History PoorCommunicationKills / LiveActionTV

** M.M.'s family life falls apart because his wife dumps him to prevent him from endangering their daughter with his job, and he spends most of Season 3 butting heads with TheExsNewJerkass Todd who's a die-hard Homelander fan and takes M.M's daughter to his rallies. Despite knowing how powerful [[EvilInc Vought]]'s stranglehold on pop culture is, M.M. makes no effort to show Todd any of the evidence they have on Homelander to protect his daughter from his influence and instead just decks him, horrifying his daughter.
** It's revealed late in Season 3 that [[spoiler:the temporary SuperSerum variant Butcher and Hughie have been using causes brain death with long-term use, but after Starlight reveals this to Butcher he refuses to tell Hughie and instead doubles down, turning this into a literal example]].

** In Season 3, [[spoiler:Mallory reveals that she had been hiding a potential method of killing [[BigBad Homelander]] because [[DirtyCoward she was scared of what Butcher would do with the information and what the government would do if they found out she talked]]. Butcher is understandably furious, but Mallory [[AdaptationalJerkass refuses to take responsibility]] and gives him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that hits too close to home and makes him start burning bridges left and right. Butcher pulls a BreakHisHeartToSaveHim on his stepson Ryan and alienates Frenchie & Kimiko, causing virtually all of his relationships to self-destruct throughout half the season just when he was finally starting to do well for himself. Furthermore, he starts taking SuperSerum to become an EmpoweredBadassNormal but neglects to tell anyone other than Hughie, giving the rest of the team even less reason to trust him when the truth comes out.]]

* The ''Series/HoratioHornblower'' TV-series starring Ioan Gruffudd has in an scene written for the show a group of deserting British sailors (their ship's crew was besieging the Spanish) [[MeleeATrois captured by Dominican rebel slaves]] (ItMakesSenseInContext), and so the rebel commander rows out to the sailors' original ship, to bargain with the captain to leave the island in peace (with one of their sailors at gunpoint). The ships' Royal Marines train their weapons on the rebels, and the Captain is asked whether they should open fire. He replies with "Fire?", the others understand it as "Fire!" and [[ShootTheDog shoot the rebels and their hostage]], [[NiceJobBreakingItHero declaring an outright war]] between the ship's crew and the rest of the rebels. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVo7OpOv__Y&feature=relmfu Seen here]].

* A lot of people's lives could have been spared in ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' if the Federation didn't play the good guy. As Burnham explained to Captain Georgiou, they should preemptively attack the Klingons so that they could show them their strength, but Georgiou refused as that's not Starfleet's way. Whoops.

* A lot of people's lives could have been spared in ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' had the Federation didn't play the good guy. As Burnham explained to Captain Georgiou, they should preemptively attack the Klingons so that they could show them their strength, but Georgiou refused as that's not Starfleet's way. Whoops.

* This is what kicks off the entire mess of ''Series/GoodOmens''. The pregnant wife of an American diplomat is about to give bith in a convent where the nuns (working for Hell), plan to swap her child for the Antichrist that Crowley is going to deliver so he grows up in an influential political family as the first step to Armageddon. But then a couple called the Youngs show up, the wife also in labor and things get out of hand. When Crowley comes by, Mr. Young tells him "the birth" is happening in Room 3, meaning his wife but Crowley assumes that it's the American woman and takes the Antichrist to that room. Then, Sister Mary mistakes Mrs. Young for the diplomat's wife and makes the switch of that kid for the Antichrist. She and Sister Theresa then exchange winks which each totally mistake what the other is thinking and Mary not grasping she just gave the Antichrist to the wrong family. Then, some demons wipe out the entire convent before double-checking on things. Crowley and angel pal Aziraphale (not wanting the world to end) work together to try and keep the diplomat's son from going evil, unaware they're working on the wrong kid. Thus, these mistaken assumptions all pile up on each other and nearly end the entire world.

* In ''Series/BabylonFive'', the whole Human[=/=]Minbari war starts because of this, mostly because they don't know each-others language or cultural traditions.

* Huge example in late 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 the vampire hunter Holtz, 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 putting it all on his own shoulders and not just telling them what was going on in the first place so they could help him make a better decision. Angel goes so far as to try to ''kill'' Wesley, and Wes is ostracized from the group for the rest of Season 3 and the first part of Season 4. On top of it all, it turns out the prophecy was false the whole time because the demon Sahjan had altered the original words (which predicted Connor would grow up to kill Sahjan), meaning Wesley's actions were AllForNothing.

* 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 the vampire hunter Holtz, 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 putting it all on his own shoulders and not just telling them what was going on in the first place so they could help him make a better decision. Angel goes so far as to try to ''kill'' Wesley, and Wes is ostracized from the group for the rest of Season 3 and a good part of Season 4. On top of it all, it turns out the prophecy was false the whole time because the demon Sahjan had altered the original words (which predicted Connor would grow up to kill Sahjan), meaning Wesley's actions were AllForNothing.

* 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 the vampire hunter Holtz, 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 putting it all on his own shoulders and not just telling them what was going on in the first place so they could help him make a better decision. On top of it all, it turns out the prophecy was false the whole time because the demon Sahjan had altered the original words (which predicted Connor would grow up to kill Sahjan), meaning Wesley's actions were AllForNothing.

* 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. On top of it all, it turns out the prophecy was a fake the whole time, meaning Wesley's actions were AllForNothing.

** To Minbari, it is common courtesy to show all your weapons to other soldiers, so they can see that you have nothing hidden and mean no treachery. Which on a warship means opening all gunports ready but leaving the weapons powered down. The humans noticed the first part and mistook a power spike for powering up the weapons (also, the Minbari sensors had accidentally jammed human jump drives and their stealth was keeping human scanners from getting a clear reading) and started firing in presumed self-defence, killing the Minbari's revered leader, resulting in them declaring holy war against the human race and making no attempt to communicate with the humans, neither to tell them the reason the Minbari are trying to kill them all, nor to get any explanation for the humans' actions. Ironically Dukhat, the Minbari leader, had ordered to close the gunports to avoid this in the exact same moment the Human commander ordered to open fire.
*** To make things even more tragic, it's possible the Minbari ''were'' powering weapons... To shoot at Soul Hunter ships that the human ships couldn't detect. That was when Dukhat ordered to close the gunports: Soul Hunters have the ability to sense when someone will die and, being hated and feared by everyone else, show up only when someone whose soul they deem worthy of preserving is about to die, [[OhCrap leading Dukhat to realize the humans were about to mistake the open gunports for a hostile action and open fire]], but he gave the order just as Jankowski, the human commander, was ordering to open fire. Anger at the "unprovoked" attack pushed the Grey Council, the Minbari government, to declare and announce a holy war to exterminate the humans, and by the time they realized it was not so unprovoked they couldn't take it back out of fear of losing their people's trust.

*** In the ''In the Beginning'' TV movie, Sheridan even warns his superior not to send that particular commanding officer with a bad record of FirstContact situations (such as something called the Omega Incident) to meet an ancient and powerful race, claiming he was impulsive. Had a less impulsive officer been in command, it's possible the whole war would've been averted. The superior officer unfortunately didn't listen, citing that Jankowski had been cleared of responsibility in the Omega Incident.

*** Speaking of Angel, his turning into Angelus was a result of him experiencing a single moment of true happiness, which broke the curse that gave him a soul. The descendants of the Romani coven that cursed Angel sent Jenny Calendar to Sunnydale for the express purpose of keeping Angel and Buffy apart but was not told that Angel experiencing true happiness could cost him soul. Buffy and Giles spend a significant amount of time angry at Jenny for her duplicity and the fact that all the pain and carnage caused by Angelus could have been avoided had they been warned about the possibility of Angel losing his soul.

* ''Series/{{Belgravia}}'': A whole lot of suffering could have been avoided if Edmund Bellasis had simply ''told'' Sophia Trenchard that the man marrying them was his army buddy who had been ordained due to previously serving as a priest and therefore had the authority to marry them legitimately. Instead, when Edmund's regiment is moving out to engage the enemy and Sophia recognizes one of their faces as the priest who married them, she assumes she's been had, and neither Edmund nor his friend is around to explain things because they both died in combat that same night. This leads to Sophia having to give her up her baby to avoid scandal, not knowing that she and Edmund were really married.

* ''Series/{{Belgravia}}'': A whole lot of suffering could have been avoided if Edmund Bellasis had simply ''told'' Sophia Trenchard that the man marrying them was his army buddy who had been ordained due to previously serving as a priest and therefore had the authority to marry them legitimately. Instead, when Sophia realizes they were married by a member of Edmund's regiment, she assumes she's been had, and neither Edmund nor his friend is around to explain things because they both died in combat that same night. This leads to Sophia having to give her up her baby to avoid scandal, not knowing that she and Edmund were really married.

* Series/''{{Belgravia}}'': A whole lot of suffering could have been avoided if Edmund Bellasis had simply ''told'' Sophia Trenchard that the man marrying them was his army buddy who had been ordained due to previously serving as a priest and therefore had the authority to marry them legitimately. Instead, when Sophia realizes they were married by a member of Edmund's regiment, she assumes she's been had, and neither Edmund nor his friend is around to explain things because they both died in combat that same night. This leads to Sophia having to give her up her baby to avoid scandal, not knowing that she and Edmund were really married.

* Much of the latter half of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', if not the entire series, could have been avoided if the humans and cylons had ever just sat down and compared notes, but even after the humans have cylon allies, they still don't even seem to consider sharing information with each other, despite all the half-information and lingering questions they all have about prophecies, the backstory, etc.

* The ''Series/HoratioHornblower'' TV-series starring Ion Gruffudd (maybe also the original books) had a group of deserting British sailors (their ship's crew was besieging the Spanish) [[MeleeATrois captured by Dominican rebel slaves]] (ItMakesSenseInContext), and so the rebel commander rows out to the sailors' original ship, to bargain with the captain to leave the island in peace (with one of their sailors at gunpoint). The ships' Royal Marines train their weapons on the rebels, and the Captain is asked whether they should open fire. He replies with "Fire?", the others understand it as "Fire!" and [[ShootTheDog shoot the rebels and their hostage]], [[NiceJobBreakingItHero declaring an outright war]] between the ship's crew and the rest of the rebels. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVo7OpOv__Y&feature=relmfu Seen here]].