History TheMainCharactersDoEverything / LiveActionTV

** It should be noted that in-universe Sisko appears to have the last word about anything remotely related to the ''Defiant'' - and that in itself is another instance of this trope. It turns out that he was in command of the team that ''designed'' it, despite no previous indication that Sisko was an engineer or ship designer.
** The one dedicated ''Defiant'' crewman disappears following the episode she's introduced. She's also not even from Starfleet, but a serving Romulan military officer, which raises a lot of its own questions. Interestingly the reason she never appeared again was specifically because the writers thought the audience wouldn't be interested in a character with just one well-defined job. The trope is played with though: her main job was to operate the Romulan-provided cloaking device, and the first time they tried to use it in combat without her they broke it beyond repair.

** This is actually used as a plot point in ''For The Cause''. With most of the senior staff are off-station in the ''Defiant'', Maquis spy [[spoiler: Michael Eddington]] incapacitates [[spoiler: Major Kira]] and takes command of [=DS9=], allowing him to steal a number of industrial replicators bound for Cardassia as humanitarian aid.
*** The problem with the ''Defiant'' might be explained by the fact that the ship is permanently assigned to [=DS9=], and as such its crew is drawn from the station's crew (rather than a crew being specifically assigned to the ship) and is entirely at the discretion of the station's administrators; the ship can be considered an extension of the station.
** And in the larger scheme of things, there's the fact that Sisko, an ordinary Starfleet captain, and his senior officers generally seem to have a larger impact on the course of and eventual conclusion of the Dominion War than all of the Federation's admirals, politicians, and diplomats combined. By the end of the war Sisko was in de-facto command of the combined Federation, Klingon, and Romulan fleets ''plus'' having a lot of influence over Bajor due to his status as the Emissary of the Prophets. All this despite Sisko having started the series as only recently being promoted to ''commander'' and still taking another two years before his very quick promotion to captain.

** This is actually used as a plot point in ''For The Cause''. With most of the senior staff are off-station in the ''Defiant'', Maquis spy [[spoiler: Michael Eddington incapacitates Major Kira]] and takes command of [=DS9=], allowing him to steal a number of industrial replicators bound for Cardassia as humanitarian aid.

** After a while they brought Worf in, transferred him to command rather than security, and made him the de-facto commander of the ship. He basically had no other official role on the station itself, averting the trope. This was further cemented when Worf moved his quarters to the Defiant, effectively becoming its only ''dedicated'' crewmember.

** After a while, they brought Worf in, and transferred him to command rather than security so they could at least avoid some of this trope when they took the Defiant out.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' was extremely bad in this regard, especially considering the station is meant to have a crew of roughly twice a Galaxy Class ship like the Enterprise-D. On several occasions they left the station without its captain, liaison to Bajor (who was second in command of the station but who was explicitly ''not a member of Starfleet'' and thus shouldn't be flying around on Starfleet missions and represents a chain of command issue), chief of security (also not a member of Starfleet, and actually a member of the race who were the main antagonists of the series), chief medical officer (not a command rank), the chief science officer, and worst of all, their chief engineer who was also the senior NCO (explicitly not a chain of command officer). And as most armies and navies know, you can take out as many officers as you like, but remove the [=NCOs=] and things start falling apart.

** O'Brien is repeatedly sent away on special missions to far-away planets. This despite the fact that the station immediately starts falling apart every time he leaves, due to its complicated mixture of Cardassian, Bajoran and Federation technology. One episode stands out in which O'Brien is sent by Starfleet Intelligence to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate, despite his enormous responsibilities on the station. This happens in the middle of the Dominion War, when O'Brien also has to assist ''hundreds'' of starships that visit the station with resupply, maintenance and repairing battle damage.

*** In the first few episodes they had it this was explicitly because the ''Defiant'' had so many problems that nobody but Sisko and O'Brien could keep the damn thing running (it's basically an overclocked set of guns strapped to an overclocked engine). They pulled it out of mothballs to let the crew use it. By the time the crew had got the bugs worked out and the Federation started building more of them the war was going on and it was basically just a cheap escort from Starfleet's perspective.

** O'Brien is repeatedly sent away on special missions despite the station falling apart due to the mixture of Cardassian, Bajoran and Federation technology. One episode stands out in which O'Brien is sent by Starfleet Intelligence to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate, despite his enormous responsibilities on the station. This happens in the middle of the Dominion War, when O'Brien also has to assist ''hundreds'' of starships that visit the station with resupply, maintenance and repairing battle damage.
** This was a result of introducing the ''[[CoolStarship Defiant]]''. The writers decided that the story can't evolve if they're always confined to a single ([[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment stationary]]) space station, so they used the ''Defiant'' as an extra excuse to get the crew away from the station as often as possible. Since the ''Defiant'' is a tiny warship requiring a crew of 40ish, it also gave an excellent opportunity for ''all'' the officers to leave at the same time. Does make one wonder why a warship doesn't get its own command crew to begin with, though.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' is a notorious example, every series no matter how hard it tries to avoid it, will always end up playing into the trope through writer laziness, desire to avoid having to cast & pay extras or additional speaking roles and limitations on run time. The way that Starfleet and Human characters are the central part of the franchise doesn't help with diversity of viewpoints either.
* First of all, [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Humans, Earth and the planets of the Terran solar system are this for the Federation]]. The other races and their planets, even for founding Federation members are practically irrelevant save for the occasional Vulcan or Betazoid. On Deep Space Nine for example, the Vulcans are non-existent to the point where Sisko once talks about the anti-Dominion alliance saying "Humans, Klingons and Romulans", instead of Federation or Starfleet.
* The Federation is dominated by Starfleet, despite having a nominal Federation Council, there appears to be little civilian oversight or control, they look to have subsumed a huge amount of functions beyond their basic naval responsibility, such as diplomacy, intelligence, ground forces, medical and engineering research, ship design and manufacturing.

** The Female Changeling fulfills the trope when she is trapped in the Alpha Quadrant when the wormhole is mined shut at the start of the Federation-Dominion war. This specific changeling --out of literally billions of individuals-- was the one personally responsible for introducing Odo to his people when he first found them, and was also the one to bring Odo back there for his judgment and punishment, indicating that she was some sort of senior leader or at least a designated spokesperson. During the war she becomes the supreme leader of all Dominion assets in the Alpha Quadrant, responsible for literally everything they do. Note that all other Changelings that had supposedly been working undercover in the Alpha Quadrant prior to the war --such as the one(s) encountered earlier on Earth during the episode "Homefront"-- are conveniently gone from the quadrant by the time this happens; the Female Changeling tells Odo that she is the only one left, and the events of the show seem to corroborate this.

** The main characters are surgeons yet they perform non-surgical aspects of medical trials, do all the work in the ER, all the work of radiologists and a whole lot of what the nurses are supposed to do. In addition they do all the internal medicine associated with their surgical specialty. This is largely a result of focusing on surgeons, and surgeons ''only'' (many plots even pretend that the chief of surgery is in charge of the entire ''hospital''). As a result, after introducing several rounds of interns, attendings and residents, as well as personnel from the season-six merger, plus guest stars who ended up staying, and with few characters ever leaving outright, the show ended up as TheMainCharactersDoEverything despite its LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. ''Within'' the surgical department, the further sub-specializations (general, cardio, plastics etc.) are handled relatively well.

* This trope is played straight, averted ''and'' thoroughly justified in SpiritualSuccessor ''Series/TheWire''. The show begins when a judge's inquiries prompt the creation of a detail unit charged with investigating one specific case. After the unit's [[spoiler: perceived success]] at the end of the first season, the powers that be decide to turn it into a semi-permanent crime unit with no real definition to its role in the police force. This, coupled with the ruthless politics going on within the police department, inevitably results in the team being reduced to making small-scale drug arrests - much to the team-members' chagrin. All of this was deliberately done by the writers to show how cynical politics and vicious power play can turn even a good thing into crap. Throughout the show, the Baltimore police department is shown as realistically heavily departmentalized - to its own detriment in most cases - and the show has LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters to boot.

*** Later Data, Geordi, Troi and Worf go back down to the planet with several search teams. One wonders who exactly was left up on the Enterprise, which would have been missing its regular captain and first officer, second officer who is also chief science officer, the chief engineer, chief of security and Troi. Presumably Doctor Crusher, who is command qualified, would be in the captain's chair, but she is [[AbsenteeActor absent from the episode]]. The ship is so lacking officers that it appears there are only four line officers left: Data, Crusher, Geordi and Worf. Troi isn't command qualified and everyone else is a junior officer, non-commissioned or enlisted. In the second part, the bridge is filled up with extras including a nameless command uniform-wearing ensign.

** It's even worse in the case of Tom Paris, who is apparently knowledgable in everything from piloting, engineering, commando tactics, etc. And he's an ''ex-con''. In "Year Of Hell," within the space of 30 seconds he is describing modifications he made to ''Voyager's'' hull (engineering) inspired by the ''Titanic'' (history) when he is suddenly called to perform field medicine and, to quote Debris, "none of these things ''are even his '''job'''''." (piloting) Debris quickly comes to the conclusion that Paris was held in a prison for savants.

** The bridge of the Enterprise is ''never'' seen completely staffed by a backup crew. They must exist for the times when you see the main characters in a meeting or in the holodeck, but if there's a scene on the bridge, at least a few of the principals are always on duty. The closest it ever came was Troi and O'Brien being the two senior officers on the bridge after an accident killed the extra who had bridge command.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' is a notorious example.
** First of all, [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Humans, Earth and the planets of the Terran solar system are this for the Federation]]. The other races and their planets, even for founding Federation members are practically irrelevant save for the occasional Vulcan or Betazoid. On Deep Space Nine for example, the Vulcans are non-existent to the point where Sisko once talks about the anti-Dominion alliance saying "Humans, Klingons and Romulans", instead of Federation or Starfleet.
** The Federation is dominated by Starfleet, despite having a nominal Federation Council, there appears to be little civilian oversight or control, they look to have subsumed a huge amount of functions beyond their basic naval responsibility, such as diplomacy, intelligence, ground forces, medical and engineering research, ship design and manufacturing.
*** This particular aspect seems to be more of a factor of the show itself being Starfleet-centric. The shows, movies, and books mention things like Federation Security, the Diplomatic Corps, the Science Council and others. Starfleet itself seems to have a separate, and likely smaller, matching division. Starfleet is also the way that the Federation officials move around the galaxy, so even then Starfleet is central to how they operate.
** Starfleet officers seem to have a penchant for sending themselves and/or other valuable officers (usually bridge officers, and sometimes ALL OF THEM) on risky away missions, when security forces or specialists are available.[[note]]This practice has probably saved the lives of many a RedShirt who would otherwise have had to beam down to the planet and die; main characters are often wearing PlotArmor and will almost never be killed.[[/note]] This is occasionally admitted in the shows themselves. For example, in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Riker was hired because he refused to let his previous commanding officer go on a dangerous away mission. In an effort to avert this problem with the Original Series, Riker was supposed to be the guy going on away missions while Picard managed the ship, but even then the first officer would have a multitude of other responsibilities and they would have any number of specialized teams on board for whatever mission is needed (FirstContact, geological survey, diplomatic, quarantine, etc).
** A parody has Kirk saying "We need to beam down to the planet. Now, this could be dangerous, so we'll take every single important person aboard the ship and ... Yeoman Smith. I wonder who's gonna die."
** You have to feel sorry for the Security Officer. Their job appears to cover everything from threat analysis and weapons targeting in starship combat to responding to an alarm tripping on the cargo deck. On the odd occasion they will delegate their alarm response duties to the Chief Engineer or First Officer.
** Originally there was NoSuchThingAsHR in ''Star Trek'', but then came the position of ship's counselor, which is basically an entire HR department in one person.
** If an episode involves our crew beaming down to a civilized, populated planet, it's a crapshoot as to whether you'll get to see more than the bare minimum of locals (sometimes even as few as one) who have a speaking role, authority, and/or any impact on the story. Those few locals will be responsible for all interactions with the main cast. Even if the main characters land at a remote or unintended location, expect one of the locals to immediately act as an authorized representative of his/her entire species. The same thing often applies when the main cast encounters aliens in space.
** In fact, the starship itself (at least if it's named Enterprise) seems to suffer this trope. We find the Enterprise patrolling the border, mapping the far reaches of space, ferrying VIP's on errands great and small, responding to natural disasters, hauling cargo (usually medical supplies, but still...), investigating weird phenomena, participating in warfare, trying to stop warfare, acting as all-purpose troubleshooter for any ship or station that calls, doing first contacts with alien races, negotiating treaties, AND just plain running into bad luck. This is later justified in stories and in peripheral media as Starfleet generally having a JackOfAllTrades approach to ship design and mission profiles, due to factors like maintaining the image of a peacekeeping force and the general bigness, weirdness, and hostility of space. Also justified in that the ''Enterprise'' is the Federation flagship, and would therefore be given the highest profile missions, especially those related to diplomacy.
** The number of times the ''Enterprise'' (whichever one) has to do something it's actually not really prepared/staffed/equipped for because she's the only ship in range really beggars belief too. Okay, just about permissible out on the frontier of known space when they're deliberately going where no-one's gone before – but it happens when she's visiting ''EARTH'' for god's sake, the capital world of a sprawling interstellar community. Even assuming Earth is just a designated political capital like Washington DC or Canberra, that's still like finding there's only one taxi cab available for the whole city.
*** Humorously explained in the text commentary for ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': whenever the ''Enterprise'' shows up, other Federation ships hightail it out of the area, since they know something bad is going to happen soon.

** First of all, Humans, Earth and the planets of the Terran solar system are this for the Federation. The other races and their planets, even for founding Federation members are practically irrelevant save for the occasional Vulcan or Betazoid. On Deep Space Nine for example, the Vulcans are non-existent to the point where Sisko once talks about the anti-Dominion alliance saying "Humans, Klingons and Romulans", instead of Federation or Starfleet.

** This trope is still [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in "Ripple Effect" when Dr. Lee asks why the majorit of the teams pouring in from alternate realities are [=SG1s=]. Sam justifies it by saying that since they're only letting in teams who are under fire, it makes sense that the frontline team would show up with more frequency.

** Interestingly, perhaps because they have not yet reached the egalitarian utopianism of the later series, the NX-01 has room for personnel such as stewards! Archer usually takes his meals in a private dining room with only T'Pol and Trip (second and third in command respectively), waited on by steward-cum-TimePolice Agent Daniels! So, essentially, waiters are considered higher-priority personnel than, for example, a transporter specialist! Likewise, Phlox does not even have a nurse practitioner to assist him! The closest he has to an assistant is Cutler, the ship's entymologist.

** And in the larger scheme of things, there's the fact that Sisko, an ordinary Starfleet captain, and his senior officers generally seem to have a larger impact on the course of and eventual conclusion of the Dominion War than all of the Federation's admirals, politicians, and diplomats combined. By the end of the war Sisko was in de-facto command of the combined Federation, Klingon, and Romulan fleets ''plus'' having a lot of influence over Bajor due to his stats as the Emissary of the Prophets. All this despite Sisko having started the series as only recently being promoted to ''commander'' and still taking another two years before his very quick promotion to captain.

** And in the larger scheme of things, there's the fact that Sisko, an ordinary Starfleet captain, and his senior officers generally seem to have a larger impact on the course of and eventual conclusion of the Dominion War than all of the Federation's admirals, politicians, and diplomats combined. By the end of the war Sisko was in de-facto command of the combined Federation, Klingon, and Romulan fleets. All this despite Sisko having started the series as only recently being promoted to ''commander'' and still taking another two years before his very quick promotion to captain.

** At least they did have the station falling apart while O'Brien was gone though, and the others trying to keep the station in one piece. Heck, in the earlier seasons it was falling apart even while he was around. However one episode stands out in which O'Brien is sent by Starfleet Intelligence to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate, despite his enormous responsibilities on the station: it happens in the middle of the Dominion War, when O'Brien's duties also include fixing hundreds of starships suffering battle damage.

** The season seven episode "Masks" opens with Deanna Troi – ship's counselor and at the time a newly minted commander with bridge officer training – ''giving a sculpture class to the ship's schoolchildren''. No explanation is given, which does leave open the possibility that it was on her own time but then begs the question of why a senior bridge officer and the only counsellor hae "free time" in the same period of time that schoolchildren are taking classes.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': The books were written to avert this trope hard with its large cast and HyperlinkStory. While still an ensemble, the show has generally been reluctant to readily introduce new characters past Season 3, and instead combines and composites characters and situations so that the regular cast is involved. Examples include Jaime going to Dorne in Season 5 rather than Ser Arys Oakheart and Ser Balon Swann, and the point of view character Arianne Martell who was the protagonist of that section but ended up being AdaptedOut as well as Sansa taking over Jeyne Poole's role in Book 5. In the books, it is Stannis who rallies the North, liberates them from the Ironborn remnants, attracts the Glovers, the Mormonts and other houses to his side. In the show, Stannis suffers DeathByAdaptation and this arc is taken over by Jon Snow and Sansa in Season 6. The sellsword Bronn has been getting this treatment more and more as the series goes on, to the point that by season 7 even he is complaining about how many hats he's wearing (everything from personal trainer to effectively managing the Lannister armies for them) when technically he's just Jamie's bodyguard and hasn't even been paid for that. In the 8th season he finally gets pushed too far when they try to use him as a pawn against each other, and sits the entire resolution of the series out on the condition that the winner finally pays up.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' did this by virtue of being an OddlySmallOrganization. Despite having no apparent budget constraints, Jack does not hire genuine support staff. The closest thing they have is Ianto, who is at least as qualified an agent as anyone else on the team, and even he often goes off with everyone else, leaving their base completely unoccupied! The only backup for ''any'' position is the assumption that one of the other main characters has at least some of the necessary skills to cover for somebody else. Of course, Torchwood Cardiff is a RagtagBunchOfMisfits by design, all its members being personally recruited by Jack, who cut off ties with Torchwood London (a much larger organization with dozens if not hundreds of staff) even before Torchwood London was destroyed in the parent show ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'s'' fifth season is both one of the most overt and most justified examples of this trope: Angel and co. now control one of the most powerful organizations imaginable, with literally thousands of underlings, paramilitary teams, doctors, scientists, etc. But they will go to extreme lengths and take absurd risks not to use them, because all of those people are irredeemably evil while the heroes... aren't. They get called out on this often.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' did this by virtue of being an OddlySmallOrganization. Despite having no apparent budget constraints, Jack does not hire genuine support staff. The closest thing they have is Ianto, who is at least as qualified an agent as anyone else on the team, and even he often goes off with everyone else, leaving their base completely unoccupied! The only backup for ''any'' position is the assumption that one of the other main characters has at least some of the necessary skills to cover for somebody else. Of course, Torchwood Cardiff is a RagtagBunchOfMisfits by design, all its members being personally recruited by Jack, who cut off ties with Torchwood London (a much larger organization with dozens of staff) even before Torchwood London was destroyed in the parent show ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' did this by virtue of being an OddlySmallOrganization. Despite having no apparent budget constraints, Jack does not hire genuine support staff. The closest thing they have is Ianto, who is at least as qualified an agent as anyone else on the team, and even he often goes off with everyone else leaving their base completely unoccupied! The only backup for ''any'' position is the assumption that one of the other main characters has at least some of the necessary skills to cover for somebody else.

** Once O'Neill gets promoted to lead the entire Stargate Command, he finds himself coming up against this trope, as he wants to be out there where the action is instead of staying behind his desk and making sure the base runs smoothly. In fact, his predecessor, General Hammond, despite being the fifth main character, only ever uses the Stargate twice.