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It's kinda hard to " just relax" when something bad happens in a TV show that could easily have been fixed in other ways.
- Let's start with some Star Trek Wall Bangers:
- Star Trek Voyager, famed for notoriously bad episodes, still managed to have one episode in particular be so bad that the others noticed. "Threshold
 " was that episode. In it, the characters, while attempting to figure out a way to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, break a law of series physics... and "evolve" into newts as a result, and then make out and have baby newts. While never formally retconned (except for Tom Paris later saying he never went into transwarp, which he did in this ep), both fans and writers essentially pretend that episode never happened.
- More to the point, Voyager managed to alienate many longtime fans in its pilot by introducing a spacefaring race of desert dwellers who use water as currency because it is so scarce. On planets with oxygen-rich atmospheres. While powering their spacecraft with fusion reactors that run on hydrogen. Did they lose the recipe?
- Probably. Those particular aliens were a pack of phenomenal idiots.
- Another long running wall banger for Voyager was their constant search for deuterium... an isotope of HYDROGEN and one of the most common isotopes in the universe. Research? We don't need no stinkin' research!
- And then there was the infamous Physics-Defying Pickup Truck from "The 37's". Voyager comes across a 1936 pickup truck just floating through outer space. They beam it aboard, and discover that: (1) there's still oil in the crankcase, water in the battery & radiator, gas in the tank; (2) it starts right up as soon as someone turns the key in the ignition; (3) the lousy AM radio picks up a distress signal through atmospheric interference that none of Voyager's sophisticated communication equipment can pierce. As if that weren't bad enough, it turns out that the owner of this brand-spanking-new truck was a poor black sharecropper who (along with a bunch of other people) was abducted from Earth... in 1937. Think about it.
- Well, out of all that, the AM radio thing might have the only thing even vaguely kinda-sorta like a justification, in that it wasn't what picked up the signal when Voyager's sensors couldn't, it's just that Voyager's sensors were unlikely to be scanning for a radio band unique to Earth that probably hadn't been used in two centuries.
- The distress signal was handwaved as being on a frequency that is not normally monitored by Voyager's sensors unless told to.
- Star Trek Enterprise did this frequently.
- Possibly the worst episode of any Star Trek series ever produced (even worse than "Spock's Brain" from the original series): the Star Trek Enterprise episode "A Night in Sickbay". It wasn't merely the stupid and overly melodramatic plot, or the wooden acting. It went on and on and on, boring as hell, and what exactly was the point of it anyway?
- The episode Dear Doctor has Captain Archer withhold a vital antidote intended for an alien race dying of a serious disease. He elects to cause genocide because of a set of rules (i.e. the Prime Directive) that might be instituted in the future (he only just came up with it!) and because a second sentient race on the planet might be better off if the first race went extinct. Never mind that it lacked common sense, it also made him look like a mass murderer.
- The fourth season premiere had the Enterprise become indirectly responsible for creating an alternate Earth populated with evil space Nazis. The entire Temporal Cold War arc is dropped, with little explanation.
- How about the episode where Archer and friends head down to a planet's desert and pal around with a noble, affable Well Intentioned Extremist (who interestingly enough appeared rather Arabic and spoke with an accent) who's just doing what he must against an evil, cold-hearted, grey-jumpsuited bunch of bullies who live in high-technology cities and bomb his people for no real reason. All of this as the US was gearing up to go into Afghanistan. Gee, I wonder what the writers' opinion was?
- The finale of the show is a Star Trek The Next Generation episode in disguise, completely ignoring both shows' continuity and characterizations. The worst offender? Trip Tucker blows himself up during a hostage situation. Not once does he think to wait for a security team to arrive (T'Pol alerts everyone to intruders on the ship) nor does he try to stall for time. Instead, he has the aliens knock the captain unconscious, then lead them to a room where he intentionally blows himself up...and for what? (Keep in mind that this was a Ret Con in the book series.)
- In the hit-and-miss (they actually hit?) first season of Star Trek The Next Generation, "The Naked Now" is the supreme Wall Banger episode. The inhibition-destroying disease from the original series episode "The Naked Time" hits the Enterprise-D. During the story, Dr. Crusher is somehow not able to recognize a dangerous disease with a known history, nor does she find it in her medical database, but Commander Riker finds it in Kirk's archived Captain's Logs, which are more than 70 years old. This either implies that Dr. McCoy and/or Starfleet Medical kept terrible records, or that Dr. Crusher is illiterate.
- And that is nothing next to the fact that Data gets drunk off of the molecule! Let me spell this out for you. A sentient machine, made of metal and plastic with a positronic brain categorically different from our own, gets drunk off of a molecule that itself only causes drunkeness because of its similarity to the alcohol molecule. The whole "Riker found what the Doctor didn't" is nothing compared to that.
- In "Datalore", it's understandable for Lore to be dismissive of Wesley to slip up his disguise, but that the crew is dismissive as well, causing Wesley to basically shout it out to them? I was eight when that episode aired, and I found that moment stupid.
- Not to mention one of the stupidest lines in the whole series: the plot hinges on the fact that the crew realise Lore has replaced Data because he can use contractions in his speech while Data (inexplicably) can't say 'don't'/'can't'/I'm etc. Except when the real Data is returned and Picard asks how he is, he responds "I'm fine, sir"...
- That was a mistake by the actor, and they either didn't catch it or didn't have time to reshoot. Still pretty 'tarded, though.
- Despite Brent Spiner's Word Of God, there are those who consider this a wonderfully subtle mindscrew. That's Stockholm Syndrome for you.
- It's not season one, but this troper always considered Genesis to be the original Threshhold. An "evolution" disease causes the crew to mutate into various creatures whose blueprints were still in our "junk DNA." Barclay turns into a spider, and a cat has kittens while turning into an iguana. A cat that had been considered male. Uh........ no.
- Of course, the Spot that was male was a different breed of cat than the Spot in later episodes. Still a wallbanger, since "Data's Day" came in the middle of the series, but a different type.
- In "Q-Who", a reference to literal Wall Banging occurs: Geordi tells a new officer that she's not going to get anywhere banging into walls.
- And to prove that Star Trek The Original Series is not immune: "Spock's Brain". Spock's brain is removed from his body, and his body is hooked up to remote control when the crew of the Enterprise try to get it back...
- Out Of Jimmys Head, the fact that there's a live-action show on Cartoon Network is infuriating.
- And it's so bad it's horrible to boot. Who watches it for any length of time anyway?
- In the Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Christmas Invasion", the Doctor pretty much causes the implied impeachment of PM Harriet Jones. The reason, because she ordered an alien ship full of slavers to be destroyed. Even though the Doctor has his morals (even when it doesn't make sense), it still didn't come off right. Hell, he even mentioned in a past episode that Harriet Jones was supposed to be the guiding light for Britain in the future. She's certainly not going to be any kind of guiding light now that she's become Dalek fodder. The fact that Harold Saxon (A.K.A. The Master, the Big Bad of Series 3) replaces Harriet Jones makes this even more of a stupid move.
- This American troper just got through watching "The Christmas Invasion" for the first time and would like to add a wall banger within the above wall banger. The Doctor claims he can bring down Harriet Jones with just six words: "Don't you think she looks tired?" But the only person he told those six words to was Harriet's aide so the rumor would've had to have spread through that aide. And that aide has just witnessed a heated argument between Harriet and the Doctor complete with raised voices. The aide would have to be stupider than Ralph Wiggum to fall for that ploy.
- The Daleks In Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks two-parter also has seen criticisms of this nature, particularly regarding a plot device involving Dalek DNA being transmitted to human corpses through the use of lightning strikes conducted through the Empire State Building -- which, even in a series not particularly known for its fidelity to hard science concepts, is more than a little unbelievable.
- What's worse is that they claimed that this energy came from gamma radiation. Right, so gamma radiation = lightning and as we all know lightning moves DNA and does a job that would take a dedicated team of genetecists decades to do.
- Also when the human/Dalek/things turn on the Daleks the Dalek next to the kill switch for the human/Dalek/things waits until they have killed all the other Daleks.
- And also didn't that Dalek escape at the end when they had already said they couldn't leave Earth?
- We learn in "The Stolen Earth" that that escape was an incredible shot in the dark that even so had disastrous consequences for that Dalek. Even The Doctor said what he did was impossible, so you can't blame the Cult of Skaro for not considering it an option.
- Journey's End. Who the hell let Russell near the medicine cabinet?
- Every finale of the current Doctor Who has pretty much been a huge Wall Banger. A futuristic space station that broadcasts homicidal versions of modern game shows that's really a plot by the Daleks? CHECK. An ark containing millions of Daleks who end up fighting ghosts who are really Cybermen, with an ending that seems oddly familiar? CHECK. The Doctor gaining magical, god-like powers due to everyone chanting his name? CHECK. Two Doctors, one of them half-human, and a half-Time Lord Donna seem almost san-wait, no, they don't, really, it's completely bonkers. It's pretty sad that the first season finale is probably the most believable one...
- Rusty not only got to the medicine cabinet, he fed the characters the same idiot pills he took. Uh, guys, you have not one, but two functional teleport devices. Think they might be helpful?
- In the classic series, most of the Sixth Doctor's debut adventure 'The Twin Dilemma' suffers from Wall Banger after Wall Banger, from the decision to dress the Doctor in a costume that can be best described as a technicolour nightmare and have him attempt to throttle his companion Peri, to the sheer lack of acting skills from the titular twins whenever they're on screen.
- Likewise, the Seventh Doctor's debut adventure, 'Time and the Rani', suffers from several Wall Banger moments, including the Rani's brilliant plan to confuse the Doctor... by dressing up and acting like his companion, Mel.
- What about Mel herself? After the series tried hard to shake its reputation for being filled with Screaming Girlie stereotypes, we have an annoying, useless character whose personality can be described as "she has a whiny voice and she screams really loud and really often". She's blamed for the waning of Doctor Who in the 1980s more than Colin Baker is.
- And Colin Baker as the Doctor. That's like casting Brian Blessed as Shinji Ikari. What the hell were they thinking?
- Although from another perspective, Baker simply did the best with what he was given. Particularly as his performances in the Big Finish audios, which tone down the more Jerk Ass qualities of the Sixth Doctor (and also prevent us from seeing That Coat), have been widely praised. From that POV, the scripts were the Wall Banger, not the actor.
- Due to cancellation after Season 26, a movie which went mostly in another direction and the reboot which ignored it (so far?), the Cartmel Masterplan to freshen the image of the Doctor to a more mysterious and godlike persona now has all the hard-hitting impact of a Wall Banger.
- The Sixth Doctor episode "The Two Doctors." Humans are compared to cattle to make an uhmmm total Family Unfriendly Aesop I guess.
- And "Terror of the Vervoids" just one season later, with evil mutated plants revolting because they instinctively fear people will eat them. Take That, vegetarians! That'll teach ya to eat grass!
- Going back to the new series: the ending of "Love and Monsters" pissed this troper off to no end. Ursula dies bravely, but instead of letting her sacrifice stand, the Doctor brings her back--but only partially, so that she's essentially a face on a slab of concrete. I repeat: she is a face on a slab of concrete, possibly forever, and this is somehow supposed to be a good thing. Head, meet desk.
- Ya know what's even worse? The episode hints that Ursula and Elton still have a "love life" of some kind, Squick.
- The Doctor deactivating Harkness's teleport device/time machine. What's the point of that, besides making it a bit more convenient for Torchwood (the series, at least) not to have such a device? It's just an act of dickery on the part of the Doctor.
- Even worse is that the only thing required to make the teleporter work again is inputting two numbers! Never mind that Jack already knows them (4 and 9). The real Wall Banger is that it never occurred to him to just try every possible permutation of the digits 0 through 9 until it turned on. There are only 100 possible settings, and Jack literally has all the time in the world, so why not just try them all? You can't even argue that a wrong permutation could kill him, since he can't stay dead. Sigh...
- Stargate Atlantis had a Wall Banger episode by the name of "Sunday". Doctor Beckett moves an explosive device instead of removing people from the scene, and the writers Hand Wave it by stating that the patient "will die if moved"; just after he gets it to the bomb squad but before they can put it into their safe detonator, it goes off. On top of that, the Techno Babble behind the Applied Phlebotinum doesn't even sound plausible, and the "tumor bombs" break the rules set forth for them in the very same episode in which they were introduced. Why? Because they wanted to have a Tonight Someone Dies episode where they kill off a beloved cast member. This proved so unpopular that the producers declared that Beckett was Not Quite Dead and that he would return in a later Story Arc; they even confirmed that he would be the genuine thing, not an illusion or a clone.
- When the episode, "Kindred", rolled around, however, he turned out to be a clone after all, so...whoops?
- Even worse, that death scene was a carbon copy (well except for the exploding tumor bullocks instead of a conventional bomb) from a death scene in Greys Anatomy. Not so dramatic anymore if you have seen this before in a Love Dodecahedron Medical Drama.
- Stargate SG-1 also has its lower moments. The worst may be the two-parter "Heroes." You would think it'd be impossible to get an entertaining two-hour episode out of one joke: annoying cameramen who must be rushed out of the way whenever the chevron guy says "Unscheduled offworld activation." And you would be absolutely correct. However, this happening over and over is the whole focus of the two episodes, with naught but occasional glances over at the small matter of another SG team that has been ambushed offworld, with SG-1 needing to rescue them. In the end, a beloved major character is Killed Off For Real... offscreen. Dropped A Bridge On Him is the understatement of the century.
- Who says it wasn't entertaining? And the offworld SG team got more focus than that.
- Believe it or not, Mythbusters, with their first Viewer's Choice special; the myths were all so easy to test, they could've easily been used as "extra scenes" on the Discovery website.
- Landry and Tyra killing a man trying to rape the latter and dumping the body in the second season premiere of Friday Night Lights. Within minutes, fans were lighting up message boards about how this development completely went against the realistic, intimate portrayal of small town life the show's first season had done so well. It was highly unpopular with critics also, not one of whom has yet come forward to defend it.
- The second season of Heroes seems to be built entirely on a foundation of Wall Bangers and Idiot Balls:
- When West tells Claire that he was abducted by a man with horn-rimmed glasses, the reasonable response would've been for Claire to say "Yeah, that's my dad. He used to work for an evil company that kidnapped people but now he's a good guy". Instead, she keeps quiet. Likewise, she told him not to come to her home, but was utterly incapable of telling him it was actually dangerous, rather than that she just had overprotective parents. "Don't come if you don't want to be killed or locked up" isn't hard to say, even if she can't explain the details.
- Basically everything that Claire has ever done in her entire life is one of these. And the worst part? She's going to live forever.
- To be fair, you're trying to make sense of a female teenager's thinking. She finally has someone she can share her secret with, who accepts her. She doesn't want to ruin it by telling him "Oh, by the way, that's my dad you're talking about". Plus, she told her dad she wasn't dating, so he wouldn't find out about West. I don't think she was worried about West getting hurt, I think she worried he might try to do something to her dad, like flying up really high and dropping him, out of anger. Plus, telling West would not have added any drama to the show.
- Then there's the Maya storyline, which ended up being a colossal Shaggy Dog Story, as Maya gets shot just before the climax, and is only healed in the closing moments. Granted, this one may have been caused by the writers' strike.
- Peter being told by Hiro, Matt, and Victoria that Adam was evil, yet not even reading his mind to check if he actually wanted to release the world ending virus instead of destroy it qualifies. Granted, given that Adam's worked with a mind reader before, not to mention lived for 400 years and presumably developed a very strong willpower, it's quite possible that he's trained himself to resist all mind reading, but Peter never even tries. Also, Peter trying to open a massive vault with telekinesis and wait for Adam outside as he walks in to destroy it by himself, presumably with his sword, instead of simply phasing through it and destroying it himself. Peter seems to be a walking pile of phlebotinum that is held in check only by his Idiot Ball.
- Of course, one of the apparent main focuses of Heroes is that nobody is capable of making a good decision ever, which really is a Wall Banger in itself. About the only decision any character makes that isn't disastrously wrong is "I think I'll have the waffles"
- One episode of My Wife And Kids involves the Kyle women inventing a holiday, "Sweethearts Day", expressly for the purpose of forcing their men to buy them diamonds. Michael gets Jaye pearls when she displays a bad attitude over the phone and encourages the other men to do the same; of course, they don't, and Michael spends the rest of the episode attempting to apologize. What made the episode a Wall Banger was that it made Jaye look completely faultless, ignoring the fact that she invented the whole thing because, as she declared, Michael needed to prove how much he loved her by buying her diamonds -- completely ignoring the years of happy marriage and their three children. Quite aside from making Michael look like an idiot for going along with such bullshit, Jaye comes off as an ungrateful materialist, and is held up as the protagonist in the story for it. What an uplifting message for female viewers.
- And it isn't like he got her feces. Pearls cost money too. Should given her a homemde gift. A liquid home made gift.
- Or better yet, a fist. To be applied where necessary.
- Serena Southerlyn's reaction to being fired from the Law And Order team:
- Sara Sidle's sudden departure from CSI, shortly after she accepted a proposal from Grissom and transferred to another shift so they could be together without jeopardizing their careers, especially since her reasons for leaving (specifically "ghosts" from her past cropping up since the death of her father) fly right into the face of why she even hooked up with Grissom (him being a stabilizing point in her life that for two seasons helped her greatly).
- Sara's alcoholism also counts. Tossed in with zero foreshadowing and completely out of character - Character Development for the sake of saying "our characters aren't one-dimensional!".
- Actually, this troper found being a boozehound to be completely in character for Sara.
- Sara is still seeing Grissom, though--just off-screen. Or So I Heard (it was in a TV Guide.)
- Kamen Rider Faiz contained a running rivalry between hero Takumi (and his alterego, Kamen Rider Faiz) and Kiba (and his alterego, the Horse Orphenoch). This began as a case of Living With The Villain (even though both are basically nice guys), but soon descended into pure farce. Did I mention that the device used to transform into Faiz was frequently stolen and used by the bad guys just long enough for Kiba to assume that Takumi had done it all? Eventually they found out who the other was, but even then the rivalry wouldn't stop. At one point they're trying to make up with the other but things just get worse because their friends can't be bothered to accurately memorise one simple message. This troper realised just how contrived and forced the entire thing was during the fifteenth skirmish between Takumi and Kiba.
- In the show Brainiac: One episode had a viewer mail question which was: "Will those things that make your bike sound like a motorcycle make it run faster". They then did a test of it. When they did the bike run with the motorcycle sound device, the run was faster by the previous run (without the device) by one second. They instantly stated that the device will make your bike run faster. Yeah.
- Similarly, this troper finds it rather wallbanging how Mythbusters is steadily dropping even the faint pretenses of scientific method and ADMITTEDLY simply trying to make sure that there's a big explosion in every episode. Because we poor drooling fans apparently can't be happy unless we see a "big boom" every week.
- CSI New York, the episode centered around Second Life. Sure, the episode had about every inaccurate gaming trope (despite help from the game's developers), but the real Wall Banger to me was when the perp got away. First of all, she was so desperate to get away, she shot an innocent bystander, and then leaps down a garbage chute. Yet in the shot between those, we see her walking calmly down a flight of stairs, and at a clipped stride due to six-inch heels. Wouldn't she have yanked her footwear off to go faster? And despite that hobbled pace, she still manages to outrun the police, who didn't take that long to see that bystander was safe. In other words, I was asked to accept bad Video Game portrayals in that episode, not to accept the final chase to follow slasher flick physics.
- On the topic of CSI video game episodes, CSI Miami's 'Urban Hellraisers' episode is incredibly stupid. From the guy playing himself to death to the entirely wrong portrayal of video games to the game company having people commit crimes from the game for advertising is stupidity after stupidity for an hour straight.
- How about CSI's Fur and Loathing? Behind Wall Banger Number One: Latex lining for a Fursuit! Yes, latex, which traps heat and moisture in an already extremely warm costume. He'd cook in that thing.
- The lonelygirl15 episode "Alone in the Woods" provoked an overwhelmingly negative reaction from the fanbase when the TAAG leave odd but well-meaning Brit Steve stranded in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, just because Daniel doesn't like him. This after Steve has accompanied Jonas to the USA at great personal risk just to help the gang out, and been shot in the arm by an assassin who was aiming for the gang. The fact that Steve is a popular character from another show, KateModern, only makes things worse.
- Many fans were angry when Gina died in "Prom: It's To Die For", with many insisting she was only knocked out. By a bullet to the head.
- The X Files season 9 episode Jump The Shark (one can only presume the title was meant to be ironic) gave the initial appearance of being a tongue-in-cheek comedy episode centred on fan favourites The Lone Gunmen, only to end up killing off all three of them in the most shamelessly moronic manner imaginable. They quite clearly had enough time to escape between pulling the alarm lever and the emergency doors sealing them in, and yet they didn't even try. And if for some reason that wasn't possible why would all three of them need to stay behind? And what the hell was the point the bad guys' plan in the first place: killing thousands of people with a virus . . . just for kicks, apparently.
- "Audrey Pauley", from the same season, the one where Reyes spends most of the show in a dollhouse. Seems to have been filmed from five completed pages of script. Nor does it help that the villain may as well have the word "EVIL" tattooed on his forehead, yet no one suspects him.
- Even Battlestar Galactica is guilty of this on occasion.
- Subjectively, "Unfinished Business". Apollo and Starbuck slept together during their time on New Caprica, then she leaves without saying a word and gets married to Samuel Anders the next day. And then they work out their grievances. In the ring. While both of their individual spouses stand there watching...but didn't you know? They did it for True Love!!!
- This troper considers the true Wall Banger to be that Apollo slept with Starbuck in the first place. At least Starbuck is in character for being promiscuous, emotionally unstable, and uncaring of who or what she damages. Lee, on the other hand, was -- note the verb tense -- a character defined by his unwavering devotion to what he thought was right, not what he wanted.
- On the trail of a cannibal killer, the third season of Bones ended with the Character Derailment of Zack, in a last-second reveal that he was an apprentice cannibal killer. With no lead-in or explanation whatsoever. The writer's admitted they made their decision at random and it was only hastily written in two months before the shooting. Next season it will be revealed that Booth is an Iraqi transvestite prostitute during the season finale, no doubt.
- In the most recent episode of The Unit, the titular Unit is called in to help defuse a hostage situation. Instead of bringing in a team of expert soldiers to clear the building out like expected, they instead send a few troops to train the local SWAT team in basic room-clearing tactics. When the issue comes up about shooting around hostages, the Unit has the SWAT officers train to deal with this by firing between their moving teammates with live ammunition. Then, when the time comes for the assault on the terrorists, the Unit troops (who are supposed to be advising the SWAT team and haven't participated in any of their clearing excercises up until this point) lead the way wearing civilian clothing and armed with pistols when the rest of the SWAT officers are properly armored and armed with submachineguns. Isn't this show supposed to be somewhat realistic?
- Supernatural: In All Hell Breaks Loose, John manages to stroll out of hell, saves Dean from getting shot by Azazel, give his boys an 'I'm proud of you' look and goes up to heaven in a cheap, white light. Nice, if slightly cheesy, right? Wrong. Dean's going to be in hell for a shorter time than he was and suffer PTSD when he gets out so there's no way he should be fine, Sam just gets a stiff nod (which isn't exactly making up for him being sent for coffee in My Time Of Dying) and the boys don't exactly have much to be proud of. Dean gets to commit suicide, Sam's killed a human in cold blood and Bobby and Ellen got to close the gate while they were pinned to a grave and a tree. Not to mention that they've made clear that he's a terrible father who has messed them up horrifically badly. So you could be forgiven for either feeling completely frustrated or having a bitter taste in your mouth. (Which might have been the intention but you really can never tell with this show.)
- Obligatory Buffy example: Summer's Blood. All through season 5, it was repeatedly stated that Dawn was the Key, and there was something that she could do that no one and nothing else could. But the, at the final moment, it turns out that Buffy can take Dawn's place and die instead of her. Granted, it exists to set up a Heroic Sacrifice (and possibly a Crowning Moment Of Awesome) for Buffy, but this Troper personally wishes that Buffy would have had to sacrifice Dawn or watch her sacrifice herself; it would have been more poignant and not cause this troper to suddenly scream at the screen due to the nonsense.
- For this troper, it was seeing Buffy kicked out of her own house in the seventh season.
- What with her dictator-like behaviour in both that episode and Get It Done (and the fact that she's proven right anyway), this troper would have to say that she completely deserved that.
- Power Rangers has a bad one in the Operation Overdrive season. It doesn't affect the plot or derail and characters, but is so overwhelmingly stupid it deserves a place here. Tyzonn, the Mercury Ranger, and Crazar, and alien cat beast, are grappling in a desert, when Crazar throws a handful of sand in Tyzonn's face, which is currently encased in a helmet with a full faceplate and no visible openings. Tyzonn inexplicably reacts by yelling and clawing at his visor, just as if he had just gotten sand thrown in his eyes, as opposed to having some grains bounce off his helmet. Head, meet wall.
- If you want one that does derail the characters, you want Just Like Me. Ty fanboying Will, Will suddenly being Mr. Teamwork, and Mack acting like a general leading his army (yeah, Red is usually the leader, but nobody put Mack in charge and for the first half of the season, they made a point of giving everybody a turn to initiate the Transformation Sequence - a typical Red privelege.) is all kinds of wrong. For tropers who aren't familiar with Power Rangers, imagine Luke Skywalker circa Return of the Jedi suddenly being Han Solo's biggest fanboy, taking it to a "lovesick puppy" level. Now imagine Han acting like your average character from a 1980s-to-early-1990s cartoon, all about teamwork and The Power Of Friendship, And Knowing Is Half The Battle. Now imagine Lando (post-Heel Face Turn, pre-Generalship) acting like Qui-Gon. And top it off with everybody acting like all this has always been the normal state of affairs. Head, meet wall. Preferably Bruce Kalish's head.
- Not quite long (or bad) enough for Wrestling's So Bad Its Horrible section: The recent TNA demi-feud between Samoa Joe and Kevin Nash recent escalated with Nash - in his role as Joe's slightly scuzzy Obi Wan - telling Joe that you have to fight with your brain as well as your brawn. Sage advice, coming from anyone other than Nash, who at 7 feet tall and nearly 300 pounds has never fought a match (much less won one) where his style was anything other than "brawl brawl, Big Foot, Power Bomb. Not to mention his "mind games" have never come into play anywhere other than backstage politics. He compounded his comedy of errors by telling Joe how to do things right by challenging Booker T... and proceeding to wrestle the stereotypical "throw the smaller guy around" big-man's style. It's one thing to have one character bold face lie about his accomplishments, it another to have that character go out and prove the lie a lie in the ring. Doing it all within an hour then expecting the audience to take it at face value? *headwall*
- There is an episode of Wishbone in which the titular dog is wrongly accused of knocking over trash cans and covering yards with their contents. The culprit is a much larger, more foul-smelling dog (though in the humans' defense, Wishbone is the only character who specifically mentions the smell, so it's possible that only his sensitive nose can detect it). His primary accuser is a female dog catcher who appears married to the idea of "he was there; therefore, he is guilty." The height of the stupidity in that episode is a scene in which Wishbone, chasing after the other dog, passes in front of the porch ... and immediately, the dog catcher steps down, snaps a photo, and says "They always return to the scene of the crime!" The closeup shot of Wishbone, sitting there and staring up at the camera, without any of the garbage visible, is treated as conclusive proof by the other human characters. This is exacerbated by the fact that the tip of the actress's shoe was visible in the shot of the porch as Wishbone passed in front of it. So she only saw Wishbone, and didn't notice the much larger brown dog right in front of him, and didn't even consider the possibility that it might be someone else? It gets better, though -- when Wishbone finally catches up with the other dog, and contrives that the humans see it at the same time as a garbage-covered yard ... they automatically point their finger at the larger dog, and Wishbone is cleared of all suspicion. The other dog is, in fact, guilty, and Wishbone is not, but really ...
- In Walker Texas Ranger the whole 2 part episode about AIDS. I don't like that disease like everybody else does, but the fact that they made 2 EPISODES out of it further boggles my mind.
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