History AwesomeButImpractical / LiveActionTV

* ''TheDeadliestWarrior'' had some, noticably the Ballista. It's a giant catapult shooting bolts as heavy as the horse it's aiming at. It is an instant kill weapon, has very long range, and is highly accurate. It got 7/1000 kills. I guess seige weapons with no possible reload time isn't good in a 3 on 3 fight.

** The [[BoomStick staff weapon]]. It looks great, it's flashy, it fires orange bolts of plasma, it doubles as a melee weapon... until you find it out that it's inaccurate, slow-firing and the chances of surviving a hit is ridiculously high for the main characters. This doesn't stop [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Teal'c]] being {{badass}} with it, but even he switches to P90-s in the later seasons.

** There is some debate as to how practical a weapon the bat'leth might (or might not) be. Every test of bat'leth wielder vs. swordsman results in humiliating defeat for the bat'leth's wielder, but how much of this is the weapon, and how much is the simple fact that nobody has any real idea how to fight with such a thing, is uncertain. What's seen in the show is purest {{Flynning}}.

** In-universe, the bath'leth was probably born as a dueling and show-off weapon, as the name is Klingon for 'sword of honor' and the one owned by Kahless, that is said to be the most ancient, is ridicously decorated. Why modern Klingons started carrying it in battle, is something this troper cannot rationalize.

* Done [[{{Understatement}} often]] on MythBusters. Driving a car so fast that it can't be caught by a police radar, making a child float by using thousands of balloons, chopping down a tree with a machine gun... the list goes on.

** To be fair, they try to only use the WaveMotionGun when there's no other choice.

* ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'' had the [[BoomStick staff weapon]]. It looks great, it's flashy, it fires orange bolts of plasma, it doubles as a melee weapon... until you find it out that it's inaccurate, slow-firing and the chances of surviving a hit is ridiculously high for the main characters. This doesn't stop [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Teal'c]] being {{badass}} with it, but even he switches to P90-s in the later seasons.

* [[CoolShip The ''Excalibur'']] from ''[[BabylonFive Crusade]]'' had the ability to fire a supercharged shot that could kill pretty much any ship it faced. Downside? It almost drained the ship, leaving it vulnerable for a minute. A minute in which the destroyed enemy ship's buddies could use to wail on it.

* [[CoolShip The Excalibur]] from ''[[BabylonFive Crusade]]'' had the ability to fire a supercharged shot that could kill pretty much any ship it faced. Downside? It almost drained the ship, leaving it vulnerable for a minute. A minute in which the destroyed enemy ship's buddies could use to wail on it.

* Serpentera from the Power Rangers. Ostensibly powerful enough to destroy a planet, but it kept running out of power when it came time to actually fight the Power Rangers. Despite being the largest Zord ever in the series, it was hardly effective beyond its first few appearances. The behind-the scenes reason for this was the limited footage of Serpentera available from the original Sentai.

** Other weapons like the Nest of Bees (getting only 15 kills) can be a big wow factor for fans. Fireworks that shoot 32 flaming arrows randomly with no accuracy isn't battle efficient in squad fights, but at the same time it IS 32 flaming arrows!
*** Both weapons were ''very'' practical... In the right environment. They were designed to be used during sieges, either enacting or defending against, or rows of them lined up against MASSED infantry. Showing up in individual or small-squad battles would be like aiming a Galleon's entire broadside of canon against one rowboat.

* ''TheDeadliestWarrior'' had some, noticably the Ballista. It's a giant catapult shooting bolts as heavy as the horse it's aiming at. It is an instant kill weapon, has very long range, and is highly accurate. It got 7/1000 kills. I guess seige weapons with no possible reload time isn't good in a fight.

* Done [[Understatement often]] on MythBusters. Driving a car so fast that it can't be caught by a police radar, making a child float by using thousands of balloons, chopping down a tree with a machine gun... the list goes on.

* ''TheDeadliestWarrior'' had some, noticably the Ballista. It's a giant catapult shooting bolts as heavy as the horse it's aiming at. It is an instant kill weapon, has very long range, and is highly accurate. It got 7/1000 kills.
** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint the Ballista wasn't meant to kill people]]. It's a ''siege'' weapon. It's meant to break down fortifications. If you're aiming it at individual horses and riders, you're doing it wrong.
** Other weapons like the Nest of Bees (getting only 15 kills) can be a big wow factor for fans. Fireworks that shoot 32 flaming arrows randomly with no accuracy isn't battle efficient in squad fights, but at the same time it IS 32 flaming arrows!

* The Excalibur from ''[[BabylonFive Crusade]]'' had the ability to fire a supercharged shot that could kill pretty much any ship it faced. Downside? It almost drained the ship, leaving it vulnerable for a minute. A minute in which the destroyed enemy ship's buddies could use to wail on it.

* The ''PowerRangers'' franchise has Zords. The idea of having five vehicles combine seems incredibly awesome, but the questions that arrive from this are astounding, mostly regarding how to combine and steer the thing, alongside how to make a bipedal robot maintain balance. And don't even think about making them look and move like real animals (Tthe way [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l82LcdmU1QQ the Saber-Toothed Tiger ran]] kind of defied physics.)
** The worst one is Serpentera, Lord Zed's personal zord, which is the arguably the largest, and most powerful zord there is. But it runs out of power quickly, before it can even finish off the rangers.
* ''TopGear'''s V8 Blender.

* A cut-down, stockless lever action rifle, (aka the Mare's Leg) has appeared in the hands of several western heroes. Examples in clude {{Steve McQueen}} in ''Dead or Alive,'' ''TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr.'' and ''{{Firefly}}''. Several gunsmiths have made real-life versions, and Rossi/Taurus recently announced a model will enter mass production. While it looks completely awesome, this doesn't change the fact that such a gun serves no purpose whatsoever in real life.

*** It remains to be seen how these things perform when given proper ergonomics, like a stock and sight, after all a P-90 may be able to go ful auto, but it's hardly a recommended setting, and people have survived bullet wounds, whereas staff blast seem to be fatal almost instantly.
** The Goa'uld Death Glider is the ultimate embodiment of this trope. It's fast, agile, apparantly able to be easily mass-produced and has an incredibly long lasting power source. So what destroys the awesome of this fighter? Its armament, the dual Staff Cannons. Every problem mentioned with the staff weapons above are multiplied when you try and scale up the damn things. For starters they're slow and unguided making them useless in a dogfight, they only fire in a straight line meaning that because they are mounted at the wing tips they are useless for aerial strafeing runs against infantry — it is actually possible to fire an entire barrage at a man standing on the ground and completely miss, and, they are also actually quite weak; the impact seems to be the equivalent damage of a grenade. So what do Tau'ri do when we come to copy the thing with the F-302? we strap a couple of AMRAAM's to it, creating a craft that has been victorious against every small fighter it's ever been fielded against. Incidentally, the Staff Cannons also destroy the fighting abilities of Goa'uld Motherships - they can't hit for hell either.
** It should also be pointed out that either the staff weapons are even weaker than we all believe or that the Goa'uld were progressively making the armour of the Death Glider thinner as the series went on. In the very first episode of ''SG-1'', the Glider absorbed multiple Staff hits from both Teal'c and O'Neill producing no visible damage - only to be downed by a Stinger that only produced a small crater in the side of the craft. Fast forward to ''Continuum'' and a squad of Gliders were completely destroyed by a few machine gun rounds from a couple of [=MiG=]'s. Maybe the Goa'uld were also hit by the recession...
*** Worth noting, most fighter jets built since the early 1950s carry rapid firing cannons, using 20-30mm explosive shells which pack considerably more punch than the smaller machine gun rounds.

* One ''[[BlakesSeven Blake's Seven]]'' episode had a two-part weapon system called something like (I've forgotten the exact name) the "Incipient Molecular Instability Projector And Key". The idea is that you shoot your enemy with the Projector, but this doesn't kill him; it only induces ''incipient'' molecular instability. To convert this to ''real'' molecular instability, and thus kill him, you have to fish in your pockets/pack for the Key and activate it... except of course that you never get the chance, because long before you've done so, he's bopped you over the head with a less techy/acronymic but vastly more practical weapon.
** It was actually intended as more of an assassination weapon than as a traditional firearm. Still, you have to ask just what advantage (if any) it would have over a good old fashioned sniper rifle.
*** If I remember the episode, it was actually used more like a slavery device... do what we say, or I'll hit the button. It kind of makes sense in this role, as it's somewhat more practical than constantly keeping a gun pointed at someone.
* ''StarTrek'' phaser rifles. Sure, they shoot cool beams and can stun rather than kill. Which is great for the hand phasers, since they are more for exploring than war. But the rifles are supposed to be for warfare and have a terrible firing rate. A current day assault rifle is far superior. Also, any time they expect battle and use the hand phasers instead of something better.
** Although ''DeepSpace9'', being the first Star Trek to show "real" war, did explore more practical version of the phaser rifle.
** In one episode, when Kira was teaching a young neophyte about weapons for guerilla warfare, she rejected the phaser rifle because it was ''too'' advanced and versatile. Guerilla warfare requires sturdy simple things that can be tossed around and not make you stop to figure out which of the sixteen settings and other adjustments would be most efficient.
** The latter Pulse Phaser rifles (the ones built like a modern rifle) never appear to use the stun feature, only being issued for combat. Hand Phasers/the stockless, double handled rifles were meant for officers as a "utility", since the very flexible nature of a Phaser allowed for much more than shooting enemies, while the more standardized ones were simpler and meant for general issue in case of emergency.
** The hand phaser of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was a laser weapon (yay!), but it also had no scope, no sights, a thumb trigger with no guard, a very short barrel that pointed slightly downward, a bulge in its midsection that makes it more or less impossible to sight down, and no visible means of reloading. Some try to justify how anybody can hit ''anything'' with something like that by claiming it has auto-aiming, but the number of times {{Red Shirt}}s have completely missed point-blank says otherwise. This is supposedly a case of WriterOnBoard, since Gene Roddenbery wanted the series to have pacifist views.
** The Borg are arguably the most awesome enemy in ''Star Trek'' history and the American equivalent of the Cybermen. Unfortunately pretty much everything about them is impractical. Lets start with the Drones: personal force fields that can adapt to any energy weaponry no matter how powerful - that is also completely useless against projectile weapons and blunt force trauma. Each Drone has many times the strength of a human - also slow, unintuitive, unarmed, unresponsive to threats, have a tube sticking out their head that deactivate them at the slightest exertion and, apparantly because they lack any form of back up, they question their free will without a seconds hesitation when cut off from the hive mind. Then there are the Cubes; large, powerful, fast and possessing a generalized structure allows the ship to remain operational even after 78% of the ship has been destroyed... which also means that if they need reinforcements on board ship to fight off intruders or technicians to repair damage they have to walk a long ''long'' way.
** Or they could just [[MundaneUtility get there instantly]] with the [[TransportersAndTeleporters transporters]]. Preferably [[OffscreenTeleportation Offscreen]].
*** Transporters themselves ought to be mentioned. Cool rides, but the number of things that can jam them...
* Quite a few of the 'pimped' cars in the show ''PimpMyRide''. Sure they may look great, have brand new speakers and sub woofers built into the boot/back, and even brand new tv screens fitted into the bumper and back of the car. This is amazing until you realise your car is much more susceptible to vandalism and theft, most likely far more fragile, and go through car batteries like there's no tomorrow. And this isn't even taking into account how expensive repairing any of this is going to cost should they get damaged. The owners would be best off selling the car ASAP and buying a regular one.
** In one episode of the British version of ''Pimp My Ride'', one car was fitted with a fake tan spray machine and a nail decorating machine in the boot/trunk.
* The Daleks from the classic series of ''DoctorWho'' — there is a reason why every Doctor has had an epic showdown with them. Unfortunately, upon further examination the capabilities of these machines are greatly exaggerated. For example, the New Series Daleks are equipped with 360-degree Dalek guns, dense armour protected by a nigh-inpenetrable force field, anti-gravity capable of letting them travel anywhere at speeds similar to a car and is capable of actually cleaning that otherwise vulnerable eyepiece. Contrast that with the original Daleks and... oh dear. They are only capable of firing in a straight line, are completely flumoxed by anything with a gradient, ineffective armour, an unprotected eyepiece and, whilst the modern Daleks have a hacking/killing tool that only ''looks'' like a plunger; these classic Daleks really ''are'' equipped with a redundant plunger for reasons that are probably best left to themselves.
** The TARDIS has some elements of this. Sure, it's great for travelling through time and space, but when the Doctor attempts to simply fly it down a highway he can barely keep up with a taxi, bumps into the ground once or twice, and manages to apparently set the controls on fire. Justified in that A) it's an obsolete model that hasn't exactly been brought in for regular maintenance and B) it's actually designed to be piloted by six people at once. So for the Doctor to use it, he has to employ such tricks as running around the console like a madman, attaching string to various controls to manipulate them from a distance, and even [[PercussiveMaintenance hit the console with a hammer]] on occasion. And even then he frequently misses his destination, sometimes by light years or centuries. And that [[MostWonderfulSound awesome sound]] it makes? Apparently he leaves the brake on (though he claims he likes it).
* [[TopGear V8 Blender, anyone?]]
** This could apply to anything on ''Top Gear''.

* Serpentera, [[PowerRangers Lord Zed's]] personal zord, which is the arguably the largest, and most powerful zord there is. But it runs out of power quickly, before it can even finish off the rangers.

*** It remains to be seen how these things perform when given proper ergonomics, like a stock and sight, after all a P-90 may be able to go ful auto, but it's hardly a recommended setting, and people have survived bullet wounds, whereas staff blast seem to be fatal almost instantly.
** The Goa'uld Death Glider is the ultimate embodiment of this trope. It's fast, agile, apparantly able to be easily mass-produced and has an incredibly long lasting power source. So what destroys the awesome of this fighter? Its armament, the dual Staff Cannons. Every problem mentioned with the staff weapons above are multiplied when you try and scale up the damn things. For starters they're slow and unguided making them useless in a dogfight, they only fire in a straight line meaning that because they are mounted at the wing tips they are useless for aerial strafeing runs against infantry — it is actually possible to fire an entire barrage at a man standing on the ground and completely miss, and, they are also actually quite weak; the impact seems to be the equivalent damage of a grenade. So what do Tau'ri do when we come to copy the thing with the F-302? we strap a couple of AMRAAM's to it, creating a craft that has been victorious against every small fighter it's ever been fielded against. Incidentally, the Staff Cannons also destroy the fighting abilities of Goa'uld Motherships - they can't hit for hell either.
** It should also be pointed out that either the staff weapons are even weaker than we all believe or that the Goa'uld were progressively making the armour of the Death Glider thinner as the series went on. In the very first episode of ''SG-1'', the Glider absorbed multiple Staff hits from both Teal'c and O'Neill producing no visible damage - only to be downed by a Stinger that only produced a small crater in the side of the craft. Fast forward to ''Continuum'' and a squad of Gliders were completely destroyed by a few machine gun rounds from a couple of [=MiG=]'s. Maybe the Goa'uld were also hit by the recession...
*** Worth noting, most fighter jets built since the early 1950s carry rapid firing cannons, using 20-30mm explosive shells which pack considerably more punch than the smaller machine gun rounds.

* One ''[[BlakesSeven Blake's Seven]]'' episode had a two-part weapon system called something like (I've forgotten the exact name) the "Incipient Molecular Instability Projector And Key". The idea is that you shoot your enemy with the Projector, but this doesn't kill him; it only induces ''incipient'' molecular instability. To convert this to ''real'' molecular instability, and thus kill him, you have to fish in your pockets/pack for the Key and activate it... except of course that you never get the chance, because long before you've done so, he's bopped you over the head with a less techy/acronymic but vastly more practical weapon.
** It was actually intended as more of an assassination weapon than as a traditional firearm. Still, you have to ask just what advantage (if any) it would have over a good old fashioned sniper rifle.
*** If I remember the episode, it was actually used more like a slavery device... do what we say, or I'll hit the button. It kind of makes sense in this role, as it's somewhat more practical than constantly keeping a gun pointed at someone.
* ''StarTrek'' phaser rifles. Sure, they shoot cool beams and can stun rather than kill. Which is great for the hand phasers, since they are more for exploring than war. But the rifles are supposed to be for warfare and have a terrible firing rate. A current day assault rifle is far superior. Also, any time they expect battle and use the hand phasers instead of something better.
** Although ''DeepSpace9'', being the first Star Trek to show "real" war, did explore more practical version of the phaser rifle.
** In one episode, when Kira was teaching a young neophyte about weapons for guerilla warfare, she rejected the phaser rifle because it was ''too'' advanced and versatile. Guerilla warfare requires sturdy simple things that can be tossed around and not make you stop to figure out which of the sixteen settings and other adjustments would be most efficient.
** The latter Pulse Phaser rifles (the ones built like a modern rifle) never appear to use the stun feature, only being issued for combat. Hand Phasers/the stockless, double handled rifles were meant for officers as a "utility", since the very flexible nature of a Phaser allowed for much more than shooting enemies, while the more standardized ones were simpler and meant for general issue in case of emergency.
** The hand phaser of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was a laser weapon (yay!), but it also had no scope, no sights, a thumb trigger with no guard, a very short barrel that pointed slightly downward, a bulge in its midsection that makes it more or less impossible to sight down, and no visible means of reloading. Some try to justify how anybody can hit ''anything'' with something like that by claiming it has auto-aiming, but the number of times {{Red Shirt}}s have completely missed point-blank says otherwise. This is supposedly a case of WriterOnBoard, since Gene Roddenbery wanted the series to have pacifist views.
** The Borg are arguably the most awesome enemy in ''Star Trek'' history and the American equivalent of the Cybermen. Unfortunately pretty much everything about them is impractical. Lets start with the Drones: personal force fields that can adapt to any energy weaponry no matter how powerful - that is also completely useless against projectile weapons and blunt force trauma. Each Drone has many times the strength of a human - also slow, unintuitive, unarmed, unresponsive to threats, have a tube sticking out their head that deactivate them at the slightest exertion and, apparantly because they lack any form of back up, they question their free will without a seconds hesitation when cut off from the hive mind. Then there are the Cubes; large, powerful, fast and possessing a generalized structure allows the ship to remain operational even after 78% of the ship has been destroyed... which also means that if they need reinforcements on board ship to fight off intruders or technicians to repair damage they have to walk a long ''long'' way.
** Or they could just [[MundaneUtility get there instantly]] with the [[TransportersAndTeleporters transporters]]. Preferably [[OffscreenTeleportation Offscreen]].
*** Transporters themselves ought to be mentioned. Cool rides, but the number of things that can jam them...
* Quite a few of the 'pimped' cars in the show ''PimpMyRide''. Sure they may look great, have brand new speakers and sub woofers built into the boot/back, and even brand new tv screens fitted into the bumper and back of the car. This is amazing until you realise your car is much more susceptible to vandalism and theft, most likely far more fragile, and go through car batteries like there's no tomorrow. And this isn't even taking into account how expensive repairing any of this is going to cost should they get damaged. The owners would be best off selling the car ASAP and buying a regular one.
** In one episode of the British version of ''Pimp My Ride'', one car was fitted with a fake tan spray machine and a nail decorating machine in the boot/trunk.
* The Daleks from the classic series of ''DoctorWho'' — there is a reason why every Doctor has had an epic showdown with them. Unfortunately, upon further examination the capabilities of these machines are greatly exaggerated. For example, the New Series Daleks are equipped with 360-degree Dalek guns, dense armour protected by a nigh-inpenetrable force field, anti-gravity capable of letting them travel anywhere at speeds similar to a car and is capable of actually cleaning that otherwise vulnerable eyepiece. Contrast that with the original Daleks and... oh dear. They are only capable of firing in a straight line, are completely flumoxed by anything with a gradient, ineffective armour, an unprotected eyepiece and, whilst the modern Daleks have a hacking/killing tool that only ''looks'' like a plunger; these classic Daleks really ''are'' equipped with a redundant plunger for reasons that are probably best left to themselves.
** The TARDIS has some elements of this. Sure, it's great for travelling through time and space, but when the Doctor attempts to simply fly it down a highway he can barely keep up with a taxi, bumps into the ground once or twice, and manages to apparently set the controls on fire. Justified in that A) it's an obsolete model that hasn't exactly been brought in for regular maintenance and B) it's actually designed to be piloted by six people at once. So for the Doctor to use it, he has to employ such tricks as running around the console like a madman, attaching string to various controls to manipulate them from a distance, and even [[PercussiveMaintenance hit the console with a hammer]] on occasion. And even then he frequently misses his destination, sometimes by light years or centuries. And that [[MostWonderfulSound awesome sound]] it makes? Apparently he leaves the brake on (though he claims he likes it).

* A cut-down, stockless lever action rifle, (aka the Mare's Leg) has appeared in the hands of several western heroes. Examples in clude {{Steve McQueen}} in ''Dead or Alive,'' ''TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr.'' and ''{{Firefly}}''. Several gunsmiths have made real-life versions, and Rossi/Taurus recently announced a model will enter mass production. While it looks completely awesome, this doesn't change the fact that such a gun serves no purpose whatsoever in real life.

* The ''PowerRangers'' franchise has Zords. The idea of having five vehicles combine seems incredibly awesome, but the questions that arrive from this are astounding, mostly regarding how to combine and steer the thing, alongside how to make a bipedal robot maintain balance. And don't even think about making them look and move like real animals (Tthe way [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l82LcdmU1QQ the Saber-Toothed Tiger ran]] kind of defied physics.)
** The worst one is Serpentera, Lord Zed's personal zord, which is the arguably the largest, and most powerful zord there is. But it runs out of power quickly, before it can even finish off the rangers.

* A cut-down, stockless lever action rifle, (aka the Mare's Leg) has appeared in the hands of several western heroes. Examples in clude {{SteveMcQueen}} in ''Dead or Alive,'' ''TheAdventuresOfBricoCountryJr,'' and ''{{Firefly}}''. Several gunsmiths have made real-life versions, and Rossi/Taurus recently announced a model will enter mass production. While it looks completely awesome, this doesn't change the fact that such a gun serves no purpose whatsoever in real life.

* ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'': the [[BoomStick staff weapon]]. It looks great, it's flashy, it fires orange bolts of plasma, it doubles as a melee weapon... until you find it out that it's inaccurate, slow-firing and the chances of surviving a hit is ridiculously high for the main characters. This doesn't stop [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Teal'c]] being {{badass}} with it, but even he switches to P90-s in the later seasons.
** Made explicit in one episode where O'Neill (with two l's) is training some rebel Jaffa to use P-90s. After an impressive demo comparing the firearm's superiority, he explains "This (the staff weapon) is a weapon of terror. Its purpose is to intimidate the enemy. This (the P-90) is a weapon of war. Its purpose is to ''kill'' the enemy."

** The Goa'uld Death Glider is the ultimate embodiment of this trope. It's fast, agile, apparantly able to be easily mass-produced and has an incredibly long lasting power source. So what destroys the awesome of this fighter? Its armament, the dual Staff Cannons. Every problem mentioned with the staff weapons above are multiplied when you try and scale up the damn things. For starters they're slow and unguided making them useless in a dogfight, they only fire in a straight line meaning that because they are mounted at the wing tips they are useless for aerial strafeing runs against infantry - it is actually possible to fire an entire barrage at a man standing on the ground and completely miss, and, they are also actually quite weak; the impact seems to be the equivalent damage of a grenade. So what do Tau'ri do when we come to copy the thing with the F-302? we strap a couple of AMRAAM's to it, creating a craft that has been victorious against every small fighter it's ever been fielded against. Incidentally the Staff Cannons also destroy the fighting abilities of Goa'uld Motherships - they can't hit for hell either.
** It should also be pointed out that either the staff weapons are even weaker than we all believe or that the Goa'uld were progressively making the armour of the Death Glider thinner as the series went on. In the very first episode of SG-1 the Glider absorbed multiple Staff hits from both Teal'c and O'Neill producing no visible damage - only to be downed by a Stinger that only produced a small crater in the side of the craft. Fast forward to ''Continuum'' and a squad of Gliders were completely destroyed by a few machine gun rounds from a couple of [=MiG=]'s. Maybe the Goa'uld were also hit by the recession...

* [[PowerRangers Zords.]] The idea of having five vehicles combine seems incredibly awesome, but the questions that arrive from this are astounding, mostly regarding how to combine and steer the thing, alongside how to make a bipedal robot maintain balance. And don't even think about making them look and move like real animals (Tthe way [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l82LcdmU1QQ the Saber-Toothed Tiger ran]] kind of defied physics.)
** The worst one is Serpentera, Lord Zeds personal zord, which is the arguably the largest, and most powerful zord there is. But it runs out of power quickly, before it can even finish off the rangers.
* One [[BlakesSeven Blake's Seven]] episode had a two-part weapon system called something like (I've forgotten the exact name) the "Incipient Molecular Instability Projector And Key". The idea is that you shoot your enemy with the Projector, but this doesn't kill him; it only induces ''incipient'' molecular instability. To convert this to ''real'' molecular instability, and thus kill him, you have to fish in your pockets/pack for the Key and activate it... except of course that you never get the chance, because long before you've done so, he's bopped you over the head with a less techy/acronymic but vastly more practical weapon.

** Although DeepSpace9, being the first Star Trek to show "real" war, did explore more practical version of the phaser rifle.

** The hand phaser of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was a laser weapon (yay!), but it also had no scope, no sights, a thumb trigger with no guard, a very short barrel that pointed slightly downward, a bulge in its midsection that makes it more or less impossible to sight down, and no visible means of reloading. Some try to justify how anybody can hit ''anything'' with something like that by claiming it has auto-aiming, but the number of times RedShirts have completely missed point-blank says otherwise. This is supposedly a case of WriterOnBoard, since Gene Roddenbery wanted the series to have pacifist views.
** The Borg. Arguably the most awesome enemy in Star Trek history and the American equivalent of the Cybermen. Unfortunately pretty much everything about them is impractical. Lets start with the Drones: personal force fields that can adapt to any energy weaponry no matter how powerful - that is also completely useless against projectile weapons and blunt force trauma. Each Drone has many times the strength of a human - also slow, unintuitive, unarmed, unresponsive to threats, have a tube sticking out their head that deactivate them at the slightest exertion and, apparantly because they lack any form of back up, they question their free will without a seconds hesitation when cut off from the hive mind. Then there are the Cubes; large, powerful, fast and possessing a generalized structure allows the ship to remain operational even after 78% of the ship has been destroyed... which also means that if they need reinforcements on board ship to fight off intruders or technicians to repair damage they have to walk a long ''long'' way.

*** Transporters themselves ought to be mentioned, cool rides, but the number of things that can jam them...
* Quite a few of the 'pimped' cars in the show PimpMyRide. Sure they may look great, have brand new speakers and sub woofers built into the boot/back, and even brand new tv screens fitted into the bumper and back of the car. This is amazing until you realise your car is much more susceptible to vandalism and theft, most likely far more fragile, and go through car batteries like there's no tomorrow. And this isn't even taking into account how expensive repairing any of this is going to cost should they get damaged. The owners would be best off selling the car ASAP and buying a regular one.
** In one episode of the British version of PimpMyRide, one car was fitted with a fake tan spray machine and a nail decorating machine in the boot/trunk.
* The Daleks from the classic series of Doctor Who - there is a reason why every Doctor has had an epic showdown with them. Unfortunately, upon further examination the capabilities of these machines are greatly exaggerated. For example, the New Series Daleks are equipped with 360 degree dalek guns, dense armour protected by a nigh-inpenetrable force field, anti-gravity capable of letting them travel anywhere at speeds similar to a car and is capable of actually cleaning that otherwise vulnerable eyepiece. Contrast that with the original Daleks and... oh dear. They are only capable of firing in a straight line, are completely flumoxed by anything with a gradient, ineffective armour, an unprotected eyepiece and, whilst the modern Daleks have a hacking/killing tool that only ''looks'' like a plunger; these classic Daleks really ''are'' equipped with a redundant plunger for reasons that are probably best left to themselves.
** The TARDIS has some elements of this. Sure, it's great for tavelling through time and space, but when the Doctor attempts to simply fly it down a highway he can barely keep up with a taxi, bumps into the ground once or twice, and manages to apparently set the controls on fire. Justified in that A) it's an out of date model that hasn't exactly been brought in for regular maintenance and B) it's actually designed to be piloted by six people at once. So for the Doctor to use it, he has to employ such tricks as running around the console like a madman, attaching string to various controls to manipulate them from a distance, and even [[PercussiveMaintenance hit the console with a hammer]] on occasion. And even then he frequently misses his destination, sometimes by light years or centuries. And that [[MostWonderfulSound awesome sound]] it makes? Apparently he leaves the brake on (though he claims he likes it).
* [[TopGear V8 Blender Anyone?]]
** This could apply to anything on the show.

** When made from scratch, it's legally classified as a "level-action pistol", not a rifle. It's also useful in close-quarters combat, same as any carbine or shipboard weapon. It has a smaller profile than the usual SMG, Carbine, Shotgun or Machine Pistol. Whether it's ''practical'' when dealing with the reduction in firepower and fire rate is another matter.