AD]], a place even the Time Lords feared to tread. Star formation has ended, leaving the universe mostly empty, dark, and cold. The only remnants of life we see besides the Master are a carnivorous race leading hunting parties across the land, [[LastOfHerKind the last living member of a humanoid insect species]], and ragged remnants of humanity hoping to board a rocket to a promised Utopia... which turns out to be a cruel deception, as Utopia is a world of burning furnaces and the last of humanity screaming at the dark. That's where they transform into their final evolution: the heavily augmented, sociopathic, disturbingly child-like Toclofane. And the real kicker? ''Nothing has been nor can be done to change this future.''

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica 2003}}'': The human race is made up largely of flawed, amoral, and evil people who barely deserve to continue existing as a species, every victory the fleet wins comes at great cost, [[spoiler: and even the completion of their quest to find Earth nets them nothing but the lifeless, irradiated ruins of a dead civilization.]]

** The further you get into Buffy and Angel, the more the crapsackness of it's universe is foregrounded. In one episode of Angel, Angel takes an elevator to Hell, only to have it to take him back to the real world because there was no way of making a hell worse than Angel's normal life. It's not for nothing that Joss Wheedon argues the real villain of Buffy Season Six is "life itself".

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia The year 100 Trillion AD,]] a place even the Time Lords feared to tread. Star formation has ended, leaving the universe mostly empty, dark, and cold. The only remnants of life we see besides the Master are a carnivorous race leading hunting parties across the land, [[LastOfHerKind the last living member of a humanoid insect species]], and ragged remnants of humanity hoping to board a rocket to a promised Utopia... which turns out to be a cruel deception, as Utopia is a world of burning furnaces and the last of humanity screaming at the dark. That's where they transform into their final evolution: the heavily augmented, sociopathic, disturbingly child-like Toclofane. And the real kicker? ''Nothing has been nor can be done to change this future.''
** Earth also becomes one during [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords The Year That Never Was]]. With the help of the Toclofane, the Master has enslaved the human race, forcing them to build monuments to him (including carving his face onto Mt. Rushmore) and millions of galactic [=WMDs=] to prepare for war with the rest of the universe. He's destroyed New York, frozen the Nile, poisoned the Caspian Sea, created radiation pits in Europe, erected fusion mills in China, and burned Japan to the ground. The entire planet is also under constant surveillance through the Archangel network. The Doctor, Captain Jack, and Martha's family all remain prisoners onboard the Valiant, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking stuck listening to the Master playing the same songs over and over again.]]

* ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Welcome to the world of GLEE; where everyone has something sucky and traumatic happen to them at least once a season.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': They have one of these almost every season.
* ''Series/HillStreetBlues'': This is another example.

* ''{{Series/The League Of Gentlemen}}'': Royston Vasey. There are a pair of incestuous serial killers, a ringmaster who kidnaps women, a butcher who sells highly illegal and hideously immoral drugs, an OCD couple who practically worships toads, a pedophile German exchange student councilor and a psychotic lesbian job restart officer who bullies and insults her "dole scum". And that's just 8 characters. And even if one ignores the depravity of most of the cast the whole land is cursed. Cursed as in both plagued by ancient evils that infest the very foundations of the town, and as in industrial, poverty-stricken slum that looks like a demilitarized zone (which is best seen in the third season) where a standard part of living is pillaging shops and scavenging in the trash.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' show that Earth, itself, used to be a really crappy place to live. ''TNG'' showed in its very first episode that Earth had become embroiled in nuclear war at some point in the 21st century, leading to a period of time known as the "post-atomic horrors", when civilization collapsed and anarchy reigned. In the ''[=DS9=]'' two-part episode "Past Tense", America was shown to have not been much better before then: in the [=2020s=], the US government "solved" the problem of poverty by forcing the impoverishedto live in "sanctuary districts", walled-off ghettos where the jobless and mentally ill were forced to live in cramped, squalid conditions. Off-hand conversation suggests the rest of the world wasn't doing any better.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode the "Quickening" showed a planet the Jem'Hadar decided to make an example of. Not only was the place blasted into the Stone Age, but the people of the planet were given a genetic disease called the Blight. All are born with it-anyone who does not take their own lives first dies of it. One man, being treated well because the Blight was in its final stages, said that he was glad to have bathed and slept in a bed for the first time in his LIFE.

* ''Series/TheSopranos'' gives us a world where, at any moment, [[AnyoneCanDie you can be killed]] by [[TheMafia mobsters]]. Crime is rampant, even more so than in our world, to the point in which said mobsters get away with every murder they commit [[spoiler:([[KarmaHoudiniWarranty even though most of them gets their comeuppance at the end of the series]])]]. As if that was not enough, there are a lot of AxCrazy people out there who could hurt you [[DisproportionateRetribution for the slightest offense towards them]]. It's telling something that the most remotely likable characters are {{Punch Clock Villain}}s.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': The entire Milky Way Galaxy as depicted is like this. As depicted in the series, the galaxy's population is primarily enslaved humanity duped into worshiping a bunch of evil aliens who get a kick out of posing as gods (never nice benevolent Judeo-Christian Jehovah God who never ever shows up yet {{Satan}} does, more like "Kneel Before Zod" gods), taking over the bodies of unwilling people, and ruling their planetary systems through a mode of governing best described as Unapologetic Dog Kicking (i.e. one System Lord basically nuked an entire populated star system rather than let it fall to another). In fact, part of the reason these evil aliens so despise Earth, is because it is one of the precious few relatively happy and free worlds in the galaxy. On top of this, when the evil aliens are defeated they are ALWAYS replaced by even more AxCrazy foes (i.e. crazy religious fundamentalists with indestructible apostles and ships, robots bent on consuming whole planets, etc.) And if that's not good enough, the one powerful good race that WANTS to help is locked in a war for survival against said robots and the best they can do is bluff the parasitical aliens into leaving a few worlds alone.
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The Pegasus Galaxy isn't much better. It used to be a pretty nice place a long time ago under the stewardship of the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]]. Then they unwittingly create a fast-breeding, [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampiric]] race of pseudo-humanoids with bio-ships who defeat the Ancients despite their vastly superior technology and then start feeding on the galaxy's humans, periodically waking up from slumber to "harvest" the galaxy. Additionally, not all Wraith are asleep. Some keep watch and wipe out any civilization that even hints at possibly being threatening to them. The [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascended]] Ancients aren't going to help. The only consolation is the [[EnemyCivilWar Wraith fighting among themselves]], as they were woken up ahead of schedule, and there isn't enough "food" for them to go around. The three times the humans from Earth encounter civilizations advanced enough to be their allies against the Wraith, they end up as new enemies. These include crazy humanoids composed of nanites (similar to the Replicators) who, when finally turned against the Wraith, choose to wipe out their "food" (i.e. all humans) instead. The Genii are a militaristic underground culture with 50s technology and a beef against Earth humans. The Vanir turn out to be a renegade faction of the benevolent Asgard, who view humans as expendable and are perfectly willing to destroy every single stargate in an EarthShatteringKaboom to keep safe from the Wraith.

* ''Survivors'': The majority of the world population is wiped out by the machinations of a evil corporation.

* ''Series/WaterlooRoad'': The review describing this show as being set in a town resembling a cross between ''Dante's Inferno'' and ''Baghdad'' was uncannily accurate.

* ''{{Series/The League Of Gentlemen}}'': Royston Vasey. There are a pair of incestuous serial killers, a ringmaster who kidnaps women, a butcher who sells highly illegal and hideously immoral drugs, an OCD couple who practically worships toads, a pedophile German exchange student councilor and a psychotic lesbian job restart officer who bullies and insults her "dole scum". And that's just 8 characters. And even if one ignores the depravity of most of the cast and the numerous hints that the land is cursed by ancient evils, it is still a vile place by mundane standards as seen in the third season: there are a lot of industrial, poverty-stricken slum that look like demilitarized zones and a considerable part of the population relies on pillaging shops and scavenging in the trash.

* ''{{Series/The League Of Gentlemen}}'': Royston Vasey. There are incestuous serial killers, a ringmaster who kidnaps women, a butcher who sells highly illegal and hideously immoral drugs, an OCD couple who practically worships toads, a pedophile German exchange student councilor and a psychotic lesbian job restart officer who bullies and insults her "dole scum". And that's just 7 characters.

** Androzani in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]". The story and the society depicted consist entirely of insane and/or absolutely horrible people fighting each other to the death for entirely selfish reasons, with the Doctor and Peri helplessly caught in the crossfire and the Doctor dying as a result.

* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Par for the course when terrorist attacks on American soil have become a common occurrence and the government has essentially given counter-terrorist operatives free reign to use torture on anyone suspected of being involved in the plots. A good way to sum it up would be to point out that in a twenty year period, the U.S. has had nine different presidents, only one of whom actually finished out the term they were elected to. The rest were either assassinated or forced to resign in disgrace.

** Earth becomes one in "Turn Left", where Donna Noble never meets the Doctor and he drowns when [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride the base beneath the Thames is flooded.]] Without him around, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones all but one of the people inside the Royal Hope Hospital die when it's teleported to the moon]] (including Martha Jones, [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, Maria, and Clyde]]), London is destroyed and Southern England is irradiated when [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned a replica of the Titanic falls from the sky]], sixty million Americans are killed by [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime the Adipose]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem the Sontarans' plan]] is only narrowly stopped by the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' team at the cost of their own lives, Captain Jack is stranded on Sontar, England begins [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything shipping minorities off to "labour camps"]][[note]]with [[FridgeHorror the Cybermen theme]] in the background[[/note]], and just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, TheStarsAreGoingOut.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia The year 100 Trillion AD,]] a place even the Time Lords feared to tread. Star formation has ended, leaving the universe mostly empty, dark, and cold. The only remnants of life we see besides the Master are a carnivorous race leading hunting parties across the land, [[LastOfHerKind the last living member of a humanoid insect species]], and ragged remnants of humanity hoping to board a rocket to a promised Utopia...which turns out to be a cruel deception, as Utopia is a world of burning furnaces and the last of humanity screaming at the dark. That's where they transform into their final evolution: the heavily augmented, sociopathic, disturbingly child-like Toclofane. And the real kicker? ''Nothing has been nor can be done to change this future.''

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'': The first series starts off with him accidentally (more like not lopping off his uncle's head (said uncle absolutely despised him despite not knowing him at all and was willing to use him as arrow fodder because of it), and throughout the series Blackadder just keeps sliding further down the social food chain. It is a case where the ugliness of all ages is this being PlayedForLaughs. The first season is the Dung Ages pretty much with dirt, poverty, the plague, crime-infested counties, dung, wars at the drop of a hat, a warmongering king who causes wars at the drop of a hat, witch hunts and more dung. Even the Prince of the Realm himself isn't safe from the violence much of the time mostly because of the aforementioned cruel kings, ruthless witch-hunters and bloodthirsty criminals. The second season gives emphasis on the reign of terror of the Queenie and how easy it is to end up beheaded and like in the first season there are equally horrible people who vie for her position and as for the heads of the Anglican Church they turn out to be depraved loan-sharks. Also the only available remedy for most ailments is leeches. The third season has the retarded Prince living in luxury while everything outside the palace is pretty much a hell-hole filled with intellectual psychopaths, political psychopaths and higway-men who are also psychopathic. This is complicated by the fact that it is ridiculously easy to rig at the elections. And the fourth well is self-explanatory considering that it was the bloodiest world in history at the time and the incompetence and sociopathy of the heads. Human life has little to no value and those who survive the insane orders that they receive have to live in squalor and have rats as snacks to live anothey day.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' show that Earth, itself, used to be a really crappy place to live. ''TNG'' showed in its very first episode that Earth had become embroiled in nuclear war at some point in the 21st century, leading to a period of time known as the "post-atomic horrors", when civilization collapsed and anarchy reigned. In the ''[=DS9=]'' two-part episode "Past Tense", America was shown to have not been much better before then: in the [=2020s=], the US government "solved" the problem of poverty by forcing the impoverished to live in "sanctuary districts", walled-off ghettos where those without jobs were forced to live in cramped, squalid conditions. Off-hand conversation suggests the rest of the world wasn't much better off.

** Varos in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Vengeance on Varos]]", a depraved former prison colony where the most popular TV show is a DepravedRealityShow of dissidents being tortured to death, and the government sells recordings of it to sadists on other planets as {{Snuff Film}}s.

** Varos in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Vengeance on Varos]]", a depraved former prison colony where the government publicly tortures dissidents to death and sells recordings of it to sadists on other planets as {{Snuff Film}}s.

** Varos in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Vengeance on Varos]]", a depraved former prison colony where the government publicly tortures dissidents to death and sells recordings of it to sadists on other planets as ((Snuff Film}}s.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The universe has some individual-story settings that qualify as full-blown Crapsack Worlds. Particularly glaring examples include Thal-[[SignificantAnagram Kaled]] War-era Skaro in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]", Varos in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Vengeance on Varos]]", and Androzani in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]".

* ''Series/TheSopranos'' gives us a world where, at any moment, [[AnyoneCanDie you can be killed]] by [[TheMafia mobsters]]. Crime is rampant, even more so than in our world, to the point in which said mobsters get away with every murder they commit [[spoiler:([[KarmaHoudiniWarranty even though most of them gets their comeuppance at the end of the series]])]]. As if that was not enough, there are a lot of [[AxCrazy psychotic people]] out there who could hurt you [[DisproportionateRetribution for the slightest offense towards them]]. It's telling something that the most remotely likable characters are {{Punch Clock Villain}}s.

* ''Series/TheSopranos'' gives us a world where, at any moment, [[AnyoneCanDie you can be killed]] by [[TheMafia mobsters]]. Crime is rampant, even more so than in our world, to the point in which said mobsters get away with every murder they commit ([[KarmaHoudiniWarranty even though most of them gets their comeuppance at the end of the series]]). As if that was not enough, there are a lot of [[AxCrazy psychotic people]] out there who could hurt you [[DisproportionateRetribution for the slightest offense towards them]]. It's telling something that the most remotely likable characters are {{Punch Clock Villain}}s.