Save The Villain / Live-Action TV

• Used several times in 24: Jack Bauer has to save the life of Nina Meyers during Day 2 because she knows where the nuclear bomb is being held, on Day 4 Jack tries to stop Marwan from committing suicide so he can tell them where the warhead's target is ( though Marwan falls to his death anyway), Jack and Renee Walker have to prevent Tony Almeida from murdering Alan Wilson in Day 7, and Jack himself has to be stopped from murdering Big Bad Yuri Suvarov during Day 8.
• Clarke from The 100 will kill people if she thinks she has to, but will otherwise try to keep everyone alive, even her enemies. When the person she thinks killed her best friend is about to be executed, she tries to convince the angry mob to spare his life. And when Clarke and Anya escape from Mount Weather, Clarke refuses to let Anya be captured or killed, despite Anya's repeated attempts to either kill Clarke or take her as a prisoner of war.
• Angel:
  • Subverted in the episode "Shells": Knox murders Fred, and tries to bring about the reign of an Eldritch Abomination. When the heroes arrive to stop him, Angel makes a big speech about rescuing Knox. But Wesley, filled with grief over Fred's death, guns down Knox in cold blood. Angel angrily says to Wesley "Were you even listening?"
  • Angel being Angel, and the whole message of the show is "everyone is capable of, and deserves, a chance at redemption, this is played straight sometimes, as Angel often tries to save villains. In Season Two, when he refuses to do this at a critical moment letting a load of Wolfram and Hart lawyers be killed by Darla and Drusilla, his friends make it clear that he's at the brink of the Moral Event Horizon.
• In Blake's 7, Avon is forced to rescue Servalan from the Sarrans because he needs her to tell him where she's hidden Orac.
• In one episode of Bones, Booth tries desperately to save a serial killer who doesn't want to be saved. His failure sends him into a deep depression until he is forced to see a psychiatrist.
• The Boys (2019). In the Season One finale, A-Train turns up to confront Hughie Campbell and Starlight, only to have a heart attack from the Super Serum he took to repair his injuries. Despite Hughie wanting revenge for A-Train accidentally killing his girlfriend, and knowing that A-Train won't give up his own grudge, he elects to give CPR and call for an ambulance. Ironically Hughie himself was in this position when he asked Starlight earlier to help him rescue the rest of The Boys, who were villains from her perspective, responsible for the death of superhero Translucent. When Starlight asks why she should, Hughie can only say, "Because you're a superhero?" Starlight refuses but turns up Just in Time for a Big Damn Heroes.
  Hughie: You came.
  Starlight: Like you said; I'm a fucking superhero.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: When Willow turned evil, Buffy and the others went to great lengths to save her intended victims, Jonathan and Andrew (who were minor villains at the time). As she explained, it was only for their sake indirectly:
  "I'm not protecting you, Jonathan. None of us are. We're doing this for Willow. The only reason it happens to be your lucky day? Is because Willow kills you, she crosses a line, I lose a friend."
• The Cape: In "Dice", the titular hero had to save the villain, Chess, from a woman named Dice. Atypically for this trope, however, The Cape's motives for doing so are purely selfish; he needs Chess to live long enough so that his name can be cleared.
• Subverted in the Chuck episode "Chuck vs the First Kill". Chuck tries to save a Fulcrum agent from falling off a fifteen-story building, thinking it an awful way to die (although he also does this because the agent might be the only informant of his father's whereabouts). However, the sleeves on the agent's suit rip from Chuck's grip, sending the man falling to his death.
• In the TV-movie for Nickelodeon's Cousin Skeeter, the villain is about to fall into what looks like an incinerator. The protagonists make a run for it, except Skeeter, who runs back for him while yelling "I got a conscience, man, I'm sorry!" and tells the villain to take his hand. The other characters go back to help pull when it looks like Skeeter isn't strong enough. And in this case, the villain is so astonished/moved that they would bother to help him, that he immediately pulls a Heel–Face Turn and helps the protagonists return home. (After giving Skeeter an alien medal as thanks.)
• Criminal Minds:
  • In one episode, "Elephant's Memory", Reid goes against orders to try to save a serial killer with whom he sympathises.
  • In the season 3 episode "Tabula Rasa", a serial killer is chased by the team to the top of his apartment building. He tries to jump across to the building opposite and ends up hanging off the edge of the roof. Morgan jumps after him, makes it onto the roof of that building, and then the serial killer loses his grip. And falls several stories. And ends up in a coma for about four years.
• Played with in CSI: NY. In the sixth season's ending cliffhanger, "Vacation Getaway," Danny is confronted by serial killer Shane Casey in the lamp room of a lighthouse. A scuffle ensues; Casey crashes through a window and topples backwards over a railing, which he manages to grab with one hand. Danny rushes to him, grabs his wrist, and shouts, "Hold on to me!" Casey says, "I will," and lets go, falling into the rough, craggy sea. The team, of course, think he's dead even though his body never washes up. He reappears at the end of the episode, holding Danny & Lindsay's toddler daughter at gunpoint.
• Daredevil (2015): Dex makes his introduction in season 3 saving Wilson Fisk from an assassination attempt. Fisk sees his skills as useful for his agenda, and immediately begins grooming Dex into becoming his top hitman.
• Doctor Who:
  • Generally, the Doctor will want to find a peaceful solution for everyone. "I can help you!" is probably the first thing he says to any enemy (including Cybermen and Daleks). His plan generally boils down to having the enemy stop doing whatever horrible things they're doing, and letting him transport them back home or to a planet where they can live in peace, or possibly enter a mutually beneficial diplomatic relationship with the humans or other dominant species on the planet they're visiting. Sadly, very few take the offer.
  • In "The Underwater Menace", the Second Doctor has just escaped from a sinking underwater civilisation along with his companions and then announces that he's going back in, because he can't leave the Mad Scientist Professor Zaroff (who caused this mess, and who had been trying to blow up the Earth just because he could) to die. Justified in that the Doctor apparently knew and admired him before the mess, and the fact that Zaroff's evil was apparently down to madness rather than actual malevolence — with a bit of help, he might have changed his mind about wanting to kill everyone on the planet. Maybe.
  • In "The Time Monster", an entity Above Good and Evil that the Master has enslaved and the Doctor has released decides to let the Doctor go and torture the Master for all eternity. The Doctor pleads for mercy, intending to take the Master back to stand trial, and the entity agrees... at which point the Master quickly pushes the Doctor over, dashes to his TARDIS, and gets the heck out of there.
  • Subverted in "Planet of Fire", in which the Master is burning in a volcano. He holds out a hand to be rescued, and the Doctor refuses. Twelve years later, the same characters played the trope straight, with the Doctor extending his hand and the Master refusing and then falling into a black hole, making him Deader than Dead ...until he comes back in "Utopia", proceeds to take over the world, gets shot, and then enjoys the satisfaction of dying just to spite the Doctor, who is pleading with him to regenerate and live on. After a thorough cremation, the Master is now Deader than Dead. Again... well maybe. Probably not. Definitely not.
  • In "Journey's End" he tries again, this time with Davros. He mentions that he tried to save him even during the Time War when something called the "Nightmare Child" swallowed his ship. He does it again after stopping his plan, perhaps in response to Davros' big "Not So Different" Remark earlier (or because he knows Davros's track record for surviving explosions anyway).
  • In "The End of Time" this trope is invoked yet again when the Doctor repeatedly pleads with the newly-returned Master to let him help with the drumming in his head. For once, the Master seems to be on the verge of accepting the Doctor's offer, but subsequent events drive him to follow the other doomed Time Lords back into the Time War. Who knows what attitude he'll have the next time he's alive again.
  • In "Flesh and Stone", the Weeping Angels beg — or demand, even — that the Doctor do this for them by throwing himself into a crack in time to spare their lives. Unfortunately for the Angels, they hadn't actually given him much of a reason to do so; he refuses, they fall in and cease to have ever existed.
  • Subverted in "The Wedding of River Song". Madame Kovarian, the woman who kidnapped Amy and Rory’s baby daughter, believes Amy Pond will save her from The Silence because it is what The Doctor would do. Instead, a still rightfully pissed Amy goes full Mama Bear, replacing Kovarian’s malfunctioning eye-drive to ensure she dies.
  • "Asylum of the Daleks" has the main Dalek Parliament capturing the Doctor so that he can save them from an army of insane Daleks.
    Dalek Prime Minister: Save...us. You...will...save us!
    The Doctor: I'll what?
    Dalek Prime Minister: You will save...the Daleks.
    The Parliament of the Daleks: SAVE THE DALEKS! SAVE THE DALEKS! SAVE THE DALEKS! SAVE THE DALEKS! SAVE THE DALEKS! SAVE THE DALEKS! SAVE THE DALEKS!
    The Doctor: Well...this is new.
  • Subverted in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". At first it looks like the Doctor will save the murderous Space Pirate Solomon, but when he tries to bribe his way out the Doctor leaves him on his ship before it is hit by missiles.
  • In the denouement/Cliffhanger of "Face the Raven", the Doctor — about to be teleported into the clutches of an unknown enemy — tells the Anti-Villain Ashildr/Me that Clara ordering him not to seek Revenge over her death, which Ashildr and (as it turns out later) the Time Lords inadvertently had a hand in is her way of doing this rather than trying to save his already-lost soul, and warns them that though he will do his best to honour her order, he better never see them again because This Is Unforgivable!
  • "Extremis": When Missy is facing execution, she Ain't Too Proud to Beg to the Doctor, the person designated as her executioner. She appeals to their former friendship and even promises to learn to be good. However, it takes a postmortem What You Are in the Dark appeal to the Doctor's better side by his deceased wife River Song to convince the Doctor to spare Missy, which in turn causes its own problems — usually when the Doctor decides to save the villain they run for it. What do you do when you're stuck guarding the villain for the next thousand years?
• Happens lots of times in The Dukes of Hazzard. Boss Hogg is often double-crossed by whatever thugs he hires for his latest scheme, and who comes to his rescue? The Duke brothers, of course.
• Farscape has an interesting subversion - Moya's crew launch a dangerous, risky mission to save Scorpius. Until they reach him and John asks him what he told his captors - when Scorpius swears he said nothing, John cheerfully says to a shocked Aeryn "Kill him and let's go." They then get distracted squabbling about who ought to kill him and he survives.
• The Fugitive had the necessity of this as part of its plot: the one-armed man has to live or there's no evidence that Richard Kimble is innocent. He also saved Inspector Javert Phillip Gerard quite a few times, which paid off in the finale when Gerard finally catches him, but in exchange gives him 24 hours to search for the real killer.
• Gotham: In the fourth season of Gotham, there's a scene where Bruce Wayne decides to save Jerome Valeska, one of the show's two main takes on the Joker. Despite all that Jerome has done to Bruce up to this point, Bruce has already firmly decided that he doesn't believe in killing criminals to bring them to justice, partially because of his experiences with Jerome. Besides, the situation he saves him from is being murdered by his own uncle and an accomplice, and the uncle previously featured heavily in Jerome's horrifically abusive childhood. This leads to a rare (and brief) moment of sincere gratitude on Jerome's part, and it actually looks like he might try to save Bruce in return for a moment before Bruce tells him not to kill his uncle's accomplice, even though he's strangling Bruce at the time because he believes that strongly in not killing criminals. Needless to say, Jerome finds this hilarious and decides that it would be funnier to watch Bruce get strangled to death because his honor is preventing him from accepting help. Still, before he starts laughing at Bruce, being saved by someone he tried to kill multiple times before shocks him enough to lead to this moment:
  Jerome (to Bruce): With him, the beatings just never stopped. No one ever tried to help me.... Which begs the question, what's wrong with you? (Breaks into mad laughter).
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • In "Annihilated", Elliot Stabler is the first to learn that a man killed his wife and kids and staged it to make his wife look like the killer. When Elliot finds him on the hospital roof as if he's preparing to jump, he plays along and talks him down as if he still thinks he's a victim on the verge of suicide. As soon the guy comes down from the ledge, Elliot cuffs him. When the perp asks what he's doing, Elliot responds, "I don't know. I should've thrown you off the roof."
  • In "Redemption" Elliot and "Hawk" chase a particular horrific serial killer across rooftops. Elliot then finds Hawk standing and watching as the serial killer desperately clings to a ledge (Hawk may or may not have pushed him). Elliot has to convince him to save the killer, citing If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!. It works.
• LazyTown's Sportacus will usually do it for Robbie Rotten. In at least one episode, "LazyTown's New Superhero", Robbie then betrays that help by trying to leave Sportacus stranded on top of the billboard hiding the entrance to his lair, the same one that he was trapped on top of.
• Luke Cage (2016):
  • The sixth episode of season 1 sees Luke and Claire spend most of the episode frantically trying to save a mortally wounded Detective Scarfe, but he still dies despite their hours of operating on him.
  • In the 12th episode of season 1, Luke finds Domingo just barely clinging onto life after stumbling upon the aftermath of a shootout between Domingo's gang and Diamondback's gang. He carries Domingo out of the warehouse when he finds Diamondback has set a bomb to explode. Domingo dies seconds after the bomb goes off, but not before warning Luke about the new powered armor Diamondback is wearing.
  • Luke saves Mariah Dillard's life when Bushmaster tries to kill her by burning down her brownstone, even though Mariah despises Luke for causing problems for her criminal enterprises, and even spent part of season 1 painting Luke as a murderer in the press. He makes clear to Mariah afterwards that he only saved her with the purpose of finding out why Bushmaster is targeting her.
• Odd Squad:
  • In "Odds and Ends", after Ohlm activates the Black-Hole-inator and everyone makes a run for it, Oprah, seeing Ohlm getting sucked into his own black hole, grabs a pole and wrenches it into a grate on the floor in order to save him. He's certainly not grateful about it though, complaining about Oprah's supposed sweaty hands and still swearing vengeance on Odd Squad after Otis disrupts the Black-Hole-inator by pulling a gadget out from the structure comprising it. By that point, Oprah realizes he is Beyond Redemption and sends him straight to his parents so they can punish him accordingly.
  • In "End of the Road", Orla, Omar and Oswald make a run for the main control room of Tube Central Station when they see the floor shaking and the lights flickering. In the process, Omar and Oswald leaves a tied-up Magnet Maggie and William Ocean behind, although Orla frees the two villains before running off after her partners and tells the villains to get to a safe place. Later on, after Olizabeth performs a Heel–Face Turn, she leads all the villains to safety while the Mobile Unit agents head outside and fight the tornado made of the villains' powers.
• Person of Interest. Given that Team Machine don't know if someone will turn out to be a villain or victim when their Number comes up, this happens several times by accident, but eventually this becomes It's What We Do and they save people like mob bosses, or villains they've encountered before (some of whom end up becoming members of Team Machine).
• In season 3, episode 3 of Primeval, villainess Helen Cutter is trapped in the burning ARC building (caused by an explosion in her failed takeover attempt). Nick Cutter, being the hero as well as Helen's husband, rushes into the building and frees her. As thanks, Helen shoots Nick, killing him for real.
• In Prison Break, both Michael and Sara keep others from killing the villains, and sometimes even help them.
• Sebastian Monroe gets a lot of this in Revolution. Also, Tom Neville uses it as a gambit, setting up an attempt on an enemy's life so that he can thwart it and gain their trust.
• Played straight in 1960 Robin Hood: Robin wades through a sea of Mook blood and insists we must not kill the Sheriff, because that would make us as bad as him. Technical Pacifist * A Million Is a Statistic.
• Justified in the 2000 Robin Hood: Prince John promised that if the Sheriff dies, then the entire town will be nuked.
• Sadakatsiz:
  • In the first season's final, this occurs on two levels —psychologically and literally— after Derin's Batman Gambit backfires on her by, among other things, revealing that Volkan would rather side with and protect Asya, his ex-wife, than worry about Derin's wellbeing. In both cases, it's justified because doctor Asya takes her Hippocratic Oath very seriously, therefore has a natural inclination (and the training) to try to save people's lives. Moreover, Asya's an Emergency physician.
    • Asya takes her to the cliff her parents suffered Death by Woman Scorned to tell her how that happened. Asya's mother couldn't stand her husband still loving his ex-fiancé, and so killed them both in a car accident when Asya was ten years old. She does this to try and make her see reason, that no matter who her husband loves, her priority must be her baby daughter Zeynep. Sadly, Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, so Derin not only rebukes Asya's advice but thinks Asya is manipulating her with her daughter in order to get Volkan back.
    • Desperate, Derin then decides to Murder the Hypotenuse (and herself) by driving the car off another cliff. Asya manages to pull the handbrake at the last moment, but the car still plunges into the sea. Fortunately, Asya has little trouble swimming out of the car but Derin has broken her legs, so after taking a lungful of air, Asya returns to free Derin and swims her to the surface. Unfortunately, she runs out of breath. Asya would have drowned if not for the rescue team fishing her out and reviving her. Afterward, Derin refuses to believe that Asya saved her.
  • This situation is mirrored by the second season's climax. Asya's revenge on Volkan and Derin has finally become too much for Derin's fragile sanity — not helped that Volkan, thanks to Asya's manipulations, puts a definitive end to their relationship. Left without schemes or options to force him to stay with her, Derin attempts to commit suicide by throwing herself off the same cliff. She calls Asya to inform her that "you'll finally get rid of me", as well as unintentionally revealing where she plans to do the deed. Asya rushes to the cliff and slowly approaches Derin. Asya plays along with Derin's delusion (she'll have Volkan in her next life) and weakness (Zeynep) to convince her to not jump. Asya also tells Derin that she deserves to be loved and even slaps her when, upon finally managing to embrace Derin, Derin threatens to kill them both. They spend a long time near the cliff's edge, but Asya doesn't leave Derin until Onur and an ambulance arrive. Once Derin recovers, she is very grateful to Asya and remembers that, indeed, Asya has saved her butt from drowning. Again, justified thanks to Asya being a doctor, though also because she never intended to drive Derin to suicide, only to make her feel as miserable as Derin has made her (Asya) feel in the past.
• Smallville:
  • The conceit of the show is that Clark Kent unwittingly saves his archenemy's life when he rescues Lex Luthor from drowning. The novelty later wore out as Clark saved Lex about a hundred other times over the course of the show, even after he officially becomes evil.
  • He sometimes also tries to save other villains, but convenient Karmic Death usually is his friend.
  • Chloe Sullivan once died saving Lex (after he went evil). Luckily, she doesn't stay dead, although Clark was seriously worried and actually refused to let her do that at first, but Chloe decides to save Lex anyway once Clark is unconscious. This is important because this event triggers both his Heel–Face Turn and Protagonist Journey to Villain, although his exact alignment and motives are always kept very ambiguous except at the very end.
  • Chloe also brought Tess Mercer back from the dead after she had to stop her heart to get government agents to stop tracking them. It's notable because Chloe clearly considered letting her stay dead, but her conscience got the best of her. Seeing as how Tess would go on to succeed Chloe as the team's Mission Control, the choice paid off.
• Subverted in the Stargate Atlantis episode "The Prodigal": Michael teeters on the brink of falling off the top of Atlantis to his awful demise. Teyla not only doesn't pull him up, she actually kicks his hands to hasten his death. This is what happens when you mess with Mama Bear.
• In The Walking Dead episode "Conquer", Glenn saves Nicholas despite the fact that he lured him out into the woods so he could kill him. Even though Glenn had him at his mercy, he knew that'd make him just like his enemy. Glenn ends up carrying him back to Alexandria after giving him a serious beat down.
• It happens quite a few times in Wicked Science where Toby has to help Elizabeth when her experiments gave her unexpected results.
• WandaVision: During the ninth episode, Wanda and her family come under attack from both SWORD agents and Agatha Harkness. Wanda makes a point of saving the SWORD agents when Agatha begins attacking them, despite the fact that said agents were trying to kill her on Hayward's orders.
• Averted big time in Xena: Warrior Princess during the second appearance of her archenemy, Callisto. After Callisto murders Gabrielle's husband in cold blood, then almost burns Gabrielle at the stake, Xena finally catches up with her in a furious chariot chase which culminates with the both of them stuck in a quicksand pit. Xena uses her whip and chakram to pull herself to safety, then simply stands there and watches as Callisto is pulled under, screaming. Callisto eventually comes back, though. "Strike me down and I shall arise mightier than before." The next four seasons are Xena wangsting and paying off infinite karmic punishments.

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