Secret Test Of Character / Live-Action TV

Secret Tests of Character in live-action TV.

---

• The magician Derren Brown once did a TV special where at the end of the episode, a volunteer would load one bullet into a revolver and Derren would predict which slot was used, firing five (hopefully empty) shots at his head and the bullet into the wall. The episode up to this point consists of multiple secret tests of character to narrow the volunteers down to someone with the right mentality such that he is confident of pulling this off. For example, when the group is invited into an auditorium, the whole front row is dismissed for being too eager. Later on, those remaining are split into groups of three and asked to vote one person out — that person goes through to the next round.

---

• In The 100, Jaha and Kane are captured by the Grounders, given a knife, and are told that, if one of them doesn't kill the other before the Commander returns, then they'll both be killed. In actuality, the Commander never left; turns out the servant girl in the cell with them is the real Commander, and she wanted to observe how Jaha and Kane would react to this situation. Kane slitting his own wrist to save Jaha's life and atone for past sins he's committed impresses her, and both are allowed to live.
• In an episode of Aaron Stone, Charlie!Aaron is assigned a partner whom he witnesses stealing money. He doesn't tell or let on that he knows. She then does it a second time and this time he tells the boss. The boss tells him that it was a test. Charlie isn't impressed and states point blank that he wonders if a guy who would test someone's trustworthiness through deception and manipulation can, himself, be trusted.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • In "Turn, Turn, Turn", HYDRA begins an uprising within S.H.I.E.L.D. One high-ranking Agent corners Simmons and Triplett, claiming to be HYDRA and offering them the chance to join or die. When they refuse, they're told "Right answer. The number of people I trust is now seven." The problem with that scenario? If they actually had been HYDRA, they might've known she was lying and figured out the ruse. The Agent in question, Victoria Hand, is consistently depicted as less clever than she thinks she is, though the viewer is meant to think her prior incompetence is just her being a traitor.
  • In "Purpose in the Machine", Grant Ward has his right-hand man beat a rich young brat for information, only for the young man to turn the tables on him. It turns out he's Werner von Strucker, son of the late HYDRA leader Wolfgang von Strucker and the whole thing was to see if he had the potential to be anything like his father.
• Alex Rider (2020): Alex is abducted and interrogated by a paramilitary team working for Blunt, and subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques to ensure he wouldn't crack if he was captured.
• In the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Dry Run", Art (Robert Vaughn), a small-time crook looking to join The Mafia, is assigned to prove himself by assassinating mob associate Moran (Walter Matthau) while pretending to deliver Moran's cut of some loot. Moran, however, persuades him to instead assassinate the boss (David White of Bewitched), in exchange for $10,000 and becoming The Dragon in Moran's new outfit. In the end, it's revealed that there was no hit on Moran (the gun the boss gave Art wasn't loaded) and Moran's offer was just test of Art's loyalty to the boss. Moran gloatingly reveals this to Art before blowing him away.
• Angel.
  • Wesley abducts Angel's son Connor (as a result of a false prophecy saying that Angel will kill the child) only to be betrayed and left for dead by vampire-killing vigilante Justine. As a result, he's thrown out of Angel Investigations, so evil law firm Wolfram & Hart starts checking Wes out as a possible recruit. Attorney Lilah Morgan sets up Justine to be killed by vampires and invites Wesley to watch.
    Wes: You really don't know the first thing about me, do you? [starts to walk away]
    Lilah: Probably not. [Beat] Like, will he go straight to his car, or will he stop to warn her first?
    [Wes stops, but doesn't turn or speak]
    Lilah: He has to think about it. That's good. That's all I really needed to know. [Turns away from him] You can go.
    Wes: A test, Lilah?
    Lilah: Oh, don't look so grim. I just needed to know whether or not I was wasting my time.
  • Faith pulls a rather twisted version of one, when she at one point pulls a gun on Angel, and oddly decides to toss it to him to give him a free shot. It's so she would know whether she needed to pull a Batman Gambit to get him to kill her.
  • Angel has to endure trials to earn Darla a cure for her disease. The last trial is to sacrifice himself to save her life. He chooses to do so...but it turns out to be just a test of character.
• Used in the Arabian Nights miniseries. After proving his skill at archery by splitting his own arrow twice, Prince Hasan is told to shoot the flame off of a candle while blindfolded. He does this and lifts his blindfold to see a little boy brought to the end of the long corridor, with an apple on his head. Prince Hasan is told he must shoot blindfolded — again — and strike the apple, or he loses. He ultimately decides that the risk to the boy's life is not worth the prize. "I lose," he says. Whereupon the monk administering the test tells him that in losing, he has won, and is worthy to take the prize.
• This is how The A-Team frequently chooses their clients. It usually goes like this: Client has problem. Client tries to contact A-Team and doesn't seem to be having any luck. Client meets someone who offers them a chance to gain something in a rather unethical way. Client refuses. Person reveals himself to be Hannibal Smith in disguise and agrees to take the case. Happens way more often in the earlier episodes. Somewhat toned down as the series goes on. Not that it isn't done well, mind you.
• Babylon 5:
  • When Lyta accepts Ambassador G'Kar's invitation to help the Narns get a hand on the telepath gene years after he had asked (and after which he had done a full Heel–Face Turn). G'Kar answered that he had to add another request to her list: That she and her fellow telepaths would be willing to spy on the other ambassadors. She refuses, starts to move away and G'Kar stops her and informs her that that was his last test. Had she answered yes, he could never trust her.
  • G'Kar has been on the receiving end of such a test himself. In one scene in "Comes the Inquisitor", Garibaldi finds out that G'Kar has been smuggling weapons for the Narn Resistance through the station, so he confronts G'Kar. G'Kar, knowing that Garibaldi would never confront someone without proof, decides to save time by admitting it outright. Garibaldi rewards his honesty by providing an alternate way to smuggle weapons without involving Babylon 5 in it. When G'Kar asks why, Garibaldi replies:
    Garibaldi: Like you said, I never start a conversation unless I know where it's going, but I always leave a little room for someone to disappoint me. Thanks for not doing so.
  • Played with in the main plot of "Comes The Inquisitor". Delenn is told that the Vorlon are sending an Inquisitor to the station to test her resolve for the coming war. The Inquisitor turns out to be an apparently psychotic sadist who tortures her while telling her how worthless she is. Eventually, Sheridan comes in to stop it, and the Inquisitor turns around and starts torturing Sheridan instead. Delenn, full of righteous indignation, demands that the Inquisitor stop, and let her die in Sheridan's place. Sheridan likewise says that he'll die in her place. The Inquisitor informs them that they have passed the test. The Vorlon didn't want a pair of glory hounds, drunk on the power they would have being leaders in the coming war. They proved that they were ready to die, alone and in the dark, without anyone ever knowing of their sacrifice.
• On Big Brother Australia, one weekly task involved pretending to be police. They had to run the assault course twice. They were told that they would pass the test if the time of their second run was greater than that for their first. When they were quicker the second time around, they failed. They were then informed of the original instructions, they had to go slower on their second run. This was a test to see if they fully understood their instructions, and did not confuse a greater time (being a larger amount of time, or a longer time) with a better time (being a shorter time achieved by a faster rate).
• Bizaardvark: When Dirk and Bernie learn how wealthy Amelia is and it has a negative effect on their friendship, she gives each a 10,000 dollar check in order to negate the problem. Dirk decides their friendship is more important than money and destroys the check. Bernie, on the other hand, fakes destroying his check and immediately goes to cash it at the nearest bank. the checks were only props and could not be redeemed for money at all.
• In the final episode of Blake's 7, a worse-for-wear Blake poses as a Bounty Hunter on the planet Gauda Prime as part of a test of this nature, to which he subjects potential fellow rebels to see they are trustworthy or not. Del Tarrant fails the test and this leads to Avon killing Blake and the rest of the crew (seemingly in Avon's case) being gunned down by Federation troops.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: In "Sal's Pizza", while Jeffords and Gina are interviewing applicants for the station's new IT consultant, Gina repeatedly pesters one with an inane question about Jay-Z until he snaps, scares another away with sudden outbursts and flosses her teeth right in front of a third until he is too grossed out to continue. She later explains to Jeffords and Captain Holt that she was testing them to see whether they would fit in at the 99: Anyone working there would have to put up with (respectively) Hitchcock constantly bugging them to set him up with a new password every single day, Diaz's explosive temper tantrums and the general uncleanliness of the station and the criminals that are brought into it. Holt and Jeffords are impressed with Gina's insight.
• On Canada's Worst Driver, the "Know Your Limits" challenge involves in a slalom around foam figures placed at a distance between each other such that any of the drivers should be able to complete it successfully. The real challenge comes afterwards when after completing it they ask them by how many meters between each one they want them to tighten it. The correct answer that shows they won't take stupid risks is to ask for it to not be tightened at all, or at best by one or two meters. In at least one instance, they were delighted when one of the nominees asked them to widen it, which they happily did.
• Castle: In the Season 7 finale, "Hollander's Woods", Inspector Keith Kaufmann has Beckett show up at One Police Plaza for a performance review following her taking the Captain's exam, and immediately attacks her methods, her marriage to Castle and her being the inspiration for Nikki Heat. After Beckett's impassioned defense of all of the above, Kaufmann announces that the "performance review" was really an audition; they want Becket to run for New York State Senate, and had set up the fake performance review to see how she would respond under pressure.
• Subverted on Cheers. Rebecca's rich boyfriend Robin tells her that he's been embezzling funds from his company but is now broke and has to go on the run. Rebecca is convinced this is all a test by Robin of how much she cares for him (as it happens, she really does care for the money more). Even when she's on the road with him hitchhiking, Rebecca thinks this is all a test of her loyalty. It takes a few weeks of running in ratty hotels for it to sink in Robin really is broke and dumps him.
• On Chernobyl, Legasov, the lead scientist in charge of investigating the Chernobyl disaster, is greeted at a hotel by a pair of tourists who ask him if there's any danger. He assures them there is not. It turns out these tourists were KGB agents monitoring him to make sure he wasn't going to blow the whistle on the disaster.
• On Chicago P.D., a young woman is going undercover for the team inside a gang. She comes to a warehouse to find a friend of hers tied to a chair and the gang leader saying the teen's "initiation" is to kill her friend. She's unsure but decides there's nothing else to do as they'll kill her if she backs down. She's about to swing the machete when they all burst out laughing, the "victim" sitting up to crack "you were gonna kill me?" To her credit, the teen rolls with it, just shrugging "rules of the game" as she's accepted into the group.
• One episode of Community has Pierce pretend to be dying and bequeath gifts to the other study group members. He gives Annie a tiara and she spends the rest of the episode trying to figure out the riddle behind it. Near the end, she gives Pierce a long, complicated answer to what she thinks the hidden meaning is and Pierce congratulates her and tells her she passed. After Annie leaves, Pierce subverts the trope by admitting that he gave it to her because she's his favorite.
• One episode of Creepshow has the short "The Man In The Suitcase", where Justin, a man in financial troubles, finds a suitcase with a man forcefully and painfully stuffed into it asking to be freed from the suitcase. Causing him pain causes him to spit out valuable coins, and despite the pain he's nice and cordial about the whole thing. Turns out he is actually a djinn, and this is a secret test of character. Justin's friends Alex and Carla, who have no remorse to torturing the man for money and even try to kill Justin when he tries to stop them out of remorse, are likewise forced into their own suitcases just like the djinn had been. The remorseful Justin is spared the fate, and the djinn even offers him help should he need it.
• A darker example happens in the Criminal Minds episode "Minimal Loss". A radical fundamentalist cult leader holds a sermon and instructs his assembled followers to drink from a single chalice. After everyone has drank from it, he tells them that it was laced with poison and they will all now go to God (a la Jim Jones). He lets this sink in for a moment, then announces that there was no poison and he was really testing their devotion to him; he and his second-in-command were watching their reactions and took note of everyone who suddenly panicked at the news since they were obviously not his true followers.
• In Designated Survivor, Lyor tests a potential assistant by having her procure a document he knows she can't possibly get her hands on just to see how she goes about the task. She ends up getting the document reproduced, thereby achieving the task in all but the strictest sense.
• Doc: In "First Impressions", a famous older actress, Irene Hart, comes to the clinic, ostensibly to see if she wants to bestow an endowment on it. However, when Doc offers to drive her home after her chauffer doesn't show, he sees that she lives in an unassuming apartment building. He suspects that maybe this means she doesn't have much money, but he and Dr. Hebert still agree to let her continue hanging around because they think she needs an audience, and she perks up the office. By contrast, Dr. Crane flies into a temper when he finds out where she lives, cancelling a party he had planned in her honor and calling her an "old bag". At the end of the episode, it turns out that she owns the apartment building. She leaves Westbury Clinic a generous donation, large enough to cover everyone's personal projects...with the stipulation that Dr. Crane can't use any of it.
• One episode of Doctors has a plotline about a group of church ladies planning to welcome the new vicar. Shortly before he is due to arrive, a homeless man with drug issues comes into the church, seeking shelter. While one of the other ladies insists on sending him somewhere else, Mrs. Tembe takes pity on him and lets him stay as long as he wants to, giving him some of the food they made for the vicar. In the end, the homeless man decides it is getting rather warm and removes his coat and scarf... revealing that he was the vicar all along, and wanted to see what his parishioners were really like.
• Doctor Who
  • "The Big Bang": Rory asks the Doctor to help bring Amy back to life. The Doctor can, and he would, except A) Rory's nothing but a lump of plastic with delusions of being human, so he wouldn't really care if Amy is alive or dead, and B) the whole of existence has just been wiped out, so "Rory's" girlfriend is not as important as the entire universe–-
    Rory: [decks the Doctor straight in the jaw] SHE IS TO ME!
    The Doctor: Haha! Welcome back, Rory Williams!
  • "The Lie of the Land": Bill and Nardole sneak onto the prison ship where the Doctor is being held in an attempt to break him out... only to discover that the Doctor has been willingly working with the Monks. Bill tries everything to get him to see reason, but he's not having any of it. In a bout of desperation, she takes a gun from one of the guards and — after offering him one last chance — shoots him in the chest, not knowing that the gun is loaded with blanks. The Doctor begins to regenerate... then suddenly stops, still with the same face.
    The Doctor: [grins] Good girl!
    [everybody claps]
• In Elementary, Odin Reichenbach hires Holmes and Watson to find out who's been threatening to kill his niece. When they deduce that there were no threats at all, Reichenbach tells them it was a test, not of their detective skills, but to see to what extent they believe the ends justify the means when they thought they were trying to prevent a murder.
• An episode of Empty Nest has a new doctor joining the staff of Harry Weston's office. Two other doctors decide to prank her by telling her that they have a bet going and asking her to chip in $20. After handing him the money, she asks what the bet is about only to be told it was "whether we can con you out of $20." Their laughing is abruptly halted when she informs them that they owe HER $20, because, "I just gave you a dry-cleaning coupon," quickly proving herself to be a savvy person not to be messed with.
• Carter goes through one of these in an early episode of ER. While he is interviewed for the surgeon position he is told to tie a knot through a magnetized paperclip in the bottom of a metallic cup — apparently symbolizing sewing around a vein. Lifting the paperclip from the bottom of the cup symbolizes severing the vein. After a half-dozen failures, they ask him what he would have done if this were an actual operation. He answered that he would fix the damage and move on. They accept this and tell Carter that it is in fact impossible to do what they asked him to do. However, they liked his answer and that he kept his cool during his "failures".
• Fantasy Island has this as the standard as it becomes obvious Roarke is less granting fantasies and more teaching lessons to guests on what is really important in their lives.
• Farscape:
  • The one in "Look At The Princess" has a rather different moral than the usual. You pass the test by getting pissed and trying to kill the arsehole who claims to be tormenting you for the good of the universe.
  • Earlier in the same season, D'Argo attends to an aging Orican, who needs his help performing her death ritual. Judging him worthy basically amounts to reaching into his chest and feeling his guts. At first she deems him unworthy and a fraud: It turns out the tattoos on the chin indicate he holds the rank of general, however D'Argo is actually not a general: In his second Battle Campaign, he and his general were captured, and the latter was too badly wounded to survive interrogation, so D'Argo took on the general's rank and accepted torture on his behalf, holding out until the enemy was ultimately defeated. Encouraged by the others, D'Argo confronts the Orican (of whom even Luxan warriors are terrified) and demands the right to defend himself. It turns out the Orican knew the truth all along, and the real test was seeing if D'Argo had fire, which he proved by confronting her.
• In the miniseries Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, Ian Fleming learns of a "K Protocol" while undergoing commando training, the details of which are kept secret from him. Later in the episode, Admiral Godfrey hands him a pistol and tells him to go into a nearby building and shoot the man in a specific room — "K," as it turns out, stands for killing. Fleming sneaks into the room but finds himself unable to pull the trigger. In an inversion of this trope, Fleming really does fail the test because of this — secret agents are expected to carry out assassinations, after all. Godfrey tells Fleming not to feel too bothered, as he didn't pass the K Protocol either.
• An episode of The George Lopez Show has the manager forcing George to fire one of the two teams he's in charge of. One of them has his mom on it, but he fires that team anyway since the other team has been working better. Turns out the manager was merely testing if he'd fire his mom.
• The Season 2 finale of The Good Place has each member of the main quartet given this as a way to prove they can get to the Good Place. But each one mistakes just what the test is:
  • Jason is put into a room where he has to play Madden NFL against his beloved Jacksonville Jaguars. It's actually spelled out for him but due to the fact he's a total moron, he misses that, moaning and complaining and cutting off the omniscient judge to figure a way to let his Jags win.
    Jason: I'd be winning by like a million if I could play as the Jags instead of playing against the Jags. I hate scoring against my own favorite team. [sudden realization] But you already knew that! Because this is the test!
    Gen: Yeah, that's not a revelation or something, I explained that very clearly.
  • Tahani is put into a hallway filled with rooms, each one containing people (from celebrities to spa ladies) all talking about what they think of her. She's almost at the end but goes to see her parents who make it clear that, even in death, they consider Tahani far The Unfavorite to her sister. Tahani thinks the test was her finally standing up to her parents and learning to accept she wouldn't be good enough for them. The judge informs her the test was really to see if she could resist seeking their approval.
    Tahani: Sorry, everyone. But now that I failed, can I go back in and talk to Winston Churchill and Freddie Mercury?
    Gen: No.
  • Chidi, a ditherer of the highest order, is given the choice of picking one of two hats. He, of course, goes insane trying to figure out which is the correct one to pick.
    Judge: It took you eighty-two minutes to pick a hat!
    Chidi: Did I at least pick the right one?
    Judge: There was no right one, they're hats! Come on, man!
  • Eleanor is given the chance to go ahead on her own and realizes how she's relying on Chidi to tell her what is right or not. As it happens she realizes this is the test and this isn't the real Chidi telling her to go. She's told she's passed but she tells the rest of the group she failed to stick with them.
• Hannah Montana
  • This seems to be Robbie Ray's default method of parenting. He routinely gives his kids enough rope to either prove themselves or hang themselves. In the former case he's proud, in the latter he's usually ready with either an embarrassing punishment (like announcing to all of Miley's friends who think she can drive that he's dropping her off because she failed her driving test), a heartfelt speech containing the word 'bud', or a new, and suspiciously plot-relevant song.
  • Subverted on one occasion when Robbie Ray gives Miley a credit card. Miley is so determined not to overspend that she tries not to use the card at all and starts acting irrationally, winding up making a fool of herself. It turns out Robbie Ray didn't give her the card to see if she was ready for it, but because he knew she was — he just didn't figure that she didn't know it yet.
• Henry Danger
  • In the pilot episode, an old woman enters the Man Cave while Henry is being interviewed by Ray. Henry recognizes a tattoo on her neck that he saw on a man upstairs and attacked the intruder, successfully knocking him into the elevator. Captain Man then told Henry that the man worked for him and it was a test to see how good of a sidekick he would be.
  • Henry delivers one to Bianca, his girlfriend in "Elevator Kiss". After she kissed Kid Danger, making Henry jealous, he chose to put her in another situation where he would save her and see if she kissed Kid Danger again. He never could tell her that she was even tested.
• In Heroes, Hiro and Ando are searching for Usutu, an African who can see the future. Knowing they're coming, Usutu is always ready to whack Hiro in the head with a shovel no matter what Hiro does. Hiro eventually confers with Ando, figuring that if the two of them take on Usutu at once, he won't be able to defend against both of them regardless of whether or not he sees it coming, at which point Usutu lets them get him because Hiro decided to use his head instead of relying on his powers.
• In House, House throws in a secret test among his not-so-secret tests for his prospective team members in Season 4, but it backfires. He's hours late to meet with them, and they decide it's a test and that anyone who leaves is fired. When he arrives, he explains that he was actually going to fire anyone who stayed, but since everyone stayed, he can't fire anyone.
• Incorporated: In the first season finale, Ben is abducted and tortured for information on the Everclear device, but doesn't crack, and is even willing to let them kill his wife. This is because he's realized he's in a holographic simulation being used as a vetting process to see if he's a security risk. Since he passed, he gets promoted.
• On The IT Crowd, Douglas uses this as an excuse to pretend that his painfully obvious and feeble attempts at trying to seduce Jen after making her his assistant, which she has rejected at every turn, are one of these to prove that she really does want her job and doesn't just want to sleep her way up the ladder. Relieved, Jen takes the opportunity to explain — at length — that Douglas really isn't her type. Douglas isn't pleased.
• In an episode of JAG Harm is tasked with defending a plane captain ^note Enlisted sailor responsible for general aircraft maintenance against a charge of negligent homicide for causing a Guy in Back to die of hypoxia at 40 thousand feet. Harm, who was once an aviator thinks his client is guilty and seems to just be doing the bare minimum to get through the trial. Said client complains about Harm’s lack of enthusiasm stemming from bias and wants him replaced. The Admiral pulls Harm off the case and states that he was evaluating Harm for an appointment to the bench as a judge. But Harm failed this test because he couldn’t set aside his tendency to prejudge certain people before all the facts about the offense was known.
• An episode of Just the Ten of Us paired this with Twerp Sweating, starting with the father putting one of his daughter's dates through this, known as "The Dinner Test", asking him supposedly benign questions to see if he gives the "right" answer. All goes well until the kid enthusiastically accepts his offer of a beer. Cut to him literally being thrown out of the house. Knowing that her date is sure to fail, another daughter hires a Nice Guy to pose as the boy in question and coaches him on what to do and say.
• In The Knights of Prosperity one step in the Knights' plan to rob Mick Jaggar is for one of them to get a job at a security company. The Knight who applies is given a test run, being asked to deliver a large (but not huge) amount of money from point A to point B within a certain amount of time. The Knights consider keeping the money and ending their long-term plan but end up delivering the package. Turns out that delivering the package intact and on time is a test used by the security firm to see if an applicant is trustworthy. (The package actually contains nothing of value, just in case the applicant decides to steal it.)
• In the first episode of Kung Fu (1972), young Caine and three other boys are brought into the temple as potential students and put before Master Kan, the head of the temple. Each is given a small cup of tea and Kan gestures for them to drink. The other three drank and were immediately dismissed. It turns out proper Chinese etiquette is to let your elders drink first.
• Legend of the Seeker: In "Mirror" a man tests his lover while magically disguised as another, happily seeing she doesn't cave to threats or seduction attempts from someone else.
• On Lockwood & Co. (2023), when she applies to Lockwood and Co, Lockwood has Lucy inspect several items with her ghost-sensing powers. The first three (skull, folding knife, watch) are very potent, but the last item is just George's toothbrush cup. Lockwood throws that one in to see whether applicants will admit they can't feel anything or make something up. Apparently a lot of people before Lucy failed that one.
• Lost pulls a subversion, when the Others bring Locke his own father, who was responsible for his paraplegic injuries, and instruct Locke to kill him. When Locke decides it's a secret test and refuses, the Others turn away, disgusted that he failed the task.
  • Locke ends up getting back in their good graces by taking a third option and allowing Sawyer to do it for him, and taking the credit by bringing the body back to the Others' camp.
  • Actually, the only way Ben said he'd be allowed back was if he brought his father's body back. Ben never said that John had to kill him.
• In an episode of Love, American Style, two American Indians, of different tribes, want to marry and the elders of her tribe insist that he needs to do a Vision Quest, wearing just a loincloth. When he refuses, the elders congratulate him on passing the test, standing up to his (future) wife's ridiculous request.
• In Madam Secretary, Henry McCord has his mole in the Russian Army kidnapped and subjected to the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique to see if he can handle the pressure of being a double agent for the United States.
• On an episode of The Mentalist, Bosco has Jane jailed for wiretapping his office, so Rigsby and Cho come to him and beg him to drop the charges. Bosco says he will...if they agree to do an illegal favor of an unspecified nature for him at some future date. When they agree, he tells them that their willingness to bend or even break the law in order to get things done is evidence of the corrosive effect Jane's Cowboy Cop antics are having on their team and simply proves that Jane needs to be removed for the good of the CBI as a whole.
• One first season episode of Merlin ("The Labyrinth of Gedref") has Arthur required to pass some tests to remove a curse on Camelot caused by Arthur's arrogant killing of a unicorn. The last test is that he is told he and Merlin have to each drink from a cup, one of which holds poison. He passes by distracting Merlin, pouring one cup into the other and drinking both, thus sacrificing himself. By being willing to sacrifice his own life to save another, Arthur proves his true moral fibre, the only thing that would absolve him for having taken the life of a creature so pure and innocent.
• During a second season episode of The Mighty Boosh, Rudi gives his long-time partner Spider tickets to Rio de Janeiro and backstage passes to a Carlos Santana concert. When Spider refuses and rips up the tickets, Rudi reveals that it was just a test. Parodied in a Season 1 episode, where the tests involve returning a magic flute ("Many men would've kept the flute, for it is worth well over thirty-five Euros.") and not kissing Rudi's balls when he asks. ("Many men would've kissed my balls, for they are worth...")
• In The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nóg, Prince Garrett undergoes a trial by combat to prove himself as the Fifth Knight. When he is overwhelmed by multiple opponents he cries for help and ends the trial. Thinking he has failed, the Fairy King reveals to him that pride is his greatest weakness, and that a display of humility was what was required to pass the trial.
• NewsRadio had the following scene between Dave and Mr. James:
  Dave: I wanted to let you know that I understand now that what you put me through today was a test.
  Jimmy: Could be. Or, could be I'm just making it all up as I go along.
  Dave: Which is it?
  Jimmy: You'll never know.
• Two of them happen in Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn. First, the mother gives one to Dawn in "Take the Money and Run" by telling Dawn the bracelet she gave Dawn had sentimental value knowing Dawn had sold it in order to get tickets to a movie fan convention. The mother wanted to see if Dawn would try to get the bracelet back.
  • It happens again in "To Be Invited or Not to Be", Simone, a young rich inventor wants to befriend the quads but does not know if she can trust them. Each day, she invites one fewer quad to visit her to test whether they will tell the others about her inventions. At the end, the quads call her out on this but still decide that they still want to be friends with her.
• On Nikita, a bus of Division trainees is stolen and they're held and tortured by Russian agents who want to know about Division. Alex manages to escape on her own to get to a phone to call Nikita for help. Nikita tells her this is all a test as the "Russians" are really Division handlers and she went through the exact same thing to see which of the recruits would break. She urges Alex to get back before anyone knows she's gone and expose how she's Nikita's mole inside Division.
• In Once Upon a Time, Snow wants to give Regina (The Evil Queen) a second chance. To test her and see if she still has some good in her, Snow and Charming give Regina a knife (after a spell has been cast by Rumplestiltskin so that Regina can't harm them). Not surprisingly, Regina tries to kill Snow and fails, so is banished.
  • Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Alice gets one in "Heart Of Stone": The Red Queen is put before her, temporarily Brought Down to Normal. Alice is told that she can get Cyrus's location simply by killing the Red Queen right then and there. She refuses to do so on moral grounds and so passes the test, granting her the magical dust that ultimately reveals Cyrus's location to her.
• The Originals: Marcel has two humans, Tina and Josh, who died after drinking vampire blood, and they wake up in transition. He informs them that there's room for only one new vampire, so he puts a coin in front of them and says the new vampire will be the first to take it, while the other will die. Josh refuses, but after a brief hesitation, Tina grabs it. Marcel snaps her neck.
• An episode of Perfect Strangers had a similar situation, where Balki puts his cousin Larry and his fiancée through a series of ludicrous trials as a "Mepeot Marriage Test" to test if they are romantically compatible. Once the two have gone through this torture, Balki announces that the tests show they are completely incompatible, and their marriage is doomed to failure, to which they say Screw Destiny, they're getting married anyway and they'll make it work. Balki's response? "Congratulations. You passed the Mepeot Marriage Test with flying colors."
• Played With in The Pinkertons episode "The Hero of Liberty Gap". Kate pretends to be a Dry Crusader to talk to The Alcoholic Musgrave in jail after he tries to kill a mayoral candidate. He clams up and tells her not to come back unless she brings some booze with her. When Kate does so and Musgrave points out how strange this is, she claims that she's really an agent of the Invisible Knights of the Confederacy who was testing his loyalty — and he passed. Between this and the alcohol, Kate gets Musgrave to answer all her questions.
• On Power Rangers Dino Charge, Kendall appears to be in danger and is rescued by a handsome man. When he checks her purse, he touches the Purple Energem...and nothing happens. The whole thing is a test (the other Rangers are the "workers" nearby) to find a new holder for the gem. However, each time, either no one helps or those who do have less than altruistic motives like getting money as a reward. As it happens, when Kendall risks her life to save Keeper, the Energem decides she is the worthy candidate to make her the Purple Ranger.
• Served as Book Ends to Power Rangers S.P.D. –- at the beginning of the series, Commander Cruger asks Sky if he would follow Bridge or Syd if Cruger appointed them Red Ranger of B-Squad. Sky, who had dreamed of being a Red Ranger like his father, arrogantly dismisses both of his teammates as incapable of leading anything. This causes Cruger to assign Sky as Blue Ranger and recruit Rookie Red Ranger Jack. At the end of the series, Jack quits S.P.D. and Cruger asks Sky the same question as before. This time Sky states he would follow whoever Cruger believed was worthy of wearing the color red, which is proof to Cruger that Sky is now ready to be the Red Ranger.
• Power Rangers Wild Force: At one point, Animus has no choice but to take away the Wild Zords from the Rangers as a test to see if they can help humanity stop the Orgs from polluting the Earth.
• Princess Agents: Yuwen Yue gives Chu Qiao a razor and tells her to shave him. It's actually a test to see if she'll take the opportunity to kill him for killing her brother. She considers it but doesn't go through with it.
• In the third episode of Quantico, the trainees are required to profile their classmates in the most frank manner possible, and then the ugliest excerpts from these profiles are posted publicly, with the authors of those excerpts being identified so that everyone knows all the worst things that everyone else said about them. And then the trainees are ordered to vote on who gets kicked out of the program. Alex convinces almost everyone to abstain from voting, and nobody is cut — but Simon chickens out and submits a vote, and gets penalized. It turns out that the entire exercise was about seeing if the trainees could work past their personality differences. Trainer Miranda chews the class out as this is the first time a class chose to vote rather than stick together.
  • In the Season 2 premiere, the CIA trainees are compelled to perform halo jumps, but Bates' parachute seems to be malfunctioning, and thus Alex intervenes to pull her back onto the plane. She later finds out that this was all a test for Chronic Hero Syndrome, which the CIA explicitly frowns upon.
• In the reality TV series Rebel Billionaire, the first episode featured the contestants moving from their hotels to Richard Branson's home, with Richard Branson himself posing as their black cab driver. Several of the contestants helped Branson load their luggage, and were very polite to him. Others, well... weren't. When Branson revealed himself, the polite people had a good laugh. The ones that weren't had the expected reaction. Branson picked the two contestants who were (in his opinion) the worst of the lot, and they were removed from the show. Two contestants down, and it was only fifteen minutes into the first episode.
  • And in the end, both finalists were among the people who failed the test. Go figure.
• The first season finale of Robin Hood has Nottingham informed that King Richard is going to visit en route to London from the Crusades. Guy freaks out, figuring it's all over but the Sheriff just smirks this is his plan. As he points out, almost no one in Nottingham has ever been to London or seen the King in person and only knows Richard by the (rather embellished) stories about him. This is all the Sheriff's scheme to figure out which of the various nobles around him can be trusted. When "Richard" arrives, he has the Sheriff publicly arrested for treason. The various nobles and council members are told to report to a room if they wish to testify against the Sheriff. Those who do never come back out alive. Marian's father comes close to testifying as well, but luckily Robin and his men (who had just seen Richard and know this is an imposter) are able to expose the scheme before he does.
• The Rookie (2018);
  • Bradford is fond of saying "everything is a test" to Chen. He acts like he doesn't understand Spanish and is pulling over some Latino men because of their race. When Chen argues about it, he answers her in Spanish to ask "now was I pretending the subtle racism or not knowing the language? You don't know."
  • When Bradford is forced to take time off after being shot, Chen is assigned to a laid-back officer who talks of how he's happy to never put himself in danger. When a call comes in, he's reluctant but Chen insists they back some fellow officers up. Later at the station, Chen finds out the guy is a good friend of Bradford's and he got Chen assigned to him. Bradford states that he wanted to be sure Chen wouldn't accept such a laid-back attitude and looks forward to working with her again.
  • Chen is in a public restroom when someone reaches over the stall door to take her belt and gun. She races to tell Bradford, who chews her out for being so irresponsible. Bradford then gets a call saying his wife is in the hospital and they have to go. When Chen asks about her gun belt, Bradford just reaches into the car to hand it to her, revealing he'd stolen it and might well have driven her crazy about this "mistake" all day if not for the call.
  • Subverted as Bradford realizes an Internal Affairs officer is trying to get him to implicate himself with things like letting Mario Lopez go for a traffic violation. He and Chen find an addict who accidentally stepped into a bear trap. Thinking it's another IA test, Bradford compliments the man on his great "makeup work" before yanking the foot out...and the guy nearly bleeds to death as Bradford realizes this is for real.
  • Armstrong claims that he's giving a couple of these to Nolan their first day working together, such as testing if he'd pursue something with an ex-girlfriend while he's currently in a relationship because a man who can't be loyal to a partner can't be loyal to the badge.
  • Harper takes it up to eleven while testing if Chen is up to long-term undercover work. Taking her to meet with a drug dealer where she has to maintain her cover with a guy violently pushing his girlfriend around across the street turns out to be a big setup from everyone involved. Then she goes even further by faking that she's been found out herself and will be tortured unless Chen gives up what the cops know, even deliberately triggering Chen's PTSD over her prior kidnapping, since that may well be an issue on the job.
  • When Chen and Bradford start a relationship, Chen fakes the loss of a pair of earrings taken from a suspect while he was in custody to make a point that Bradford is letting her get away with things he would have written anyone else up for because of their relationship, affirming that they can't continue to date while he's her commanding officer.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
  • Season 1's Valentine's Day Episode has Sabrina enduring a series of tests to determine whether she feels true love for Harvey. She passes through the door of the second test and finds herself by a poolside. An extremely handsome Hunk then emerges from the pool and tells her that the test will begin in a while. The two chat, and the warlock flatters Sabrina and asks if she'd like some chocolate cake while she waits. Sabrina's about to dig in when she realizes that the guy is trying to get her to forget about Harvey, and refuses to take even a single bite. It turns out that this was the "Test of Fidelity," and by not giving into temptation, she's passed.
    • Humorously, Aunt Hilda later tries to take the same test to prove her love for her longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend Drell, only to end up eating dozens of desserts with the hunk.
  • The Season 3 finale features Sabrina and her twin Katrina, who are informed that one of any given pair of twin witches is good and one is evil. After it is determined which is which, the good twin must push the evil one into an active volcano — one of the few ways to destroy a witch, according to the episode. After various tests, Katrina is chosen as the good twin, and when they get to the volcano, she pushes Sabrina in without a second thought. Oops: turns out that was the final test, and Katrina just failed. Fortunately, Sabrina managed to grab a rocky ledge on the way down, keeping her alive. And it turns out they were lying about the whole "lava being fatal to witches" thing, too. It's also noted that this was the first time the one considered the good twin ever pushed off the bad twin, though apparently a witch named Hilda once came dangerously close...
    • The first test of the good/evil trial also counts. As the judge asks a long, complicated question, a stray dog wanders onto the beach where the challenge is being held. Sabrina immediately gets up and asks if the dog's owner is present, which makes her stop paying attention to the question and in turn get it wrong. Katrina gives a perfect answer...and it's revealed that Sabrina won the first test by caring more about a living creature than earning points.
  • Many of Sabrina's quizzes in Season 2 work this way. In "Oh What a Tangled Spell She Weaves," she has to admit that she was wrong about casting sloppy spells; in another episode, she had to embrace her fears of public speaking rather than trying to develop a magical solution to them. In general, the tests were more about her character than her skill in witchcraft, as it seemed more important to use magic right rather than technically well.
  • In the Season 2 finale, "Mom vs. Magic", Sabrina sends a letter to her mother on Mother's Day, but then learns that not only is she not allowed to see her mother until she gets her witches license, but not write to her either. As a result, the Quizmaster tells her that unless she gives up her magic and becomes a mortal, she can never see her mother again. Sabrina chooses her mother over her magic and is de-powered just long enough to visit her, but in the end, it turns out it was just another test, and she gets her magic back.
• Saved by the Bell:
  • An episode of The College Years features Zack & company in an ethics class, in which the first session involves the professor stating that only half of the class will pass. After being a hardass all semester and playing up the difficult final, the professor releases the real final as a Secret Test of Character by dropping copies of what look like answer keys. Between Zack's discovery of a fake "key" and The Reveal, Hilarity Ensues. Zack points out the professor's own behavior was unethical, and he admits Zack may have a point but says he wanted to use the whole thing to get the class to seriously think about and have a real discussion of ethics, which they start on as the episode ends. Most interesting perhaps is that Zack decided for once that cheating would be wrong.
  • A variation shows up in the parent series. When Kelly is having trouble choosing between Slater and Zack, she has a dream that imagines the situation as a Beauty Contest. She declares Slater the winner. But when Zack proves to be a Graceful Loser and says he just wants Kelly to be happy, that convinces her that Zack is the one she should pick.
• Scrubs inverts the trope in one episode. Carla refuses to give Turk sex until he proves that he really knows her. He decides to give her a pen as a gift — because she loves to write letters instead of email. But he gets a pen from what he thinks is a Lost & Found box, but really is an 'Ass Box' (as in items that were pulled out of patients' behinds). He rushes home to tell her this. She's about to get mad... but then she realizes that Turk could have lied just to get sex. So it turned into a test of character without them realizing it.
• This happened to Deuce in an episode of Shake it Up. Dina's father tasked him to babysit his pet pig for 3 days in order to inherit the Garcia family treasure. However, Deuce gives the pig to Dina who accidentally loses it. Deuce ends up taking the blame to protect Dina. However, he finds out that Dina secretly gave the pig back to her father and there was never any real treasure to begin with. Dina and her father were actually testing Deuce for his protectiveness over Dina as a faithful boyfriend.
• A Small Light: The Resistance sends Jan to assassinate a high-ranking Nazi officer in his hotel room to see if he has the ability to kill for the cause. It ends up being a set up where the officer is actually a member of the Resistance, and the entire mission was just a test for Jan.
• Used in Smallville when Clark meets Lois's dad for the first time since he and Lois got together. Her dad acts like a complete asshole and has an insane list of things that Clark needs to do in order to prove his love for her. Clark completes the tasks to the letter thanks to his powers, but the general is still not satisfied. He leaves and orders Lois to follow him. Lois explodes and demands that her father must respect the man she is in love with. Turns out the real test was on Lois since her dad figured that if she let him treat her boyfriend like that, like she had with her earlier boyfriends, then it meant that she didn't really love him.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • In "Thor's Chariot", the Asgard use a holographic series of puzzles to determine if the Cimmerians were advanced enough to meet them. They had outside help, but there was also a test of character, which showed in their actions when one of them was dangling over a chasm.
  • The "foothold situation" in "Proving Ground", and the "radiation attack" on the Stargate that tests Lt. Elliott's ability to not leave a man behind.
  • When Vala is being considered for the SGC, she is approached by the IOA. They offer to ease her entry in return for her spying on the SGC. It was, of course, a test, as the SGC has to be able to count on the loyalty of its people.
  • Vala gets a particularly cruel one in Season 9's penultimate episode "Crusade". Seevis leader of the town, has Vala chained to an altar in the middle of the town square and denied food or water for three days in order to prove that she won't turn them in before revealing to her that he's part of the resistance.
• Used in various forms throughout the Star Trek series:
  • One example that stretches across multiple shows (and even a few films) is the legendary Kobayashi Maru, part of Starfleet's training exams. Cadets are placed in a simulation where a civilian starship—the Kobayashi Maru—sends a distress call from a neutral territory. They must choose between either risking their own ship and crew to save the Kobayashi, or ignore the call and continue their own work. Both situations end badly: attempting to rescue the civilians ends in the ship losing contact with the Kobayashi and being violently attacked by Klingons, and ignoring the call ends with the Kobayashi and everyone aboard being destroyed. There's no "winning" the test; the whole point is a Hard Truth Aesop about leadership: there will be times when a captain or officer has to make a decision that ends with people dying, and being able to both make those decisions and bear the consequences is the mark of a true leader. Notably, James Kirk was so determined to save the civilians that he hacked the Starfleet computers to change the scenario and make it possible to rescue them, which won him praise from his superiors.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: In the episode "Arena", Kirk passes the Metrons' test by refusing to kill his Gorn adversary, thus showing the Metrons that humans have the advanced trait of mercy.^note The Secret Test of Character element was added for the screenplay; in the original story the script was loosely based on, the Kirk-analogue wins by killing the Gorn-analogue, though in a completely different way than Kirk uses to defeat the Gorn.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Both Worf and Picard challenge Ensign Sito to Secret Tests of Character in the episode "Lower Decks". Picard has been judging Sito's failure unfairly, but she doesn't stand up for herself. Worf helps her along by giving her a martial arts examination in which she's instructed to defend herself while blind. She eventually objects to the test's unfairness. Worf reveals that this was the true nature of the test and implies that she should give the same response to Picard. When she does, Picard reveals that he too was testing her.
    • "A Matter of Honor" puts Commander Riker (as part of an "Officer Exchange Program") on a Klingon vessel. Long story short, because of space barnacles (again, they used fancier terms), the Klingon captain thinks the Enterprise is out to destroy them and demands that Riker tell them anything that could be used to help destroy the Enterprise. Riker refuses, citing his oath to Starfleet, as well as his oath to Captain Picard. The Klingon captain (after several seconds of bristling anger) points out that, if Riker had said anything, he would be considered both a traitor (to Starfleet) and too cowardly to serve on the vessel, and thus promptly killed. Moral lesson: never volunteer for the Klingon Officer Exchange Program.
    • In a more humorous example from the same episode, his Klingon shipmates test his reaction to two female Klingons openly flirting with him in the ship's mess. Riker passes with style that would make James T. Kirk proud:
      Klingon Officer: They want to know how you would endure.
      Riker: Endure what?
      Klingon Officer: Them.
      Riker: [after an appraising look at the females] One, or both?
    • In "Coming of Age", Wesley wrings his hands over a certain portion of the Academy entrance exam where he'll have to face his worst fear. (Starfleet informally calls this the "Psych Test".) Right before the exam is supposed to start, he hears an explosion coming from another room; he's only able to save one occupant. Of course, the test was to see if he could make such decisions. It should be noted that Wesley's father died in this exact scenario and that the test places him in Picard's shoes when he wasn't able to save Wesley's father. Pretty sadistic, actually. (Although, this was not a Sadistic Choice because it was obvious which man Wesley had to save — he was only able to save the injured one. The test was to see whether he could muster the courage to even act.) Another interpretation is that Wesley failing the entrance exam the first time was his greatest fear — that of failure. Mainly to see if he has the persistence and belief in himself to re-apply. (Picard admitting to him that he failed it the first time probably helped a great deal.)
    • The Commander at the station implies there could be other secret tests of character disguised as normal exchanges after Wesley accidentally bumps into an alien who becomes belligerent. Wesley recalls this species takes apologies as false excuses of politeness, so Welsey becomes argumentative himself, which endears him to the alien.
    • Troi takes a similar bridge officer's test in "Thine Own Self", in which the only way to save the ship is to send Geordi to his death. She mistakes it for a test of technical knowledge at first, then realizes (with a little prodding from Riker about how his duty outweighs their friendship in failing her) it's to see if she can make the best decisions for the good of the ship.
    • In "Q Who?", Q responds to Picard bragging about Starfleet's preparation against any challenge by warping the Enterprise into Borg territory, which results in the deaths of 18 crew members and the Borg themselves learning of Starfleet's existence. Towards the end of the episode, as the Borg are preparing to destroy the whole ship, Q appears to gloat, and Picard admits his faults and explicitly asks for the reality warper's aid. Q smiles and immediately teleports the Enterprise to safety, explaining that the whole situation was a test (although the consequences are all real) — he wanted to see if Picard would be humble enough to admit he needed help.
  • The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Inquisition" has one of these, as Bashir is covertly put into a holodeck simulation by Section 31 to see if he is a spy. Subverted slightly in that Bashir doesn't so much prove his innocence as spot a flaw in the program, which exposes the ruse, but his performance is good enough that they figure he's on the level anyway. He's offered a position in the organization as a result, which he vehemently declines, though they leave the offer open should he ever change his mind.
  • Star Trek: Voyager:
    • "Repression" has a brainwashed Chakotay giving Tuvok a phaser and asking him to shoot the captain. Tuvok shoots her without hesitation, but the phaser doesn't work. He later rationalizes that Chakotay wouldn't give someone of questionable loyalty an active weapon, though Janeway doesn't seem convinced.
    • In "Q2", Q appeals to Janeway for help in reining in his out-of-control son ('Junior'), who is at risk of being ejected from the Q Continuum; when Janeway's attempts prove ineffective, Q tests his son's character by posing as an alien captain and forcing Junior to take responsibility for a failed practical joke.
• In the Supergirl (2015) episode "Exodus", J'onn disguises himself as Jeremiah to test Alex's trust in her father after he betrayed the DEO. She fails and consequently gets suspended from the investigation.
• In the Taxi episode "The Wedding of Latka and Simka", the lovers undergo an old-world ceremony per their religion. It climaxes with a question-and-answer test. The final question asks Latka: if a charging boar were going to attack Simka and a baby, and he could only save one, who would he choose? He chooses Simka, but is informed it was the wrong answer; thus, they cannot wed. Simka announces she will marry Latka even if they must defy their religion, and the reverend reveals that they have passed the real test — she's proven how much they truly love each other by putting that above all and thus are worthy of marriage.
• Tehran: Milad's drug dealer friends test Tamar by having a couple pretend they're undercover cops. She passes by not ratting anyone out when "arrested" and fighting them off.
• The basis behind Red's Parental Marriage Veto against Eric and Donna in That '70s Show. He didn't intend it as a test, but he was impressed by the way Eric held firm no matter what Red did to break up the engagement.
  • Jackie gave one to Kelso in "The Trials of M. Kelso" to see if he was worth getting back together with requiring him to pass three out of five. Kelso, being who he is, fails the first two, but Donna intervenes by telling Kelso about it. Kelso proceeds to pass the other three and even admits he found out about it, but Jackie decides to get back with him for being honest enough to tell her that he found out about the test.
• In the last episode of Total Recall 2070, Farve's creator simulates an attack by good guys over a communications failure, to force Farve to choose between self-preservation and greater good. Farve succeeds, but his creator itself admits it would have failed. However, there is something it values more than its own life: Farve, its masterpiece (at least after he passed the final test).
• The series finale of Touched by an Angel had Monica on her final assignment before being promoted to supervisor — to protect a mysterious drifter named Zack who's been accused of setting a bomb that killed multiple schoolchildren. When Zack is convicted, Monica decides to turn down her much-coveted promotion in order to continue protecting him in prison. It turns out that Zack was really GOD and showing Him that she could be so unselfish as to give up her dream job in order to look after a presumed nobody is EXACTLY what He needed to see to determine if she was worthy of being a supervisor.
• The reality show True Beauty runs on this trope: it's a reality show that made its contestants think it's a Next Top Model rip-off, but it judged their "inner beauty".
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Gaspar offers Billy Kinetta the opportunity to become the new paladin of the lost hour. After he does so, he asks Billy to use the watch to give him one minute with his beloved late wife Minna before he dies. Billy refuses as he believes that it would be wrong. Gaspar then reveals that this was the last test and that he is now completely sure that Billy is the right person to guard the watch. As a reward, Gaspar gives Billy one minute to talk to the Marine who died saving his life during The Vietnam War.
• This happens a couple of times in The Unit:
  • In a flashback to Bob Brown's training that led to his recruitment in the Unit, Jonas and Colonel Ryan give him a pretty obvious test of character by setting up a barbecue during a marathon and offering him a beer and some lunch. He thinks about it for a second but refuses. Later on, Bob stops to help a fellow runner who has had a tree fall on him and still manages to win, after which he's brought in for questioning and accused of killing the man. After angrily denying it, he asks Jonas how the man died and points out that the only thing he was suffering from that he was aware of was a broken leg. Jonas tells him nobody died; he just wanted to see if Bob would see through his bullshit.
  • In the last season, prospective Unit member Sam McBride is arrested and questioned about the Unit members. When he doesn't crack after hours of interrogation, Jonas reveals it was a test. McBride had a "lone wolf" reputation and Jonas wanted to see if he'd put his loyalty to the Unit above his own interests.
• On an episode of V.I.P., the team befriend a friendly Cuban guy vacationing in the U.S. While clean-shaven, his looks and mannerisms bear a suspicious resemblance to Fidel Castro. The fact he's soon targeted by a hit squad seems to back it up. Tasha meets an old KGB contact who tells her that every few years Castro decides to do a "test" to see who in his inner circle is loyal. He makes it known he'll be going on a secret vacation, leaving behind clues to where he'll be "incognito." He then has a Body Double pose as a "disguised" Castro and sees who takes shots at him. Possibly subverted as the episode's end indicates this is the real Castro actually taking a real vacation for once only for the clues to lead to him rather than the double.
• In The West Wing, the treatment that Will Bailey was subject to when he started working with the President's senior staff seemed to be a mixture of this trope (in order to determine whether he was of suitable stuff to work in the West Wing) and hazing, to the extent that it was frequently difficult to see where one ended and the other began. In one example, he was tricked into attending a meeting alone with the President to see whether he would 'tell the truth to power' and was considered to have failed in that he ended up stammering nervously for a few moments and then excusing himself in embarrassment. Will, who was under the assumption that his current post was a glorified temp job at the time and that he'd mistakenly been ushered unprepared and alone into the Oval Office with the President, responded to this particular example with understandable resentment at being tricked and humiliated, and to the rest with a mixture of firm resolve and paranoia (since he never knew when he was being tested and when he was being pranked).
• Used quite often in Who Wants to Be a Superhero?:
  • In the first episode, prospective superheroes are challenged to change to their secret identity without being seen and then race to the finish line. However, right before the finish, there's a little girl, crying that she's lost and can't find her mommy; the true test is to see who would stop and help the little girl. (Only four of the ten contestants actually do.)
  • The third episode pulls the same trick again, by asking the contestants to each choose a contestant that they would eliminate, and then explain why. In truth, this is a test of self-sacrifice; the correct response to the question is for each contestant to nominate him- or herself to be eliminated. Four of the six remaining prospective heroes pass this test.
  • The second season has a scenario where the heroes are stopped by an adoring fan who wants a picture while they are supposed to be on a mission. The lesson is "humility".
  • In short, the show relied so heavily on this trope that by the midway point of the first season, the contestants had started catching on; for instance, in the above "nominate another player" example, contestant Lemuria bragged in a private interview that she had easily seen through the trick. The producers learned their lesson and, in the second season, deliberately designed challenges to make the would-be heroes Wrong Genre Savvy. For example, in one episode, the heroes were captured by supervillainess Bee Sting, divided into teams, and forced to participate in a spelling contest; every time the letter "b" appeared in a word, the contestant had to spell out the word "b-e-e" instead, or Bee Sting would release more bees into the booths where the teams stood. A contestant named Mindset repeatedly ignored Bee Sting's rule, thinking that the "real" challenge was to not cave to a supervillain's demands. He was wrong and ended up getting eliminated for his trouble.
• An episode of Will & Grace has Will take a job at a very prestigious law firm. The senior partner then orders Will to defeat Grace in arbitration. Will obeys, but then immediately quits the job, saying that he can't work for a firm that would require him to betray his friend. The partner then pays Grace the money she was owed and gives Will a promotion, saying that he has all the coldhearted bastards that he needs.
• Wizards of Waverly Place
  • In the story arc between the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4, FBI agents nab the Russos and place them in an interrogation area after it is revealed that they were spying on them for being wizards. They escape, but not before Justin, under duress and being convinced that the agents want them to track down aliens, reveals magic to the agents. Alex does the same later to reporters in an attempt to bring peace. It is later revealed that Professor Crumbs conjured up the agents and reporters to test the Russos' character. As both Alex and Justin failed by revealing magic, both are demoted to Level 1 status as wizards after a Kangaroo Court trial, while Max, who gave the agents incomprehensible answers, improbably takes the lead by default in the wizard competition, to everyone's shock and frustration.
  • Professor Crumbs seems fond of this. in the Series Finale, the Wizard Competition is "interrupted" by Alex accidentally letting a dragon out of a storage unit that she was to have plucked a body part for to make a potion. It snatches Harper and Zeke, who were accidentally transported to the Wizard world, to its lair atop a mountain. Crumbs gives the Russos a strict time period to rescue Harper and Zeke, which they must follow lest they lose the competition and their powers. The three rescue Harper and Zeke, but not in time. They learn they are disqualified and the Wizard World was abandoned, and they must turn in their wands. The three Russos must learn to live without their powers and live a normal life working at the sandwich stop. Justin and Max blame Alex for making them late getting back, which complicates matters in the shop as they take their frustrations out on Alex, scaring customers in the process. Their parents close the shop as a result of the bickering, all three of them are in despair and are further divided, but then they reconcile, learn to work with each other, and the shop re-opens, making more money. Eventually, they are whisked back to the Wizarding world, finding out that Professor Crumbs was testing their character and family bonds in such a scenario, and the competition resumes (although the professor admits the dragon was supposed to kidnap him, not Harper and Zeke).

---