History SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism / LiveActionTV

** To be more precise, it is extremely cynical for the male cast. The world hates them with the force of a thousand suns and at best they deserve the abuse and at worst they get roughed up, spat on, and then stomped on for having deviant opinions. The female cast lives in a semi-idealistic world where almost nothing goes wrong. This seems is a summary of most DanSchneider shows in general; girls rarely get the raw end of the deal, while [[DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale the abuse for boys lasts during and after the episode's done.]]

** Not in volumes 3 and onward. After the Volume 4 , no more Mr. Nice Guy from the Cape. In fact, several times, Future Peter seemed ''very'' cynical, and let us not forget Claire who is some Frankensteinish cross between her people-loving uncle and her stubborn, pessimistic father. Future Claire in volume 3 scared me a little, I'll admit.

** It can be argued that Mal represents a center point on the scale. He will commit blatant crimes upto and including the above-mentioned murder but all in the name of protecting his "family" as represented by his crew.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' began pretty much at the middle for its' initial season (which centered on Prince Edmund trying to gain the throne) before leaning more and more on cynicism: the second season featured an {{Expy}} of Elizabeth I as a complete failure of a queen. It becomes even more cynical in its final season, ''Blackadder Goes Forth'', due to it being set during World War I, where the people in charge are complete morons, and it eventually ends with [[spoiler: all of the main characters being sent over the top and dying.]]
** But while the ending of ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' was on the more tearjerking side, the ending of ''Blackadder the Third'' is 100% cynical: [[spoiler: the VillainProtagonist and the Prince dress up as each other in order to prevent the Prince from being killed, but he dies anyways, leaving the VillainProtagonist to take command as Prince Regent. That being said, the Prince was an UpperClassTwit, but still.]]

** ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' actually flopped back and forth: "Once More Into the Breach" is idealistic: HeroicSacrifice to save the day actually works [[spoiler: and it's implied that's what the TragicHero wanted all along]] and many enemy installations are destroyed. And generally this is war at its glory. And then we get "Siege of AR-558" which is cynical to the end (basically it's like ''Film/Platoon'', but with ''fewer'' survivors) [[spoiler: and the system they fought for is later lost anyway.]]
** ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' is further on the cynicism end than most of ''Star Trek'' had been at that point. The crew fights for peace, but commits some moral breaches to do it, up to and including MindRape.
*** On the other hand, while some of the crew's actions may be morally questionable, the overal theme of the movie is overwhelmingly idealistic: The Klingon Empire--enemies of the Federation throughout the TOS era--have suffered a major catastrophe, and some within the Federation are suggesting that this is an ideal time to crush the Empire, given their weakened state. Yet Kirk & Co. save the Klingon Empire rather than destroying it.

** Star Trek's MirrorUniverse is basically a much more cynical version of the regular TrekVerse. In the mirror version, HumansAreBastards and Deep Space 9 even implies that being cruel was [[HobbesWasRight the only way the Teran Empire could defend itself]] (when the mirror Spock takes over and makes the empire less cruel, it is overthrown by another evil government).

* For a show with such a silly premise, ''{{Series/Supernatural}}'' is firmly on the cynical side. They never get paid or thanked, it's implied that humans can be just as bad as the monsters they hunt, bad actions and secret-keeping always comes back to bite them on the arse, their extreme co-dependency is portrayed as unhealthy and slightly disturbing (and Dean's "We can't be martyrs anymore" speech has ''so'' many things wrong with it that you start to think they did that on purpose), and at the end of "What Is and What Should Never Be", Sam can't even convince Dean that what they do is worth all the pain in their life.

** That could be seen as quite idealistic, though, too. Demonstrating with brutal clarity exactly where cynicism will get them. . . namely, [[spoiler:sucked into a black hole that will eat the universe.]]

** Also: Bad people do tend to get their comeuppance. For example, Tony ruins his friends' lives and [[spoiler: immediately he is hit by a bus which his recovery leading to a HeelFaceTurn]]. Both Mad Twatter and his {{Expy}} in Generation 2 get the shit kicked out of them (literally in the former case) for messing with the protagonists. Only [[spoiler: Chris, Freddie and Grace]], and [[spoiler: Sid's dad]] get the truly bleak end of the stick.

* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' and ''Series/TheColbertReport'' both embrace the cynical end of the scale as a way of life, though this is a given when you're showing politicians and select journalists to be hypocrites, liars, and idiots four nights a week .
* ''Series/BreakingBad'' is firmly on the cynical side of things The thesis of the show is that a decent milquetoast chemistry teacher with a loving family can enter the criminal underworld under the pretenses of needing the money and end up becoming a hardened criminal who continues on with his work despite being given multiple opportunities to stop engaging in criminal activity. [[spoiler:Ultimately, his empire falls and while he secures the future of his family, he does not survive the ordeal.]]

** ''PowerRangersTimeForce'' is somewhere in the middle. The series opens with a ranger actually DYING (He gets better), with a mutant criminal terrorists escaping to rewrite history and a dark background with revenge and hatred. On the other hand, the rangers don't actually kill their enemies. Rather they shrink them down for reimprisonment. And at the end of the series, the villain actually surrenders to the rangers, seeing what he has done to his family.

** ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'' really likes to straddle the line throughout its run. It starts out as a goofy, idealistic story of {{Mon}} battles, but soon plunges into a cynical deconstruction of Kamen Rider, turning it into a CosmicHorrorStory about an unstoppable force that can only be stopped by beings who couldn't give a damn about whether we die or not. If that weren't enough, many people turn into monsters and never go back, the one man with enough power to stop all off this is considering mass genocide to save what they can and secretly being manipulated by his coworkers, who couldn't care less about his desire to save the world, and the protagonist ends up with allies that either ditch him after a while or go with him for convenience. However, in spite of its cynicism that seems to never end, there's far from no hope; Kouta's hope is shown to not be as stupid as others make it out to be and helps him go on in spite of all the crap that goes his way; Oren and Jounouchi, who were once selfish assholes that couldn't give half a damn about anyone else before, grow up and fight for altruistic goals; truly irredeemable characters get their end while those with hints of redemption don't always live, but still go out redeemed; the once unstoppable force is taken to a place by Kouta where it can't harm anyone and allows him to create new lives instead of end others; if Kouta is needed on earth, there's still little in his way of helping them. Ultimately, Gaim is a long tunnel of darkness that seems nearly endless, but there's still a light at the end of that tunnel that can be earned if one is willing to go that far.

** ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'' really likes to straddle the line throughout its run. It starts out as a goofy, idealistic story of {{Mon}} battles, but soon plunges into a cynical deconstruction of Kamen Rider, turning it into a CosmicHorrorStory about an unstoppable force that can only be stopped by beings who couldn't give a damn about whether we die or not. If that weren't enough, people can turn into monsters and never go back, the one man with enough power to stop all off this is secretly being manipulated by his coworkers, who are mostly selfish assholes, and the protagonist ends up with allies that either ditch him after a while or go with him for convenience. However, in spite of its cynicism that seems to never end, there's far from no hope; Kouta remains hopeful, it's shown to not be as stupid as others make it out to be and helps him go on in spite of all the crap that goes his way; Oren and Jounouchi, who were once selfish assholes that couldn't give half a damn about anyone else before, grow up and fight for altruistic goals; truly irredeemable characters get their end while those with hints of redemption don't always live, but still go out redeemed; the once unstoppable force is taken to a place by Kouta where it can't harm anyone and allows him to create new lives instead of end others; if Kouta is needed on earth, there's still little in his way of helping them. Ultimately, Gaim is a long tunnel of darkness that seems nearly endless, but there's still a light at the end of that tunnel that can be earned if one is willing to go that far.

** ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' began pretty much at the middle for its' initial season (which centered on Prince Edmund trying to gain the throne) before leaning more and more on cynicism: the second season featured an {{Expy}} of Elizabeth I as a complete failure of a queen. It becomes even more cynical in its final season, ''Blackadder Goes Forth'', due to it being set during World War I, where the people in charge are complete morons, and it eventually ends with [[spoiler: all of the main characters being sent over the top and dying.]]

* ''Series/BlackAdder'' is firmly on the cynical side of things, but even more so in its final season, ''Blackadder Goes Forth'', due to it being set during World War I, where the people in charge are complete morons, and it eventually ends with [[spoiler: all of the main characters being sent over the top and dying.]]

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' began pretty much at the middle for its' initial season (which centered on Prince Edmund trying to gain the throne) before leaning more and more on cynicism: the second season featured an {{Expy}} of Elizabeth I as a complete failure of a queen. Series three had Blackadder himself doing very ugly deeds [[spoiler:eventually becoming the Prince Regent]]; and the final incarnation was set during UsefulNotes/TheGreatWar, [[spoiler: and its ending was ''not'' humourous]].

* ''Series/Blackadder'' is firmly on the cynical side of things, but even more so in its final season, ''Blackadder Goes Forth'', due to it being set during World War I, where the people in charge are complete morons, and it eventually ends with [[spoiler: all of the main characters being sent over the top and dying.]]

* ''Series/FoylesWar'' tends to hover somewhere around the middle; since the whole point of the series is to explode the myth that during WorldWarII everyone in Britain pitched in together to fight the Nazis, it's generally quite cynical; a frequent theme is that war changes people, usually for the worse. As such, people are venal, cowardly, classist, elitist and, especially in the early seasons, quite defeatist. The government is depicted as being quite morally flexible, willing to do whatever it takes to win the war, to the extent that they freely issue {{Get Out Of Jail Free Card}}s to people who they think can help, resulting in a high number of {{Karma Houdini}}s in Foyle's investigations. However, the series frequently reiterates that the war had to be won and the Nazis were even worse, and that there were good, decent and even heroic people around; most especially, Foyle himself is consistently presented as a genuinely noble and honourable man.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' is actually more cynical than you might think, despite it running on [[ThePowerOfFriendship friendship]] and RightMakesMight. On the one hand, the rangers rarely suffer any serious defeats from season to season that aren't eventually reversed within a few episodes. On the other hand, they constantly have to punch, shoot and destroy most of their enemies who are more interested in hurting them rather than hearing them out. Not to mention some of the galactic implications regarding the numerous alien empires destroyed or galaxies wrecked over the course of the franchise hinting that the galaxy is much worse than earth is.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' (at least in the first four seasons or so) tends towards idealism. People are mostly good. Evil can be defeated. Monsters can become heroes. Even Cordelia Chase gets nicer, and Spike becomes a NobleDemon. However, the ''Season Eight'' comic is firmly on the cynicism side. [[spoiler:The universe is the Big Bad and only destroying all magic can stop it.]]
** ''Series/{{Angel}}'' on the other hand, tends toward cynicism: the [[UltimateEvil Senior Partners]] can never be defeated, only temporarily inconvenienced, and the universe is shown to be as equally heartless to an EldritchAbomination as anyone else.

*** "If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do." Sounds idealistic to me.
*** The contrast between ''Buffy'' and ''Angel'' is both are inherently idealistic, but illustrate different traditions of idealism. ''Buffy'', at least in the television program, is closer to the Christian idealism, which knows that Good will ultimately win, though it may require a lot of pain, and even the ultimate sacrifice, to make happen. ''Angel'' appears closer to the Germanic Pagan idealism, which knows that the gods will fall and the world is doomed to Ragnarok; but that it's better to fight for the gods and die a noble death, than to give in to the darkness.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' began pretty much at the middle for its' initial season (which centered on Prince Edmund trying to gain the throne) before leaning more and more on cynicism: the second season featured an {{Expy}} of Elizabeth I as a complete failure of a queen. Series three had Blackadder himself doing very ugly deeds [[spoiler:eventually becoming the Prince Regent]]; and the final incarnation was set during TheGreatWar, [[spoiler: and its ending was ''not'' humourous]].

** ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' actually flopped back and forth: "Once More Into the Breach" is idealistic: HeroicSacrifice to save the day actually works [[spoiler: and it's implied that's what the TragicHero wanted all along]] and many enemy installations are destroyed. And generally this is war at its glory. And then we get "Siege of AR-558" which is cynical to the end (basically it's like "Platoon" movie, but with 'less' survivors) [[spoiler: and the system they fought for is later lost anyway.]]

** ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' often switches between cynical and idealistic viewpoints. In the short term, the characters often don't really learn that much from their mistakes, but in the long term, they all have go through at least some positive CharacterDevelopment. In other words: the cynicism is played for laughs, but at it's core, the show is somewhat idealistic.

** ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' was initially very idealistic, with Mike being TheAce and Archie a StrawConservative. After a few seasons however, Mike was seen as more hypocritical, while Archie became much kinder and tolerant (not that much anyway) getting close to the middle. ''Series/ArchieBunkersPlace'' became more cynical, even if Archie's prejudices had been thoroughly toned down.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' began pretty much at the middle for its' initial season (which centered on Prince Edmund trying to gain the throne) before leaning more and more on cynicism: the second season featured an {{Expy}} of Elizabeth I as a complete failure of a queen. Series three had Blackadder himself doing very ugly deeds [[spoiler:eventually becoming the Prince Regent]]; and the final incarnation was set during TheGreatWar, [[spoiler:and it's ending was ''not'' humourous]].

** It's spinoff, ''Series/BetterCallSaul,'' is even ''more'' cynical than ''Series/BreakingBad.'' Unlike Walt, Saul tries to do the right thing. However, [[BeingGoodSucks it doesn't get him anywhere,]] leading him to become the "criminal lawyer" on ''Series/BreakingBad.''

* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'': Jade and Tori are in an in-show evocation of this trope and seem to represent it's own clash between Idealistic and Cynical values. Tori is generally kind, caring, easily forgives those who wrong her and generally believes people's happiness and sense of comfort are the best key to their well being. Jade, in contrast, is cold, distant, often abrasively cruel, and believes what's best for people is conveying (what she believes is) the world's brutal truths. There's argument that both worldviews are right and wrong in both similar and different ways. The show itself often tends to slide between a more optimistic and pessimistic view of human relationships and nature, although Tori's climatic show of unconditional love towards Jade during ''Tori Goes Platinum'' (even after the latter's betrayal) seems to hint it's ultimately an {{Idealist}}ic rather than a {{Cynical}} show, despite many grey areas and mixed messages that pop up now and again.

** Perhaps the most obvious way to think about it is looking at the most important aspect of the series: It's villains. The heroes in general are more idealistic (save for the KnightInSourArmor hero), so it's the show's treatment of the villains that really shows where the series is on the scale. When the series began, the hero/villain line was a lot more clear cut, showing an idealistic show that you can find a happy ending even if you [[EarnYourHappyEnding have to earn it]]. However, by the middle of season 1, you begin to see that even classic villains like The Evil Queen could have a FreudianExcuse behind their actions, though without excusing them. Come season 2 though, the series goes in 3 directions with villains, showing a surprising amount of idealism. Some villains try reforming (some more successfully than the other), 2 have an AlasPoorVillain moment despite being serious antagonists, some are given some excuse though have to die for the sake of the group, while some are given life, but in such a way that they lose what they really wanted. In general Once dresses in cynicism in poking holes in fairy tales, but lives in idealism in holding onto the idea of there being good in even the worst people.

** Its Asian variant, ForensicHeroes however is on a more idealistic side with a couple of dramatic moments to offset not only the lighter setting (literally) but also the reactions to the situation (It helps since each case is not a single episode affair but a complete arc).

* ''Series/TheSarahConnorChronicles'' sits on the edge of the middle, leaning toward the cynical side of things. Sarah Connor herself is represented as something of an idealist who values all human life and will not kill anyone, but nearly everyone else in the series save her son is comparatively ruthless. Nearly every attempt made thus far to show mercy to someone who is a potential danger turns out to bite the Connors in the ass in one form or another, and the only way to protect the family is often to eliminate witnesses, enemies, and other threats.

* ''Series/YesMinister'' and its {{sequel}} series ''YesPrimeMinister'' tends towards the cynical side of the trope; the British Civil Service is, for the most part, depicted as a smug, hypocritically self-serving, elitist and amoral monolith perpetuating a clogged bureaucracy arrogantly convinced that it alone knows what is best for Britain (despite being aloof and out-of-touch for the most part) and automatically opposed to any and all hints of change, even if that change would be beneficial or even urgently necessary. Politicians, on the other hand, are cowardly opportunists who, whilst they might have vague ideas of change and reform, will fold at the slightest hurdle or if it looks like the public will turn against them. And whilst occasional victories might be won and small reforms implemented, there's an ever-present sense that nothing will ever change in any meaningful way.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' is another example of hardcore cynicism, providing a stark contrast with the blissful optimism of the late-Reagan/early-Bush (Sr.) era[[note]]Its WorkingTitle was ''Not {{The Cosby|Show}}s''[[/note]]: The ''entire'' cast is made up of jerks and losers (except for Bud and Steve, who are ''just'' losers). While the female characters are clearly more successful, they achieve this by less-than-honorable means, while the men are... well, fate has them as its favorite toys. Famously subverted by the fact that the Bundys do really care for each other in spite of all.

* The ''{{Ultra Series}}'' started out fairly light, with death shown, but with mostly good ends for the protagonists. Leo went all-out, with nearly everyone dying and brutal dismemberment. The Heisei series started out with serious moments but hopeful endings. Then Nexus came along, swinging the series down the scale again. Recent series have been lighthearted and fun.

* ''Series/TheSopranos'' is unrelentingly cynical, not only in its depiction of its characters but in its grim postulations about human nature. However, it is not ''entirely'' doom and gloom: even characters who do monstrous things feel genuine emotions and [[PapaBear sincerely love]] [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas their families]]; characters are depicted as possessing moral agency, even if time and time again they slip back into choosing what's easy over what's right; and for all their difficulties and disappointments, the show ends with a glimmer of hope that Tony and Carmela have at least succeeded in raising children who will have a better life than them, thus carrying on the AmericanDream.

* ''Series/BlackMirror'' might be one of the most cynical TV shows of the century. In every story, the problem stems from either {{New Media Are Evil}} or {{Humans Are Bastards}}.

* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' leans very far on the cynical side. Aside from George Michael and possibly his father Michael, all the characters are incredibly self-centered and amoral people who (as the show's title implies) experience zero character development. And even Michael, especially later in the series, has a major {{Jerkass}} streak. It's even been theorized by some fans that Michael is [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation actually every bit as selfish and amoral as the rest of the Bluth and Funke families but better at hiding it.]][[spoiler:Season 4 proves this theory.]]