Hyper-Competent Sidekicks in Live-Action TV series.
- Babylon 5: Vir Cotto is officially the Centauri ambassador Londo Mollari's aide, and is generally shy and timid, but he often prepares relevant research for Londo before he even asks for it, is instrumental in the day-to-day running of the Centauri embassy, and frequently handles extremely complex negotiations without outside guidance when Londo is hung over or not speaking to G'Kar. Vir is eventually promoted to Centauri ambassador to Minbar in part because of his good work, but also because Londo wants to protect him from the Emperor's Decadent Court as long as possible. He leverages this theoretically powerless job into the the center of an interplanetary underground railroad for Narn refugees from his own government that is so effective that he's only found out because the fake death notices his office issued as a cover started looking suspiciously genocide-y to a third party.
- Better Call Saul: Lalo Salamanca acts as this for the Juarez Cartel in general and his uncle Hector specifically. The Salamanca clan is widely feared both south of the border and in the American southwest, but generally considered blunt instruments that make them predictable and relatively easy to deal with for a man like Gus Fring. Lalo's entrance into the conflict presents him a threat unlike any other as Lalo is a honed scalpel, more than intelligent enough to continually outwit Gus and thwart every effort made to neutralize him. Gus comes to visibly fear Lalo and only ends up finally defeating him through a lot of luck. In the years following, no other member of the Cartel even comes close to threatening Gus' operations and plans the way that Lalo did.
- Baldrick is normally thought of by fans as a classic Bumbling Sidekick. Yet in the first season of Blackadder Baldrick was a Hyper Competent Sidekick. And as mentioned above, Blackadder was the Hyper Competent Sidekick in the third season.
- While Blackadder was certainly the brains of the outfit, he was only the sidekick if no opportunity for being The Man Behind the Man or The Starscream presented themselves.
- In The Borgias Machiavelli is one to Piero de Medici (just ignore the Artistic License – History, it's what the show is made of). One line sums it up: "He values my opinion, mostly because he does not have one of his own."
- Laura, the leisure center's assistant manager in The Brittas Empire. Every time she's left in charge, business booms...but it all goes back down the pisser as soon as Gordon Brittas gets home.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Although Buffy is by no means incompetent, Willow does a great job of personifying this trope in Season 7, when as the most powerful witch in the Western Hemisphere, she was so strong that the writers felt the need to knock her out before most major fights.
- Truly is this in Bunheads despite her own serious emotional issues"I know what everyone needs except me"
- Burke's Law: Burke is the Great Detective of the show, but his subordinate Tim is a keen-eyed investigator. When Burke asks him to procure a piece of evidence, Tim has generally anticipated that request and already gotten started on it.
- In Chuck, the titular hero is this to whoever is the manager at the time. In his case, it's because he's an Almighty Janitor. It becomes apparent early on that Chuck is really the one who runs the Buy More.
- Sgt Wilson in Dad's Army. Noted for his Catchphrase "Do you think that's wise, sir?"
- Daredevil (2015): James Wesley is the reason Wilson Fisk's criminal operation has been able to operate as the success that it has been for years. So things greatly fall apart for the organization after Karen Page kills Wesley over an unrelated matter. Fisk makes his crooked lawyer Ben Donovan his new hypercompetent sidekick, somewhat justified since Fisk is in prison and needs someone to maintain his outside assets while he awaits his release.
- Los Espookys: Renaldo is in charge of Los Espookys and his makeup speciality plays an important role, but it's Úrsula who comes up with the ingenious practical effects that make their jobs a success. She's able to pull off a bed-swallowing trick on short notice that Renaldo thought would be impossible to perform, and he can't come up with anything nearly as good when working on his own. And while Renaldo is The Face who gets the team clients, Úrsula is much better at negotiating, able to talk Teresa Lobos into paying them real money when Renaldo was too nice to turn down being paid in restaurant vouchers.
- Polly in Fawlty Towers is this, in contrast to Manuel, who is the Bumbling Sidekick. It's not so much that she's an incredibly skilled and talented person as the fact that everyone else in the hotel is at least half-crazy, making her the Only Sane Man in the Dysfunction Junction.
- Sgt. O'Rourke from F Troop, who also runs a saloon and an Indian souvenir business under his commander's nose.
- Game of Thrones:
- Stannis is very capable himself, but Davos is the one who can assemble his army and acquires him ships via Salladhor Saan. He also courts the Iron Bank on Stannis' behalf and convinces them to give Stannis a loan for his war efforts, as he has better social skills than Stannis. He plays this part too with Jon and Sansa since they have no idea how to gather allies among nobles.
- Daenerys recognizes the polyglot slave Missandei as this to her master Kraznys mo Nakloz, as she is a much more competent negotiator than her master, though she occasionally has trouble translating around her master's crudities. She also becomes Dany's most trusted friend and confidant, and likewise was far more astute and politically sensitive than even Tyrion gave her credit for in his time as Hand of Meereen.
- Tywin is much, much more capable as a ruler than the Kings he has served as Hand.
- Bronn is this to the Lannister brothers, though he gets more frustrated under Jaime for having his talents abused. Jaime admits that Bronn is a far more gifted general than anyone else in his retinue, and on arriving at Riverrun, immediately assigns Bronn as his Number Two in establishing a proper siege formation and perimeter. Bronn grumbles but does it, anyways.
Jaime: You have better instincts than any officer in the Lannister army.Bronn: That's like saying I have a bigger cock than anyone in the Unsullied army. - This is a very common stereotype of Kato in The Green Hornet, primarily because, though he wasn't as bright as the Green Hornet, the series was very much aware that they had one of the best martial artists on the planet on payroll. As a result, Kato got a lot of moments to show off his physicality and skill, which made the Hornet look a bit wimpy by comparison.
- In C-drama The Holy Pearl, High Priestess Mo Yin is this for the King. When he goes AWOL, she makes sure he has sufficient guards; she throws his brother out on his ear after he attempts a coup (twice); and she governs the realm until he comes back.
- Al Borland from Home Improvement is a hypercompetent sidekick, but only on the Show Within a Show Tool Time. Tim really is a mechanical genius, but lets his reach exceed his grasp in the same way that the speed of light exceeds a highway speed limit. Tim's inventions usually fail because they are too powerful, causing them to either explode or work too well, such as a vacuum cleaner that doesn't so much clean the dirt out of the carpet as much as it cleans the carpet out of the room. Whereas Tim embodies Awesome, but Impractical, Al embodies Boring, but Practical.
- This becomes reversed when the two guest host a cooking show together. Al is the far superior cook, but Tim's inferiority complex at being upstaged by Al's abilities causes him to study hard and learn how to cook decently. Al, for his part, does not like being corrected by Tim and makes similar mistakes to the ones Tim usually makes.
- In the Spiritual Successor Last Man Standing, Tim Allen's character Mike Baxter is this to his boss Ed, being more rational and level-headed with the day-to-day operations of their store and keeping Ed from being both staunchly old-fashioned and too ready to try bizarre strategies.
- JAG: Bud Roberts when conducting research or finding witnesses. He had that role regularly in Seasons 2-4, and on occasions afterwards when sitting second chair or likewise.
- Jeeves of Jeeves and Wooster.
- In yet another Korean Drama, Lie To Me, the assistant Park Hoon is asked to do many things and provide advice on many topics.
- Luke Cage (2016): Shades prides himself on being an incredibly clear-headed number two, compared to the gangsters he works for, who all tend to let their vendettas for Luke Cage cloud their judgment.
- Maid Marian and Her Merry Men features one in each camp: the titular heroine is one to Robin Hood, to the extent she is actually in charge, while the Sheriff of Nottingham (played, incidentally, by Tony 'Baldrick' Robinson in another Bumbling Sidekick role) is one to Prince John. Both double as the Only Sane (Wo)man of their respective sides.
- Major Dad gave us Gunnery Sergeant Alva "Gunny" Bricker.
- Francis got a hyper competent assistant in one episode of Malcolm in the Middle. He ended up so reliant on the assistant he was unable to function on his own. Fortunately, the assistant fired himself for him.
- M*A*S*H:
- Former Trope Namer Radar O'Reilly, especially in Seasons 1-3, where he was running things for the somewhat overwhelmed Colonel Blake. Later seasons had the more efficient Colonel Potter, so Radar didn't need to be quite so Hypercompetent. Lampshaded in the Season 2 premiere, when a general says that it often seems as if Col. Blake is Radar's clerk.
- After Radar's departure, Klinger, originally a complete incompetent, grows into the role as part of his character development but is never quite as hypercompetent. Father Mulcahy notes that Radar had a similar start before growing into the Hypercompetent Sidekick he eventually became.
- MastersOfSex — Virginia Johnson is this to Dr. William Masters. He has the credentials and tenure, but she has the organizational expertise.
- Patrick Jane, the title character on The Mentalist, is technically only Agent Lisbon's sidekick: she carries the gun, makes the arrests, etc. But her clearance rate wouldn't be nearly so high if she didn't have Jane around.
- Merlin:
- Merlin is this to Arthur, so very much. Though Arthur is by no means incompetent, how many times has Merlin secretly saved him from an almost certain death? If you factor in the episodes in which he does it multiple times, it's practically a Once per Episode occurrence.
- Morgana gets her own in Agravaine. While she's an extremely powerful sorceress and he's not, all she seems to do is sit in her hut and cook up the next evil plan to settle her latest petty vendetta. He actually infiltrates Camelot, basically has the king doing whatever he wants, and hands her Camelot on a silver platter while she snarls at him about how horribly he does.
- They also seem to be the only ones aware of each others' skills, as Merlin is the only character who takes Agravaine's manipulative talents seriously and Agravaine is the only character who seems aware that Merlin is only pretending to be dumb to hide his intelligence. They basically spend the fourth season telling their respective bosses "He's not harmless, he's dangerous, and we need to get him out of the way" and being ignored.
- Leslie Knope in Parks and Recreation. She's The Pollyanna and a softer Ted Baxter, but the episode "Christmas Scandal" made it clear she does a LOT of the work in the department.
- Leslie started off as an analogue of Michael Scott from The Office, but the writers eventually took her in a different direction, so that by Season 3 she is acknowledged to be brilliant at her job and respected by a lot of people in Pawnee because of it. (Although she is the protagonist of the show, she is in fact a sidekick, the Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation under Ron Swanson who is pretty much happy to let her run the department.)
- In Remington Steele the apparent "boss" (Remington) is explicitly a figurehead for PR purposes and Laura is the one who is, in fact, in charge.
- Another Korean Series, Scent of a Woman, has Park Sang Woo, Ji Wook's assistant who literally does everything the job entails, and submits a report that Ji Wook then reads to the Board of Directors.
- Sherlock: John definitely, though Sherlock's competent in his own right, but occasionally does get himself in weird scenarios.
- Butler Pyo in the Korean Drama Shining Inheritance, who maintains the household and still has time for many covert side activities for his boss.
- As the page quote implies, this was the case for a good chunk of Smallville when the show introduced its version of Green Arrow. While Clark could often be surprisingly ineffectual due to the show's tentativeness with having him actually do Superman stuff, Green Arrow was allowed to be a straight-up superhero, which led to him being, among other things, the one to found the show's version of the Justice League — something he doesn't tell Clark because he thinks Clark would screw it up. A similar thing happened with Supergirl, who effectively became Superman before the actual Superman.
- On Spin City, Mike Flaherty (Michael J. Fox) for Mayor Winston.
- Walter Harriman from Stargate SG-1. He doesn't do all of the work at Stargate Command, but he has been compared to Radar. Wasn't he named after him?
- Major Marks turned into the Walter of Earth's battleships in both SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. He's served on all five of the Air Force's ships (usually whichever one is being used by the main characters at the time).
- On the villain’s side the First Prime of Lord Yu did a good job of compensating for his master’s increasing madness and senility.
- Starfleet is supposed to be an entire organization of these in Star Trek, as you have to be the best the Federation has to offer to make it as far as being a cadet. Though it obviously varies from person to person.
- Discussed in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Riker is repeatedly offered his own command, and everybody from Starfleet Command to Picard thinks that Riker is ready to captain his own vessel a few seasons in. Riker prefers to stay on the Enterprise because that's where the action is.
- Hinted at with Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. As a Joined Trill, she has over half a dozen lifetimes of memories and skills to call upon, not to mention being a master of Klingon martial arts and possessing PhDs in multiple scientific fields that she achieved both before her Joining and before turning thirty. She's happy to stay as the station's Science Officer, even though she clearly competent at commanding a starship. Sisko and Kira often turn to her for advice.
- In Episode 5x20 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Rom and Quark's mother Ishka becomes the lover and assistant of Grand Nagus Zek. Her importance isn't revealed until later in the episode, when Quark is forced into the position and finds that his mother was keeping the Alliance afloat.
- To a lesser degree Rom is to Quark, until he leaves the bar to follow his true calling, Engineering. In the lead up to the finale it's even Rom and not Quark who becomes the new Grand Nagus.Quark: [surprised] When did you get to be so smart?Rom: I've always been smart. I just lack self confidence.
- Julian Bashir turns out to be this too.
- Spock to Kirk, and likewise Data to Picard. Both are magnitudes more intelligent and mathematically/scientifically capable than their captains, but their lack of emotional empathy often makes Kirk and Picard better suited to the situation at hand.
- Stiles on Teen Wolf. The protagonist Scott is more brave than bright, and relies heavily on best friend Stiles to do the thinking. With his ADHD and general geekiness, it would seem like he should be a comic relief character, but Stiles' intelligence and bravery makes him indispensable to the usually clueless Scott. It's especially prominent in Season 1 when Scott spends most of his time mooning over Allison, while Stiles: Actually works out Scott's turned into a werewolf, does all the research on werewolf mythology, coaches Scott on how to manage his new supernatural powers, provides common sense advice to Scott's relationship problems with Allison, makes up most of the cover stories to hide Scott's secret, keeps track of the police force in Beacon Hills, looks after Scott when he's wolfed out on the full moon, comes up with plans to combat various monstrous enemies and drags a reluctant Scott along to actually fight. In fact, Stiles is so useful that Scott has to share him with Derek on the sidekick front.
- Coach Beard on Ted Lasso borders on Crazy-Prepared. Not only does he actually know the rules of the sport he and Ted Lasso are about to coach, he speaks fluent Dutch, he has three passports to different countries, he is an impressive chess player, he can successfully bluff to Oxford students that he used to teach economics there, sometimes he quotes scientific papers to make his point, and shows a lot of knowledge about various topics such as history, art, pop culture, kink and drugs.
- Subverted on Veep as Vice-President Selina Meyer has a staff that's as much a pack of incompetent screwups as she is. Amy is the most on the ball but prone to going wild at the slightest change to plans, Gary follows Selina along like a lapdog, Mike is sick of the entire job and Richard is a flat-out idiot. Most notably, Dan thinks he's this but even Selina has noted the man's nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is, every one of his plans makes himself and Selina look worse and he crumbles under pressure.
- Played straight with Sue, the personal assistant who's the only one of the staff who actually acts like a smart professional.
- In The Adventures of FATMAN, the Show Within a Show in The Weird Al Show, Fatman's sidekick, Harvey, despite having no superpowers and being a hamster, can talk and is generally more quick-witted than Fatman.
- Charlie Young in The West Wing. Not that the President is incompetent, but still, he needs all the help he can get.
- Mrs Landingham too, to an extent, until her death in Season 2. Charlie's comment to the president about why he always had a good quality pen in his pocket comes to mind.
- Also Leo to the President, Josh to Leo, and Sam to Toby.
- In What We Do in the Shadows (2019), Guillermo is responsible for keeping the vampires at all functional due to their foolish and distractable nature and ignorance of the modern world, finding most of their victims, handling bills, and keeping their house vaguely livable. Later he even handles physical aspects you might expect vampires to have the advantage at, such as disposing of vampire assassins come to kill them, due to his inherited Van Helsing talents at vampire-fighting.
- While Avon is far from incompetent, Stringer Bell in The Wire is much more cool-headed and business-oriented while Avon sees himself as primarily a "soldier". This being The Wire, though, it becomes clear that Stringer is way out of his depth when trying to deal with anything outside of the drug dealing.
- Frankengirl from Wizards of Waverly Place. First Justin's, then Alex's, then Justin's again.
- Jennifer, from WKRP in Cincinnati. Played with in that Jennifer is both the highest-paid member of the staff and the one most respected by Mrs. Carlson, the station owner.
- Yes, Minister:
- Bernard Woolley, Jim Hacker's Personal Private Secretary, who finds his loyalty split between Hacker (who badly needs his help to decipher the Civil Service red tape) and his Civil Service superior Sir Humphrey (who expects him not to tell Hacker anything that might disrupt the status quo), and usually chooses Hacker.
- On the semi-rare occasions when Hacker and Humphrey are on the same side, Humphrey is this.
