History InformedAbility / LiveActionTV

** Sansa Stark's intelligence is frequently talked about in later seasons, to the point that Arya--a trained assassin and savvy character herself--calls her "the smartest person I've met". While Sansa has certainly developed from [[{{HorribleJudgeOfCharacter}} where she]] [[{{NaiveEverygirl}} started off]] and managed to survive a lot, she's also made plenty of glaring mistakes, such as nearly getting the Northern army (including Jon, her own brother) slaughtered because she didn't tell them more troops were coming, almost killing her sister thanks to falling for [[{{ObviouslyEvil}} Littlefinger's]] lies yet again, and antagonizing the North's very powerful ally Daenerys despite her being the only chance the North has to survive. She's managed a few practical matters, like bringing in grain to Winterfell, but that's hardly the work of a genius. It also doesn't help that most characters that enter her vicinity end up carrying the IdiotBall, meaning she suddenly knows how to make armour better than an actual smith and is more perceptive than practiced politician Tyrion. If anything, she dropped off a bit: she was able to keep her head down around Joffrey and manipulate him with some level of subtlety in the second season, but by the seventh, she's acting snide and needlessly defiant around someone who could boot her out at any moment.

** Commander Riker is said to be the most gifted pilot on board the ''Enterprise'', including by Geordi, the man who actually used to fly the ship. This becomes a small plot point in the two-parter [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E10ChainOfCommand Chain of Command]], when new ''Enterprise'' captain Jellico, with whom Riker has a difficult relationship and who has gone so far as to relieve Riker from duty for insubordination, has to eat humble pie and ask Riker to pilot a shuttle for a clandestine mission. In practice though we hardly ever see Riker fly anything, and when we do (such as in the episode [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E17TheOutcast The Outcast]], he's not doing anything that seems to require a particularly high level of skill. It's not until the movie [[Film/StarTrekInsurrection Star Trek: Insurrection]] that Riker gets to show some extraordinary piloting skills by flying the enormous ''Enterprise'' like it's a fighter plane.

** Dr. Pulaski was often said by the various characters on the Enterprise that she was caring, considerate, and loving with a terrific bedside manner. This is nowhere to be seen as Pulaski is a pretty extreme example of DrJerk, who often was stand-offish and disrespectful to her fellow crew members. Compounding all of this is a judgemental nature toward Data, often dismissing his abilities, insulting his attempts at trying to become human, and treating him more like a toaster than a teammate.

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Seemingly played straight with Agent Ward, who is talked up as a brilliant SHIELD agent with skills and intelligence to rival Comicbook/BlackWidow, none of which are ever really evidenced- in fact, the character's blandness was a source of frequent humor with the show's viewers. Eventually, however, it was revealed that Ward was [[spoiler: working for Hydra]] and manipulating the team with his bland, no-nonsense act.

** Penny's alleged social life seems to consist entirely of a string of one-night stands. She doesn't have any actual friends outside the main group and their girlfriends; at least the main nerds have buddies at the comic store. When they try to use her as TheFace she ends up relying entirely on physical intimidation.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': Skylar is supposedly an amateur writer who hopes to get published. This comes up all of twice in the first two seasons and never in the third and fourth season. No evidence of her writing ability is ever depicted. She does, however, prove to be a ConsummateLiar as the series progresses.

** Rachel Dennis is brought onboard by ''Communique'' Magazine as their new editor, and is mentioned by Stephanie and others as being a popular, smart and driven woman who led the previous publication she was at to great success. There's little evidence of that in the show proper, though - all of her attempted "big scoops" turn out to be laughably amateurish, the office goes to shambles when she's finally given control of the magazine after Stephanie leaves, and she spends the first few weeks actively trying to sabotage everything instead of doing her job.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': A good chunk of season 5 onward involves Phoebe's job as an advice columnist where she is repeatedly showered with praise and fame for her "edgy" and "intuitive" advice. While we hear a few snippets of her work over the course of the series (none of which are worth writing home about), Phoebe's success is gained pretty quickly as she already has own billboard in under a year of working as an advice columnist, a job she got with little to no qualifications or experience.

* ''Series/{{Coupling}}'': Jane is "the one with the breasts." Now the actress Gina Bellman is a very attractive woman but she is not ''exceptionally'' buxom. Although it is partly in comparison to the other two female members of the cast, however.

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'': Detective Quinn is said to be a good cop despite being wrongfully accused of being a DirtyCop in the past. Except it would be pretty hard to find any time he's done good work, but plenty where he stole money from crime scenes, slept with a witness, leaked inside info to a journalist and murderer/accomplice to a serial killer, showed up drunk at work, got high on the job, lost his gun, got into a fight with another detective, let Dexter go despite having all indications that he's a murderer[[note]]Of course, the whole department is guilty of this[[/note]] and most importantly ''murdering a suspect in the middle of the day, in the strip club he owned, in front of employees and patrons, right next to another detective''. And yet Angel was confident that he could be promoted sergeant.

** InvertedTrope in "The One With The Fake Monica" when Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe end up in a tap-dancing class. While Monica and Phoebe struggle to keep up, without any buildup Rachel is able to perform the routine flawlessly. When the other girls look at her in amazement, Rachel simply shrugs and says that it's easy to keep up -- all you have to do is tap when the rest of the class taps. Of course, being played by trained dancer Creator/JenniferAniston tends to make this sort of thing a lot easier.

* ''Series/FullHouse'': Pulls an inversion similar to the ''Friends'' example above. Jesse, who is genuinely horrible on ice expresses apprehension to Danny who himself says he feels like he'll probably be rusty too. Then Danny skates expertly out into the rink and performs a triple lutz landing backwards with his leg extended like a figure skater. He's just as rusty as he feared.

** Kurt's voice is another example. Will calls it unique and tells him he can do things no one else can - but never gives him a solo to sing. After Kurt transfers to Dalton and joins The Warblers, the cast often makes remarks how Warblers "have Kurt now" - but Blaine is the only soloist we ever see and Kurt is just a background singer, alongside about 10-15 other guys.
** Rachel's dancing also counts. Rachel's supposedly a good dancer, but a quick comparison with not just Brittany and Santana, but also Tina and Quinn, shows that although she can keep a beat and cope with some footwork, she's at best average. And her ballet, shown on-screen in "Laryngitis", is frankly poor - although she's supposedly been having lessons since she was a small child, she can't even get properly up onto her pointes.

** Dan Humphrey is constantly praised for his fantastic talent as a writer, but we are virtually never treated to any examples. In one episode, a story of his is glimpsed briefly, and it's [[SoBadItsGood comically bad]] - no doubt because it was written by the props team.

** Mohinder is theoretically a geneticist with some idea of how the superpowers work. But he's constantly having plot points and technobabble explained ''to'' him by other characters, such as Bennet and Sylar.

* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' beautifully subverts this as you'll constantly hear about one of the guys having a fantastic ability from dancing to ice hockey to stand-up comedy but when we see it, it's absolute crap. The key is that the show is openly acknowledging how the gang fool themselves into thinking they're terrific when anyone outside their circle can clearly see the truth. A key example is them surprised that their dance number at a high school reunion (which they see as being a fantastic affair out of a music video) didn't get applause when the audience sees the truth, that it was a total mess.

* ''Series/{{Lucifer}}'': Maze is presented as "Hell's greatest torturer", but most of the time she just beats up baddies, does bountyhunting, or make sexual innuendos. The few times Lucifer has her torture someone, she usually gets no result (which is explained that the subject is just that tough and able to handle it). The (chronologically) first time she was brought in to torture, she got so overexcited about the chance to work on a real, living, corporeal human and the wealth of opportunities it would've provided, she ended up ''having sex with the guy instead''. (Though it worked out well enough anyway - the guy told her everything out of sheer sexual bliss. And it should be noted that torturing someone as punishment, which is what she did in hell, is fundamentally different from interrogation.)

* ''Series/{{Nashville}}'': Rayna Jaymes is ostensibly one of the greatest (though not as big as she was) country stars going while upstart Juliette Barnes hasn't got enough talent to fit inside a thimble and has to fight to prove herself, but Rayna's supposedly authentic act isn't that much (if any) of an artistic advance on Juliette's crossover tracks. It doesn't help that quite a few people believe Creator/HaydenPanettiere (Juliette) is a better singer than Connie Britton (Rayna), and some of them are Britton ''fans.'' Most tellingly, Panettiere has more songs on the soundtrack album(s)[[note]] and more music from the show released overall[[/note]] than Britton. (The show's constant portrayal of Rayna as a musical legend gets particularly ludicrous when she wins '''all''' the CMA Awards she's nominated for in "You're Lookin' At Country.")
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' has Timothy Mc Gee who is supposedly an experienced Eagle Scout, yet in one episode he blunders into a thicket of poison ivy because he inexplicably has no idea what it looks like.

* ''Series/OneLifeToLive'': SoapOpera example: Matthew was basically [[Series/FreaksAndGeeks Sam Weir]] until he was paralyzed in a car accident in March 2009. Since then, his pre-disability athletic exploits have grown to the point where the yearbook shows him on the 9th grade interscholastic team in every fall and winter sport.

** Sam Beckett. Viewers are informed that he "Has an IQ of 197 and graduated from high school at 16. Completed four years worth of classes at MIT in two years. Has seven doctoral degrees and speaks 11 languages." But precious little of this comes through on the show, where he typically arrives at the solution to the Problem of the Week via his intuition more than anything else (although he does speak and understand few foreign lnguages from time to time).
** Al is a Navy Admiral and ex-astronaut who played baseball at Annapolis, was a Golden Gloves boxer, worked in the circus, is enough of a ladies man to have been married five times... basically, it was often revealed he had done whatever Sam needed to do in his current Leap so he could instruct Sam. Outside of his instructions, Al is almost never actually seen doing any of this - although this is justified as almost all of Al's on-screen time is of him as a hologram in the Imaging Chamber.
* ''Series/QueerAsFolk'': Brian, the marketing genius, is really more of a one trick pony; no matter if he's selling booze, a steakhouse or a mayor candidate, he works the sex angle, and ''only'' the sex angle.

** The character of Kate in the latest series is described on the official website as an "indispensable" member of the team, whose weapon of choice is "her imagination." The former claim is strange enough considering she's entirely useless, but the latter is even more incomprehensible. The heights of her "imagination" involve her secretly palming an arrowhead into Robin's hand and using a sword to pull a key close enough for her to pick it up. Hardly a test of ingenuity.

** She's also lauded as "compassionate" in the same episode that she a) breaks Much's heart by asking him to help her hook up with Robin, b) demands that Robin leave Isabella to be raped and strangled by her abusive husband, and c) acts like a spoilt six-year old because nobody's paying her enough attention. Honestly, were the writers even ''watching'' this show?

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': Lana got a scholarship to an art school in Paris. None of her artwork has been shown, and that was the only time she's even shown some interest in art. Lana could offer several more examples of this trope. She was often praised by other characters as being brave, intelligent, kind, etc. Suffice it to say that many viewers never noticed her actually exhibiting any of these character traits.

** When one of the producers of that show dies in a car accident, the series clearly tries to link it to the same feelings as Jonathan Larson dying before the premiere of ''Rent.'' The problem being that "Hit List" is no ''Rent'' and having Broadway dim its lights (a tribute only meant for true legends passing) for a guy who did one show is crazy.

** Their opponent show ''Mackenzie Falls'' plays it straight. In-universe the actors and show is far more popular than ''So Random'', even though it's basically just a lot of melodrama. Both cases justified by RuleOfFunny.

* ''Series/{{Spaced}}'': Played with and [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in which three characters all work in creative professions, but we are never told if they're particularly good. Brian praises his former partner Vulva as a brilliant performance artist when her work is bizarre and incomprehensible, but exactly what someone like Brian (Wangsty, pretentious) would speak highly of. Daisy is a writer but is mostly too lazy to get any work done, and Tim is a comic book artist. His sketches were done by real-life comic book artist Simon Bisley (after whom Tim is named), and might even count as an inversion; other characters frequently tend to discuss his work dismissively, usually by describing them as 'cartoons' ("It's a bit more complicated than that.") but when we see them they're actually quite good.

** Johnathan Archer is stated to be a trained diplomat in "A Night in Sickbay." That same episode shows him doing ''everything a diplomat should never do''. He's also supposedly a long-time dog lover, yet somehow he hasn't quite figured out that dogs like to pee on trees.

** ''These are the Voyages'' reveals to us the fact that ''The Chef'' basically acted like the ships counsellor; having the ear of the whole crew and trusted best friend to all. The problem is that, not only has this never been brought up once in the last four seasons, but we have literally never seen him unless you count a single shot of his legs as he delivered a plate a food - he is basically the Star Trek equivalent of that lady who owns Tom & Jerry's house. For all this episode tries to make out ''Chef'' (and yes he is so close to the crew he is never even given an on-screen name) is the NX-01's version of Guinan or Neelix, he is by all evidence nothing more than the random guy who cooked their dinner. The episode ultimately turns out to be a holodeck program from the Next Gen era, with the chef being the player character; in-universe it's just a plot device to get everyone to talk to the player without the player having any actual effect on events.

** Okona from the episode "The Outrageous Okona". Obviously meant to be a Han Solo-pastiche (particularly because he is ''dressed exactly like Han Solo''), the smirking Okona comes across as an overgrown fratboy with a sense of privilege that would stagger UsefulNotes/CharlesI. Riker and Wesley both gush over him (although Picard and Worf think he's a joke from the beginning), and he got a fair bit of tail on the Enterprise.

* ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'': Writers Matt Albie and Danny Tripp are brought in by TV exec Jordan [=McDeere=] to save the supposedly-tanking ShowWithinAShow of the same name. Their first sketch after coming back on the air with new material (in the episode following the pilot) is a boring and monotonous parody of ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance'' - and the sketches don't get any better from there. This is despite the fact that Matt and Danny are frequently described as brilliant and visionary by everyone around them. It doesn't help matters that, of the few times we get to hear about "Peripheral Vision Man" (which, judging from the pilot, was a cartoon animated in the style of Robert Smigel's ''Series/TVFunhouse''), it's more amusing to hear than anything featured in the so-called "superior" sketches. This has been a key point of criticism of the series, pushed by how Sorkin continues to insist that various actors and writers claimed the sketches were terrific.
* ''Series/SuperDave'': This trope is the basis for comedian Bob Einstein's character Super Dave Osborne. Super Dave is continually lauded as one of the world's most daring and amazing stuntmen, whose death-defying feats are "astronomically sensational", to quote one such hyperbole. Of course, when we actually see Super Dave performs a stunt, it backfires spectacularly and he's horrifically maimed, twisted, or crushed in some way.

** Does this a few times when it comes to describing people as intelligent. Besides the odd character like Sam and Ash, who demonstrate that they are especially knowledgeable in certain fields, often the writers will just throw in a toss away line that explains that the character in question reads/owns a lot of complicated books so they must be smart, despite often making horribly poor decisions and never doing or saying anything that might demonstrate said intelligence.

** In a highly unexpected SubvertedTrope - notable for how rarely a show successfully pulls it off, the season 2 episode "Crossroad Blues" features a man who sells his soul in order to become a great artist. They do actually show a number of his artworks, all of which are interesting and emotive. How great they actually are still remains a matter of opinion, of course, and the writers acknowledge this by having the character create artworks that he pours his heart into, but never actually manages to sell.
** Sam and Dean are sometime praised as "great" hunters which can be laughable at times considering that, once per episode, one of the brothers will be put in harm way after making a stupid decision, and only get out of it through dumb luck. Often the MonsterOfTheWeek is [[EvilGloating gloating]] long enough so the other boy can save him just in time.

** Sansa Stark's intelligence is frequently talked about in later seasons, to the point that Arya--a trained assassin and savvy character herself--calls her "the smartest person I've met". While Sansa has certainly developed from [[{{HorribleJudgeOfCharacter}} where she]] [[{{NaiveEverygirl}} started off]] and managed to survive a lot, she's also made plenty of glaring mistakes, such as nearly getting the Northern army (including Jon, her own brother) slaughtered because she didn't tell them more troops were coming, almost killing her sister thanks to falling for [[{{ObviouslyEvil}} Littlefinger's]] lies yet again, and antagonizing the North's very powerful ally Daenerys despite her being the only chance the North has to survive. She's managed a few practical matters, like bringing in grain to Winterfell, but that's hardly the work of a genius. It also doesn't help that most characters that enter her vicinity end up carrying the IdiotBall, meaning she suddenly knows how to make armour better than an actual smith and is more perceptive than practiced politician Tyrion.

*** Peter David played with this in a comic book story of Cogley defending Kirk on new charges and again doing very little but when circumstances find Kirk innocent, he declares "we won another one!" as his wife just smiles "sure, hon, whatever you say." This hints that most of his wins are just pure luck but Cogley's pride is key to his success.

** In the "Crossover" episode, Intendant Kira praised the late Mirror!Odo's ability to run an efficient ore processing operation and maintain order among the slaves. The audience saw several examples of Mirror!Odo being ''cruel'', but not efficient or orderly. For example, Mirror!Odo allowed a thorium containment unit to go unrepaired, despite Mirror!O'Brien's warning, resulting in a catastrophic thorium leak. Furthermore, at least three Terran slaves escaped under his watch. Finally, he assigned Bashir to a task for which Bashir was physically unsuited, as Mirror!Odo lampshaded later in the episode.

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'':
** Dexter is supposed to be a cautious criminal mastermind, but his never being caught can be attributed to luck and the utter inadequacy of the Miami Police Department in the series. He buys tons of horse tranquilizer under the name [[Literature/AmericanPsycho Patrick Bateman]], a notorious fictional serial killer. Also, he buys tons of plastic for his kills; WAY more than any normal person would have use for. Even if you figure he's buying his kill tools in tiny increments, there's other things. He has an elaborate kill ritual that anyone could walk in on at any time. He has been directly or indirectly involved with many {{Big Bad}}s, criminals and victims in the show[[note]]The Ice Truck Killer, Doakes, Lila, Miguel Prado, Rita, the Trinity Killer, Stan Liddy, Jordan Chase, Hannah [=McKay=], Maria [=LaGuerta=], Oliver Saxon, Dr. Vogel and Debra[[/note]], but is never linked to any of their crimes/murders. Worst of all, ''he frequently looks up potential kills and victims of his prey on his police computer at the police station.''
** Detective Quinn is said to be a good cop despite being wrongfully accused of being a DirtyCop in the past. Except it would be pretty hard to find any time he's done good work, but plenty where he stole money from crime scenes, slept with a witness, leaked inside info to a journalist and murderer/accomplice to a serial killer, showed up drunk at work, got high on the job, lost his gun, got into a fight with another detective, let Dexter go despite having all indications that he's a murderer[[note]]Of course, the whole department is guilty of this[[/note]] and most importantly ''murdering a suspect in the middle of the day, in the strip club he owned, in front of employees and patrons, right next to another detective''. And yet Angel was confident that he could be promoted sergeant.

* ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'': George is described several times as a genius and claims to have an IQ in the 150s. We never see him exhibit any high level of intelligence or knowledge. The smartest thing we see him do is teach basic English to ESL students. He mentions his ability to speak a number of languages, but never does so on camera. He admits to not knowing any Hebrew and can't remember all six words of the ''Shema'' prayer.
* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': Leslie Winkle is supposedly more intelligent than Sheldon (and, by transitivity, the rest of the cast) but never does or says anything to demonstrate this. Her supposed superiority is only demonstrated by her calling Sheldon "dumb-ass" at every opportunity. WordOfGod states that this is one of several reasons her character was written out.

** In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E5TimeHeist Time Heist]]'', the "most secure bank in the universe" apparently cannot afford cameras, regular patrols, or any kind of meaningful security other than the Teller and some intermittently placed breath-based DNA scanners.
** A lot of Nardole's characterization is established through pieces of dialogue referencing a supposed criminal past involving murder and black markets which goes against his initially cowardly and oafish persona. The closest we see of his baddassary are his [[HollywoodHacking computer hacking skills]] and [[PressurePoint Vulcan nerve pinch]].

* ''Series/SuperDave'': This trope is the basis for comedian Bob Einstein's character Super Dave Osborne. SuperDave is continually lauded as one of the world's most daring and amazing stuntmen, whose death-defying feats are "astronomically sensational", to quote one such hyperbole. Of course, when we actually see Super Dave performs a stunt, it backfires spectacularly and he's horrifically maimed, twisted, or crushed in some way.

* ''Series/TwentyFour'':
** Early on in the first season, Jack Bauer meets a guest at one of Senator David Palmer's primary appearances who appears to be surprised and honored to meet him, pointing out that he's one of the best motorcycle riders she's ever seen. Even though supplemental material also corroborates the fact that Jack seems to be exceptionally skilled with motorcycles, he never uses one in the series, nor ever demonstrates his (allegedly) high proficiency with one.
** Ronnie Lobell is introduced as the new Director of Field Operations (a position normally held by badasses like Jack and Curtis Manning) in the fourth season. However, he appears to be extremely by-the-book and practically rolls over and does nothing when a suspected terrorist arrives at CTU. He dies after just two episodes, standing out in the open as he gets flanked and shot down by a pair of assailants.

** Similarly, Loras Tyrell us meant to basically be his generation's version of Jaime, noted to be ''the'' KnightInShiningArmour. In his fight against Gregor Clegane (which he admittedly was unorepared and unequipped for) he lies on the ground getting hit with and in his fight with Brienne she beats him without too much trouble. His skill in combat seems to be derived from striking dramatic poses after fights are over.

* ''Series/{{Lucifer}}'': Maze is presented as "Hell's greatest torturer", but most of the time she just beats up baddies, does bountyhunting, or make sexual innuendos. The few times Lucifer has her torture someone, she usually gets no result (which is explained that the subject is just that tough and able to handle it). The (chronologically) first time she was brought in to torture, she got so overexcited about the chance to work on a real, living, corporeal human and the wealth of opportunities it would've provided, she ended up ''having sex with the guy instead''. (Though it worked out well enough anyway - the guy told her everything out of sheer sexual bliss. ANd it should be noted that torturing someone as punishment, zhich is what she did in hell, is fundamentally different from interogtaion.)

** The Anointed One is said, via vague prophecy, to possess immense power, but never shows us any. This was due to the child actor who played him aging too [[RealLifeWritesThePlot quickly to play an immortal child.]]

* ''Series/{{Lucifer}}'': Maze is presented as "Hell's greatest torturer", but most of the time she just beats up baddies, does bountyhunting, or make sexual innuendos. The few times Lucifer has her torture someone, she usually gets no result (which is explained that the subject is just that tough and able to handle it). The (chronologically) first time she was brought in to torture, she got so overexcited about the chance to work on a real, living, corporeal human and the wealth of opportunities it would've provided, she ended up ''having sex with the guy instead''. (Though it worked out well enough anyway - the guy told her everything out of sheer sexual bliss.)

** Jamie Lannister is bigged up as one of the best swordsmen in the 7 kingdoms, of his two battles on screen one is inconclusive and the other has him severely weakened to the point his opponent can easily defeat him. A far cry from the books where in the same battle he was presented as still very skilled and dangerous. Of course then in season 3 [[spoiler: his hand is cut off]] and he has never been quite the same since.

** Sansa Stark's intelligence is frequently talked about in later seasons, to the point that Arya - a trained assassin and savvy character herself - calls her "the smartest person I've met". While Sansa has certainly developed from [[{{HorribleJudgeOfCharacter}} where she]] [[{{NaiveEverygirl}} started off]] and managed to survive a lot; she's also made plenty of glaring mistakes such as nearly getting the Northern army (including Jon, her own brother) slaughtered because she didn't tell them more troops were coming; almost killing her sister thanks to falling for [[{{ObviouslyEvil}} Littlefinger's]] lies yet again and is currently antagonizing the North's very powerful ally Daenerys who is the only chance the North have to survive. She's managed a few practical matters like bringing in grain to Winterfell but that's hardly the work of a genius. It also doesn't help that most characters that enter her vicinity end up carrying the IdiotBall, meaning she suddenly knows how to make armour better than an actual smith and is more perceptive than practiced politician Tyrion.
** Speaking of Tyrion there's his own reputation of being a very smart, politically savvy adviser to his queen with everybody telling Daenerys just how good he is to have around. Not a single one of his advised plans while working for her has panned out, they have all been complete disasters. It gets to the point where it doesn't make any sense for anyone to have any faith in him anymore and yet he still gets glowing recommendations by peers.

** Sansa Stark's intelligence is frequently talked about in later seasons, to the point that Arya - a trained assassin and savvy character herself - calls her "the smartest person I've met". While Sansa has certainly developed from [[{{HorribleJudgeOfCharacter}} where she]] [[{{NaiveEverygirl}} started off]] and managed to survive a lot; she's also made plenty of glaring mistakes such as nearly getting the Northern army (including Jon, her own brother) slaughtered because she didn't tell them more troops were coming; almost killing her sister thanks to falling for [[{{ObviouslyEvil}} Littlefinger's]] lies yet again and is currently antagonizing the North's very powerful ally Daenerys who is the only chance the North have to survive. The only times we've seen her inaction is organizing bringing grain to Winterfell. It also doesn't help that most characters that enter her vicinity end up carrying the IdiotBall, meaning she suddenly knows how to make armour better than an actual smith and is more perceptive than practiced politician Tyrion.

* Sansa's intelligence is frequently touted in later seasons, to the point her sister calls her "the smartest person I've met". While Sansa has certainly developed from [[{{HorribleJudgeOfCharacter}} where she]] [[{{NaiveEverygirl}} started]] and managed to survive a lot; she's also made plenty of glaring mistakes such as nearly getting the Northern army (including Jon, her own brother) slaughtered because she didn't tell them more troops were coming; almost killing her own sister Arya thanks to falling for [[{{ObviouslyEvil}} Littlefinger's]] lies yet again; currently antagonizing the North's very powerful ally Daenerys who is the only chance she and the North have to survive. conned by Littlefinger into killing Arya last season. While she's managed a few practical matters like bringing in grain to Winterfell, being touted as the most intelligent person ever is pushing it.

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'': A good chunk of season 5 onward involves Phoebe's job as an advice columnist where she is repeatedly showered with praise and fame for her "edgy" and "intuitive" advice. While we hear a few snippets of her work over the course of the series (none of which are worth writing home about), Phoebe's success is gained pretty quickly as she already has own billboard in under a year of working as an advice columnist, a job she got with little to no qualifications or experience.

** The Greyjoys and the Iron Islanders are supposed to be feared badass vikings who once humiliated Tywin Lannister by torching his fleet at Lannisport. But aside from isolated stealth raids and easy targets against small garrisons, we hardly see any display of their vaunted ferocity and battle prowess. Even Yara Greyjoy, despite her skill in battle and having conscripted the "best killers" in the Iron Islands to aid her quest to rescue Theon, is outfought by a grinning shirtless maniac and is promptly chased away by said maniac's pack of hounds. Weirdly, Theon is the only Greyjoy who has shown decent skill in battle (in particular being an expert archer and one of Robb's best soldiers) and yet he is the hated ButtMonkey of the Iron Islands and the North. This is explained in Seasons 6 and 7 with their successes in the first rebellion, such as burning the Lannister fleet at anchor, belonged to Euron rather than his older brother Balon. Euron is a cunning strategist in all the ways Balon is not, but then he was gone from the islands, and the ironborn lost their most dangerous commander.
** Jamie Lannister is bigged up as one of the best swordsmen in the 7 kingdoms, of his two battles on screen one is inconclusive and the other has him severely weakened to the point his opponent can easily defeat him. A far cry from the books where in the same battle he was presented as still very skilled and dangerous. Of course then in season 3 [[spoiler: his hand is cut off]] and he has never been quite the same since.

* ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'': Writers Matt Albie and Danny Tripp are brought in by TV exec Jordan [=McDeere=] to save the supposedly-tanking ShowWithinAShow of the same name. Their first sketch after coming back on the air with new material (in the episode following the pilot) is a boring and monotonous parody of ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance'' - and the sketches don't get any better from there. This is despite the fact that Matt and Danny are frequently described as brilliant and visionary by everyone around them. It doesn't help matters that, of the few times we get to hear about "Peripheral Vision Man" (which, judging from the pilot, was a cartoon animated in the style of Robert Smigel's ''TVFunhouse''), it's more amusing to hear than anything featured in the so-called "superior" sketches. This has been a key point of criticism of the series, pushed by how Sorkin continues to insist that various actors and writers claimed the sketches were terrific.