Batman Gambit/Live-Action TV

"Mal: C'mon, you can yell at your brother for ruining your perfect plan.
 * In the Firefly episode "Objects in Space," River pulls one of these on Jubal Early, using both his insecurities and the rest of the crew to maneuver him into position to be ambushed by Mal. The only thing she didn't factor in was her brother's rather suicidal devotion to her.

River: (sigh) He takes so much looking after."

"Michael: (voice-over) In the spy game you spend a lot of time getting people to betray their own. Most do it for money, some do it for spite. But the greatest achievement is to get a guy to turn on his own people because he thinks he's being loyal."
 * A standard of many spy stories. There was a top quote from an episode of Burn Notice that featured Michael Westen on the unfortunate receiving end of a gambit by a rival spy. This required him to formulate his own gambit to counter how effective the first gambit was. As for Michael himself, despite not having personally killed anyone since the first episode, he's indirectly responsible for 90% of the deaths on the show. Another quote from the show:

"Doctor: Ace, do you have any of that nitro-9 I told you not to bring with you?
 * About 90% of Mission Impossible episodes center around a Batman Gambit on the part of the IMF. The remaining 10%, and the first movie, center around what happens when such a gambit goes horribly wrong.
 * But, when things are just about to go wrong for the gambit (which is usually once an episode right before a commercial break, just to keep viewers glued to their seats), Xanatos Speed Chess ensues or a Deus Ex Machina will come around and distract the mark and draw them away from discovering The Masquerade.
 * In Doctor Who, the Seventh Doctor is a master Chessmaster setting up all the pieces and having his enemies and friends effortlessly go where he wants them to go in order to save the day... at first glance. However, many of the TV stories involving this aspect of his character end up revolving around the sudden realisation that something is happening that he didn't actually plan for (such as two factions of Daleks seeking out the Hand of Omega rather than one), or someone does something that he didn't expect, necessitating a frantic run-around as he desperately tries to improvise some stop-gap solution to get things back on track.

Ace: Yes.

Doctor: Good girl."

"Kirk: Death, destruction, disease, horror... that's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. But you've made it neat and painless -- so neat and painless, you've had no reason to stop it, and you've had it for five hundred years. Since it seems to be the only way I can save my crew, my ship... I'm going to end it for you -- one way or another."
 * Also in Doctor Who, the Tenth Doctor is taken to task by Davros for doing precisely this. Davros points out to the Doctor that he makes a big point of how pacifistic he is, while at the same time manipulatively turning those around him into the kind of people who will blow up their own planet to stop an invasion.
 * The Tenth Doctor is pretty fond of this -- feigning ignorance and getting himself captured so he can be brought face to face with the bad guy of the week. Ninth plays around with it too -- "I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words."
 * Twice in series 5,  pull one on.
 * First, in
 * Then, in "The Pandorica Opens":
 * In series 6, the Doctor defeats the Silence by.
 * The Argentinian series Los Simuladores is entirely about pulling Batman Gambits on unsuspecting people to make them change somehow or right a wrong. One episode, for example, features a faked bank robbery meant to delay the purchase of a bank, while another involves staging a date with a Paul McCartney impostor in order to bring up her self-esteem and make her more socially active.
 * Prison Break. The initial prison break from Fox River was one big Batman Gambit. Note how Michael included the reactions of criminals he doesn't even know in his plans. It is also interesting that Michael learns that it isn't as easy as he thought, leading to some use of Xanatos Speed Chess. However, he also requires dumb luck (if it weren't for circumstances changing for characters included in his Batman Gambit, such as Sucre and Westmoreland, they would never have played along).
 * It's actually lampshaded by Lincoln, who tells Michael that he may have the blueprints of Fox River and a plan to break out, but that he can't rely on or predict criminals.
 * In the Prison Break episode "Hell or High Water", Scofield tells the other would-be escapees that once he cuts the power, there's only 30 seconds to get across the no-man's-land surrounding Sona and through the electrified fence before the backup generator kicks in. The three looking out only for themselves insist on going first and are caught out in the open when the lights come back on 10 seconds later. Their recapture then serves as a diversion while he and the rest escape.
 * shows in S.O.B that the Batman Gambit is hereditary, manipulating an alleged buyer for Schylla into instead becoming an unknowing sacrificial lamb that catalyzes the change necessary to maximize Scylla's true worth, while getting Lincoln Burrows and his posse to ignorantly take the fall for said lamb's slaughter.
 * In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Founders pull off a pretty cool one that may actually be the result of a Retcon. Season four ends with Odo being taken inside the Founders' "Great Link" to be judged for killing one of his own, during which he can sense that they're trying to keep certain faces and names secret from him in the telepathic orgy. He figures that these are people who the shape-shifting Founders have killed and are impersonating, and later realizes that one of them was Gowron, the leader of the Klingons. The season five premiere features a mission to expose this Founder, and the only way to do it is to kill him. Luckily, Odo realizes at the last moment that the real Founder is the Klingon general Martok, who would be perfectly positioned to take over the empire after Gowron was killed, with the Federation thinking he was dead.
 * And, even better, in Season 7 this turns out to be a two-way Batman Gambit, because it is revealed that Section 31 had infected Odo with a Founder-killing virus and used his "trial" as a way of infecting the whole Great Link with it.
 * They shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the Founders fairly effortlessly managed to manipulate the secret police of both Romulans AND Cardassians into the mother of all massacres -- when of course, they thought that THEY would be exterminating the Founders... and again, this was all thanks to Odo.
 * The season 5 episode "For The Uniform" features one of these: After Eddington, a traitorous former Starfleet officer poisoning colonies, gives Sisko a copy of Les Miserables, Sisko realizes that Eddington is living out the role of Jean Valjean. Sisko uses this knowledge to convince Eddington to give himself up, as part of his Hero Fantasy.
 * Better than all of the above: IT'S A FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE! Almost a Gambit Roulette -- the plan relies on the FAAAAAAAAAKE being discovered in order for it to work -- and Sisko could have ended it all if it weren't so damn awesome. Brilliant Batman Gambit in that it's fueled by crazy preparedness, like predicting how one character will react... and then predicting another character's reaction to the reaction.
 * However, the plan didn't require that the fake be discovered. The Romulan could have left for home believing the recording to be genuine, Garak still would have assassinated him by planting a bomb, and the Romulan government would respond accordingly.
 * Quark pulled one in the Season 3 episode "The House of Quark." Quark finds himself in charge of a Klingon house, and the only way to save it from being conquered is to face his rival in a duel to the death. Rather than try to fight someone he has no hope of beating, he shows up for the duel, but immediately surrenders. He then goads his opponent into trying to kill him, all while reminding the crowd they all knew the outcome before they even walked into the room. His opponent is more than happy to oblige -- until Gowron stops him and strips him of his honor for trying to kill someone as pathetic and low as Quark. Just as planned.
 * Captain Kirk lived for this trope. The aptly titled episode "The Carbomite Maneuver" features Kirk bluffing a powerful alien force. He later reuses this particular ploy in "The Deadly Years". His entire battle with the Romulan commander in "The Balance of Terror" features him and the Romulan commander pulling these on each other in rapid succession. Kirk and the Romulan are able to predict each other's behavior as being "just what they would have done." And in "A Taste of Armegeddon", Kirk is able to stop a centuries-old "clinical war" by destroying the war computers, abrogating the treaty between the two worlds. The two planets were now faced with the prospect of the horrors of real war, or actually working for peace.

"Spock: Captain, you took a big chance.
 * And when Spock points out the possibility that the gambit may have failed:

Kirk: Did I, Mr. Spock? They had been killing three million people a year. It had been going on for five-hundred years. An actual attack wouldn't have killed any more people than one of their computer attacks, but it would have ended their ability to make war. The fighting would have been over. Permanently.

McCoy: But you didn't know that it would work.

Kirk: No. It was a calculated risk. Still, the Emenians keep a very orderly society, and actual war is a very messy business. A very, very messy business. I had a feeling they would do anything to avoid it, even talk peace."

": Your entire plan counted on me being an arrogant, utter bastard.
 * No one brings up the possibility that they will simply rebuild and continue their neater war.
 * It is of course, quite possible that they can't rebuild the computer anymore. After all they've been killing about three million people a year for 500 years. That many people die and its probably not going to do wonders for you in the sciences department.
 * Spock's fiancée T'Pring pulls one on him in "Amok Time". Rather than choose her actual boyfriend as her champion in a duel to the death to dissolve the engagement, she chooses Kirk, reasoning (correctly) that whoever wins will be too upset about killing his best friend to go through with the wedding.
 * Marya does this casually in Hogan's Heroes. She purposefully makes things hard for Hogan, including having him taken hostage in a rocket factory they both know has a bomb planted inside it and throwing doubts on her loyalty, because she's sure Hogan will figure something out that will also kill her Nazi contact as collateral damage.
 * Most of the cons used in Hustle rely upon this.
 * Mickey can sometimes get a bit Batman-y. The crowning example is probably when, in a competition with Danny, he bases a scam not just on assuming, but also how he'll try to do it.
 * Ditto Leverage.
 * The Season 1 finale of Leverage, "The Second David Job", specifically draws attention to this:

Nathan Ford: Yeah, that's a stretch."

"Wil: You don't really think I'd break up a couple just to win a bowling match, do you?
 * One episode revolves around the team working with Nate's ex-wife, Maggie. She points out a flaw in his plan: you can't just make people do what you want them to. The team reacts with surprise, horror, and amusement to this revelation.
 * Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer uses this to good effect in the episode "The Yoko Factor". Knowing the personalities and temperament of each character, he casually plants information with each of them to turn them on each other. He does it in a way that's particularly ingenious: he relies on their own expectations of him to lead the characters into "discovering" the false rumors for themselves... so that each of them thinks it was their own idea.
 * YMMV on whether it counts as "ingenious" - the fight lasted less than an episode, and directly led them to the idea which helped them destroy the season's Big Bad. If it was a Batman Gambit, it wasn't a very good one.
 * The fight only ended so quickly because Spike realised that if they weren't talking, Willow wouldn't decode the MacGuffin for the team and so he had to remind her to do it, which led to the gang talking, which led to them figuring out that Spike had been manipulating them the whole time. If Spike and Adam had given it a little more thought, it would have worked perfectly.
 * Giles pulls one on Buffy in "Faith, Hope & Trick" to get her to reveal what happened when she killed Angel back in "Becoming Part 2". By asking her under the pretext of needing information to create a binding spell to prevent Acathla from being re-awakened, Giles not only guesses correctly Buffy's training will eventually mean she will reveal what happen, it also means she won't question his motives in asking. Doubles as somewhat of a Tear Jerker and a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Giles.
 * Todd Gack from Seinfeld has figured out a "dating loophole" where he makes a bet with a woman about something he knows isn't true, offering to treat her to dinner if he loses. This allows him to essentially go on as many dates as he wants without ever having to actually ask any women out.
 * Attempted by Jerry and George to switch Jerry's girlfriend with her roommate by offending her by suggesting a mengé á trios. It all blows up in their faces when it turns out
 * Friar Tuck pulls one of these in the first episode of the third series of the BBC's Robin Hood: Robin has become disillusioned, so Tuck gets the rest of the gang captured. Naturally, Robin goes to save them, which also rekindles the myth - the population think he's dead, so naturally, appearing just after an eclipse is quite a spectacle...
 * Awesomely implemented in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger; the title team tricks one of the Big Bads into kidnapping one of them instead of the baddie's original target in order to find out where she's holding the rest of her captives. Unfortunately, the Big Bad knew they were going to do this, and had her minions kidnap the real target, anyway, using the Shinkenger in her custody to lure the others into a trap. However, the Shinkengers anticipated that, and replaced the real target with another of their members, using him to find out the location of the Big Bad and using shadow puppets to make it look like they had fallen for her trap.
 * Gregory House pulls off a small scale Batman Gambit: when his game in the 4th season ended, he wanted to hire Kutner, Taub and Thirteen. But since Cuddy already hired Foreman, he could only hire two. Solution: hire the two male ones to let the slightly feminist director let him hire Thirteen.
 * Cuddy originally says it's about how he needs a woman on the team, but admits later it's because Thirteen gives a rat's ass about other human beings, whereas Foreman and Taub are just ambitious and House and Kutner are mostly in it for the puzzle. Not really feminism, more like House knows Cuddy sorta likes Thirteen.
 * Dollhouse. Specifically,
 * In Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the characters will occasionally form Batman Gambits with some degree of success. In the episode 'Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom', Charlie forms a Batman Gambit in response to finding out that Mac had slept with Dennis and Dee's mom. At first, in order to get out of menial work, Dennis threatens to sleep with the Waitress, who is the object of Charlie's desire. However, Charlie brings Dennis to witness Mac leaving Dennis' mom's house, but prevents Dennis from physically confronting Mac, suggesting the alternative of having Dennis sleep with Mac's mom. Charlie then enlists the help of Dee by promising to relieve her of the menial labor bestowed upon her the previous episode. Dee brings the Waitress to witness Dennis attempting (and failing) to seduce Mac's mom. Dee then suggests to the Waitress that she get back at Dennis by sleeping with Charlie. The Gambit inevitably fails, however, as the Waitress opts to sleep with Dennis' dad instead, much to Charlie's chagrin.
 * Dennis pulls a successful one later, when he has a conflict with a local hippie trying to save a tree. Dennis offers to chain himself to the tree, which makes him look selfless and goads the hippie into chaining himself there instead. While he stands in the rain all night, Dennis bangs his girlfriend. Then he comes back the next day, unchains him, and makes him watch the tree being bulldozed.
 * The titular character of Nikita pulls one of these in practically each episode of season 1, before finding herself more frequently as the recipient in season 2.
 * Barney Stinson's Scuba Diver play in The Playbook episode of How I Met Your Mother. The Scuba Diver, Barney tells a meddlesome female friend, in this case Lily, about the Playbook, a book of schemes he's invented to pick up women. He then uses a scheme from the playbook to hit on her coworker, making Lily angry enough to steal the Playbook and tell her friend all about the scams he pulled. Barney then puts on a scuba suit and tells Lily that he's going to pull one more scam called the Scuba Suit on a hot girl standing at the bar. This causes Lily to go and tell the girl about the Playbook and incensed they both come back to Barney and demand to know what the scheme is. Barney then makes up a spiel about his deep insecurities, causing Lily to feel bad for Barney and eventually convince the girl to go out with him.
 * Barney plans another one in
 * The Sanctuary episode  features a Batman Gambit by   which involved   It's not clear exactly who is/are the target(s) of this gambit until the very end--unless you caught a fleeting glimpse of the little smile on the face of the guilty party at a highly inappropriate moment.
 * The Big Bang Theory episode "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary" has Wil Wheaton pull off one of these, to win a card game against Sheldon.
 * Later Wil returns as a member of a rival bowling team. He talks Penny into dumping Leonard during a vital tournament. Leonard leaves in tears, Sheldon's team is disqualified and Wil Wheaton is cemented as the Magnificent Bastard of the series.

Sheldon: No, I guess not.

Wil: [grins] Good. Keep thinking that."

"Warden: Horseshit! Wait a minute! Just wait a goddamned minute! You said the nigger got killed! I wan' me a goddamn dead nigger up in here else I'll hang here one of these homosex-u-als!"
 * Cal Lightman on Lie to Me uses this incredibly often, much to everyone's annoyance.
 * Amanda Waller pulls of one in the Smallville episode "Extreme Justice". It looks like she's having the members of the long-retired Justice Society of America killed as a continuation of the government frame that originally put them out of business. Reality is.
 * Michael Garibaldi of Babylon 5 never starts a conversation before first figuring out where it'll lead. As an inversion, he also prepares a bonus for those who manage to positively surprise him.
 * The implications of having such a mind is lampshaded by Byron when he mocks Garibaldi by pointing out what a sad, lonely life he must lead. It might have been a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the character, if the fandom had actually liked the character of Byron.
 * Sheridan also performs one in Rumors, Bargains and Lies. The League of Non-Aligned Worlds are rebuffing his attempts to set up a border patrol system, seeing ulterior motives where there aren't any. He provides them with plenty of Paranoia Fuel via Ivanova's Suspiciously Specific Denial. By the end of the episode, they're demanding to be protected by the White Star Fleet.
 * Going back to season 3, Nightwatch seems on the verge of taking over the station. Zack informs the leader of a bunch of Narns coming in supposedly to replace them: the smoking gun they've needed to arrest Sheridan for sedition. So every able hand is summoned to the docking bay to capture the evidence. Only there is no evidence.
 * In Lost, in the parallel-alternate-off-island reality ran one of these gambits to.
 * At the very least played with in Desperate Housewives, when
 * In Frasier episode The Apparent Trap, his and Lilith's son pulls one on them, by setting them up Lilith figures him out, though.
 * Rumpole of the Bailey: Rumpole becomes a minor master of these, pulling them off with some regularity as time went on. His most fascinating and awesome one involved him settling both major plotlines in one move,
 * In the eleventh episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Batiatus sets in motion his own revenge-driven Batman Gambit by Meanwhile, Ashur has been gaining the trust (read: money) of Solonius by warning him of attempts Batiatus has made on his life. Ashur is too frightened of the repercussions of this plan to talk about it however. Eventually, Ashur wants out and wants to spiel on Batiatus's plan in exchange for enough cash to get out of town.
 * Jim Rockford is a master of these, whether as part of a con, or to catch a criminal. Two of his best appear in the episodes "There's one in Every Port" and "Joey Blue-Eyes." They are far too beautiful to describe.
 * Patrick Jane in The Mentalist constantly pulls these off. Most episodes involve him "fishing"--setting up a trap, and then just waiting to see if it works. As Jane himself pointed out, "if not, we get a relaxing day out of it."
 * These fly left, right and center on Alias, but the characters most prone to them are villains Irina, Sloane, and Sark. In contrast, Jack prefers other plans mixed with his chessmaster skills.
 * Columbo is a master of this, often using it to get the villain of the week to incriminate themself.
 * For example, one suspect was a stage magician with a guillotine trick. Columbo secretly switched the gimmick to its lethal state before submitting to a demonstration, expecting that the suspect would switch it again in an attempt to kill him. If the suspect were innocent, Columbo would die; rotten luck for the suspect. Luckily Columbo never errs, and the suspect unwittingly switched the gimmick back to safe, saving Columbo from suicide.
 * The Andy Griffith Show was built around this trope. Usually involving Andy using the BMG to get people to solve their own problems/benefit themselves.
 * Abed from Community, thanks to his Genre Savvy-ness and prophetic ability to predict the action of those around him will occasionally pull this off. A prime example he was able to manipulate both Jeff's Team Dad and Britta's Team Mom instincts in order to finish a student film.
 * Goren does these almost Once Per Episode on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. He's usually compared to Sherlock Holmes by the series' creators, but he's really a lot more like Columbo.
 * Walt does this throughout Breaking Bad and he continually gets better at stringing together assassination plans and manipulating those around him as the show progresses. Eventually, he pulls off a huge gambit in the season 4 finale where he manipulates an elaborate set of events and people in order to.
 * Happens quite frequently on Corner Gas, occasionally resulting in a Gambit Pileup, although they are probably for the most mundane things on this list, like not owing someone a favor, and most of the humor comes from how well (or not) the characters are able to pull off the gambit, but that shouldn't be surprising given the sitcom's premise.
 * Played for Laughs on Thirty Rock: Jack cracks a joke about Liz, who then hands him an envelope with the exact words of his joke written inside. Taken Up to Eleven when Jack responds by handing her an envelope that says "You will hand me an envelope with my joke written on it"
 * Mr. Gold's plan to help Emma win a municipal election in Once Upon a Time. While Emma is in the Mayor's office arguing with Regina, he sets fire to City Hall, giving Emma a chance to rescue Regina and be shown to be a hero. When Emma finds out about this, she is furious, but Gold points out that if she denounces him, she loses the election and disappoints everyone.
 * The finale reveals (though doesn't outright state) that
 * In News Radio, Jimmy James has proven himself able to use these upon his employees. Most of the other employees have managed to pull off one or two of their own as well.
 * Richard Pryor's "Prison Play" skit involves the play's producer promising the warden that "The Nigger gets killed" as Laser-Guided Karma for daring to fall in love with a White woman. However, it ends with the father-in-law accepting the suitor and wanting to becoming a paragon of true love. The Warden isn't happy.


 * Used by "Boston" Rob Mariano on Season 7 of The Amazing Race, during the four pounds of meat Roadblock. After deciding that eating four pounds of meat was impossible, he quit the task and took the four-hour penalty. Since the penalty did not start until the next team showed up, he used that to his advantage, waiting for his own penalty to start before convincing two other teams to also quit the task, counting on their initial squeamishness at starting the task to cause them to follow his lead. Cue Evil Gloating about how he could not get eliminated that leg.
 * In Season 5, Chip & Kim built up Colin & Christie's egos and made them over-confident, trusting that any sort of struggle later would cause them to self-destruct. Earlier in the Season their plan was to encourage the rivalry between Colin and Mirna in order to get them to focus more on each other than the race, however Charla & Mirna got eliminated too quickly for this to come to fruition.
 * In Supernatural, the psycho hunter, Gordon, uses one on Dean to get to Sam. After capturing Dean, he forces Dean to call Sam to bring him to a specific place, but putting out the caveat that if Dean said one word about being captured, he was going to blow his head off. During the conversation, Dean uses the word "funkytown," which is a pre-arranged code for "Someone has a gun on me." However, Gordon was expecting Dean to get a warning to Sam. Which is why he had the back door armed with a tripwire and explosives. Sam hears the warning, scouts the place, sees Gordon in the front window, goes around back, trips the explosives, and ka-bam.
 * In Friends Chandler pulls one of these off to trick his pregnant friend Phoebe into naming one of her triplets after him, by faking a name-based existential crisis, which Phoebe attempts to resolve by using his name over Joey's.