History SadisticChoice / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}''. Parodied when Ludwig the Indestructible sends a ransom demand for Blackadder and Melchett, knowing she can only afford to pay for one of them. She decides to spend the money on...[[ItsAllAboutMe a party instead.]]

*** The obvious example: Bareil is Kira's lover and Winn forces her to take command of the investigation. The more evidence she gathers, the more it looks like Bareil is guilty. Eventually, she's forced to choose between protecting her lover and revealing the findings of her investigation to the Vedek Assembly which will destroy Bareil if revealed. She chooses to inform the assembly of her findings. However, when she contacts the assembly to present her findings, she learns Bareil's already spoken to the council so she doesn't need to go through with it. She made the choice, however.
*** The less obvious example: Bareil is the favourite for becoming Kai and was also Kai Opaka's first choice for the position. He is faced with the option of confessing to the collaboration which will destroy him, ensure he never becomes Kai and give the position of Kai to a ruthless, power-hungry woman, or he can exonerate himself and take the position of Kai, but this would probably expose the true identity of the collaborator: Kai Opaka. In the end, he chooses to take the blame for the massacre, both out of respect for Opaka and also to protect the sanctity of the position of Kai, knowing it would be damaged if the truth was ever made public. He withdraws from the running for Kai, leaving Winn to take the position.
*** The third example predates the episode but is still relevant, as it's the reason Opaka did what she did in the first place. The Cardassians threatened that if the 43 resistance fighters weren't handed over to Cardassian authorities, they would indiscriminately kill all 1200 Bajorans in the area in order to wipe out the resistance cell. Opaka was forced to choose between the lives of 43 people (including her own son) or 1200 people. She chose to [[TheNeedsOfTheMany sacrifice 43 lives to save 1200]].

* ''Series/TheDeadZone'': A variant occurs in one episode, in which the villain is fate. After some visions, Johnny is forced to choose which of his old friends die. Does he let one friend get a heart transplant at the cost of the other friend's life? He keeps trying to try the third option, but it never works out. Leads to some very TearJerker moments.

** You're free to leave your cell in the Eyrie at any time; the cells only have three walls. Of course, the missing fourth wall is also the one that would keep you from falling to your death. Lysa Arryn also implies that the cells have sloped floors to pull prisoners toward the edge, as Tyrion discovers when he nearly rolls out in his sleep.
** Stannis has a series of these forced upon him in Season 5. He has to march to Winterfell and defeat the Boltons if he wants to help the Night's Watch or he can winter at Castle Black, with little supplies and no political clout and die out during the winter. After Ramsay Bolton leads a raid on Stannis' camp that results in the destruction of his food stores and siege weapons, Stannis is faced with the likely possibly of his entire army starving and freezing to death in the Northern wilderness. The only apparent chance for victory lies in Melisandre's magic, which will create conditions for an impossible victory, but using that option comes at a terrible price: Stannis must give his only daughter up as a blood sacrifice, or all of his army starve out in the snow anyway. It's a brutal lose/lose situation. [[spoiler:[[MortonsFork Stannis sacrifices his daughter and loses anyway]]: His wife hangs herself in grief, his hired mercenaries collectively say ScrewThisImOutOfHere, and the Boltons get the drop on him at Winterfell.]]

** How Ned feels upon learning of the illegitimacy of the Royal Children. He can be loyal to his friend Robert, tell him the truth, and drive him into an insane fury that would most likely cause him to kill not only Cersei and Jaime, but also Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella, who, upon being declared as abominations, will be murdered as well, or he can listen to Cersei and ignore the issue altogether and allow the Lannisters to install their inbred corrupt dynasty. In the end, he gets killed by the very boy-king, Joffrey, whose life he hoped to spare.
** When he finds Lyanna on her deathbed with her newborn child (Jon), Ned has the following choices: He can allow the world to know his sister had a child with Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, the man King Robert hated more than anyone, which would put his sister’s son in fatal danger from Robert or Ned can protect his nephew, honor his sister’s DyingWish, and put himself in the line of fire out of love for Lyanna and Jon. Ned brings his nephew home with him to Winterfell and claims Jon as his bastard son to protect Jon from their family’s enemies. Ned loves Jon and raises him as his own alongside his true born children but Ned's lie tarnishes his reputation, strains his marriage, and Jon experiences a series of issues related to his bastard-status and never knowing about his mother because it is too dangerous for Ned to reveal the truth.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': Chidi tries teaching his ethics class the trolley problem, where you choose to either let five people die or deliberately kill one (see Real Life), but Michael [[spoiler:makes the situation real and forces Chidi to choose.]]

* ''Series/HawaiiFive0'': In the Season 2 finale of the remake, Frank Delano tells Chin Ho that he has targeted Kono and Chin Ho's wife Malia for death, and that he might have time to save one of them if he acts immediately. [[spoiler:He goes after Malia and gets Adam Noshimuri to find Kono. Adam saves Kono from drowning, but Chin Ho is too late to save Malia from being fatally shot.]]
* ''Series/HeroesReborn'': In the series finale Erica holds Tommy's mother and girlfriend hostage in the future and then gives him a choice -- let the solar flares destroy his sister and all life on Earth in 2015, or go back in time and help her save the world and let the current future and everyone in it -- including his loved ones -- be erased from existence. [[spoiler:Tommy decides to do both and splits himself in two, one Tommy going back to 2015 to help Malina while the other stays to send everyone but Erica back before that part of the timeline is erased]].

* ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'': Near the end, [[spoiler:the insanely massive Zangyack invasion fleet, something that the previous 34 Franchise/SuperSentai teams could only delay for a few years by sacrificing their powers, returns to Earth. The Gokaiger can either face the fleet by themselves, a task which is the next thing to suicide, or use the Greatest Treasure in the Universe to [[CosmicRetcon retroactively wipe Zangyack from the face of existence]] -- at the cost of doing the same to every Super Sentai. They end up destroying the Treasure and resolving to face the impossible odds, because that's what Super Sentai members do.]]
* ''Series/TheKingLoves'': The king tells Won that he'll kill either San or Rin, and forces Won to choose who dies.
* ''Series/LawAndOrder'': A young girl is kidnapped, and while the kidnapper is soon arrested, he refuses to reveal the girl's location unless he's allowed to walk free. The DA office is forced to choose between taking the deal and allowing a dangerous criminal to escape justice, or refusing and convicting him at the cost of a girl's life -- [=McCoy=] wants to do the former, and Branch the latter. [[spoiler:[=McCoy=] goes behind Branch's back and takes the deal, but Branch finds out and [[TakeAThirdOption twists it into a third option]] by persuading the judge not to honor it. The girl is safely rescued, and the irate kidnapper is left facing a trial he knows he can't win.]]
* ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'': [[spoiler:A psychiatrist forces couples to choose to save themselves and kill their spouse or be killed and let their spouse live. He did this ''nine times'' and only an elderly couple choose the "altruistic" choice. Ironically the killer was inspired by the sadistic choice put to his grandfather ''during the Holocaust''. Yes, he was called out on it, and no, he didn't get it ("I'm doing ''real'' science! It's ''documented'' and everything!"). To some extent, he had a FreudianExcuse: if he could "prove" that it's human nature to choose yourself in that situation, then it would prove his grandfather wasn't a monster for making that same choice. Unfortunately, in trying to absolve his (long-dead) grandfather of responsibility, he ended up going way past the MoralEventHorizon.]]
* ''Series/LoisAndClark'': In one episode, a mysterious couple kidnaps [[TheScrappy Jimmy]] and Clark's adoptive parents. They then tie Jimmy to a bomb in an undisclosed location, while doing the same with Clark's parents in another location. The bombs are set to go off at the same time. They give Superman a choice of saving his friend or his parents, as he only has enough time to find and disarm one bomb. Supes decides to TakeAThirdOption and uses a beam splitter to fry both bombs with his [[EyeBeam laser vision]] from the sky. The kidnappers are not happy, as [[spoiler:they are actually [[HumanAliens Kryptonians]] sent to test Kal-El's qualifications for leadership of their LostColony. Their goal was to force him to make a tough choice, as a leader is likely to face many such choices, and there's not always going to be a third option to take. This later ends up biting Clark (and the world) in the ass, when the Kryptonians finally show up with Zod at the helm. Had Clark made the tough choice, he would have probably been the one in charge]].

* ''Series/{{Awake}}'': In the pilot episode, it is suggested to Michael that once he comes to realize which reality is true he will stop dreaming the other. Or, as he put it, once he decides who has died (his wife or his son), he'll never see him/her again.

* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'': In "The Richest Astronaut in the World", after Roger steals Jeannie's bottle (and Tony's position as her master), he works her hard blinking up all sorts of luxury things for him. Following an unsuccessful attempt to talk Roger into letting Jeannie go peacefully, Tony shows a photo of his new mansion to Dr. Bellows and points out that Roger is working on a very important project. Dr. Bellows and General Peterson conclude that Roger is selling military secrets to another nation. Roger has the choice of saying nothing and getting executed for treason or explaining about Jeannie and getting tossed out of the space program. Tony provides a third option on condition of Roger letting Jeannie return to him. Jeannie removes Roger's fancy things and changes the past few minutes so that neither Dr. Bellows nor the general remembers they existed.

*** In fact, variations on this specific Sadistic Choice ([[spoiler:slavery to A.L.I.E. or the death or someone you love]]) are repeated several times throughout the latter half of Season 3. [[spoiler:It seems to be implied that physically *forcing* someone to ingest the chip doesn't work, so the recruiting method of choice for A.L.I.E. is to have an already controlled person threaten to harm themselves unless someone who cares about them takes the chip. Thus Abby takes the chip to save Raven, Kane takes the chip to save Abby, and so on. She tries this on Clarke too, by having Abby almost hang herself, but Clarke takes a third option.]]

*** In the ChristmasEpisode [[Recap/TheFlash2014S2E9RunningToStandStill "Running to Stand Still"]], the Trickster, [[BadSanta disguised]] as a MallSanta, gives out 100 explosives disguised as presents to random children from across Central City, threatening to detonate them unless Comicbook/TheFlash agrees to let the Trickster and Weather Wizard kill him. In the B-Plot of the same episode, [[BigBad Zoom]] forces Harry to agree to betray the Flash or Harry's daughter, held captive by Zoom, will suffer the consequences.* ''Series/{{Awake}}'': In the pilot episode, it is suggested to Michael that once he comes to realize which reality is true he will stop dreaming the other. Or, as he put it, once he decides who has died (his wife or his son), he'll never see him/her again.

* ''Series/LoisAndClark'': In one episode, a mysterious couple kidnaps [[TheScrappy Jimmy]] and Clark's adoptive parents. They then tie Jimmy to a bomb in an undisclosed location, while doing the same with Clark's parents in another location. The bombs are set to go off at the same time. They give Superman a choice of saving his friend or his parents, as he only has enough time to find and disarm one bomb. Supes decides to TakeAThirdOption and uses a beam splitter to fry both bombs with his [[EyeBeam laser vision]] from the sky. The kidnappers are not happy, as [[spoiler:they are actually [[HumanAliens Kryptonians]] sent to test Kal-El's qualifications for leadership of their LostColony. Their goal was to force him to make a tough choice, as a leader is likely to face many such choices. And there's not always going to be a third option to take. This later ends up biting Clark (and the world) in the ass, when the Kryptonians finally show up with Zod at the helm. Had Clark made the tough choice, he would have probably been the one in charge]].

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''
** This sets up the entire conflict between [[ComicBook/GreenArrow Oliver Queen]] and [[ComicBook/{{Deathstroke}} Slade Wilson]] in Season 2. [[MadScientist Dr. Ivo]] tells Oliver to choose between Shado (his current love interest) and Sara (his former love interest) or he'll kill them both. Oliver doesn't actually make the choice, but when Ivo points the gun at Sara he instinctively throws himself in front of her -- Ivo takes this as an answer and shoots Shado. Slade Wilson -- who was secretly in love with Shado, and insane with [[SuperSerum Mirakuru]] -- can't understand why the man he loved as a brother would 'choose' Shado over some girl Slade barely knows. Later Slade deliberately sets up the same SadisticChoice by forcing Oliver to choose between his mother Moira and his sister Thea. Moira takes the choice into her own hands by choosing to die to save her children.
** In a CrossOver episode with ''[[Series/TheFlash2014 The Flash]]'', Captain Boomerang plants five bombs throughout Starling City, starting a 90-second timer. While Oliver is keeping Boomerang busy, Barry runs to the first location found by Felicity and Cisco but discovers that disarming one bomb will set off the other four. In the remaining time, he rushes Roy, Caitlin, Felicity, and Cisco to the other four bombs, so that they can all be disarmed simultaneously. The OhCrap expression on Boomerang's face when nothing detonates is priceless.
* ''Series/{{Awake}}'': In the pilot episode, it is suggested to Michael that once he comes to realize which reality is true he will stop dreaming the other. Or, as he put it, once he decides who has died (his wife or his son), he'll never see him/her again.

* ''Series/TheFlash2014'':
** [[Creator/WentworthMiller Leonard Snart]] (AKA Captain Cold) figures out "the Streak"'s (Barry's nickname before "the Flash" catches on) weakness -- he cares what happens to innocent people. So he chooses to escape by train. Barry catches up to him only discover that Snart has planned for this. Snart uses the [[FreezeRay cold gun]] to derail the train and jumps out, forcing Barry to choose whether to save the passengers or chase the bad guy. Naturally, he chooses to save the innocents, and manages to do it as the train cars are tumbling. As it turns out, Snart does not escape and nearly kills Barry afterwards. In a later episode, [[Series/{{Arrow}} Oliver]] berates Barry for rushing into the situation without exploring alternative options.
** In the second half of the season, Snart returns and kidnaps Cisco, one of the Flash's teammates. After forcing the engineer to re-build some very dangerous weaponry, Snart gives him the choice between giving up the Flash's identity, or watching his brother die. [[spoiler:Cisco gives up Barry's name, and for the rest of the episode feels intense guilt, says he isn't worthy of working at STAR, and even implies that he believes that his teammates think it was "the wrong choice." In reality, they all understand that it was an impossible situation and there's no grudge-holding whatsoever.]]
** In the ChristmasEpisode [[Recap/TheFlash2014S2E9RunningToStandStill "Running to Stand Still"]], the Trickster, [[BadSanta disguised]] as a MallSanta, gives out 100 explosives disguised as presents to random children from across Central City, threatening to detonate them unless Comicbook/TheFlash agrees to let the Trickster and Weather Wizard kill him. In the B-Plot of the same episode, [[BigBad Zoom]] forces Harry to agree to betray the Flash or Harry's daughter, held captive by Zoom, will suffer the consequences.

*** In "Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E2Imperfection" Seven's Borg implants are malfunctioning, so she's trapped in Sickbay while the crew tries to save her. Neelix arrives with a board game to keep her company, but Seven isn't in the mood. The Doctor tries some reverse psychology as he "chides" Neelix for trying to play a game when Seven isn't at her best. Seven has to make a choice: play a game with Neelix or admit that she's debilitated. She chooses the former, much to SFDebris' amusement when he reviews the episode.

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend, Bobby Landrum, hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang. In short, Blade wasn't going to take any chances and was still going to kill both of them in case Jesse changed his mind-- after his imprisoned gang members kill Jesse in juvey, he'll make Theresa's death look like a suicide. [[spoiler:Bobby eventually becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone overcome with guilt]] after selling out his best friend and finally comes forward and confesses, upon which Jesse is released, his mother is rescued and the real killers are arrested.]]

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend, Bobby Landrum, hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang. In short, Blade was still going to kill both of them-- after his imprisoned gang members kill Jesse in juvey, he'll make Theresa's death look like a suicide. [[spoiler:Bobby eventually becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone overcome with guilt]] after selling out his best friend and finally comes forward and confesses, upon which Jesse is released, his mother is rescued and the real killers are arrested.]]

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend, Bobby Landrum, hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang, but this still doesn't stop Blade from threatening to kill ''both'' of them-- after his imprisoned gang members kill Jesse in juvey, he'll make Theresa's death look like a suicide. [[spoiler:Bobby eventually becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone overcome with guilt]] after selling out his best friend and finally comes forward and confesses, upon which Jesse is released, his mother is rescued and the real killers are arrested.]]

* ''Series/GothamKnights'': In "[[Recap/GothamKnights2023S1E13NightOfTheOwls Night of the Owls]]", Rebecca coerces Harvey to bring his evil alternate personality or she'll murder his daughter, and he reluctantly does it because of this.

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend, Bobby Landrum, hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang. [[spoiler:Bobby eventually becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone overcome with guilt]] after selling out his best friend and finally comes forward and confesses, upon which Jesse is released, his mother is rescued and the real killers are arrested.]]

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend, Bobby Landrum, hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang. [[spoiler:Bobby eventually becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone overcome with guilt]] after selling out his best friend and finally confesses.]]

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend, Bobby Landrum, hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang. [[spoiler:Bobby eventually becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone overcome with guilt]] after selling out his best friend, to which he comes forward and confesses.]]

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit, as well as Theresa being kidnapped by the gang.

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing or his gang murders his mother, Theresa. When Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit.

** Season 7's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS7E12LostBoys Lost Boys]]" has Carlos's nephew, Jesse Estrella, being accused of killing a Dallas police detective after his best friend hides the murder weapon, which belonged to the gang leader, [[VillainOfTheWeek Johnny Blade]], in his dresser drawer. When Blade orders Jesse to return his gun, he can either stay silent about the whole thing and avoid losing his mother to gang violence or he can confess at which point the gang murders her. However, Theresa and Carlos find the gun first, and the former choice escalates to confessing to a murder he didn't commit.