History SpannerInTheWorks / LiveActionTV

** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E15TheTroubleWithTribbles The Trouble with Tribbles]]" from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. A Klingon spy going by the name of "Arne Darvin" poisoned a shipment of quadrotriticale grain being sent to Sherman's Planet with the intent on preventing the Federation from claiming it. However, a shady trader named Cyrano Jones had arrived at Deep Space K-7, where the grain was stored, and with him were the glutinous creatures known as the Tribbles. The Tribbles' metabolism-based breeding mechanism became the spanner once Kirk and the others found the grain store filled with nothing but Tribbles and some of them were dead. Not only that, the Tribbles' natural aversion to Klingons exposed Arne Darvin as the spy.

* In the second half of the fifth season of ''Series/BreakingBad'', Jesse forms an alliance with Hank and Steve to take down Walt once and for all. While successfully luring him to the site where he buried his drug money, Walt calls upon the help of Jack and his Neo-Nazi gang to kill Jesse. However, once he discovers Jesse had aligned himself with Hank, Walt calls Jack to call-off the attack. Even as Walt is arrested, Jack and his men arrive anyway, gunning down Hank and Steve and also kidnapping Jesse. Had they received Walt's messeage and therefore not interve with Hank and Jesse's plans, then Hank would still be alive, Walt would be apprehended, and Jesse wouldn't have been forced into servitude.

** Also seen in "The Tapout Job"; Nate is pretending to be a fight organiser from a different state. The Spanner comes in the form of the mark's assistant's cousin. The assistant apparently gets suspicious and calls his cousin, in whichever state Nate said he was from, who "knows every fight producer in the state". The cousin confirms that he's never heard of Nate's alias. Cue Hardison's "I cannot hack a hick" line.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E19TheFirstDuty The First Duty]]" from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. Wesley, his buddy Nicolas Locarno, and their squadmates at Starfleet Academy, were involved in a flying accident that got one of their friends, Joshua Albert, killed, and their resulting testimony given to Starfleet officials is a bit shaky on the details. It seems as though Joshua simply made a fatal mistake while piloting his aircraft, and Locarno would've been content to let that be the story. Unfortunately for him, Captain Picard and the ''Enterprise'' crew got involved with the investigation, out of loyalty to Wesley, one of their own. This is when Picard found out what ''really'' happened: Nicolas Locarno convinced Wesley, Joshua, and the others, to perform an illegal maneuver for their flight demonstration, and it didn't work as planned, killing Joshua in the process. Picard then gives an epic WhatTheHellHero speech to Wesley in the ready room, after which Wesley, utterly ashamed of himself, blows Locarno's cover at the following inquiry.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E16StarshipMine Starship Mine]]", also from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the ''Enterprise'' is cleared of all personnel so a baryon sweep can clean exotic particles out of the ship. Right as Picard is about to leave the bridge, a maintenance crew assemble on the bridge to do their part in cleaning up. At a small party down at the starbase on the planet below, Picard does ''not'' like having to put up with Commander Hutchinson, [[TheBore who is every single guy at a party who just yammers on about nothing.]] Seeking an excuse to leave, Picard claims he's going to quickly grab his saddle from the ship and go horse-riding. And in doing so, he discovers the "maintenance crew" on the ''Enterprise'' are actually criminals stealing trilithium from the ship, ''none'' of whom expected Picard to return to the ship, figure out what's really going on, and go all [[DieHardOnAnX Die Hard on the Enterprise]] on them.
** The two-part "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E20ImprobableCause Improbable Cause]]"/"[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E21TheDieIsCast The Die Is Cast]]" from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' has Tain, former head of the Obsidian Order, organize a joint operation with the Romulan Tal Shiar to make a preemptive strike on the Founder homeworld. It's a well-detailed plan headed up by arguably the most brilliant mind the Order has ever seen...and it fails because Tain misses how one of the chief Romulans has been replaced by a Changeling. Thus, the strike turns into a trap wiping out the Order and Tal Shiar forces.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' features a villain whose intelligence was boosted so he can perfectly predict anything that will happen and set up ridiculously complicated scenarios to kill people and escape from the agents chasing him. He's foiled by [[spoiler:Olivia not actually being from his universe, just brainwashed to think she is. So she doesn't recognize a sign indicating a low oxygen area, and doesn't pause to grab an oxygen mask, allowing her time to dodge the stack of pipes he thought would kill her.]]

* ''Series/GoodOmens'' :
** ''Series/GoodOmens'' has the Antichrist being born and an order of nuns in service of the Devil are preparing for an American diplomat's wife to arrive at their convent in labor. They will then switch her baby for the Antichrist as growing up in an influential American political family is the first step toward achieving his destiny. What throws it off is that a couple called the Youngs show up with the wife also in labor. When Crowley drops off the Antichrist, Mr. Young tells him that "the birth" is happening in Room 3, meaning his own child. But Crowley thinks he means the diplomat's wife and so gives the child to a nun to switch. Then two nuns [[PoorCommunicationKills each misinterpet the other's winking signals]] so instead of the diplomat's family, the Antichrist is given to a totally different couple. So when Crowley and Aziraphle decide to stop Armageddon by finding a way to "defuse" the Antichrist, they have no idea they're dealing with the wrong child and so, 11 years later, this mix-up nearly ends the entire world.

** "The Trouble with Tribbles" from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. A Klingon spy going by the name of "Arne Darvin" poisoned a shipment of quadrotriticale grain being sent to Sherman's Planet with the intent on preventing the Federation from claiming it. However, a shady trader named Cyrano Jones had arrived at Deep Space K-7, where the grain was stored, and with him were the glutinous creatures known as the Tribbles. The Tribbles' metabolism-based breeding mechanism became the spanner once Kirk and the others found the grain store filled with nothing but Tribbles and some of them were dead. Not only that, the Tribbles' natural aversion to Klingons exposed Arne Darvin as the spy.
** "The First Duty" from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration.'' Wesley, his buddy Nicolas Locarno, and their squadmates at Starfleet Academy, were involved in a flying accident that got one of their friends, Joshua Albert, killed, and their resulting testimony given to Starfleet officials is a bit shaky on the details. It seems as though Joshua simply made a fatal mistake while piloting his aircraft, and Locarno would've been content to let that be the story. Unfortunately for him, Captain Picard and the ''Enterprise'' crew got involved with the investigation, out of loyalty to Wesley, one of their own. This is when Picard found out what ''really'' happened: Nicolas Locarno convinced Wesley, Joshua, and the others, to perform an illegal maneuver for their flight demonstration, and it didn't work as planned, killing Joshua in the process. Picard then gives an epic WhatTheHellHero speech to Wesley in the ready room, after which Wesley, utterly ashamed of himself, blows Locarno's cover at the following inquiry.
** On "Starship Mine," also from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration,'' the ''Enterprise'' is cleared of all personnel so a baryon sweep can clean exotic particles out of the ship. Right as Picard is about to leave the bridge, a maintenance crew assemble on the bridge to do their part in cleaning up. At a small party down at the starbase on the planet below, Picard does ''not'' like having to put up with Commander Hutchinson, [[TheBore who is every single guy at a party who just yammers on about nothing.]] Seeking an excuse to leave, Picard claims he's going to quickly grab his saddle from the ship and go horse-riding. And in doing so, he discovers the "maintenance crew" on the ''Enterprise'' are actually criminals stealing trilithium from the ship, ''none'' of whom expected Picard to return to the ship, figure out what's really going on, and go all [[DieHardOnAnX Die Hard On The Enterprise]] on them.
** The two-part "Improbable Cause/The Die Is Cast" from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' has Tain, former head of the Obsidian Order, organize a joint operation with the Romulan Tal Shiar to make a preemptive strike on the Founder homeworld. It's a well-detailed plan headed up by arguably the most brilliant mind the Order has ever seen...and it fails because Tain misses how one of the chief Romulans has been replaced by a Changeling. Thus, the strike turns into a trap wiping out the Order and Tal Shiar forces.
** [[TheMole Seska's]] cover story in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' as to why she has Cardassian blood factors despite ostensibly being a Bajoran (she received a bone marrow transplant from a sympathetic Cardassian to cure a childhood disease) might have passed muster when dealing with any ordinary doctor or field medic. But Voyager's doctor is the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram, who is essentially a walking database of all recorded medical knowledge in the Federation, so he instantly knows it doesn't work that way.

** ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'': Venjix's plan to [[spoiler:infect Corinth's population with [[ManchurianAgent half-human hybrids]] and then conquer Corinth in one fell swoop]] would've gone off flawlessly, had it not been for [[EnigmaticMinion General Kilobyte]] being jealous and [[spoiler:activating a hybrid, Hicks, early and attempt to kill Scott and Colonel Truman]], thus tipping the Rangers off about to plan (Venjix banishes Kilobyte in response).

** A major part of the plan is how Micahel is convinced Westmoreland is legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper and his hidden money is key to the escape. Too bad Westmoreland has a perfect alibi for when Cooper's hijacking took place. [[spoiler: subverted as a dying Westmoreland does confess he was indeed Cooper.]]

*** The first spanner is that the manager double-crosses his partner, taking advantage of locked in to steal $6 million worth of diamonds. At the hospital, he drops a call to the cops on what happened. Thus, just as the firemen return, the cops show up to take the money before the worker can get it.

* In ''Series/YoungBlades'', the fact that "Jacques" is really Jacqueline posing as a man to join the Musketeers throws off a few villainous plots:

** In the episode "Bad Guys", a comedy of errors when arriving to a new planet gets SG-1 {{Mistaken for Terrorist}}s and they are forced [[HostageScenario to keep the ruse going]] until they can jury-rig the Stargate so they can go home. The plans of both SG-1 and the police get repeatedly screwed over by a bumbling security officer who [[DieHardOnAnX thinks he's]] [[Franchise/DieHard John McClane]] (even [[ShoutOut directly compared to him]] [[PopCulturedBadass by SG-1]]) and tries to save the day himself [[UnwantedAssistance in direct opposition to his orders]].

** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'' begins with the villain ambushing all the ninja schools (ninja being the only ones who could stop him) and capturing the students. Only five people manage to remain: the Wind Academy's Sensei (who was not captured, but was effectively neutralized by being turned into a Guinea pig), his son Cam (who wasn't captured because he wasn't a student), and three student ninja who decided to be good Samaritans and so were LateForSchool. Since they were the only ones with anything resembling the proper training, the three students ended up becoming the new Power Rangers under the mentorship of the Sensei and with Cam's help, and soon they start fighting back against the villain.

** Also seen in "The Tapout Job"; Nate is pretending to be a fight organiser from a different state. The Spanner comes in the form of the mark's assistant's cousin. The assistant apparently gets suspicion and calls his cousin, in whichever state Nate said he was from, who "knows every fight producer in the state". The cousin confirms that he's never heard of Nate's alias. Cue Hardison's "I cannot hack a hick" line.
** "The Rashomon Job" features the crew trying to claim that they were the one who stole a priceless dagger from a museum years ago. However, it turns out that none of them got the dagger in the end because this trope was in play. Everyone's plans collided with each other, resulting in the dagger quite literally falling into Nate's hand.

** ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': In Season 2, "When Is A Ranger Not A Ranger," Lord Zed makes a monster out of a kaleidoscope to erase the Rangers' memories and suppress their powers. He gets half of them, allowing the other half to figure out that using prisms can reverse the process, but Scatterbrain still manages to erase their memories. But [[ThoseTwoGuys Bulk and Skull]] saw the whole thing, and when Scatterbrain is about to finish them off, they grab the prisms and confront the monster. Scatterbrain zaps them, and while it costs them their long-sought-after memories of the Rangers' true identities, the prisms reflect the light into the Rangers and restore their memories and powers.
-->'''Zed''': Leave it to a couple of meatheads to mess up my plan!
** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'' begins with the villain ambushing all the ninja schools (ninja being the only ones who could stop him) and capturing the students. Only five people manage to remain: the Wind Academy's Sensei (who was not captured, but was effectively neutralized by being turned into a hamster), his son Cam (who wasn't captured because he wasn't a student), and three student ninja who decided to be good Samaritans and so were LateForSchool. Since they were the only ones with anything resembling the proper training, the three students ended up becoming the new Power Rangers under the mentorship of the Sensei and with Cam's help, and soon they start fighting back against the villain.