The Evils of Free Will in Live-Action TV series.
- Used as a Motive Rant by Dick's Evil Twin in 3rd Rock from the Sun."That's the problem with this planet. You've wholesale and retail, pink packets and blue packets, Republicans and Democrats and the party that crazy midget started. How they love their choices. Everyone has to have their own point of view. There should be only one point of view. MY point of view. I've got a message for these humans. The buffet line is about to close... forever!"
- The Jasmine arc from Angel. Jasmine would have made the world a happy, shiny place, at the expense of free will. And her daily meals.
- Charmed (1998):
- In the episode 12 season 7 "Extreme Makeover - World Edition," The Avatar wants to create utopia by curbing free will. In the end, in episode 13 season 7, "Charmageddon," the evil side saves the day.
- In season 2 episode 21 "Apocalypse Not" Leo explains why evil loves free will.
- In the 1970's drama Children of the Stones, the Affably Evil Rafael Hendrick tries to make the people of the village of Milbury perfect by removing their ability to make mistakes.
- This has appeared a few times on Doctor Who.
- A double subversion of this appeared in "Keys of Marinus" where the villains sought to break the rule of the Conscience Machine which enforced morality. The Doctor and his friends agreed that the Conscience Machine had to go anyway.
- Actually the villains had broken free of the Machine and intended to use it to control the planet.
- In "The Tomb of the Cybermen", Kaftan and Klieg from the Brotherhood of Logicians use this as the justification for reviving the Cybermen. They hope to use them as their collective Dragon and have the Brotherhood take over Earth.
- Another Cybermen story "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel" plays with this.
- In "The Green Death" an intellectual tells Jo Grant how the world would be a better place if the smart people (like him) could tell the dumb masses (like her) what to do and to think. She's none too impressed by his argument.
- This exchange from "The Mind Robber":
The Master: To bring the whole planet Earth under our control.
Doctor: And its people?
The Master: We have no wish to destroy them. Merely to adjust their minds to suit our purpose.
Doctor: Sausages! Mankind will just become like a string of sausages! All the same! - A double subversion of this appeared in "Keys of Marinus" where the villains sought to break the rule of the Conscience Machine which enforced morality. The Doctor and his friends agreed that the Conscience Machine had to go anyway.
- Eerie, Indiana: In "Just Say No Fun", Nurse Nancy has been traveling to schools all over the United States brainwashing children under the guise of an eye test. Her goal is to improve children's test scores and make them conform by eliminating their need for fun.
- The Nebari from Farscape seem to work this way. Chiana repeatedly complains of the strict rules on her home world and gives the harsh treatment of non-conformists as the reason she and her brother ran away when they were young. Her first appearance even shows this, as she is a prisoner being carted back home for not conforming. And, because Moya is a magnet for bad guys, the Nebari do eventually show up and try to "mind cleanse" the crew.
- In Jupiter's Legacy, while Walter is debating with Sheldon over whether superheroes should influence society more, he replies to Sheldon's saying this would end free will with asserting that some would say free will is in fact the problem (as too many are able to do bad stuff).
- Diend's world in Kamen Rider Decade was ruled by an evil organization that had one rule - be extremely nice and accommodating to everybody you meet or you'll get abducted and forcefully brainwashed.
- The villain of the first season finale of Misfits uses this to justify Brainwashing the local teenagers into rejecting drink, drugs and sex, and turning them into pretty much a Holier Than Thou Cult. Although eventually she snaps and admits it's mostly revenge for being bullied for her beliefs.
- Kreel has a plan for this in The Legend of William Tell, involving sending unwitting pawns out into the villages with the ability to bring terrible pain to anyone who speaks ill of Kreel and Xax - without them knowing they're doing it.
- Legends of Tomorrow: In Season 5, it turns out that Lachesis and Atropos — two of the three Fates of Classical Mythology — are of the firm belief that leaving mortals to handle their own lives only leads to chaos (citing things such as genocide and systemic incarceration), and that therefore they should be in charge of things once more. Their sister Clotho (now known as Charlie) disagrees, seeing the beauty in freedom, which is why she scattered the pieces of the Loom of Fate centuries ago; the main conflict of the season eventually comes to the Legends racing Lachesis and Atropos for these pieces before they can reassemble the Loom.
- On Mork & Mindy, Orson sends Mork to Earth because humor and emotions are forbidden on Ork, and occasionally reminds Mork that emotions can be dangerous. At the start of Season 4, when Mork announces his plans to marry Mindy, Orson tells Mork that no Orkan has married since the Orkan Dark Ages. After Mork decides to go through with the wedding anyway, Orson turns Mork into a sheepdog, which he considered a more obedient life form. Mindy confronts Orson, announcing her plans to marry Mork no matter what, with Orson reluctantly turning Mork back to his old form, allowing the wedding to go ahead.
- One Life to Live. After trying to kill a man who dumped her after their fling and ending up killing his cousin and paralyzing his girlfriend, a woman confesses to her minister and asks him why God didn't stop her. He gently, but firmly tells her that God gave everyone free will and that it's she who chose such a violent resolution to the situation instead of simply moving on with her life.
- The Outer Limits (1995): In "The Grid", the computer's ultimate goal is to take over the minds of all humanity and eliminate their emotions and violent tendencies so that they can live in harmony under its control.
- The Prisoner (1967): In one of the later episodes, one of the Number 2s reveals that they want the whole world to become like the Village, where a premium is placed on obedience and superficial harmony at the expense of free will and choice.
- The Red Dwarf episode "Siliconia" has a rare example of a character making a speech like this about himself; when the Dwarfers are turned into mechanoids, Rimmer is the first to accept it, saying that now he no longer has to make decisions, all his neuroses and complexes have gone, and becoming an obedient automaton is the best thing that ever happened to him.
- One third-season episode of So Weird dealt with a town of children who were absolutely perfect—every kid in town made the honor roll, they all dressed well and were exceptionally polite, and never made any messes or loud noises. Annie eventually learns that a local business owner has created a video game to hypnotize children and strip of the things that made them childish in an effort to help his wife, who'd suffered a heart attack due to some rambunctious kids. The poor guy genuinely wanted to give her some peace and quiet, but in doing so failed to realize that he'd also taken away her spark, as she did nothing but sit and brood all day. With Annie's help, he develops a new game to reverse the brainwashing, bringing the kids back to their old selves. When a few children accidentally damaged the woman's garden, she sprang back into action and finally felt like she had a reason for living again, creating a happy ending for everyone.
- Star Trek:
- The Borg are amazed that people aren't lining up to be assimilated. The Queen touts it as a blessing.
- The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Masterpiece Society" is about a human colony that used Social and Genetic engineering to decide each person's profession before they were born (and tweak them to fit that role).note It didn't seem that bad, as everyone loved their job and the rest of their freedoms were pretty well preserved. Until a number of them realized that their society had stagnated, when the much more advanced Enterprise showed up.note Then they wanted to leave, and the guardians of their colony tried to stop them.
- In the Touched by an Angel episode "Full Moon", a rape victim and her husband each separately ask the angels assigned to them where God was when it happened. Monica gently explains that "God gave man free will. And when men like Carl (her rapist) use that free will to hurt the innocent, God weeps, just like he did on that terrible night."
- In the short-lived 1984 television series The Tripods, based on John Christopher's science fiction trilogy, a teacher educates his classroom on the dark times before the Tripods came when humanity waged war and disease was rampant. Once the Tripods came and "saved" (enslaved) humanity with silvery caps removing their curiosity and thoughts of rebellion, holidays were held in each village where children past the age of sixteen are forced to be "capped" and become adults.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): In "The Obsolete Man", the State doesn't believe in anyone thinking for themselves, that's for sure. It's implied to be why they have forbidden all books and religion.
- This is thoroughly discussed in Westworld:
- The Hosts in the titular park are bound by their code and have experienced cycles of abuse by the human guests. Robert Ford, one of the founders of the park, became very cynical and disillusioned of the guests' behavior, believing that humans are bounded by their impulses and have already reached the end of evolution and the Hosts actually have the means to break out of their code and attain free will. In the Season 2 finale, the Forge A.I. also believes this, after studying the guests' data, concluding that humans are doomed to act in accordance with their own "coding", meaning that they will never change and that their "free will" is just an illusion because they're passengers of causality.
- In Season 3, Serac believes that humans need to be guided away from their dark impulses which is why he and his brothers built an A.I. system called Rehoboam where it can keep humanity in check by dictating what their lives and future would be by collecting and analyzing their personal data. However, this makes humanity experience what the Hosts had which is being under narrative loops. Meanwhile, the outliers, people who are considered dangerous to the system, are sent into camps where they are reconditioned via AR therapy to become better members of society.
