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** By the same token, the same has been said about a short-lived 1986 syndicated game show called ''Perfect Match,'' where host Bob Goen gave his all to an equally-awful format (it only lasted nine months, from January 1986 to Sept. 1986).
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** Despite the extremely divisive reception of Season 5 as a whole, no one had anything bad to say about Creator/JonathanPryce as The High Sparrow who was undeniably doing his best and turned what could have been a typical religious fanatic and nothing more into a compelling, multi-dimensional villain who sincerely believes in what he's doing and who cares deeply about creating a better life for the poor of Westeros, even if his methods are undeniably brutal. The fact that he gave Cersei her [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty long-overdue comeuppance]] certainly helped.
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** The only thing that saves Rumpelstiltskin is Creator/RobertCarlyle's performance. Despite the inexplicable FaceHeelRevolvingDoor, Carlyle makes the character so wonderfully evil (and yet Woobie-ish at the same time) that he comes close to salvaging it.
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** The only thing that saves Rumpelstiltskin is Creator/RobertCarlyle's performance. Despite the inexplicable FaceHeelRevolvingDoor, Carlyle makes the character so wonderfully evil and charismatic (and yet Woobie-ish at the same time) that he comes close to salvaging it.
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* ''Series/{{Friends}}'':
** In-universe, Creator/GaryOldman's character, the one that was in Joey's overbudget (and nonexistent budget) UsefulNotes/WorldWarI epic.
** Also in-universe, Creator/JeffGoldblum plays an award-winning actor who takes a strange amount of pride in some obnoxious cellphone commercials he appeared in.
--->'''Leonard Hayes''': Are you making fun of me? Because I am ''not'' a sell-out! I didn't do that for the money - I ''believe'' in those phones! [[SeriousBusiness I almost lost a cousin because of bad wireless service!]]
** Additionally, in a first season episode, Joey was supposed to play Creator/AlPacino's butt but was fired for acting too much.
** There's also the episode where Joey was going to work in a film with the basic "driver meets a hitchhiker, gives her a ride, she disappears, then he's told that she was DeadAllAlong" as its ''whole plot'', which he insists will be his big break.
--->'''Chandler''': It doesn't even sound like a real movie!
* Robert Reed of ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' did this as long as he could, before finally snapping and [[http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2004/11/my-sense-of-humor-my-best-friend-david.html firing off an angry memo]] to producer Sherwood Schwartz when the show finally became too silly for him.
** Reed refused to appear in the final episode of the fifth season and wound up being fired because everyone else involved was simply tired of dealing with him. The series' cancellation a few months later meant that they never had to find a replacement.
* In contrast to Robert Reed typically being the one taking the Brady Bunch premise far too seriously (see above,) he actually enjoyed filming the infamous [[Series/BradyBunchSpinOffs ''Brady Bunch Hour" Variety Show]] thanks to the lack of participation of the Schwartzes, who he famously feuded with. Instead, it was the normally more easygoing Creator/FlorenceHenderson who was guilty of doing it this time around. Henderson was a longtime Broadway veteran who saw the show as an important national showcase for her singing and dancing talent, and caused tension when she didn't think everybody else was taking it seriously enough.
* The entire cast of ''Series/RobinHood'' in the third season, bless them. What had been a silly, campy show for its first two seasons (and which somehow managed to pull it off, thanks to the dignity of the actors) was now asking to be taken [[DarkerAndEdgier deadly seriously]]... whilst ''still'' including ridiculous scenarios such as a lion so old that it couldn't even walk in a straight line and Robin hang-gliding from the castle parapets. In fact, Allan-a-Dale's WTF reaction to the hang-gliding is clearly the moment when the actor decided he was quitting.
* In the DVDCommentary for the ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "[[{{Recap/FarscapeS01E14JeremiahCrichton}} Jeremiah Crichton]]" (subtitled "When Bad Things Happen to Good Shows"), the four people commenting (two actors and two producers(?)) generally agree that too many people involved took an ultimately goofy episode too seriously, which contributed to its epic badness.
* ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'': Creator/BeaArthur and Creator/ArtCarney may not have belonged in a ''Star Wars'' related work but they were the only ones turning in nuanced and engaging performances (Arthur more so than Carney as Carney was expected to do schtick to fill long stretches of the special.) That was probably because Arthur had no clue she was doing the Holiday Special. Several times afterward, she said she had no clue she was doing anything related to ''Star Wars,'' and just thought she was singing to people with funny-looking heads. She probably just did what any professional would do, give it her best effort, and didn't realize it would become what it was.
* Tina Louise, who played Ginger, on ''Series/GilligansIsland''. Not by the standards of any other show, mind you, but she's still downright kosher [[WorldOfHam compared to her castmates]]. This may be part of the reason that she became so resentful of it in her later years.
* Creator/FranciaRaisa on ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' ''especially'' after her character Adrian [[spoiler: loses her baby.]] Her more dramatic scenes are quite jarring compared to everything else on the show.
* Creator/PatrickStewart personifies this trope so completely that it's been called his greatest strength as an actor: he can deliver bad dialogue with utter conviction. Sometimes this allows him to elevate the material above what it could have been otherwise, but not always. Said to be one of the main reasons he was asked to voice [[WesternAnimation/AmericanDad Deputy Director Bullock]], was that Creator/SethMacFarlane could put any string of words together in front of Stewart and he would read them with straight conviction. Probably the same reason he narrated ''Film/{{Ted}}''.
* Legendary Canadian sitcom ''The Trouble With Tracy'' is routinely hailed as potentially the worst sitcom of all time. The producers shot seven episodes every five days on a handful of very basic sets, using dated radio scripts (from a fairly obscure radio show that was even then 25 years old). A cheap laugh track is smeared over it all, and flubbed lines and wobbling sets are common in the finished episodes as the show couldn't afford re-takes except in the most dire of circumstances. Knowing all this, the actors still really give their all toward selling the material (particularly leads Diane Nyland and Steve Weston). This gives ''The Trouble With Tracy'' a certain amount of undeniable charm, even as you watch in horrified fascination at how godawful the actual show is. The cast has ''nothing'' to work with, and no time or resources to improve things -- but they still give it everything they've got. The results are virtually always wince-inducingly corny... but it's really tough to dislike the actors who are working heroically hard to make ''something'' out of this doomed-to-failure enterprise.
* Even during [[SeasonalRot the weakest seasons and episodes]] of ''Series/TwentyFour'', Creator/KieferSutherland was constantly praised for delivering great performances and making Jack Bauer a sympathetic, well-rounded character (no mean feat, considering that Jack is a MemeticBadass TortureTechnician).
-->'''Ken Tucker:''' [''[[http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/05/25/24-finale-season-8/ reviewing the series finale]]''] Lead actors in good TV dramas have to pace themselves, knowing that a season has a shape and that it’s a smart idea to avoid keeping the same tone or intensity hour after hour. But the very nature of ''24'' didn’t give Sutherland that artistic option... [he] probably portrayed intensity with more shades and variations than any TV actor. He rarely went overboard; he never succumbed to melodrama. The plots around him may have, but not Jack.
** Similar comments were directed at Creator/CherryJones for her consistently brilliant performance as President Allison Taylor during seasons 7 and 8. This is unsurprising when you learn that Ms Jones is more or less considered the Creator/MerylStreep of the American Broadway[[note]]on the less attention-getting but no less prestigious non-musical, "straight play" side of Broadway[[/note]] stage.
* Creator/LorneGreene in ''Series/Galactica1980''. As one of the few members of the main cast that came back at all, and the only one who agreed to still BE in the main cast, armed with a genial new [[GrowingTheBeard Santa beard]], he tries hard to convince the audience they're still watching the same show, [[FanonDiscontinuity but...]]
* Neil Hamilton really didn't have much fun portraying Commissioner Gordon on the 1966-1968 ''Series/Batman1966'' TV series, primarily because of this trope. He believed that the pseudo-serious performances actually ''were'' supposed to be serious, and he would get angry when other cast members were caught snickering at the inanity of the dialogue between takes, believing they were being disrespectful. Even so, Creator/AdamWest has admitted that Hamilton was one of the most accomplished actors on that show.
* Lecy Goranson's too-serious Becky Conner in ''Series/{{Roseanne}}''. It was okay at first when the sitcom was a good show that slightly resembled the real world, but she seemed more and more out of place when the show became [[DenserAndWackier super cheesy and kitsch during its final moments]], leaving Lecy to be the only real thing left in the show. (Ironically, when Goranson returned for the revival and the subsequent SpinOff series ''Series/TheConners'', she portrayed Becky in a much more [[LargeHam hammy]] style.)
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E1TheTombOfTheCybermen The Tomb of the Cybermen]]", despite its NightmareFuel visual setpieces and GothicHorror vibe, has a nonsensical plot, leaves Jamie and Victoria standing around with nothing to do for most of the plot, and is [[EthnicScrappy incredibly racist]] even [[ValuesDissonance by 1967 standards]], and the under-rehearsed cast veers between LargeHam and DullSurprise. It's also the episode where Creator/MattSmith fell head-over-heels in love with Creator/PatrickTroughton's masterful performance and called up Creator/StevenMoffat to gush about how brilliant it was, insisting on using that version of the character as the basis of his own take on it. The scene where the Doctor gives a speech to Victoria about how 'no-one else in the universe can do what we're doing' is performed beautifully by him despite being a last-minute {{Padding}} scene added when the episode underran and is one of the Second Doctor's best scenes because of it.
** Even Creator/PatrickTroughton doesn't bother putting in much of an effort in atrocious, fascist nonsense "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators The Dominators]]" (the second least-popular Troughton story), but Ronald Allen as Navigator Rago, in a giant foam collar and eyeliner, plays his part with such CreepyMonotone conviction he ''almost'' saves it.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]" -- a story voted the least popular Troughton story in the 2014 ''[[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine DWM]]'' poll, a story rushed out during a period of TroubledProduction when the show was almost canceled, and a story where the Doctor is mostly playing PinballProtagonist and has very little screentime while various more dynamic guest characters carry the plot -- Troughton's performance of the scene where he realizes he's made a mistake and has trapped himself and his companions on board a fragment of space debris with rapidly depleting oxygen and hundreds of miles of open space between it and the TARDIS is absolutely heartwrenching, and a rare example of the Second Doctor ever being completely serious.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]". Faced with glaringly bright sets, a new Doctor who, while good, hadn't ''quite'' found his feet in the role yet, a very plastic alien and a BodyHorror [[TheVirus Virus]] made out of [[SpecialEffectFailure packaging material]], Kenton Moore as Noah plays his role so passionately and convincingly that he turns a cliffhanger of him taking his hand out of his pocket to reveal it's wrapped in green bubble wrap from {{Narm}} to the sofa-chewing NightmareFuel of a man enduring a slow and excruciating transformation into a creeping wasp monster. Creator/TomBaker's performance of a PatrickStewartSpeech in the first episode is also very strong and does a lot to show what the then-new Doctor can do.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E5ThePowerOfKroll The Power of Kroll]]", a story with lots of SpecialEffectFailure written by a burned-out writer who hated working on it so much that he ended his association with the show for six years afterward, casts Philip Madoc in a minor role as the character Fenner. Madoc thought he was getting cast as the BigBad Thawn, which would have suited him better, and was so outraged with his [[ClassicallyTrainedExtra minor role]] that he also ended his association with the show. Not that this stops him giving his all -- he has clearly decided he's going to do the best damn thing in the story despite what boring part they put him in, and plays him with a charisma and repressed, seething anger that's bizarre to see coming from a generic ''Doctor Who'' MookLieutenant BitCharacter.
** Even though "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E2Meglos Meglos]]" is usually considered a boring fluff piece with [[MoodWhiplash tone problems]] due to a GenreShift mid-development, Creator/TomBaker actually does some of the best acting of his whole tenure in it, and in a season often criticised for Baker's lack of enthusiasm to boot. This is probably because he has something interesting to do -- he has to play the Doctor, the Doctor's CriminalDoppelganger EvilTwin, and each one [[ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin pretending to be the other]] -- so Baker had more room to show off [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct range and subtlety]] than he usually got. (The fact that he'd spent the last few seasons [[LargeHam mugging for the sake of it]] makes this even more striking.) In the review book ''About Time'', Tat Wood observes that Baker "is having fun finding ways of suggesting he's [[EvilTwin a mad cactus]]". Jacqueline Hill, who played the companion Barbara Wright back in the First Doctor days, also returns here playing a completely unrelated character and imbues her with infinitely more dignity and interiority than the script gave her.
** One of the more common opinions about [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the TV movie]] in the fandom is that, while the movie is generally cheesy and nonsensical, Creator/PaulMcGann gives a charming and believable performance as the Eighth Doctor which is about the only thing worth watching in it. Creator/SylvesterMcCoy also delivers a likable and moving performance despite being in a film that, according to him, shouldn't even have had him in it. His last scene before he regenerates, as he is on the operating table trying to tell the medics he's an alien and they're killing him, shows some of his best acting, from an actor who before this was largely known for vaudeville.
** The Monks Trilogy three-parter midway through Series 10 of the revival started well with "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]" before succumbing to a ridiculous plot in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E7ThePyramidAtTheEndOfTheWorld The Pyramid at the End of the World]]" and then a brutal case of both TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot and ThirdActStupidity in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand The Lie of the Land]]". But praise was virtually unanimous for Creator/PeterCapaldi (The Doctor), Creator/PearlMackie (Bill), Creator/MichelleGomez (Missy), and Matt Lucas (Nardole) for wringing real thrills, chills, laughs, and heartache from the half-baked scripts. The standoff between a desperate Bill and the Doctor, who has become a coldheartedly pragmatic PropagandaMachine for the aliens who have enslaved her kind, on a prison ship in "Lie of the Land" is a brilliant showcase for their actors even as it ends with [[spoiler: the reveal that the Doctor is faking his villainy -- ''and'' a regeneration -- to test her, after she passes by shooting him with a gun that was really full of blanks]].
* In ''Comrades of Summer'', the first Soviet Olympic baseball team play an exhibition game against the world-champion New York Yankees. Russia had no tradition of baseball, and their team was made up of athletes drafted from other sports (hockey, track, tennis, swimming, and so on); they had only one "real" baseball player, and he learned the game playing little league while living in the US with his ambassador father. Going into the game against the Yankees, everyone but the Russians knew that the game was going to be a crushing defeat for the Russians. Except no one told the Russians, who went in and played their hearts out. As a result, while the Yankees still won the game, they held the ''world champion New York Yankees'' to only a one-run lead.
* It would seem that every version of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has somebody who does this.
** ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek's]]'' Creator/DeForestKelley was well-known for giving every single episode his all, even if he and everyone else on set knew it was a turkey. Best shown in "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]", where he's displaying profound conviction even though nobody else in the series was able to see a script where space bimbos steal, well, Spock's brain and react without sniggering.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' greatly benefitted from Creator/PatrickStewart, especially in the early years, with his well-known talent for delivering even bad dialogue with utter conviction.
** Variation in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': instead of an actor, it was the ''director'', Creator/AlexanderSiddig, who did this in the notoriously bad "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E23ProfitAndLace Profit and Lace]]", viewing an admittedly bad farce as instead a dramatic piece. As a result, even the bits that could have worked ended up not working.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' isn't so much a bad series as it is a very polarizing one, but it is a case where the technical achievements of the show overwhelmed the story. That didn't stop Creator/KateMulgrew (Captain Janeway) from throwing every bit of talent she had into the stories, even as she grew increasingly frustrated about Janeway's inconsistent characterization. Most of the other cast members did this too, putting in great performances even in the show's weakest episodes -- see, for instance, Creator/RobertDuncanMcNeill acting the crap out of his scenes in the legendarily terrible "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E15Threshold Threshold]]" (the effects/makeup team also provided a non-acting example in that episode, creating genuinely great makeup for the sequences where Paris is slowly turning into a lizard after traveling at infinite speed. Seriously). The major exception is Creator/RobertBeltran, who, by his own admission, loathed the series and [[EthnicScrappy his role]], and was on "not giving a shit" mode in almost every episode.
** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'':
*** Creator/DominicKeating put a lot of effort into fleshing out the character of Malcolm Reed, viewing him as a lonely man who disproportionately magnifies the few emotional connections he's able to make, only to spend most of the first two seasons as "that stuffy British guy who gets [[TheWorfEffect Worfed]] all the time".
*** Jolene Blalock was a self-described Trekkie and studied Creator/LeonardNimoy's performances as Spock and learned Vulcan to play T'Pol, even though as MsFanservice was stuffed into a ridiculous catsuit and often put into situations where she was stripped of it.
* Many reviews of the short-lived Creator/{{GSN}} game show ''How Much Is Enough?'', which was literally 30 minutes of contestants hitting buttons to stop a money clock, noted that the show's only saving grace was Corbin Bernsen's charismatic hosting.
* By their own admission, neither Creator/RobertVaughn nor Creator/DavidMcCallum had much emotional investment in ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'' towards the end of its run... and it shows. Fortunately, not everyone who appeared during the final season shared this approach -- witness guest star Creator/LeslieNielsen in the two-part SeriesFinale "The Seven Wonders Of The World Affair" as a renegade general involved in a plan to use a docility gas on the world's population and take over. Thanks to his committed turn, you actually feel [[AlasPoorVillain sympathy for him]] when [[spoiler: he gets trapped in the gas-emitting device and goes from a power-hungry military man to a quiet individual who won't do ''anything'', including come out of the device, unless someone tells him to do it]].
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Even though a large section of the fandom were very unhappy about the AdaptationalVillainy of Stannis Baratheon, Stephen Dillane is widely considered one of the best actors. [[spoiler:The scene where he burns his daughter Shireen, even if not in the books and one of the most controversial moments in the show, is brilliant to watch because of Stephen's acting. Even though the next episode has him getting killed in an incredibly ignominious fashion that has many of his fans practically foaming at the mouth his acting sells the scenes and makes him UnintentionallySympathetic despite the writer's intentions.]]
** You felt really bad for Creator/AlexanderSiddig on how his character, Prince Doran Martell was used in the widely despised Dorne arc in Season 5 and 6 as his acting and lines are one of the good things compared to [[TheScrappy the Sand Snakes]]' awful acting and the ridiculousness surrounding this storyline.
** General reception of Talisa Maegyr was that the character wasn't written that well, but Oona Chaplin did a very good job with what she was given. [[spoiler: And Talisa's shocking death managed to move even her many haters]].
** Ellaria was originally a fan favorite when she showed up and became TheScrappy only because of the atrociously written arc she [[AdaptationalVillainy was put through]] in Season 5. Still, if Indira Varma doesn't try her hardest.
** The last half of Season 8 took very little time to be labeled the worst part of the series's run, for its contrived plotting, baffling developments, and character assassination. But Creator/EmiliaClarke largely repeated Stephen Dillane's feat, managing to sell Daenerys' utter grief and shock at the multiple DiabolusExMachina thrust upon her and making her twist far more sympathetic than was probably intended. Especially impressive, considering she had to deliver a lot of her dialogue and pivotal scenes while sitting on [[https://i.imgur.com/ajaGxqf.jpg a lime-green lump]] that'd be turned into a dragon in post.
** Even Pilou Asbæk was apparently disappointed by Euron's AdaptationalPersonalityChange and AdaptationalWimp status, going from a terrifying mage-pirate to an annoying Jack Sparrow knockoff with decidedly inconsistent motivations and wildly varying skill levels. Nonetheless, he still put enough effort into the performance to end up [[WagTheDirector rewriting Euron's final moments]] to be more in-character.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** The only thing that saves Rumpelstiltskin is Creator/RobertCarlyle's performance. Despite the inexplicable FaceHeelRevolvingDoor, Carlyle makes the character so wonderfully evil (and yet Woobie-ish at the same time) that he comes close to salvaging it.
** Season 5 was noted to be a huge case of SeasonalRot, with the only thing keeping the show together being Lana Parrilla's charisma as Regina.
** Earlier Season 2 entered a massive KudzuPlot that was made watchable by Barbara Hershey's performance making Cora a MagnificentBitch. [[spoiler: When they killed her off, the rest of the season flopped]].
* ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' suffered SeasonalRot from the third season onwards -- with characters changing motivations, plots becoming ridiculously melodramatic and CharacterDevelopment becoming non-existent. Yet the cast continued to shine with whatever they were given -- the likes of Creator/MaggieSmith and Joanne Froggatt being nominated for several awards (and Smith winning many of them).
* It's pretty obvious that Creator/TracySpiridakos is trying hard - perhaps a bit too hard - to inject some sort of life into her character on ''Series/{{Revolution}}'', but the writing makes her out to be a whiny, incompetent {{Jerkass}} with a penchant for getting captured and starting brawls.
* Happens InUniverse in ''Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace'': the cast of the titular ShowWithinAShow are mostly non-actors [[BadBadActing doing a terrible job]], either sleepwalking through their lines or hamming it up. The guy playing [[MauveShirt the Temp]], however, is an actual actor who's clearly doing what he can with the stilted material he's been given. Naturally, all he accomplishes is showing just how awful the other actors are, especially the arrogant [[VanityProject head writer/star]], who [[ShooOutTheNewGuy quickly kills him off]].
** Madeline Wool as Liz Asher is an [[DeconstructedTrope example of how this can work to a show's detriment]]. Aside from not being able to pull off the HystericalWoman her character is supposed to be very well she's pretty much the best actor among the regular cast besides [[ClassicallyTrainedExtra Todd Rivers]] [[HamAndCheese as Lucien Sanchez]], but she tends to stick to the script ''exactly'' as it's written even when others fumble their cues or when the direction she's given is patently ridiculous (which, because the show is written InUniverse by Garth Marenghi, who believes subtext is for cowards and [[StayInTheKitchen has low opinions of women]], leads to Liz doing things like ''thanking'' Garth's character Rick Dagless for punching her in the face and removing her psychic powers via lobotomy, generally treating him with admiration and deference, acting like a DumbBlonde despite her characters' [[IvyLeagueForEveryone credentials]], and criticizing herself for expecting respect from her colleagues)
* The actors involved in ''Series/{{Inhumans}}'' created an entire sign language for Anson Mount's mute character. In any show other than the dramatic nadir of the MCU, this would be impressive; as it stands, it's just kinda sad.
** Many people have also praised Iwan Rheon's performance as Maximus, saying he was a fantastic choice for the role and did the best he could with what he had. Many have said that, due to his performance and the [[DesignatedVillain way his characters was written]], the show would have been considerably better if it had focused on Maximus and made him the hero and made the [[DesignatedHero Inhuman Royal Family]] the villains.
* ''Series/InSearchOf'' was widely criticized in its day for many of the same reasons that ''Series/AncientAliens'' is today, engaging in copious amounts of absurd conjecture and holding up any and all random explanations as equally valid, legitimate answers. Nevertheless, Creator/LeonardNimoy, never one to half-ass anything, takes his role as the host very seriously and delivers a completely serious and compelling narration that never gives way no matter how bizarre or implausible the things he's describing get, making the series a joy to watch in spite of its abundant flaws.
* ''Series/Merlin2008'':
** DependingOnTheWriter the show's writing ranged from tolerable to downright atrocious (StatusQuoIsGod, {{Idiot Plot}}s everywhere, negative continuity). But it's agreed that the show managed to endure precisely from the effort of the actors involved. Arthur and Gwen's terribly written [[StrangledByTheRedString 'romance']] was in fact pulled off by the talents of Bradley James and Angel Coulby.
** Emilia Fox's unbridled charisma as Morgause made her the favorite villain on the show, even if her plots in Season 3 became increasingly convoluted. Doubly impressive considering she was several months pregnant at the time.
* ''Series/SchittsCreek'': InUniverse, Moira Rose is cast as Dr. Beatrice Mandrake in ''The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening'' and takes it very seriously, even going so far as to rewrite her dialogue and making up a middle name for her character. Rather than ridicule her for it, the show portrays this as an admirable trait since Moira is aware that this is likely the best she can do as an actress so she intends to do it well.
* Even at ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''[='=] [[SeasonalRot lowest points]], Creator/NinaDobrev received a great deal of praise for her complex, multi-layered portrayal of Elena and her various doppelgangers.
* ''Series/MrSelfridge'' suffered from soap-opera-ish writing, ham-handed plotlines, and sometimes quite frankly inane dialogue... which didn't keep the immensely talented cast from giving the show absolutely everything they had anyway, with the likes of Jeremy Piven, Katherine Kelly, Creator/AmandaAbbington, Aisling Loftus, Gregory Fitoussi, Frances O'Connor, Kara Tointon, Samuel West, and Amy Beth Hayes ''somehow'' elevating mediocre-at-best writing into truly touching and dramatic performances.
* ''Series/IShouldntBeAlive'' is a series of survival stories compiled from the testimony of the survivors - coupled with "Dramatic re-enactments" of lookalike actors. Most series with "Dramatic Re-enactments" are ''not'' known for the quality of their acting - often coming off as [[{{Narm}} unintentionally hilarious]] or melodramatic. However, this series in particular manages to shine out when the actors give genuinely shocking, heart-wrenching, or depressing performances. What's extra impressive is the fact that these aren't professional actors - they were literally cast because they look like the survivors (and the deceased).
* A documentary based upon the French Revolution featured some of these "Dramatic re-enactments", but the actress who played [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_du_Barry Madame Du Barry]] manages to give a ''very'' chilling performance of her trying to escape and screaming.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': In one sketch during the 2019 episode with Creator/EmmaStone as host, she played an actress who does this with her bit part on a ''gay porn shoot''. Her "role" is simply being the wife who's cheated on by her husband with her godson, appearing only briefly twice (to leave, then come back and catch them together). However, she goes all out trying to connect with her character, imagining her entire backstory and is moved to tears at the end (though the director doesn't care at all, her fellow actors are impressed).
* While practically every element of ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' has been mocked to hell and back, most people stop short of criticizing any of the acting. General consensus is that while the actors themselves are good and clearly trying to make something salvageable out of the show's plotlines, they're bogged down by bad writing and could be much better if they were given good material to work with.
* ''Series/HomeMovieThePrincessBride'': Most of the fun comes from an AllStarCast of various actors who know perfectly well that a home movie version of ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' with all the budget of 'stuff found around the house' would look totally ridiculous, and both made absolutely no attempt to hide the nonexistent production value ''and'' did their level best to give Oscar-worthy performances.
* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'': One of the frequently cited criticisms of the show's first season was that every actor seemed to think they were in a completely different kind of TV show -- Jada Pinkett Smith was going full camp, Donal Logue was basically playing Jerry Orbach's ''Law and Order'' character in a Batman universe, Cory Michael Smith was a romantic comedy protagonist, etc. And then there was Ben [=McKenzie=], playing Jim Gordon, who seemed to sincerely believe he was in a serious prestige drama about a good man's tragic fall and triumphant rise. As the show evolved and finally settled on a consistent tone (a kind of gleefully over-the-top dark camp), most of the actors eventually found that groove. [=McKenzie=], though, kept playing it completely straight, even in the face of the show's intentional ridiculousness.
* In ''Series/ReBootTheGuardianCode'', Timothy E. Brummond's spot-on performance as Megabyte is considered one of the show's few saving graces.
* ''Metástasis'' is a low-budget Columbian {{Telenovela}} adaptation of AMC's hit show ''Series/BreakingBad''. While ''Metástasis'' is an overall inferior product compared to the original for its [[SpecialEffectsFailure cheap special effects]] and wooden, {{Narm}}y acting, Diego Trujillo's performance as Walter Whi- er, [[DubNameChange Walter Blanco]], is considered one of the best things about the show (though admittedly, even he has his low moments, like his reaction to [[spoiler:Henry's (Hank's) death. Whereas Walter White looks utterly devistated, horrified, and broken by Hank's death, Walter Blanco reacts to Henry's death like he just opened the fridge to get milk for his cereal only to discover an empty milk carton.]]) Luis Eduardo Arango's performance as Saúl Bueno (Saul Goodman) is similarly praised, with Luis accurately recapturing Bob Odenkirk's high-energy, over-the-top performance as Saul Goodman.
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** In-universe, Creator/GaryOldman's character, the one that was in Joey's overbudget (and nonexistent budget) UsefulNotes/WorldWarI epic.
** Also in-universe, Creator/JeffGoldblum plays an award-winning actor who takes a strange amount of pride in some obnoxious cellphone commercials he appeared in.
--->'''Leonard Hayes''': Are you making fun of me? Because I am ''not'' a sell-out! I didn't do that for the money - I ''believe'' in those phones! [[SeriousBusiness I almost lost a cousin because of bad wireless service!]]
** Additionally, in a first season episode, Joey was supposed to play Creator/AlPacino's butt but was fired for acting too much.
** There's also the episode where Joey was going to work in a film with the basic "driver meets a hitchhiker, gives her a ride, she disappears, then he's told that she was DeadAllAlong" as its ''whole plot'', which he insists will be his big break.
--->'''Chandler''': It doesn't even sound like a real movie!
* Robert Reed of ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' did this as long as he could, before finally snapping and [[http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2004/11/my-sense-of-humor-my-best-friend-david.html firing off an angry memo]] to producer Sherwood Schwartz when the show finally became too silly for him.
** Reed refused to appear in the final episode of the fifth season and wound up being fired because everyone else involved was simply tired of dealing with him. The series' cancellation a few months later meant that they never had to find a replacement.
* In contrast to Robert Reed typically being the one taking the Brady Bunch premise far too seriously (see above,) he actually enjoyed filming the infamous [[Series/BradyBunchSpinOffs ''Brady Bunch Hour" Variety Show]] thanks to the lack of participation of the Schwartzes, who he famously feuded with. Instead, it was the normally more easygoing Creator/FlorenceHenderson who was guilty of doing it this time around. Henderson was a longtime Broadway veteran who saw the show as an important national showcase for her singing and dancing talent, and caused tension when she didn't think everybody else was taking it seriously enough.
* The entire cast of ''Series/RobinHood'' in the third season, bless them. What had been a silly, campy show for its first two seasons (and which somehow managed to pull it off, thanks to the dignity of the actors) was now asking to be taken [[DarkerAndEdgier deadly seriously]]... whilst ''still'' including ridiculous scenarios such as a lion so old that it couldn't even walk in a straight line and Robin hang-gliding from the castle parapets. In fact, Allan-a-Dale's WTF reaction to the hang-gliding is clearly the moment when the actor decided he was quitting.
* In the DVDCommentary for the ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "[[{{Recap/FarscapeS01E14JeremiahCrichton}} Jeremiah Crichton]]" (subtitled "When Bad Things Happen to Good Shows"), the four people commenting (two actors and two producers(?)) generally agree that too many people involved took an ultimately goofy episode too seriously, which contributed to its epic badness.
* ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'': Creator/BeaArthur and Creator/ArtCarney may not have belonged in a ''Star Wars'' related work but they were the only ones turning in nuanced and engaging performances (Arthur more so than Carney as Carney was expected to do schtick to fill long stretches of the special.) That was probably because Arthur had no clue she was doing the Holiday Special. Several times afterward, she said she had no clue she was doing anything related to ''Star Wars,'' and just thought she was singing to people with funny-looking heads. She probably just did what any professional would do, give it her best effort, and didn't realize it would become what it was.
* Tina Louise, who played Ginger, on ''Series/GilligansIsland''. Not by the standards of any other show, mind you, but she's still downright kosher [[WorldOfHam compared to her castmates]]. This may be part of the reason that she became so resentful of it in her later years.
* Creator/FranciaRaisa on ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' ''especially'' after her character Adrian [[spoiler: loses her baby.]] Her more dramatic scenes are quite jarring compared to everything else on the show.
* Creator/PatrickStewart personifies this trope so completely that it's been called his greatest strength as an actor: he can deliver bad dialogue with utter conviction. Sometimes this allows him to elevate the material above what it could have been otherwise, but not always. Said to be one of the main reasons he was asked to voice [[WesternAnimation/AmericanDad Deputy Director Bullock]], was that Creator/SethMacFarlane could put any string of words together in front of Stewart and he would read them with straight conviction. Probably the same reason he narrated ''Film/{{Ted}}''.
* Legendary Canadian sitcom ''The Trouble With Tracy'' is routinely hailed as potentially the worst sitcom of all time. The producers shot seven episodes every five days on a handful of very basic sets, using dated radio scripts (from a fairly obscure radio show that was even then 25 years old). A cheap laugh track is smeared over it all, and flubbed lines and wobbling sets are common in the finished episodes as the show couldn't afford re-takes except in the most dire of circumstances. Knowing all this, the actors still really give their all toward selling the material (particularly leads Diane Nyland and Steve Weston). This gives ''The Trouble With Tracy'' a certain amount of undeniable charm, even as you watch in horrified fascination at how godawful the actual show is. The cast has ''nothing'' to work with, and no time or resources to improve things -- but they still give it everything they've got. The results are virtually always wince-inducingly corny... but it's really tough to dislike the actors who are working heroically hard to make ''something'' out of this doomed-to-failure enterprise.
* Even during [[SeasonalRot the weakest seasons and episodes]] of ''Series/TwentyFour'', Creator/KieferSutherland was constantly praised for delivering great performances and making Jack Bauer a sympathetic, well-rounded character (no mean feat, considering that Jack is a MemeticBadass TortureTechnician).
-->'''Ken Tucker:''' [''[[http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/05/25/24-finale-season-8/ reviewing the series finale]]''] Lead actors in good TV dramas have to pace themselves, knowing that a season has a shape and that it’s a smart idea to avoid keeping the same tone or intensity hour after hour. But the very nature of ''24'' didn’t give Sutherland that artistic option... [he] probably portrayed intensity with more shades and variations than any TV actor. He rarely went overboard; he never succumbed to melodrama. The plots around him may have, but not Jack.
** Similar comments were directed at Creator/CherryJones for her consistently brilliant performance as President Allison Taylor during seasons 7 and 8. This is unsurprising when you learn that Ms Jones is more or less considered the Creator/MerylStreep of the American Broadway[[note]]on the less attention-getting but no less prestigious non-musical, "straight play" side of Broadway[[/note]] stage.
* Creator/LorneGreene in ''Series/Galactica1980''. As one of the few members of the main cast that came back at all, and the only one who agreed to still BE in the main cast, armed with a genial new [[GrowingTheBeard Santa beard]], he tries hard to convince the audience they're still watching the same show, [[FanonDiscontinuity but...]]
* Neil Hamilton really didn't have much fun portraying Commissioner Gordon on the 1966-1968 ''Series/Batman1966'' TV series, primarily because of this trope. He believed that the pseudo-serious performances actually ''were'' supposed to be serious, and he would get angry when other cast members were caught snickering at the inanity of the dialogue between takes, believing they were being disrespectful. Even so, Creator/AdamWest has admitted that Hamilton was one of the most accomplished actors on that show.
* Lecy Goranson's too-serious Becky Conner in ''Series/{{Roseanne}}''. It was okay at first when the sitcom was a good show that slightly resembled the real world, but she seemed more and more out of place when the show became [[DenserAndWackier super cheesy and kitsch during its final moments]], leaving Lecy to be the only real thing left in the show. (Ironically, when Goranson returned for the revival and the subsequent SpinOff series ''Series/TheConners'', she portrayed Becky in a much more [[LargeHam hammy]] style.)
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E1TheTombOfTheCybermen The Tomb of the Cybermen]]", despite its NightmareFuel visual setpieces and GothicHorror vibe, has a nonsensical plot, leaves Jamie and Victoria standing around with nothing to do for most of the plot, and is [[EthnicScrappy incredibly racist]] even [[ValuesDissonance by 1967 standards]], and the under-rehearsed cast veers between LargeHam and DullSurprise. It's also the episode where Creator/MattSmith fell head-over-heels in love with Creator/PatrickTroughton's masterful performance and called up Creator/StevenMoffat to gush about how brilliant it was, insisting on using that version of the character as the basis of his own take on it. The scene where the Doctor gives a speech to Victoria about how 'no-one else in the universe can do what we're doing' is performed beautifully by him despite being a last-minute {{Padding}} scene added when the episode underran and is one of the Second Doctor's best scenes because of it.
** Even Creator/PatrickTroughton doesn't bother putting in much of an effort in atrocious, fascist nonsense "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators The Dominators]]" (the second least-popular Troughton story), but Ronald Allen as Navigator Rago, in a giant foam collar and eyeliner, plays his part with such CreepyMonotone conviction he ''almost'' saves it.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]" -- a story voted the least popular Troughton story in the 2014 ''[[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine DWM]]'' poll, a story rushed out during a period of TroubledProduction when the show was almost canceled, and a story where the Doctor is mostly playing PinballProtagonist and has very little screentime while various more dynamic guest characters carry the plot -- Troughton's performance of the scene where he realizes he's made a mistake and has trapped himself and his companions on board a fragment of space debris with rapidly depleting oxygen and hundreds of miles of open space between it and the TARDIS is absolutely heartwrenching, and a rare example of the Second Doctor ever being completely serious.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]". Faced with glaringly bright sets, a new Doctor who, while good, hadn't ''quite'' found his feet in the role yet, a very plastic alien and a BodyHorror [[TheVirus Virus]] made out of [[SpecialEffectFailure packaging material]], Kenton Moore as Noah plays his role so passionately and convincingly that he turns a cliffhanger of him taking his hand out of his pocket to reveal it's wrapped in green bubble wrap from {{Narm}} to the sofa-chewing NightmareFuel of a man enduring a slow and excruciating transformation into a creeping wasp monster. Creator/TomBaker's performance of a PatrickStewartSpeech in the first episode is also very strong and does a lot to show what the then-new Doctor can do.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E5ThePowerOfKroll The Power of Kroll]]", a story with lots of SpecialEffectFailure written by a burned-out writer who hated working on it so much that he ended his association with the show for six years afterward, casts Philip Madoc in a minor role as the character Fenner. Madoc thought he was getting cast as the BigBad Thawn, which would have suited him better, and was so outraged with his [[ClassicallyTrainedExtra minor role]] that he also ended his association with the show. Not that this stops him giving his all -- he has clearly decided he's going to do the best damn thing in the story despite what boring part they put him in, and plays him with a charisma and repressed, seething anger that's bizarre to see coming from a generic ''Doctor Who'' MookLieutenant BitCharacter.
** Even though "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E2Meglos Meglos]]" is usually considered a boring fluff piece with [[MoodWhiplash tone problems]] due to a GenreShift mid-development, Creator/TomBaker actually does some of the best acting of his whole tenure in it, and in a season often criticised for Baker's lack of enthusiasm to boot. This is probably because he has something interesting to do -- he has to play the Doctor, the Doctor's CriminalDoppelganger EvilTwin, and each one [[ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin pretending to be the other]] -- so Baker had more room to show off [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct range and subtlety]] than he usually got. (The fact that he'd spent the last few seasons [[LargeHam mugging for the sake of it]] makes this even more striking.) In the review book ''About Time'', Tat Wood observes that Baker "is having fun finding ways of suggesting he's [[EvilTwin a mad cactus]]". Jacqueline Hill, who played the companion Barbara Wright back in the First Doctor days, also returns here playing a completely unrelated character and imbues her with infinitely more dignity and interiority than the script gave her.
** One of the more common opinions about [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the TV movie]] in the fandom is that, while the movie is generally cheesy and nonsensical, Creator/PaulMcGann gives a charming and believable performance as the Eighth Doctor which is about the only thing worth watching in it. Creator/SylvesterMcCoy also delivers a likable and moving performance despite being in a film that, according to him, shouldn't even have had him in it. His last scene before he regenerates, as he is on the operating table trying to tell the medics he's an alien and they're killing him, shows some of his best acting, from an actor who before this was largely known for vaudeville.
** The Monks Trilogy three-parter midway through Series 10 of the revival started well with "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]" before succumbing to a ridiculous plot in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E7ThePyramidAtTheEndOfTheWorld The Pyramid at the End of the World]]" and then a brutal case of both TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot and ThirdActStupidity in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand The Lie of the Land]]". But praise was virtually unanimous for Creator/PeterCapaldi (The Doctor), Creator/PearlMackie (Bill), Creator/MichelleGomez (Missy), and Matt Lucas (Nardole) for wringing real thrills, chills, laughs, and heartache from the half-baked scripts. The standoff between a desperate Bill and the Doctor, who has become a coldheartedly pragmatic PropagandaMachine for the aliens who have enslaved her kind, on a prison ship in "Lie of the Land" is a brilliant showcase for their actors even as it ends with [[spoiler: the reveal that the Doctor is faking his villainy -- ''and'' a regeneration -- to test her, after she passes by shooting him with a gun that was really full of blanks]].
* In ''Comrades of Summer'', the first Soviet Olympic baseball team play an exhibition game against the world-champion New York Yankees. Russia had no tradition of baseball, and their team was made up of athletes drafted from other sports (hockey, track, tennis, swimming, and so on); they had only one "real" baseball player, and he learned the game playing little league while living in the US with his ambassador father. Going into the game against the Yankees, everyone but the Russians knew that the game was going to be a crushing defeat for the Russians. Except no one told the Russians, who went in and played their hearts out. As a result, while the Yankees still won the game, they held the ''world champion New York Yankees'' to only a one-run lead.
* It would seem that every version of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has somebody who does this.
** ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek's]]'' Creator/DeForestKelley was well-known for giving every single episode his all, even if he and everyone else on set knew it was a turkey. Best shown in "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]", where he's displaying profound conviction even though nobody else in the series was able to see a script where space bimbos steal, well, Spock's brain and react without sniggering.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' greatly benefitted from Creator/PatrickStewart, especially in the early years, with his well-known talent for delivering even bad dialogue with utter conviction.
** Variation in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': instead of an actor, it was the ''director'', Creator/AlexanderSiddig, who did this in the notoriously bad "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E23ProfitAndLace Profit and Lace]]", viewing an admittedly bad farce as instead a dramatic piece. As a result, even the bits that could have worked ended up not working.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' isn't so much a bad series as it is a very polarizing one, but it is a case where the technical achievements of the show overwhelmed the story. That didn't stop Creator/KateMulgrew (Captain Janeway) from throwing every bit of talent she had into the stories, even as she grew increasingly frustrated about Janeway's inconsistent characterization. Most of the other cast members did this too, putting in great performances even in the show's weakest episodes -- see, for instance, Creator/RobertDuncanMcNeill acting the crap out of his scenes in the legendarily terrible "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E15Threshold Threshold]]" (the effects/makeup team also provided a non-acting example in that episode, creating genuinely great makeup for the sequences where Paris is slowly turning into a lizard after traveling at infinite speed. Seriously). The major exception is Creator/RobertBeltran, who, by his own admission, loathed the series and [[EthnicScrappy his role]], and was on "not giving a shit" mode in almost every episode.
** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'':
*** Creator/DominicKeating put a lot of effort into fleshing out the character of Malcolm Reed, viewing him as a lonely man who disproportionately magnifies the few emotional connections he's able to make, only to spend most of the first two seasons as "that stuffy British guy who gets [[TheWorfEffect Worfed]] all the time".
*** Jolene Blalock was a self-described Trekkie and studied Creator/LeonardNimoy's performances as Spock and learned Vulcan to play T'Pol, even though as MsFanservice was stuffed into a ridiculous catsuit and often put into situations where she was stripped of it.
* Many reviews of the short-lived Creator/{{GSN}} game show ''How Much Is Enough?'', which was literally 30 minutes of contestants hitting buttons to stop a money clock, noted that the show's only saving grace was Corbin Bernsen's charismatic hosting.
* By their own admission, neither Creator/RobertVaughn nor Creator/DavidMcCallum had much emotional investment in ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'' towards the end of its run... and it shows. Fortunately, not everyone who appeared during the final season shared this approach -- witness guest star Creator/LeslieNielsen in the two-part SeriesFinale "The Seven Wonders Of The World Affair" as a renegade general involved in a plan to use a docility gas on the world's population and take over. Thanks to his committed turn, you actually feel [[AlasPoorVillain sympathy for him]] when [[spoiler: he gets trapped in the gas-emitting device and goes from a power-hungry military man to a quiet individual who won't do ''anything'', including come out of the device, unless someone tells him to do it]].
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Even though a large section of the fandom were very unhappy about the AdaptationalVillainy of Stannis Baratheon, Stephen Dillane is widely considered one of the best actors. [[spoiler:The scene where he burns his daughter Shireen, even if not in the books and one of the most controversial moments in the show, is brilliant to watch because of Stephen's acting. Even though the next episode has him getting killed in an incredibly ignominious fashion that has many of his fans practically foaming at the mouth his acting sells the scenes and makes him UnintentionallySympathetic despite the writer's intentions.]]
** You felt really bad for Creator/AlexanderSiddig on how his character, Prince Doran Martell was used in the widely despised Dorne arc in Season 5 and 6 as his acting and lines are one of the good things compared to [[TheScrappy the Sand Snakes]]' awful acting and the ridiculousness surrounding this storyline.
** General reception of Talisa Maegyr was that the character wasn't written that well, but Oona Chaplin did a very good job with what she was given. [[spoiler: And Talisa's shocking death managed to move even her many haters]].
** Ellaria was originally a fan favorite when she showed up and became TheScrappy only because of the atrociously written arc she [[AdaptationalVillainy was put through]] in Season 5. Still, if Indira Varma doesn't try her hardest.
** The last half of Season 8 took very little time to be labeled the worst part of the series's run, for its contrived plotting, baffling developments, and character assassination. But Creator/EmiliaClarke largely repeated Stephen Dillane's feat, managing to sell Daenerys' utter grief and shock at the multiple DiabolusExMachina thrust upon her and making her twist far more sympathetic than was probably intended. Especially impressive, considering she had to deliver a lot of her dialogue and pivotal scenes while sitting on [[https://i.imgur.com/ajaGxqf.jpg a lime-green lump]] that'd be turned into a dragon in post.
** Even Pilou Asbæk was apparently disappointed by Euron's AdaptationalPersonalityChange and AdaptationalWimp status, going from a terrifying mage-pirate to an annoying Jack Sparrow knockoff with decidedly inconsistent motivations and wildly varying skill levels. Nonetheless, he still put enough effort into the performance to end up [[WagTheDirector rewriting Euron's final moments]] to be more in-character.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** The only thing that saves Rumpelstiltskin is Creator/RobertCarlyle's performance. Despite the inexplicable FaceHeelRevolvingDoor, Carlyle makes the character so wonderfully evil (and yet Woobie-ish at the same time) that he comes close to salvaging it.
** Season 5 was noted to be a huge case of SeasonalRot, with the only thing keeping the show together being Lana Parrilla's charisma as Regina.
** Earlier Season 2 entered a massive KudzuPlot that was made watchable by Barbara Hershey's performance making Cora a MagnificentBitch. [[spoiler: When they killed her off, the rest of the season flopped]].
* ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' suffered SeasonalRot from the third season onwards -- with characters changing motivations, plots becoming ridiculously melodramatic and CharacterDevelopment becoming non-existent. Yet the cast continued to shine with whatever they were given -- the likes of Creator/MaggieSmith and Joanne Froggatt being nominated for several awards (and Smith winning many of them).
* It's pretty obvious that Creator/TracySpiridakos is trying hard - perhaps a bit too hard - to inject some sort of life into her character on ''Series/{{Revolution}}'', but the writing makes her out to be a whiny, incompetent {{Jerkass}} with a penchant for getting captured and starting brawls.
* Happens InUniverse in ''Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace'': the cast of the titular ShowWithinAShow are mostly non-actors [[BadBadActing doing a terrible job]], either sleepwalking through their lines or hamming it up. The guy playing [[MauveShirt the Temp]], however, is an actual actor who's clearly doing what he can with the stilted material he's been given. Naturally, all he accomplishes is showing just how awful the other actors are, especially the arrogant [[VanityProject head writer/star]], who [[ShooOutTheNewGuy quickly kills him off]].
** Madeline Wool as Liz Asher is an [[DeconstructedTrope example of how this can work to a show's detriment]]. Aside from not being able to pull off the HystericalWoman her character is supposed to be very well she's pretty much the best actor among the regular cast besides [[ClassicallyTrainedExtra Todd Rivers]] [[HamAndCheese as Lucien Sanchez]], but she tends to stick to the script ''exactly'' as it's written even when others fumble their cues or when the direction she's given is patently ridiculous (which, because the show is written InUniverse by Garth Marenghi, who believes subtext is for cowards and [[StayInTheKitchen has low opinions of women]], leads to Liz doing things like ''thanking'' Garth's character Rick Dagless for punching her in the face and removing her psychic powers via lobotomy, generally treating him with admiration and deference, acting like a DumbBlonde despite her characters' [[IvyLeagueForEveryone credentials]], and criticizing herself for expecting respect from her colleagues)
* The actors involved in ''Series/{{Inhumans}}'' created an entire sign language for Anson Mount's mute character. In any show other than the dramatic nadir of the MCU, this would be impressive; as it stands, it's just kinda sad.
** Many people have also praised Iwan Rheon's performance as Maximus, saying he was a fantastic choice for the role and did the best he could with what he had. Many have said that, due to his performance and the [[DesignatedVillain way his characters was written]], the show would have been considerably better if it had focused on Maximus and made him the hero and made the [[DesignatedHero Inhuman Royal Family]] the villains.
* ''Series/InSearchOf'' was widely criticized in its day for many of the same reasons that ''Series/AncientAliens'' is today, engaging in copious amounts of absurd conjecture and holding up any and all random explanations as equally valid, legitimate answers. Nevertheless, Creator/LeonardNimoy, never one to half-ass anything, takes his role as the host very seriously and delivers a completely serious and compelling narration that never gives way no matter how bizarre or implausible the things he's describing get, making the series a joy to watch in spite of its abundant flaws.
* ''Series/Merlin2008'':
** DependingOnTheWriter the show's writing ranged from tolerable to downright atrocious (StatusQuoIsGod, {{Idiot Plot}}s everywhere, negative continuity). But it's agreed that the show managed to endure precisely from the effort of the actors involved. Arthur and Gwen's terribly written [[StrangledByTheRedString 'romance']] was in fact pulled off by the talents of Bradley James and Angel Coulby.
** Emilia Fox's unbridled charisma as Morgause made her the favorite villain on the show, even if her plots in Season 3 became increasingly convoluted. Doubly impressive considering she was several months pregnant at the time.
* ''Series/SchittsCreek'': InUniverse, Moira Rose is cast as Dr. Beatrice Mandrake in ''The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening'' and takes it very seriously, even going so far as to rewrite her dialogue and making up a middle name for her character. Rather than ridicule her for it, the show portrays this as an admirable trait since Moira is aware that this is likely the best she can do as an actress so she intends to do it well.
* Even at ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''[='=] [[SeasonalRot lowest points]], Creator/NinaDobrev received a great deal of praise for her complex, multi-layered portrayal of Elena and her various doppelgangers.
* ''Series/MrSelfridge'' suffered from soap-opera-ish writing, ham-handed plotlines, and sometimes quite frankly inane dialogue... which didn't keep the immensely talented cast from giving the show absolutely everything they had anyway, with the likes of Jeremy Piven, Katherine Kelly, Creator/AmandaAbbington, Aisling Loftus, Gregory Fitoussi, Frances O'Connor, Kara Tointon, Samuel West, and Amy Beth Hayes ''somehow'' elevating mediocre-at-best writing into truly touching and dramatic performances.
* ''Series/IShouldntBeAlive'' is a series of survival stories compiled from the testimony of the survivors - coupled with "Dramatic re-enactments" of lookalike actors. Most series with "Dramatic Re-enactments" are ''not'' known for the quality of their acting - often coming off as [[{{Narm}} unintentionally hilarious]] or melodramatic. However, this series in particular manages to shine out when the actors give genuinely shocking, heart-wrenching, or depressing performances. What's extra impressive is the fact that these aren't professional actors - they were literally cast because they look like the survivors (and the deceased).
* A documentary based upon the French Revolution featured some of these "Dramatic re-enactments", but the actress who played [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_du_Barry Madame Du Barry]] manages to give a ''very'' chilling performance of her trying to escape and screaming.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': In one sketch during the 2019 episode with Creator/EmmaStone as host, she played an actress who does this with her bit part on a ''gay porn shoot''. Her "role" is simply being the wife who's cheated on by her husband with her godson, appearing only briefly twice (to leave, then come back and catch them together). However, she goes all out trying to connect with her character, imagining her entire backstory and is moved to tears at the end (though the director doesn't care at all, her fellow actors are impressed).
* While practically every element of ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' has been mocked to hell and back, most people stop short of criticizing any of the acting. General consensus is that while the actors themselves are good and clearly trying to make something salvageable out of the show's plotlines, they're bogged down by bad writing and could be much better if they were given good material to work with.
* ''Series/HomeMovieThePrincessBride'': Most of the fun comes from an AllStarCast of various actors who know perfectly well that a home movie version of ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' with all the budget of 'stuff found around the house' would look totally ridiculous, and both made absolutely no attempt to hide the nonexistent production value ''and'' did their level best to give Oscar-worthy performances.
* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'': One of the frequently cited criticisms of the show's first season was that every actor seemed to think they were in a completely different kind of TV show -- Jada Pinkett Smith was going full camp, Donal Logue was basically playing Jerry Orbach's ''Law and Order'' character in a Batman universe, Cory Michael Smith was a romantic comedy protagonist, etc. And then there was Ben [=McKenzie=], playing Jim Gordon, who seemed to sincerely believe he was in a serious prestige drama about a good man's tragic fall and triumphant rise. As the show evolved and finally settled on a consistent tone (a kind of gleefully over-the-top dark camp), most of the actors eventually found that groove. [=McKenzie=], though, kept playing it completely straight, even in the face of the show's intentional ridiculousness.
* In ''Series/ReBootTheGuardianCode'', Timothy E. Brummond's spot-on performance as Megabyte is considered one of the show's few saving graces.
* ''Metástasis'' is a low-budget Columbian {{Telenovela}} adaptation of AMC's hit show ''Series/BreakingBad''. While ''Metástasis'' is an overall inferior product compared to the original for its [[SpecialEffectsFailure cheap special effects]] and wooden, {{Narm}}y acting, Diego Trujillo's performance as Walter Whi- er, [[DubNameChange Walter Blanco]], is considered one of the best things about the show (though admittedly, even he has his low moments, like his reaction to [[spoiler:Henry's (Hank's) death. Whereas Walter White looks utterly devistated, horrified, and broken by Hank's death, Walter Blanco reacts to Henry's death like he just opened the fridge to get milk for his cereal only to discover an empty milk carton.]]) Luis Eduardo Arango's performance as Saúl Bueno (Saul Goodman) is similarly praised, with Luis accurately recapturing Bob Odenkirk's high-energy, over-the-top performance as Saul Goodman.
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