History PoorCommunicationKills / LiveActionTV

* In "Trial by Fire", an episode from ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'', alien forces are hovering above the Earth, and have sent out a message to the world's leaders. The message, unfortunately, is unable to be deciphered, and the President of the US is presented with two options - Preemptive strike, or wait things out and hope they can translate the message. [[spoiler:He eventually takes the Hawk approach and launches a nuclear warhead at the [[FlyingSaucer UFOs]], which fails. As a retaliatory strike comes in, he's informed that they just cracked the code... by submerging the audio beneath water; it was a message of Peace.]] But what were you expecting? There's a reason that the trope CruelTwistEnding was originally called Outer Limits Twist.

* The ''Series/{{Nova}}'' episode [[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html "The Spy Factory"]] accuses the UsefulNotes/{{NSA}} and {{CIA}} of this during the lead-up to 9/11, sitting on intelligence they had on al-Qa'ida rather than passing it along to the FBI so they could do something with it.

* Huge example in season 3 of ''Series/{{Angel}}''. Wesley translates a prophecy that Angel will kill his son, Connor. Instead of telling Angel (or Gunn, or Fred), Wesley kidnaps Connor and loses him to Angel's archenemy, which results in Connor being raised in a Hell dimension and growing up to hate Angel fiercely. While the urge to protect baby Connor is understandable, everyone gives Wesley a hard time about not just telling them what was going on in the first place so they could help him make a better decision.

** ''[[Series/KamenRiderAgito Agito]]'', ''[[Series/KamenRiderFaiz Faiz]]'', and ''[[Series/KamenRiderKiva Kiva]]'' all had near-identical situations: a member of the secondary cast (Ryo Ashihara[=/=]Gills, Yuji Kiba[=/=]Horse Orphenoch, and Keisuke Nago[=/=]IXA, respectively) is friends with the main character while despising and seeking to destroy his Rider identity (Ashihara because he thinks Agito killed the woman he loved, Yuji because he thinks Faiz is a pawn for Smart Brain, and Nago because he thinks Kiva is an OmnicidalManiac). Shoichi, Takumi, and Wataru never think to reveal their identities in order to defuse the situation, which lets the tension build. In the end, [[spoiler:Ryo, Yuji, and Nago find out by accident, and they're all relieved; Ryo and Yuji because they know guys like Shoichi and Takumi could never be murderers, and Nago because he thinks the power of Kiva is in good hands with Wataru.]]
*** There is an instance in ''Kiva'' where Wataru half-admits it (Nago asks "Where did Kiva go?!" and Wataru wordlessly points at himself), but Nago just brushes it off as a bad joke.

** A lot more people would still be alive, and a lot less trouble gone to if Cobblepot could've just told Nygma [[spoilers: that he's in love with him.]]

* In ''Series/{{Gotham}}'', Bruce goes looking for Reggie Payne at gun ranges based on Alfred's statement that he's probably holed up in "a shooting gallery". The more streetwise Selena explains the other meaning of the term (a place where people hole up to do drugs).

** Played with, but ultimately averted in ''Series/KamenRiderBlade''. After spending almost the whole series fighting each other, all four Kamen Riders are finally united as a team during the last arc of the show. Logically, this is not desirable for the BigBad, who sends out a monster capable of disguising itself as the Kamen Riders, tasking it with turning the Riders against each other. Luckily, the Riders are GenreSavvy enough to realize the BigBad is trying to invoke this trope.

* In ''Series/TheShannaraChronicles'', mystic Allanon is told by his mentor Bremen that he will one day have a successor. Allanon is convinced this is Bandon and goes overboard in driving the young man to learn all the magic he can and prove himself. All this ends up doing is turning Bandon to darkness and to become a major threat. Badly injured, Allanon meets with the spirit of Bremen who reveals his true successor is [[spoiler: Mareth]]. Allanon lampshades that maybe so much trouble could have been avoided if Bremen had just [[spoiler: ''used a gender pronoun'']] to give a hint Allanon successor would be [[spoiler: a ''woman'']].

* In ''Series/TheShannaraChronicles'', mystic Allanon is told by his mentor Bremen that he will one day have a successor. Allanon is convinced this is Bandon and goes overboard in driving the young man to learn all the magic he can and prove himself. All this ends up doing is turning Bandon to darkness and to become a major threat. Badly injured, Allanon meets with the spirit of Bremen who reveals his true successor is [[spoiler: Mareth]]. Allanon lampshades that maybe so much trouble could have been avoided if Bremen had just [[spoiler: ''used a gender pronoun]] to give a hint Allanon successor would be [[spoiler: a ''woman'']].

* A literal example in ''Series/{{Killjoys}}'' as season three has them tangling with Hullens, specially created aliens in human form who heal quickly from injury. In "Attack the Rack," Dutch stages an assault on the RAC to expose the Hullens in their ranks to the human agents and have them fight back. She's looking in a room when attacked by Banyon, the recently appointed RAC boss. Naturally, Dutch believes she's a Hullen and they start fighting it out with [[spoiler: Dutch stabbing Banyon in the side. To her shock, Banyon doesn't heal from it and Dutch realizes she's human. It turns out Banyon didn't know a thing about the Hullens and was just looking into what happened to missing agents. She assumed Dutch and her crew were somehow involved and that's why she was so hostile to them. Both women realize that they've been on the same side but mutual suspicion (and Dutch not wanting to reveal the Hullen threat until she was ready) caused this with Banyon dying of her sound.]]

** Manny is a classic case of a child older than his years and enjoying a more cultured lifestyle and assumes almost everyone in his school is the same way. Thus, he won't grasp that trying to theme a dance to an 1800s novel won't go over well.

** Really, it was all summed up in a rare bit of wisdom by Luke: "90 percent of your problems would be solved if you just ''talked'' to each other more.

* The climax of the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' episode "[[{{Recap/FireflyE12TheMessage}} The Message]]" has the intrepid crew under siege and almost certainly about to die at the hands of an overzealous cop hunting down Mal and Zoe's friend, Tracey. Shepherd Book hatches a plan: the first part is surrendering to the cop and telling him they're going to turn Tracey over to him. Tracey, upon hearing this, becomes understandably upset, but it's not until after he's flipped out for several seconds, threatened the crew with a gun, [[KickTheDog held Kaylee hostage]], and finally been ''mortally wounded by Mal'' that they inform him that the rest of the plan was to threaten and blackmail the cop into leaving without actually giving him what he came for. Tracey, rather than angrily demanding why they didn't tell him that in the first place, ''feels bad'' for screwing up the plan before dying moments later.

* The ''Series/{{Nova}}'' episode [[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html "The Spy Factory"]] accuses the {{NSA}} and {{CIA}} of this during the lead-up to 9/11, sitting on intelligence they had on al-Qa'ida rather than passing it along to the FBI so they could do something with it.

* If the Earth Administrator had just started his speech in ''Series/DoctorWho'''s "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E5TheMutants The Mutants]]" by saying he was granting Solos their independence, the whole plot would have been avoided and he'd have saved his own life.

* The last episode of ''Series/BlakesSeven'' has Tarrant fall for Blake’s bounty hunter act and tell Avon that Blake has betrayed them. Avon, who really should know Blake better than that, aims his gun at Blake, who, instead of explaining the truth coherently, just comes out with vague statements like "I set all this up!", all of which Avon misinterprets until he finally snaps and pumps Blake full of gunfire.
* If the Earth Administrator had just started his speech in ''Series/DoctorWho'''s "The Mutants" by saying he was granting Solos their independence, the whole plot would have been avoided and he'd have saved his own life.

* The climax of the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' episode "The Message" has the intrepid crew under siege and almost certainly about to die at the hands of an overzealous cop hunting down Mal and Zoe's friend, Tracey. Shepherd Book hatches a plan: the first part is surrendering to the cop and telling him they're going to turn Tracey over to him. Tracey, upon hearing this, becomes understandably upset, but it's not until after he's flipped out for several seconds, threatened the crew with a gun, [[KickTheDog held Kaylee hostage]], and finally been ''mortally wounded by Mal'' that they inform him that the rest of the plan was to threaten and blackmail the cop into leaving without actually giving him what he came for. Tracey, rather than angrily demanding why they didn't tell him that in the first place, ''feels bad'' for screwing up the plan before dying moments later.

** There's a ''whole'' lot of other unnecessary lack of communication. Just watch the end of Season 1 / the beginning of Season 2.

** Interestingly, when a Minbari warship shows up at Babylon 5 showing all weapons as common courtesy, the warship's captain Neroon arrogantly refuses to explain himself; the more level-headed Minbari Ambassador Delenn goes to the bridge to enlighten the Bab 5 crew about this tradition and invite them to confirm that the weapons are not powered. Apparently, even ten years after the Earth-Minbari War, all the details of the misunderstanding that kicked it off are still not common knowledge in the Earth Alliance, due to the Minbari's poor communication skills.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': The War of the Five Kings results at least partially from very poor communication between the Starks and the Lannisters when Catelyn arrests Tyrion with little evidence and without questioning him at all first. In addition, Cersei never even tries to explain to Ned Stark that she didn't actually kill Jon Arryn.
* It is revealed in the Season 7 finale that [[spoiler:Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark really do fell in love with each other and secretly married in Dorne. While it did disproved the fact about Lyanna being kidnapped and raped by Rhaegar and confirmed that Jon Snow (or Aegon Targaryen) is the legitimate heir to the Iron Throne, [[LoveRuinsTheRealm the whole love affair still led to a civil war]] that affected several houses for a long run. Had Lyanna or Rhaegar told their families about it instead of running away together and eloping somewhere else, many deaths could have been prevented]].

** And when the series goes OffTheRails from the books, Bran is conflicted between telling Jon some crucial intel and keeping it a secret, because [[spoiler:on one hand, Jon is trying to make a baby with someone that the intel would outright forbid him from doing (and may become the ACTUAL father of The Stallion Who Mounts The World), and on the other hand, if Danerys ever found out (and Jon has thoroughly proven he cannot keep a secret), there is a HIGH probability she'll go insane and begin infighting to kill Jon]]. In the end, Bran keeps it a secret, while a marriage which should never have been considered, is currently taking place.

** And when the series goes OffTheRails from the books, Bran is conflicted between telling Jon some crucial intel and keeping it a secret, because [[spoiler:on one hand, Jon is trying to make a baby with someone that the intel would outright forbid him from doing (and may become the ACTUAL father of [[{{Tykebomb}}:The Stallion Who Mounts The World]], and on the other hand, if Danerys ever found out (and Jon has thoroughly proven he cannot keep a secret), there is a HIGH probability she'll go insane and begin infighting to kill Jon]]. In the end, Bran keeps it a secret, while a marriage which should never have been considered, is currently taking place.