What an Idiot!/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

** In the third series Robin meets Isabella, likes what he sees, implicitly trusts her, and starts up a sudden romantic relationship with her despite the fact that she's the sister of the man who killed his wife.<br />'''You'd expect''': Robin to at least ''try'' and remember his dead wife and the possibility that the sister of the man who murdered her might be just as untrustworthy, dangerous, and unhinged as her brother.<br />'''Instead''': He doesn't, and she kills him.

** [[Creator's Pet|Kate's]] introductory episode involves her attempting to save her brother's life by a) trying to move him in a conspicuous cart during the middle of enforced conscription instead of just hiding him in the house, b) screeching "there's nothing there, there's nothing there!" when Guy investigates the suspicious sight of a woman talking to what's meant to be an empty cart, c) sabotaging the outlaws' ambush to free her brother by rushing in and attacking the guards prematurely without even a weapon to defend herself with, d) abandoning the outlaws and sneaking into the castle by herself with no clear plan on what she intends to do, e) forgetting to take out the distinctive braid across her forehead that makes her instantly recognisable to Guy of Gisborne who orders her restrained, f) trying to cut a deal with Guy by revealing to him that Robin, the man who would have saved both her brother ''and'' the rest of the prisoners had Kate just ''let him'', is hiding amongst the prisoners, and g) flailing helplessly when Guy ends up killing her brother when he rushes to her defense, mistakenly believing that Kate is being threatened by Guy.<br />'''You'd expect''': Kate to learn a valuable lesson about the importance of patience, timing, competence, discretion, silence, and letting the professionals do their job without interference. Or, if she ''does'' really want to help, at least try to make herself useful to the group by training, learning other skills, etc.<br />'''Instead''': The next time a tax-collector comes to Locksley, she loudly and aggressively insults him in front of a large crowd of people, resulting in the destruction of her family's pottery business, her own capture and near-rape, and the audience being subjected to her presence for the rest of the series when the outlaws rescue her and then inexplicably invite her to join the team despite the fact that she's ''completely useless.''<br />'''Furthermore''': Why on earth did the outlaws want her on the team in the first place? All she ever did was bitch and moan at them, and act impossibly ungrateful whenever they went out of their way to save her life.

** In the penultimate episode, one slave character discovers a thief in a food storage shed who messed the place up and runs off when discovered.<br />'''You'd expect''': "Virgil" to go to his masters and tell them about the thief to minimize the risk of being beaten when the thief runs off.<br />'''Instead''': Virgil nonchalantly tries to clean up the mess whereupon his masters come across the scene seconds later. They don't believe him when he tells them about the thief and he is promptly used as a punching bag by his handlers.

* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''

** In "One Little Ship", a new generation of Jem'Hadar soldiers, the Alphas, manage to take the ''Defiant''. One of the older, Gamma quadrant soldiers serving as Second suggests they put the crew to death immediately, lest they try to take the ship back.<br />'''You'd Expect:''' The Alpha First listen. After all, the Gamma has probably done this before.<br />'''Instead:''' The First not only ignores his Second's suggestions, but pretty much lets the crew work on their own schedule. The Second makes every effort to cover for his superior's idiocy, but ultimately fails. If not for a timely rescue by Dax in a miniaturized runabout, the ship would have blown up the second it went to warp because the crew sabotaged it.

** In the two-parter "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light", Garak and Worf are captured in a runabout and taken to an asteroid prison.<br />'''You'd Expect:''' Their ship be impounded, disassembled, or outright destroyed.<br />'''Instead:''' The ship is left, unguarded and completely active, in transporter range of the asteroid with no other ships in the vicinity. Escape is as simple as calling the runabout and having it beam them to safety.<br />** '''For Added Stupidity:''' This was actually brought up in a later episode when Sloane is auditioning Bashir for Section 31, which means, either then or in hindsight, even the writers knew it was contrived.

** An earlier episode of ''The Next Generation'' had a wormhole with a stable entry point on one side, and a constantly jumping exit point on the other. ''Voyager'' finds this wormhole during the second season. They also find the Ferengi that were stranded in the Delta Quadrant, who have set themselves up as gods among a bronze-age people.<br />'''You'd Expect:''' That they would make a beeline for the wormhole, or at least grab the Ferengi first and then hightail it back to the Alpha Quadrant, letting 5 or 6 generations of the bronze-age people undo all the damage that was done.<br />'''Instead:''' They try to fix all the meddling of the Ferengi, who escape and even destroy the Wormhole.

** Future Janeway plans to negate her own timeline by helping Voyager get back much earlier than intended. She'll have to break a lot of rules to accomplish her plan, though.<br />'''You'd Expect:''' That any of the people who indirectly/directly help her mission (Barclay, Miral Paris, Harry Kim) would have gotten some sense and realized that Janeway would erase the past twenty-plus years of their lives if they allowed her to continue through with her plan.<br />'''Instead:''' Barclay and Miral unquestionably go along with the plan (Miral even tests the device to make sure it works!), and even Harry Kim is somehow swayed after Janeway talks to him. Basically, everyone in the future has to act like an idiot in order for Janeway's plan to work.

** "Innocence": The crew finds a planet were the people claim the "children" they have are aging backwards and so they want them back.<br />'''You'd Expect''' them to be suspicious after the fact the aliens tried to kill them at every turn, refused to cooperate and provide no proof.<br />'''Instead''' they hand them over.<br />'''For Added Stupidity''' This already happened to the Feds... and it turned out to be an intelligence test (TAS novel).

** In "Someone to Watch Over Me", the Doctor and Paris have a bet going to see if he can teach Seven how to go on a date without being her usual overbearing self. After an early attempt is messed up by Seven tearing the guy's ligament during a dance, the Doctor takes her himself for the "final exam", so to speak, which is a dinner being held for an alien ambassador. The Doctor's teachings work, and Seven does splendidly.<br />'''You'd Expect''' Paris to wait until after the dinner to settle their bet.<br />'''Instead''' He does so when Seven is literally standing ''right next to him'', forcing the Doc to admit to betting on her performance. She is righteously pissed, and storms out.<br />'''For Added Stupidity''' This can't even be excused as Paris being vindictive about losing. He seems to have completely forgotten Seven was standing there, as he hastily tries to take responsibility when she gets mad about it.

** The Xindi in their arc of season 3. They hate humans, they are building an [[Earthshattering Kaboom]] gun. Now at this point they have five major advantages: Their enemy has no clue they exist, they have four hundred years to refine their prototype, they have allies who give them technology and ''can see the future'', they live in a remote and inaccessible part of space, and they can travel nigh-instantaneously across the universe. Now they complete a Small Country Shattering Kaboom prototype of their weapon, and... <br />'''You'd Expect''': They test it on some out of the way moon or planet no one will miss. Then they use the data from that test to refine their final version, teleport it over to Earth, and destroy the planet with one shot.<br />'''Instead''': They test the prototype on Earth itself. Earth immediately sends The Enterprise after them, which: finds them, destroys their next prototype, convinces them not to blow up Earth, and ''murders their future-seeing allies''. Good job, Xindi! You failed only because of your own stupidity.

* ''[[Titus]]''

** In ''Cold Blood'', the Doctor and the group he's stuck with have managed to capture a member of the alien race that has abducted several humans. He wants to use the alien as a hostage to get a prisoner exchange and needs it unharmed. Among those with him are a woman whose husband and son have been abducted, as well as the woman's father who has been poisoned by alien attack. The Doctor is planning on going down to negotiate with the aliens.<br />'''You'd Expect''': The Doctor, having interacted with humans for so long and knowing that they are emotional, would keep the woman and her father with him so that they can't go [[Mama Bear]] or [[Papa Wolf]] on the alien, with the consequences that would entail.<br />'''Instead''': He leaves these two as part of the group guarding the alien, and the woman snaps and attacks the alien. [[It Got Worse]].

* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'': For the entire series, plus ''[[Power Rangers Zeo]]'' and a majority of ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' the Rangers themselves were goody goods. Little to no negative behavior and all. But on occasion, Rita, Zedd or The Machine Empire would place a spell on the team or some members to cause problems (Such as Tommy debuting as an evil Power Ranger). Happened a good number of times.<br />'''You'd Expect''': That someone would attribute the odd behavior to a magic spell.<br />'''Instead''': The Rangers are dumbfounded by one of their own acting strange.

*** The situation is the same as the American version, in that Jinche (Wootox Japanese counterpart) needed to be detained for questioning. Hoji, the blue ranger, takes him to his cell, gets overpowered and the bodyswitch plot starts.<br />'''You'd expect:''' When escorting a potentially dangerous criminal, Hoji should take at least someone with him, just in case.<br />'''Instead:''' When Hoji places the criminal into the cell, he is alone. Jinche makes use of this and succeeds in switching bodies.

** Also in ''Power Rangers'': An episode of ''[[Power Rangers Jungle Fury]]'' has the Rangers trapped in a TV game show. Unfortunately, the show is being run by the bad guys who are saying [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them]], with half the Rangers being eliminated from the game for petty rules violations (and of course, if they lose, the villains will have free reign to eliminate mankind). The host offers the Rangers the chance to give up some of their winnings for a trip to Hawaii.<br />'''You'd Expect''': The Rangers remember that not only are cash prizes at stake, but also ''the fate of the human race'', so they shut up and keep playing.<br />'''Instead''': Lily jumps at the chance, claiming she's always wanted to go to Hawaii. For that, she not only loses some cash from the pot, but she's thrown out of the game as well.

** During a fish selling task in the first episode of season 4, Nicholas committed a mistake when he priced lobsters at £5 each, and found himself in the boardroom as a result. The team leader, Alex mentioned prior the boardroom that he considered Nicholas a serious boardroom threat because he's a solicitor by trade, and therefore should be able to defend himself well under pressure.<br />'''You'd Expect''': Nicholas to do just that by pointing out that Alex had given him the £5 figure without bothering to specify whether it was meant to apply by weight or by unit. Moreover, Alex never spotted the error, and Nicholas himself actually realised the mistake by checking another fishmonger's stand. For an added bonus, Nicholas could have pointed out that a big reason why they lost the task was because Michael sold £150 worth of fish for £45, and criticised Alex for not bringing back Michael.<br />'''Instead''': Nicholas does none of that, and instead starts talking about how he finds it difficult to get on with people who are less educated, and in particular people who like football. For reference, Sir Alan Sugar left school without any qualifications, and owned football team Tottenham Hotspur for 11 years. To the surprise of absolutely no-one but himself, Nicholas was fired.

** In season 5 episode 6, Debra was already in serious danger after doing badly in the task, and then verbally abusing Sir Alan Sugar's adviser Nick in the boardroom. Fortunately she appeared to be off the hook after team leader Ben strangely decided to bring back James (for what appeared to be personal reasons) along with the perpetually useless Noorul.<br />'''You'd Expect''': Debra to thank her lucky stars for the let-off, and let Ben drag James back in on the flimsy rationale he gave.<br />'''Instead''': Debra actually started shrieking and ''demanding'' that she be bought back into the boardroom instead of James, because she was that keen to see Ben off. On this occasion Debra was saved from her own stupidity, as Noorul got fired instead, but her insistence on being bought back might ironically have ''prevented'' Ben's firing, as his initial decision to bring James back may have tipped the balance against him (emphasize may; Noorul was an amazingly awful candidate, after all).

** The people who did have flash forwards weren't much smarter. The flash forwards are all of the same 2-minute period, and they're all consistent with each other, i.e. if you saw yourself discussing work in a london office with a co-worker, the other co-worker had a flash-forward of themselves discussing work with you. Plus, thanks to everyone putting their flash-forwards into the FBI's Mosaic database, you don't have the [[Prophecy Twist]] excuse either; the details as well as the exact date/time of the flash-forward period should be available to everyone. Some people had bad flashforwards that seemed to predict horrible, tragic or life-altering events.<br />'''You'd Expect''': As far as [[Screw Destiny]] goes, this is the easiest one ever. To stop your flash-forward from coming true, just make sure that on April 29th, you are as far away from wherever you saw yourself at the time. Only Olivia seems to comprehend this when she suggests to her husband Mark that the family move to a different house to avoid the flash-forward of her being involved with Lloyd (and effectively separated from Mark).<br />'''Instead''': Through various contrivances, most everyone who didn't die is exactly where they should be to have their flash forward vision or some approximation of it {{spoiler|including Olivia who doesn't sleep with Lloyd but kisses him anyway.}} This isn't [[You Can't Fight Fate]], it's "You didn't even try".

* ''[[Legends of the Hidden Temple]]'', by nature of being a [[Game Show]], has its' share of bad player choices. The most [[Egregious]] examples are seen in the climactic Temple run. In this series of rooms, the players are met with various challenges such as assembling a 3-piece statue, pressing an actuator, or finding a hidden key to move on to the next room, and three random rooms have Temple Guards that take away their pendant of life or remove them from the temple. Once a contestant reaches the episodes' [[MacGuffin|Artifact]], all the doors are unlocked and the guards vanish. <br />'''You'd Expect''': Once a player manages to reach the artifact, they would blaze through the now-empty rooms to make it back to the entrance and beat the time limit.<br />'''Instead''': One contestant forgets that the doors unlock when he grabs the artifact, and drops the artifact to smash clay pots to find the key to open a door that's already open. He makes it to the temple steps, then realizes [[Something We Forgot|he left the artifact in the King's Storeroom.]] That team didn't get to go to Mexico.

* ''[[Caprica]]'' 1x02 "Rebirth": Amanda has just found out about Zoe's involvement in the bombing that sets off the plot, at a memorial service for those who died in said bombing.<br />'''You'd expect:''' Amanda to sit on this information, or talk to Daniel about it, or destroy it, or almost anything other than what she does.<br />'''Instead:''' She tells the entire collected populace, all of whom are bereaved family members mourning the loss of their loved ones, what she has learned. And then is almost surprised when the mourners turn into a mob. This doubles up as a What An Idiot moment on the part of Daniel as well, for allowing Amanda (who was already behaving erratically even before she found out about Zoe's role) to walk around the memorial unsupervised, which led directly to the event described above.

* ''[[MacGyver]]'': In "Phoenix Under Siege," a deadly assassin has MacGyver on the ropes. She is about to finish him off.<br />'''You'd expect:''' While Mac is sprawled on the ground, she walks one room back to retrieve the gun she lost earlier and just shoots him.<br />'''Instead:''' She waits until he gets up, and then decides to jump kick him (to death, I guess). He's standing in front of a plate glass window. Mac [[Self-Disposing Villain|helps along]] the [[Disney Villain Death|inevitable]] by leaning slightly to one side. And this after the assassin displays remarkable [[Genre Savvy|caution]] by, among other things, trying to take care of Mac herself instead of assuming the building-killing bomb will finish him. She doesn't even have the excuse of [[Honor Before Reason|fighting honorably]] for her idiocy.

** Late into the third US season, Marcellas and Amy are both up for eviction. Marcellas wins the Golden Power of Veto, giving him the power to guarantee himself a spot in the Final 4.<br />'''You'd expect:''' Marcellas decides to save himself.<br />'''Instead:''' He declines to use the Golden PoV, stating he doesn't want to force Jason (the current Head of Household) to choose who to put up in his place between the two remaining girls. Marcellas ends up being evicted, by a vote of 2-1, the 1-1 tie being broken by Jason. And what reason does Jason give for evicting Marcellas? He didn't use the Veto on himself.<br />'''"What were you thinking?":''' As soon as Marcellas sits down for his post-eviction interview, Julie smacks him over the head with her interview cards.

** Though no other US BB contestants have risen to the awe-inspiring level of stupid that Marcellas did, a few have come close. An example: Jacob, in the ninth season. In the first week, the house guests were paired into "couples". The couple that won the first competition (Jen and Parker) was named the "Power Couple", and ''they'' cast the only eviction vote. Whatever couple they wanted gone, was gone.<br />'''You'd expect:''' Jacob to kiss up to the Power Couple and try to align with them. Or at the very least, keep his head down and try not to cause trouble. Adam and Sheila were already causing enough drama that it looked like they would be going home, anyway.<br />'''Instead:''' He goes around telling everybody, ''including Parker's partner, Jen'', that "Parker is a snake" and "he seems gutless... heartless." He adds, "He's in here for the money," and just for good measure, "Wait till I get HOH, his ass is out." He never even considered that Jen would tell her partner what he'd been saying! Naturally, he and Sharon were sent packing, entirely because of his idiocy. His partner, Sharon, did get to return to the game a few days later because of a twist, but it's STILL unforgivable.

* [[Seinfeld]] contained numerous instances of this.

** Example: George discovers that Elaine has a friend who knows Marisa Tomei and believes that George is just her type. Unfortunately, he is engaged to Susan.<br />'''You'd expect:''' George would break up with Susan, meet with Marisa, and they would start a glorious romance that would eventually lead to a happy marriage. (But this is Seinfeld after all.)<br />'''Instead:''' George has a secret meeting with Elaine and makes up a lie about her non-existent boyfriend (importer/exporter Art Vandelay) to cover up for the real reason he is going out: Marisa Tomei. Then when he does meet with her, he tells her that he is "sort of" engaged. She slaps him in the face and walks away infuriated. Even worse, Susan realizes the lie when she asks George what Art imports and exports, but the stories do not match.

* In an episode of [[The Big Bang Theory]], Sheldon comes up with an extension of Rock-Paper-Scissors called "Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock," played the same way except with five choices instead of three. However, every game ends with a hung decision because everyone always picks "Spock".<br />'''You'd expect''': One of them to catch on and choose "paper" or "lizard", the two things that beat "Spock".<br />'''Instead''': [[Rule of Funny|It's a sitcom, so they don't.]] Also, [[Rule of Cool|everyone wants to be Spock more than they want to win.]]

* In [[Fort Boyard]], there's a game ('''Ventouse''' in French; '''Burglary''' in English) in which the player has to cross a room containing ladders, hammocks and tables without letting anything touch the floor. If at any time anything touches the floor that shouldn't, game over, the player gets locked in. Also, the key they need to get is inside a sealed container, which can only be opened using a suction cup carried with them.<br />'''You'd expect''': The lock-ins to be caused by the genuinely hard final obstacle, the unstable hammock, or the time running out.<br />'''Instead''': Quite a few times, once they get the key out, they suddenly forget the floor is alarmed. They throw the suction cup on the floor, alarms go off, locked in. It gets worse though. [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2tnrg_ventouse-un-temps-record_fun One player in 2006] thought that the first (about half-meter) jump onto a table couldn't be done straight, so stuck the suction cup onto the wall, began to swing from it, and looked genuinely shocked when he realised that the suction cup (that was only supposed to lift up a bit of plastic) couldn't take his body weight, it popped off, and so he dropped to the floor in what was probably the quickest lock-in ever.

** In ''Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa'', Monk shoots and injures a suspect who is dressed in a Santa costume with his own weapon. Thanks to an overzealous sensationalist reporter, and the large group of children who witnessed the incident, Monk is branded as "The Man Who Shot Santa" and Monk and Natalie are harrassed everywhere they go. He attempts to clear his name by going onto said reporter's talk show and making a public apology.<br />'''You'd expect''': Natalie to prepare Monk with an eloquent line, something like "The man I shot was not Santa Claus. He was some loony dressed as Santa Claus who had a revolver in his hand."<br />'''Instead''': She offers him little more than a pat on the back. Monk gets chewed up and spit out by the hardball reporter, and makes things even worse by telling the children that Santa isn't real.<br />'''You'd also expect''' that Stottlemeyer would realize that Monk would become a target for harassment and would put him and Natalie under police protection or at the very least in a safe house until the heat died down.

** In "Mr. Monk Buys a House," Monk and Natalie are taken hostage by a handyman, [[Honest John's Dealership|"Honest" Jake]], and are chained up to a clawfoot bathtub that is interestingly freestanding. They manage to temporarily knock out Jake by causing a wall to fall on him.<br />'''You'd expect''' that Monk or Natalie would have enough thought of mind to disarm Jake while he was incapacitated, since he wouldn't be able to harm them, allowing them enough time to call for help. '''You might also expect''' that Natalie would have thought to have her cell phone so she could call 911, which could have likely saved the life of Jake's partner if she did.<br />'''Instead''', Monk and Natalie crawl down the hallway, dragging the bathtub with them. Natalie then lights some rags and puts them in the fireplace, then uses the flu to send up smoke signals that Stottlemeyer and Disher happen to be see from a few blocks away. By the time she lights them, notice that Jake is already starting to come around and free himself.

* ''[[Operation Repo]]:'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPDj9dgyLng You are driving a hook-and-chain tow truck that has an expensive BMW on the back with a cameraman inside]. You have to pee badly, and drive faster than usual. Your partner suggests you slow down to prevent an overturn. You nearly have an accident when you run a stop sign. Your partner repeats his suggestion more vehemently.<br />'''You'd Think:''' You slow down, and/or maybe find a McDonald's to pee in.<br />'''Instead:''' You keep going too fast. The car flips going round a corner, is totaled, the cameraman narrowly avoids death, and you get fired. [[Ultimate Job Security|Temporarily]].<br />'''However:''' The show is all scripted reenactments anyway,.

* ''Casualty'' (and its [[Companion Show]] ''Holby City''), a popular [[The BBC|BBC]] medical drama, has some characters played by [[Ghost Extras]] (namely Kojo, Alan the paramedic, Kath the blonde nurse, Staff Nurse Waters (a possible [[Captain Ersatz]] / [[Expy]] of ''[[Nurse Jackie]]'', and in ''[[Holby City]]'', Nikki, Kate, Rita and a tan-skinned nurse [[No Name Given|who has never been named]] who become fan favorites and unintentional [[Fan Service]]. Fans want them to be properly developed, [[Characterisation Marches On|rounded characters]] and have proper plotlines<br />'''You'd Think:''' The BBC executives would take into account viewer feedback and act accordingly.<br />'''Instead:''' The BBC [[Executive Meddling|do nothing about it]], despite viewer protests. But they don't ignore viewer feedback on ''[[Doctor Who]]'' or ''[[Eastenders]]''.<br />'''[[It Got Worse]]:''' Still, the viewers complain.

* [[Glee]]: In "Preggers", Finn's strongly Christian girlfriend, the president of the school's Celibacy Club, informs him that she's pregnant thanks to an incident involving his little problem with extremely premature ejaculation and a hot tub (while they were both fully clothed).<br />'''You'd expect''': That he'd do a little research and find out that that's not physically possible, and ask Quinn what she's so afraid of that she feels the need to tell such a huge lie.<br />'''Instead''': He [[Book Dumb|believes her without question]].<br />'''[[It Got Worse]]''': By the time "Ballads" rolls around, he decides that the best thing to do is to tell Quinn's even more conservatively Christian parents about her pregnancy. By singing 'You're Having My Baby' to her. At their dinner table. The first time he has been formally introduced to them. The scene ends with Quinn's father giving her thirty minutes - by the microwave timer - to pack her clothes and get out of the house, and is it any wonder?

* ''[[MASH]]'': In the episode, ''The Sniper'', the doctors and nurses are trapped in Post-Op while six patients are in the ambulance in need of assistance. Hawkeye comes up with this master plan: to surrender to the sniper. His reasoning: if they surrender, they can help the patients in the ambulance. <br />'''You'd expect''': Someone, anyone, to question how surrendering to a sniper is even possible or how this would help. <br />'''Instead''': Hawkeye and Trapper carry a white flag out of the building and walk toward the sniper. Then, they're surprised when the plan doesn't work and the sniper starts shooting at them.

** Also, given that one sniper cannot possibly either imprison or kill an entire camp full of "prisoners", what they're doing is in effect trying to arrange for a battlefield truce to allow them an opportunity to recover wounded -- which is not only standard practice in war (well, not ''now'', but it used to be), but is also the only thing they can do given that they don't have the weapons or training to effectively snipe back.

* ''[[Two and A Half Men]]'': Judith, who is an absolute bitch to Alan and an abusive harpy in general, kicks her husband, Herb, out of her house because he stood up against her abuse. Alan hears it from Charlie and is sadistically happy about his ex-wife's trouble. Then he goes to her house as soon as he heard about it.<br />'''You'd Expect''': Considering that Judith, up to this point, stole everything from Alan in the divorce, including his house, meddled in his relationship with Kandi out of petty vengeance, gave Kandi the divorce lawyer she used to screw him even further and uses the child support money that's supposed to pay Jake's expenses for herself, you'd expect Alan to finally put her in her place.<br />'''Instead''': [[Rule of Funny|It's a sitcom, so he doesn't]].Instead,he starts [[Turn the Other Cheek|comforting her]], despite laughing at her suffering from the inside.However, it ends up with Alan ''getting back with her'',[[Idiot Ball|like if he forgot ]][[Kick the Dog|all the crap she put him through]] [[For the Evulz|for her own amusement]]. As expected,it ends with Judith deciding to break it up again , instead of Alan having the balls to reject her in the first place, and next time we know, she's back into abusing him and [[Henpecked Husband|Herb]] again.

* ''13: Fear Is Real'', "Alone": Adam is specifically told by Ted and Nasser that Erica is the killer, and from then on sticks to them like glue. When the group is taking showers, Adam realizes that the others are wearing boxers, and that he didn't bring any.<br />'''You'd Expect''': Adam to either shower nude, wait for Ted or Nasser to finish and go back to the room together, or at the very least try to sneak back to his room if he's going alone.<br />'''Instead''': He rushes up to his room as noisily as possible, alerting Erica to his presence and resulting in his getting "killed off."

* ''[[Law and Order]]'' episode 20-9m "For The Defense": Mike Cutter is lamenting the fact that a corrupt lawyer is threatening to use a prior sexual relationship with Connie to discredit her impending testimony. Cutter goes on and on about how bad an idea sleeping with a co-worker is and how stupid Connie was to put herself in that situation.<br />'''You'd expect''': For him not to go on like this to someone who has a well-known track record of office relationships. Especially when that person is Jack McCoy, ''his boss.''<br />'''Instead''': Cutter asks "What kind of person would put themselves in that position?" (Jack: You mean besides me?). Cutter keeps going, basically calling Jack and Connie idiots for engaging in said relationships.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'' has a character named Taiga who was mourning the loss of his fiance, Mio, thinking that the titular rider did her in and vows revenge for her death. Next to him is Bishop, the true murderer, who aims to have Kiva destroyed.<br />'''You'd Expect''': Bishop would keep his mouth shut or even encourage Taiga to kill Kiva, thus eliminating him.<br />'''Instead''': He tells Taiga that ''he'' killed her. Taiga then beats the crap out of him.

* Usually in the UK stand-up show ''Russell Howards Good News'', Russell makes fun of idiots. This time he manages to screw up completely during his usual 'Guest' segment he is being given directions on how to stage a fake fight. During all this he is shown a small stool which he is told is breakable and is to be hit on the stunt-man's back.<br />'''You'd Expect''' Russell to listen and work the scene as intended.<br />'''Instead''' Russell, right before the scene is about to begin, decides to do a push up ''on the stool'', causing it to collapse, with him breaking a couple of fingers in the process.

* [[Chuck]]: The titler character's sister and brother in law are kidnapped by evil CIA agents who demand a dangerous computer virus in exchange for them. Casey and Beckham agree to give them a fake one since giving them the real one is obviously too dangerous. <br />'''You'd expect''' Chuck to go along with the plan and hope to rescue them at the trade.<br />'''Instead''' Chuck steals the real virus from his team, and goes ALONE to the trade WITHOUT ANY BACKUP(keep in mind he doesn't have the intersect anymore). [[Sarcasm Mode|Because he can obviously trust these villains to not kill them once they get what they want.]] As a result, the bad CIA agents end up getting the virus (which is later unleashed to the general public) and Chuck nearly gets killed because of his carelessness. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]

* One might get this feeling after [[Once an Episode|yet another accident involving a rodeo]] on the show ''Untamed & Uncut''. It makes another good (or possibly bad) idea for a drinking game. If one day, you find yourself watching an ''Untamed & Uncut'' marathon (or if it's simply many episodes in a row), take a drink every time an accident involving a rodeo comes up. Before you know it, you'll be as drunk as [[Greek Mythology|Dionysus]] [[Up to Eleven|on St. Patrick's Day]].

* Ross in ''[[Friends]]'' is known to do a lot of stupid things, but sacrificing his relationship with Rachel after he manages to get her to forgive him is probably the stupidest thing he has done in the whole series. After Ross had a fling with another girl because he believed he and Rachel "were on a break" due to their relationship being strained, Rachel breaks up with him but then decides to write a very lengthy letter to Ross, telling him that if he accepts full responsibility for his actions, she can start to trust him again.<br />'''You'd Expect''' Ross to simply forget about trying to justify his actions in the past and move on so he can be with Rachel. Even Joey and Chandler point this out to him!<br />'''Instead''', Ross, during sex with Rachel while she gives him credit for manning up to his mistakes, wants to prove that he isn't fully responsible for what he did and screams "WE WERE ON A BREAK!" and then proceeds to admit that never read the letter before accepting its terms simply because it was too long and when he did finally read it, he didn't agree with it because he feels the break up wasn't all his fault. Ross and Rachel promptly break up and proceed to make each other miserable as possible for the next season or two as revenge.