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** The newest season's finale certainly qualifies. After {{spoiler|living through the events of volume 4, which were the result of the government learning about people with abilities, and hearing her dad plea ''on his deathbed'' that he wanted her to stay hidden and not reveal herself, Claire is compelled to jump off a Ferris wheel to do just that in front of national television. No reason is given for this decision, other than pissing off her dad who had poured his heart and soul out to her roughly ten minutes ago. Meanwhile, every other character in the series simply stands there gawking and dropping forced dialogue such as "she's going to change everything!", even though half of them had the power to stop her without making nearly as much of a scene (looking at you, Hiro!). After spending several episodes building up how much Claire-bear loves her crazy daddy, they have her just throw it all away for ''no apparent reason'' while the rest of the "Heroes" stand around and prepare for a repeat of volume four.}}
* Too many episodes of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' to count.
** It occurs in ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'', too. Either the main characters have to act like morons for the sake of "conflict" or "suspense", or the crew runs into some stubborn [[Monster of the Week|Aliens Of The Week]] who behave like belligerent jerks or fanatical idiots solely so that there will be a conflict of interests. First TV Drama [https://web.archive.org/web/20170819030156/http://www.firsttvdrama.com/enterprise/index.php3 review] makes it sound like Berman & Braga took a bunch of random fanfics and slapped them together, without caring whether this will make characters look schizophrenic or caring about continuity even within the series.
*** A lot of the conflicts on [[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]] seem to stem from ''the entirety of Starfleet'' being so dumb that they don't even bother with establishing protocols for dealing with even a single, solitary thing the crew might have to deal with, up to and including ''first contact'' and ''planetary exploration'', two tasks they were '''specifically sent out to do!''' Neither did they put some thought into making a list of what they want to explore first, and planned ''where'' to go - "let's go check on our colonies, especially lost ones!" is something that they figured out on the way, rather than read on the very top of their mission checklist.
*** The entire point of Enterprise's mission is that humanity had no experience whatsoever in exploring space, and that the mission was so that they could figure out how (then, of course, it goes back and contradicts this). The Vulcans did have experience, but at that point in their history they were a bunch of tremendous Jerkasses that they had no real reason to listen to.
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** One of the most [[Egregious]] examples is in the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "By Inferno's Light", in which the plot hinges on {{spoiler|a captured Federation runabout being left unsecured and fully operational outside of a Dominion prison camp asteroid, close enough for transporter range, yet far enough away to make a getaway}}. Later [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the episode "Inquisition", in which it's used as evidence that Bashir is a {{spoiler|[[Manchurian Agent]]}}.
** In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Generation]]'' episode “Identity Crisis,” the crew know that LaForge has an affliction which cause him will to turn into an alien and flee the ship, so the crew leave him alone on the holodeck. Guess what happens next.
** ''[[Star Trek]]'' original series episode "[[Star Trek: The Original Series/Recap/S3/E01 Spock's Brain|Spock's Brain]]." It pretty much required Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and the whole fucking crew to act like they had the collective IQ of a parking meter.
** ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Measure Of A Man" is a wonderfully profound episode for Data... if you don't think about it too hard. [[Fridge Logic|If you do, though...]] As its long section in the Wall Banger trope article shows, the only real way this episode could work is if [[
* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'':
** One episode had some people rob a bank of gold and then put themselves in suspended animation (which one of the robbers invented) for years in order to avoid getting in trouble for it. Had they just [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|patented and sold the invention]] not only would they have probably made more money than they did in the bank robbery, it also would've prevented them from having to worry about the law in the first place. As the above-linked trope indicates, this is actually the problem with a
** One of the villains decides to increase his share of the take by killing one of the other robbers by deliberately destroying their only means of transportation.
** Not only that, but when they decided to put themselves into suspended animation, they chose a cave for their hideout. None of them ever considered to put something over their chambers to block the potentially-falling rocks, which end up killing one of the men.
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* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'':
** The [[Series Finale]] was a major Idiot Plot. First, {{spoiler|the control chair for the Ancient outpost gets destroyed because it was, at the [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|International Oversight Advisory]]'s insistence, moved from the outpost in Antarctica to Area51 in Nevada}}, despite the fact that {{spoiler|the IOA was created specifically so that America wouldn't have sole control over advanced alien technology, and the non-American members have long been paranoid about exactly that happening}}. This is explained with the ridiculously flimsy premise that {{spoiler|international treaty requires Antarctica to be demilitarized, ignoring the fact that a prehistoric structure could in no way be covered by the treaty}}. Later in the episode, {{spoiler|when Atlantis tries to dial Earth and instead reaches a Stargate inside the Wraith ship attacking the planet, their response is to send a small team through to infiltrate the ship}}. Obviously, anybody who's not carrying the world's largest [[Idiot Ball]] would've just sent some Jumper drones through.
** That example also illustrates a recurring Idiot Ball in both Atlantis and the original. How many people somehow fail to see that "there's an open door to ''anywhere in the Universe'' in my back room" is a security issue? Dear Bad Guys, GUARD THE GATE! The Goa'uld in ''[[Stargate SG-1|SG-1]]'' at least ''sometimes'' put some guards at the Gate at their major outposts, and sometimes they even bother to set up a [[
*** Only Good Guys (humans, and Ancients) ever have an Iris. This may have been justifiable at the start as a “really clever idea” on the part of humans, but it's shown that the Ancients had one installed in their cities. And not a single civilization ever thought to copy this?
** The entire retrovirus plot, especially in the Season 3 premiere, can be seen as one of Atlantis' crowning moments of idiocy. A pair of Wraith ships are on the way to Earth (the location of which the expedition themselves made accessible to them.) Their intercept strategy? Send the most advanced ship Earth has ever found into battle with no shields and make no real effort to defend it. At the end of that battle they have a strategically-priceless hive ship and a handful of Wraith prisoners. So they decide to give them all the retrovirus and stick them on a planet. It didn't end well the first time, so go ahead and do it again. Naturally the prisoners all rebel, they end up losing the hive ship due to their own stupidity and nobody seems to care.
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** A particularly hilarious example is when Robbie impersonates Sportacus. The other characters can't tell the difference despite Robbie being, among other things, 4-5 inches taller and a lot less muscular than Sportacus. The episode would be a very touching [[Aesop]] on friendship if it wasn't for the simple fact that Robbie and Sportacus look nothing alike, and they ''should'' have been able to tell them apart by looking at them.
** Then there's the episode 'Double Trouble' where Robbie impersonates the mayor, and once again everyone falls for it, despite the fact that Robbie looks nothing like the mayor.
* The ''[[
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' is pretty rife with these, though 99% of the time it's the patient being the idiot. Many of the cases could be solved in two seconds if the patient didn't lie, deliberately hide parts of their past, or simply forget things that might be relevant. One that was on the doctors was when a patient died because one of them didn't ask all the proper questions regarding the patient's past, missing one that is a pretty damn big question. House doesn't do anything about it though because, really, how often is that gonna happen?
* Two episodes of ''[[Fear Itself (TV series)|Fear Itself]]'' exude this: ''Chance'' (see YMMV section in the article for an elaborate breakdown) and to a lesser extent ''In Sickness and In Health''.
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