History WhatAnIdiot / LiveActionTV

* [[OneThousandWaysToDie 1000 Ways To Die]]: The following come to mind:

'''However:''' the premise of ''[[OneThousandWaysToDie 1000 Ways To Die]]'' is basically Alcohol/Drugs/Smokes + Man = [[DarwinAwards Darwin moment]] on TV so WhatAnIdiot moments are to be expected once an episode.

'''You'd expect''': The girl would realize that a healthy relationship doesn't involve police interrogation, and would take advantage of the deal the police are giving her.
'''Instead''': She continued to wail about how "he loves her" and proceeds to take the fall (or cover up) for a guy who is usually only with her for sex, money, or to let her take the blame and frankly treats her like garbage.

** One that seems to repeat several times. A teenage coupleare convinced of some type of crime. Often, one or the other will happen, either he rapes her or he convinces her to be an accomplice to a crime.

'''Instead''': She continued to wail about how "he loves her" and proceeds to take the fall (or cover up) for a guy who is usually only with her for sex, money, or to let her take the blame.

* Many contestants on ''ThePriceIsRight'' attempting to play the Clock Game.\\
'''You'd expect''': The contestant lowers his/her bid when Bob or Drew says "lower", and raises it when Bob or Drew says "higher". Binary search if the contestant is smart.\\
'''Instead''': "$599!" "Lower!" "$600!" "''Lower!''" "$610!" "'''''Lower!'''''"\\
'''Justification''': The contestant is racing against the clock (which has only 30 seconds) and has two items and (in later series) $500 at stake. You'd expect the contestant to be panicking and not thinking straight.\\
'''Not So Much''': This was the only contestant in ''decades'' to do that.

'''Instead:''' He opened the door without asking, changing the pressure in the chamber and killing the poor bikini-clad woman inside. One can only hope that this moron was, at the very least, fired.

'''On Top Of That:''' The nurse had just told him, "Okay Mister Burns, you've got 2 minutes, don't do anything stupid."

** Also, even if the flashback was true, when a little boy is holding you at the gunpoint it looks like a good idea to scare and confuse him, making him run away in tears.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': At the end of Season 1, the Company captures Sylar. They inject him with a virus that suppresses his powers. That's a pretty smart idea. But then there's the question of what to do with him afterwards. \\

** Season 4 - Peter has stolen the Haitian's power neutralizing ability and uses it to get the drop on Sylar, managing to nailgun his hands to a table. Peter has Sylar dead to rights and knows that he killed Peter's brother ''and'' father ''and'' Claire's mother ''and'' untold others.\\

'''Instead''': Hiro keeps travelling back in time to physically prevent the guy from copying his butt, but the guy just does it a week later.

** And it's not just the detectives: in "Goliath," a large armed group of cops are facing down one of their own, who's just killed his wife in a psychotic state induced by drugs he was given while serving in Iraq. He's half naked, smeared with his wife's blood, and holding a gun, in the depths of confusion and despair. His son comes out of the house, ignorant of his mother's death. Remember, a large cadre of armed officers are present.\\

*** WWI had been underway for years before the Somme, its not like there was an element of surprise to throw away. And given that the Xindi had ''centuries'' of lead time, and Earth no inkling of any threat at all, it's hard to see how internal obstructionism would have posed enough of a threat to the plan to make it worth "blowing their wad" just to speed things along.

* In ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', the uber-cabet group [[RedShirt Red Squad]] gets to go on a training mission in a spiffy new Defiant-class vessel. Halfway through, a Dominion attack kills all the senior staff, so the cabets are all that's left.\\

'''Instead:''' The head cadet, having been made acting captain before the last senior officer died, refuses to come home. Instead he starts running missions against the Dominion, getting the orders from people who think the qualified officers are still running the show. To his credit, he manages to live a while, but eventually gets almost all of them killed in a DavidVsGoliath scenario.

** And speaking of that episode: in the show, as well as real life, there is a treaty that says Antarctica will never be used for military purposes. In the show, Antacrtica is home to a heavily-armed abandoned outpost of the {{Precursors}}.\\

** In season 5 episode 6, Debra was already in serious danger after doing badly in the task, and then verbally abusing Sir Alan Sugar's advisor Nick in the boardroom. Fortunately she appeared to be off the hook after team leader Ben strangely decided to bring back James (for what appeared to be personal reasons) along with the perpetually useless Noorul.\\

'''Instead''': Debra actually started shrieking and ''demanding'' that she be bought back into the boardroom instead of James, because she was that keen to see Ben off. On this occasion Debra was saved from her own stupidity, as Noorul got fired instead, but her insistence on being bought back might ironically have ''prevented'' Ben's firing, as his initial decision to bring James back may have tipped the balance against him (emphasise may; Noorul was an amazingly awful candidate, after all).

** Though no other US BB contestants have risen to the awe-inspiring level of stupid that Marcellas did, a few have come close. An example: Jacob, in the ninth season. In the first week, the houseguests were paired into "couples". The couple that won the first competition (Jen and Parker) was named the "Power Couple", and ''they'' cast the only eviction vote. Whatever couple they wanted gone, was gone.\\

* In ''Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa'', {{Monk}} shoots and injures a suspect who is dressed in a Santa costume. Thanks to an overzealous sensationalist reporter, and the large group of children who witnessed the incident, Monk is branded as "The Man Who Shot Santa" and becomes the most hated person in San Fransisco. He attempts to clear his name by going onto said reporter's talk show and making a public apology.\\

'''Instead:''' They decide to either tap it against the counter or ''cut off the top of the bottle with a knife''. In both cases, glass got too close to the dishes they were making, forcing them to throw them out.\\

'''Instead''': The next time a tax-collector comes to Locksley, she loudly and aggressively insults him in front of a large crowd of people, resulting in the destruction of her family's pottery business, her own capture and near-rape, and the audience being subjected to her presence for the rest of the series when the outlaws rescue her and then inexplicably invite her to join the team despite the fact that she's ''completely useless.''
'''Furthermore''': Why on earth did the outlaws want her on the team in the first place? All she did was bitch and moan at them, and all their free time was spent bailing her out of the trouble that she loved to wander into.

'''Instead''': The next time a tax-collector comes to Locksley, she loudly and aggressively insults him in front of a large crowd of people, resulting in the destruction of her family's pottery business, her own capture and near-rape, and the audience being subjected to her presence for the rest of the series when the outlaws rescue her and then inexplicably invite her to join the team despite the fact that she's ''completely useless.''

* ''{{Big Brother}}'': Late into the third US season, Marcellas and Amy are both up for eviction. Marcellas wins the Golden Power of Veto, giving him the power to guarantee himself a spot in the Final 4.\\

'''"What were you thinking?":'''As soon as Marcellas sits down for his post-eviction interview, Julie smacks him over the head with her interview cards.

'''Instead:''' CHOMP!!!!! [[TooDumbToLive Nice going, genius...]]

** The ending to Season 3, to the point of being a WallBanger. Sylar kills [[spoiler: Nathan]], but is then tranq'ed. Everyone is now in a room with an unconsious Sylar and a dead [[spoiler:Nathan]].\\

'''Instead''' - The group decideds to [[spoiler: have Matt ''hypnotize Sylar into being Nathan'' and just pretend that Sylar is dead.]]. Naturally, the Volume 5/Season 4 preview implies that this "solution" won't last for very long.

'''Instead:''' They clearly don't. Naming one episode would be a disservice to all of the other times this happens. Invariably, the family member will either go into an unrecoverable funk, go batsh-t insane, or do something else impossibly stupid.

** [[TheWesley Kate's]] introductory episode involves her attemping to save her brother's life by a) trying to move him in a conspicuous cart during the middle of enforced conscription instead of just hiding him in the house, b) screeching "there's nothing there, there's nothing there!" when Guy investigates the suspicious sight of a woman talking to what's meant to be an empty cart, c) sabotaging the outlaws' ambush to free her brother by rushing in and attacking the guards premmaturely without even a weapon to defend herself with, d) abandoning the outlaws and sneaking into the castle by herself with no clear plan on what she intends to do, e) forgetting to take out the distinctive braid across her forehead that makes her instantly recognisable to Guy of Gisborne who orders her restrained, f) trying to cut a deal with Guy by revealing to him that Robin, the man who would have saved both her brother ''and'' the rest of the prisoners had Kate just ''let him'', is hiding amongst the prisoners, and g) flailing helplessly when Guy ends up killing her brother when he rushes to her defence, mistakeningly believing that Kate is being threatened by Guy.\\

'''Instead''': You wind up with these strange abberations. Kids trying to stack the base on the Torso, putting the torso on backwards, upside-down or ''sideways'', the head being put on through the side of the torso, all sorts of strange things. \\

'''You'd Expect''': He'd tell [[spoiler: her]] it was a present-day fashion trend. Afterall, [[spoiler: she'd]] been bronzed for roughly a century and had no way of know "what's hip" today.\\

'''You'd expect''': Kate to learn a valuable lesson about the importance of patience, timing, competence, discretion, silence, and letting the professionals do their job without interference.\\

* At least twice on ''The Next Food Network Star'', somebody has had to open a bottle or jar and [[EpicFail failed terribly]].

'''Instead:''' CHOMP!!!!! [[TooDumbToLive Way to go, genius...]]

'''You'd Think:''' They'd use their heads and observe the cardinal rule of handling such beasties: ''Never,'' '''EVER,''' ''put your hand in or near the creature's mouth.''\\

* Anytime a video show on Tru TV, Spike, or the like shows footage of a group of people who've just captured a live shark, aligator, or crocidile.\\

** Anytime a video show on Tru TV, Spike, or the like shows footage of a group of people who've just captured a live shark, aligator, or crocidile.\\

'''Instead:''' She (with the help of her counterpart) destroys a Transwarp Hub and sails right on home, content in the knowledge that she's saved a few more crewmembers at the cost of thousands of people (not to mention all the technology and mysteries they would discover) who would potentially benefit from Voyager's assistance.
** In the episode ''Timeless'', Harry Kim and Tom Paris come up with a transwarping method of travel that will carry them right to Earth's front door - but they have to make constant course corrections. A future version of Harry Kim rewrites the past so that the ship drops out of transwarp after two or three minutes in its trial run, so that it doesn't crash and kill the crew.\\

'''Instead:''' Janeway decides the technology is too dangerous and orders it dismantled, while being disappointed that their experiment didn't work. ''But it did work! You just cut ten years off your journey, and were seconds away from making it back home!!!''

'''Instead''' they hand them over.
*** Bonus points awarded for the fact this already occured to the Feds... and it turned out to be an intelligence test (TAS novel).

* [[OneThousandWaysToDie 1000 Ways To Die]]: The following come to mind:
** A female diver was in the decompression chamber after a spot of trouble down below. A maintainance worker was making his rounds when he came upon the chamber door.\\
'''You'd Think:''' He'd have the presence of mind to ''ask if the chamber was occupied before opening the pressure door''.\\
'''Instead:''' He opened the door without asking, changing the pressure in the chamber and killing the poor bikini-clad woman inside. One can only hope that this moron was, at the very least, fired.
** A man ends up in the hospital with serious burns all over his body ''after falling asleep in bed while smoking.''\\
'''You'd Think:''' He'd take this as a sign from the man upstairs that it's high time he kicks the habit.\\
'''Instead:''' He bribes the night nurse to take him out back for a smoke. The ash from his cigarette holds enough of a spark to ignite the highly flammable ointment his bandages are soaked in. Set ablaze, he rolls uncontrollably down the wheelchair ramp and at the bottom his oxygen tank explodes into a ball of fire, burning him to a crisp.\\
'''On Top Of That:''' The nurse had just told him, "Okay Mister Burns, you've got 2 minutes, don't do anything stupid."

<<|WhatAnIdiot|>>

'''On Top Of That:''' The nurse had just told him, "Okay Mister Burns, you've got 20 minutes, don't do anything stupid."

->'''Instead''' Max gives Logan the antidote and we're stuck with another bout of the UST blues.