Aesop Amnesia / Live-Action TV

• On a "Very Special Episode" of Happy Days, Fonzie famously jumps his motorcycle over 17 oil-barrels in order to prove his courage; but he breaks his leg in doing so, and confesses that he learned how stupid it was to take foolish risks like that (an obvious Aesop to discourage kids from copying Evel Knievel). But then later in another "Special Episode," Fonzie accepts a dare to jump over a shark-tank on waterskis.... and he accepts the challenge— and succeeds victoriously and unscathed, thus forgetting his earlier lesson, while naming another trope (Jumping the Shark) in the process.
• In Amos And Andy, the Kingfish's "Get Rich Quick" schemes always fail (and sometimes even end up costing him), but soon (usually in the next episode, and in at least one case, at the end of the same episode), he's got another one. He never learns!
• In Aranyélet, in the first two seasons as well as for a good chunk of the third, before Character Development kicks in:
  • No matter the trouble he gets in, no matter how hurt he and his family gets, no matter how much his father keeps telling him to stop trying to go for the easy way and be a criminal, Márk just doesn't seem to grasp it at the end of the day. It takes finding out his dad loves him and his revered godfather was only using him, a baby sister being born and his mother and Mira talking some sense into him, plus becoming paralyzed from the waist down, to finally learn.
  • Whatever happens, whatever trouble she ends up making, whatever she or anyone else has to do to set it right, Janka just cannot let go of chasing money and possessions, or of her pride. It takes the birth of her third child (a baby she actively tried to miscarry, no less, as abortion would have been frowned upon) almost killing her and definitely leaving one arm paralyzed and her speech slurry, both of which she seems to recover from after a long while, to finally be able to say they can handle abandoning the high life.
• In Arrested Development, Michael has the habit of using his son George-Michael as an excuse for why he shouldn't move on from his dead wife and start dating again. Someone then tells him to stop hiding behind his son. Michael agrees and decides to move on only to forget the lessons he learned a few episodes later and have to learn it again and again...
  • Lampshaded in numerous later season episodes as the rest of the family constantly jokes about the fact that Michael always comes back to save the day despite his continued attempts to leave.
• Dexter
  • Dexter Morgan
    • Gets a new blood slide box at the end of Season 2 even though law enforcement now knows the Bay Harbor Butcher collects them and as Season 7 reveals, never made this knowledge public, clueing LaGuerta into trying to clear Doakes's name.
    • Despite Rita's death resulting from sabotaging the Trinity Killer case to have Trinity all to himself, he continues to sabotage active investigations so he can have the killers on his table. Doing this with the Doomsday Killer case leads to Debra finding out he's the Bay Harbor Butcher, which begins a chain of events leading to her death in the series finale.
• In Roseanne, Jackie and her mother Bev have a strained, broken relationship throughout most of the show, Bev having driven Jackie into therapy with her constant criticisms and insults. But in an episode in one of the later seasons, the two share a teary heart-to-heart and seem to finally resolve their differences and repair their relationship as a mother and daughter. But of course, by their next appearance together, they go back to butting heads.
• Home Improvement:
  • Tim Taylor learns that constantly being a male chauvinist is going to cost him. Of course he doesn't learn, that's the premise of the show. Honestly, why does Wilson even bother?
  • Tim also constantly learns that showing off or using something ridiculously overpowered for the job he's trying to do is going to end badly. Except when he doesn't, which is why he's on a first name basis with the doctors and nurses at the emergency room.
  • On the opposite end, Jill also learned several times that Tim's feelings weren't meaningless or baseless just because they were based in masculine behavior, and that she should try to be more understanding. Semi-separate of Tim, she also learned (repeatedly) not to try and psychoanalyze people with her still-amateur psychiatric abilities because she didn't have the experience and complete knowledge necessary to do so (and that she probably shouldn't analyze people she hadn't met yet). Or that she shouldn't meddle in peoples' relationships because she was as likely to cause a breakup as heal any difficulties. None of these stuck.
• Stranger Things: Multiple characters have learned time and time again that they shouldn't lie to Eleven, as she takes everyone at their word and thus takes being lied to very seriously.
• After a moral epiphany at the end of the The West Wing episode "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet", neither the President not anyone else keeps the staff revved up with the their collective pledges after the end of the season. They're great human beings already, so this doesn't actually ruin anything — it's just a really huge missed opportunity.
• Mortal Kombat: Conquest was notorious for this. One of the main characters would do something stupid, learn a lesson by episode's end, then...it was completely forgotten by the next episode.
• Seeing how Supernatural is the king of going From Bad to Worse, this tends to happen a lot. Dean's unwillingness to talk about his problems is a good example. Despite all the emotional trauma Dean has experienced and all the "Chick Flick Moments" he's instigated, by the season 3 finale he still brushes off Sam's attempt at a heartfelt goodbye. Pretty much Truth in Television, and also somewhat justified in that one of the running themes of the show is that brotherhood is more important than anything the world can throw at it. The nature of the relationship never changes because they (Dean especially) actively do not want it to change. The few times it does become more open and adult, it's a sign that something is slightly off.
• Dexter had this problem majorly in Season 6. Supposedly, Dexter learns from Trinity murdering Rita two seasons earlier that becoming too involved with other serial killers can be dangerous for his family. Yet within the space of what is supposed to be about a year, he has all but forgotten this lesson. This leads to his son Harrison getting kidnapped and held at knife point. Other lessons he's forgotten include:
  • Be more careful about leaving a trail (Seasons 2, 5, and 6); do not mercifully free your victims (Seasons 1 and 6); Harry was fallible and he should be his own person (every single season).
  • A shorter version would be "Listen to Harry and follow the Code." So far every single time Dexter objected to Harry resulted in major trouble, whether immediately or over the course of several seasons.
  • Truth in Television, to a point. Some studies have indicated that sociopaths (which Dexter would likely be considered if he existed in Real Life) do have trouble learning from their mistakes, even more than the average person.
• M*A*S*H was king of this trope. Margaret learned at least three times to be kinder and more respectful to her nurses. Charles learned the value of the common man several times. Same for Hawkeye and his womanizing, his drinking, and his disrespect for authority. Though perhaps the crowning moment was when BJ went on a long rant about how it was so easy for him and Hawkeye to sit around, relatively far from the real fighting, considering themselves so high and mighty as they snarked and sneered at the war and complained about how bad they had it, while soldiers were actually fighting and dying on the front lines. By the next episode, they were back to snarking and sneering as usual. The rant in question is one of the only times anyone questions Hawkeye's position that he is morally superior to the Army, which was vital to the status quo. Hawkeye doesn't even get the Aesop in the first place, and seems to chalk the rant up to BJ being hysterical with guilt. Apparently the writers did too.
  • And then there's Frank Burns. Every time he's left in command, instead of maintaining the status quo as any temporary military leader should, he tries to institute his own hypocritical rules, which always back-fire on him and end up getting him in hot water when the CO returns. This happens every single time Frank is put in charge. In his case, it's not that he forgot the Aesop, but rather that it never sank in in the first place — he always maintains that he did a good job and everyone else was the problem.
• Will & Grace used this a lot with all the characters, but mostly Karen and Jack. Karen would often learn that being shallow and nasty to everyone wasn't quite as fun as she usually thought it was, or Jack would learn something similar. The show would occasionally actually have an episode of the characters still having learned their lesson as a We Want Our Jerk Back! episode.
  • A lampshaded example for the title characters in the Election Day Episode: they find themselves on opposite sides because Will supports the gay candidate and Grace supports the female one. Then it turns out both candidates are horrible racists. The pair realise their mistake in basing their decision purely on demographics rather than finding out what the candidates actually stand for ... then decide they should have supported "the black guy".
• The title character of House seems to inflict Aesop Amnesia on himself. Not only does he avoid learning a lesson, even if he does he announces he doesn't give a crap and continues to be the same Jerkass as ever. Though some of his supporting cast seem to have difficulty learning from experience, let alone keeping hold of the episode's message.
  • There's an episode in which Wilson says something like "Or you could just let it go," to which House responds "What person who is nothing like me are you talking to?"
• A consistent trope on the earlier seasons of Nip/Tuck, where the character of Dr. Christian Troy would learn how much harm his selfish, reckless lifestyle causes and makes amends by the end of the episode, only to consistently go back to being an ever worse asshole by next week.
• At Black Hole High, the science club seems incapable of remembering that it's a good idea to talk about your issues with each other instead of just assuming the worst and keeping it bottled up, even after talking out your problems turns out to be the cure for: molecular friction; taking on the characteristics of various elements in periodic-table order; attack by anthropomorphic Venus flytrap; and abnormal sponge growth. Also, they seem unable to learn the Aesop "Don't use the bits of weird Pearadyne phlebotinum stored in the school basement in your various get-rich-quick schemes" even after sticking their chips into various things caused: Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!; a cellphone to gain the power to enforce emoticons on its owner; a radio to receive messages from the future; the common cold to jump species from human to computer to building.
• Entourage spent the first two seasons using Johnny 'Drama' Chase (presented as a Hollywood has-been) as a running gag machine on this trope. Drama would haughtily 'advise' Vince on Hollywood lifestyle, only to have E or Turtle point out how short-lived, illusionary, feeble or otherwise pathetic his acting career was in the 90's. It happened about once an episode. You'd think Drama would learn to keep his trap shut. Similarly, the course of the show has shown that anytime it's Eric vs. Vince in a difference of professional opinion E's almost always proven right. Vince makes few-to-no good decisions on his own. He could make a wrong turn in a cul-de-sac. You'd think that if Vince hadn't learned this by now, at least Drama, Turtle and Ari would remind him that E was right about Matterhorn, QB, Aquaman, Mandy More, Dom, Amanda, and Medellian, where Vince's instincts were way off (except for QB). Let E do your thinking for you Vince, it's his skill, not yours.
• General Hospital: Jax makes a recording of Sonny implicating himself in knowledge of Claudia's death (Jax knows Michael killed her justifiably and that Sonny only covered it up), but tells Dante (then Dominic) he's deleting it because he can't wreck his family's lives by helping put Sonny away. Yet it's perfectly alright later on for him to still be knowledgeable and involved in the investigation, still seeking to get Sonny arrested and risking his relationship with Carly, Michael and Morgan anyway. Not to mention getting a federal prosecutor assigned to Sonny's case and doing everything he can so Sonny is convicted for something he never did. So much for not getting involved, huh Jax?
• The Goldbergs: In the end of the pilot, Beverly Goldberg learned to let her kids live their own lives and not be so overprotective after making life difficult for one of them with her overly-intrusive ways. Oh wait, that's almost every episode of the show! The series is told by an Unreliable Narrator, though.
  • Ditto Murray Goldberg, who needs to learn every other episode to pay more attention to his kids and/or appreciate his kids' hobbies.
• Community
  • "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" ends with the line "Pierce Hawthorne saved the life of Fat Neil, while learning very, very little." Failing to learn from their mistakes is a specialty of basically every character on the show, with Jeff getting special mention for lampshading this tendency of his.
  • They used the "The group doesn't work without Pierce" plot in "Art of Discourse" but still tried to kick him out in "Fistfull of Paintballs". Though it's justified in that Pierce had become significantly more of a jerk that year.
• Leave It to Beaver is one of the archetypal examples here. Of particular note is the last episode, which has themes of how fast the children are growing up, counterpointed by hints that they're still as childish as ever, with what may be a clever subversion of the whole deal: It's a Clip Show, allowing them to run through the events of about half a dozen episodes in a row, touching on several morals at once and then ending the series before anybody can forget them again. It was even lampshaded in a TV Land commercial for the show. It explained that the moral of the episode would enter one ear, float around his skull without making contact with his brain, and then exit through the other ear.
• Scrubs. It's safe to say that thanks to a combination of this and Flanderization, not one character in Scrubs has any significant or meaningful character development. The most blatant examples:
  • Turk learns to see his patients as people instead of emotionally detaching himself. He learns the same lesson twice in two different, unconnected episodes. And still says that, "I work best when I'm emotionally detached".
  • Carla's "best moment in medicine" is when the doctors actually listen to her. She spends every other episode pushing her advice on everyone and everything. In one episode, it leads to disaster and she "learns" that in the hospital, the doctors are in charge because they are ultimately responsible for the lives of their patients.
  • JD learns that he needs to "grow up", despite the fact that his frustration is caused by stress over how utterly crappy his life has become due to a combination of bad circumstances and no one giving a damn about him, in one episode. This is the guy who acts like a joking, immature fool in every single episode. In another episode, Turk "teaches" him that trying to become more serious and mature is bad; you should instead never forget your "inner child" and continue to goof off.
  • Dr. Cox learns to be gracious and accept help from other people in order to advance professionally. He learns this three times, in three unconnected episodes. And still continues to act like an ass to his boss and make all the wrong moves.
  • Got lampshaded with The Todd, who was taught how to behave toward women by a shrink. The Shrink then explains to Carla that without long-term professional help, The Todd will change back to his old self within a week or so.
  • Also lampshaded with Carla having to teach Elliot the same lesson twice within a few episodes, and the latter episode actually flashing back to the former.
  Elliot: I ... don't recall that conversation.
• 3rd Rock from the Sun
  • An episode involved Dick grappling with his overblown ego. Of course, that's one of his primary character traits. At the end of the episode, he stated what he'd learned thus: "There are times for a little humility. Fortunately, that time is now over."
  • Played with in the episode where Dick dealt with his insensitivity. He went to Sensitivity Training and it successfully changed him into an ultra-sensitive guy. Only it turned out he was even worse that way and it all backfired, causing him to revert to his old ways before the end of the episode.
• Family Matters was very bad about this:
  • Most episodes would have at least one character (usually either Carl or Laura) learning to be nicer to Steve Urkel, then promptly forget it the very next episode.
  • In later seasons, Steve Urkel changed from embodying Be Yourself to learning that lesson once per season.
  • Eddie tired of living by Carl's rules in Carl's house, so he moved out. Twice. And he got in trouble gambling. Thrice. And almost Once per Episode, Eddie got grounded at the drop of a hat for his latest Aesop violation.
  • Throughout the series, Laura would constantly date these no-good jerkasses who were clearly taking advantage of her. The corresponding episodes would always end with her learning a lesson about being more discerning of men, only for her to promptly forget it soon after.
• Smallville:
  • The best example of this was the relationship between Jonathan Kent and Lex Luthor. Despite all of Lex's attempts to show that he wasn't his father, and despite the fact that Jonathan acknowledged this almost every time that he was proven wrong, he was back to blaming Lex for everything that went wrong automatically by the next episode.
  • To a lesser extent (and only lesser because he was on the show for less time) this happened with Pete Ross as well, although he was sometimes justified. But then again, Lex never saved Jonathan's life only to have Bo Kent come back and accuse him of random crap.
  • Another example of Aesop Amnesia is that all the way up to Season 8, Clark has to repeatedly learn that not everything is his fault, his powers aren't a curse and that he should accept his destiny.
• David on Six Feet Under seems to spend an awful lot of episodes learning that it's okay to be gay. This may be justified somewhat by the realism of the show; you can know something intellectually but it takes some repetition to learn it on an emotional level.
• Everybody Loves Raymond was infested with this. Debra would confront Marie about her hostile behavior, Robert would confront Frank and Marie about their preferential treatment of Ray, Ray and/or Debra would confront Robert about his victim complex, Deborah would confront Ray about his selfish behavior, and other variations. Each time, it was treated as though these issues were finally being brought into the open after decades of repression, and now people were learning their lessons and would finally treat each other right. And each time the characters reverted to their same old neurotic selves straight away, and the audience groaned at the thought that the same issues would be "resolved" next year, and the year after that...
  • Of course, nobody seems to listen or care about Robert, so it's somewhat understandable for him to keep griping.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch was built on this trope. Nearly every episode ended with Sabrina learning not to use her magic carelessly, or selfishly, or to do morally questionable things. Which never stopped her from immediately resorting to elaborate and usually disastrous magical solutions to every tiny problem she encountered in her life. For seven seasons. It even gets lampshaded a few times. At one point, Sabrina really was blameless for the week's magical mayhem, since no one had told her the magical item she was using was magical. Zelda still starts lecturing her about using magic responsibly, then immediately apologizes when she realizes that lesson doesn't really apply here.
  There were also several episodes that focused on Sabrina realizing that Harvy is her soulmate, one of which has her realizing she loves Harvy for who he is and not how he looks even going as far as to ultimately turn down the hot bartender who she originally showing interest in. She forgets all about this when the next hottie comes along.
• Frasier and his brother Niles would constantly forget not to be so competitive, to stay out of other people's business, not to be so snooty etc etc etc. Occasionally the two would come to an epiphany about their behavior, only to change their minds about it in the same conversation. One episode notably lampshades this, in which it's pointed out that Frasier and Niles's issues are so deeply ingrained that they will never overcome them completely.
  • Many Niles episodes dealing with his fracturing relationship with his wife Marris would end with him realizing that their marriage was miserable, Marris will never respect him, he’s done with her for good and they’d separate. An episode or two later they’d inevitably be back together, Marris would emasculate him in some way, and he’d have the epiphany all over again. It wasn’t until the end of season 5 that their separation stuck.
• Boy Meets World had Cory, Shawn or Eric (perhaps Eric especially) continuously learning the value of studying and taking their work seriously, and that Mr. Feeny (or Turner or the Matthews parents) might have some actual valuable lessons to impart, and they would do well to listen. Such episodes ended with whichever kid had learned the lesson seemingly ready to change for the better, only to have the next episode put them right back to refusing to listen to their teachers/parents or refusing to study. While this could be an example of the cycles real kids go through, there are hardly ever call-backs to previous lessons learned, but the series does lampshade this in an episode when Eric lands a role on the very similar "Kid Gets Acquainted with Universe," and during rehearsal the Cory/Ben Savage analogue stops when he realizes it's another Rory-learns-a-lesson episode, and starts shouting, "How can I learn so much and still be so stupid?!"
• Girl Meets World had at least one episode per season that taught Riley the exact same lesson to always be herself and not let what others say influence her.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Multiple episodes have Sheldon being called out on how much of a jerk he is and learning not to be such a jerk. Then in the next episode he's right back to being a jerk.
  • Similarly, "The Space Probe Disintegration" has Sheldon calling out Leonard for his hypocritical attitude and how mean he is to Sheldon much of the time. Leonard says that he's sorry... and then goes right back to being a jerk to Sheldon in the episodes after that.
  • "The Champagne Reflection" has Bernadette realizing how much of a jerk she is and feeling awful about it. After this episode she goes right back to being a jerk.
  • "The Maternal Combustion" has Beverly realising that there is more than one way to raise a child and she promises that from now on she will shower Leonard with unconditional love. After this episode, she is back to being a jerk in most appearances until "The Maternal Conclusion" where she and Leonard make amends when he forgives her.
• Seems like Jenny on Gossip Girl has learned the "don't let the queen and her posse change who you are" lesson about five times by now, but it never sticks for more than a few episodes at a time.
• Played with in Seinfeld, as none of the characters ever learned anything in the first place, despite the fact that the plots often gave the viewers implied Aesops based on logic (e.g., don't let the security guard do his job sitting down). In fact, the Finale implies that all four of them have remained exactly the same since the Pilot, nine years earlier. No hugging, no learning.
• Friends:
  • Now Chandler, say it with me: Monica does not love anyone else more than you! Over the series, he thinks she's in love with her 'soulmate' Don, then his best friend, then the 'funniest guy she's ever met' and on three separate occasions, her ex-boyfriend Richard. Every episode ends with Monica promising she's never wanted anyone but him. The most ironic example is the season 5 finale when she tells him 'I've never loved anyone as much as I love you' in reference to Richard. Season 6 finale? Chandler's panicking because he think she's going to leave him and marry Richard. And he still worries when they're Happily Married. Somewhat justified as Chandler's very insecure and Monica's encouragement of him is a key part of the series.
  • The one thing that upsets Joey more than anything is when his best friend lies to him about something important, yet you can count on Chandler lying to Joey about something important once or twice a season.
  • Monica's not great herself, having to learn over and over not to be a Obsessively Organized Control Freak. She never actually does, thanks to flanderization.
  • In "The One With The Race Car Bed", Rachel tried to get Ross and her father to bond and they manage to bond near the end of the episode by making fun of Rachel's flaws, but following this, Ross and Dr. Green fall back to loathing each other.
• Malcolm in the Middle has this sometimes, usually having the kids and Lois work things out and prefer getting along with each other before screwing it up on-screen in favor of Status Quo Is God by the end of the episode. There is at least one circumstance where Malcolm's amnesia takes longer to set in, though: he learns in season six that no, he doesn't get music like Dewey does but that's okay because he's good at other things. Several episodes later, he is upset that he doesn't understand music like Dewey does. Interestingly subverted in that in the latter example he doesn't actually seem to learn a lesson by the end of the episode. Francis also seemed to become a bit more responsible when working at a Dude ranch in New Mexico. However, post Season Six, when he was fired from what was implied to be feeding the funds of the ranch to a food trough rather than an ATM, he seems to have gone back to the delinquent, psychotically irresponsible self, and it is hinted that the only real reason why he got a stable job in the series finale was so he could take entertainment in taunting his mother by lying about remaining unemployed.
• Glee:
  • Although the characters go through impressive development, some characters often miss one important point of their hardships: popularity does not equal happiness. And Puck, despite his growing likability, is still Puck.
  • How many times has Will learned to give solos out equally? He never seems to learn that part of the reason Rachel is such a drama queen is because he keeps giving her solos!
  • Quinn. During season one, she became pregnant, which caused her to fall from the top of the social hierarchy to the bottom. She gradually became more mature and began to reach out and form genuine friendships with people, namely Mercedes. Cue season two... and she's suddenly reverted back to being the shallow social climber she was in the very first episode.
  • Rachel learns that it's not all about her and that success depends on the whole club, only to go right back to trying to hog the spotlight and carry the team on her own.
• A particularly disappointing one in Robin Hood. Episode six of series three marks the first time since the season premiere that Robin displays pangs of grief over the death of Marian. This leads to Robin breaking up with Isabella, basing it on a) his duty to the King and England, b) his acknowledgment that he's never going to get the chance to have a normal life, c) the danger that Isabella is in if she's known to be in league with Robin, and d) the fact that he still misses Marian too much. The episode ends with him looking wistfully at a happy family, knowing that it's a future he can never have...only for him to turn around and stare at teammate Kate with a "oh yeah, she's got a crush on me too!" expression on his face, assisted by an uplifting musical cue as Kate smiles at him. It's direct foreshadowing for their hook-up two episodes later, a development that completely undermines all the poignancy of Robin's earlier epiphany. So Robin's Aesop doesn't even last to the end of the episode in which he learns it.
• C.C., Maxwell's business partner on The Nanny suffered this towards the end. Throughout the show's run, she was insanely envious of Maxwell's attraction towards Fran, and in "The Wedding", when Fran and Maxwell finally got hitched, she made one last attempt at cutting between them in the aisle, until Maxwell took her aside and assured her that even though he loves Fran, he'll always appreciate C.C.'s friendship. C.C. finally relented, but in the next episode, "Honeymoon's Overboard", when Fran and Maxwell get lost on their honeymoon, she was utterly indifferent to the fact that Fran had disappeared too:
  C.C.: I have stuck by Maxwell through sixteen girlfriends and two dead wives. (Everyone looks at her) One dead wife. I will find Maxwell Sheffield!
  Sylvia Fine (Fran's mother): And?...
  C.C.: I'll bring him home.
  • In the end, it takes a "The Reason You Suck" Speech by Niles to hammer it in for her.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Xander learns that he has worth and should ignore those who say otherwise many, many times. The most egregious is after season 3's "The Zeppo", in which he saves the world by himself and doesn't tell anyone, and at the end of the episode, realizes just how ludicrously feeble and inconsequential Cordelia's insults are in the light of what he just went through.
  • Buffy herself seems to learn that she doesn't have to fight alone in quite a few episodes - that in fact, she needs her friends and should let them help her. Not that this stops her from under-appreciating/ignoring them all the way up to the end of Season 7.
• Meanwhile, Angel had Gunn, who failed to learn the dangers of playing with dark powers. He nearly dies after having traded his soul for his battle truck years earlier and the time coming to pay up, but Angel saves him. Later, he fights to free Fred from a deadly slug-thing after Angel uses dark magic to try and find Connor. But still in season 5, he makes a deal with Wolfram and Hart to save his failing brain upgrade, and that time, there's no saving Fred from dying, courtesy of Illyria.
• It's no wonder LazyTown needs a superhero; No matter how many times Sportacus teaches the kids the importance of eating healthy, exercising often and being kind to each other, they always revert back to their unhealthy, lazy, greedy and generally unpleasant ways.
• iCarly:
  • Nevel in "iPity Nevel". He spends an entire episode learning to be a better person after ending up on the Internet insulting a little girl. At the end of the episode he does the exact same thing.
  • "iDate Sam & Freddie" ends with Carly delivering the Aesop to Sam and Freddie that they need to sort out their own problems or they shouldn't date. The very next episode "iCan't Take It" ends with Carly sorting out another Sam and Freddie problem so they can keep dating.
• On Amen, every time Thelma realized that she didn't need the Reverend to make her life complete, or that she could make her own way in the world without depending on him or her father, she went right back to chasing Reverend Gregory and/or being a whiny Daddy's Girl by the next episode. This is especially bad in the story arc where she joined the Army after being jilted at the altar by him and explicitly states "The Army taught me that I didn't have to be somebody's daughter or somebody's wife to feel good about myself", only to throw it all away the minute he gets his act together and tells her that he's finally ready to get married. Even worse was her father, Ernie. He would learn to be honest, kind, and to share with others. Then he would go right back to being his old lying, cheating, greedy self. Sometimes this happened in the same episode!
• Modern Family: In the Season 3 premiere, "Dude Ranch", Phil finally gets tired of Jay mistreating him and stands up to him. Despite Jay finally seeming to get it, he's immediately back to needing Jay's constant approval by the next episode.
• Star Trek: Enterprise: "Dear Doctor" ends with Archer and Phlox deciding not to give a cure to a dying people they meet because of, well, all the usual justifications given for the prime directive. Later on, in "Observer Effect", an alien race refuses to give them the cure that would save their lives. They both cluelessly try to teach the aliens that the Aesop they had supposedly learned is all wrong.
• The Other Kingdom:' No matter how many times Astral messes things up or screws others over, she could never quite learn that charming people and forcing love and adoration towards others with her fairy powers (and especially towards herself) is never a good idea. Granted, Astral's a teenager and she never actively tries to bring harm, but she'd always try to justify her attempts and doesn't take responsibility for her errors.
• Over the course of Season 12 of The Amazing Race, Ron learned to control his temper, and not to be so abusive towards his daughter. When they came back for Season 18, Ron seemed to forget all those lessons, and reverted to his old self.
• Played with on Merlin. Nearly every single episode Arthur is presented with the aesop "Listen to Merlin, he's usually right", yet the show never fails to have him say something along the lines of "I know you're right, but I'm ignoring it". As of Series 4, this has been upgraded to "You were right, but just this once."
  • Lampshaded in the commentary of one episode by the actor playing Arthur.
  Bradley James as Arthur: Thank you, Merlin. I won't forget this until I'm out the door.
  • Played straight in the Series 4 finale when Arthur finally, unambiguously, realizes that Merlin was right and has been right all along about Agravaine. The very next morning, Merlin has to practically lure him into the clearing with the sword in the stone because, according to Arthur, Merlin's a complete idiot.
    • And then again when Merlin finally tells him the truth about being destined to unite the land of Albion. He says "You're making this up." He is making up the part about Bruta foretelling it, but nothing else. When Merlin finally points out that he has no reason to inflate Arthur's ego, Arthur walks off. So we've progressed to. "I can't argue with Merlin."
  • Merlin seems to learn his lesson about Self Fulfilling Prophecies in Series 3, but forgets it in Series 5. It comes back to bite him when it makes him directly responsible for Mordred's Face–Heel Turn.
• The Suite Life does this many times when London learns to be nicer and more generous, only to forget it by the next episode.
• The Honeymooners: Ralph and Ed never seem to learn that Ralph's latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme is just going to end in failure.
• Haven: Nathan Wuornos constantly forgets that Duke Crocker is not a bad guy anymore and keeps blaming Duke for everything that goes wrong. In season 3, he keeps assuming Duke is going to be a killer. This goes away in season 4.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Major (later Colonel) Kira Nerys continued to see Cardassians as a species as evil and the enemy, even after encountering Cardassians who defied this characterization on multiple occasions. This is actually a very realistic form of the trope, since Kira has been fighting Cardassians ever since she could hold a phaser and personally witnessed the horrors they inflicted on her people. One simple aesop would not make that go away, and it would take multiple tries before she could start letting go.
  • Towards the end of the series, she actually starts to take this lesson to heart and even uses her skills from the Bajoran Resistance to help Cardassia resist the Dominion.
• Harriet Oleson on Little House on the Prairie keeps doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results each time. In "The Voice of Tinker Jones," she insists that a plaque with her name on it be displayed when she wants to donate a bell to the school. She does the same exact thing "Blind Journey," when she offers to donate money to the blind school. She seems to have forgotten how poorly her selfishness was received.
  • Often, Harriet will learn a lesson from the selfish ways she treats the other townspeople, and the episode will finish with her as humbled and apologetic toward another person, or the town as a whole. It's played as sincere, showing the power of community and redemption for Harriet. A few episodes later, she is back to her old ways, mistreating everyone around her.
• The Utopia arc in Charmed Series 7 has the sisters go along with the Avatar's plans to change the grand design, despite the numerous times beforehand they've seen how badly this tends to go.
  • Pretty much every time that Phoebe gets a new boyfriend, she learns that she had previously given up on love and needs to learn to believe in it again. Heck, there are two different occasions where her ex-husband Cole sets her up with someone else just to teach her that.
• When Kermit lets Statler and Waldorf host an episode of The Muppet Show, they end up having so much trouble running the show that they promise to never say anything bad about the show again. After the credits, Waldorf mentions he never liked the theme song.
• Jackie from That '70s Show seems to learn to be less shallow and materialistic, not to mention more mature when she starts dating Hyde, but at the same time throughout the entirety of the show she remains having Rich Bitch tendencies, but mainly one-liners Played for Laughs.
• Doctor Who:
  • "Night Terrors" was originally written for the first half of Series 6, while Amy was still using an artificial body unknowingly and Rory was still struggling to live up to the heroism of the Doctor. It got pushed back to the latter half of the season, after Amy had experienced some catastrophic revelations that had left her bitter and dysfunctional and Rory had led an unstoppably badass attack on the people who hurt her - however, all of the 'artificial human' and 'inner hero' Plot Parallel remained in the script, Foreshadowing nothing, and forcing Amy and Rory to ignore all of the character development they went through between the end of Series 6 and the beginning of Series 7A.
  • Donna Noble experienced a rather literal example of this; to stop her from dying of My Skull Runneth Over, the Doctor is forced to wipe her memories of all their adventures. She reverts back to the shallow Jerkass she was introduced as, which is treated as a heart-breaking tragedy.
• Early in Battlestar Galactica, Gaius Baltar went through half a dozen episodes of accepting his vision of Caprica Six as more than a delusion of his own mind before it stuck.
  • And more generally, the entire cast seems to be playing Conflict Volleyball: Characters keep getting into furious and sometimes violent fights with their friends, forgetting how everything went completely to shit the last time they did that.
• Alex on The Worst Year of My Life, Again. Every episode, Alex seems to forget how the 'Loop Year' kicked his butt the last time he tried to change anything. By the time of 'School Play', Maddy is sick and tired of giving Alex a You Can't Fight Fate speech over and over, so she records herself saying it and plays it to him.
• Necessary Roughness: K seems to forget every week that he previously learned not to be so self-obsessed. In fact, he'll often make new and breathtaking mistakes out of pride. Which is entirely consistent with someone needing therapy. At the end of Season 1, he goes through a traumatic experience that combines with his old problems, even though he's made some progress dealing with them.
• The Mr. Potato Head Show: Mr. Potato Head often forgets the moral of the episode immediately after voicing it; this tends to happen as part of The Stinger.
• The 2016 revival of Gilmore Girls showed Rory Gilmore cheating on her boyfriend by sleeping with Logan, “the man she cannot quit”, who happened to be engaged despite that having an affair has never done anything good to her in the past. It doesn’t help that at the end of the show, she’s pregnant with possibly Logan’s child which is similar what had happened to Lorelai. She also whines about how her journalism career is going nowhere which she doesn’t even put any effort to it. It seemed that she forgot what Mitchum Huntzberger told her in Season 5 that she “doesn’t have it” as a journalist.
• In A Series of Unfortunate Events Mr. Poe repeatedly fails to learn that Count Olaf will not leave the Baudelaires alone, nor that he should believe them when they tell him the person who is obviously Count Olaf in disguise is Count Olaf. After the third time his evil plot is revealed they give up and flee, certain the lesson will never stick.
  Mr. Poe: Remember when you were staying with your Uncle Monty? You were convinced that his assistant Stefano was actually Count Olaf in disguise!
  Violet: Stefano was actually Count Olaf in disguise.
  Mr. Poe: Not the point.
• Leslie Knope suffers from Aesop Amnesia for almost two entire seasons of Parks and Recreation. While Leslie has always had a tendency to butt into people's personal lives too much, the first four seasons were filled with enough instances of Leslie being in the right that it didn't feel like Leslie was just ignoring good advice. Once Leslie was put on city council, Leslie became a meddler for the whole town. Despite only narrowly winning her council seat, Leslie tried to enact numerous new policies that served to further her agenda, but take away things that Pawneeans liked. When she's threatened with the recall, Leslie publicly talks smack about Pawnee numerous times, then seems surprised when Pawnee votes her out. Even once she's finally off council, she still tries to push her agenda on all of Pawnee, such as the chard vendors whose marketing she doesn't appreciate.
  • She also has to accept about three different times that she's been voted off of council and it isn't the end of the world.
• In The Flash (2014), Barry has had to learn in about half of the episodes not to hide from his friends and family information that most certainly concerns them. Each and every single time this backfires, and each time he "learns" the lesson, then promptly proceeds to do the exact same thing next episode. Other characters are guilty of this too. The worst part is, waiting so long to tell them or for someone else to reveal it to them results in conflict that could have been avoided if they'd just told them sooner.
  • There's also his usage of time travel. Barry frequently screws things up by trying to use time travel to fix his problems, swears it off, and then does the same thing again a few episodes later when some new problem comes up and time travel seems like a convenient way to fix it. Joe and Iris even lampshade this near the end of Season 3, and in the earlier Musical Episode Crossover with Supergirl (2015), when Kara lists time travel as a way to get out of trouble, Barry tells her he's not supposed to do it anymore.
• The Power Rangers pretty much learned and re-learned the values of teamwork and believing in yourself on alternating weeks.
• Deus Salve O Rei: Rodolfo's promiscuity keeps getting him into trouble like nearly getting lashed for adultery by a law he himself approved or inviting a mysterious woman into his palace who turned out to be a succubus trying to steal his life-force. Despite all of these things, he hasn't learned his lesson and still seduces any woman that catches his fancy, even after marrying someone else.
• Victorious: Jade and Tori are always at each other's throats, no matter how many times they seem to come to an understanding. This goes back to the season one episode "Stage Fighting", where Tori tries to bury the hatchet. However, their rivalry continues well into season four.
• In Seriously Weird,The lesson that Steve, King of Chaos, intended Harris to learn from his curse is to respect the Weird, embrace Chaos, and not have such a stick up his arse. Every episode, Harris' actions bring the Weird down upon himself, and every episode he fails to learn his lesson.
• The Wubbulous Worldof Dr Seuss: Terrence McBird, who debuted in the second season, has this.
• Young Sheldon:
  • At the end of 'A High-Pitched Buzz and Training Wheels', Sheldon vows that, no matter what he's been going through, he'd never be irritating or abusive to his friends and loved ones. Anyone who's watched The Big Bang Theory knows how well this stuck.
  • Something similar happens in "An Entrepreneurialist and a Swat on the Bottom", where Sheldon learns that he's being selfish by putting his wants and needs above everyone else's and apologizes for doing so. Again, anyone who has seen The Big Bang Theory knows that this lesson also didn't stick.
  • Mary learns that Missy feels ignored since all of the attention goes to Sheldon, and makes an effort to focus on her more. Obviously, it does not stick as well.
  • "A Brisket, Voodoo and Cannonball Run" has George and Connie putting their differences aside, but in subsequent episodes, they still engage in Snark-to-Snark Combat and Connie still sees him as a disappointing son-in-law.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Galaxy's Child," Geordi meets Dr. Leah Brahms, whom he had previously fallen in love with after working with a holographic representation of her. He realizes that he was Loving a Shadow after meeting the real woman and also learns that he was being a real creep by not telling her about his history with her representation before trying to put the moves on her. Then in "Aquiel," he does more or less the same thing: As part of his job, he needs to watch the personal communications of the missing officer Aquiel. When she turns up alive, he immediately starts trying to woo her, having fallen in love with her through her communication entries. Not having learned his lesson the last time, he doesn't tell her that he's watched all of her private logs and again waits for the woman to get creeped out by his unusual familiarity with her before confessing.
• In Resident Alien, Harry Vanderspeigle is a Hugh Mann alien whose species abandons their children to the "ice wind desert." In "Radio Harry," he assists with a human birth and tells Asta Twelvetrees, who knows his secret, that he finally understands her guilt for giving up her daughter Jay for adoption and thinks to himself that human children learn everything from the humans around them and become lost without nurturing parents to guide them. Despite this, his first reaction in "Family Day" to seeing Liza, the daughter of the human Harry Vanderspeigle whom he killed and took on his identity, is to want nothing to do with her, telling Sheriff Mike Thompson to toss her in jail.
• Mimpi Metropolitan: As part of the development that finally wins him Melani, Bambang learns to not get carried away by jealousy and insecurity. Then, nearing the end of the series, too much What Does She See in Him? causes Bambang to regress and have to learn the same thing again. It even happens within the latter storyline; Bambang seemingly learns from Melani to just trust her at the end of episode 61 and the very next episode has Bambang being overly jealous over Melani wearing a shirt with Alexi's face.
• Everytime Strong Medicine's Dr. Lu Delgado would learn that not all rich people and/or men weren't evil, she'd go right back to hating them in the next episode.
• Odd Squad:
  • There are quite a few instances of characters forgetting mathematical or STEM lessons that they have learned in previous episodes and then relearning them again, often due to the fact that there are only so many math and STEM lessons one can teach and the show doesn't branch out into more advanced topics like algebra and calculus. Otto is a frequent offender of this — one example from "Captain Fun" has him learning about the concept of voting when he was well and fine voting in "O is Not For Old" after having Polly Graph teach him.
  • "Moustache Confidential" is a notable aversion on Otto's end, as he retains his knowledge of tally marks from "Undercover Olive" and teaches Obfusco about them alongside his partner.
  • Up until the second half of Season 3, Orla would often forget the lesson she learned in "Portalandia" from the beginning of the season, which dealt with her Leeroy Jenkins nature and made her realize that she needed to take the time to think things through (before it became a Broken Aesop only a few seconds later).
• Homicide: Life on the Street:
  • To an extent. Pembleton tells Bayliss that he's to embrace his vices and get to know them in order to be virtuous, because virtue isn't real virtue if it hasn't been tested. Because the context was a discussion of exploration of sexuality, Bayliss takes this to heart and learns to embrace the darker side of his sexuality, eventually identifying as bisexual. However, Pembleton's advice had a clear, non-sexual, element to it that Bayliss totally missed. As a result, he does not apply Pembleton's advice in dealing with his cases and Bayliss eventually snaps and executes Luke Ryland when he is freed on a technicality
  • In the episode where Felton is found murdered Howard mentions that Felton spoke to her about getting back together with his wife. This is in spite of the fact that Felton previously stated that he and his wife probably shouldn't be together.

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