History TheMainCharactersDoEverything / LiveActionTV

*** This example is also {{justified|Trope}{, as Damar and Weyoun are on the station already and seem to be the only non-Jem'Hadar Dominion members there.

* Everything, literally everything, in ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' is handled by one of the eight characters (only six of whom ever serve concurrently). Justified in the first season where there are only six characters on boardthe eponymous ship in the first place, with no hope of back-up. However after they succeed in recreating the Commonwealth, they bring on a crew of over 1000 people; and yet the non-commissioned random people that Dylan picked up in the first season serve as department heads, go on all the dangerous away missions, and generally forget about all the extra crew whenever the script requires it. Then again, we don't like to talk about the later seasons anyway.
* John Koenig, the Commander of the Moonbase in ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'' frequently flies an Eagle on reconnaissance and survey missions. Neatly justified as he is an experienced astronaut and most of Alpha's actual pilots were killed in the first episode.

** Kira Nerys is a major in the Bajoran Militia; her official role is the liaison officer between Bajor and the Federation. Additionally, she is the first officer of Deep Space Nine, which makes sense because [=DS9=] is a Bajoran station; it's simply under Federation administration. However, once the ''Defiant'' is introduced, in at least one episode Kira is stated to be the ship's first officer, and she even takes command on occasion. Bajor is ''not'' a member of the Federation —half the story revolves around this point— yet the Federation apparently has no problem with an officer from a semi-allied foreign military staffing one of the highest positions on a cutting-edge (and top-secret!) Federation starship. Furthermore, Kira herself doesn't seem to have any problems working with Federation starship technology, despite the fact that she'd spent most of her life as an underground freedom fighter and terrorist. It's like making a member of the French Resistance the XO of a Russian warship towards the end of World War II.

*** This example is also [[JustifiedTrope justified]], as Damar and Weyoun are on the station already and seem to be the only non-Jem'Hadar Dominion members there.
** The Female Changeling fulfills the trope when she is trapped in the Alpha Quadrant when the wormhole is mined shut at the start of the Federation-Dominion war. This specific changeling --out of literally billions of individuals-- was the one personally responsible for introducing Odo to his people when he first found them, and was also the one to bring Odo back there for his judgment and punishment, indicating that she was some sort of senior leader or at least a designated spokesperson. During the war she becomes the supreme leader of all Dominion assets in the Alpha Quadrant, responsible for literally everything they do. Note that all other Changelings who had supposedly been working undercover in the Alpha Quadrant prior to the war --such as the one(s) encountered earlier on Earth during the episodes "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost"-- are conveniently gone from the quadrant by the time this happens; the Female Changeling tells Odo that she is the only one left, and the events of the show never contradict this.

** The four man infiltration team(O'Brien, Odo, Sisko and Worf) sent to expose the Founder in "Apocalypse Rising" stands out as particularly absurd, since they would, and in fact did, get recognized. The only person who should have been involved is Worf, and only in an advisory role, not on the mission itself.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' features this to an extent with Lanie, the medical examiner. While she does do autopsies, fitting her role, she also handles all of the field work and generally is the one to do much of the other forensic analysis despite the fact that there are other specialties for those roles.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' has a forensic anthropologist doing EVERYTHING. There was once an actual Forensic Anthropology teacher who offered extra credit to her students if they watched a single episode of the show and brought in a list of everything wrong with it. Up to a point this is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the premise of the show. Bones is one of only two forensic anthropologists in North America (the other is in Quebec) and insists on full participation in investigations as a condition of consulting for the FBI. Of course, the only reason the FBI accepts this instead of calling the Canadian guy is [[AnthropicPrinciple because then there wouldn't be a show.]] (Also, the mention of Quebec is a reference to her own position in the books.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' has a forensic anthropologist doing EVERYTHING. There was once an actual Forensic Anthropology teacher who offered extra credit to her students if they watched a single episode of the show and brought in a list of everything wrong with it. Up to a point this is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the premise of the show. Bones is one of only two forensic anthropologists in North America (the other is in Quebec) and insists on full participation in investigations as a condition of consulting for the FBI. Of course, the only reason the FBI accepts this instead of calling the Canadian guy is [[AnthropicPrinciple because then there wouldn't be a show.]]

* ''Series/CriminalMinds''
** The show always has the valuable profilers arresting the violent, dangerous psychopaths. Also, the characters deal with everything from serial killers to the mob to terrorists to child abductors. In real life, the FBI has different departments for each of these and would not send the same team on all the cases they get. Justified to some extent as they do need episodes. It is brought ''occasionally'' that the individual members ''do'' in fact specialise in certain crimes, but this rarely comes up and when it does, it is often incidental (for instance, Morgan was once asked by Rossi to consult on an obsessive killer as his speciality is Obsessions, but it was a coincidence that he was with Rossi at the time to consult at all).
** In an early episode, the BAU team is assisting a search-and-rescue along with the local authorities and volunteers from the community. The BAU's real goal is to profile the volunteers to see if one of them is the unsub, but still with all of those people looking for clues and the BAU watching the people, not actively searching, it's Elle who finds the note saying the missing girl is going to be sacrificed.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' has a forensic anthropologist doing EVERYTHING. There was once an actual Forensic Anthropology teacher who offered extra credit to her students if they watched a single episode of the show and brought in a list of everything wrong with it. Up to a point this is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the premise of the show. Bones is one of only two forensic anthropologists in North America (the other is in Quebec) and insists on full participation in investigations as a condition of consulting for the FBI. Of course, the only reason the FBI accepts this instead of calling the Canadian guy is [[AnthropicPrinciple because then there wouldn't be a show.]]
* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'' justifies it slightly: No, Crime Scene Analyst Edward Nygma ''isn't'' supposed to do autopsies. He does them anyway [[InsufferableGenius because he wants to.]] The captain more or less ignores it because the actual [=ME=] has a habit of declaring people with twenty stab wounds in the back [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch tragic suicides.]] [[spoiler:When the examiner tries to have Nygma fired for it, Edward frames him for stealing body parts. The replacement becomes friends with him and allows him to work in the pathology.]]
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' has Agent Scully serving as a field agent and performing her own autopsies. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] somewhat due to the fact that she was a medical doctor before she joined the FBI.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' is supposed to have the titular Division, a joint task force comprising dozens to hundreds of agents, of which our protagonists are only a few. By season 2, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Fringe Division was headquartered in Walter's lab and was comprised of three FBI agents, two civilian consultants and a cow.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' features this to an extent with Lanie, the medical examiner. While she does do autopsies, fitting her role, she also handles all of the field work and generally is the one to do much of the other forensic analysis despite the fact that there are other specialties for those roles.
* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'':
** S.H.I.E.L.D. is essentially a police procedural [[RecycledInSpace in the Marvel movie universe]], on a team that has two specialist "field agents" capable of performing technical tasks through comms or even by themselves, doing things as various as confronting {{Super Soldier}}s, disarming weather control devices, infiltrating enemy locations, and developing cures for alien diseases. In some ways an inversion of the trope, since the goal seems to be to give every member of TheTeam equal screen time. Becomes [[JustifiedTrope justified]] after [[spoiler: SHIELD is destroyed during the events of ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'', as the main characters are all that's left. Building SHIELD back up from a handful of people Coulson knows and trusts to its former status as an international peacekeeping organization looks to be one of the main goals of the series.]]
** All medical procedures are performed by one of the two scientists on the team, one of whom is a biochemist (so knowledgeable about human anatomy but ''by no means'' a medical doctor, despite almost everyone - including herself - treating her as one from Season 2 onwards), and the other of whom is a physicist and engineer (so... just no, unless his patient is a cyborg, which to be fair is quite often the case). This made sense for a bit as in the beginning they weren't expecting there to be much immediate physical danger on their missions and, later (after [[spoiler:the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.]]) they couldn't exactly call in med team reinforcements, but the idea that they still haven't hired any medical specialists by Season 3 despite having their own massive operations base now is stretching credulity just a bit.
* ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' Strategic Response Unit Team One is called out for a lot of things -- not just hostage negotiation and rescue, their most frequent and stated job, but also kidnapping, robbery, a couple of VIP escorts, serving high risk warrants, raids and responding to bomb threats. It is justified, however, in that the SRU teams are intended to respond to any possible situation, and have done a great deal of crosstraining (while Sgt. Greg Parker is the main negotiator, everyone on Team One has ended up having to negotiate with subjects at some point), and specialties ''are'' honored, though everyone has two or three, stretching it a bit (Spike is both their bomb tech and tech... tech, Wordy is the pointman, surveillance, and less lethal guy, and so on).
* ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'s'' forensic team is introduced with the specialties of Beverly on fiber analysis, Jimmy on latent prints, and Zeller on cause of death. All useful skills on an investigation, but they are also shown performing autopsies, profiling killers, and ''tracing phone calls''.
* ''Series/BlueBloods'' has a tendency to refer ''every'' type of legal issue to Erin, even when it's something that would better be handled in civil court and/or by a private-practice attorney specialized in the field (e.g. housing-rights disputes, immigration paperwork). Often this is little more than an excuse to name-drop her in a Danny- or Jamie-focused episode where she'd otherwise have very little to do.

** Sort of explained/handwaved as House heads a special department that deals with tricky cases and diagnoses. However, most of the tests would still be done by other doctors or specialists.

** A truly astounding example of the "random phenomenon affects only main characters" rule occurs in the first-season episode "Two Days and Two Nights", in which a lottery is held among all crew members to determine who gets to go down to the newly-discovered pleasure planet Risa for vacation. Out of a total of 83 crew-members on the ship, five people win this ''supposedly-random'' lottery: exactly ''all'' of the human main characters. [[note]]Fun fact: the odds of this occurring by random chance are 83!/(5!*(83-5)!) = approximately 1 in 29 million.[[/note]]

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' averts this as part of its surprising accuracy in how medicine works. They play a lot off the contrasts between medical and surgical, blue scrubs for medical doctors and green scrubs for surgeons. Both J.D. and Elliot have to face choosing a specific field (Elliot especially being pushed towards OB-GYN) and both eventually go for general practitioner. Other episodes involve the characters having to trade favors, bribes or blackmail to get lab results done quicker or a CAT scan done after hours. Turk talks about being rotated to different areas of surgery, from orthopedics and cosmetic, and he later makes a point that he doesn't have experience in pre-natal when asked to assist on one as a favor.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}'', cop Maggie suffers a minor injury from Cyborg Superman. A few scenes later we see love interest Alex stitching up the wound. Alex was not present at the scene so there is no reason why she should be the one to perform this procedure instead of one of Maggie's squadmates or indeed a proper medical professional. Even if Cyborg Superman's eye beam caused [[AppliedPhlebotinum some form of exotic damage]] that required the specialist alien knowledge of the DEO it is unlikely that Alex would be the most qualified to administer treatment given that she had displayed no particular aptitude for medicine prior to this point. It's eventually revealed that Alex went to med school, although she, apparently, dropped out when J'onn approached her about joining DEO. Still, one would think an organization like DEO would have qualified medical professionals on staff.

* ''Series/{{Emergency}}'' both averted and played it straight. The paramedics had their own job, but could also act as firefighters since they were firefighter/paramedics. Most hospital stuff, though, was done by one of the three main doctors (Early, Brackett and Morton) and although there were lots of background nurses, Dixie was the most often seen one.

* ''Series/{{Numb3rs}}'' features this with OmnidisciplinaryScientist Charlie, somehow a mathematician is the one they go to to handle engineering analysis, geology and whatever other random scientific concepts are necessary for the case of the week. While he does get help from resident HotScientist Amita, a computer scientist, and his physicist mentor, AbsentMindedProfessor Larry, they are still involved in a much larger number of fields than any real life scientist or mathematician. While occasionally other experts are brought in as necessary, more often than not it fall to the three main characters to do all the work.

** It's even worse in the case of Tom Paris, who is apparently knowledgable in everything from piloting, engineering, commando tactics, etc. And he's an ''ex-con''. In "Year Of Hell," within the space of 30 seconds he is describing modifications he made to ''Voyager's'' hull (engineering) inspired by the ''Titanic'' (history) when he is suddenly called to perform field medicine and none of these things are his actual piloting job.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' at least, has two excuses: Half the original crew was killed in the first episode (including the doctor, nurse, chief engineer, lead helmswoman, and first officer), and they can't get specialized personnel from Starfleet. Those left on board ''have'' to step up from time to time. Still, some things don't even make sense in that context, such as Janeway frequently sending both herself and her first officer off the ship on ''routine patrols''.

* The doctors on ''Series/{{House}}'' often perform all sorts of duties that should've been departmentalized - everything from radiology to surgery as well as performing a vast amount of specialist procedures and lab tests outside of their own specialities. Somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]] given that House's boss - the person who runs the hospital - has the hots for him, so he and his team get away with a lot of stuff they really shouldn't.

** This appears to be acknowledged InUniverse in [[Recap/StarTrekS2E22ByAnyOtherName "By Any Other Name"]]. When some aliens take over the Enterprise, they decide to only keep around essential personnel; they [[BalefulPolymorph transform everyone else into small blocks]]. By the time they're done, the only crew members left untransformed are Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty. According to the aliens, those four are the only people who are truly needed to keep the Enterprise running . . . and the rest of the show doesn't exactly prove them wrong.

* Also averted in ''Series/AdamTwelve''. Reed and Malloy were patrolmen, their job was to respond to calls and arrest criminals. They worked with the Detective Division, but it was to give them information and provide backup - any investigation was done by the detectives themselves. Once Reed and Malloy arrested someone and brought them in (and did the paperwork), their part was complete and they went out to the next call. Not only was it realistic, it also provided a great variety of stories per episode.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'' had "Fire in Space" being most obvious. When the bridge is hit a SuicideAttack by the Cylons, Commander Adama is injured and barely conscious, but he is still giving orders in that state when you would think the unhurt Colonel Tigh would insist that Adama is no condition to do so and should simply rest as he is taken to sickbay.
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' also delves into this, though it's partially justified what with the near-extinction of humanity at the hands of the Cylons leaving fewer people left who are trained in all the necessary disciplines. Still, with thousands of people in the fleet, it seems that the same dozen characters are responsible for pretty much everything that goes on. This is especially blatant with [[WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs Pilot/Rebel/Commando/Vigilante/Criminal Investigator/Starship Captain/Lawyer/Politician/President]] Lee Adama - sometimes all in the same episode! The series would really have benefitted from at least one marine main character.

** They avert in some areas, though. Commander William Adama goes on an "away mission" once in the whole series (when he checks out the munitions at Ragnar Anchorage - not a situation where they expecting danger) and if you ever see him in a Viper fighting the Cylons himself, it's only in a flashback to his own days as a pilot.
*** Commander Adama also went down to Kobol in [[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S2E07HomePart2 "Home, Part II"]]. After major surgery.