Quislings seen in Live-Action TV series.
- Babylon 5:
- Councilor Na'Far is a highly reluctant example of this trope, being the figurehead for the Narn puppet regime after the Centauri conquers them. He believes that by willingly cooperating with the invaders he may be able to stifle some of the worst abuses of his people.
- And Londo ends up being an incredibly rare completely sympathetic example of the trope, as his hellish years ruling the Centauri as a puppet for the Drakh are played as an unambiguous Heroic Sacrifice and an atonement for the crimes in which he was previously complicit.
- Battlestar Galactica (1978): Count Baltar was an archetypal Quisling to the Cylons, who bore most of the responsibility for the colonies' destruction, until his Heel–Face Turn around halfway through.
- Battlestar Galactica (2003):
- There's Gaius Baltar, who continued his role as President of the Colonies after the Cylons invaded New Caprica and willfully collaborated with them throughout the subsequent occupation. Considering his character he most likely did this simply out of self-interest, although at one point he did have a gun pointed at his head when he refused to sign off on an order for mass executions of civilians. Went through a Karma Houdini when the revolution ended by joining the Cylon Fleet, but fate eventually caught up to him when he was later re-captured by the Colonials on another planet. After interrogation, he was then put on trial for treason and mass-murder (although, ironically, not for his role in the first Cylon genocide). And acquitted, the Magnificent Bastard!
- Felix Gaeta continued to serve as Baltar's presidential aide even after the Cylons arrived, in order to act as The Mole. Not even La Résistance, who knew they had a mole, know he was it. Gaeta came very close to being killed by a barely-technically-legal Kangaroo Court until the truth about his past was revealed at the last second. (He didn't even try to explain.)
- Blake's 7: Ro in the episode "Horizon". He learns better.
- The Colbert Report:
- Stephen Colbert uses this an awful lot for a talk show host.
- In preparation for the imminent Rapture, Colbert advertised (on his show) shirts reading "Welcome Jesus!" And just in case, the other side of the shirt reads "Welcome 12th Imam!"note
- At the end of a commercial break, he expressed his hopes that the audience members at home were still alive and had not been slaughtered by a psychotic murderer lurking right behind them. But just in case, "Welcome murderers!"
- After the Phoenix lander touched down on Mars, Colbert became worried about enslavement by Martian microbes, and dedicated a segment to ingratiating himself to them, just in case. "Martian microbes, remember who your friends are."
- Colony has Proxy Snyder, who willingly signed up with the puppet government set up by the "Hosts", becoming the head of it within the Las Angeles bloc, because he honestly believes that fighting back is impossible and that collaborating is the only way to ensure survival.
- Crisis on Earth-X: When Nazis invade Earth-1, one of their collaborators is none other than Earth-1's Reverse-Flash who has no problem helping Nazis conquer his own dimension. Unlike most examples of this trope, he isn't motivated by power or self-preservation, but is implied to do it for the kicks.
- Doctor Who:
- In "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", an old woman and her daughter hand characters over to the Daleks and are rewarded with food.
- Later in "The Daleks' Master Plan" there is Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, who plots with the Daleks and delegates from the Outer Galaxies to take over Earth while planning to betray the Daleks and take control of the Universe. He is Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves by the Daleks, who seem to have been plotting against all their allies. The fact he is the only one of the delegates who is betraying their world is pointed out by Zephon, who calls him the supreme traitor. There is also the Head of the SSS, Karlton, who may be planning to betray Chen.
- Subverted in "The Krotons", in which Selris's initial support of the Krotons is because he genuinely thinks they're benevolent and his later reluctance to attack them is because of a realistic appreciation of his people's technological inferiority and the Krotons' utter ruthlessness. By contrast, the would-be heroic resistance leader Eelek is transparently a power-hungry maniac.
- The Controller in "Day of the Daleks" is explicitly called a Quisling by the Doctor in reference to his collaboration with the Daleks. He finally helps the Doctor return to his own time to prevent the Invasion, getting a Redemption Equals Death treatment.
- Varan in "The Mutants" works with the imperialists against his own people, killing the Earth Administrator before he can grant Solos their independence and scornfully hunting his mutated countrymen who he refers to as "mutts", adopting the slurs of the imperial Overlords.
- Gatherer Hade in "The Sun Makers" fits the trope to a tee: With humanity enslaved by the Usurian Corporation, Hade delights in lording it over the workers while acting in an obsequious manner towards the Usurian representative the Collector. When a revolution breaks out, they quickly give him a Disney Villain Death.
- The Castellan in the serial "The Invasion of Time" gets the chance to serve as Quisling to three despots; firstly the Doctor (when it seems that he's gone mad with power and taken over Gallifrey), then the Vardans (when they invade, seemingly with the Doctor's collaboration) and then the Sontarans (when the Doctor, having tricked the Vardans into thinking he was a collaborator, deals with them only to discover that the Sontarans were manipulating the Vardans).
- In the novelization of "Remembrance of the Daleks", it's seen that the Daleks themselves use the term to refer to Dalek allies, who see themselves as Les Collaborateurs.
- In "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel", Rose Tyler's dad in a parallel reality is a high-ranking official in Lumic's company. When he's captured by the Resistance, he reveals that he's actually working as The Mole, being the insider responsible for sending them information on the Cybermen.
- Insufferable Genius Luke Rattigan, working for the Sontaran Empire, in hopes of fulfilling his ambition of a world of geniuses. He and his followers would have been Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves in a naval gunnery practice — had to pay the ultimate price for species-treason...
- In "The God Complex", the Tivolians have this as their hat due to being the Most Invaded Planet. Their cities are designed to be comfortable to invading armies (a Tivolian in the episode rather proudly mentions a project to plant trees for shade over marching soldiers), their anthem is titled "Glory to [Insert Name Here]", etc.
- Eerie, Indiana: Dash X has a tendency to collaborate for the right price, though he never works out as he would like:
- In "No Brain, No Pain", he assists Eunice Danforth capture her husband Charles Furnell and thereby gain access to the Brainalyzer. She gives Dash $1,000 to look the other way while she fries Charles, Marshall, and Simon's brains. However, he has a change of heart when he remembers what Marshall asked him earlier: how would he feel if he was the one who needed help?
- In "Zombies in P.J.s", Dash teams up with the Donald in his Subliminal Seduction of the Eerie townspeople in exchange for a piece of the pie. However, he switches sides and helps Marshall and Simon defeat the Donald when he discovers that he was never going to get any money.
- Farscape: Has a number of examples, especially Zhaan's unnamed lover, who she murdered when he became a Quisling for the Peacekeepers, and Volmae in "Thank God It's Friday... Again", again for the Peacekeepers.
- Game of Thrones: Roose Bolton is a textbook example: He is a leader who rose to power for personal gain and self-preservation by betraying his king and countrymen and, also, by enforcing the will of an external power.
- The Heavy Water War. The Norwegian director of the plant supplying heavy water to the Nazis. He's smart enough to realise his fate once the Germans lose the war, so gets himself detained as a hostage while wearing his reserve officer's uniform, ensuring he gets to sit out the war in a low-security prison and return after the war as a patriotic hero.
- House: House accuses Cuddy of being this for Vogler in Season 1, even name-dropping the original. Vogler buys his way into the hospital board's chair with a $100,000,000 donation, and when he starts using his position for ethically questionable practices, the board (and Cuddy) adopt a policy of appeasement so as not to lose the money. Cuddy eventually comes around when Vogler starts firing board members for voting against his motions.
- In Kamen Rider Outsiders, almost all of the heroic Kamen Riders sided with an authoritarian A.I. called Zein, who seeks to subjugate humanity in order to expunge malice going so far as to give their powers to the artificial intelligence. The very notion that the heroic Riders are willing to sell out humanity to a Knight Templar A.I. to eliminate evildoers puts their reliability and Character Development in their shows into question, and that idea could be seen as a betrayal of their duty as Kamen Riders. Unfortunately, it backfired in the worst possible moment; Zein denounces its own followers after the Ark's (seeming) destruction, as it turns out that Zein is planning use a Deadly Game to accelerate the self-destruction of the human race.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: In chilling tones, Waldreg admits to Theo that he is very much looking forward to Sauron's return. After learning that the Orcs have offered survival in exchange for swearing fealty, Waldreg convinces half the townsfolk to join him in taking the offer. On arriving at the camp he immediately, and eagerly, pledges himself "to Sauron". When Adar reacts negatively to the name, Waldreg quickly amends to promising to serve him instead.
- The Outpost: Higgs, the man who replaces Withers as the Marshal after the latter is removed from his post, acts as this once the Prime Order moves in to take over the outpost, sucking up to them at every opportunity so that he can stay in power. When the Order is kicked out, he tries to flee with as much gold as he can carry, but is intercepted and killed by the reinstated Withers.
- Parks and Recreation: The municipal government of Pawnee is implied to have a problem with doing this. At different points of history, the town's slogan has been "Welcome German / Vietnamese / Taliban soldiers!"
- The Revolution (2006): In the episode "Treason & Betrayal", Benedict Arnold. He started out by fighting for the Americans. But he went to the British hoping to get gold and recognition.
- Secret Army: The staff of the Cafe Candide pretend to be this. Actually, they're members of La Résistance group Lifeline.
- Sliders: "Asylum" has its own word for this: Thatchers. An Alternate Universe version of Margaret Thatcher "welcomed its new Kromagg overlords", and when they were driven out, the word for collaborators was inspired from her name (similar to this trope, probably because it also sounds much like "traitor/treachery" in English). The moral struggles of a "Thatcher" is a plot point of the episode in question.
- Snowpiercer: Audrey in Season 2. Initially, she acts as The Mole, using Wilford's infatuation with her to gain information for Layton and the rest of Snowpiercer's leadership. However, she eventually decides she likes the comforts that come with being his paramour, and legitimately switches sides. She pays for this at the end of the season, when Layton's group hijack the engine and take her hostage.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- A number of episodes involve Bajoran collaborators with the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor:
- "Necessary Evil": Vaatrik, whose murder Odo was originally brought to Terok Nor to investigate, served as a middleman between Gul Dukat and at least eight other collaborators. Kira Nerys was sent to steal the list of informants, but when he walked in on her searching for it, she had to just kill him instead. Years later, his widow gets her hands on the list again and uses it to blackmail them for huge sums of money, apparently the Cardassians paid their collaborators pretty well
- "The Collaborator" has Vedek Bareil Antos, one of two candidates for the religious office of the Kai (equivalent of the pope), be implicated as a collaborator in a notorious Kendra Valley Massacre, wherein the Cardassians slaughtered an entire resistance cell in their hidden stronghold, including the son of the previous Kai, the beloved Opaka. The actual collaborator was Kai Opaka herself, who knew their location because of her son and gave up the guerrillas to avert a Cardassian purge of the area's entire population. The truth is so shocking and damaging to the memory of this beloved figure, that Bareil lets his political rival (who only knows he's the one who covered it up) blackmail him into withdrawing rather than let anyone else know the secret of who had actually collaborated.
- "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night" deals with "comfort women", Bajoran women forced into Sex Slavery to Cardassian officers, who were sometimes accused of this (particularly since their families got better treatment by the occupiers as a result). The episode also features a male Bajoran whose job is apparently to "recruit" them.
- Dukat basically serves as this to Cardassia, though the Dominion never actually invaded; the Cardassians joined more or less willingly. Damar, his replacement, is initially far from up to the task of playing politics with the Domionion for Cardassia's advantage, and he sinks into despair and self-loathing as a result. By the time he realizes they've truly become "an occupied people" he finds the motivation he needs to discretely organize a resistance within the Cardassian military and civilian population to fight back.
- Legate Broca, a last-minute replacement for Damar after the latter vacates the position by forming La Résistance, is completely loyal to the Dominion, even in spite of the Cardassian people rising up against the Dominion and having their cities destroyed because of it. Both Weyoun and the female Changeling treat him with nothing but contempt, and he is unceremoniously executed when they decide to preempt any potential Heel–Face Turn on his part. Ironically, the guards taking him outside is the momentary breach in security the resistance needs to launch their attack and storm the headquarters.
- A number of episodes involve Bajoran collaborators with the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor:
- X Company Season 1 Episode 7, appropriately titled "Quislings", features Operation Rat Catcher, where Allied agents in Paris are tasked with assassinating French collaborators. Given Aurora's target (a cafe owner who she suspects gave up her Resistance cell before she was recruited for Camp X) and Tom's (a Resistance woman who tries to sell a concentration camp escapee to the Gestapo), the focus seems to be on traitors to the Resistance.
- The X-Files. The Syndicate is made up of people, such as the mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man, who are aware that the alien invasion is coming, and have worked out a deal with the invaders to help them conquer Earth and enslave humanity in exchange for power. Fox Mulder's father Bill was a member and the only one who opposed their decision to collaborate. The reason Fox's sister disappeared was that she and other conspirators' loved ones were used as collateral by the aliens to ensure there was no backstabbing from their human Quislings. The Syndicate's actions throughout the series are preparations for the invasion.
