History Main / TheOnlyOne

** Deconstructed in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E23Sarek Sarek]]". Ambassador Sarek has spent decades arranging diplomatic negotations with the Legarans and has been the lone Federation diplomat that they trust. However, at his advanced age, he is struggling with Bendii Syndrome (the Vulcan version of Alzheimer's Disease), something his aides are trying to hide. However, with his condition, Sarek's emotions are unintentionally affecting the ''Enterprise'' crew, which forces Picard to confront him and ask whether he is really the only one capable of conducting negotiations. Thankfully, they reach a solution that enables Sarek to fulfill his duties: Sarek temporarily transfers his emotions to Picard through a mind meld, allowing him the necessary mental clarity.

** Deconstructed in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E23Sarek Sarek]]". Ambassador Sarek has spent decades arranging diplomatic negotations with the Legarans and has been the lone Federation diplomat that they trust. However, at his advanced age, he is struggling with Bendii Syndrome (the Vulcan version of Alzheimer's Disease), something his aides are trying to hide. However, with his condition, Sarek's emotions are unintentionally affecting the ''Enterprise'' crew, which forces Picard to confront him and ask whether he is really the only one capable of conducting negotiations. Thankfully, they reach a solution that enables Sarek to fulfill his duties: Sarek temporarily transfers his emotions to Picard through a mind meld.

** Deconstructed in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E23Sarek Sarek]]". Ambassador Sarek has spent decades arranging diplomatic negotations with the Legarans, but at his advanced age, he is struggling with Bendii Syndrome (the Vulcan version of Alzheimer's Disease), something his aides are trying to hide. However, with his condition, Sarek's emotions are unintentionally affecting the ''Enterprise'' crew, which forces Picard to confront him and ask whether he is really the only one capable of conducting negotiations. Thankfully, they reach a solution that enables Sarek to fulfill his duties: Sarek temporarily transfers his emotions to Picard through a mind meld.

** ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'' has Kirk's crew charged with saving the diplomat hostages in their malfunctioning ''Enterprise-A''. Kirk actually calls out the Admiral assigning him on this. The movie tries to justify it by saying that while there are other ships in the area, their commanders don't have the experience Kirk has.

** At one point during [[FallenHero Hal Jordan's stint]] as [[DemonicPossession Parallax]], things got so bad for the Green Lantern Corps that [[SoleSurvivor Ganthet]] teleported to Earth and threw the only working Power Ring at a random person. Eventually they got better.

** Nova Corps: After a devastating interstellar war, the superpowers of a million-man-strong force were co-opted into one super suit, leading to several HeroicRROD situations.

* Kirby in his own [[Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa self-titled anime]] is a Star Warrior destined to fight off the BigBad of the universe.

* The [[Anime/ValkyriaChronicles anime adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles''. The main characters amount to a single squad of civilian draftee militia. Much like [[ItsUpToYou in the game]], the country's actual professional army is presented as a bunch of tactically incompetent blowhards who want to hog all the glory and use the UriahGambit on the protagonists. They never amount to anything useful and get blown to bits by the enemy.

* ''Franchise/GreenLantern'':

* This is the very heart and core of the SuperHero concept - that only The Big Damn Hero can Save The Day. In fact, once Lois Lane asked her husband "Why does it have to be you?"; he replied, "Because no one else can."
** Admittedly, the sheer number of superheroes existing in comics can counteract this at times.
** This is why the writers sometimes have to come up with excuses for other heroes from the same continuity (especially ones who are [[SupermanStaysOutOfGotham much more powerful than the story's main hero]]) to be absent when the villain shows up. See also ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself.
* The premise of the second ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' series is that the titular team is the closest thing Los Angeles has to a superhero team after their evil parents drove every other superhero out of the area, and thus have to deal with all the supervillains who decide to move out west in hopes of escaping from the superheroes on the East Coast. This premise falls apart after ''ComicBook/CivilWar'', when ComicBook/TheOrder2007 is deployed to California to become its government-sanctioned superhero team.
** The Order, incidentally, runs on a very similar premise - that they're the only superhero team available to deal with fallout from the Civil War (in part because the Civil War forced the Runaways into hiding - [[NiceJobBreakingItHero nice job breaking it, Tony...]])
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in Silver and Bronze Age ComicBook/{{Superboy}} stories, as Clark is Earth-1's first and only major super-powered superhero (aside from the teenaged ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} as "Aquaboy," plus a few minor heroes such as the original Air Wave) until he reaches adulthood.

** In "Fanfic/RemembranceOfTheFallen" part of the reason Eleya is given the assignment of tutoring Tia and Sobaru is because Sobaru is Bajoran, and Eleya is the only other Bajoran on the Starfleet Academy campus at the moment who has taken Principles of Electronic Countermeasures (officer recruitment on Bajor has apparently been somewhat thin in the past couple of years).
** Referenced but averted in "Fanfic/ShakedownShenanigans", directly referencing the [[Film/StarTrekGenerations Enterprise-B debacle]]. Eleya insists on her ship being ''fully'' completed, fueled, and armed before she will allow it to be launched for its shakedown cruise. Then when she picks up a distress signal during said cruise, it's made clear that she's going off-mission and because she ''wants'' to, not because she's the only ship available (in the Vulcan system, almost as much a crossroads as Sol).
* The four get so sick of this trope in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World'' that they basically end up saying, “No, we're not the only ones who can do this. Fuck off.”

* ''Film/JonahHex''. After TheRemnant commanded by Quentin Turnbull steals a SecretWeapon, Army Lieutenant Grass assures President UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant that his elite military unit is ready to handle it. So Grant assigns him...the task of finding Jonah Hex.

* ''Film/HotFuzz'' lets us know that Sgt. Angel is far and away the most effective officer in London. Subverted in that this only makes his coworkers annoyed and gets him reassigned to a village out in the boondocks, at which point crime back in his original precinct immediately spikes upward.

* In ''Series/TheXFiles'', federal agents Mulder and Scully were often the only ones who could defeat the MonsterOfTheWeek - partly because of the astonishing amount of CorruptHick law enforcers they encountered, and partly because they were usually the only ones who believed or accepted that the threat actually existed in the first place.

If the series is about a local police force, the FBI are ivory-tower {{glory hound}}s. If the series is about an FBI agent, the local police are all [[PoliceAreUseless useless]] CorruptHick types. If the series is about the military, government higher-ups will only be [[SleazyPolitician interested in pleasing the voters]]. If the series is about the government or an anti-military type, then the military will be TheEvilArmy commanded by a GeneralRipper type who is just itching to NukeEm back to the stone age, never mind the asking questions part. If the series is about a rogue hero, all levels of government and law enforcement, plus the military, are either [[BadCopIncompetentCop corrupt or clueless]], with the possible exception of a ReasonableAuthorityFigure who will still be be unable to help because of mountains of red tape. And everyone else will just think that it [[BystanderSyndrome isn't for them to deal with]] (at least, at first). In those cases where the people who are supposed to be handling the situation are not also bad guys, you can end up with a RedShirtArmy.

** At one point during [[FallenHero Hal Jordan's stint]] as [[DemonicPossession Parallax]], things got so bad for the Green Lantern Corps that [[SoleSurivor Ganthet]] teleported to Earth and threw the only working Power Ring at a random person. Eventually they got better.

** At one point things got so bad for the Green Lantern Corps that the last Guardian teleported to Earth and threw a ring at a random person. Eventually they got better.
** This happens to the Corps every so often. When Hal Jordan was still a rookie, the villain Legion had defeated the entire corps with its gigantic yellow suit of armor, but Hal figures out that if he covers Legion in mud, his ring will work on him. When cracking the armor open turns out not to have been the best idea, Hal flies into the central power battery and supercharges his ring, giving him the strength to defeat the villain on his own.

** In ''[[WesternAnimation/GreenLanternFirstFlight First Flight]]'' Sinestro has destroyed Green Lantern battery, all of the remaining Green Lanterns are left powerless. Only Hal was able to get green element's power working again and fight Sinestro one on one.

* The starship ''[[Franchise/StarTrek Enterprise]]'' seems to be the only ship in the sector when a crisis goes down a ''lot'' of the time. Most egregiously in ''Film/StarTrekGenerations,'' in which the crisis takes place near Earth, the capital of the Federation, and the Enterprise, whose best AppliedPhlebotinum won't be in until Tuesday, is ''still'' the only ship close enough. Apparently, if the Romulans ever decide to bring the fight to our heroes, they'll only have to get past one ship...

-->'''Vincent Van Ghoul''': Only you can return the demons to the chest!
-->'''Shaggy and Scooby''': Why us?
-->'''Vincent Van Ghoul''': Because you let them out!

* The premise of the second ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' series is that the titular team is the closest thing Los Angeles has to a superhero team after their evil parents drove every other superhero out of the area, and thus have to deal with all the supervillains who decide to move out west in hopes of escaping from the superheroes on the East Coast. This premise falls apart after ''ComicBook/CivilWar'', when ComicBook/TheOrder is deployed to California to become its government-sanctioned superhero team.

* ''Film/{{Barbarella }}''. Parodied when Dianthus (President of Earth and Rotating Premier of the Solar System) has to send Barbarella on the mission because the universe has been at peace for so long they no longer have armies or police, "and I can't spare the Presidential band!"

[[folder:Film - Live Action]]

* This is so prevalent in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' films that you'd think Starfleet wants Earth to be destroyed. That or the NegativeSpaceWedgie epidemic in the galaxy is so bad that all of their ships are busy dealing with them.

** In ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'', the ''Enterprise'' against the Khan-controlled ''Reliant''. Kirk actually refers to themselves as the only ship in the ''quadrant''. It should be noted that in pre-TNG, the terms "sector" and "quadrant" were used pretty loosely. It's likely that quadrant also refers to a sub-unit of a sector.

* As the ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'' franchise went on, the role of the police became diminished to the point of utter uselessness, meaning the city was defenceless without Franchise/{{Batman}}. This is somewhat averted in ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy', where Lieutenant/Commissioner Gordon plays a major role in saving the city too.
** Also averted in the fact that though he is indeed the only one with the resources and [[{{Determinator}} resolve]] to see his one man war on crime through, any honest portrayal of Bruce Wayne character never has him desiring to REMAIN the only one. Parallels thus observable, with ''V for Vendetta''.

** ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'' has Kirk's crew charged with saving the diplomat hostages in their malfunctioning ''Enterprise-A''. Kirk actually calls out the Admiral assigning him on this. The movie tries to justify it by saying that while there are other ships in the area, their commanders don't have the experience Kirk has. ([[BlackHoleSue Yeah, William Shatner was director and had a story credit.)]] Website/SFDebris points out how the movie itself makes it much worse: The ''Enterprise'' is seen to take about 6 hours to reach the center of the galaxy from the Neutral Zone, at which speed ''any'' ship would've been close enough to assist on the Paradise Planet earlier -- meaning that if the Enterprise was the Only One, then Starfleet apparently has ''only one ship''.
** ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' pulls ''The Motion Picture'' blunder again. The ''Enterprise''-B is just being taken for a test stroll around Earth and doesn't even have most of its weapons or medical crew, and yet it's miraculously the only ship within range of the NegativeSpaceWedgie, even though it's still very close to Earth, which presumably has a lot of ships nearby.
** Justified in ''Film/StarTrek2009''. Most of the local Starfleet ships are busy in the Laurentian system, so the ships available to respond to Vulcan consist of whatever happened to be in drydock in Earth orbit at the time, and Starfleet's forced to call up the corps of cadets from the Academy in order to crew them. Then the ''Narada'' blows away all of them save the ''Enterprise'' (because the ''Enterprise'' was late to the party because Sulu goofed).
** Taken to the logical conclusion in ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' when the ''Enterprise'' is on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle from the ''Vengeance'' in orbit of the Moon and not one other starship comes by to investigate.
** {{Justified}} again in ''Film/StarTrekBeyond''. Yorktown Starbase is left undefended apart from some weapons platforms because Krall duped Sulu and Uhura into sending Starfleet the wrong rescue coordinates, so the fleet that would normally be to aid in the defense is out looking for them and Kirk et al. are left to fend off Krall's attack by themselves.

* Justified in ''Film/ExecutiveDecision'' after Sergeant Matheny, the squad's explosives expert, is critically injured and paralyzed, aviation engineer Dennis Cahill (who has been left behind to "keep an eye" on Matheny) is forced to try his hand at defusing the bomb. He does just that, in a manner that Matheny admits he never would have thought of.
** Similarly Dr. Grant joins in the final assault on the terrorists because there are not enough commandos left to take out all the terrorists at once.

* Pick any SuperHero movie and chances are, that one hero will be the only character in that universe with the powers/gadgets to take down the many supervillains that pop up.
** In the ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'', five super-powered villains show up throughout the series but Spidey is apparently the one and only superhero.
** Film/{{Superman}} is obviously the one and only superhero in his films to the point where the Earth seems screwed when a single super-powered menace shows up or natural disaster happens, requiring him to act. In fact, that universe can't even stop a single, non-powered [[ComicBook/LexLuthor mad scientist]] from nearly nuking the planet.
** The first two films in the ''Film/BladeTrilogy'' shows the lone, titular hero going up against an entire world of vampires with only one aging ally for support. [[Film/BladeTrinity The third film]] gave him two more allies but they were simply [[BadAssNormal really tough and didn't have any powers]].
** The original ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'' movie series had Batman as the only hero of that universe for two and a half movies with Robin joining him about midway through ''Film/BatmanForever'' and Batgirl later joining at the tail-end of the infamous ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' movie. Even then, that's only three superheroes and about eight supervillains throughout that series.
** This trope is averted in ''Film/IronMan'' where Tony Stark believes he is the only superhero in that universe and seems annoyed when he gains allies. Obviously, these films are a part of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse which has set out to avert this trope in superhero movies.

* Played seriously in [[WesternAnimation/InsideOut Inside Out]]: [[TheHedonist Joy]]'s [[spoiler:[[WellIntentionedExtremist misguided attempts to keep Riley happy all the time backfire disastrously]]; after she and [[TheEmpath Sadness]] are accidentally ejected from Headquarters, Anger, Disgust, and Fear try and fail miserably to keep Riley happy and their efforts end with Riley nearly running away from San Francisco and return to her hometown in Minnesota, thanks to an ill-conceived idea on Anger's part. Just as the control panel begins [[HeroicBSOD turning grey and locking them out, rendering Riley apathetic]] and leaving Anger, Disgust, and Fear in [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrified regret]], Joy and Sadness return. The previous three emotions swarm around Joy, begging her to fix the problem; Joy, [[TookALevelInKindness having learned that she went too far in excluding]] [[TheSacredDarkness Sadness]] and preventing her from helping Riley signal to others that she needs help, she surprises them all when she tells Sadness that it's up to her. Sadness, having been ostracized and mistreated by Joy for almost all her existence, [[ShrinkingViolet is reluctant and afraid at first to take control]] until Joy firmly tells her, "Yes you can, ''[[HeartIsAnAwesomePower Riley needs you]]''". This gives Sadness the confidence to take the controls; just as the control panel almost completely shuts down, Sadness successfully removes the idea bulb, reactivating the controls and bringing Riley to her senses just in time so that she can leave the bus and return to her parents. Once Riley has returned to her house and her relieved parents, a silently contrite Joy allows Sadness to return Riley's Core Memories (turning them from joyful to sad in the process) so that Riley can understand why all these things she loved hurt so much]]. The emotions watch in sheer amazement [[spoiler:Riley breaks down in sobs and finally admits to her parents that she misses Minnesota and her parents in turn admit to her that they also miss Minnesota and the three of them huddle in a GroupHug]].
** There's some [[Fridge/InsideOut fridge brilliance]] [[spoiler: in this one action because Sadness is effectively the only one who ''could'' remove the idea bulb; since she has moved from Minnesota to San Francisco and Sadness has been prevented from signaling that Riley is homesick and miserable in this new city, Riley is outraged and repelled by San Francisco and Anger and Disgust therefore are unable to remove the bulb. Fear is also unable to remove the bulb because Riley's fear of losing everything she loves overrules the fear of taking a long bus journey by herself, and Fear himself was opposed to the idea of running away and outright stated that it was drastic and dangerous but he was overruled. Even if Joy were there, Riley does not yet have any happy memories of San Francisco, so Joy would probably have been just as powerless to remove the bulb. Sadness, however, could bring Riley to her senses with the simple but painful realization that ''running away to Minnesota '''would not work'''''; her family's old house is sold, her friend Meg has already found another friend, she would have no place to stay, and she would be even lonelier since she'd left her parents in San Francisco, and only Sadness could remove the idea and make her understand this truth and abandon her plan.]]

** There's some [[Fridge/InsideOut fridge brilliance]] [[spoiler: in this one action because Sadness is effectively the only one who ''could'' remove the idea bulb; since she has moved from Minnesota to San Francisco and Sadness has been prevented from signaling that Riley is homesick and miserable in this new city, Riley is outraged and repelled by San Francisco and Anger and Disgust therefore are unable to remove the bulb. Fear is also unable to remove the bulb because Riley's fear of losing everything she loves overrules the fear of taking a long bus journey by herself, and Fear himself was opposed to the idea of running away and outright stated that it was drastic and dangerous but he was overruled. Even if Joy were there, Riley does not yet have any happy memories of San Francisco, so Joy would probably have been just as powerless to remove the bulb. Sadness, however, could bring Riley to her senses with the simple but cruel realization that ''running away to Minnesota '''would not work'''''; her family's old house is sold, her friend Meg has already found another friend, she would have no place to stay, and she would be even lonelier since she'd left her parents in San Francisco, and only Sadness could remove the idea and make her understand this truth and abandon her plan.]]