History CrapsackWorld / LiveActionTv

* ''Series/{{Lexx}}'': One of the biggest examples of a Crapsack ''universe'' in science fiction. The main characters are horny, greedy cowards who fly a spaceship that eats inhabited planets for food. The one who isn't horny, greedy, or a coward is undead. One of the crew is a humanoid ManEatingPlant who routinely eats people and openly warns that she'll eat her crewmates if ever there isn't anyone else to eat. Another member of the crew has been genetically imprinted with DNA from a monstrous alien carnivore, which leads to her doing things like going into a heat-state, during which she blacks out and eats people, including ''an entire theater's audience'', culminating only when she mates with and consumes a BodyDouble of her love interest. At the end of every season, things have gone from bad to worse. Of note: in Season 2, the crew cripple a being named Mantrid, unwittingly setting up his meteoric ascension to BigBad (and powerful galactic force). By the end of the season, the crew stops Mantrid, but lose several allies (including a plant-like creature and a young boy who helped them) and have unwittingly '''destroyed an entire universe''', not to mention that they've run out of gas and have to go into hibernation for years. By the end of Season 3, they've blown up two planets full of people (one "good" and one "evil" planet, but not all of the people on either planet thought the same way) in order to get enough food for the Lexx to survive.\\\
That, in turn, drives the plot of the next season, where the Lexx finds Earth. The crew wants to get the Lexx more food, but they end up doing more harm than good. Several innocent people are killed, one crew member sacrifices himself to stop a destructive invasion of ''killer carrot aliens'', at ''least'' three whole cities are annihilated off the face of the planet by the starship (and that's before Earth is ''blown up''), and the Lexx eventually '''dies of old age'''. The only redeeming point is that the last two surviving crew members get to travel the stars in a spiffy new mini-Lexx. Keep in mind that the ''whole series'' is intended as BlackComedy.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren''. This show's universe is filled with the most despicable people you could possibly come up with. On a daily basis, innocents and guilty alike are punished, the men are almost without fail chauvinistic jackass pigs, the women money digging whiny bitches, authority figures are all corrupt, and the half decent people become worse due to the influence of the deadbeats surrounding them. It is also heavily implied that even God in this universe is a cruel vindictive being, who tortures people mentally just because he can. This universe is so awful that this world's Hell is only slightly worse than the actual universe.

* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': 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.
* ''Film/CitizenX'': The Soviet Union is a bureaucratic nightmare where the vast majority of people are poor regardless of what they do and the government will deliberately cover up a Serial Killer to maintain the party line.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': Several episodes take place in worlds like this. Examples include "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", in which one [[EnfantTerrible all-powerful boy]] controls everyone, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", in which everyone who is ugly is ghettoized, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]", in which everyone has to get surgery to look like one of a limited number of models, and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", in which religion is outlawed and you are terminated if declared "obsolete".

** In "Memories", society in the AlternateUniverse has grown stagnant and is breaking down because it has become increasingly difficult for people to cope with [[PastLifeMemories memories of their past lives]]. Jim Sinclair explains to Mary [=McNeal=] that many people are traumatized by past tragedies or consumed by a need for revenge for something that happened in another lifetime. Sinclair belongs to a group that believes that the only way for their society to survive is for everyone to forget their past life experiences and focus on building better lives in the present. As she is a regression therapist, Mary is able to facilitate this through hypnosis.
** In "The Mind of Simon Foster", there is a major economic depression in the United States in 1999. The unemployment rate is 32%, bread costs $5 per loaf and meat can only be obtained on the BlackMarket. As a result, the title character is living a shattered life and is trying to piece together enough money to survive even in the short term.

* The conventional tortures of The Bad Place are implied to be horrific. None of the humans in the first season ask about any friends or relatives, or are shown to be worried about the implications here.

* MayorOfKingstown: Kingstown would be entirely destitute if it wasn't for the fact that America's prison industry is thriving. In fact, it's home to ''seven'' different prisons. And because there are so many people incarcerated in the town, numerous violent criminal organizations have set up shop in the town to maintain contact with their members inside. Meanwhile, the prison guards and police department are largely corrupt. The [=McLuskies=] are barely maintaining an uneasy peace by trading favors and making deals with all parties involved.

** ''Series/LukeCage2016'': How Harlem is portrayed. Much like Daredevil before this show, organized crime is rampant, local government officials (''especially'' Mariah) are hopelessly corrupt, and one of the few genuinely decent supporting characters (the [[HundredPercentAdorationRating beloved]] CoolOldGuy who runs the local barbershop -- and even he was [[RetiredMonster a former street thug]] with a penchant for {{No Holds Barred Beatdown}}s) was accidentally gunned down by an AxCrazy idiot early in the first season.

** [[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.]]

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' show that Earth, itself, used to be a really crappy place to live. ''TNG'' shows 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 "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E11PastTensePartI Past]] [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E12PastTensePartII Tense]]", America is 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 the jobless and mentally ill were forced to live in cramped, squalid conditions. Off-hand conversation suggests that the rest of the world wasn't doing any better.

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

* ''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 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.
* In all of ''Trek'''s incarnations, the MirrorUniverse is an example of this trope, but ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' takes it up to eleven 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.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': 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 12 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".

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'': This is to be expected, considering the world has fallen victim to a ZombieApocalypse. The show is relentlessly grim, the kids among the survivors aren't even safe from horrible deaths.

** 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".]]

* ''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 highway-men who are also psychopathic. This is complicated by the fact that it is ridiculously easy to rig the elections. And the fourth 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 another day.

* ''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 ( SERIOUSLY . The monstrous level of corruption shown in the MCU series can't even stand to "simple" nonsense . It's completely ridiculous .)

* ''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 ( SERIOUSLY . The monstrous level of corruption shown in the MCU series can't even stand to "simple" nonsense. It's completely ridiculous.)