History InformedAbility / LiveActionTV

** It was eventually revealed that, while Brennen writes the science and crime-solving sides of her books, Angela writes the interaction and sex scenes.

* ''Highlander'': When one immortal beheads another, the winner gains the loser's power. An immortal's chances of winning a fight depend on how many heads each combatant has taken and how much power the owners of those heads had. At least, this is what they ''say'' happens. From what we see in the fight scenes, none of them is any better at fighting than an ordinary human. They don't go around lifting cars over their heads, and they can't fly or, really, do much of anything superhuman other than come back to life if they die from anything except beheading.

* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': In one episode, a computer programmer is repeatedly described as being lightyears ahead of his colleagues or revolutionary in his thinking, shown to be capable of developing a program that can hypnotize and ultimately liquefy the brains of victims, but when shown in person the programmer appears and acts like a deadbeat simpleton whose almost-childish motives for murder make his involvement clear to the FBI very quickly, though he could simply be a case of being a IdiotSavant.

** Played with. While Richard Castle is a bestselling novelist, which implies ''some'' skill, several of the characters make somewhat snarky reference to the fact that his novels aren't exactly the great works of English literature (the phrase "not exactly Shakespeare" crops up more than once). This means that, on the few occasions his prose does show up, the viewers are primed to not necessarily expect the most awesomely mind-blowing and wonderful prose ever.

** Rachel's dancing may also count. Rachel tells the rest of the cast (and the audience) constantly that she's a good dancer, but a quick comparison with not just Brittany and Santana, but also Tina and Quinn, shows that although she can keep a beat and cope with some footwork, she's at best average. And her ballet, shown on-screen in "Laryngitis", is frankly poor - although she's supposedly been having lessons since she was a small child, she can't even get properly up onto her pointes.

** Bones is supposed to a successful novelist who has written a series of best-selling novels famed for their steamy sex scenes. One wonders how this is possible given she is constantly portrayed as having NoSocialSkills and is constantly bewildered by all aspects of normal human interaction.

* ''KamenRider'':

** Some of the claims get truly outsize, as higher levels (such as Ultimate [[KamenRiderKuuga Kuuga]]) could supposedly destroy the world. A Rider's actual power level is best described as "As strong as it takes to have trouble with but eventually beat the MonsterOfTheWeek." And then you have first-appearance beef-ups, where a character or power will be utterly invincible the first time and then never, ever again. Biggest offender here is Double.[[note]]Remember world-destroying Ultimate Kuuga - who never got to show that kind of power, but ''did'' prove he could be a DestructiveSavior at least once or twice, unlike most of these examples, ''at non-Ultimate forms?'' Well, here's three words that should leave you [[BringMyBrownPants in the need for clean trousers]]: RISING Ultimate Kuuga. Rising Ultimate Kuuga ''and'' the also-potentially-apocalyptic KamenRiderDecade are being utterly schooled by Shadow Moon - himself grossly overpowered here as he was always about evenly matched with his own non-godlike rival KamenRiderBlack - and Shadow Moon is easily kabong'd by KamenRiderDouble. If this scene is taken at face value, then Double is strong enough to curbstomp the entire cast of Manga/DragonBall Z while beating up SilverAge {{Superman}} for his lunch money. We ''never'' see him as such in his own series, and it could be argued that his enemies are just the strongest ever - until you see he's also normal-Rider-strength the next time he and Decade team up. Surprise, surprise.[[/note]] Outside of power levels, there's KamenRiderOOO's "full combos can drive you nuts" thing, which has never been seen to happen (unless it's Putotyra, the feral, dinosaur-based mode, which is ''always'' uncontrollable, but that activates on its ''own'' when Eiji's under enough duress) and yet using one is still treated as being so dangerous you'd rather take your chances with a monster who overpowers you than risk using one.

* ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': All the ADA's who came after Alex Cabot had to endure a bit of time in the ReplacementScrappy box because of how popular she was with fans, but Kim Greylek's contribution to the show was pretty much nothing but InformedAbility, to the point that she ''introduced herself'' as "The Crusader" and although we never saw it, she was also a highly aggressive and competent lawyer from big important D.C. and taking cases in little ol' Manhattan to further her political aspirations (that we're told she has). Fans of the show didn't tolerate her very well, and she didn't even last a whole season. This is especially notable when compared to her predecessor, Casey Novak, who, as Cabot's successor, landed into ReplacementScrappy territory just long enough to haul herself out of it by kicking legal ass in magnificent fashion. Which makes Greylek's InformedAbility all the more perplexing; the writers clearly didn't have any problems with writing Novak as a great lawyer, so what happened with Greylek?

* ''Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'': Writers Matt Albie and Danny Tripp are brought in by TV exec Jordan [=McDeere=] to save the supposedly-tanking ShowWithinAShow of the same name. Their first sketch after coming back on the air with new material (in the episode following the pilot) is a boring and monotonous parody of ''ThePiratesOfPenzance'' - and the sketches don't get any better from there. This is despite the fact that Matt and Danny are frequently referred to as brilliant and visionary by everyone around them. It doesn't help matters that, of the few times we get to hear about "Peripheral Vision Man" (which, judging from the pilot, was a cartoon animated in the style of Robert Smigel's ''TVFunhouse''), it's more amusing to hear than anything featured in the so-called "superior" sketches.

* ''Series/{{Nashville}}'': Rayna Jaymes is ostensibly one of the greatest (though not as big as she was) country stars going while upstart Juliette Barnes hasn't got enough talent to fit inside a thimble and has to fight to prove herself, but Rayna's supposedly authentic act isn't that much (if any) of an artistic advance on Juliette's crossover tracks. It doesn't help that quite a few people believe HaydenPanettiere (Juliette) is a better singer than Connie Britton (Rayna), and some of them are Britton ''fans.'' Most tellingly, Panettiere has more songs on the soundtrack album(s)[[hottip:*: and more music from the show released overall]] than Britton.

* ''ThatsSoRaven'': The MusicalEpisode has everyone act as though Raven put on the best musical performance of anyone. While Raven is a good singer, Annelise Van Der Pol is a Broadway powerhouse whose voice outshines the entire cast without any electronic enhancement, yet her talent isn't even acknowledged.

** InvertedTrope. The ShowWithinAShow ''SoRandom'''s informed ability is that it sucks and no-one watches it (which in the case of the latter [[LifeImitatesArt turned out to be true]]). Not even the main character's mother.

** InvertedTrope. The ShowWithinAShow ''So Random'''s informed ability is that it sucks and no-one watches it. Not even the main character's mother.

** Somewhat a JustifiedTrope in that high intelligence doesn't necessarily mean a ''good'' job and George intentionally chose a low-stress one that wouldn't ask any questions when he disappeared often. Similarly, he freely admits that he considers himself a ''lapsed'' Jew.

** Possibly justified, as she was shown to be not all that interested in the mystical applications of her powers, just the violence against the monsters threatening the people she loves. After season five, when she ''tries'' to have Giles train her in this, however, she has no excuse.
** While this is supposed to be a Slayer ability, Buffy was explicitly stated to lack it in the first episode and attempts to learn it later utterly failed. Why none of the other slayers in the series have it either is this trope though.

** Somewhat justified by the fact that torture is in reality a very poor way to get accurate information out of somebody. In fact, the show displays many of the problems inherent in torture (such as assuming that the victim has the information in the first place).

** Justified because the computers had been tampered with so expertly there was almost no trace of it, so no matter what it looked like Kirk was guilty.
** Cogley's also old enough that it's plausible that he was a brilliant lawyer ''twenty years ago'' who is now well past his prime.

* ''Series/TheAmazingRace'': Two or three teams do this to themselves every season. They talk up their abilities before the race starts, only to fall flat on their faces once they're on the course, such as brain dead lawyer Lance in Season 15.

* ''BeingHuman'': George is described several times as a genius and claims to have an IQ in the 150s. We never see him exhibit any high level of intelligence or knowledge. The smartest thing we see him do is teach basic English to ESL students. He mentions his ability to speak a number of languages, but never does so on camera. He admits to not knowing any Hebrew and can't remember all six words of the ''Shema'' prayer.
** Somewhat justified in that high intelligence doesn't necessarily mean a ''good'' job and George intentionally chose a low-stress one that wouldn't ask any questions when he disappeared often. Similarly, he freely admits that he considers himself a ''lapsed'' Jew.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': Bones is supposed to a successful novelist who has written a series of best-selling novels famed for their steamy sex scenes. One wonders how this is possible given she is constantly portrayed as having NoSocialSkills and is constantly bewildered by all aspects of normal human interation.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy is mentioned to be able to sense vampires with her Slayer instincts. She never, ever does. It was likely just just an element of the MythArc that was dropped early on.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Played with. While Richard Castle is a bestselling novelist, which implies ''some'' skill, several of the characters make somewhat snarky reference to the fact that his novels aren't exactly the great works of English literature (the phrase "not exactly Shakespeare" crops up more than once). This means that, on the few occasions his prose does show up, the viewers are primed to not necessarily expect the most awesomely mind-blowing and wonderful prose ever.

* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'': Chuck's love of music. It's mentioned in the pilot. And in season two. And in season three. Other than that, he doesn't even seem to listen to music.

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': One episode had murders taking place at a comedy club, whose native-son star attracted huge crowds even though he was a JerkAss. The few moments of him actually performing were disappointing. Strange, since he was played by the generally funny Jeffrey Ross.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Adric is supposed to be a genius, but of all the TARDIS crew travelling at the time, it is inevitably [[CreatorsPet Adric]] who will somehow screw up the Doctor's latest plan to defeat the bad guy by doing something stupid, or will be gullible enough to be suckered into helping the villain's evil plan regardless of how [[CardCarryingVillain transparently evil it is]]. For a supposedly smart person, the character doesn't come across as being particularly smart; and what makes it worse is that Adric is insufferably arrogant about skills that he is rarely demonstrated to actually possess.

* ''Series/GilmoreGirls'': Rory Gilmore is repeatedly described as a brilliant writing prodigy who can make the most mundane story come to life with scintillating prose and profound insight. In the rare instances her articles and speeches are actually read aloud, they never rise at all above what any high school student could do.

* ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Casts a cute guy who's never sung before in the role of a cute guy who's never sung before. Good choice, he plays the part well, and has obvious talent and potential. However, the other characters heap praises on him as if he's superior to the other boys in the club, who are played by (and sound like) trained singers with lots of experience.

* ''GossipGirl'': Dan Humphrey is constantly praised for his fantastic talent as a writer, but we are virtually never treated to any examples. In one episode, a story of his is glimpsed briefly, and it's [[SoBadItsGood comically bad]] - no doubt because it was written by the props team.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': Mohinder is theoretically a geneticist with some idea of how the superpowers work. But he's constantly having plot points and technobabble explained ''to'' him by other characters, such as Bennet and Sylar.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Lily Aldrin is said to be a talented painter, but the paintings we see are more of a middle school art class quality. Yet Barney is willing to pay thousands of dollars for her to paint him in the nude after seeing another of her portraits.

* ''Series/ICarly'': The quality of the titular web show is greatly exaggerated. The characters on the show eat it up and it has become an internet phenomenon so well known it's been hit up for ideas for TV on the show on two separate occasions.

* ''KamenRider'': Every show has an AllThereInTheManual description full of powers and features that never even come up shown in the show, for [[NoBudget obvious reasons]]. Fans may never know what happens if they got the [[BigBudgetBeefUp chance to cut loose]].

* ''MarriedWithChildren'': Neatly averted in a third-season episode where Kelly is forced to join the school tap-dancing class, gets some extra coaching from neighbor Steve, and finally does an erotic dance with her would-be boyfriend. As Christina Applegate, David Garrison, and the actor who played the boyfriend were all trained dancers themselves, it wasn't much of a stretch for their characters to do it.

* ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'': Arguably, the Venjix Virus, the antagonist. This virus took down the entire planet but cannot take down the last city on Earth.
** Considering this is the most heavily armed city on Earth, this is [[FridgeBrilliance not a surprise]].
* ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'': In the second half, each episode's [[MonsterOfTheWeek alien criminal]] was said to have committed crimes that were more and more outlandish, until virtually nobody hadn't singlehandedly devastated dozens of planets. Then they come to Earth... alone, with barely effective energy blasts and a HumongousMecha (typically ''recently'' bought from the arms-dealing recurring villain, meaning they ''didn't'' have it when they wiped out fifty planets) that's quickly taken out. Especially jarring because earlier in the season, they weren't nearly as ridiculous about this. So the ''powerful'' enemy who commanded an army destroyed ''nine'' planets... and the ''powerless'' enemy with nothing but zappy claws destroyed a ''hundred''. Suuuuuure, we buy that.

* ''Series/QuantumLeap'': Sam Beckett. We are informed that he "Has an IQ of 197 and graduated from high school at 16. Completed four years worth of classes at MIT in two years. Has seven doctoral degrees and speaks 11 languages." But precious little of this comes through on the show, where he typically arrives at the solution to the Problem of the Week via his intuition more than anything else (and he certainly never speaks any language other than English -- yes the Swiss Cheese effect might explain part but not all of that).

** The Resistance is supposedly causing a lot of problems for the Monroe Republic but beside Nora, none of the rebels the protagonists meet seem competent enough to cause that much trouble. It's possible that the resistance groups in other areas of the Republic are much more competent or maybe the strength of the Monroe Republic is also exaggerated.
** Likewise, the Monroe Militia makes numerous tactical mistakes and neglects technology that would give it an edge even under the constraints the program has imposed (no bayonets for muskets, no body armor, etc.) TruthInTelevision, as military dictatorships usually don't have very good militaries.
* ''Series/RobinHood'': The character of Kate in the latest series is described on the official website as an "indispensable" member of the team, whose weapon of choice is "her imagination." The former claim is strange enough considering she's entirely useless, but the latter is even more incomprehensible. Thus far the heights of her "imagination" involve her secretly palming an arrowhead into Robin's hand and using a sword to pull a key close enough for her to pick it up. Hardly a test of ingenuity.

* ''SavedByTheBell'': Violet is a really amazing singer, so much so that the Glee Club ''[[RuleofFunny never mentioned before or since]]'' manages to finish in third in a singing contest by having her sing solo. But the audience can hear that her amazing singing amounts to being able to carry a tune.

* ''SonnyWithAChance'': InvertedTrope. The ShowWithinAShow ''So Random'''s informed ability is that it sucks and no-one watches it. Not even the main character's mother.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In the "Crossover" episode, Intendant Kira praised the late Mirror!Odo's ability to run an efficient ore processing operation and maintain order among the slaves. The audience saw several examples of Mirror!Odo being ''cruel'', but not efficient or orderly. For example, Mirror!Odo allowed a thorium containment unit to go unrepaired, despite Mirror!O'Brien's warning, resulting in a catastrophic thorium leak. Furthermore, at least three Terran slaves escaped under his watch. Finally, he assigned Bashir to a task for which Bashir was physically unsuited, as Mirror!Odo lampshaded later in the episode.

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': Johnathan Archer is stated to be a trained diplomat in "A Night in Sickbay." That same episode shows him doing ''everything a diplomat should never do''.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In the classic series episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E20CourtMartial Court Martial]]", Samuel T. Cogley is, based on his actions in the episode, an idiotic Luddite who would have spectacularly lost Kirk's case without the timely interference of Spock. But everyone spends the whole episode talking about what a brilliant lawyer Cogley is.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Okona from the episode "The Outrageous Okona". Obviously meant to be a Han Solo-pastiche (particularly because he is ''dressed exactly like Han Solo''), the smirking Okona comes across as an overgrown fratboy with a sense of privilege that would stagger a Trump. Riker and Wesley both gush over him, and he got a fair bit of tail on the Enterprise.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Does this a few times when it comes to describing people as intelligent. Besides the odd character like Sam and Ash, who demonstrate that they are especially knowledgeable in certain fields, often the writers will just throw in a toss away line that explains that the character in question reads/owns a lot of complicated books so they must be smart, despite often making horribly poor decisions and never doing or saying anything that might demonstrate said intelligence.

** In a highly unexpected subversion of this trope - notable for how rarely a show successfully pulls it off, the season 2 episode "Crossroad Blues" features a man who sells his soul in order to become a great artist. They do actually show a number of his artworks, all of which are interesting and emotive. How great they actually are still remains a matter of opinion, of course, and the writers acknowledge this by having the character create artworks that he pours his heart into, but never actually manages to sell.

* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'': Kelly in ''Samoa'' was ''supposedly'' a huge threat to Russell that he had to get her out as fast as possible - however, because the producers forgot there was actually ''another'' tribe in the game, and that said other tribe actually consisted of more than Shambo, a lot of people were wondering just ''what'' made her a huge threat to Russell - The first person voted out at the merge of Galu was at least understandable. (He had an immunity idol) But Kelly? Who is this girl other than the girl in dreadlocks?

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the two-parter, ''Basics'', Neelix describes himself as a survival expert when the crew are marooned on a inhospitable planet by the Kazon. He then goes on to make extremely dangerous and idiotic decisions that anyone trained survivalist would never make, some of which get his fellow crewmembers killed.
** To clarify, Neelix managed to get a member of the crew ''eaten'' within 10 minutes of landing on the planet, by telling him to go and pick up a pile of bones, located outside of an dark cave, by himself.
** Pretty much anything about Neelix. Prime example: he claims to be a great chef, yet the crew constantly talks about how terrible his food is. Not to mention he once caused a shipwide system failure! With '''CHEESE!'''
** Also PlayedForLaughs is the KillerRobot from the ''Adventures of Captain Proton'' holodeck program. All the holodeck characters act like it's a terrifying menace, yet it's just a slow-moving, inept TinCanRobot with a [[RoboSpeak speech impediment]].

* ''TheMightyBoosh'': PlayedForLaughs with Kirk, a shaman who looks like a normal boy but is apparently a menacing interdimensional being. We never see him do anything, but the other shamans accuse him of being "a vehicular menace," and "an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind," which he does not deny. They also say that he also has a far greater capacity for narcotics than the other shamans.
* ''TheMindyProject'': In one episode, all of the women are surprised to learn that one of the doctors is a good dancer. They have to tell the audience this because none of his moves are the least bit impressive and we only see him dance in tiny snippets with women around him.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': Bones is supposed to a successful novelist who has written a series of best-selling novels famed for their steamy sex scenes. One wonders how this is possible given she is constantly portrayed as having NoSocialSkills and is constantly bewildered by all aspects of normal human interation.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': Lana got a scholarship to an art school in Paris. We've never seen any of her artwork, and that was the only time she's even shown some interest in art.

* ''SonnyWithAChance'': InvertedTrope. The ShowWithinAShow "That's so Random"'s informed ability is that it sucks and no-one watches it. Not even the main character's mother.
** Their opponent show Mackenzie Falls plays it straight. In-universe the actors and show is far more popular than So Random, even though it's basically just a lot of melodrama. Both cases justified by RuleOfFunny.

* ''SoWeird'': Annie is supposed to be a great singer, and they manage to work in a song of hers in nearly every episode of the third season. But the actress who plays her (although she has [[InstantStar gotten quite a bit]] [[GrowingTheBeard better with age]]) was above-average at best.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In the classic series episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E20CourtMartial Court Martial]]", Samuel T. Cogley is, based on his actions in the episode, an idiotic Luddite who would have spectacularly lost Kirk's case without the timely interference of Spock. But everyone spends the whole episode talking about what a brilliant lawyer Cogley is.
** Justified because the computers had been tampered with so expertly there was almost no trace of it, so no matter what it looked like Kirk was guilty.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Okona from the episode "The Outrageous Okona". Obviously meant to be a Han Solo-pastiche (particularly because he is ''dressed exactly like Han Solo''), the smirking Okona comes across as an overgrown fratboy with a sense of privilege that would stagger a Trump. Riker and Wesley both gush over him, and he got a fair bit of tail on the Enterprise.
** Guinan probably really was a good listener. They weren't going to bring Whoopi Goldberg in to just nod her head; and for dramatic reasons the countless hours of listening to people's problems was omitted from the series. But for someone who was famous for listening, who even bragged about her powers of listening, mostly what she actually did was talk.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the two-parter, ''Basics'', Neelix describes himself as a survival expert when the crew are marooned on a inhospitable planet by the Kazon. He then goes on to make extremely dangerous and idiotic decisions that anyone trained survivalist would never make, some of which get his fellow crewmembers killed.
** To clarify, Neelix managed to get a member of the crew ''eaten'' within 10 minutes of landing on the planet, by telling him to go and pick up a pile of bones, located outside of an dark cave, by himself.
** Pretty much anything about Neelix. Prime example: he claims to be a great chef, yet the crew constantly talks about how terrible his food is. Not to mention he once caused a shipwide system failure! With '''CHEESE!'''
** Also PlayedForLaughs is the KillerRobot from the ''Adventures of Captain Proton'' holodeck program. All the holodeck characters act like it's a terrifying menace, yet it's just a slow-moving, inept TinCanRobot with a [[RoboSpeak speech impediment]].
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In the "Crossover" episode, Intendant Kira praised the late Mirror!Odo's ability to run an efficient ore processing operation and maintain order among the slaves. The audience saw several examples of Mirror!Odo being ''cruel'', but not efficient or orderly. For example, Mirror!Odo allowed a thorium containment unit to go unrepaired, despite Mirror!O'Brien's warning, resulting in a catastrophic thorium leak. Furthermore, at least three Terran slaves escaped under his watch. Finally, he assigned Bashir to a task for which Bashir was physically unsuited, as Mirror!Odo lampshaded later in the episode.
** The series has a RunningGag in which Morn is described by others as talkative, eloquent, humorous, and even an accomplished fighter. And yet, we hardly see him doing anything but sit on the same seat in Quark's Bar, drinking and [[TheVoiceless never speaking]].
*** This came to be half by accident. Morn was given lines in a few early episode scripts, but his scenes kept getting cut for time. The people making the show noticed the pattern, and decided to run with it.
* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': Johnathan Archer is stated to be a trained diplomat in "A Night in Sickbay." That same episode shows him doing ''everything a diplomat should never do''.
** The degree to which incompetent diplomatic staff show up in all incarnations of ''Star Trek'' should be a trope in itself. [[AssInAmbassador Oh wait, there IS a trope for this.]]

* ''TheMightyBoosh'': PlayedForLaughs with Kirk, a shaman who looks like a normal boy but is apparently a menacing interdimensional being. We never see him do anything, but the other shamans accuse him of being "a vehicular menace," and "an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind," which he does not deny. They also say that he also has a far greater capacity for narcotics than the other shamans.
* ''SoWeird'': Annie is supposed to be a great singer, and they manage to work in a song of hers in nearly every episode of the third season. But the actress who plays her (although she has [[InstantStar gotten quite a bit]] [[GrowingTheBeard better with age]]) was above-average at best.
* ''Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'': Writers Matt Albie and Danny Tripp are brought in by TV exec Jordan [=McDeere=] to save the supposedly-tanking ShowWithinAShow of the same name. Their first sketch after coming back on the air with new material (in the episode following the pilot) is a boring and monotonous parody of ''ThePiratesOfPenzance'' - and the sketches don't get any better from there. This is despite the fact that Matt and Danny are frequently referred to as brilliant and visionary by everyone around them. It doesn't help matters that, of the few times we get to hear about "Peripheral Vision Man" (which, judging from the pilot, was a cartoon animated in the style of Robert Smigel's ''TVFunhouse''), it's more amusing to hear than anything featured in the so-called "superior" sketches.

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': In the episode "Mr. Monk Paints His Masterpiece", we're repeatedly told that Monk is a terrible artist, which is probably true from an [[TechnicianVersusPerformer artistic standpoint but not from a technical one]]. They were essentially 2-D figures made from perfect geometric shapes/lines that took incredible skill and discipline to produce and represented Monk's vision of a perfectly ordered and straight world but were devoid of any individuality or creative genius. Of course, his teacher's preferred entry was blatantly plagarizing ''The Scream''.

* ''TheWestWing'': Josh is supposed to be a political savant. He certainly comes off as absurdly ''smart'', if thoroughly arrogant. But in terms of actually playing politics and running campaigns, he screws up. Frequently. His crowning moment as a political operative is taking Jimmy Smits and making him president, but that's more a result of Smits' character taking steps that fly in the face of Josh's advice.

* ''ThatsSoRaven'': The MusicalEpisode has everyone act as though Raven put on the best musical performance of anyone. While Raven is a good singer, Annelise Van Der Pol is a Broadway powerhouse whose voice outshines the entire cast without any electronic enhancement, yet her talent isn't even acknowledged.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Adric is supposed to be a genius, but of all the TARDIS crew travelling at the time, it is inevitably [[CreatorsPet Adric]] who will somehow screw up the Doctor's latest plan to defeat the bad guy by doing something stupid, or will be gullible enough to be suckered into helping the villain's evil plan regardless of how [[CardCarryingVillain transparently evil it is]]. For a supposedly smart person, the character doesn't come across as being particularly smart; and what makes it worse is that Adric is insufferably arrogant about skills that he is rarely demonstrated to actually possess.
** Jamie, a piper, rarely, if ever, actually played the bagpipes. [[EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes Probably for the best.]]
** Rose pretty much becomes the centre of the universe without actually doing all that much, yet the Doctor and other characters go on and on about her being special. In fact, she only starts kicking arse and taking names ''after'' she's been separated from the Doctor. And we barely see Martha using her doctoring skills. All the skills these characters were supposed to have had were mostly ignored in favour of {{Chickification}}.
** The Weeping Angels are always described as being supernaturally fast, to the point where simply taking a fraction of a second to blink is enough for them to sneak up on you and kill you. However, any time we see them, people will turn away for several seconds, and they never seem to move more than a few feet at a time. It's always explained as they're starving and weak to the point of death, but even after they've fed on something they don't exactly speed up. (However they do have a tendency to play with their food so it could be argued they are just messing with the protagonists.)
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': Lana got a scholarship to an art school in Paris. We've never seen any of her artwork, and that was the only time she's even shown some interest in art.
* ''SavedByTheBell'': Violet is a really amazing singer, so much so that the Glee Club ''[[RuleofFunny never mentioned before or since]]'' manages to finish in third in a singing contest by having her sing solo. But the audience can hear that her amazing singing amounts to being able to carry a tune.
** Violet was chosen because they went through all the girls and Violet was the only decent singer so she was chosen as the soloist.
* ''Series/{{BuffyTheVampireSlayer}}'': Buffy is mentioned to be able to sense vampires with her Slayer instincts. She never, ever does. It was likely just just an element of the MythArc that was dropped early on.
** Possibly justified, as she was shown to be not all that interested in the mystical applications of her powers, just the violence against the monsters threatening the people she loves. After season five, when she ''tries'' to have Giles train her in this, however, she has no excuse.
** While this is supposed to be a Slayer ability, Buffy was explicitly stated to lack it in the first episode and attempts to learn it later utterly failed. Why none of the other slayers in the series have it either is this trope though.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': With the character of Drogyn. A mystical, thousand-year-old immortal warrior who Angel says could kill Spike. He proceeds to never do anything but get his ass handed to him over and over, and then die. This is probably because because he was created last minute as a replacement for Giles when Anthony Stewart Head couldn't make it for filming. The only time he got into anything resembling a fight on-screen was with [[TheJuggernaut Hamilton]]. He did get badly wounded in an off-screen battle with a mook, but that mook did apparently outclass Spike.
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': One episode had murders taking place at a comedy club, whose native-son star attracted huge crowds even though he was a JerkAss. The few moments of him actually performing were disappointing. Strange, since he was played by the generally funny Jeffrey Ross.
** ''CSI'' also has a character with an informed ''hair color.'' The writers are aware of the fact that Marg Helgenberger is a natural redhead; they occasionally seem to forget that her character, [[http://www.zarcone.it/media/images/wallpapers/csi_catherine_willows.jpg Catherine Willows]], really isn't, causing her to be referred to in dialogue as "the redhead."
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits'': In the episode "Falling Star", the heroine's music is supposed to have such amazing influence that if she lives and succeeds as a pop star, the future will become a Utopia. The heroine is played (and presumably, her music composed) by Sheena Easton.

* ''MarriedWithChildren'': Neatly averted in a third-season episode where Kelly is forced to join the school tap-dancing class, gets some extra coaching from neighbor Steve, and finally does an erotic dance with her would-be boyfriend. As Christina Applegate, David Garrison, and the actor who played the boyfriend were all trained dancers themselves, it wasn't much of a stretch for their characters to do it.
** Played straight (most of the time) with Jefferson's CIA past. Despite various hints that he was an agent, he's never shown to live up to it. Except in one episode, where he [[spoiler:meets with FidelCastro.]]
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': [[CatchPhrase His name is Sayid Jarrah, and he is a torturer.]] Or so he informs us, and so [[spoiler:Kelvin Inman, the US soldier who taught Sayid to torture]] informed [[spoiler:him]]. But the only time we are even *informed* that he successfully tortured someone is in a flashback, and it is almost all offscreen. This among numerous failed attempts.

* ''Series/GilmoreGirls'': Rory Gilmore is repeatedly described as a brilliant writing prodigy who can make the most mundane story come to life with scintillating prose and profound insight. In the rare instances her articles and speeches are actually read aloud, they never rise at all above what any high school student could do.
** Also, she's constantly referred to as a great success story, having accomplished so much. But all she ever does is get things handed to her. Her grandparents paid for her expensive private school. Then her grandparents paid for Yale, until such a time as her father started paying for Yale instead. Also, she started dating a really rich guy and got to live in a penthouse apartment instead of staying in a dorm. Throughout the entire run of the series, other than being a reasonably good student, Rory doesn't accomplish or earn anything (though, in all fairness, just getting into those expensive schools, which obviously require the character to be intelligent, and her long-shown wit in conversation, contribute to this merely being an understated ability, rather than an Informed one).
* ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'': Arguably, the Venjix Virus, the antagonist. This virus took down the entire planet but cannot take down the last city on Earth.
** Considering this is the most heavily armed city on Earth, this is [[FridgeBrilliance not a surprise]].
* ''OneLifeToLive'': SoapOpera example: Matthew was basically [[FreaksAndGeeks Sam Weir]] until he was paralyzed in a car accident in March 2009. Since then, his pre-disability athletic exploits have grown to the point where the yearbook shows him on the 9th grade interscholastic team in every fall and winter sport.
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Casts a cute guy who's never sung before in the role of a cute guy who's never sung before. Good choice, he plays the part well, and has obvious talent and potential. However, the other characters heap praises on him as if he's superior to the other boys in the club, who are played by (and sound like) trained singers with lots of experience.
** This is a recurring problem with ''Glee'', in that every single performance is so polished that the audience needs to be told things like when a performance is "bad" and who has the best singing voice. For example, the club's flawless performance in "Sectionals" is stated by a judge to be "good" but "not that rehearsed".
** Kurt's voice is another example. Will calls it unique and tells him he can do things no one else can - but never gives him a solo to sing. After Kurt transfers to Dalton and joins The Warblers, the cast often makes remarks how Warblers "have Kurt now" - but Blaine is the only soloist we ever see and Kurt is just a background singer, alongside about 10-15 other guys.
*** The above may not count as an InformedAttribute proper since Kurt sings frequently in the show - just not in in-show ''competitions'' - and his countertenor voice is quite real and just as unique as Will claims. The failure of both groups to utilise his voice properly could also be considered justified in-universe (and out) as it's almost a century since countertenor voices were commonly used in popular music, as opposed to opera, so it's realistic that neither group would ''understand'' how to integrate him effectively into their arrangements. However, since the one time Kurt has a competition solo (in 2x16) the Warblers lose the competition due to the judges' inability to look past the fact of two boys singing a duet, the idea that Kurt's voice is in and of itself special enough to win competitions for groups (as asserted by Rachel in 2x04 and then ignored by all and sundry in 2x21 and 2x22) counts as an InformedAttribute. For show choir, at any rate, as it was good enough to bag Nationals for the Cheerios...
** Rachel's dancing may also count. Rachel tells the rest of the cast (and the audience) constantly that she's a good dancer, but a quick comparison with not just Brittany and Santana, but also Tina and Quinn, shows that although she can keep a beat and cope with some footwork, she's at best average. And her ballet, shown on-screen in "Laryngitis", is frankly poor - although she's supposedly been having lessons since she was a small child, she can't even get properly up onto her pointes.
* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': Susan Meyer, a character who even her actress has called a 'clumsy idiot' and who has certainly never displayed ''any'' academic qualities was casually mentioned as having been valedictorian at her high school.
* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'': Kelly in ''Samoa'' was ''supposedly'' a huge threat to Russell that he had to get her out as fast as possible - however, because the producers forgot there was actually ''another'' tribe in the game, and that said other tribe actually consisted of more than Shambo, a lot of people were wondering just ''what'' made her a huge threat to Russell - The first person voted out at the merge of Galu was at least understandable. (He had an immunity idol) But Kelly? Who is this girl other than the girl in dreadlocks?
** Stephanie [=LaGrossa=] falls into this too.
** As does James, a gravedigger who would obviously be good at physical challenges...yet wound up being evacuated/voted off due to weaknesses.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Does this a few times when it comes to describing people as intelligent. Besides the odd character like Sam and Ash, who demonstrate that they are especially knowledgeable in certain fields, often the writers will just throw in a toss away line that explains that the character in question reads/owns a lot of complicated books so they must be smart, despite often making horribly poor decisions and never doing or saying anything that might demonstrate said intelligence.
** Note that one of the viewpoint characters is a high-school dropout and the other's primary regret in life is not finishing college, so falsely conflating education with intelligence or cleverness is not unexpected. This is even lampshaded a few times when Sam has to reassure Dean that he isn't necessarily "the dumb muscle".
** In a highly unexpected subversion of this trope - notable for how rarely a show successfully pulls it off, the season 2 episode "Crossroad Blues" features a man who sells his soul in order to become a great artist. They do actually show a number of his artworks, all of which are interesting and emotive. How great they actually are still remains a matter of opinion, of course, and the writers acknowledge this by having the character create artworks that he pours his heart into, but never actually manages to sell.
** Played straight with [[HeWhoFightsMonsters Gordon Walker]], a hunter who specializes in vampires. He's supposed to be among the best at tracking and killing them, but two of the three vampires we see him fight manage to get the upper hand. The first time he's bailed out by Sam and Dean, the second he's not so lucky.
** The Leviathans, main enemies of season 7, are supposed to be even more powerful than angels, and demonstrated when Edgar [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains easily dispatches two angel mooks]]. The problem is there is little outside this scene to indicate this is actually the case. Angels are super strong, able to teleport, NighInvulnerable, capable of healing major injuries and resurrecting the dead, can kill most monsters and demons just by touching them, and can even TimeTravel and [[RealityWarper alter reality]]. In fact, they're so powerful that in three seasons Sam and Dean only ever managed to outright kill one angel -And even then, only because Dean took him by surprise. Leviathans are also NighInvulnerable and can shapeshift, but have little else going for them, and have actually had trouble fighting demons, witches, ghosts, and even normal humans, all of which were previously established as being much weaker than angels. So rather than actually making the Leviathans seem frightening, the scene just comes off as a desperate attempt to establish the leviathans as a credible threat by invoking TheWorfEffect.
*** It's probably more that supernatural rules in the series are much more old-school than usual. Where in other modern supernatural fiction there's a simple ascending power ladder in the vein of a video game or superhero cartoon, Supernatural's creepies have the sort of powers and weaknesses more common in fairy tales and stories from the 1700s and earlier. Yes, leviathans lack the swiss-army powers of the angels, but they're also immune to the angel power kit (more or less indestructible, old enough to be immune to time travel, etc) and their one major ability-- the ability to hold something in place long enough to eat it-- overrides the primary defense of the angels (divinely-granted immunity to death). This is fairly consistent with how the show operates-- the few times that Sam and Dean actually defeat an enemy by increasing their power levels, it ends poorly. For the most part the find a way to blunt their enemy's primary attack and then attack that enemy's weak point, like with salt and cremation respectively for ghosts, which are otherwise much more powerful than they.
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': Mohinder is theoretically a geneticist with some idea of how the superpowers work. But he's constantly having plot points and technobabble explained ''to'' him by other characters, such as Bennet and Sylar.
** Granted, Sylar's superpower is intuitive aptitude ("knowing how things work"), and Bennet's been at the game for decades, and is [[spoiler:or was]] one of the Company's top agents.
* ''Series/JonathanCreek'': Joey is initially introduced as Jonathan's intellectual equal, described on a television show as "someone whose powers of deduction and truly phenomenal flair for solving seemingly impossibly puzzles are beyond cool." Yet apart from ascertaining that the Nightmare Room is inescapable and discovering a clue that Jonathan misses ([[spoiler:one which ends up being a false lead]]), she doesn't solve any part of the mystery, and eventually admits: "I'm out of my depth here."
* ''QueerAsFolk'': Brian, the marketing genius, is really more of a one trick pony; No matter if he's selling booze, a steakhouse or a mayor candidate, he works the sex angle, and ''only'' the sex angle.
* ''{{Coupling}}'': Jane is "the one with the breasts." Now the actress Gina Bellman is a very attractive woman but she is not ''exceptionally'' buxom. Although it is partly in comparison to the other two female members of the cast, however.
* ''SuperDave'': This trope is the basis for comedian Bob Einstein's character Super Dave Osborne. SuperDave is continually lauded as one of the world's most daring and amazing stuntmen, whose death-defying feats are "astronomically sensational", to quote one such hyperbole. Of course, when we actually see Super Dave performs a stunt, it backfires spectacularly and he's horrifically maimed, twisted, or crushed in some way. See EpicFail.

* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'': Chuck's love of music. It's mentioned in the pilot. And in season two. And in season three. Other than that, he doesn't even seem to listen to music.
** He did show impeccable taste in choosing a Nina Simone record to play for Sarah in "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners".
* ''GossipGirl'': Dan Humphrey is constantly praised for his fantastic talent as a writer, but we are virtually never treated to any examples. In one episode, a story of his is glimpsed briefly, and it's [[SoBadItsGood comically bad]] - no doubt because it was written by the props team.
** Same goes for Vanessa and her supposed talent for film making and script writing. Some would also say that Jenny's talents as a designer fall under this.
* ''TheRedGreenShow'': Gets a LampshadeHanging and PlayedForLaughs when Possum Lodge acquires a collection of tubas. One segment has Red seemingly playing the show's theme song on the tuba, and he's pretty good at it. When he's done and the studio audience applauds, the song starts up again before Red kicks the person who's ''really'' playing the tuba.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Lily Aldrin is said to be a talented painter, but the paintings we see are more of a middle school art class quality. Yet Barney is willing to pay thousands of dollars for her to paint him in the nude after seeing another of her portraits.
** Don, Robin's boyfriend in season 5, also falls into this trope. Marshall and Lily insist to Robin that he's an amazing guy (despite not really knowing anything about him), though to the audience, all we know is that at first he didn't care about his career and didn't wear pants, and now he does. Wear pants, that is.
** In Lily's case, it is heavily implied in "Everything Must Go" that everyone who praised her painting ability (mostly Marshall) was lying to make her feel good. In that episode, she could only sell her paintings to a vet who used them to hypnotize dogs. Also, when she went to San Francisco between seasons one and two, her teacher told her he couldn't teach her anything due to her lack of talent. One EpilepticTrees theory is that Barney allowed himself to be bamboozled by Lily and Marshall in order to pay for their honeymoon.
*** Her paintings are shown to hypnotize dogs and drive birds to a [[BerserkButton furious rage.]] That's got to count for something.
** Again with Lily, her Chessmaster abilities are very much an informed ability. To the point where actual Chessmaster Barney sings the praises of her abilities. Her every BatmanGambit has either been incredibly simple (all of her breakups of Ted in the past), or backfired badly (her breakups of Ted and Barney with Robin).
*** Since we only see Ted's memories, perhaps her greatest schemes are only told to less-morally-severe Barney. Or maybe he's the only one smart enough to realise what's genuine and what's one of her schemes...
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': InvertedTrope in the episode "The One With The Fake Monica" when Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe end up in a tap-dancing class. While Monica and Phoebe struggle to keep up, without any buildup Rachel is able to perform the routine flawlessly. When the other girls look at her in amazement, Rachel simply shrugs and says that it's easy to keep up -- all you have to do is tap when the rest of the class taps. Of course, being played by trained dancer Creator/JenniferAniston tends to make this sort of thing a lot easier.
* ''Series/QuantumLeap'': Sam Beckett. We are informed that he "Has an IQ of 197 and graduated from high school at 16. Completed four years worth of classes at MIT in two years. Has seven doctoral degrees and speaks 11 languages." But precious little of this comes through on the show, where he typically arrives at the solution to the Problem of the Week via his intuition more than anything else (and he certainly never speaks any language other than English -- yes the Swiss Cheese effect might explain part but not all of that).
** He is shown to at least understand foreign languages in one episode where he's in the body of a WWII veteran who brings his Japanese wife home with him. He also speaks a few words of Japanese in that episode.
** He also speaks Russian in "Lee Harvey Oswald", an episode where he leaped into... yep, you guessed it, [[CaptainObvious Lee]] [[GunmanWithThreeNames Harvey]] [[WhoShotJFK Oswald]]. [[spoiler: That might be due to a bit of Lee Harvey Oswald's mind/soul/whatever being still there, though.]]
** Plus a greater part of the early series (and particularly episode 1) was focused on the fact that the Quantum Leap machine had given Sam amnesia which is why he doesn't recognize Al or Ziggy despite logically having worked with them. If this condition is even half way realistic he would never be able to recover fully from it no matter how hard he tried.
* ''Series/ICarly'': The quality of the titular web show is greatly exaggerated. The characters on the show eat it up and it has become an internet phenomenon so well known it's been hit up for ideas for TV on the show on two separate occasions.
** Sam's supposed 'tech' ability. Part of her BrilliantButLazy character build includes references in several character blogs to her having ability with computers that she's never used on the show itself.
* ''Series/TheAmazingRace'': Two or three teams do this to themselves every season. They talk up their abilities before the race starts, only to fall flat on their faces once they're on the course, such as brain dead lawyer Lance in Season 15.
** An {{inversion}} occurred when a contestant described [[Series/{{Survivor}} Boston Rob]] as "dumb as a rock". The only way this makes sense is if you assume the guy thought rocks were smart. Sure enough, Rob found a way to scheme his way past a food-eating challenge, convince a couple of other teams to forfeit it as well, and won the very next round.
* ''KamenRider'': Every show has an AllThereInTheManual description full of powers and features that never even come up shown in the show, for [[NoBudget obvious reasons]]. Fans may never know what happens if they got the [[BigBudgetBeefUp chance to cut loose]].
** Some of the claims get truly outsize, as higher levels (such as Ultimate [[KamenRiderKuuga Kuuga]]) could supposedly destroy the world. A Rider's actual power level is best described as "As strong as it takes to have trouble with but eventually beat the MonsterOfTheWeek." And then you have first-appearance beef-ups, where a character or power will be utterly invincible the first time and then never, ever again. Biggest offender here is Double.[[note]]Remember world-destroying Ultimate Kuuga - who never got to show that kind of power, but ''did'' prove he could be a DestructiveSavior at least once or twice, unlike most of these examples, ''at non-Ultimate forms?'' Well, here's three words that should leave you [[BringMyBrownPants in the need for clean trousers]]: RISING Ultimate Kuuga. Rising Ultimate Kuuga ''and'' the also-potentially-apocalyptic KamenRiderDecade are being utterly schooled by Shadow Moon - himself grossly overpowered here as he was always about evenly matched with his own non-godlike rival KamenRiderBlack - and Shadow Moon is easily kabong'd by KamenRiderDouble. If this scene is taken at face value, then Double is strong enough to curbstomp the entire cast of Manga/DragonBall Z while beating up SilverAge {{Superman}} for his lunch money. We ''never'' see him as such in his own series, and it could be argued that his enemies are just the strongest ever - until you see he's also normal-Rider-strength the next time he and Decade team up. Surprise, surprise.[[/note]] Outside of power levels, there's KamenRiderOOO's "full combos can drive you nuts" thing, which has never been seen to happen (unless it's Putotyra, the feral, dinosaur-based mode, which is ''always'' uncontrollable, but that activates on its ''own'' when Eiji's under enough duress) and yet using one is still treated as being so dangerous you'd rather take your chances with a monster who overpowers you than risk using one.
** However, the Greeed in that series being able to 'devour the Earth' turns out to not be an idle boast.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Played with. While Richard Castle is a bestselling novelist, which implies ''some'' skill, several of the characters make somewhat snarky reference to the fact that his novels aren't exactly the great works of English literature (the phrase "not exactly Shakespeare" crops up more than once). This means that, on the few occasions his prose does show up, the viewers are primed to not necessarily expect the most awesomely mind-blowing and wonderful prose ever.
** Quotes from Castle's writing does appear in a few episodes, and in fact several of his Nikki Heat novels were eventually released as tie-in works. So the trope is averted on both counts: we see his ability on the show ''and'' it's about as good as advertised. In addition, he does make comments showing correct knowledge of grammar, such as his annoyance at the use of "your" instead of "you're" and his pointing out the correct use of "{{irony}}".
** It helps that Castle is a ''writer'', rather than some other specialist that the writers would have to become experts on.

* ''TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'': Any talent or vocation of the main cast that doesn't relate to sex or sexual prowess is talked about but never shown. The most obvious one is Amy and Ricky being members of the school marching band. They're never shown practicing and don't possess any instruments at their homes. The closest Amy gets to touching an instrument while in a marching band is a scene from a flashback episode from band camp where she's tripping over herself because of seeing Ricky for the first time.
* ''Series/{{Outsourced}}'': Todd is regarded in-universe as an [[TheEveryman Everyman]] trying his best to handle being in a different culture. Out of universe, he's regarded as a culturally insensitive clod who constantly grabs onto the IdiotBall in order to ensure CultureClash hijinks.
* ''{{QI}}'': In one episode, Stephen introduces the shoes of a 19th-century entertainer known as "Little Tich", whom he says was one of the greatest comedians of all time, and a huge inspiration on Chaplin. He goes on to say that in 200 years, when the names of Stephen Fry and the panelists on the show are forgotten, Little Tich's name will remain. The panelists point out that his name is ''already'' forgotten since no one there except Stephen (including the audience) recognized or had even heard of him. When a video of Little Tich is run, showing him doing a skit with elongated shoes that allow him to lean forward without falling over, the panelists argue that he's not even that funny.
* ''FullHouse'': Pulls an inversion similar to the ''Friends'' example above. Jesse, who is genuinely horrible on ice expresses apprehension to Danny who himself says he feels like he'll probably be rusty too. Then Danny skates expertly out into the rink and performs a triple lutz landing backwards with his leg extended like a figure skater. He's just as rusty as he feared.
* ''Series/TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr'': Pete Hutter has a nasty reputation. It's repeatedly said that "no one touches Pete's piece", in tones of horror that suggest what ''does'' happen to someone who touches Pete's gun. In practice, lots of people (or at least, Brisco, repeatedly) touch Pete's piece, and all Pete does about it is sit there, gibbering in shock that someone was mad enough to touch his piece.
* ''Series/HannahMontana'': Has the titular character's singing praised in multiple episodes. One in particular has Miley use a microphone to give her voice to her best friend to use in a singing contest. Everyone gushes on how amazing Lilly's voice is, but it's all too easy to wonder how much they're being paid to say that.
* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'': In Nicaragua, Season 21, Brenda and Sash are frequently referred to as being dangerous strategic masterminds who need to be watched. This is despite neither of them doing anything remotely strategic the entire season. In fact, Brenda fails to do anything to save herself when it is clear that she may go home, since she "doesn't want to be seen as scrambling." This may have been emphasized in editing to compensate for the season's lack of strong strategists, even as the viewing public was clamoring for more strategists in the vein of Russell Hantz.
* ''BigBrother'' US: Rachel is apparently very good at the game; yet she somehow has to rely on a [[ExecutiveMeddling blatantly contrived twist]] the second she started to fall behind. She also apparently is likable, yet almost all the time, the editors love to show her constantly crying and having to be calmed down by Brendon.
* ''BeingHuman'': George is described several times as a genius and claims to have an IQ in the 150s. We never see him exhibit any high level of intelligence or knowledge. The smartest thing we see him do is teach basic English to ESL students. He mentions his ability to speak a number of languages, but never does so on camera. He admits to not knowing any Hebrew and can't remember all six words of the ''Shema'' prayer.
* ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': All the ADA's who came after Alex Cabot had to endure a bit of time in the ReplacementScrappy box because of how popular she was with fans, but Kim Greylek's contribution to the show was pretty much nothing but InformedAbility, to the point that she ''introduced herself'' as "The Crusader" and although we never saw it, she was also a highly aggressive and competent lawyer from big important D.C. and taking cases in little ol' Manhattan to further her political aspirations (that we're told she has). Fans of the show didn't tolerate her very well, and she didn't even last a whole season. This is especially notable when compared to her predecessor, Casey Novak, who, as Cabot's successor, landed into ReplacementScrappy territory just long enough to haul herself out of it by kicking legal ass in magnificent fashion. Which makes Greylek's InformedAbility all the more perplexing; the writers clearly didn't have any problems with writing Novak as a great lawyer, so what happened with Greylek?
* ''Series/{{Merlin}}'': Excalibur is described constantly as a powerful and dangerous sword that can '''only''' be wielded safely by Arthur. Yet not only is it used by both Uther and Merlin in two separate episodes with no drastic consequences, by the time Arthur ''finally'' gets his hands on it at the end of series four, nothing particularly exceptional is done with it. He can't even defeat [[TheBrute Helios]] without help. The sword lives up to its reputation of being able to kill the dead, but it's neither as awesome in the right hands ''or'' as dangerous in the wrong ones as its maker would have you believe.
* ''Series/{{Nashville}}'': Rayna Jaymes is ostensibly one of the greatest (though not as big as she was) country stars going while upstart Juliette Barnes hasn't got enough talent to fit inside a thimble and has to fight to prove herself, but Rayna's supposedly authentic act isn't that much (if any) of an artistic advance on Juliette's crossover tracks. It doesn't help that quite a few people believe HaydenPanettiere (Juliette) is a better singer than Connie Britton (Rayna), and some of them are Britton ''fans.'' Most tellingly, Panettiere has more songs on the soundtrack album(s)[[hottip:*: and more music from the show released overall]] than Britton.
* ''TheMindyProject'': In one episode, all of the women are surprised to learn that one of the doctors is a good dancer. They have to tell the audience this because none of his moves are the least bit impressive and we only see him dance in tiny snippets with women around him.

* ''AccordingToJim'': Andy is sometimes referred to as being intelligent. He works as an architect and supposedly got top grades in school. However, he also the show's {{buttmonkey}} and to this end he is frequently portrayed as an idiot, if not intellectually sub-normal. He is generally very slow on the uptake and is constantly outwitted by Dana, Jim and his small children.

* In the classic ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E20CourtMartial Court Martial]]", Samuel T. Cogley is, based on his actions in the episode, an idiotic Luddite who would have spectacularly lost Kirk's case without the timely interference of Spock. But everyone spends the whole episode talking about what a brilliant lawyer Cogley is.

* Okona from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Outrageous Okona". Obviously meant to be a Han Solo-pastiche (particularly because he is ''dressed exactly like Han Solo''), the smirking Okona comes across as an overgrown fratboy with a sense of privilege that would stagger a Trump. Riker and Wesley both gush over him, and he got a fair bit of tail on the Enterprise.

* In the ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' two-parter, ''Basics'', Neelix describes himself as a survival expert when the crew are marooned on a inhospitable planet by the Kazon. He then goes on to make extremely dangerous and idiotic decisions that anyone trained survivalist would never make, some of which get his fellow crewmembers killed.

* In the "Crossover" episode of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'', Intendant Kira praised the late Mirror!Odo's ability to run an efficient ore processing operation and maintain order among the slaves. The audience saw several examples of Mirror!Odo being ''cruel'', but not efficient or orderly. For example, Mirror!Odo allowed a thorium containment unit to go unrepaired, despite Mirror!O'Brien's warning, resulting in a catastrophic thorium leak. Furthermore, at least three Terran slaves escaped under his watch. Finally, he assigned Bashir to a task for which Bashir was physically unsuited, as Mirror!Odo lampshaded later in the episode.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', a computer programmer is repeatedly described as being lightyears ahead of his colleagues or revolutionary in his thinking, shown to be capable of developing a program that can hypnotize and ultimately liquefy the brains of victims, but when shown in person the programmer appears and acts like a deadbeat simpleton whose almost-childish motives for murder make his involvement clear to the FBI very quickly, though he could simply be a case of being a IdiotSavant.
* Played for laughs in ''TheMightyBoosh'' with Kirk, a shaman who looks like a normal boy but is apparently a menacing interdimensional being. We never see him do anything, but the other shamans accuse him of being "a vehicular menace," and "an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind," which he does not deny. They also say that he also has a far greater capacity for narcotics than the other shamans.
* Annie on ''SoWeird'' is supposed to be a great singer, and they manage to work in a song of hers in nearly every episode of the third season. But the actress who plays her (although she has [[InstantStar gotten quite a bit]] [[GrowingTheBeard better with age]]) was above-average at best.
* In ''Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'', writers Matt Albie and Danny Tripp are brought in by TV exec Jordan [=McDeere=] to save the supposedly-tanking ShowWithinAShow of the same name. Their first sketch after coming back on the air with new material (in the episode following the pilot) is a boring and monotonous parody of ''ThePiratesOfPenzance'' - and the sketches don't get any better from there. This is despite the fact that Matt and Danny are frequently referred to as brilliant and visionary by everyone around them. It doesn't help matters that, of the few times we get to hear about "Peripheral Vision Man" (which, judging from the pilot, was a cartoon animated in the style of Robert Smigel's ''TVFunhouse''), it's more amusing to hear than anything featured in the so-called "superior" sketches.
* In ''{{Hex}}'', it is repeatedly stated that the ghost Thelma will pass through anything living that she touches and thus can't get physical with Cassie outside of dreams. This is never actually shown at any point in the series, nor do they spend any time talking about the fact that she can handle inanimate objects (as she frequently does) without breaking the rules. An Informed Inability.
* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk Paints His Masterpiece", we're repeatedly told that Monk is a terrible artist, which is probably true from an [[TechnicianVersusPerformer artistic standpoint but not from a technical one]]. They were essentially 2-D figures made from perfect geometric shapes/lines that took incredible skill and discipline to produce and represented Monk's vision of a perfectly ordered and straight world but were devoid of any individuality or creative genius. Of course, his teacher's preferred entry was blatantly plagarizing ''The Scream''.
* In ''TheOffice'', Dwight Shrute is hailed as their number one salesman and apparently has the numbers to back it up. While we occasionally see flashes of a polished hard-sell, he usually comes across as abrasive and threatening when on screen, quickly driving away his potential customers. This is especially obvious in the episode where he quits and goes to work for Staples. He immediately breaks records by selling two printers in his first day (off screen), but when we see him, he's chasing off a customer by insulting her printer paper choice. In contrast Michael, likewise touted as an excellent salesman, has been repeatedly shown winning over customers on-screen.
* Josh in ''TheWestWing'' is supposed to be a political savant. He certainly comes off as absurdly ''smart'', if thoroughly arrogant. But in terms of actually playing politics and running campaigns, he screws up. Frequently. His crowning moment as a political operative is taking Jimmy Smits and making him president, but that's more a result of Smits' character taking steps that fly in the face of Josh's advice.
* In the second half of ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'', each episode's [[MonsterOfTheWeek alien criminal]] was said to have committed crimes that were more and more outlandish, until virtually nobody hadn't singlehandedly devastated dozens of planets. Then they come to Earth... alone, with barely effective energy blasts and a HumongousMecha (typically ''recently'' bought from the arms-dealing recurring villain, meaning they ''didn't'' have it when they wiped out fifty planets) that's quickly taken out. Especially jarring because earlier in the season, they weren't nearly as ridiculous about this. So the ''powerful'' enemy who commanded an army destroyed ''nine'' planets... and the ''powerless'' enemy with nothing but zappy claws destroyed a ''hundred''. Suuuuuure, we buy that.

* The MusicalEpisode of ''ThatsSoRaven'' has everyone act as though Raven put on the best musical performance of anyone. While Raven is a good singer, Annelise Van Der Pol is a Broadway powerhouse whose voice outshines the entire cast without any electronic enhancement, yet her talent isn't even acknowledged.
* Adric in ''Series/DoctorWho'' is supposed to be a genius, but of all the TARDIS crew travelling at the time, it is inevitably [[CreatorsPet Adric]] who will somehow screw up the Doctor's latest plan to defeat the bad guy by doing something stupid, or will be gullible enough to be suckered into helping the villain's evil plan regardless of how [[CardCarryingVillain transparently evil it is]]. For a supposedly smart person, the character doesn't come across as being particularly smart; and what makes it worse is that Adric is insufferably arrogant about skills that he is rarely demonstrated to actually possess.

* ''{{Series/Smallville}}'' 's Lana got a scholarship to an art school in Paris. We've never seen any of her artwork, and that was the only time she's even shown some interest in art.
* Violet on ''SavedByTheBell'' is a really amazing singer, so much so that the Glee Club ''[[RuleofFunny never mentioned before or since]]'' manages to finish in third in a singing contest by having her sing solo. But the audience can hear that her amazing singing amounts to being able to carry a tune.

* ''Series/{{Buffy|TheVampireSlayer}}'' is mentioned to be able to sense vampires with her Slayer instincts. She never, ever does. It was likely just just an element of the MythArc that was dropped early on.

* In ''Series/{{Angel}}'' with the character of Drogyn. A mystical, thousand-year-old immortal warrior who Angel says could kill Spike. He proceeds to never do anything but get his ass handed to him over and over, and then die. This is probably because because he was created last minute as a replacement for Giles when Anthony Stewart Head couldn't make it for filming. The only time he got into anything resembling a fight on-screen was with [[TheJuggernaut Hamilton]]. He did get badly wounded in an off-screen battle with a mook, but that mook did apparently outclass Spike.
* One ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode had murders taking place at a comedy club, whose native-son star attracted huge crowds even though he was a JerkAss. The few moments of him actually performing were disappointing. Strange, since he was played by the generally funny Jeffrey Ross.

* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits'' episode "Falling Star", the heroine's music is supposed to have such amazing influence that if she lives and succeeds as a pop star, the future will become a Utopia. The heroine is played (and presumably, her music composed) by Sheena Easton.
* Alan Shore from ''ThePractice'' and ''BostonLegal'' is introduced as one of the best anti-trust lawyers in Massachusetts, and references to that being his real area of expertise are frequently made. Over the years, he is seen practicing criminal law, tort law, administrative law, constitutional law, procedural law, evidence law and many others. He is never actually seen practicing anti-trust law. Paradoxically, he is introduced as having little-to-no criminal law experience, yet ends up spending most of his time representing criminal defendants.
* Neatly averted in a third-season episode of ''MarriedWithChildren'' where Kelly is forced to join the school tap-dancing class, gets some extra coaching from neighbor Steve, and finally does an erotic dance with her would-be boyfriend. As Christina Applegate, David Garrison, and the actor who played the boyfriend were all trained dancers themselves, it wasn't much of a stretch for their characters to do it.

* Series/{{Lost}}: [[CatchPhrase His name is Sayid Jarrah, and he is a torturer.]] Or so he informs us, and so [[spoiler:Kelvin Inman, the US soldier who taught Sayid to torture]] informed [[spoiler:him]]. But the only time we are even *informed* that he succesfully tortured someone is in a flashback, and it is almost all offscreen. This among numerous failed attempts.
* The character of Kate in the latest series of ''Series/RobinHood'' is described on the official website as an "indispensable" member of the team, whose weapon of choice is "her imagination." The former claim is strange enough considering she's entirely useless, but the latter is even more incomprehensible. Thus far the heights of her "imagination" involve her secretly palming an arrowhead into Robin's hand and using a sword to pull a key close enough for her to pick it up. Hardly a test of ingenuity.

* Rory Gilmore of ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' fame is repeatedly described as a brilliant writing prodigy who can make the most mundane story come to life with scintillating prose and profound insight. In the rare instances her articles and speeches are actually read aloud, they never rise at all above what any high school student could do.

* Arguably, the Venjix Virus, the antagonist of ''Series/PowerRangersRPM''. This virus took down the entire planet but cannot take down the last city on Earth.

* SoapOpera example: in ''OneLifeToLive'', Matthew was basically [[FreaksAndGeeks Sam Weir]] until he was paralyzed in a car accident in March 2009. Since then, his pre-disability athletic exploits have grown to the point where the yearbook shows him on the 9th grade interscholastic team in every fall and winter sport.
* ''{{Series/Glee}}'' casts a cute guy who's never sung before in the role of a cute guy who's never sung before. Good choice, he plays the part well, and has obvious talent and potential. However, the other characters heap praises on him as if he's superior to the other boys in the club, who are played by (and sound like) trained singers with lots of experience.

* Susan Meyer of ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', a character who even her actress has called a 'clumsy idiot' and who has certainly never displayed ''any'' academic qualities was casually mentioned as having been valedictorian at her high school.
* In ''Series/{{Survivor}}'', Kelly in ''Samoa'' was ''supposedly'' a huge threat to Russell that he had to get her out as fast as possible - however, because the producers forgot there was actually ''another'' tribe in the game, and that said other tribe actually consisted of more than Shambo, a lot of people were wondering just ''what'' made her a huge threat to Russell - The first person voted out at the merge of Galu was at least understandable. (He had an immunity idol) But Kelly? Who is this girl other than the girl in dreadlocks?

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' does this a few times when it comes to describing people as intelligent. Besides the odd character like Sam and Ash, who demonstrate that they are especially knowledgeable in certain fields, often the writers will just throw in a toss away line that explains that the character in question reads/owns a lot of complicated books so they must be smart, despite often making horribly poor decisions and never doing or saying anything that might demonstrate said intelligence.

* On ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', Mohinder is theoretically a geneticist with some idea of how the superpowers work. But he's constantly having plot points and technobabble explained ''to'' him by other characters, such as Bennet and Sylar.

* On ''Series/JonathanCreek'' Joey is initially introduced as Jonathan's intellectual equal, described on a television show as "someone whose powers of deduction and truly phenomenal flair for solving seemingly impossibly puzzles are beyond cool." Yet apart from ascertaining that the Nightmare Room is inescapable and discovering a clue that Jonathan misses ([[spoiler:one which ends up being a false lead]]), she doesn't solve any part of the mystery, and eventually admits: "I'm out of my depth here."
* Brian, the marketing genius of ''QueerAsFolk'', is really more of a one trick pony; No matter if he's selling booze, a steakhouse or a mayor candidate, he works the sex angle, and ''only'' the sex angle.
* Jane from ''{{Coupling}}'' is "the one with the breasts." Now the actress Gina Bellman is a very attractive woman but she is not ''exceptionally'' buxom. Although it is partly in comparison to the other two female members of the cast, however.
* This trope is the basis for comedian Bob Einstein's character Super Dave Osborne. SuperDave is continually lauded as one of the world's most daring and amazing stuntmen, whose death-defying feats are "astronomically sensational", to quote one such hyperbole. Of course, when we actually see Super Dave performs a stunt, it backfires spectacularly and he's horrifically maimed, twisted, or crushed in some way. See EpicFail.
* ''SonnyWithAChance'' inverts this. The ShowWithinAShow That's so Random's informed ability is that it sucks and no-one watches it. Not even the main character's mother.

* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'''s love of music. It's mentioned in the pilot. And in season two. And in season three. Other than that, he doesn't even seem to listen to music.

* Dan Humphrey of ''GossipGirl'' is constantly praised for his fantastic talent as a writer, but we are virtually never treated to any examples. In one episode, a story of his is glimpsed briefly, and it's [[SoBadItsGood comically bad]] - no doubt because it was written by the props team.

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and played for laughs on ''TheRedGreenShow'' when Possum Lodge acquires a collection of tubas. One segment has Red seemingly playing the show's theme song on the tuba, and he's pretty good at it. When he's done and the studio audience applauds, the song starts up again before Red kicks the person who's ''really'' playing the tuba.
* Lily Aldrin of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' is said to be a talented painter, but the paintings we see are more of a middle school art class quality. Yet Barney is willing to pay thousands of dollars for her to paint him in the nude after seeing another of her portraits.

* Inverted on ''{{Series/Friends}}'' in the episode "The One With The Fake Monica" when Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe end up in a tap-dancing class. While Monica and Phoebe struggle to keep up, without any buildup Rachel is able to perform the routine flawlessly. When the other girls look at her in amazement, Rachel simply shrugs and says that it's easy to keep up -- all you have to do is tap when the rest of the class taps. Of course, being played by trained dancer Creator/JenniferAniston tends to make this sort of thing a lot easier.
* Sam Beckett on ''Series/QuantumLeap'': we are informed that he "Has an IQ of 197 and graduated from high school at 16. Completed four years worth of classes at MIT in two years. Has seven doctoral degrees and speaks 11 languages." But precious little of this comes through on the show, where he typically arrives at the solution to the Problem of the Week via his intuition more than anything else (and he certainly never speaks any language other than English -- yes the Swiss Cheese effect might explain part but not all of that).

* The quality of the titular web show on ''Series/ICarly'' is greatly exaggerated. The characters on the show eat it up and it has become an internet phenomenon so well known it's been hit up for ideas for TV on the show on two separate occasions.

* Two or three teams do this to themselves every season on ''Series/TheAmazingRace''. They talk up their abilities before the race starts, only to fall flat on their faces once they're on the course, such as brain dead lawyer Lance in Season 15.

* Every ''KamenRider'' has an AllThereInTheManual description full of powers and features that never even come up shown in the show, for [[NoBudget obvious reasons]]. Fans may never know what happens if they got the [[BigBudgetBeefUp chance to cut loose]].

* Played with in ''Series/{{Castle}}''; while Richard Castle is a bestselling novelist, which implies ''some'' skill, several of the characters make somewhat snarky reference to the fact that his novels aren't exactly the great works of English literature (the phrase "not exactly Shakespeare" crops up more than once). This means that, on the few occasions his prose does show up, the viewers are primed to not necessarily expect the most awesomely mind-blowing and wonderful prose ever.

* Played with and subverted on ''{{Spaced}}'' in which three characters all work in creative professions, but we are never told if they're particularly good. Brian praises his former partner Vulva as a brilliant performance artist when her work is bizarre and incomprehensible, but exactly what someone like Brian (Wangsty, pretentious) would speak highly of. Daisy is a writer but is mostly too lazy to get any work done, and Tim is a comic book artist. His sketches were done by real-life comic book artist Simon Bisley (who Tim's named after), and might even count as an inversion; other characters frequently tend to discuss his work dismissively, usually by describing them as 'cartoons' ("It's a bit more complicated than that.") but when we see them they're actually quite good.
* On ''TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'', any talent or vocation of the main cast that doesn't relate to sex or sexual prowess is talked about but never shown. The most obvious one is Amy and Ricky being members of the school marching band. They're never shown practicing and don't possess any instruments at their homes. The closest Amy gets to touching an instrument while in a marching band is a scene from a flashback episode from band camp where she's tripping over herself because of seeing Ricky for the first time.
* On ''Series/{{Outsourced}}'', Todd is regarded in-universe as an [[TheEveryman Everyman]] trying his best to handle being in a different culture. Out of universe, he's regarded as a culturally insensitive clod who constantly grabs onto the IdiotBall in order to ensure CultureClash hijinks.
* In one episode of ''{{QI}}'', Stephen introduces the shoes of a 19th-century entertainer known as "Little Tich", whom he says was one of the greatest comedians of all time, and a huge inspiration on Chaplin. He goes on to say that in 200 years, when the names of Stephen Fry and the panelists on the show are forgotten, Little Tich's name will remain. The panelists point out that his name is ''already'' forgotten since no one there except Stephen (including the audience) recognized or had even heard of him. When a video of Little Tich is run, showing him doing a skit with elongated shoes that allow him to lean forward without falling over, the panelists argue that he's not even that funny.
* ''FullHouse'' pulls an inversion similar to the ''Friends'' example above. Jesse, who is genuinely horrible on ice expresses apprehension to Danny who himself says he feels like he'll probably be rusty too. Then Danny skates expertly out into the rink and performs a triple lutz landing backwards with his leg extended like a figure skater. He's just as rusty as he feared.
* In ''Series/TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr'', Pete Hutter has a nasty reputation. It's repeatedly said that "no one touches Pete's piece", in tones of horror that suggest what ''does'' happen to someone who touches Pete's gun. In practice, lots of people (or at least, Brisco, repeatedly) touch Pete's piece, and all Pete does about it is sit there, gibbering in shock that someone was mad enough to touch his piece.
* ''Series/HannahMontana'' has the titular character's singing praised in multiple episodes. One in particular has Miley use a microphone to give her voice to her best friend to use in a singing contest. Everyone gushes on how amazing Lilly's voice is, but it's all too easy to wonder how much they're being paid to say that.
* ''Series/{{Survivor}}''. In Nicaragua, Season 21, Brenda and Sash are frequently referred to as being dangerous strategic masterminds who need to be watched. This is despite neither of them doing anything remotely strategic the entire season. In fact, Brenda fails to do anything to save herself when it is clear that she may go home, since she "doesn't want to be seen as scrambling." This may have been emphasized in editing to compensate for the season's lack of strong strategists, even as the viewing public was clamoring for more strategists in the vein of Russell Hantz.

* All the ADA's who came after Alex Cabot on LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit had to endure a bit of time in the ReplacementScrappy box because of how popular she was with fans, but Kim Greylek's contribution to the show was pretty much nothing but InformedAbility, to the point that she ''introduced herself'' as "The Crusader" and although we never saw it, she was also a highly aggressive and competent lawyer from big important D.C. and taking cases in little ol' Manhattan to further her political aspirations (that we're told she has). Fans of the show didn't tolerate her very well, and she didn't even last a whole season. This is especially notable when compared to her predecessor, Casey Novak, who, as Cabot's successor, landed into ReplacementScrappy territory just long enough to haul herself out of it by kicking legal ass in magnificent fashion. Which makes Greylek's InformedAbility all the more perplexing; the writers clearly didn't have any problems with writing Novak as a great lawyer, so what happened with Greylek?
* Excalibur from ''Series/{{Merlin}}'' is described constantly as a powerful and dangerous sword that can '''only''' be wielded safely by Arthur. Yet not only is it used by both Uther and Merlin in two separate episodes with no drastic consequences, by the time Arthur ''finally'' gets his hands on it at the end of series four, nothing particularly exceptional is done with it. He can't even defeat [[TheBrute Helios]] without help. The sword lives up to its reputation of being able to kill the dead, but it's neither as awesome in the right hands ''or'' as dangerous in the wrong ones as its maker would have you believe.
* In ''{{Series/Nashville}}'', Rayna Jaymes is ostensibly one of the greatest (though not as big as she was) country stars going while upstart Juliette Barnes hasn't got enough talent to fit inside a thimble and has to fight to prove herself, but Rayna's supposedly authentic act isn't that much (if any) of an artistic advance on Juliette's crossover tracks. It doesn't help that quite a few people believe HaydenPanettiere (Juliette) is a better singer than Connie Britton (Rayna), and some of them are Britton ''fans.'' Most tellingly, Panettiere has more songs on the soundtrack album(s)[[hottip:*: and more music from the show released overall]] than Britton.
* In one episode of ''TheMindyProject'', all of the women are surprised to learn that one of the doctors is a good dancer. They have to tell the audience this because none of his moves are the least bit impressive and we only see him dance in tiny snippets with women around him.
* Elizabeth Weir from ''StargateAtlantis'' is said to be a skilled and experienced diplomat. You wouldn't know it from her time leading the Atlantis Expedition. Her efforts to negotiate peaceful solutions with other races fail more often than they succeed, her command decisions violate basic human rights conventions multiple times (granted, these aren't "humans" in the traditional sense she's dealing with), and she spends the bulk of the first two seasons dealing with dissent from the other scientists and jockeying with Sheppard for leadership of the Expedition. The argument could be made that this is part of the point - that politics in the Pegasus Galaxy are so unlike what she's used to dealing with on Earth that she's forced to rewrite the rules on the fly - but far too many confrontations end with explosions then would be expected from one of Earth's allegedly greatest diplomats.
* Andy on ''AccordingToJim'' is sometimes referred to as being intelligent. He works as an architect and supposedly got top grades in school. However, he also the show's {{buttmonkey}} and to this end he is frequently portrayed as an idiot, if not intellectually sub-normal. He is generally very slow on the uptake and is constantly outwitted by Dana, Jim and his small children.