Trojan Horses in Live-Action TV series.
- Angel: How the Circle of the Black Thorn are defeated. Angel manages to fake a Face–Heel Turn convincingly enough for the Circle to let him join; in so doing, he's able to identify their members, and arrange for them to be assassinated separately by different members of his own team.
- The A-Team once used a Trojan Whiskey Delivery Truck to get inside a convent that had been taken over by South American Guerrillas (who had just run out of booze).
- Better Call Saul: In "Sabrosito", Jimmy and Kim need to get pictures of Chuck's house to document his state of living for their case at Jimmy's upcoming disciplinary hearing. To do so, Kim secretly cancels an appointment Chuck has made to get his door repaired, and Jimmy sends Mike Ehrmantraut to the house at the time of the originally scheduled appointment. Mike then breaks out a drill, which is enough to cause the electromagnetically sensitive Chuck to panic and hide upstairs, but not to the point of shooing Mike away. Chuck had just exploited his own illness to get at Jimmy, and Jimmy is now acting in kind.
- In The Bill criminals have been mugging doctors sent to treat patients in-house for the drugs they are carrying. Reg Hollis comes up with an idea he got from "this Greek chap". Next time the doctor is attacked, there are two policeman hidden in her car waiting to arrest the muggers.
- Blake's 7:
- In "The Harvest of Kairos", the Liberator is captured this way while robbing a transporter of its cargo of valuable crystals. To avoid an Obvious Trap, The Dragon sacrifices three advanced Federation cruisers and has an ambush waiting inside the transporter. Having defeated what appear to be vigorous attempts to defend the cargo, our heroes trundle the cargo containers on board the Liberator without a second thought, not knowing there are more soldiers hidden inside.
- In "Moloch", our heroes have to land on a planet covered by a highly advanced defense screen. Since they can't teleport through, they just teleport Tarrant and Vila onto a transport on its way to the planet.
- Averted in "Stardrive" when the Scorpio hugs close to a rogue asteroid to sneak past a planet's detection grid. There's a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome when they collide with the asteroid and have to spend hours fixing the damage.
- The Chaser's War On Everything attempted towing a literal Trojan horse
(containing Chas dressed as a Greek soldier) into a number of secure locations. They got into a surprising number. Except for, hilariously enough, the Turkish embassy in Sydney. Troy was in what is now Turkey. - In episode 33 of Chouriki Sentai Ohranger, "The Five Robos' Great Riot", the Ohrangers trick Bacchus Wrath into bringing the new secretly-constructed Blocker Robos inside his base by disguising them as powerful, jewel-decked blocks and presenting these as a gift. Once inside, the Ohrangers activate the robos and trash the place.
- Investigating the casino robbery in "Suckers", the CSI crew soon discover that a thief had been hiding inside a replica suit of antique Japanese armor, which was placed in the secure room with other valuables. Subverted in that the casino's owner had actually arranged the theft himself, so only acted like he'd been fooled by the Trojan Horse tactic.
- Doctor Who:
- In "The Myth Makers", the Doctor is actually the one to suggest the idea of a giant wooden horse (after his earlier suggestion of catapults to fling the soldiers over the walls is rejected) after being captured by Odyessus during the Siege of Troy.
- The Axonite given to Earth by the Axons in "The Claws of Axos".
- Also deliberately invoked in "Underworld" and "The Armageddon Factor".
- Not to mention the several occasions on which the TARDIS (with occupants) has been hauled into the stronghold of the opposition, either as a valuable piece of technology or merely a curiosity.
- "The End of the World": As part of the villain's plan, the other guests on Platform One are given gifts (the soiree includes the exchanging of "gifts of peace") with spider-robots hidden inside, which the guests than carry into their suites past all the security systems. The robots can then go out and wreak havoc on the station's systems.
- Part of The Caper in the Farscape episode "Liars, Guns and Money" involves hiding Rygel in a cargo container, then depositing the container in the bank they are intending to rob.
- In The Good Place; Jason and Pillboi's plan to rob a restaurant is to have a disguised Pillboi install and uninstall a safe actually containing Jason, who'd steal the money in the time inbetween. However, not only do the restaurant's workers catch on immediately, Jason suffocates to death as the safe is airtight and doesn't have any sort of ventilation (the fact that he was also doing whippits while inside didn't help either).Pillboi: At least he died doing what he loved; a bunch of whippits. Now he's never gonna get the life he truly deserved.
Prawnmandler: Eh, I think he got roughly what he deserved. - The Great Martian War 1913–1917. Operation Trojan Horse involves horses carrying the means of destruction to a seemingly victorious enemy. Presumably whoever thought up the name figured that invaders from another world would not be familiar with The Odyssey.
- The final episode of Leverage features a trojan murder investigation: the team fakes their own deaths, then attaches themselves to the investigation leading to said deaths (which allows them free access to a room they were unable to break into on their own). Sterling references this explicitly, calling himself a trojan horse after realizing he'd been duped into unlocking that room and letting them in.
- An earlier episode featured a variation. When Hardison is captured, the villainous executive assumes that there is no possible way that the incriminating files he had just finished deleting could now get out. While Hardison and his hard drive had no way out that didn't apply to the executive and his cell phone, which Hardison had just finished downloading the files to before he was captured. Parker manages to lift the phone after Hardison convinces him to go outside. There was also the fact that while the incriminating files were the original objective, they weren't the most valuable thing on those servers, that would be the food patents that the company owned. Nate is able to use those to leverage the executive into turning himself in.
- The Magician: In "The Illusion of the Fatal Arrow", a hitman uses scuba gear to hide inside a fuel tanker in order to infiltrate a high security research facility.
- The Mission: Impossible team uses tricks like this to get people or equipment into or out of the area they are operating in, regularly.
- The NCIS episode "Trojan Horse". A guy gets into the evidence locker to tamper with evidence by hiding in the stuffing of a seat of a taxi made to look like a crime scene.
- On NUMB3RS, a group of criminals plan to kill a prisoner who is about to turn state's evidence. Their plot involves an overly complicated scheme that first involves killing power to sections of LA to cause the prison to run their generators out of fuel. As more fuel is required, the criminals hide inside the fuel truck to plan their entry into the prison. However Fridge Logic kicks in when you realize that the tanker was empty. Apparently the prison guards fail to check the inside of the truck or even tap the side to see it is empty.
- Odd Squad:
- In the second part of the Season 2 finale, "Odds and Ends", Oona bakes a three-layer cake big enough to fit Oprah and Otis inside, so that she and Olympia can smuggle them into Precinct 13579's Headquarters. It ends up working, with no one suspecting them, and despite the interior being made of wood, it's perfectly edible.
- In "Orla's Birthday", Oswald tells Omar about Odd Squad's Great Cake Wars back in ancient times, which Orla fought in and lived through. The illustration presented during his explanation depicts a bunch of bakers jumping out of a cake, targeting the Sprinkle Queen.
- Porridge: In the film episode, Fletcher and Godber unwillingly escape from the prison, having been caught up in Oakes's escape plot. They are made to hide in the luggage compartment of the bus belonging to a visiting football team. Later, they use the same method to break back into the prison. Godber even comments on how this is like a Trojan horse.Godber: It's like the Greeks invading Troy.Fletcher: Would you mind sparing me the history lesson until we get back into our flowery dell?
- The Professionals. In "The Acorn Syndrome", Ray Doyle is driving around the countryside in a horse transport van to look for a hideout being used by kidnappers. When he finds the right place, it turns out there's a squad of CI5 agents hidden in the back.
- In the Grand Finale of Sense8 this is how the main characters sneak into the building where Whispers is being hidden. Most of the characters (save the ones acting as technical support) disguise themselves as a tour group who "accidentally" drive their bus into the building's courtyard where the engine conveniently stops working (actually a rigged smoke bomb meant to look like the engine's broken). The characters go as far as taking selfies with the guards to really sell the "clueless tourist" angle.
- Sharpe and the Chosen Men did this at least twice. Once with the youngest of their number groaning on a stretcher while the French-speaker shouted about cholera, once with Harper covered in blood from a pulled tooth and pretending to be mortally wounded until the time came to attack.
- Spartacus: Blood and Sand:
- In "Balance", the rebels kidnap Glaber's wife and offer to trade her back in exchange for a wagon full of supplies. Instead, Glaber sends a wagon full of mercenaries, and the rebels barely escape.
- In "Blood Brothers", the rebels had formed an alliance with the pirate Heracleo who regularly sends ships filled with supplies. Eventually, he betrays them by sending a ship filled with Roman soldiers.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In the pilot episode, Quark generously provides a bag to some Cardassians so they can take their gambling winnings back to their spaceship. The bag turns out to be Odo, a shapeshifting alien. Odo uses this trick a number of times during the series, including as a means of keeping an eye on Quark.
- One story on Urban Legends featured a midget thief who robbed bus passengers by hiding in a large duffel bag, which an accomplice set out with other riders' luggage for the driver to stash in the cargo bins.
- Vikings: How the third raid on Paris is successful, with Ragnar using himself as the Trojan Horse.
- The Wire has a few examples.
- Lieutenant Charles Marimow. When the Major Crimes Unit is causing problems for Rawls, Rawls has Marimow take over command and disrupt the unit from within. Marimow forces the unit to focus on "street rips," which is the exact thing the unit was created to get away from, rendering the MCU useless. Rawls even calls him "Marimow, my Trojan Horse," making clear that he uses Marimow to break up any unit causing problems for him.
- In "All Due Respect", Omar Little gets into a Barksdale stash house disguised as an old man in a wheelchair, claiming to be related to the home's owner. He even has the guards carry him up the stairs before he pulls out his gun.Stash Guard: Hey, yo, Omar. Yo, all due respect, but this, right here? This a Barksdale joint, man.
Omar Little: [Glasses Pull] Do tell. - In season 3, the Major Crimes Unit is trying to track the burner phones used by Avon Barksdale's gang, but it's impossible to get a tap on them because they replace them every two weeks, and the wireless company's turnaround time for responding to wiretap requests is a week. McNulty and Greggs find out that Bernard, the runner assigned to make the pickup runs, is buying them in packs of two at each store to avoid suspicion, which is much to his girlfriend Squeak's annoyance. The unit has Bubbles (who doesn't know Bernard, but used to know Squeak) approach Squeak, claiming that he can hook them up with a black market cellphone salesman who can cheaply sell them burner phones in bulk for a low discount. The "black market cellphone salesman" is actually an undercover Lester Freamon, who smoothly convinces Bernard and Squeak to bulk-buy pre-tapped phones from him.
- The Yes, Minister episode "Bed of Nails" uses the term for a task that would mean political suicide for the clueless minister James Hacker, who has been duped into accepting the position. This leads to this page's opening quote. Next, he becomes confused with Ancient Grome (since he did not attend Oxbridge).Bernard Woolley: Hence the tag "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes", which you'll recall, is usually and somewhat inaccurately translated as "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts". Or doubtless you would have recalled had you not attended the LSE.
James Hacker: Greek tags are all very well, but can we stick to the point?
Bernard Woolley: No, the point is, Minister, just as the Trojan horse was Greek, what you call a Greek tag is, in fact, Latin. It's obvious, really: The Greeks would never suggest bewaring of themselves, if one can use such a participle, and it's clearly Latin not because "Timeo" ends in "o", as the Greek first person also ends in "o". No, there is a Greek word "Timao" meaning "I honour", but the "os" ending is a nominative singular termination of a second declension in Greek and an accusative plural in Latin, though actually Danaos is not only the Greek for Greek, it's also the Latin for Greek. - Xena: Warrior Princess: Literal trojan horse in Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts episode.
