History ShownTheirWork / LiveActionTV

* ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'' and its spin-offs had this in spades because the producers cooperated closely with USAF. All scripts were checked for accuracy, military protocol were uphold, many of the extras were military personnel, two chiefs of staff appeared on the show, actual F-15 and F-16 planes were used, and the show was also shot on a real Russian submarine and a real US Navy submarine in the Arctic.

* While it has created its own mythology, the ''{{Supernatural}}'' writing staff started out researching actual folklore and urban legends. [[FanDumb Some people]] claim that this is a case of poor research because "everything's wrong," but folklore and urban legends are usually spread orally, so the details of each story change depending on who's telling it, but the writers kept the core elements the same. This is especially evident in the early episodes of the first season.

* ''BoardwalkEmpire'' does a painstaking job of accurately recreating the look of 1920's Atlantic City with the sets and costumes designed to reflect the time period. The creators have also done thorough research on their subjects and make sure that the personalities seen onscreen reflect the ones in real life, most notably with Arnold Rothstein.

** You can tell the writers do tons of research on other things as well, for example the they got the differences between the [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]] in [[CallOfDuty Nazi zombies]], ResidentEvil and Left4Dead. The gun laws of New Mexico were shown accurately. Also, the "crawling along the ground in Mexico" was based on local folklore.

* BreakingBad pays careful attention to the authenticity of its Albuquerque setting, often to the level only a resident would notice. The geography is accurate, and the stores mentioned (save the fictional ''Los Pollos Hermanos'') all exist in Albuquerque. In one good example, the 5th season opens inside a Denny's, then cuts to the exterior. Although the exterior shot never actually shows the Denny's, viewers familiar with the University area will recognize that it truly is in front of a Denny's.

* ''{{Leverage}}'' has an actual pickpocket as a consultant so that all of Parker's FiveFingerDiscount maneuvers are pulled off as realistically subtle as possible--sometimes, it's not even clear that she's robbed someone until the scene is shown from her perspective in flashback. Sometimes it was not even clear to ''other people on the set''. During one blocking run-through, the director asked the actress to repeat a scene, but "really do the lift this time." She responded by holding up the item, which she'd already stolen on the last run.

--> '''Carlson:''' Just...how far in the future ''is'' this?!
--> '''Ghost of Christmas Future:''' Not as far as you'd think...

* Creator AnthonyHorowitz ensured that all the WWII period details in ''FoylesWar'' were thoroughly researched. Most episodes are inspired or directly based off actual people, events, or wartime organizations.

* The final episode of MysteryScienceTheater3000 has Mike and the bots watching television in an apartment in Milwaukee, WI. The TV announcer refers to the station as WTMJ channel 4. [[http://www.todaystmj4.com/ This is a real TV station in Milwaukee]].

* Similarly, ''{{CSI}}'' has a reputation for HollywoodScience and DidNotDoTheResearch, but in a snippet of ''CSINewYork'' a tech taking out a hard drive for evaluation was shown switching the jumper before putting it in the external enclosure, a small detail anyone not in the know would not likely catch. Especially surprising given the sad prevalence of HollywoodHacking on the show.

* While it has created its own mythology, the ''{{Supernatural}}'' writing staff started out researching actual folklore and urban legends. [[FanDumb Some people]] claim that this is a case of DidNotDoTheResearch because "everything's wrong," but folklore and urban legends are usually spread orally, so the details of each story change depending on who's telling it, but the writers kept the core elements the same. This is especially evident in the early episodes of the first season.

** Also a minor case of DidNotDoTheResearch...the first series had things like Pure Blonde beer and Coke Zero, in 1995. A Tale of Two Cities got it much better.

--> '''Herb:''' Just...how far in the future ''is'' this?!

*** The [[WholePlotReference Christmas Carol episode]] had an eerily prescient depiction of the [[DarkFuture Clear Channel era]].
--> '''Herb:'' Just...how far in the future ''is'' this?!

* ''{{The Closer}}'' is a PoliceProcedural with a surprising number of accurate details. Established in the opening scene when the titular character, Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson, insists on a separate search warrant for the garage as it is a "stand alone structure." She goes on to be careful about legal and procedural minutiae. Over the years, when her tactics slide into CowboyCop-y occasionally, she gets called out on it in a massive lawsuit--just like real life.

* ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' owns this trope; as befits a show written by a group of {{Oxbridge}} graduates, it often parodies writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Marcel Proust, and frequently mentions philosophy. Even the MontyPython films show their workings; Holy Grail for example steers away from well-known legends such as the Sword in the Stone and concentrates on parodying lesser known Arthurian tales (for example Galahad's temptation in Castle Anthrax is based on actual legends of castles designed to cause knights to stray).

* ''{{A Bit of Fry and Laurie}}'' was very good about being accurate about details in even the most absurd sketches, for instance, Laurie walks into a model shop in the "Dalliard/Models" sketch and asks for a Messerschmitt 109E, whereupon the clerk hands him... a fully assembled 109E. In the same episode, Fry begins to complain about the show TopGear trying to be funny, while you never see comedy shows reviewing Nissan Micras, whereupon Laurie immediately gets up and begins reviewing a Nissan Micra parked in the studio, accurately listing the powertrain options and door layouts available. In the "Major Donaldson" sketch, Fry reads out Laurie's character's rank as "Hauptsturmfuhrer (Captain) Freidrich von Stilch," which accurately reflects the rank on Laurie's collar tab. Also, Laurie wears the field-gray SS uniform, correct as the black Allgemaine uniform had been phased out in 1939.
* [[TheDevilsWhore The Devil's Whore]] is pretty good with these. It even features Prince Rupert of the Rhine's ''war poodle''.

* MadMen appears to take pride in this. Given that the show is about an advertising agency in the 1960s with scads of ProductPlacement using past ad campaigns, they are remarkably free of major errors. One notable example: An early episode (set in 1962) shows the secretarial pool all gushing over a new office machine: a Xerox photocopier. The episode noted the month, so with a little digging, you'll discover it's the right machine, at the right time and place. (How they got their hands on that specific ancient device is beyond us.)

* Despite some of the more cartoony personalities that make up the staff of Sacred Heart Hospital, ''{{Scrubs}}'' has been touted as being one of the most realistic portrayals of life as a medical intern compared to all the other medical shows on television. Not only do they have doctors on staff as medical advisors (including the "Real J.D."), but they frequently receive stories of odd medical instances from doctors that they then work into the show. People have gotten into medicine because of the show.

* Similarly, ''{{CSI}}'' has a reputation for HollywoodScience and DidNotDoTheResearch, but in a snippet of ''CSINewYork'' a tech taking out a hard drive for evaluation was shown switching the jumper before putting it in the external enclosure, a small detail anyone not in the know would not likely catch. Especialy surprising given the sad prevelence of HollywoodHacking on the show.

** The show actually got a lot more politically accurate after Sorkin left - in particular, the final couple of seasons consist of a VERY meticulous election cycle, with polling numbers and electoral college projections tracked with stunning accuracy. Sorkin didn't care much for the minutae of elections, to the detriment of the first full campaign depicted on the show.

* Somewhat surprisingly considering its blatant 'sword-and-sorcery' elements and occasional new age mysticism, the 1980s TV series ''RobinOfSherwood'' is by far one of the most accurate depictions of the European middle ages ever to appear in a popular culture context, right down to citing obscure historical events and studying geneologies of particular noble families. Furthermore, most of the elements of the Robin Hood legend that it depicts are well-grounded in (at times obscure) earlier literature.

* Despite a lot of script-kludging, when a case is cited on ''LawAndOrder,'' it's a real case, and usually on point. Whether the judges ruling, or the defense counter-point is realistic, is another matter, but the show does cite real case law.
** ''LawAndOrder,'' also, over other shows supposed to take place in New York City, is the most realistic, in getting things like the geography of the city right, and the weather. The detectives correctly say for example, that they will go "down" to Alphabet City, when they are in Central Park, and give directions by street coordinates that are real. It rains, or is overcast, for no plot-related reason. People buy food from street vendors, and eat while they are walking. Mostly, this can be attributed to the fact that the show is not only set in New York City, but also shot in New York City.
** For it's first few years, LawAndOrder was accurate in another way that was rare on television for the time - the police rarely even drew their weapons, much less fired them. True to life, most of their time was spent talking to people, doing research on the victim's background, and running down leads.

* InUniverse example in the ''{{Monk}}'' episode ''Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding''. After Monk had to take Natalie with him to a mud spa due to it becoming a crime scene from a body being discovered in one of the stalls, he also took a male stripper with him, having mistook him for an actual cop. When telling the cop of the situation via police terms, the stripper responded with "That bad, huh?", implying that the stripper in question knew enough about police terms to understand the situation (presumably to allow him to play the role of a cop as realistically as possible).

* InUniverse example in the Monk episode ''Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding''. After Monk had to take Natalie with him to a mud spa due to it becoming a crime scene from a body being discovered in one of the stalls, he also took a male stripper with him, having mistook him for an actual cop. When telling the cop of the situation via police terms, the stripper responded with "That bad, huh?", implying that the stripper in question knew enough about police codeterms to understand the situation (presumably to allow him to play the role of a cop as realistically as possible).

** WordOfGod says that they ''do'' do their research, but distort a lot of the science deliberately so that criminals don't use the knowledge to escape more effectively.
* ''{{The Closer}}'' is a PoliceProcedural with a surprising number of accurate details. Established in the opening scene when our heroine insists on a seperate search warrant for the garage as it is a "stand alone structure." She goes on to be careful about legal and procedural minutiae. Over the years, when her tactics slide into CowboyCop-y occasionally, she gets called out on it in a massive lawsuit--just like real life.

* ''BoardwalkEmpire'' does a painstaking job of accurately recreating the look of 1920's Atlantic City with the sets and costumes designed to reflect the time period. The creators have also done thorough research on their subjects and make sure that the personalities seen onscreen reflect the ones in real life, most notably with Arnold Rothstein.

* ''Boardwalk Empire'' does a painstaking job of accurately recreating the look of 1920's Atlantic City with the sets and costumes designed to reflect the time period. The creators have also done thorough research on Their subjects and make sure that the personalities seen onscreen reflect the ones in real life, most notably with Arnold Rothstein.

* ''TheBigBangTheory'', being a show about three extremely nerdy scientists ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and an engineer]]), pays unusual amounts of attention to getting scientific jargon and such correct.

* While ''StarTrek'' is often a show-pony for DidNotDoTheResearch, StarTrekDeepSpaceNine has its moments of good research. For example, the episode "Rivals" depicts Dax scanning passing neutrinos and commenting that (paraphrased) "normally, half of them spin in either direction, when viewed from any given angle". This demonstrates an understanding of quantum mechanics several levels above the pop cultural "Uncertainty principle + undead cat = quantum mechanics".
** The only problem here is that neutrinos ''don't'' have two spin directions, according to Lawrence Krauss (who, as a physicist, really should know this kind of thing), but this is even ''less'' common knowledge than spin in the first place, so Trek can still wear most of its research marks proudly. TheOtherWiki [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino backs Krauss up on this]].
*** Actually according to the theory they are spin 1/2 particles and they could have both spins, we just never observed it (it's a bit of a puzzle as to why they don't). Also the linked page says that the antineutrino may in fact be a neutrino as well (it may be it's own antiparticle), and since antineutrinos have opposite spin of neutrinos, if that's the case, it would have two spins. Maybe in the future they cleared up this little problem, and concluded that they do in fact have two spins.
*** This is all wrong. Neutrinos interact via the weak interaction so that if you intercept a beam of neutrinos, they will almost all be left handed. This is covered in any graduate text on particle physics (specifically p. 347 of Aitchison and Hey's "Gauge Theories in Particle Physics, Second Edition" or see [[http://pibeta.phys.virginia.edu/docs/publications/tom_diss/html/web_diss-2.1.1.html this paper]] . You can make up an explanation for this, but it's clear that Star Trek just invented some Technobabble and didn't talk to anyone that knows the physics of neutrinos.
** Roddenberry supposedly told prospective writers for the original series to concentrate on the story over science, saying not to overtly explain things -- "After all, when Matt Dillon shoots someone, he doesn't explain how the gun works first."

* ''TheThickOfIt'' displays a very extensive and realistic documentation of the inner workings of the offices of Whitehall, and has many fictional counterparts for real politicians. Politicians themselves have commented on the realism, noting that the only thing unrealistic about it is the show's infamous [[ClusterFBomb amount of profanity]]. In real life, it's [[BeyondTheImpossible worse]].

** ''LawAndOrder,'' also, over other shows supposed to take place in New York City, is the most realistic, in getting things like the geography of the city right, and the weather. The detectives correctly say for example, that they will go "down" to Alphabet City, when they are in Central Park, and give directions by street coordinates that are real. It rains, or is overcast, for no plot-related reason. People buy food from street vendors, and eat while they are walking.

** Often the writers on ''{{CSI}}'' ''do'' actualy do the research and try to show it, but the compression required for a 40-minute episode makes it HollywoodScience anyway.