No One Gets Left Behind / Live-Action TV

• Subverted in The Adventures of Lano and Woodley . Col and Frank are fleeing their psychotic ex-boss who is trying to kill them. Frank trips and this exchange ensues:
  Frank: I've sprained my ankle! You'll have to go on without me!
  Col: Okay! [makes to leave]
  Frank: No, hang on! That's not how it goes! You're supposed to say "No, I cannot possibly, for you are my friend."
  Col: OK, let's try again.
  Frank: You'll have to go on without me!
  Col: No, I cannot possibly, for you are my friend.
  Frank: I insist!
  Col: Alrighty.
• Used in the Angel episode "Underneath" to highlight the increasing moral ambiguity of the heroes. Team Angel go to rescue an opponent who might have useful information from a prison dimension, but the spell requires that someone has to stay in his place. Gunn volunteers and the others don't object much, because Gunn was indirectly responsible for the death of a much-loved team member, Fred Burkle. On their return to our dimension...
  Lorne: Where's Gunn?
  Angel: He, uh... He stayed behind.
  Lorne: Stayed behind? But you never leave a... [Angel and Spike won't look him in the eyes] Or... I guess we do. That's what we do now.
• Band of Brothers: Played straight on numerous occasions, especially with the character of Wild Bill Guarnere, who will go to any lengths to drag a wounded comrade off the battlefield. However, the characters are occasionally forced to leave their friends to die on the enemy line, with episode 6 being a particularly egregious example.
• Community:
  • Pierce is initially left to drown in the dry parking lot during a sailing class, but when he reappears they decide to sail their ship into the imaginary storm to save him.
  • Troy and Abed abandon Britta to "die in lava" so she won't slow them down trying to escape from Professor Hickey (and because she keeps pointing out that the giant Floor is Lava game is a distraction from Abed's fear over Troy leaving). He's displeased enough at their behavior that he spares and recruits Britta instead.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Dominators": Jamie opts for this when Cully says I Will Only Slow You Down to Jamie after the Quark shots him.
  • "The Age of Steel": Mickey insists on rescuing Rose, the Doctor, and Pete despite the risk to himself and Jake.
    Mickey: I'm not leaving them behind! There's no way I'm leaving them behind!
  • The Doctor says this to Amy in "The Time of Angels". Admittedly, he knows that there's not really anything slowing her down, but he's prepared to risk his life trying to convince her of that.
• Farscape initially averts this trope with everyone just looking out for themselves. As time goes on, however, the crew bonds and, by the end of the series, everyone has risked their lives to save someone else numerous times. Discussed during a rescue mission to recover a pregnant Aeryn.
  Sikozu: If the freighter escapes, then we abandon all hope.
  John: We abandon all hope of leading long and prosperous lives, and we follow the freighter. [about Sikozu] She's still learning.
• Firefly:
  • At least two episodes explicitly deal with this: "War Stories" (in which Zoe and the crew rescue Wash and Mal from Niska), and "The Message" (in which Mal and Zoe are shown in flashbacks saving Tracey's life).
  • In "Safe", Simon asks Mal why he went back for him and River:
    Mal: You're on my crew.
    Simon: Yeah, but you don't even like me. Why'd you come back?
    Mal: You're on my crew. Why are we still talking about this?
• Life on Mars (2006): Gene goes back for Sam after he is knocked down by the man they are chasing torturing him in the future. No, really.
• The Harfoots from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power supposedly live by the mantra about "not leaving anyone behind", but it seems at times to be more of a guideline than an actual code, a utilitarian way that at its worst can come off as Informed Kindness. They practice The Needs of the Many far more. Barely at the end of the first season they live up to their mantra, when Malva, Sadoc, Nori and Poppy decide to save the Stranger from the worshippers of Sauron.
• Lost:
  • In season 3, Kate insists on going back to the Barracks for Jack after escaping the Others with his help. Her efforts seemingly destroy Jack's opportunity to leave the island.
  • In season 5, Robert says this to Jin when going into the smoke monster's lair after Montand. This does not turn out well, either.
• In an episode of M*A*S*H, the idea of following this trope, at least in regards to dead soldiers, is portrayed as bloody-minded stubbornness that increases overall casualties under the Incompetent General of the Week. This is more because he was losing dozens of men for each recovered body and regarded his losses as "insignificant". When it comes to the normal wounded, it's understood that they come first — in one episode the 4077 has to bug out and head south in the face of incoming Chinese forces, but Hawkeye, Margaret, and Radar stay behind because they have a patient that can't be moved and they refuse to leave him behind.
• In Merlin (2008), at first it seems that it will be this, but Morgana must leave Gwen in order to get away and call for help. In the same episode, Lancelot is held prisoner along with Gwen and he tells her to leave him and escape, but none are able to escape.
• Mission: Impossible: While the standing policy of the IMF is "Should you or any member of your I.M. Force get caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions", the way it worked out in practice was "Should you or any member of your I.M. Force get caught, the rest of the team will move Heaven and Earth to get you back before the Secretary finds out about it."
• Adam Savage has joked about MythBusters having a "No Crash Test Dummy Left Behind" code at least twice. Of course, since the original Buster was theoretically a loaner...
• The Outer Limits (1963): In the episode "The Invisible Enemy", after Major Merritt is trapped on a rock in the middle of the Martian sand sea, Captain Buckley refuses to leave him behind even though doing so could result in his own death. Buckley eventually figures out a way to save Merritt.
• Parodied in the Seinfeld episode "The Puerto Rican Day", where a parade is obstructing the traffic, and Elaine tries to go through underneath a viewing stand, leading a group of people. An elderly priest can't keep up:
  Elaine: Come on, father, you can make it.
  Priest: No, I can't. I've got a bad hip. Go on without me.
  Elaine: No! I won't!
  Priest: Leave me! You must.
  Elaine: All right. Take it easy.
  [catches up with the others]
  Elaine: All right, we can move faster without Father O'Gimpy.
  Priest: I heard that!
• Space: Above and Beyond: Inverted (albeit under protest from Commodore Ross) in "Sugar Dirt". A landing to capture a strategic airstrip goes south because the Chigs suckered the UN high command, but the Navy realizes that in order to pull this off the Chigs withdrew forces from an even more strategic target, which is now open to attack. But there isn't time to retrieve the troops already on the ground so the ships are forced to abandon 25,000 troops, including our protagonists in the 58th, for two months until they've captured the new target and can return to retrieve them... by which point the 58th have nearly starved to death and only 2,000 survivors remain.
  Ross: As a commander, I feel no obligation to explain my actions. But as a man, I have never been more ashamed of myself, or more proud of you.
• This is practically the motto of the SGC personnel from Stargate SG-1, where Jack O'Neill always insists that "we never leave our people behind".
  • In "The Torment of Tantalus", Daniel Jackson wants to attempt to rescue a man who went through the Stargate in 1945 and was lost when the Stargate shut down. He comes up with multiple reasons for why such a dangerous mission should be attempted, but General Hammond shuts him down very quickly, pointing out that the man was put in danger by the US Air Force, and he should be rescued as a matter of honor (which was Jackson's original argument, he just over-prepared).
  • Becomes an important point in "Cor-ai" when Teal'c is put on trial for killing a crippled old man while he was in the service of Apophis. Daniel finds out that the villagers escape through hidden tunnels when the Goa'uld come, but they won't leave anyone behind. Part of the way they exonerate Teal'c is by showing that he did what he did to save the multitude of the villagers so they could escape without being slowed down.
  • Averted in "Within the Serpent's Grasp" when Daniel is left behind on Apophis' soon-to-be-destroyed ship. The implication, however, is that he wasn't going to survive anyway (being severely injured), and the other characters probably wouldn't, either, if they didn't avert this trope. The irony is that if Daniel hadn't been left behind, he probably would have died anyway: he used the sarcophagus and the Gate to heal himself and get home (respectively). It's implied that they wouldn't have been able to save him on Earth.
  • In "The Other Guys", two scientists witness SG-1 getting captured. With this motto in heart, they attempt a more or less successful rescue, only to be told by O'Neil that the capture was part of a Batman Gambit, so that SG-1 could meet up with The Mole in the enemy's ranks.
  • Most notable is "Heroes, Part 2", which deconstructs this trope, showing the cost of the rescue attempt of a single Red Shirt: numerous wounded, a small fortune in monetary expenses, and most severely, Dr. Fraiser is Killed Off for Real. She does get a good sendoff, though, with a Dead Guy Junior (well, dead girl junior) and the second episode ending with a eulogy listing the names of people she's saved during the series.
  • Some of the villains start to get wise about this. One minor villain on Earth chews out his men for being stupid enough to capture Daniel Jackson since he knows that by doing so they've just mobilized the entire SGC against themselves when they really should have been trying to stay as unnoticed as possible.
• In their first few appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Borg would collect pieces of their fallen comrades who had been killed, like picking up a black box, and allow the rest of the body to self-destruct. They also attempt to retrieve any Rogue Drone who escapes the Collective, but as they are a Hive Mind this is akin to someone saving a severed limb so it can be surgically reattached.
• Star Trek: The Original Series:
  • In "The Galileo Seven", during an attack by aliens, Spock is pinned by a boulder. He orders the other Enterprise crewmen to go back to the shuttlecraft and lift off. They refuse and manage to free him, getting everyone to the shuttle safely. While the delay means they have to use the shuttlecraft's boosters to escape, apparently dooming it to be destroyed in re-entry, Spock is the one who comes up with the lifesaving bright idea that enables them to be rescued.
  • In "All Our Yesterdays", McCoy tells Spock to go on without him when his and legs get frostbitten. Spock insists, "We go together or not at all."
• Star Trek: Voyager
  • In "Dark Frontier", before launching a high-risk mission to rescue Seven of Nine from the Borg, Captain Janeway cites three rules about being a Starfleet captain to Naomi Wildman. "Keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship, and never abandon a member of your crew."
  • In "The Haunting of Deck 12", Neelix says this to Tuvok.
    Tuvok: I am injured. Logic dictates that you take the mask and proceed to engineering.
    Neelix: I don't care what logic dictates! This isn't the Salvoxia. We're not drawing lots.
    Tuvok: I am giving you an order.
    Neelix: And I'm disobeying it! You're coming with me if I have to drag you by your pointy little ears!
• In Star Trek: Discovery, Captain Pike says the words more or less verbatim as the crew embarks upon a dangerous manoeuvre to rescue Ensign Tilly. "Starfleet is a promise. I give my life for you, you give your life for me. And nobody gets left behind."
• Supernatural:
  • Subverted in "Red Meat". Dean is totally willing to risk the entire group being captured or killed rather than leave his wounded brother behind. However, after Corbin kills Sam behind Dean's back, Corbin convinces Dean that saving the "innocent" survivors is what Sam would have wanted.
  • Subverted in "The Scorpion and the Frog". Facing Shrike, who has a weapon, Smash kicks him and runs for her life, leaving Dean to face him alone.
• Often averted on Top Gear; the show's "code" states if the car of one presenter breaks down, the other two travel on without him. If it is played straight, it's usually because the situation is serious enough that they need to stick together, most frequently during the overseas specials. In practice, this is usually played straight with Jeremy and the "code" usually isn't brought up when Jeremy's car needs repairs, probably because he tends to be much less capable of doing it. Ironically, he is usually the one to invoke the code (causing the trope to be averted) when anyone else's car is broken down.
• The Unit has a variation when the sniper kills a Unit operator and then ties a wire to the operator's hand to simulate movement, thus making the survivor and rescuers think that he's alive; it's only when the rescuers take out the sniper that they find that all the tension and emphasis on rescuing the "wounded" operator were for nothing.

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