History IdiotBall / LiveActionTV

** When selecting an opponent for Meereen's champion, Daenerys dismisses Jorah, Barristan, and Grey Worm because they are too valuable as commanders and advisors but conveniently forgets that Daario commands 2,000 sellswords who only supported her because Daario seized control of them.

* ''Series/TheMentalist'': Way to go, Jane. It's a brilliant idea to ''break into a suspect's house'' to get proof he's a hitman. Jane would have gotten away with it if he hadn't ''made himself a cup of tea and left his fingerprints and DNA on the cup''. [[SarcasmMode Shockingly, the suspect was released]]. [[spoiler:Ultimately {{Subverted|Trope}} as it turns out [[BatmanGambit Jane set the whole thing up on purpose]] as part of his plan to expose the person who ordered the hit.]]

** One early episode has Bashir interrupt an attempt to kidnap Dax. Instead of calling security, he rushes in by himself. Then, when one of the kidnappers turns out to be a woman, he hesitates to hit her and gets promptly beaten up.

* ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'': Alli is the reigning champion Idiot Ball holder. As Drew accurately put it, for a genius, she's not very smart. Forget all the many ways she screwed up her relationships with Johnny and Drew by doing the exact opposite of what they asked her to do, her crowning moment was when she cheated a bunch of poker players by counting cards and then proceeded to say out loud IN FRONT OF THEM that she just cheated them out of their money by counting cards!
** ''Degrassi: The Next Generation'': Every episode ever. Every. Single. One.

* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'': Major Anthony Nelson constantly waves off Jeannie's amorous advances despite her being rich, having MAGICAL POWERS, and also being more beautiful than his usual dates. (In Tony's defense, Jeannie's efforts to please him did tend to get him into trouble numerous times, giving him a somewhat-valid reason to be cautious.) He did finally get around to marrying her in the sixth season.

** The entire cast in "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E18Intervention}} Intervention]]". No one wonders why Buffy's acting oddly and using highly unusual speech patterns only ''three'' episodes after a robot with identical behavior and mannerisms showed up, and everybody could immediately tell it was a robot then, despite next to zero hints.
** Lampshaded in the very same episode, when Buffy herself walks in the house and comes face to face with her duplicate. The other characters are stunned and bewildered, to which Buffy (having heard all of two sentences from the Buffybot) responds:

** Also in "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E15ThisYearsGirl}} This Year's Girl]]"; after Faith has woken up from her coma, Giles and Xander are out searching for her, and try to enlist Spike's help -- only for him to remind them that he hates them all, and despite his ongoing BadassDecay would be more than willing to sick a rogue psycho Slayer on them. Promptly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d:

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom''

* ''Series/{{UFO}}'' episode "The Dalotek Affair''.

* Umbrella Academy: Several examples

** Approximately one out of every three episodes is driven by the Idiot Ball. Walt in particular is frequently compelled by his own ego to go poncing about with it.
** Hank's convinced that Gale must have been Heisenberg? Time for Walt to start disparaging Gale by saying he clearly wasn't the chemical genius that Heisenberg must be.
*** This is Walt's own colossal ego tripping him up. While it would obviously be best for him to let Hank think Gale was Heisenberg, Walt just can't stand the thought of someone else getting the credit for his accomplishments -- especially when he already personally regarded Gale as an inferior imitator of his work.
** Walt has incontrovertible evidence that he knew Gale and that Gale knew him. Better leave it sitting in plain view on the toilet tank.
** Walt needs methylamine, a substance that would be trivially easy for a genius-level chemist like himself to make from materials that are not on the DEA's watch list. Obviously, the way to get it is to pull a complicated train robbery.
*** Intentional. The writers have stated that while much of the chemistry is depicted correctly on the show, they purposely misidentified some of the key compounds so as not to be an instruction book on meth synthesis. The "methylamine" on the show was a stand-in for whatever chemical would actually be hard to buy and/or make.
** One example that's actually lampshaded late in the series is Walt and Jesse continuing to use the decrepit RV well after the point where they have more than enough cash to buy a decent, working one (or at least get the old one fixed).

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** There are many specific examples, most of which are listed under IdiotPlot. There is, however, one very general one: Any time someone is spying on Clark, expect him to suddenly start talking about how his [[KryptoniteFactor only weakness is meteor rocks]]. Not kryptonite, meteor rocks. That way the MonsterOfTheWeek knows what he's talking about, and can use it against him.

** "Emancipation", where in the interests of ''diplomacy'' they take away all of Carter's weapons and make her dress in a revealing and constricting outfit in a land where women are threatened with death if they show their face or speak in public, and are routinely sold off to rival tribes as sex slaves. And yes, the latter is exactly what happens to Carter thanks to this decision. This is one that definitely straddles the line between Idiot Ball and IdiotPlot as many fans have wondered over the years why they didn't just send her back to the Stargate the moment the locals actively tried to kill her.

** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS03E17Hatchery}} Hatchery]]", the entire crew of the Enterprise is playing a 40 minute game of Idiot Ball. The captain gets exposed to a biological alien substance and shortly after starts acting strange. He soon has anyone who tries to reason with him confined to their room and starts to become completely delusional. When things get worse Tucker and Phlox talk about relieving him of duty on medical grounds, but don't go through with it because they can't force the captain to get an examination without having proof he's sick! Then the senior officers agree to start a mutiny and ambush the teams of soldiers stationed all over the ship, because they don't trust Major Hayes, who's in charge of the soldiers, to believe them that the captain is acting very strange. At the end of the episode, Hayes even points it out to them, why they hadn't just told him what's going on.

** "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E16QWho}} Q Who]]": Q flings the Enterprise to an uncharted region of space, specifically as a response to the assertion by Picard and Riker that they can handle whatever they find. Knowing Guinan knows the region, they ask her about it. She warns them to get out while they still can. They decide it would be grand to poke around to satisfy their curiosity, which leads to meeting the Borg. Guinan then tells Picard that this enemy destroyed her home planet, and warns him, "Protect yourself, Captain, or they'll destroy you." Picard attempts to have a nice chat with one while it ignores him and gathers sensitive information from Engineering.
** The episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E8Unification2}} Unification, Part 2]]". So, the villainous Romulan Sela has revealed her plan to invade and occupy Vulcan, but it's critical that Starfleet not be warned ahead of time. Across from her is seated Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lt. Commander Data, and Ambassador fuckin' Spock -- three of the smartest and most badass characters in all of Star Trek -- whom she has managed to capture. So what does she do now? Leave the three of them in her office. Unattended. And with access to her computer. Geez, it's like she wasn't even trying.
** The invasion force consisted of [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale a mere 2,000 soldiers]]. Pacifists or not, that's a very pathetic number.
*** Sela also held an idiot ball in " [[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E26S5E1Redemption}} Redemption]] Part 2". where she was supplying the House of Duras during the Klingon Civil War. The Federation decided to make an anti-cloak net by having some AppliedPhlebotinum beams between a fleet of ships, resulting in a standoff. Not once does Sela or the crew of any of the other ships think that maybe, since [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Space is big and all]], [[SpaceIsAnOcean that she could just fly AROUND the net]].
** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E12Datalore}} Datalore]]", Lieutenant Yar and Captain Picard have a conversation about Data's trustworthiness given Lore's presence, but they only address the issue of Lore ''corrupting'' Data; it never occurs to either of them that Lore might try to ''impersonate'' Data. Lore does impersonate Data -- badly -- and only Wesley recognizes this. Hate Wesley if you want, but he does deserve the credit for saving the ship this time.

** Then there's Deanna Troi in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E5Disaster}} Disaster]]". Regardless of whether you like or dislike the character, one has to admit that for a Starfleet lieutenant commander to have to be ''told'' what happens when the warp core breaches (answer: the ship explodes!) is sheer idiot ball.
** Captain Picard takes the lead in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E24S7E1Descent}} Descent]]". Desperate to find Data and the Borg, he orders most of the crew to a planet to look for them, leaving a skeleton crew led by Crusher, and apparently mostly consisting of ensigns, to look after the ship. Most people, when deciding how to split their resources, would go with using their highly experienced officers to operate the ship, leaving wandering about looking behind bushes to the lesser lights. His choice of as Crusher as commander is somewhat justified by her actions in the episode, as she proves that she's more than capable of handling the role (something Picard presumably knew when he entrusted the ship to her), but that still doesn't explain why he left her with virtually no other experienced officers; he should know better than anyone the value of having other experienced officers to help the Captain (or in this case Acting Captain).
** It was Riker's turn to hold the Idiot Ball in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E17SamaritanSnare}} Samaritan Snare]]". Riker sends [=LaForge=] over to a Pakled ship (the crew of which seems exceptionally slow) to do some requested repairs. Worf objects to sending them the Enterprise's chief engineer, but Riker blows it off. Troi tells him directly that she's suspicious and feels that La Forge is in danger. Riker blows if off again. Then Geordi gets captured because Worf and Troi were right and Riker ignored them. Scriptwriter Dennis Russell Bailey, who wrote the screenplay for "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E20TinMan}} Tin Man]]" in the following season said, "The point at which we became serious about trying to write a script for the show was about five minutes after watching 'Samaritan Snare,' which in my personal opinion was the most abysmal piece of Star Trek ever filmed. My objections to it were that it always resorted to idiot plotting to make the story work, and that offended me a great deal worse than some of the awful shows which were done on the original series. I thought the way in which it was plotted and the way it was dealt with was an insult to the intelligence of the people who watched the show and the actors and characters in the show. None of the plot could have happened if all of the characters hadn't suddenly became morons that week."
** The entire episode of "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E12TheHighGround}} The High Ground]]" is the result of Dr. Crusher holding the IdiotBall. In the opening, a terrorist bomb explodes nearby the cast and injures several citzens of the planet the crew is on, so Dr. Crusher recklessly goes over to administer medical attention without any security or other means of protection, as she is prone to do, and a couple minutes later one of the terrorists warps in, grabs Crusher, and warps out, kidnapping her. The entire episode is spent trying to locate and rescue her. However, the viewer will probably notice the IdiotBall moment when the viewer realizes that Crusher could have immediately pressed her combadge and said the seven words she says practically every episode where Crusher is with a patient somewhere off of the Enterprise: "Enterprise, (insert number of patients plus Dr. Crusher here) to beam directly to Sickbay" just about immediately after the bomb blast, avoiding being kidnapped and thus avoiding the entire plot of the episode. The rest of the away team and the bridge crew get a share of it for not suggesting the solution either, instead arguing with her as she refuses to leave the injured people unattended.

** There is one episode, Hypnotic, where [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex]] specifically sets out to uncover Clark's secret but when he actually witness them, he dismisses it because he had been lied to by his spy (who is a known murderer) ho was tasked with uncovering said secret and Clark "was hypnotized" and thus be able to perform these wondrous feats.

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** Case in point: "TOW The Sharks", in which Monica thinks Chandler gets off on shark shows after catching him in the act of "molesting himself", instead of thinking that, you know, ''[[WhatAnIdiot he changed the channel away from his porn when he heard her come in.]]''

** "Spin" -- It takes the doctors an absurdly long time to realize that a patient's self-administered blood transfusions [[note]]a form of athletic cheating known as "blood doping"[[/note]] and use of a hyperbaric chamber [[note]]also a tactic to gain a competitive edge[[/note]] could have been masking the existence of a chronic condition by unwittingly treating the symptoms.

* Almost every major character in ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' gets passed the Idiot Ball at one point depending on the needs of the plot.
** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gai Amatsu]] grasps the Idiot Ball pretty firmly in the second arc, when he chooses to stake his buyout of Hiden Intelligence on a Workplace Competition between his company's Google Glass-esque "ZAIA Specs" and Hiden's [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Humagears]]. Apparently Gai didn't realize that, had finished the buyout, he would have had ownership of the Humagears and could have done the competition completely on his own terms, instead of creating a needless risk for Aruto to avert his plans.
** Gai's lackey, Daiki Kyogoku, grabs the ball briefly when he decides to help his boss win the fourth round of the Workplace Competition. His plan? Steal a [=RaidRiser=] and the Scouting Panda key and use them to set fire to the building being used for the mock fire rescue. Not only does this not help ZAIA's side at all, it gives the Humagear representative, [=119nosuke=], a chance to clench the competition for Hiden by giving his life to pave a way for the hostages to come out. And it leads to Fuwa uncovering evidence of his cheating and ZAIA's involvement with the Raiders.
** Luckily for Daiki and Gai, Fuwa himself takes the Idiot Ball right after when he dangles Daiki's ZAIA Spec in from of Gai's face and states how he now has evidence of ZAIA's wrongdoing. This gives Gai a chance to swipe the spec, and since Fuwa neglected to make a backup of the data, Gai is able to cover up all traces of his and Daiki's crimes by destroying it.
** Jin and Yua both take hold of the Idiot Ball pretty firmly later on with their plan to destroy the Ark. You'd think since the Ark is an AI residing in an unguarded sunken satellite near Daybreak Town, the easiest and most risk-free option would be to track down the satellite and destroy it. Instead, Jin and Yua go along with the Ark's plan to give itself a physical body, so they can fight it and destroy it once it becomes Ark-Zero. Ignoring the fact that how strong Ark-Zero would be apparently never occurred to them, even if they had destroyed Ark-Zero the Ark still would have been able to revive so long as its satellite body (or whatever it was using as a hot) was intact, meaning their plan would have failed no matter what they had done. And because of their actions, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the entire "Ark-Zero" arc kicks off]].
** The Ark itself grasps the ball later on, made worse by the fact that it's supposed to be a super intelligent AI. Firstly, it doesn't remove the free wills of its four followers in [=MetsubouJinrai.net=], even though that would be the best way to ensure they stayed loyal and there no reason why the Ark would have any compunction against doing that, having already done it to them once in the past. Then, after Aruto becomes Zero-Two and defeats it, the Ark arbitrarily comes to the conclusion that Humagears are responsible for its loss and that they all need to be destroyed. It then proceeds to proclaim this to its loyal Humagear follower Horobi, who naturally decides to [[EnemyMine team up]] with Aruto to destroy it. This is all in spite of the fact that the Ark is shown to be able to perfectly predict someone's movements and thought process based on their personality, so it should have anticipated how Horobi would react.
** [[TheHero Aruto]] then takes hold of the ball midway through the Ark-Zero arc when [[spoiler:Izu is killed by Horobi. Not long after her death, Aruto is approached by [[EvilTwin a long-haired version of Izu]] who offers him an Ark-Driver to use to get revenge on Horobi. Having seen Izu die in front of him, you'd think Aruto would be suspicious of this doppelganger of her that's appeared in front of him. And considering he'd bore witness to the destructive power of the Ark, even if it was the real Izu offering him an Ark-Driver you'd think Aruto would turn it down. Yet he accepts the Ark-Driver anyway to use to get revenge on Horobi, despite his Zero-Two Driver already being much more powerful than Horobi at that point. Even in the next episode when Aruto clearly becomes aware that she isn't the real Izu and is just using him, Aruto still keeps using the Ark-Driver for some reason, leading to Jin dying needlessly and a RobotWar almost breaking out.]]
** Azu, the Izu doppelganger mentioned above, also gets passed the Idiot Ball as well not long after. [[spoiler:Considering her plan is to create more Arks, and she's shown to have a stockpile of Ark-Drivers in a vision, you'd think her plan would be relatively straightforward. Just find someone who's sufficiently angry, give them an Ark-Driver and watch them become another Ark. She starts by giving both Aruto and Horobi drivers to turn them into Arks, leading to a Humagear protest breaking out that clashes with police. You would think Azu would take advantage of the protests to pass out more Ark-Drivers and create more Arks, but she doesn't do anything at all, which leads to her plans going kaput as soon as Aruto and Horobi sort things out. The next two people she tries to force Drivers on aren't exactly ideal candidates either. S was motivated by [[WellIntentionedExtremist benevolent intentions]] instead of malice, and Lyon Arkland saw malice as a fickle thing and rejected her advances.]]
** Fuwa takes hold of the Idiot Ball one last time when he goes to confront Aruto right before his showdown with [[spoiler:Horobi. Considering Fuwa had lost his ability to transform and that Aruto very likely wasn't aware of the Humagear protests that were going on and the RobotWar that was imminent, the most immediate and rational option for Fuwa would be to explain the current state of things to Aruto and try talking him down from being Ark-Zero. ''Instead'', Fuwa just tells him not to fight Horobi and gives vague reasons why, not empathizing with him over Izu's death at all, and when that (unsurprisingly) doesn't work tries attacking Aruto, even though Aruto far outclassed him on the power scale at that point. Even if Aruto had taken Fuwa's advice and backed down, Horobi by that point was a genocidal terrorist plotting a FinalSolution for all of humanity and had become an incarnation of the Ark. Aruto was the only Rider left who could have taken him down, so telling Aruto not to fight Horobi instead of just telling him to put down the Ark-Driver would have left an active threat at large.]]

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' has many, especially the episodes with time travel.

** Captain Picard takes the lead in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E24S7E1Descent}} Descent]]". Desperate to find Data and the Borg, he orders most of the crew to a planet to look for them, leaving a skeleton crew led by Crusher, and apparently mostly consisting of ensigns, to look after the ship. Most people, when deciding how to split their resources, would go with using their highly experienced officers to operate the ship, leaving wandering about looking behind bushes to the lesser lights. His choice of as Crusher as commander is somewhat justified by her actions in the episode, as she proves that she's more than capable of handling the role (something Picard presumably knew when he entrusted the ship to her), but that still doesn't explain why he left her with virtually no other experienced officers; he should know better than anyone the value of having other experienced officers to help the Captain (or Acting Captain as the case may be).