History CrapsackWorld / LiveACtionTV

* ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': 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.

* In all of ''Trek'''s incarnations, the MirrorUniverse is an example of this trope, but ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' takes it UpToEleven by dispensing with the {{Camp}} and BlackComedy and ratcheting up the endless grinding paranoia of living in a totalitarian [[TheEmpire Empire]] where everyone is endlessly scheming to assassinate everyone else to get ahead.

* TheGoodPlace: The whole concept of the afterlife the show presents. Your entire life, from birth to death, is monitored by bizarre and unknowable entities who assign point values to every single decision you make. If you fail to reach a high enough standard, you get left to suffer horrific physical or psychological torture forever. And that's ''before'' we find out that, not only is the system fundamentally flawed, making it so achieving a high enough point total been impossible for over ''five-hundred years'', but even the souls that ''do'' make it into the Good Place end up literally losing their minds from boredom, as they all eventually run out of things to keep them entertained. Every human who has ever lived has had a ''miserable'' afterlife experience, yet everyone involved, from the accountants to the heads of the Good and Bad Places to Gen herself, either doesn't notice, care, or have a solution to the problem. It takes incredible effort and ''massive'' amounts of luck to get them to change such an obviously and horrifically flawed system. Just imagine if the heroes had failed, and the system was left to go on as it had been...

* ''Series/YearsAndYears'': Welcome to the world in 2029! Society has become incredibly unstable and oppressive, and the world's climate has gone ''nuts''. [[spoiler: Things really started to kick off when the Trump administration fired a nuke at an artificial Chinese island in around 2024, which in turn inspired terrorists to start using radioactive weapons; in a particularly horrifying example, attacks in Leeds and Bristol that saw ''dirty bombs'' being detonated have rendered both cities [[GhostTown about as habitable as Pripyat.]] Russia has gone full-blown [[TheEmpire Empire Mode]] after invading and annexing Ukraine, the Arctic has completely melted, countless fruits have gone extinct, the insect population has been nearly wiped out, the world economy has been ripped apart after suffering a banking crisis that made the one in 2008 look ''mild'', Spain is communist after having a revolution, Greece has left the EU, Hungary is bankrupt and Italy is being held under martial law after its government resigned. The world is politically dominated by fundamentalism in some form or another (in the case of the west, it's mostly far-right populism) and the majority of the civilian population have been stripped of most of their rights. President [[TheFundamentalist Mike Pence]] has torpedoed LGBT rights, banned abortions (along with plenty of other reproductive rights), banned the speaking of Spanish in public places and has virtually shut the door on immigration over in America, while over in Britain - which is being lead by far-right populist Vivienne Rook and her Four Star Party - not only are there pre-existing problems such as very long periods of rain (at one point, 80 days ''non-stop!''), frequent cyber attacks causing mass power outages and the aforementioned radiation spots, but there's also the extreme oppression that Rook has imposed on Britain; political opponents are being violently suppressed, censorship and information control is widespread, the BBC has been disbanded, UrbanSegregation is rife, people are forced to live with randomly assigned others whether they like it or not, [[PrivatelyOwnedSociety almost everything is privately owned]] (probably by Four Star Party cronies), there are "Erstwhile" extermination centres where anyone sent there is left to die, [[UnPerson and it's subtly mentioned that anyone taken out by the Four Star Party has all of their existence erased.]] Oh, and the world's also being ravaged by a pandemic called "Monkey Flu".]]

* The world of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'', and ''Series/NcisNewOrleans'' is very much a terrible place to live if you think about it. Marines and sailors are always dropping like flies, corruption is everywhere, people from all walks of life ([[CreepyChild even children!]]) wont hesitate to resort to murder, terrorist attacks (both foreign and domestic) happen all the time, plots involving bio-weapons and nuclear material occur with disturbing frequency, and seemingly every enemy of the US has multiple undercover operations going on simultaneously. And it all falls upon not even twenty NCIS agents spread across three cities to keep the country safe, as the FBI are wrapped up in bureaucracy and a bit full of themselves, and the CIA might as well be the TokenEvilTeammate with how untrustworthy they are.

* The world of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''plain sucks, ''hard''. While you're alive, you're random victim fodder for all the monsters you've ever heard of (from urban legends to mythological beasts), and some you haven't... yet. The afterlife is just as bad where you are endlessly tortured in the BloodyBowelsOfHell as time passes according to YearInsideHourOutside logic, unless you decide to turn into a demon yourself. Heaven isn't much better, it's [[LotusEaterMachine a Matrix-esque dimension]] ruled by a CouncilOfAngels who have severe ParentalIssues by way of [[HaveYouSeenMyGod God having completely vanished]]. And for a third option, you can stay and become a ghost until you go crazy from loneliness and turn into a poltergeist. Also it's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** This world plain sucks, and ''hard''. While you're alive, you're random victim fodder for all the monsters you've ever heard of (from urban legends to mythological beasts), and some you haven't... yet. The afterlife is a bitch where you are endlessly tortured in the BloodyBowelsOfHell as time passes according to YearInsideHourOutside logic, unless you decide to turn in to a demon yourself. Heaven isn't much better, it's [[LotusEaterMachine the Matrix]] ruled by a CouncilOfAngels who have severe ParentalIssues by way of HaveYouSeenMyGod. And for a third option, you can stay and become a ghost until you go crazy from loneliness and turn in to a poltergeist. Did I also mention it's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt?
** According to the vision showed to Dean by Zachariah, in five years time it's going to be even worse, as [[spoiler: Dean is a homicidal, JerkAss soldier, Sam is possessed by Lucifer, and the only angel to give a damn about the human race is a hippie stoner/love guru who uses drink, drugs and orgies to cover up his new NietzscheWannabe attitude. Life sucks in 'The End']]. By season five's ending, however [[spoiler:Sam has managed to seal both Michael and Lucifer in Hell]]. In season twelve, [[spoiler: Lucifer is free again, begetting Satanspawn and eventually trapped in a crapsackier alternate universe than the main universe.]]
** Demons, monsters and angels don't have it much if any better. If you're a demon you're condemned to Hell to suffer unless you escape to Earth where you will likely be killed by a hunter or an angel. If you're a monster, you have to constantly keep a low profile and an eye over your shoulder for hunters who will kill you for no other reason then being a monster. Sooner or later you will give into your violent instincts whether you want to or not. And when you die you go to Purgatory, which is considered one step above Hell, where you have to fight other monsters constantly only to be die and reborn elsewhere for all eternity. If you're an angel, you had it good tell the higher ups failed to bring about the Apocalypse resulting in massive civil wars and every angel forcibly expelled from heaven.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' universe: a weird and astoundingly corrupt place, where the most civilized areas are dominated by one of the two warring [[EvilEmpire empires]]: the Peacekeepers, HumanAlien PrivateMilitaryContractors with a habit of conquering their own clients, a strong bias against any relationship stronger than friendship (with or without [[FriendsWithBenefits benefits]]), and an awful lot of xenophobia; or the Scarrans, a race of warlike [[TheReptilians Reptilians]] with a foreign policy even worse than the Peacekeepers, a vested interest in ruling the galaxy, and a habit of exterminating species they believe to be inferior and without use. The area between them is frequented by fugitives, pirates, mercenaries, con artists, mystics, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs con artists pretending to be mystics]], assassins, terrorists, gangsters, [[MadScientist mad scientists]], [[EvilSorcerer evil sorcerers]], unscrupulous sects of psychic monks, hordes of ravenous [[MonsterOfTheWeek alien monsters]], [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Godlike Aliens]] with attitude problems, actual gods with even ''worse'' attitudes, interdimensional entities with a decidedly BlueAndOrangeMorality, and an awful lot of contenders for the role of the next EvilEmpire. There are very few episodes in the entire series where anyone gets a straightforward happy ending, and even less that end with the locals being any better off; when it comes time for the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans to finally make peace, the hero has to threaten the ''entire universe'' with a doomsday device- and actually set it off- before they even consider agreeing to a treaty. Oh, and while Earth might have stayed out of the conflict, [[HumansAreFlawed humanity turns out to be no better than any other race in the galaxy]], to the hero's despair.

* ''Series/YearsAndYears'':
** By 2029, most Western nations of the world are dominated by what are effectively populist, far-right oppressive dictatorships that are even implied to glorify violence and hate, and likely vilify the "love and peace" of the post-war era as what would be described by their followers as "leftist propaganda". The world's climate has gone ballistic. Many food items that were taken for granted up until that point stuff like bananas and chocolate have either been reduced to luxury items or have completely disappeared into history. Freedom and liberty are all but nonexistent. Most terrifyingly of all, the dictators' control over information and society has reached such a point that they really could do things right out of Literature/NineteenEightyFour, such as make their followers believe that 2 + 2 = 5 or that an event never happened/someone never existed.
** The "someone never existed" part would especially apply to people that ''oppose'' them; one way of disposing of opponents is to kill them in extermination camps (the Erstwhile sites) and wipe them from all records.
** Those private security companies have also created 'red zones', which are used to cover areas that are believed to contain a high crime rate. The inhabitants are isolated from the outside world; people from outside can't enter without adequate identification, and the guards can happily box them in outright so ''nobody'' can enter or leave under any circumstances.

* While leagues above the world seen in the [[Franchise/RoboCop film trilogy]], the world in ''Series/RoboCopTheSeries'' isn't a picnic, either, with a war in the Amazon going on (though such a war was mentioned in the original trilogy, too, as part of the backstories for [[Film/RoboCop2 Cain]] and [[Film/RoboCop3 the Rehabs]]), sections of Beverly Hills and Brooklyn have been walled off, and it's perfectly legal to market plushies that double as hand grenades and steroids (with the InUniverse HarshTruthAesop that weaker kids deserve to get bullied, no less) to children, speaking English in France can land you in jail, the Italian government has fallen, and the mayor and DA are corrupt and in league with other criminals (with the latter having a fake law degree and helped to frame someone for said phony degree).

* While leagues above the world seen in the [[Franchise/RoboCop film trilogy]], the world in ''Series/RoboCopTheSeries'' isn't a picnic, either, with a war in the Amazon going on (though such a war was mentioned in the original trilogy, too, as part of the backstories for [[Film/RoboCop2 Cain]] and [[Film/RoboCop3 the Rehabs]]), sections of Beverly Hills and Brooklyn have been walled off, and it's perfectly legal to market plushies that double as hand grenades and steroids (with the InUniverse FamilyUnfriendlyAesop that weaker kids deserve to get bullied, no less) to children, speaking English in France can land you in jail, the Italian government has fallen, and the mayor and DA are corrupt and in league with other criminals (with the latter having a fake law degree and helped to frame someone for said phony degree).

* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'': The wizarding world. For utterly arbitrary reasons (seriously, we've never been actually told why) there can only be one wizard per family. Children grow up with powers and train for the wizard competition in which they will battle their sibling(s). One wins, the others lose their powers forever. We've seen at least one planned uprising by a large group of thwarted siblings, and one can assume that the earlier generation of the Russo's isn't the first - or the last - wizarding family to be torn apart by asinine rules. [[spoiler: And [[{{Sadist}} Alex, Justin and Max]] didn't care when they [[DisproportionateRetribution killed someone for leading a revolution for wizards to never have to give up their powers.]]]]

* ''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/{{Supernatural}}'': This world plain sucks, and ''hard''. While you're alive, you're random victim fodder for all the monsters you've ever heard of (from urban legends to mythological beasts), and some you haven't... yet. The afterlife is a bitch where you are endlessly tortured in the BloodyBowelsOfHell as time passes according to YearInsideHourOutside logic, unless you decide to turn in to a demon yourself. Heaven isn't much better, it's [[LotusEaterMachine the Matrix]] ruled by a CouncilOfAngels who have severe ParentalIssues by way of HaveYouSeenMyGod. And for a third option, you can stay and become a ghost until you go crazy from loneliness and turn in to a poltergeist. Did I also mention it's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt?

* ''{{Series/The 100}}''

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'': Several episodes take place in worlds like this. Examples include "It's a Good Life", where one [[EnfanteTerrible all-powerful boy]] controls everyone, "Eye of the Beholder" where everyone who is ugly is ghettoized, "Number Nine Looks Just Like You", where everyone has to get surgery to look like one of a limited number of models, and "The Obsolete Man", where religion is outlawed and you are terminated if declared "obsolete".

** The further you get into Buffy and Angel, the more the crapsackness of its 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".

** Then the main characters get down to Earth and discover that they '''aren't''' really the last humans alive... and things just get worse from there. The whole concept of the series appears to be "''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'', but even more depressing". Humanity virtually wiped itself out without an alien invasion happening ([[spoiler:although there was a mad AI making things worse]]), but even now the total population is a fraction of what it was, different groups still can't live in peace together. The series runs on HobbesWasRight, ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer, and DiabolusExMachina, and by the later stages of the show all the characters who sincerely '''want''' peace and brotherhood have nevertheless committed the FinalSolution on an opposing group at least once.

* ''{{Series/The 100}}'' starts out about a century or so in the future, with all that's left of humanity having escaped to space when nuclear warfare pretty much made the entire planet radioactive. However, because of limited resources, everything is rationed (with the more privileged naturally having access to better quality everything), there is a "one child per family" law for population control, and all crimes are punishable by death unless you're a minor. Oh, and oxygen systems are failing, so they've got 4 months to live, at best.

** ''Series/LukeCage2016'': How Harlem is portrayed. Much like Daredevil before this show, organized crime is rampant.

** ''Series/JessicaJones'': While the series focuses less on crime and more on the absolute terror that is Kilgrave, practically everyone, except for Luke Cage, is unpleasant, abrasive, an opportunist, a {{jerkass}}, or a combination of the aforementioned. [[AxCrazy Kilgrave]] himself creates a rather heavy and dark environment never before seen in Marvel shows, with him tormenting people and ruining lives in various unpleasant ways. Basically, he is less a character and more a force of evil that destroys everyone in his path.
** ''Series/LukeCage'': How Harlem is portrayed. Much like Daredevil before this show, organized crime is rampant.
** ''Series/ThePunisher'' gives us the titular character fighting highly corrupt military conspiracies involved in heroin trafficking and human rights violations. 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.