History JackBauerInterrogationTechnique / LiveActionTV

** Angel often did it as well... Merle, Angel's informant,used to get beat up for info a lot. Also in "[[Recap/AngelS04E02GroundState Ground State]]", where Angel says he "beat the building plans (for the auction house) out of a snitch".

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* An episode of ''Series/BladeTheSeries'' has [[MagnificentBastard Marcus Van Sciver]]'s people capture Shen, Blade's tech guy. Van Sciver tells [[TheMole Krista]] to extract Blade's location from Shen using torture. When Krista points out that she has no experience with tortute, Van Sciver reminds her that she served in Iraq and must have seen torture first-hand. Shen nods to her, and she removes one of his fingernails with a scalpel. When that doesn't produce results, she pretends to break one of his fingers, while breaking hers instead (being a vampire, she heals instantly) while he screams in pretend pain. Luckily, an outside event forces Van Sciver to leave.

* ''{{Series/Cursed}}'': The Red Paladins use torture to extract information from prisoners, even children. One member, Brother Salt, is their full-time torturer.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Blade}}'' has [[MagnificentBastard Marcus Van Sciver]]'s people capture Shen, Blade's tech guy. Van Sciver tells [[TheMole Krista]] to extract Blade's location from Shen using torture. When Krista points out that she has no experience with tortute, Van Sciver reminds her that she served in Iraq and must have seen torture first-hand. Shen nods to her, and she removes one of his fingernails with a scalpel. When that doesn't produce results, she pretends to break one of his fingers, while breaking hers instead (being a vampire, she heals instantly) while he screams in pretend pain. Luckily, an outside event forces Van Sciver to leave.

* ''Series/{{Barry}}'': In Season 4, Fuchs is beaten for information on who did the hit and where Barry escaped to. He doesn't know, so it's pointless.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'''s Michael Garibaldi is very good at making people ''think'' he'll use this sort of interrogation technique, but when all is said and done, he's entirely anti-torture, going so far as to turn in his badge when Sheridan tells him of his intention to torture a suspect in custody.
** Recurring antagonist Alfred Bester did this with his telepathic abilities.

* ''Series/GangRelated'': To get information on a mass murder by the Metas of civilians who didn't pay what they extorted, Ryan tortures a Meta into telling them all he knows about it.

* Subverted in the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': When Starbuck tortures Leoben for information... [[spoiler:Leoben spends seven hours giving misinformation and trying to MindScrew Starbuck. Only when the torture stops does he admit he's been lying about the existence of a bomb. And even then he manages to MindScrew Roslin]].

* ''Series/TheBoys2019'': {{Discussed}} when Hughie suggests to Butcher that they get information from Translucent. Butcher dismisses the idea, noting it took six months of waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammed for him to talk (and only once, after ''183 sessions''), and they don't have that time.

* A similar justification to the ''Buffy'' example above is used on ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' to the point that the girls casually discuss later plans to stun demons rather than killing them explicitly so they can be tortured for information.

* ''Series/DarkMatter'': An {{artificial human}} is fitted with a neural stimulation device by a Mikkei soldier to get information from him. It acts by causing him to feel the pain of, say, having his finger cut off, with no actual damage, so his [[{{Nanomachines}} nanites]] won't be triggered for repair.

* Thanks to its use on ''[[Series/LifeOnMars2006 Life on Mars]]'', it could be called the Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique. Gene and Sam force a murder suspect to take his clothes off before locking him in a walk-in freezer until [[spoiler:he confesses that his boss did it, and he dumped the body.]] And there was the incident where Ray Carling [[spoiler:had a suspect held down and forcibly given cocaine. The suspect dies in custody, and Ray gets demoted. Oops.]]
** Also used in the spinoff, ''[[Series/{{Ashes to Ashes|2008}} Ashes to Ashes]]'', involving a naked suspect and a pool table. You have three seconds to work out what it entails, and any guesses after the first don't count. Starting now.
** It's also used often on [[Series/LifeOnMars2008 the American version]].

** The episode "Mr. Monk Stays In Bed" has Stottlemeyer doing a mundane version of the trope. He and Randy go to a club to interview John Delancey, a likely suspect behind the disappearance/murder of Judge Jillian Garr, and tries to question him on what he knows about her disappearance. When the subject they find at Delancey's table denies it, he then dunks his tie into his porridge after [[IncrediblyLamePun asking if he likes "Thai food"]], and supplies his own tie to the man out of guilt after Randy tells him that they have the wrong table. Only, they discover a few seconds later it was the right man all along, so we then see Stottlemeyer helping Delancey with his newly acquired tie by tightening it to borderline stranglement.
** Stottlemeyer does it in "Mr. Monk and the End, Part I" after hitman Joey Kazarinski poisons Monk. He is seen grilling a forger who recently supplied Kazarinski with a fake ID to determine what name Kazarinski is using. The friend asks, mockingly, "What are you going to do? Hit me with a phonebook? There are no phonebooks in here, captain. Nobody uses phonebooks anymore. They all use ''computers''." Stottlemeyer replies, thoughtfully, "Yeah, you're right," as his gaze settles on a laptop in the room. The scene promptly cuts to Stottlemeyer handing Randy a smashed laptop.

* ''Series/TheOrville'': In "[[Recap/TheOrvilleSeason3E08MidnightBlue Midnight Blue]]" Topa is tortured to get the name of the Moclan female underground's contact on Moclus, and their communication methods. She gives in eventually and tells.

* A rather curious application is used in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}''[='s=] pilot episode, "A Study in Pink". [[spoiler:Jeff Hope has been shot by John Watson and is bleeding out. Sherlock knows there's no saving the guy so he demands to know who hired him before he expires. Initially Hope refuses to give up his employer but then Sherlock reminds him that, while dying, he can still feel pain and proceeds to put pressure on the open wound. This coerces the already-dying man into revealing that he was hired by a man named "Moriarty".]]

** In season four, Lex, Jason, and Lana all gets this to find out the location of some magic stone.
** In season seven, Kara is tortured to find out where she came from. Chloe is tortured to find out [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica whom she is in contact with]].

* In the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "Countrycide", Jack Harkness interrogates Martin to get information about the sinister goings-on in the town.

* ''Series/{{Watchmen|2019}}'': Angela beats a suspect who they believe is part of the racist Seventh Kalvary terrorists until he gives up their hideout's location.

* The pilot for the failed ''Series/{{Wonder Woman|2011Pilot}}'' series included a very egregious use of this. The title character goes to a crook that was in a hospital (by the way, Wonder Woman was the one who put him there) deciding to use torture to get knowledge on a woman she ''suspected'' had committed a crime. Of course, before she started to break his fingers, Wonder Woman put her [[TruthSerums Lasso of Truth]] on the guy's chest, ''pointing out'' it is called the Lasso of Truth, but going with the torture anyway! [[DesignatedHero Hooray for Wonder Woman?]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': What unbearable torture will make a Klingon perp talk? ''Tribbles!''[[note]]Though, to be fair, Klingons and Tribbles have a hate/hate relationship. Tribbles screech in the presence of Klingons, and Klingons ''hate'' that screeching.[[/note]] Kirk takes advantage of this when he learns that a shipment of grain headed to a Federation colony was poisoned at the same time that a (recently-exposed) Klingon spy named "Darvin" was on the same station as the grain.

'''Darvin:''' I have nothing to say. ''(Kirk holds two tribbles towards him and they start screeching)'' All right! I poisoned the grain! Take them away!
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In the ''Unification'' episode, an irritated Riker promises an obnoxious Ferengi Trader Prince that, if he doesn't cooperate, he's going to have him arrested and his assets confiscated, ''after'' he beats the living crap out of him right then and there. [[OhCrap The terrified Ferengi]] starts to see things his way very quickly and [[TheStoolPigeon blabs everything he knows.]]
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Garak was said to be a master of this during his time with the Obsidian Order. Among other fun times, he tortured Odo with a device that prevented him from reverting to his natural state nad broke one interogee by merely sitting and silently staring at him for hours.

** Read the ''24'' example above? Remember Jack describing the Russians forcing a towel down people's throats so when they drag it up their intestines do as well? In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E1WhenSheWasBad When She Was Bad]]", Buffy does this with a cross. Having her torture someone with a piece of metal on a chain sounds bad enough, but the victim is a vampire. Guess what the cross does.
*** However, it should also be noted that Buffy was, at the time, undergoing fairly severe PTSD and this was a sign that she wasn't her normal self.
** Also, demons aren't known for their loyalty, and therefore tend to crack rather quickly.

** Whether as Angel or Angelus, the eponymous character is quite fond of this.