History InformedWrongness / LiveActionTV

** Carmen Mesta got hit with this for pressing criminal charges against Drucilla Winters, the wife of Neil Winters, whom she had a fling with. Except. . .Dru broke into her apartment and trashed it and later on outright physically attacked her, putting her into a headlock. Yet the audience is supposed to Carmen as the villain when she had every right to file charges. The situation escalated until Carmen became the supposed AssholeVictim in a murder mystery that had all of the Winters family members as suspects.

* ''Series/FullHouse'':
** In "Fogged Inn", Jesse is treated as in the wrong for getting mad at DJ for accidentally writing over his tape. The thing is, it may have been an accident, but the only reason it was deleted in the first place is because DJ went into his room and used his equipment without permission. Not only that, the tape contained a jingle he was writing for a client, and he had worked all night on it. As such, it's hard to blame him for being upset.
** This happens again with Nicky and Alex. ''twice''. In "Tough Love", the boys destroy Michelle's science project, and cause a big mess at the dinner table. Jessie finally scolds them for the first time, and they call him "Mean Daddy", making him realize that he's become just like his father, causing him to learn that he needs to be more gentle about the way he disciplines his boys...except the boys had clearly had issues with discipline and Jessie was completely justified in yelling at them when they ruined a nice meal cooked by Danny's current girlfriend. Especially when they gave a ''forced and insincere apology to Michelle over ruining her science project''. They even get ice cream in the end, nullifying the punishment all together. This happens ''again'' in "Under the Influence" when the boys constantly bug Michelle when she wants to be left alone, and she naturally snaps at them causing them to get mad and chant "We hate Michelle!", and in the end ''she's'' the one who has to apologize to them.

** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
*** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E18RulesOfEngagement Rules of Engagement]]" is lousy with this, due to a pair of {{Plot Hole}}s regarding the [[spoiler:purported]] civilian ship Worf blows up. Miles and Sisko both argue that Worf should have verified his target before firing (though Miles qualifies this with the point that your decisions in the moment can be different from what [[ArmchairMilitary somebody armchair-quarterbacking the battle later sees]]). In fact, Worf had no rational reason to believe that there were any cloak-capable ships within a light-year of his position other than the ones attacking him: [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale in space, there's no sensible reason for a civilian ship to come anywhere near an active firefight]], and that's before you get to the unasked question of why a ''civilian'' ship would even have ''access'' to a cloaking device. Never mind the fact that [[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry Kirk and Sulu once fired on a cloaked attacker]] ''without'' waiting for him to decloak.

* In the ''Series/ThreesCompany'' episode "Jack's Other Mother", a MyBelovedSmother named Gladys latches onto Jack and drives him crazy. She jeopardizes his job by "helping" him there and sends away a date because she didn't think the girl was right for Jack. When Jack tries to avoid Gladys by claiming he is sick, she begins acting as his nurse despite his protests. Jack finally has enough and tells Gladys so. She leaves, promising never to bother him again. Later on, Jack gets in trouble when the brother of his would-be date comes and threatens him. Gladys shows up and tells the man off. While she did a good thing, it does not excuse her previous behavior. In spite of that, Jack is still the one who apologizes — not just for being a ''bit'' harsh with her, but as though he was ''entirely'' in the wrong for asking this woman to leave him alone. Gladys never admits that maybe ''she'' was wrong for being extremely overbearing and interfering in Jack's personal life when it wasn't her place to do so. She even sets her sights on Larry at the end of the episode. In fact, from what Gladys has said, her own son was tired of his mother's toxic behavior and broke free of her, which is apparently why she is constantly on the hunt for another young man to similarly control.

* The ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Selfless" tries to frame the conflict between Buffy and Xander as BothSidesHaveAPoint because Buffy wants to kill Anya (and Xander doesn't want that because he's in love with her). Anya was a practicing vengeance demon who had literally caused the deaths of twelve people with one wish, as well as traumatizing the girl who made the wish, and still leaving the demon that killed the boys loose in Sunnydale. Buffy is understandably motivated by the fact that a) Anya willingly became a vengeance demon again to get revenge on Xander and b) her powers mean that she could easily kill more innocents if the right wish was made. Buffy doesn't know that Anya regrets making the wish, and all she knows is that she now has a powerful threat that has to be taken out. It's meant to be wrong because she wants to kill Xander's ex-fiance, regardless of all the other innocent people Anya has made suffer throughout the past. And even then, once Willow [[TakeAThirdOption finds another option]] - Anya appealing to her superior to reverse the wish - Buffy lets her live and go about her business as long as she doesn't cause more harm.

** One episode has Garcia meet a man at a coffeehouse who starts flirting with her, and Morgan encourages her to turn him down because the situation is unusual. Garcia blows up at him, and Prentiss later chews him out over it, telling him that a woman expects validation, not advice, when she talks about her feelings. Except, he did exactly what Prentiss told him he should have done. Garcia told him about the meeting, he said "It happens," and she's the one who told him it doesn't normally happen to her and the whole thing felt strange. Morgan's advice was literally that she trust her instincts.

* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': The main characters are presented with the difficulty of finding some way to combat the ennui that comes from [[WhoWantsToLiveForever living forever]] in paradise. Someone suggests that people could choose to forget some of their memories so that they can experience something again as if for the first time. This idea is immediately struck down with the reasoning that removing memories was a tactic used in the Bad Place, so it ''can't'' be the answer for people in the Good Place. The fact that allowing people to willingly forget things to improve their enjoyment of the heaven is wildly different from maliciously doing against their will to literally torture them is not even brought up.

** Ariane saying her favourite match is Melina vs Alicia Fox is treated as an indicator that she has no passion for wrestling. She tells Stone Cold this after he demands to know when she literally said that wrestling is her "new passion". This is treated as grounds to eliminate her rather than her inexperience or apparent primadonna attitude. She's also treated as worse than Eric - who showed up completely out of shape - and Michelle - who started eleven years ago but had so much ring rust, she wasn't even able to roll or do a basic lock-up (and had admitted to auditioning for a bunch of other reality shows). History would eventually prove her right; she was signed to a developmental contract, stayed with WWE for five years and later resurfaced in AEW, showing that she did have a passion for wrestling indeed. The others? Michelle left the show two episodes later because she missed being away from her daughter (making her speech about how wrestling requires sacrifices that passion allows to make highly hypocritical), and Eric was eliminated due to his conditioning not improving.

* The episode of ''Series/ICarly'', "iMeet Fred". Freddie simply and inoffensively states that he doesn't think that Fred from Website/YouTube is funny. Fred then pulls a RageQuit over the statement causing ''the entire Earth's population'' to rise up and turn against Freddie. At the end, Sam pulls Freddie into a room and ''physically beats him with a tennis racket'' until he takes his opinion back. Fred then admits that he did all of this just to get some publicity. If you noticed, at no point did anybody apologize to Freddie for their violent revolt against him and at no point was Freddie standing up for his own opinion shown to be a good thing in the episode. In addition to this, it completely ignores (even by [[RuleOfFunny RoF]] standards) the fact that Freddie's opinion ''isn't'' a minority opinion; in fact, it's a ''majority''. IRL, Fred is widely derided by both the general public and (even more so) critics. In fact, if anything, the ''{{Fangirl}}s'' are very much the VocalMinority... as Nickelodeon themselves finally acknowledged after '''both''' his series flopped.
* In episode five of ''Series/JustAddMagic'', Jake leaves in a huff after the girls first ask if he took their (magic) cookbook and, when they find out he told Mama P about it, demand to know why he did that. The girls feel terrible...ignoring that they specifically asked him not to tell ''anybody'', and he told Mama P about five seconds later.

* ''Series/H2OJustAddWater'' - apparently the girls using their mermaid powers to dive down and salvage a sunken museum artefact becomes an absolutely despicable idea the minute a financial reward is mentioned. Never mind that they'd be saving other people quite a bit of money spent on diving teams, equipment etc. To be charitable, Rikki didn't tell the others that there was a reward, and Emma and Cleo first assume that Zane is just using them for financial gain (which would be consistent with his past behaviour) - and Rikki doesn't tell them she wants the money to help her father out, as she's embarrassed by their poverty.

** Rima again is treated as being in the wrong for getting annoyed at Mickael when he says that the women only got onto the show "because they have plenty of booty". A tad hypocritical of him, considering later episodes show he's especially green - and he's not exactly an Average Joe in appearance either. While looks certainly are a factor in WWE's hiring policies, it affects the men just as much as the women - and WWE had actually just signed the unconventional Wrestling/KiaStevens to their roster (although, given the delay between taping and airing, he might not know this).

* ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'': In "Two Idiots and a Baby", Drake is painted as being in the wrong for abandoning Josh to babysit Walter's boss's infant son so he can play a gig with his band. The thing is, Drake never actually volunteered for the job in the first place. Josh told Walter he and Drake would do it without even asking Drake first and Drake's band had the gig booked for a long time beforehand. If anything, Josh was wrong for volunteering Drake for the task without his consent.

** Anyone--Carl, Eddie, and especially Laura--was always made out to be the bad guy if and when they inevitably (and justifiably) got fed up with Steve. Not once did Steve ever apologize for his annoying and sometimes downright destructive behavior, but all three, again, particularly Laura, were vilified for getting angry with him, or in Laura's case, for not returning his affections. In one episode, this was LampShaded: Urkel sets up a {{Strawman}} by saying to Laura "I know you don't love me because I'm weak", which Laura denies. Steve then asks why she doesn't love him, to which she replies "Well...you're stubborn, irritating, loud, obnoxious, pushy...", to which Steve says "okay, you've made your point!" only for him, and everyone else, to immediately forget that Laura has genuine issues with Steve's personality, not to mention that she doesn't owe Steve any feelings merely because he has them for her.

* In an episode of ''Series/GoodTimes'', a pregnant teenage girl from the projects decides to give up her baby for adoption. ''All'' of the regular characters treat it as the worst thing she could possibly do. None of them even consider that adoptive parents would very likely give the child a better life. At the end, she sees the baby after giving birth and starts having second thoughts, and the show leaves it at the possibility that she may keep the baby. This is treated as a wonderful thing. This story was recycled, note-for-note, in Jimmie Walker's TV version of ''Bustin' Loose''.

** In "[[Recap/Recap/TheBigBangTheoryS2E7ThePantyPinataPolarization The Panty Pinata Polarization]]", Sheldon has enough of Penny's mooching ways (including stealing his food) and kicks her out of the apartment, prompting a prank war that lasts throughout the episode until Penny cheats by calling Sheldon's mom, but for some reason Penny is treated like the wronged party despite being a PrettyFreeloader and Sheldon having every right to call her out on it.

* In one episode of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Amy is being a jerk to Wil Wheaton for no real reason; Sheldon is understandably annoyed. For whatever reason, the episode seems to want the audience to feel for Amy and to see Sheldon as in the wrong for wanting Amy not to be a jerk without reason. In another episode, Sheldon ruins Howard's chance at his dream job by revealing to the FBI that Howard crashed the Mars Rover to impress a girl. Sheldon is treated as a bad friend who cost Howard his job. Even though Sheldon is a huge jerk who often does hurtful things to his friends without caring, in this case Howard was entirely responsible for not getting the job. Sheldon only told the truth and in fact, might have committed a federal offense if he hadn't. In another episode, Sheldon has enough of Penny's mooching ways (including stealing his food) and kicks her out of the apartment, prompting a prank war that lasts throughout the episode until Penny cheats by calling Sheldon's mom, but for some reason Penny is treated like the wronged party despite being a PrettyFreeloader and Sheldon having every right to call her out on it.

** When Prime Minister Harriet Jones orders the destruction of a retreating Sycorax warship in "[[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion The Christmas Invasion]]", the resultant argument manages the intricate feat of having ''both sides'' show this off. The Doctor orchestrates Jones' downfall, using her actions as evidence that she isn't fit to govern Britain; the Prime Minister proceeds to defend herself by arguing that the people of Earth can't always rely on the Doctor to protect them, particularly since they live in a world where such extraterrestrial attacks are a common occurrence. On one hand, Jones is entirely correct that Earth ''needs'' to be prepared to defend itself, and that using lethal force is a painful necessity when one's enemies are willing to do the same; on the other hand, the Doctor is also entirely correct that shooting a retreating enemy in the back ''after a ceasefire negotiation'' is a terrible idea, since it makes it much less likely that one's future enemies will be willing to negotiate at all.[[note]] This is later touched on in "The Day of the Doctor". During the negotiations between the humans and Zygons, the Zygons point out that they don't want to end up like the Sycorax.[[/note]] However, in the show, ''neither side makes either of these arguments''. The Doctor chooses instead to go off on a heavy-handed "man is the real monster" message, and PM Jones uses "Well, what do we do when you're not here?" as a justification for doing something at a time when the Doctor not only ''was'' there, but had just finished solving the problem. Clumsy writing manages to turn a genuine ethical dilemma into a bullheaded argument where both sides end up looking like idiots.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'''s writers and characters claimed that [[spoiler:Daenerys's rather abrupt FaceHeelTurn]] was foreshadowed by a number of instances where she would PayEvilUntoEvil (watching on as her abusive brother was executed by her husband for threatening her life, crucifying slavers who had done the same to children, etc). This ignored the many other instances of characters choosing to PayEvilUntoEvil (such as Sansa [[spoiler:having Ramsay be ripped apart by hungry dogs]] or Arya [[spoiler:feeding Walder Frey's own children to him in a pie]]) absent any implication that those characters were genocidal psychopaths in the making. It's also hard to buy the notion that she had been unacceptably ruthless and merciless in the previous seasons considering it's [[CrapsackWorld Westeros]] and seven seasons have hammered in that ruthlessness is required for survival and [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids mercy will almost always backfire in the worst possible way]]. If anything, one of Dany's more persistent flaws in the latter half of the series seemed to be that she was too ''lax'' with punishment; if she were the unforgiving and impulsive tyrant that the ending made her out to be, then [[TheMillstone Tyrion]] would have been reduced to charcoal in Season 5 just for being a Lannister, or for his several failures of strategy in Seasons 6 and 7. Her executing the Tarlys in particular is hyped up as a horrific punishment because it was done with dragonfire (which is actually hotter and quicker than regular fire), although she had offered them multiple chances to surrender without harm beforehand that they refused. Some of this runs into AdaptationExplanationExtrication, as the show mostly skipped over the incompetence and unintended consequences of Dany's conquest of the Slavers' Bay city-states in the original novels, [[spoiler:where an epidemic all but destroys Astapor and spreads to Meereen]].

** Yet ''another'' , slightly more comical Ross example also occurs when his boss takes his sandwich out of the company fridge (despite Ross putting a note stating it was his on top of it) and only eats a bit of it before throwing a large chunk of it away. [[LostFoodGrievance Ross' reaction]] to this winds up being [[SkywardScream so severe]] it convinces his boss he has anger issues, and everyone proceeds to mock Ross for his overreaction. As many workers in RealLife can attest to, having your lunch stolen out of the company fridge (let alone by your boss) is a ''gross'' overstepping of professional boundaries and can easily ruin your day.

** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS05E07LetHeWhoIsWithoutSin Let He Who is Without Sin]]", Worf is depicted as nothing but a big party-pooper throughout his trip to Risa. Yes, he should ease up a bit, but with how much Jadzia keeps shrugging off his requests to discuss their relationship, which was ''the'' reason they were going to Risa to begin with (which was also where ''she'' wanted to go, by the way--''he'' had suggested a hiking vacation on Qo'noS), it's hard to blame him for finally losing his cool when he does.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'''s writers and characters claimed that [[spoiler:Daenerys's rather abrupt FaceHeelTurn]] was foreshadowed by a number of instances where she would PayEvilUntoEvil (watching on as her abusive brother was executed by her husband for threatening her life, crucifying slavers who had done the same to children, etc). This ignored the many other instances of characters choosing to PayEvilUntoEvil (such as Sansa [[spoiler:having Ramsay be ripped apart by hungry dogs]] or Arya [[spoiler:feeding Walder Frey's own children to him in a pie]]) absent any implication that those characters were genocidal psychopaths in the making. It's also hard to buy the notion that she had been unacceptably ruthless and merciless in the previous seasons considering it's [[CrapsackWorld Westeros]] and seven seasons have hammered in that ruthlessness is required for survival and [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids mercy will almost always backfire in the worst possible way]]. If anything, one of Dany's more persistent flaws in the latter half of the series seemed to be that she was too ''lax'' with punishment; if she were the unforgiving and impulsive tyrant that the ending made her out to be, then [[TheMillstone Tyrion]] would have been reduced to charcoal in Season 5 just for being a Lannister, or for his several failures of strategy in Seasons 6 and 7. Her executing the Tarlys in particular is hyped up as a horrific punishment because it was done with dragonfire (which is actually hotter and quicker than regular fire), although she had offered them multiple chances to surrender without harm beforehand that they refused.

** Yet ''another'' , slightly more comical Ross example also occurs when his boss takes his sandwich out of the company fridge (despite Ross putting a note stating it was his on top of it) and only eats a bit of it before throwing a large chunk of it away. [[LostFoodGrievance Ross' reaction]] to this winds up being [[SkywardScream so severe]] it convinces his boss he has anger issues, and everyone proceeds to mock Ross for his overreaction. As many workers in RealLife can attest to, having your lunch stolen out of the company fridge (let alone by your boss) is a''gross'' overstepping of professional boundaries and can easily ruin your day.

** Yet ''another'' , slightly more comical Ross example also occurs when his boss takes his sandwich out of the company fridge (despite Ross putting a note stating it was his on top of it) and only eats a bit of it before throwing a large chunk of it away. [[LostFoodGrievance Ross' reaction]] to this winds up being [[SkywardScream so severe]] it convinces his boss he has anger issues, and everyone proceeds to moch Ross for his overreaction. As many workers in RealLife can attest to, having your lunch stolen out of the company fridge (let alone by your boss) is a''gross'' overstepping of professional boundaries and can easily ruin your day.

* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': The main characters are presented with the difficulty of finding some way to combat the ennui that comes from [[WhoWantsToLiveForever living forever]] in paradise. Someone suggests that people could choose to forget some of their memories so that they can experience something again as if for the first time. This idea is immediately struck down with the reasoning that removing memories was a tactic used in the Bad Place, so it ''can't'' be the answer for people in the Good Place. Even though it was used in a completely different context, this is apparently all the reasoning everyone needs to dismiss it out of hand.

** The characters act as though Daenerys losing her patience with Tyrion and Varys in Season 8 and threatening to fire them is a sign that she's becoming irrational and they keep saying she needs to listen them, yet in actual fact she ''has'' been listening to them throughout the past few seasons and no good has come of it. Tyrion's strategies have all failed or turned out to be wastes of time (unsuccessfully negotiating with the slavers, seizing Casterly Rock but losing Highgarden, going on a dangerous wight hunt only for Cersei to break her word, not flying straight to the Red Keep and taking Cersei out before she could reinforce her position and ''then'' marching North, etc.), while Varys hasn't been seen performing his role as Master of Whisperers (gathering intel and spreading counter-intel) at all since entering Dany's service, and the repeated statements that a young woman "needs to be controlled" by older men have sexist overtones. At this point, threatening to sack them is completely reasonable, and she probably should have already done it.

** The characters act as though Daenerys losing her patience with Tyrion and Varys in Season 8 and threatening to fire them is a sign that she's becoming irrational and they keep saying she needs to listen them, yet she ''has'' been listening to them throughout the past few seasons and no good has come of it. Tyrion's strategies have all failed or turned out to be wastes of time (unsuccessfully negotiating with the slavers, seizing Casterly Rock but losing Highgarden, going on a dangerous wight hunt only for Cersei to break her word, etc.), while Varys hasn't been seen performing his role as Master of Whisperers (gathering intel and spreading counter-intel) at all since entering Dany's service, and the repeated statements that a young woman "needs to be controlled" by older men have sexist overtones. At this point, threatening to sack them is completely reasonable, and she probably should have already done it.