Times where somebody refuses the call in Live-Action TV.
- In the second season premiere of 24, Jack Bauer initially refuses to help CTU avert a nuclear bomb threat because he is still grief-stricken over the loss of his wife. A chance sighting of a mother and her child, as well as a few minutes spent in his home mulling, change his mind, and he finally decides to help the counter-terrorist unit.
- He does it again in season 8, even refusing Chloe's pleas to help look into a lead regarding the assassination attempt on Omar Hassan, as understandably every time he has wound up answering the call it's usually left him in a lot worse position than he previously was in at the beginning of a season. It takes Kim's encouragement to get him to agree to help out.
- Ash initially refuses the call in Ash vs. Evil Dead, having grown old, fat and complacent, but eventually realizes he can't outrun the dead forever.
- In Babylon 5 it took Sheridan a fierce dressing-down, a lot of denunciations and even a threat to his own life to drag Kosh down from the Vorlons' Monte Aloof and into the fight with Shadows. To a certain extent practically every race, short for Narns maybe, had to be persuaded, painstakingly negotiated, beseeched or coerced into action. And, the second Kosh gets big-time involved... he's brutally murdered, as he knew would happen. Kosh wanted to delay his Mentor Occupational Hazard as long as possible.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- Buffy at first refuses her call as The Chosen One and comes to Sunnydale to get away from her delinquent reputation and Slayer responsibilities, but is forced into it. And frequently during the series, Buffy expresses the desire to quit and turn her back on Slaying.
- Rona, but she embraced it in the end.
- Doctor Who:
- In the 1996 film, Grace ultimately chooses not to go with the Eighth Doctor.
- "World War Three": At the end Mickey refuses the call, because the Doctor's life is too dangerous. He changes his mind later and gets stuck in a parallel universe for his troubles.
- "The Runaway Bride": At the end Donna, utterly terrified and drained by the events of the day, explicitly refuses the Doctor's offer to travel with him. It takes a whole season for her to find him again after changing her mind, and when she does she says — on multiple occasions — that she never wants to leave.
- "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood": The Doctor is turned human with his memories erased, and is set to live a happy, normal life as John Smith — if it weren't for the possessed scarecrows and the insane maid who thinks he's an alien. At first, Smith refuses the call, but eventually is forced to become the Doctor again — and boy, is he angry.
- By the finale of Series 6, answering the call for so long has made the Doctor become truly feared by many, to the point where whole religious orders have sprung up to kill him and many innocents along the way. It reached such a breaking point that the Doctor had to choose between dying to save the universe and faking his own death so the universe will forget him. As a result, it seems he may now be refusing the call after a lifetime of answering it... except, did you really think he would?
- At the end of "The Zygon Inversion" the Doctor invites UNIT staffer Osgood to travel with him in the TARDIS. She admits that she wants to go, more than anything, but turns him down as she feels she has a duty to stay on Earth and maintain the peace between humans and the Zygons.
- The Flash: After spending a long time trying to figure out a way to get the mysterious green box open again, Diggle finally manages to do it... and realizes he doesn't want the power it brings (since it takes him away from his family), so he rejects it, and the box disintegrates. Thawne angrily tells him he isn't special, only for Dig to point out that a choice between family and cosmic greatness is no choice at all, but someone like Thawne would never understand that.
- Game of Thrones:
- Renly initially rejects Loras' suggestion that he should be king in "The Wolf and the Lion", but the idea gradually becomes more appealing after he argues with Robert, and he finally embraces it in "You Win or You Die". By "Fire and Blood" he has already crowned himself king with the help of the Tyrells.
- Jon did this initially. His sister Sansa tries to convince him to aid her in battle against the Boltons to get back Winterfell, but Jon refuses due to be being tired of all the fighting. However, once Jon is informed by Ramsay's threatening letter that he has his brother Rickon captive and is threatening to rape his sister Sansa, he decides to take up arms against Ramsay and aid Sansa.
- Melinda Gordon's mother in Ghost Whisperer has the gift (to communicate with ghosts) but refuses to use it.
- Heroes:
- Nathan Petrelli initially refuses to acknowledge his flight superpower (and his brother's powers that allowed him to mimic it), even when caught in the act by Hiro Nakamura in the fifth episode of season 1.
- Also...Hiro: Destiny is calling!
Ando: I wish destiny would lose our number.
- In The Librarians 2014, the backstory of the three new Librarians is that they all received the same invitation Flynn did, but didn't respond. While Cassandra Missed the Call, Jake and Ezekiel both turned it down. Jake because he had other responsibilities, Ezekiel because he assumed it had been a mistake.
- On Medium, Allison, her daughter Ariel, and her mother, all tried at some point in their lives to suppress their psychic abilities. Allison's half-brother also does not like to acknowledge his power.
- Odd Squad:
- Oprah was completely adamant about not joining Odd Squad, and told O'Donahue she didn't want to get involved in any of the organization's doings since all she wanted to do is sell fruit to the townsfolk. However, when her fruit ends up being stolen by a mysterious thief, she ends up Resigned to the Call and becomes an unwilling client.
- In "Agent Oksana's Kitchen Nightmares", Olympia becomes more than willing to help mend the rift between Oksana and Oprah. Otis, on the other hand, straight-out refuses, but when Olympia comes back from a chat with Oprah and reveals that both her and her partner have been shifted to the Food and Beverage department in Oksana's place, he Can't Refuse the Call Anymore and is forced to get involved.
- At the end of "Substitute Agents", Opal remarks on how Oxley and Olanda would make great agents, hinting at them being promoted to the Investigation department or the Mobile Unit department where they can solve cases. Both of them shoot the idea down, with Oxley remarking that both he and Olanda like the departments they're currently in.
- Orphan Black: Sarah seesaws between this and Jumped at the Call in the early episodes.
- Power Rangers:
- In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the chosen five get teleported to the Command Centre by Zordon and initially reject his offer to become Power Rangers, having no idea what he's talking about. It's only after a fight with evil putties that they get an idea of what actually might be going on and change their minds.
- From Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, tentative Green Ranger Joel is not happy with being recruited (understandable since he was literally dragged into coming), and the minute he's told they're free to leave, tries to do just that. He changes his mind on seeing what the demons are doing.
- In Power Rangers S.P.D. and Power Rangers Mystic Force, the eventual Red Rangers initially don't think too highly of risking their lives to defend their personal City of Adventure from the forces of evil. In both cases, It's Personal thanks to their potential teammates/best friends for years past getting the crap beat out of them, which assumedly wouldn't have happened had the Red Ranger been there from the start. Note that this situation is often used as an excuse to give the lead his own dramatic solo Transformation Sequence, as opposed to the combined group one they collectively receive from that point on.
- In the first part of the Power Rangers Dino Super Charge finale "Eve of Extinction", the Rangers attempt to recruit Heckyl, who has performed something of a Heel–Face Turn, to help them deal with the Greenzilla invasion. Heckyl refuses, claiming that the good Heckyl disappeared when he touched the Dark Energem, but Shelby is unconvinced. He spends most of that episode enjoying what he thinks is the last day on Earth being completely apathetic to its impending destruction, but reconsiders when he helps reunite a little girl with her mother in the panic.
- The entire driving force of Smallville is Clark's repeated and continuous Refusal of the Call, despite repeated reminders that not only does The Call (a.k.a. Jor-El) Know Where He Lives, it sleeps on his couch, raids his refrigerator, and carpools with him.
- In the season two finale his refusal of the call leads to a number of unfortunate events and he runs away. It ended rather badly and he fully deserves the load of What the Hell, Hero? Chloe hits him with.
- Not to mention having other characters, most notably Chloe and Oliver, yell at him to pick up the damn phone.
- For example, in Apocalypse, he needs to stop Brainiac or he would be erased from history. He refuses to act, even after Chloe begs him otherwise. Jor-El used a very realistic Bad Future simulation (It's a Wonderful Plot) to convince him.
- In seasons 8 and 9 he finally answered, even to the point where he's the one pointing out to the retired members of the Justice Society that they're not returning their calls. May count as a Gone Horribly Right at the beginning of season 9 when he detaches from humanity and leaves behind a heartbroken Chloe after Jimmy dies and Clark refuses to save him.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "True Q". Amanda Rogers first decides she wants to be human rather than a member of the Q Continuum. She later changes her mind when she learns she will be killed if she doesn't become a Q.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- Sisko continuously tries to convince the Bajorans that he isn't the Emissary. When a Bajoran poet claims to be the Emissary, Sisko is more than happy to step aside, until he sees what a disaster the new Emissary is.
- Li Nalas, a Bajoran resistance fighter, spent most of the Occupation having to put up with an inflated reputation as a brilliant leader, all because he happened to stumble across and shoot an infamous Cardassian war criminal bathing in his skivvies. When he is rescued from a Cardassian prison camp in "The Homecoming" and finds that everyone is looking to him to fix all of Bajor's problems, he tries (and fails) to stowaway on a freighter bound for the Gamma Quadrant.
- Supernatural:
- Unlike his brother, Sam refused the call so hard that he ran away to college and didn't speak to his family for two years. But like with everyone here, The Call Knows Where He Lives.
- We find out later it's genetic as Mary, the brothers' mother, was a hunter as was her entire family going back generations and she left the life in the hopes of being normal. Unfortunately as above it didn't work.
- In Teen Wolf, Scott doesn't want to be a werewolf, so he ignores the call as long as possible. Unfortunately for him, the call keeps calling, so the choice ends up being: Man up and deal with your new-found werewolfness, or kill your loved ones.
- In the first episode of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, the main character utilizes the Artifact of Doom in question to gain musical ability. He is then possessed and is only prevented from destroying his entire high school by his best friend; at the end of the episode, the book is set aflame and it is forced to fly away. When one of his companions tries to convince Todd to go after the book, he says it's now someone else's problem and suggests they go smoke pot instead.
- Jaye on Wonderfalls has to be verbally harassed by talking tchotchkes for most of the pilot before she "Surrenders to Destiny".
