Training From Hell / Live-Action TV

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• Angel:
  • Connor. Training from Hell in a very literal sense — he was raised in a hell dimension by a vengeful vampire hunter who was training him to kill his vampire father.
  • One thing that's specifically mentioned is tying 7-year-old Connor to a tree and leaving, expecting the child to free himself and then track his adopted father across said hell-dimension until he caught up with him (which he did). Angel is understandably horrified when he hears about this.
• Arrow: How is Oliver Queen, Spoiled Brat party-hearty rich kid able to kick so much ass? Five years trapped on an island with an army of merciless killers, some of whom are supers. He had to suffer insane torture (and he still has scar tissue over 20% of his body to prove it) and grieve the loss of many friends, but some of those friends taught him some amazing fighting techniques.
  • Sara Lance also went through a similar thing, as viewers learn once it is revealed she is still alive — the island combined with The League of Assassins trained her.
  • Thea Queen between Seasons 2 and 3 went through 6 months of the same League of Assassins training which included things like having her hands burned repeatedly to learn to endure pain.
  • Subverted with Laurel Lance, who decides to take over her sister's role as superhero after her death. She notably lacks the Training From Hell the other three go through, just learning boxing and then training with Nyssa who is heir to the League buts lets her stop for milkshakes when she wants. Consequently Laurel's way below the standard of the others. Effective way of showing why Training From Hell is necessary on a superhero show.
• One episode of The Brittas Empire concerns Gordon Brittas putting the newly promoted to Acting Deputy Manager Gavin him through extreme "disaster training". Poor Gavin is lead to believe a tanker full of ethanol chloride has crashed into a milk float outside the centre and caused a spillage of hydrochloric acid, a bus full of school children are trapped in the acid spill, a serious fire has broken out in the squash courts and a woman has become trapped inside a sunbed with only minutes left to live...on his first day (something which is eventually revealed to have not been made up) . The poor guy doesn't handle it very well and has a mini-breakdown at the end of the episode.
• To be effective as The Cape Vince Faraday is put through intense training by fairly ruthless circus performers, the physical part described as "to the very limits of the human body". Later, after barely surviving being poisoned by an enemy's blade, he sets this up for himself, building up his body's immunity to many toxins and training to catch a thrown knife, by sticking sharp metal blades into a baseball pitching machine and then waiting in front of it!
• In Cobra Kai, Johnny Lawrence (the revived Cobra Kai's sensei) puts his students through a vicious training regimen, including having to walk across a narrow beam with broken glass under it, escape from vicious junkyard dogs (unnerving even Hawk), and having to work together to turn a cement mixer from the inside. This contrasts him with Miyagi's (and later Daniel's) Wax On, Wax Off method — while Johnny is strict and demanding, he's consistently honest about why he's having them do these exercises.
• The Colbert Report: This basically sums up the "Colbert-cisers", a pair of parody exercise shoes presented. The left shoe has a six inch heel ending in a greased marble, which supposedly improves balance, while the right's patented "Cindersole" builds ankle mass. Imagine walking in those.
• Dark Angel: All the transgenic characters go through this, most notably Alec, whose time in Psy Ops also constitutes as an example of Cold-Blooded Torture
• Extreme Weight Loss: In this reality TV series, the personal trainer subjects all applicants he is interested in to a much shortened version of this, causing 95% of applicants to drop out. He wants to only train the people who are motivated enough to do the strict weight loss regimen, including diet and a LOT of exercise, for a year. And that means pushing people past their limits, which is what he does in the brief Training From Hell.
• Farscape: Part of training to be a Peacekeeper, in that the final Prowler pilot training "simulation" kills you if you fail.
  • Also the whole point of "Mental As Anything" is meant to be this, although compared to what the characters involved have suffered on various past occasions at the hands of their enemies, it's positively gentle.
• Firefly: It is strongly implied that River Tam was put through something like this during her time at the Academy, in conjunction with brain-wrecking mental violation.
• Game of Thrones: For the Unsullied, castration at the age of five is just the beginning. Relentless physical training and infanticide follow. Surprisingly Realistic Outcome as only one in four survives to become Unsullied.
• Heroes: Peter's training to control his powers under the tutelage of Claude involves him being framed for robbery, beaten repeatedly in the face with a stick, and thrown off a skyscaper to his (temporary) death.
  • Also, in ancient Japan, Hiro made Adam/Kensai fight ninety angry ronin and (in the graphic novels) leaving Adam to fight a very large, angry, mother bear as part of the 'be a samurai' montage.
    • As is pointed out above, beating someone up with overwhelming force is not usually a good way to train but since Adam can regenerate, and Hiro can pluck him out of trouble, they get away with it.
• House: Plays this straight at the beginning of Season 4 where several applicants are subjected to various (often cruel, degrading, or downright ridiculous) tasks in order to seize one spot in House's diagnostic team. Moreover, House arguably does this all the time with the members of his team — training and pushing them constantly, to be their best at all times. Basically, he teaches them how to be a doctor — only, he teaches them how to be a doctor like him. Deciding if this is a good or a bad thing is up to the viewer; Cuddy most certainly doesn't like it. (The team members' reactions vary.)
• I Dream of Jeannie: Two third season episodes see Majors Nelson and Healey fall under the control of tough (and insane) officers who run them through unbelievably tough exercises.
• JAG
  • The Marine Boot Camp for women in "Boot".
  • Captain Coonan in "Force Recon", who sent his men in an area with live artillery shells hitting the ground, to prepare them for combat.
• Kamen Rider is a notable Trope Codifier in Japan and actually influenced many of the modern Japanese shows. The heroes had to go through many intense trainings under their friend and mentor Tachibana in order to develop new techniques and tactics against the formidable enemies.
  • Kamen Rider Double uses a notable subversion with Kirihiko, the Nazca Dopant, who undergoes intense training to increase his proficiency with his Gaia Memory and unlock its hidden powers. Unfortunately for him, the people who gave him the Memory didn't bother to mention that this trope will increase the Memory's power but not improve the user's ability to handle it, which is an immutable function of their biology. This prompts a slow and agonizing death once he pushes the Memory to grow past the limit of what he was compatible with.
  • Kamen Rider Saber has a special room in the Sword of Logos base called Liberation, which allows the Riders to inflict this on themselves at various points throughout the story.
• In one episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the victim is a Child Prodigy whose father was obsessed with "pushing" her and her sister to academic success. His methods included keeping the classroom freezing cold to "stimulate the mind", forcing them to kneel on rice while he drilled them, and physically abusing them when they made mistakes. He ultimately kicked the other daughter out at 16 because even though she had an IQ of 135, he felt that she wasn't good enough and didn't want to waste his time on her.
• Nikita: Virtually everyone on this show goes through this, as the show is about training people against their will to become insanely skilled assassins. Nikita and Alex are great examples as early on as the pilot.
• No Reservations: Tony and his crew had to go through training with ex-special forces guys to prepare for whatever awaited them in Kurdistan. The fun included how to look for mines with a knitting needle, random first aid "quizzes" with people suddenly screaming in the parking lot, and seeing how useless cinderblock walls are against automatic weapons.
• Power Rangers Megaforce has Noah, after being stomped on by the Monster of the Week decide to improve his swordfighting skills by defending against flying blades.
• Psych features a downplayed example. Henry subjected Shawn to a child-friendly version of training from hell to develop his son's observational and deductive skills in the hopes that Shawn will follow in his footsteps to become a cop. Although young Shawn isn't an unwilling participant, and heaps snark back at his father even as a pre-teen, other characters note that Henry is placing an incredible amount of pressure on a child. The skills Henry teaches young Shawn at the beginning of an episode will come in handy later in the episode.
  • Henry considered Easter Egg hunts 'training', and did so by burying the eggs three feet underground. With sharp rocks and broken glass over their burial place. And forced Shawn to search three weeks for the eggs. And is still keeping tabs on how many eggs are still buried (2). Oh, and Shawn was 8 at the time.
  • Henry also locked Shawn in the trunk of the car when he was around eight years old, just so he could learn how to get out of one. The neighbors watching at the time were understandably disturbed. And Henry ended up regretting the training after Shawn kicks out the car's taillight while following his instructions.
  • Unfortunately, a combination of the pressure, Henry's "Well Done, Son" Guy tendencies, and family drama causes Shawn to resent all the training and rebel against Henry's teaching. The relationship ended up being strained for years as a result.
• Revolution: New conscripts into the Monroe Militia are confined aboard an old ship anchored in the middle of a river and subjected to beatings and psychological pressure until they are molded into proper Mooks. After that, presumably something resembling actual military training begins, although given the performance of the militia in the field one wonders if this regimen is strictly For the Evulz.
• Smallville: Lana Lang goes through this between her departure in Season 7 and return in Season 8.
• Special Ops: Lioness: Joe subjects Cruz to a simulated SERE training in order to learn what can break her in case her cover is blown in an actual operation with beatings, loud music blaring 24/7 and being hosed with high streams of water, followed by waterboarding. One of the interrogators, Cody, pins her down from the back, suggesting that Cruz was sexually assaulted in the past from her anguished reaction.
• Supernatural: After the murder of his wife by demonic forces, John Winchester raises his sons to be hunters, relentlessly running his boys through safety drills and weapons training, and punishing them severely for failure. It is mentioned that Dean sawed off his first shotgun while in the sixth grade, and that Sam was given a handgun to keep under his pillow.
• Surviving The Cut: This Discovery Channel show about real-life special forces training. The most harrowing lesson (in Season 2's Special Operations Aircraft Rescue episode) wasn't about killing people or overcoming stress but the consequences of losing track of your teammates: The two "captured" men had to stand in front of the unit's MIA-POW monument while the rest of the squad dictated condolence letters to their parents, then lay in a "plank" position to think about how their buddies lives were over.
• Teen Wolf: Allison is put through this by her father (Chris Argent) and to some degree, her aunt. Both threatened to kill her boyfriend in front of her, leading poor Allison to hysterics, and her father left her tied up and alone to struggle out and untie herself as part of her training, too. When her mother ends up dead (having killed herself because she'd been bitten and she'd rather be dead than turn into a werewolf), Allison is hysterical and asks if this is just another one of her father's sick training exercises. It's not, but the fact that she thought it might be speaks volumes about what kind of off-screen "training" she may have had to endure. And on this show, it's definitely played straight, and she's a master archer and hunter in every way now.
• Tensou Sentai Goseiger: Self-inflicted, where Agri asks his teammates to help him in preparing for a track meet. Most of the ensuing sequences apply, but especially when the Sixth Ranger decides to transform into his Humongous Mecha form to chase Agri all over the field!
• UFO (1970): Not an example of training, but more the Psychological Assessment From Hell — after witnessing a Flying Saucer incident Paul Foster is subject to numerous forms of intimidation from SHADO operatives. It later turns out that they were evaluating him for recruitment into their organisation.
• Ultra Series:
  • Ultraman Leo: Dan Moroboshi puts Gen Otori throught this to make him learn new techniques and defend the Earth better, the most infamous example by driving a jeep at him to train him against an alien favouring charge attacks.
    • Ultraman Leo then turns this around and gives Ultraman Mebius training from hell in his respective series to help him grow as an Ultra.
    • Leo ends up in the role again as a trainer for Ultraman Zero. Said training ends up paying off when Zero ends up being able to defeat Belial in the former's debut movie.
  • Ultra Fight Orb has Ultraman Orb endure ten years of training from Seven and Zero within Zero's Shining Field in order to master the Emerium Slugger form.
  • Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy has Ultraman Ribut undergo an intense sparring session with Ultraman Great and Ultraman Powered to awaken his potential, with the justification that he only had three days' time to save Ultraman Max before the latter was completely taken over by the Gudis infection.
  • Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroad gives Zero another round, as even Ultimate Shining had been no match for Absolute Tartarus due to the villain reading all of his moves. To reawaken Zero's primal impulse, he was forced to fight his father, his mentor, and Ultraman Joneus, all while Zero had to wear the Tector Gear until he managed to bring his wild instincts to the surface. This paid dividends in the rematch, as the instincts unlocked by Wild Burst carried over to his other forms, allowing Ultimate Shining Zero to take Tartarus to the cleaners in both subsequent battles against the villain.
• Deconstructed in The Umbrella Academy (2019), in which the Hargreeves siblings were trained as children to be superheroes by their abusive and neglectful adoptive father, Reginald. They were often blamed for anything that went wrong on missions, even for the death of Ben, resulting in the siblings growing up to be maladjusted adults. Klaus in particular received some of the worst treatment to develop his powers to commune with the dead, with Reginald locking him in a crypt for hours when he was a young child, which only served to traumatize Klaus and leading him to become an addict to cope and suppress his powers.

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