History EpicFail / LiveActionTV

* On ''Series/CrimeSceneKitchen'', the teams investigated the clues from one challenge to determine what dessert was baked and that they now had to recreate. There were some noteworthy failures.

* On ''Series/CrimeSceneKitchen'', the teams investigated the clues from one challenge to determine what dessert was baked and that they now had to recreate. However, none of them figured out that the dessert they were supposed to make was cheesecake. One of those teams ran a cheesecake shop, so they should have known from professional experience.

* In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode of ''Cake Wars'' as one of the judges lampshades, because there is such a limited time frame something is bound to go wrong. In the same episodes one of the contestants ''forgot to add sugar to her cake!''

* On ''Series/CrimeSceneKitchen'', one challenge had none of the teams figure out that the dessert they were supposed to make was cheesecake. One of those teams ran a cheesecake shop.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Khal Drogo's grand plan to take back the Iron Throne with an army of Dothraki barely even gets off the ground even though it was pretty much all set up for him, as he continuously antagonizes the Dothraki and alienates Daenerys, his only real ally. Then he really crosses the line by breaking their sacred 'no steel in Vaes Dothrak' rule, threatens their khaleesi and gets himself killed.

* In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "Parting Gifts", Wesley shows he strapped a dagger to his thigh and boasts about being well prepared. During the big fight scene at the end, he is unable to unstrap it.

'''Spencer:''' '''''[[ViolationOfCommonSense How can that even happen?!]]'''''

* ''Series/EurovisionSongContest'': The dreaded [[BeamMeUpScotty Nul Points]], when a country fails to score even a single vote, is this in the eyes of Eurovision fans. Under the current voting system scoring absolutely nothing means that the contestant has failed to impress both the viewing public ''and'' the national judging panels.

** Not only does River Song rebel, but when the Silence try to force her hand in killing the Doctor anyway after her HeelFaceTurn, she successfully gets around the attempt and the TimeyWimeyBall disruption creates an AlternateTimeline that threatens to cause the end of all reality...
** ...and when the Silence alternatively attempt blowing up the Doctor's TARDIS with the same end goal in mind, doing so threatens the totality of reality with a ApocalypseHow/ClassZ on the ApocalypseHow scale; which will cause the whole of reality to, for all intents and purposes, have never been born, and which actually succeeds in erasing everything but the Earth (for the time being). Basically, on the process of trying to save the universe from experiencing the Time War again, the Silence caused an ''even worse'' apocalypse to threaten the entire multiverse.

* Frank Spencer from ''Series/SomeMothersDoAveEm'' pretty much embodied this trope. He tried to fix a toilet in a hightech house (which he'd broken when he found using it to be trickier than one might expect) and ended up stuffing it full of various household goods (including, if memory serves, a plant), flooding the house's electrics, causing every piece of equipment to go crazy and basically resulting in it nearly killing the occupants.

* A constant problem Alex Trebek has with the contestants on Celebrity Jeopardy is their many ways of failing the simplistic challenges. Best example when the Final Jeopardy was for the contestants to ask themselves a question then answer it, Catherine Zeta Jones asked herself what sound a doggy makes, and failed to answer it.

* On ''Series/WillAndGrace'', Jack takes part in a gay-themed spelling bee. None of the contestants are able to spell "maitre'd" including a contestant who ''is'' a maitre'd.

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E3UnderTheLake Under the Lake]]", Clara's social-interaction cue cards don't work out the way she hoped.

** The Silence's assassin River Song not only rebels, but almost ''destroys the universe'' trying to prevent the designed victim's death. And that's not to mention that StableTimeLoop thing...

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'':
** Chandler wishes to quit a gym (which he has not been attending) as it keeps on siphoning money from his bank. After a 'warm-up' session with Chandler trying to instill his confidence, Chandler and Ross visit the gym, and when Chandler goes into the manager's office to talk, the gym boy chats Ross up, and calls [[AmazonianBeauty Maria]] to make Ross reconsider. ''Ross instead ends up joining the gym with Chandler as a result.'' Also, when Chandler and Ross try to close their accounts to help them stop the money siphoning, the manager calls up [[DistractedByTheSexy his attractive secretary]] (Noticing a Pattern here?), which led them to rather make a ''joint'' account. In short, '''from prepping up Chandler to say No to the gym, they themselves not only ENDED up joining, but also made a joint account.''' Rachel notes the irony while smirking at the two.

** In season 31, Bret and Chris who had gotten to the detour first with a three hour lead over the last three teams on a later flight spent two hours total doing a needle in a haystack challenge rather than the fairly simply memory challenge. They give the memory challenge a try once then go back to the needle in a haystack before ultimately going back to the memory challenge which once they actually try, they get quite easily. They leave the detour in last place and can't make up the time and get eliminated.

* In ''Series/GoodNewsWeek'', Sammy J and Randy are playing StripPoker. When they show their hands, Sammy having 7 cards as oppose to the standard five, says he thinks he has a five of spades. When Randy tells him the difference between clubs and spades, he realizes Sammy never knew this despite them playing for three hours. Sammy thought they were interchangeable. Sammy tries to play a Queen, only for Randy to tell him he played a three of diamonds instead. Sammy defensively says that [[InsaneTrollLogic Queens wear diamonds.]]
** Later in the skit, Sammy J refuses to gives money to the volunteer from the Wilderness Society until he takes off his possum costume. Sammy convinces him to play a few rounds of StripPoker in order to get him out of the suit. SmashCut to the volunteer worker still in costume and Sammy J completely naked, forcing Sammy to donate.

** When they tried to make their own [=RVs=], the whole thing was the ''definition'' of this trope.

'''Spencer:''' '''''[[ViolationOfCommonSense How is that even possible?!]]'''''

** The infamous Amy's Baking Company is basically an entire establishment of EpicFail, to the point this is the one place where Gordon just gives up and walks out on them. It remains the only restaurant on the series with [[Recap/KitchenNightmaresS6E15AmysBakingCompany its own trope page]] precisely because it topped all others before or since in pure concentrated fail.

----

* A break down of one team's communication in ''Series/MasterChefAustralia'' Season 7's relay cooking challenge[[note]]the contestants are divided into teams for each member to cook one at a time similar to relay race[[/note]] results the the team's spectacular failure that is still referenced by judges and viewers alike whenever the challenge appears in later seasons. The first cook of said team, the captain, planned on making a mussel coconut broth with tomato, saffron and basil, accessible yet flavorful seafood dish so that other team members could continue without making much of miscommunication. However, the third team member "went rogue," deciding to change the menu entirely and overcomplicate it by adding around ten more ingredients including a ''white chocolate'' to make a velouté with. The next cook after him was overwhelmed by the amount of unfinished element on the station and the last cook ended up making a simple prawn with scallop ceviche dish to salvage everything in 15 minutes, sending them to elimination challenge. The incident was then called the "white chocolate velouté incident." A quite [[https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/masterchef-drama-john-and-his-white-chocolate-bullshit-dodges-elimination/ ranty review]] sums this up quite well.