Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism / Live-Action TV

• Sharpe is very much in the cynical corner. Though the fighting is occasionally interspersed with with brief glimpses of glory and heroism, The Napoleonic Wars are consistently portrayed as either hellish or mundane. Rape, looting, treason, desertion and Unfriendly Fire (all usually perpetrated by Karma Houdinis) are rampant. Even in the good guys' army, an enlisted man's life is identified as somewhere between that of a human and an animal. Most soldiers are born of thieves and whores, and a large contingent of sociopaths tag along at all times. The officer corps is, as a rule, made up of Upper Class Twits and despite their obsessions with class and their crippling arrogance, they often rival their men in terms of boorishness and brutality. Those officers that earned their commission by merit, like Sharpe, are actively ostracised and sabotaged at every turn, to the point that that any promotion chances more on either dumb luck, a generous superior, a dead superior, quid-pro-quo or on shamelessly rubbing any kind of success in everyone's faces - and even then, the prospect of advancement will eventually be capped by an impenetrable social glass ceiling. The commanding officers, despite usually being more gracious, competent and objective than the average officer, certainly aren't above intrigue, dirty dealings and unnecessarily gambling with the lives of their men (especially with those of Sharpe and his crew) for little gain. The God they're fighting for does not exist; the King they're fighting for is mad as a march hare (as is his Prince Regent), while his government is frightfully debauched and hideously corrupt; the country they're fighting for is plagued by social inequality and sectarianism. The enemies they're fighting against, despite being led by an imperialistic autocrat, are seldomly portrayed as much worse than Sharpe's own side. The only things that Sharpe - who's a self-admitted bastard in every sense of the word - is fighting for are his own survival and that of his (few and short-lived) comrades, friends and loved ones, as well as for a better, more dignified life.
• Community play with the scale but ultimately has a more optimistic and insightful leaning despite the fact that it toys with as many sitcom, story, and genre conventions as possible and has a lot of lunatics, weirdos, and sociopaths.
• Game of Thrones: The series is noted for its cynical take on High Fantasy tropes like The Good King and Knight in Shining Armor, and characters with overly idealistic worldviews do tend to fare poorly, but characters who are too cynical (especially to the point of Stupid Evil) have their share of hardship as well.
• Renegadepress.com, a Teen Drama Canadian Series, falls on the realistic, cynical side, albeit with some idealism to (sometimes try) to save the episode's victim.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003) is much more cynical than the original, with the robotic Cylons as implacable enemies despite the presence of forces within the fleet who think they can be negotiated with. But the show also functions as a raging battlefield of cynicism vs. idealism, as a rapidly declining population, hunted continuously by intelligent killing machines and running short on supplies, must determine if they should rely upon a visionary leader (whose prophecies may be nothing more than fevered rantings as a side effect of cancer medication) to lead them to a mythical promised land. Political debate and impassioned entreaties on faith abound.
• Stranger Things despite its horror themes and darker elements is very much on the idealistic end.
• The X-Files is pretty far over on the cynical side...but not quite as far as it might appear at first. It's a world of dark conspiracies, betrayal and lies, with monsters hiding in every shadow, but there are two people in it who really can trust each other, and that might be enough to make a difference. (That "might" is important, though; the series ends on an ambiguous note, and the last line is "maybe there's hope.")
• The characters in Heroes run the whole gamut of the scale, from Hiro and Peter who are almost implacably on the side of idealism - sometimes to the point of behaving like idiots. On the other hand, Linderman (and most of his organization, from Nathan to Bennet) is on the side of cynicism. Much of the first season was about these characters gradually moving closer to the middle of the scale.
  • Claude is the most cynical character on the show ("People suck, friend! Never forget that!!"), but once you find out how he got that way, it makes sense for him. And he's a very nice foil for Peter's insane amounts of idealism.
  • Not in volumes 3 and onward. After Volume 4, no more Mr. Nice Guy from the Cape. In fact, several times, Future Peter seemed very cynical, and let us not forget Claire who is some Frankensteinish cross between her people-loving uncle and her stubborn, pessimistic father. Future Claire in volume 3 scared me a little, I'll admit.
  • And then there's Nathan who frequently uses cynical means for idealistic purposes.
  • A.K.A. the entire volume 4 plot wrapped into a single sentence. Nice work, Cadet.
• Stargate SG-1 contrasts Daniel Jackson, who cares about making friends and allies, to the NID, who care about getting technology to defend Earth at any cost, and Jack O'Neill, who is somewhere in the middle, mostly on the side of pragmatism. An example of the show running on different points of the scale is "Scorched Earth", where Daniel finds a way to save both civilizations vying for control of the planet's ecosystem despite Jack's plan to blow one of them up with a naqadah bomb, and "Entity", where Daniel and Sam's idealism leads to the latter being possessed by a vengeful (our probes accidentally caused damage to them) computer entity, and only released when Jack threatens to send more probes. Jack basically has to tell Daniel to shut up, and let him do it his way.
  • On Stargate Atlantis, however, McKay is shown to be the Cynical Scientist while Sheppard is the Idealistic soldier, giving a nice subversion to the trope standard. Although both are usually shown to be right in equal terms, there's a tip of favoritism considering the other two members of the Atlantis Team 1, Teyla and Ronon. Teyla is shown to be idealistic and in more than one occasion has jeopardized everyone for very little gain because of her faith in her Wraith gene, while Ronon is shown to be a cynical hardened soldier who often gets the job done. While Sheppard and Teyla gets along well for their shared view, Ronon is usually at odd terms with McKay, but mostly because of both wildly different areas of expertise.
  • Notably, McKay and Sheppard periodically flip-flop these points of view, far more so than SG:1 did.
  • Teyla and many other members of the Atlantis team believed that Wraiths converted into humans would be eventually grateful for their new status: unfortunately, this resulted in the death of thousands when the test subject (AKA Michael) proved more than a little pissed off at the unfortunate results of his condition- memory loss, nightmares, and unending mistrust from both humans and wraith. Actually, despite the screams of What the Hell, Hero?, this is a pretty good example of the cynical end of the scale: if they'd tried for idealism and had Michael reduced to the hybrid equivalent of a Stepford Smiler, the results would have been ridiculous beyond the realms of human sensibility.
  • An extremely well done example of the side of Cynicism is Dr. Peter Kavanagh. In the Atlantis Expedition, he was functionally a human Lampshade on the various bad plans throughout the series. Of course, he is always wrong, but only because of sheer luck or Deus ex Machina working in favor of the expedition. It is Lampshaded (by himself at that) that if these events hadn't happened, his approach would be the best strategic and sensible one.
  • Stargate Universe however is extremely cynical, when someone is doomed, the usual order is to leave them to die or at the mercy of the whatever is out to get them (Compared to how despite going up against improbable odds, the heroes believe there is a way and will fight to make that third option happen) and takes a bit from the new Battlestar Galactica as sex, violence and character drama rule the day aboard the Destiny.
• Firefly is a prime example of a show whose protagonists are willing to get their hands bloody if they think it's necessary. Perhaps the ultimate example of this is when Mal Reynolds and his crew renege on doing a job for a crime boss. After a tussle with The Dragon and some Mooks, Mal tries to return the boss' money, but The Dragon refuses to take it and threatens to instead kill Mal and his entire crew. Rather than go through a We Will Meet Again thing, Mal promptly kicks him into a giant jet intake. The subordinate he drags before him next agrees with his terms and to return the money before Mal even finishes his first sentence.
  • At the same time, though, the show also virtually runs on Honor Before Reason. The reason for the above reneging on the crime boss's job? The cargo that the crew were paid to steal turned out to be critical medicine for a poor mining community, where virtually the entire population is suffering from a degenerative disease that will eventually kill them without the medicine. Also, the mere fact that Mal is willing to keep Simon and River Tam on his ship, in spite of all the trouble they bring down on him and his. In fact, in the movie, Mal actually asks himself why he's protecting them, even after he's given a whole bunch of reasons why he shouldn't. The reason, of course, is that at heart, Mal is still an idealist.
  • It can be argued that Mal represents a center point on the scale. He will commit blatant crimes up to and including the above-mentioned murder but all in the name of protecting his "family" as represented by his crew.
  • Word of God in the commentaries states that they wanted to explore a hero's journey. As shown in the opening of the pilot (which was aired last), Mal started as an incredibly idealistic volunteer for the plucky underdog army, kissing a cross before a sortie. Then his army got crushed and he spent weeks watching the men under his command wither and die of injury and disease and he walked away a broken, hideously cynical man who verbally lambasts a preacher at every possibility. The show would have explored his gradual rediscovery of the idealist within.
• Blackadder began pretty much at the middle for its initial season (which centered on Prince Edmund trying to gain the throne) before leaning more and more on cynicism: the second season featured an Expy of Elizabeth I as a complete failure of a queen. It becomes even more cynical in its final season, Blackadder Goes Forth, due to it being set during World War I, where the people in charge are complete morons, and it eventually ends with all of the main characters being sent over the top and dying.
  • But while the ending of Blackadder Goes Forth was on the more tearjerking side, the ending of Blackadder the Third is 100% cynical: the Villain Protagonist and the Prince dress up as each other in order to prevent the Prince from being killed, but he dies anyway, leaving the Villain Protagonist to take over as Prince Regent. That being said, the Prince was an Upper-Class Twit, but still.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (at least in the first four seasons or so) tends towards idealism. People are mostly good. Evil can be defeated. Monsters can become heroes. Even Cordelia Chase gets nicer, and Spike becomes a Noble Demon. The sixth season slid as far as it could to cynicism, while the seventh aimed for a middle point on the scale.
  • Angel on the other hand, tends toward cynicism: the Senior Partners can never be defeated, only temporarily inconvenienced, Wolfram and Hart will always exist because human evil will always exist, and the universe is shown to be as equally heartless to an Eldritch Abomination as anyone else.
    • Despite its view being incredibly cynical, Angel is hard to quantify, because its fundamental take on the idea is "Evil can never be defeated, and good will never prevail. We fight evil in spite of this fact."
• iCarly: When it's about any kind of authority figures (police, almost all the adults, teachers except for the single Reasonable Authority Figure), the show is quite very cynical. If it's about the Power of Friendship and solving problems on their own? Quite idealistic. Has an astonishing level of Grey-and-Gray Morality for a children's comedy show.
  • To be more precise, it is extremely cynical for the male cast. The world hates them with the force of a thousand suns and at best they deserve the abuse and at worst they get roughed up, spat on, and then stomped on for having deviant opinions. The female cast lives in a semi-idealistic world where almost nothing goes wrong. This seems to be a summary of most Dan Schneider shows in general; girls rarely get the raw end of the deal, while the abuse for boys lasts during and after the episode's done.
• Star Trek is generally an idealistic show, at least in its original run; characters often speculated on the nature of humanity, which was portrayed as fundamentally good, and learned An Aesop. As noted in the Writer on Board entry, the Berman/Braga writing team has been accused of moving the normally idealistic Star Trek too far toward the cynical end of the scale.
  • And then overcompensating with the shift back towards idealism (often to ridiculous levels) with Voyager. Here the Federation's principles are presented not only as sacrosanct, but infallible. Pretty much every Planet of Hats alien race is presented as being deeply flawed in some way, so that the crew of Voyager can storm in to point out how primitive and rubbish the ignorant yokels are and how much more they have to learn. Take a shot whenever Janeway says "We're peaceful explorers" in a smug, patronising voice.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine definitely slid towards the cynical end of the scale, and slammed straight into the far end with the Season 6 episode "In The Pale Moonlight." Note that Deep Space Nine had a different writing staff than the other Trek series, which Braga and Berman pretty much left alone to concentrate on Voyager; this writing staff would later go on to create The 4400 and Battlestar Galactica 2003 (which, like Deep Space Nine, was a dark and cynical space tale with heavy suggestions that there is something in the spirit realm.)
  • Furthermore, "In The Pale Moonlight", of Star Trek, precisely because of its ruthless and painful Deconstruction of the franchise's inherent idealism. (We get balanced out by episodes like "Far Beyond The Stars" and "The Visitor".)
  • Deep Space Nine actually flopped back and forth. To take two back-to-back episodes, "Once More Into the Breach" is idealistic, with many enemy installations destroyed and the Heroic Sacrifice to save the day actually working (and the sacrifice itself is bittersweet at worst because the Tragic Hero who makes the sacrifice clearly wanted it that way) — and then we get "Siege of AR-558" which is cynical to the end (basically it's like Platoon, but with fewer survivors), and then just to really pile on, the system they fought for is later lost anyway.
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is further toward the cynicism end than most of Star Trek had been at that point. The crew fights for peace, but commits some moral breaches to do it, up to and including Mind Rape.
    • On the other hand, while some of the crew's actions may be morally questionable, the overall theme of the movie is overwhelmingly idealistic: The Klingon Empire—enemies of the Federation throughout the TOS era—have suffered a major catastrophe, and some within the Federation are suggesting that this is an ideal time to crush the Empire, given their weakened state. Yet Kirk & Co. save the Klingon Empire rather than destroying it.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series is a very idealistic series... except when it's not. From "Charlie X", where a boy raised by aliens is taken back by those aliens, begging and screaming to be saved, because the skills the aliens gave him to survive make him too dangerous; to "The Apple", where Kirk destroys a peaceful, innocent civilization in order to allow them to advance technologically and to save his crew. Spock often acts as the voice of cynicism, clashing with Doctor McCoy's belligerent idealism.
  • Star Trek's Mirror Universe is basically a much more cynical version of the regular Trek Verse. In the mirror version, Humans Are Bastards and Deep Space 9 even implies that being cruel was the only way the Terran Empire could defend itself (when the mirror Spock takes over and makes the empire less cruel, it is overthrown by another evil government).
  • The 2009 film after the Continuity Reboot, as a Reconstruction of the franchise, lands closer to the middle of the scale than the original series, but ultimately still decides on idealism.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation was fairly idealistic while Gene Roddenberry was still writing it. After his death, it took a more cynical turn (although still very Idealistic).
• Even the generally idealistic Doctor Who has a cynical moment in "Evolution of the Daleks". The Hooverville leader Solomon gives the Daleks a Sedgwick Speech. You can guess what happens next. "EXTERMINATE!"
  • An interesting example from the same series is The Silurians, in which humans destroy a race of sapient creatures that have awoken from hibernation, where, if both races hadn't automatically assumed that the other was dangerous, and had listened to the Doctor's idealistic point of view, the tragedy would have been avoided.
  • A slightly Hard Truth Aesop version of this appears in a later appearance by the Silurians; the Doctor constantly insists that the humans should attempt a peaceful resolution with them, but the fact that the Silurians are genuinely only interested in wiping humanity off the face of the planet mean that, in this case, violence is the only way that the humans can defend themselves. Although the humans themselves are just as antagonistic, xenophobic, and one-dimensionally aggressive as the Silurians, so there’s really nobody to side with.
  • The Whoniverse has a good illustration of this trope with the main show and two spinoffs, one Darker and Edgier and the other Lighter and Softer.
  • The show itself tends to bounce from one side of the scale to the other wildly, particularly in the new series; one week Humans Are Bastards, the other Rousseau Was Right. The Doctor himself is usually portrayed as an idealist, but at times he's engaged in quite cynical acts, especially if he's been pushed too far.
  • In the first three seasons of the relaunch, the Doctor tends to express great admiration of humanity and our curiosity, though he does make a comment in the fourth season about a future human empire built on slavery being not so different from industrialized human societies in the present because "who do you think made your clothes?".
  • Episodes with Daleks tend to be darker and more cynical.
  • But then you reach the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, which is more consistently cynical due to much of it being primarily aimed at an adult audience...
    • In-universe illustration: In the Doctor Who New Adventures, the Doctor thinks Bernice Summerfield is a cynic; she says she's an idealist who was wrong too many times. And then she turns out to be nowhere near as cynical as New Ace, much less Roz Forrester.
    • In the Eighth Doctor Adventures, by contrast, Sam Jones is a highly idealistic companion who is always wrong about everything.
  • On the whole, though, the series tends to lean toward the idealistic side, even in its darker moments. Long-time Doctor Who fan Craig Ferguson, in the "lost" cold open of his Doctor Who tribute episode, described the Doctor as "a force for good in an uncertain universe" and the series itself as being about "the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism."
• The West Wing often provides an idealistic vision of the United States Presidency, and a Democratic President in particular.
  • West Wing's idealism isn't so much that government always does the right thing—attention is given to striking deals, what looks good in the press, getting re-elected, etc—but that the people in the government, particularly the protagonists, want to do the right thing.
  • And then, right at the other end of the scale, there's The Thick of It...
  • There's also the show that could be called the anti-West Wing, the US version of House of Cards. For all the idealism and focus on the good government can do in The West Wing, House of Cards is the opposite, focusing on using political power solely for your own gain at the expense of everyone else.
    • The aforementioned The Thick of It could also be seen as an antithesis to House of Cards; House of Cards is more cinematic and stylized, with Frank giving colorful monologues to the audience, politicians plotting against each other while having steamy affairs, and a more simplified look at the American political system. The Thick of It, on the hand, shows how banal and soul-sucking government can be, the politicians are mostly idiots who have to be pushed around by the ill-tempered spin doctors, and pretty much everything ends up going wrong. Between these to shows, politicians have said that The Thick of It was much more realistic, so take that for what you will.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a show about the worst people possible, falls squarely on the cynical side of things.
• Ironically, Danny DeVito rose to fame in Taxi, which was pretty much the opposite: A group of cab drivers who grow to accept their place in life and take The Power of Friendship very seriously. Although Louie was still one of the most cynical things you could find on TV.
• For a show with such a silly premise, Supernatural is firmly on the cynical side. They never get paid or thanked, it's implied that humans can be just as bad as the monsters they hunt, bad actions and secret-keeping always comes back to bite them on the ass, their extreme co-dependency is portrayed as unhealthy and slightly disturbing (and Dean's "We can't be martyrs anymore" speech has so many things wrong with it that you start to think they did that on purpose), and at the end of "What Is and What Should Never Be", Sam can't even convince Dean that what they do is worth all the pain in their life.
  • This is debatable; the show is, of course, set in a Crapsack World where God is missing and even the angels are dicks, and where good things are apparently incapable of happening. However, despite the very cynical coating, the show leans towards idealism at its heart. This is especially evident in seasons 4-5 where it's repeatedly stressed that humans, for all their faults, do not deserve to perish in the war between Heaven and Hell, that the end does not justify the means, that former torturers / junkies / murderers / etc can get a shot at redemption, and that Lucifer's powers pale before the Power of Brotherly Love.
    Lucifer (on humans): They are broken, flawed abortions.
    Gabriel: Damn right they're flawed. But a lot of them try...to do better. To forgive.
• The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed: the two protagonists represent opposing sides of the scale, with former infantry scout/Naïve Newcomer Sharapov representing idealism and his roommate/senior colleague Zheglov on the cynical side.
• Farscape heavily leans towards the cynical side, even though most of the main protagonists seem to be idealistic in spirit. In the very telling example of a season 1 episode, Zhaan does all her best as a high priestess to convince a captive alien mercenary that the performance-enhancing drug his species uses is his true enemy. While she gains his gratitude and respect, she ultimately fails in getting him "clean". The best example for the moral philosophies of the show, however, might be the finale of the series-concluding mini-series "The Peacekeeper Wars". Despite being strongly cautioned against using wormhole weapons by Pilot and the wormhole alien, John enforces peace between the warring Peacekeepers and Scarrans by actually building one, using it to destroy both their armadas, and threatening to destroy the universe if they don't agree on a peace treaty. He's not bluffing, either.
  • That could be seen as quite idealistic, though, too. Demonstrating with brutal clarity exactly where cynicism will get them... namely, sucked into a black hole that will eat the universe.
    • "Wormhole weapons don't make peace. They don't even make war. All they make is destruction."
• The Wire is a very cynical show. Out of four young middle school boys, one ends up a drug addict, one ends up in a group home, one ends up as a stick-up man, and only one is saved. The drug dealers constantly escape the law again and again. The most corrupt politician in the show escapes the law entirely. Almost every "hero" in the police department is either fired or demoted at least once by the end of the show.
  • Even so, the show is not completely without small, tear jerking moments of idealism; none more so when Bubbles gets sober and stays sober. Or when Namond becomes the only one of the boys in the fourth season to escape the streets.
• Treme, David Simon's new series on HBO, depicts the bleak living conditions of post-Katrina New Orleans, but possesses much more idealism, because while the characters realize they live in a Crapsack World, they make it work. Usually.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles sits on the edge of the middle, leaning toward the cynical side of things. Sarah Connor herself is represented as something of an idealist who values all human life and will not kill anyone, but nearly everyone else in the series save her son is comparatively ruthless. Nearly every attempt made thus far to show mercy to someone who is a potential danger turns out to bite the Connors in the ass in one form or another, and the only way to protect the family is often to eliminate witnesses, enemies, and other threats.
• House is a strong example of hard cynicism. The eponymous doctor vacillates between extremely cynical and just really cynical. The most idealistic characters are often mocked, criticized, undermined, or otherwise subjected to mild versions of Break the Cutie. And House is always right, or else beats everyone else down with his near-superhuman cynicism until they give up on trying to convince him otherwise. It's constantly made clear that House, although he is the "hero", is totally unhappy, and he has to go to the loony bin for withdrawal at one point.
• Yes, Minister and its sequel series Yes, Prime Minister tends towards the cynical side of the trope; the British Civil Service is, for the most part, depicted as a smug, hypocritically self-serving, elitist and amoral monolith perpetuating a clogged bureaucracy arrogantly convinced that it alone knows what is best for Britain (despite being aloof and out-of-touch for the most part) and automatically opposed to any and all hints of change, even if that change would be beneficial or even urgently necessary. Politicians, on the other hand, are cowardly opportunists who, whilst they might have vague ideas of change and reform, will fold at the slightest hurdle or if it looks like the public will turn against them. And whilst occasional victories might be won and small reforms implemented, there's an ever-present sense that nothing will ever change in any meaningful way.
  • One of the major factors contributing to the series' success was arguably that viewers felt this was an uncomfortably accurate representation of actual government, or at least a highly plausible explanation for why things are the way they are. That it was wildly popular with politicians and the civil service alike lends at least some credence to these beliefs — nothing is so good to laugh at as the Elephant in the Living Room.
  • That it is sometimes described as the UK equivalent to The West Wing also gives some indication of where on the scale the respective nations views lie when it comes to politics.
  • It was also sometimes described by ex-politicians as being more documentary than sit-com.
  • The writers were retired civil servants, and many of the more "unrealistic" storylines - for instance, smuggling alcohol into a reception held in an Islamic country - are based on events that actually occurred in 1970s British politics.
• Touched by an Angel is firmly entrenched in the Idealistic side.
• JAG: For the protagonists, pragmatism is usually the best solution to any given problem. This is not surprising given that they're military officers. The show overall is somewhat idealistic regarding the ability of the U.S. military to almost always do the right thing.
• Foyle's War tends to hover somewhere around the middle; since the whole point of the series is to explode the myth that during World War II everyone in Britain pitched in together to fight the Nazis, it's generally quite cynical; a frequent theme is that war changes people, usually for the worse. As such, people are venal, cowardly, classist, elitist and, especially in the early seasons, quite defeatist. The government is depicted as being quite morally flexible, willing to do whatever it takes to win the war, to the extent that they freely issue Get Out Of Jail Free Cards to people who they think can help, resulting in a high number of Karma Houdinis in Foyle's investigations. However, the series frequently reiterates that the war had to be won and the Nazis were even worse, and that there were good, decent and even heroic people around; most especially, Foyle himself is consistently presented as a genuinely noble and honourable man.
• Seinfeld's founding mission statement is "No learning, no hugging", putting it firmly on the cynical side of things from the get go. Its Spiritual Successor Curb Your Enthusiasm also sits squarely at this end.
• By contrast, the oft-compared Friends leans very far on the idealistic side. The main characters really do love and care about each other, episodes usually have bright/cheery tone, and everybody has a happy ending at the end of the series. Even when the show briefly took a Darker and Edgier turn in the middle of season three (when Ross had sex with Chloe the copy girl after "thinking" he and Rachel had broken up), it still maintained a strong sense of idealism and lightheartedness.
• One of the subthemes of Jericho (2006) is people trying to maintain their faith in the ideals of America while struggling for survival.
• Pushing Daisies has what might at first glance seem to be a grim premise—the protagonist can bring the dead back to life, but only for one minute or else someone else dies—but in fact it falls firmly on the idealistic end of the scale.
  • It might as well be the perfectly other way around; the series seems so sugar-sweet and sugarbowl-like to outsiders, but the gruesome context and happenings, which are the center of attention for nearly every episode, don't fit into the picture so much anymore.
• Where Glee falls on the scale is debatable; most viewers generally see it as happy and idealistic, but some critics have attested that this apparent idealism masks a much sadder reality. Particularly played with in episodes that focus on grown-up former glee clubbers (who tend not to have achieved their dreams of Broadway fame and fortune, with April Rhodes being the most extreme example), or on the students' popularity ("Mash-Up" and "Mattress", and now "Prom Queen," in particular). Part of the issue may be that Glee has three different writers, and it can jump all over the scale depending on who is writing any given episode.
• Veronica Mars can get almost Anvilicious in its views of doing what's "right" versus doing what's legal. Some examples:
  • It's okay to steal evidence from law enforcement to conduct your own investigation if you know the cops are a bunch of failures.
  • If your illegitimate child is at risk of falling into the custody of abusive people, you're better off fleeing the country with her without even giving a custody hearing a try.
• Lost tends to be very, very far down the cynical side of the spectrum—things have a tendency to go From Bad to Worse, all of the main characters hit their rage breaking points at least once (some of whom do so completely out of character), and almost everyone's gut reaction to any problems that they encounter is to point a gun at it. However, idealism vs. cynicism is actually a central theme of the show and is manifested in the two foremost protagonists: Jack, the "man of science" who represents cynicism, and Locke, the "man of faith" who represents idealism. Many of their interactions on the show are based on one of them trying to convince the other that their viewpoint is right. Eventually, they both convert to the other side. Jack takes a leap of faith by dropping the nuclear bomb down the hole at the future Swan Station, while Locke has a mental breakdown when he cannot convince everyone to return to the island.
  • Then comes the Grand Finale which ends on the most idealistic point on the scale possible.
• Skins can come off as very cynical compared to other teen shows, but it actually jumps around on the scale:
  • As far as the couples go: in the first generation, Tony/Michelle couldn't make it work, Sid/Cassie had an ambiguous ending, and Chris/Jal were broken up by Chris's death. In the second generation, though, there was a Happy Ending for the lesbians with Naomi's Anguished Declaration of Love to Emily, and it's more than implied that Thomas and Pandora will get one, too, as they head off to Harvard. So only Freddie/Effy get screwed, but considering that Cook/Effy were the Fan-Preferred Couple anyway...
    • And Skins tends to take a rather idealistic view of teen romance. Rather than acting like teen relationships are doomed to fail, Skins always portrays its Official Couples (the ones that make to the end of their generations, that is) as being in "true love" and likely to last if they put the necessary work into them.
  • Also: Bad people do tend to get their comeuppance. For example, Tony ruins his friends' lives and immediately he is hit by a bus, with his recovery leading to a Heel–Face Turn. Both Mad Twatter and his Expy in Generation 2 get the shit kicked out of them (literally in the former case) for messing with the protagonists. Only Chris, Freddie and Grace, and Sid's dad get the truly bleak end of the stick.
  • The show seems to have fallen into a pattern for each generation of making its first season more idealistic, with its second season taking a hard turn for the cynical. It overall puts the show on a Cerebus Roller Coaster.
  • Skins takes a particularly cynical view of psychology/psychiatry. Even before they had Effy's Ax-Crazy shrink murdering Freddie, it showed Emily and JJ going to Psycho(logical) Support and getting the same generic pills for wildly different problems (and with Emily's case, she really didn't need any pills, just some therapy - showing they'd much rather dash off a prescription than actually take time and help her), or Cassie easily tricking her therapists into thinking she'd gained weight (like she's really the first person who walked through there to try that trick). Jamie Brittain has confirmed that this is a case of Writer on Board; he had some bad experiences with psychiatrists in his adolescence and holds a grudge against the profession as a result.
• Due South is waaaaaaay over on the idealistic side, so much so that Fraser lives in the worst neighbourhood in Chicago and never needs a lock on his apartment door (it's a plot point that he refuses to believe he needs one).
• In the vein of Asian Daytime Dramas, the scale is different for every country. Hong Kong's dramas are mostly idealist with the evil people getting their just desserts and the good people earn their happy ending while Korean Dramas falls mostly in the cynical side.
• Kamen Rider swings all over the place in this one, especially in the Heisei era (2000 onwards). Early Heisei shows like Ryuki, 555 and Blade go purely cynical with a couple of idealists who winds up sacrificing themselves for everyone else; it also marks the introduction of evil but Not Brainwashed Kamen Riders (compare to Gundam, above). More recent Heisei series like Den-O, OOO, and Fourze are much more idealistic worlds where only the Big Bads are truly evil, and the Monsters of the Week result from the desires of people who are good but misguided or manipulated into bad choices. This isn't cut-and-dried, however; the recent Double had its dark moments but is ultimately cautiously hopeful.
  • Kamen Rider Gaim really likes to straddle the line throughout its run. It starts out as a goofy, idealistic story of Mon battles, but soon plunges into a cynical deconstruction of Kamen Rider, turning it into a Cosmic Horror Story about an unstoppable force that can only be stopped by beings who couldn't give a damn about whether we die or not. If that weren't enough, many people turn into monsters and never go back; the one man with enough power to stop all of this is considering mass genocide to save what they can and is secretly being manipulated by his coworkers, who couldn't care less about his desire to save the world; the protagonist always ends up with allies that betray him, get separated, or ditch him when it's no longer useful. However, in spite of its nightmarishly large amount of darkness, it's not completely on the cynical end; Kouta's hope is shown to not be as stupid as others make it out to be and helps him go on in spite of all the crap that goes his way; Oren and Jounouchi, who were once selfish assholes that couldn't give half a damn about anyone else before, grow up and fight for altruistic goals; truly irredeemable characters get their end while those with hints of redemption don't always live, but still go out redeemed; the once unstoppable force is taken to a place by Kouta where it can't harm anyone and allows him to create new lives instead of end others; if Kouta is needed on earth, there's still little in his way of helping them. Ultimately, Gaim is a long tunnel of darkness, but there's still a light at the end of that tunnel that can be earned if one is willing to go that far.
• The Ultra Series is generally on the idealist side of things, thanks to Eiji Tsuburaya's own optimism (he disliked pessimistic stories, telling the writers not to "destroy the dreams of children"). Most series are lighthearted and have a sense of fun, with themes including Humans Are Special, progress, never giving into despair, and protecting what's important for the sake of the future. Even the darkest and most serious shows or episodes maintain such themes when delving into more cynical material.
• CSI, being as angsty as it is, lies firmly on the cynical end of the scale, though there are also idealistic redemption at times, and most criminals are brought to trial.
  • Its Asian variant Forensic Heroes, however, is on a more idealistic side with a couple of dramatic moments to offset not only the lighter setting (literally) but also the reactions to the situation (It helps since each case is not a single episode affair but a complete arc).
• Several sitcoms in the 2000s sat firmly on the cynical side, Malcolm in the Middle, Titus, Everybody Hates Chris; all cynical sitcoms where nothing ever goes right for the main cast.
• Married... with Children is another example of hardcore cynicism, providing a stark contrast with the blissful optimism of the late-Reagan/early-Bush (Sr.) era^note Its Working Title was Not The Cosbys: The entire cast is made up of jerks and losers (except for Bud and Steve, who are just losers). While the female characters are clearly more successful, they achieve this by less-than-honorable means, while the men are... well, fate has them as its favorite toys. Famously subverted by the fact that the Bundys do really care for each other in spite of all.
• Chuck Lorre's productions:
  • Two and a Half Men is firmly set at the cynical bottom: The characters born jerks (specially Charlie) have it good (a house in the beach, as an example), while the good ones (we are lookin' at ''ya', Alan) are liable to be Cosmic Playthings: Once, the aforementioned Alan began taking advantage on his family and friends, who in tun get quickly fed.
  • The Big Bang Theory often switches between cynical and idealistic viewpoints. In the short term, the characters often don't really learn that much from their mistakes, but in the long term, they all have go through at least some positive Character Development. In other words: the cynicism is played for laughs, but at its core, the show is somewhat idealistic.
• Norman Lear's shows:
  • All in the Family was initially very idealistic, with Mike being The Ace and Archie a Straw Conservative. After a few seasons however, Mike was seen as more hypocritical, while Archie became kinder and (somewhat) more tolerant, getting close to the middle. Archie Bunker's Place became more depressing, even if Archie's prejudices had been thoroughly toned down.
  • Both The Jeffersons and Good Times were located at the middle, leaning towards idealism as they were both full of heartwarming and relatable family moments mixed with some difficult life realities.
  • Sanford and Son was the most neutral, especially since it was a more "traditional" sitcom.
  • Maude however, was definitively cynical: The Hilliard-Findlays were extremely hypocritical and neurotic, and were a family mostly just in name.
• 24 is a brutally cynical political thriller where torture must be used to get critical information out of a person. Good people die and betrayal is often common and Jack Bauer on more than one occasion becomes a wanted man.
• And then Kiefer Sutherland's next series, Touch (2012), is well on the idealistic side, at least for the single-episode plotlines, which always end up for the best; whether this is true for the larger series arc remains to be seen, but given the optimistic outcome of the individual stories, one can reasonably expect the same of the larger arc.
• The Daily Show and The Colbert Report both embrace the cynical end of the scale as a way of life, though this is a given when you're showing politicians and select journalists to be hypocrites, liars, and idiots four nights a week.
• Breaking Bad is somewhere in the middle. The thesis of the show is that a decent milquetoast chemistry teacher with a loving family can enter the criminal underworld under the pretense of needing the money and end up becoming a hardened criminal who continues on with his work despite being given multiple opportunities to stop engaging in criminal activity. Ultimately, his empire falls and while he secures the future of his family, he does not survive the ordeal. However, several characters have more noble reasons for their involvement in the trade and in Jesse's case, he ultimately survives and manages to start a new life. While Walt does die, he does so on his own terms and defeats his even nastier adversaries, so the series isn't entirely without idealism.
• Better Call Saul is even more cynical than Breaking Bad. Unlike Walt, Saul tries to do the right thing. However, it doesn't get him anywhere, leading him to become the "criminal lawyer" on Breaking Bad.
• Mad Men is another exercise in cynicism: Under the seemingly perfect world of The '60s, lies an underworld of nihilistic ad men who have absolutely no morality. On the other side, the women; either secretaries or housewives, get to know what's cooking behind, but they still manage to hide their feelings.
• Parks and Recreation has been called the most optimistic show on television. This is ironic since it started with the premise of Leslie being a clueless Pollyanna in a Crapsack World. Since then, Leslie's world view has gotten more realistic and the show's universe has become less cynical. Although the gap has narrowed considerably, Leslie is still a little bit more idealistic than the world she lives in. The show's optimism may be most evident in the portrayal of Leslie's opponent in the race for city council from the fourth season. While he's an Upper-Class Twit totally unqualified for the position, he's also a genuinely nice person who just wants to impress his father.
• The Sopranos is unrelentingly cynical, not only in its depiction of its characters but in its grim postulations about human nature. However, it is not entirely doom and gloom: even characters who do monstrous things feel genuine emotions and sincerely love their families; characters are depicted as possessing moral agency, even if time and time again they slip back into choosing what's easy over what's right; and for all their difficulties and disappointments, the show ends with a glimmer of hope that Tony and Carmela have at least succeeded in raising children who will have a better life than them, thus carrying on The American Dream.
• Utopia takes a very cynical viewpoint. The heart of the plot concerns a conspiracy to create a worldwide Sterility Plague. But the good guys end up threatening, injuring and killing quite a few people on the way, and the conspirators are only trying to reduce the human population so that Earth will not suffer a catastrophic economic and environmental collapse due to overpopulation. Black-and-Grey Morality abounds.
• The Inbetweeners has a surprisingly idealistic message from within a cynical setting. It's a cynical portrayal of The Good Old British Comp and school days. But while the four main characters suffer alot, much of this is brought on themselves when they're being dishonest, jerks or too spineless to stand up for themselves. On the rare occasions when they act honestly and selflessly, things start going their way.
• Scandal (2012) swings wildly on this scale with the running theme that noble beliefs are useless until put into action. Even the worst people in the show are genuine in their beliefs and unwavering in their patriotism. Only David Rosen and President Grant are traditional idealists, though, and in the end can only be such because they are supported by the cynics. In fact, Grant's success turns out to come entirely from his friends rigging the election without his knowledge.
• Both versions of The Office are notable in their examination of the scale. Both depict the titular office as being a sucky and soul-crushing place to work where you watch your dreams die. And yet by the end the characters have found happiness in their lives and work and see that many of the things they wanted were right in front of them the whole time. The big difference is that the UK version shows the office as a straight-up Crapsack World while the US version has it as a World Half Full.
• Victorious: Jade and Tori are in an in-show evocation of this trope and seem to represent its own clash between Idealistic and Cynical values. Tori is generally kind, caring, easily forgives those who wrong her and generally believes people's happiness and sense of comfort are the best key to their well being. Jade, in contrast, is cold, distant, often abrasively cruel, and believes what's best for people is conveying (what she believes is) the world's brutal truths. There's argument that both worldviews are right and wrong in both similar and different ways. The show itself often tends to slide between a more optimistic and pessimistic view of human relationships and nature, although Tori's climatic show of unconditional love towards Jade during Tori Goes Platinum (even after the latter's betrayal) seems to hint it's ultimately an Idealistic rather than a Cynical show, despite many grey areas and mixed messages that pop up now and again.
• The 100 is an odd combination of idealism and cynicism. On the one hand, it's very idealistic about human nature, with just about every character having a deep desire to do the right thing and help their people survive. However, it's quite cynical about people's ability to actually accomplish anything good, with most victories coming at the cost of tremendous sacrifice or by committing horrible acts against people who were also just trying to do the right thing to help their people survive.
• While Six Feet Under is a very dark show, it actually veers more on the "Idealistic" side. Though the show's main focus is on death and the finiteness of human life, it puts a very optimistic spin on the subject and indeed suggests the viability of life afterwards. Meanwhile, the characters (though flawed) are fundamentally good people who care about each other and generally strive to do the right thing.
• Once Upon a Time, despite being a show partially based on The Theme Park Version (AKA the Disney version) of fairy tales actually falls all over the scale. In general, the show goes 2 different directions with the idea. On one hand, cynicism works when employed, but it creates a lot of problems down the road. On the other hand, idealism can generate problems as it goes, but can still be rewarded as well. Really, the show can't make up its mind about this, because so many of the different characters either lost, found, or are in the middle of fighting for their happy endings.
  • Perhaps the most obvious way to think about it is looking at the most important aspect of the series: its villains. The heroes in general are more idealistic (save for the Knight in Sour Armor hero), so it's the show's treatment of the villains that really shows where the series is on the scale. When the series began, the hero/villain line was a lot more clear cut, showing an idealistic show that you can find a happy ending even if you have to earn it. However, by the middle of season 1, you begin to see that even classic villains like The Evil Queen could have a Freudian Excuse behind their actions, though without excusing them. Come season 2 though, the series goes in 3 directions with villains, showing a surprising amount of idealism. Some villains try reforming (some more successfully than the other), 2 have an Alas, Poor Villain moment despite being serious antagonists, some are given some excuse though have to die for the sake of the group, while some are given life, but in such a way that they lose what they really wanted. In general Once dresses in cynicism in poking holes in fairy tales, but lives in idealism in holding onto the idea of there being good in even the worst people.
• Arrested Development leans very far on the cynical side. Aside from George Michael and possibly his father Michael, all the characters are incredibly self-centered and amoral people who (as the show's title implies) experience zero character development. And even Michael, especially later in the series, has a major Jerkass streak. It's even been theorized by some fans that Michael is actually every bit as selfish and amoral as the rest of the Bluth and Funke families but better at hiding it. Season 4 proves this theory to be correct.
• Black Mirror might be one of the most cynical TV shows of the century. In every story, the problem stems from either New Media Are Evil or Humans Are Bastards. It certainly doesn't help that happy endings are as rare as can be.
• Power Rangers is actually more cynical than you might think, despite it running on friendship and Right Makes Might. On the one hand, the rangers rarely suffer any serious defeats from season to season that aren't eventually reversed within a few episodes. On the other hand, they constantly have to punch, shoot and destroy most of their enemies who are more interested in hurting them rather than hearing them out. Not to mention some of the galactic implications regarding the numerous alien empires destroyed or galaxies wrecked over the course of the franchise hinting that the galaxy is much worse than earth is. Also, each season can be placed on different spots of the Sliding Scale:
  • The first season of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is probably the most idealistic of the whole franchise. The teenage heroes feel more like ideal images of what people want teenagers to be, as they never misbehave and take on at least 10 volunteer jobs after school. Also, their battles, while shown to be destructive, have no real consequences at all. The villains form no real threat, as their plans are rather harebrained and easily foiled by the rangers each and every time.
  • Power Rangers Time Force is somewhere in the middle. The series opens with a ranger actually DYING (He gets better), with a mutant criminal terrorist escaping to rewrite history, and a dark background with revenge and hatred. On the other hand, the rangers don't actually kill their enemies. Rather they shrink them down for reimprisonment. And at the end of the series, the villain actually surrenders to the rangers, seeing what he has done to his family.
  • Power Rangers RPM is probably the most cynical of the whole franchise. The series starts with an announcement that the sentient computer virus Venjix took over the entire internet and managed to build a huge army of robotic soldiers which wiped out the majority of humanity. The survivors took refuge in the domed city of Corinth, the only place on earth not taken over by Venjix. Here, the rangers all have obvious flaws that they need to overcome, while also being the last hope of humanity's survival. The villains form a credible threat, as even a simple Monster of the Week would be enough to wipe out all remaining human life on the planet.
  • While Power Rangers: Dino Thunder kinda falls somewhere in the middle (battle-hardened mentor Dr. Tommy Oliver and a bunch of teens from vastly different worlds as the show's Power Ranger team) what sets this series apart from most of Tommy's other series is primarily comparing Power Rangers: Dino Thunder with Tommy's first appearance in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers; while both shows have the new (and adopted) kid in town as the evil Ranger of their respective shows, while Tommy is accepted right away as a new team member by Jason, Trini, Billy, Kimberly, and Zack in MMPR, it takes Conner, Kira, and Ethan quite some time to accept Trent as one of them after his time as an evil Ranger. Trent keeping the fact that his dad, Dr. Anton Mercer, is in a Jekyll & Hyde situation with show villain Mesogog a secret from the rest of them doesn't help matters, as he finds out towards the end of the season.
• Sesamstraat, the Dutch adaptation to Sesame Street was actually considered to be too idealistic by critics during its early years, since everyone just got along a bit too well. Critics felt that the program lacked what they called "a snake in the paradise". As a result, the character of Mr. Aart was added to Sesamstraat, who is a dignified, but egotistical Grumpy Old Man who always has a complaint about the child-like Muppet characters.
• Mr. Robot embraces the cynical end with Corrupt Corporate Executives able to get away with anything, evil lawyers, and a plan to pull off the largest redistribution of wealth in history, by force, even if it crashes the world economy and kills innocent people in the process.
• For the People sees it quite often, but Sandra and Kate in "18 Miles Outside of Roanoke" especially embody it. Idealist Sandra is certain that her client was right for leaking government documents that showed them doing shady actions to target undocumented immigrants, whereas cynic Kate believes that any errors with the government should be addressed by trained and elected professionals rather than civilians taking the law into their own hands, who are no better than any other common criminal.
• Like the movie it's based on, Fargo has an incredibly cynical premise, but surprisingly leans toward a balance in the middle. There are terrible people in the world who do horrible things, but the more genuinely good-natured characters still lean toward the idealistic side, and while they know that the world is flawed, they still appreciate the better aspects of it and what they have in their lives.
• The Inside Man is firmly on the idealism side, which makes sense given that it's an Edutainment Show for IT security. The show teaches that there may be bad actors out there who are looking to do things like steal corporate secrets, but ordinary people can thwart them by practicing common sense measures like using strong passwords, not clicking on phishing links in e-mails, and reporting suspicious activity.

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