Best TV stupidity of all time

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Glee picture

Journey - S1-E22

Stupidity: For their set list at regionals, Schue chooses a medley of Journey hits. Since his kids are considered the competition's underdogs, and it was pointed out to him in the previous episode that Vocal Adrenaline's weakness is funk music, he should have used that info to New Directions' advantage.

Cubs Fan

More Glee stupidity
Hotel Del Luna picture

Welcome to Hotel del Luna - S1-E1

Stupidity: The Mayor realises that Man-wol has approached him and taken out her rifle to shoot him with. Yet during the entire time she takes to aim the rifle at him and fire, the Mayor makes no attempt to flee the stage for his own protection. (00:38:15)

Casual Person

More Hotel Del Luna stupidity
The Honeymooners picture

Show generally

Stupidity: The Kramden's door opens out towards the hallway. Yet anytime they need to block the door for protection, they put furniture up against it. That would serve no purpose, even with that cheap slide lock they have. The landlord or criminals could just open the door and push the furniture out of their way.

DrLoomis1978

More The Honeymooners stupidity
Project Z picture

Show generally

Stupidity: The Resistance is a rescue team that helps the various protagonists escape schools. They do this by leaving intricate hints that lead to a detour to the school alarm instead of going straight there, setting off the alarm and rescuing the protagonists.

More Project Z stupidity
Friday Night Dinner picture

The Girlfriend - S3-E1

Stupidity: The whole episode revolves around Adam bringing his girlfriend Emma to his parents' house to meet the family, but problems start to arise when Emma's sister begins texting Adam pictures of her in her underwear. Adam is extremely bothered by this and attempts to make sure Emma doesn't find out. When everyone is at the dinner table, Adam decides to leave his phone out on the table even whilst he continues to receive texts from Emma's sister and the family begin to comment on it. If Adam was so concerned about Emma finding out about the texts, he could have easily turned off his phone and put it back in his pocket, but instead decides to leave it out on the table and switched on, only drawing more suspicion from Emma. Even when the little girl arrives later and asks to play with his phone, Jonny reaches out to grab it, but all Adam does is take the phone off the table so Jonny can't reach it, and then immediately puts it back on the table again.

Casual Person

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Adam knows Jonny is joking with him, as he usually does. As for Katie taking his phone he didn't expect her to. They have all seen Adam's reaction when getting the messages and he is trying to cover something up. Doing anything to prevent anyone seeing his phone more would arouse suspicion. Personally I don't understand why he didn't just explain that Emma's sister has been sending him pictures and ask Emma to talk to his sister. He didn't do anything and loses someone he liked for no reason.

I was mostly referring to the scene where they are sitting at the dinner table BEFORE Katie arrives. Despite the fact that he kept receiving texts from Emma's sister and was growing more concerned and everyone begins to comment on it, all he does is put it back on the table, switched on, ready for another text to come through, which makes everyone further suspicious. There is no reason at all why he couldn't just turn off the phone, put it back in his pocket, and lowered suspicion.

Casual Person

A better idea would be for him to have told Emma after it happened the first time. I'm sure that saying "your sister just sent this to me for some reason. I'm quite uncomfortable. Could you please ask her why she's sent me this?" would have sufficed. He creates bigger issues by denying anything is happening.

More Friday Night Dinner stupidity
Bottom picture

Carnival - S3-E6

Stupidity: When Eddie finally finishes installing the VCR and it explodes, they get a man out to repair it. However, Eddie had previously told Richie that he'd stolen 60 VCRs; 17 in the living room and another 43 in the attic, so they could have used one of the other 59 and saved themselves a crate of Malibu.

More Bottom stupidity
Murder on the Orient Express picture

Episode #1.2 - S1-E2

Stupidity: The part when the Colonel and the governess pose as journalists does not make sense. It's far-fetched enough that after a lengthy interview about the culprit's fortune the topic of his family never came up, considering it was one of the main goals and an ideal question to lead with, but considering that "mr. Todo" does not want a picture taken and has a tight security, there's no way that a photographer carrying a large 1930 camera would have been allowed into the interview room to begin with.

Sammo

More Murder on the Orient Express stupidity
Agatha Christie's Poirot picture

The Lost Mine - S2-E3

Stupidity: The policemen in car 7 are able to take pictures and talk to Japp with total ease, with a direct eyeline at such a low distance from the 3 people that is quite amazing they haven't been discovered - everyone was blind and possibly deaf, since they were so close and with the window open, you'd think they could even easily be heard.

Sammo

More Agatha Christie's Poirot stupidity
Whiskey Cavalier picture

When in Rome - S1-E3

Stupidity: A supposedly covert camera is placed in plain sight on a wall in a crowded room, with a prominent antenna showing, and a blinking blue light. (00:16:55)

toroscan

More Whiskey Cavalier stupidity
Upload picture

Show generally

Stupidity: Nora's dad believes in heaven and doesn't want to upload himself, because he wants to be reunited with his wife. When visiting Lakeview, he tells Nathan that Nathan's soul went to "real heaven," so he's just talking to a simulation. Which means there's no reason he can't upload himself. His soul will go to real heaven like he wants to, and he can leave a simulation behind for his daughter to be with. Everyone would be happy, but nobody makes that argument.

Jon Sandys

More Upload stupidity
The Sopranos picture

Mayham - S6-E3

Stupidity: Paulie and an associate just killed 2 drug dealers or stash house guards, and they are rummaging throughout the apartment touching appliances and other surfaces without any gloves. Paulie was previously arrested and did time so his fingerprints are on file. Paulie also used a knife to stab one of the Colombians without any gloves on, and he just left it in his body. The police would have no problem linking him to this crime within a week after forensics did their sweep. (00:03:00 - 00:04:17)

More The Sopranos stupidity
City on a Hill picture

From Injustice Came the Way to Describe Justice - S1-E5

Stupidity: The police raid an apartment in search of guns. They should have used a ballistic shield for the point man to make entry and hit the apartment with a concussion device (flash-bang). The police officer who took a stomach full of lead would have more than likely survived had they been properly equipped. Ballistic shields have been around since 1977. This story takes place in 1992. (00:49:17)

More City on a Hill stupidity
Mr. Sunshine picture

Episode #1.7 - S1-E7

Stupidity: When Eugene approaches Tsuda after Tsuda is shot by Ae-sin, Tsuda attempts to shoot him, but after pulling the trigger, he realises there are no bullets in the gun. Seconds later, a group of soldiers run up to him, and he attempts to shoot them, but he can't because the gun is still not loaded. Something he should have known since he only just attempted to shoot Eugene and failed because of it. (00:50:00 - 00:50:30)

Casual Person

More Mr. Sunshine stupidity
Altered Carbon picture

Nightmare Alley - S2-E3

Stupidity: "Rei" comes into the circle, having been champing at the bit to "turn him into a smear on the floor." She's wielding a sword, Kovacs is unarmed, and she...slices him a bit, instead of a quick killing blow.

Jon Sandys

More Altered Carbon stupidity
Chicago P.D. picture

Night in Chicago - S6-E13

Stupidity: During a raid of a Latin stash house, Hailey and Kim find two girls with a pistol. In Spanish, they say no bullets. Kim interprets what the girls say and Hailey replies, l didn't know you spoke Spanish. Makes no sense that a partner on an elite police unit in Chicago would not know a member of the team speaks Spanish. (00:14:58)

Snag.1

More Chicago P.D. stupidity
Saint Seiya picture

Shito! Kyofu no kokushiken - S1-E11

Stupidity: The 'repairing the cloth' scene does not make any sense as presented. Shiryu cuts his wrists and just pours blood on the armors spilling it before he reaches them (one just assumes that Mu told him off-screen that he needed to bleed all over the armors and not collect it, would have been pretty awkward if he died hemorrhaging before Mu could fetch a bowl), and he keeps saying that he just needs to repair Seiya's armor. Since Mu says that he needs half of Shiryu's blood to repair BOTH armors and he'll die if he loses a third, Shiryu could repair Seiya's armor and go fight armorless - which he always does anyway, he's arguably stronger without it - giving just 1/4 of his blood, instead of dying leaving Seiya on his own. No need to expect a character from a 'shonen' to act logically, but simply a throwaway line saying that he needed to repair his own armor out of duty to his stars or something similar, would have been enough.

Sammo

More Saint Seiya stupidity
Black Space picture

Episode #1.4 - S1-E4

Stupidity: The police officer has her sidearm holster in a reverse angle. The angle of her holster and where it's placed makes no tactical sense or give any advantage in drawing a firearm from the hip. She would have to somehow reach in the exact opposite way to draw her firearm. (00:11:20 - 00:12:00)

More Black Space stupidity
Matlock picture

The Stripper - S1-E3

Stupidity: The whole plot resolution can happen merely because, on top of Matlock's unbelievable guess on how to trigger someone's dormant personality - apparently murder wasn't enough, but a joke is - the transvestite has two entirely separate voices, one of which is a dubbed-in female one. Not quite believable even for the times.

Sammo

More Matlock stupidity
More Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! stupidity
Andor picture

Reckoning - S1-E3

Stupidity: Andor and Luthen set a vehicle to drive and distract the security team. The vehicle is destroyed, and they immediately round the corner in full view of the team on a speeder and drive away, then blow up the vehicle. They could have driven away on any number of other streets without revealing that they weren't in the vehicle, keeping their escape secret. And if they blew it up before the team looked too closely they might have even been deemed to have been killed in the crash.

Jon Sandys

More Andor stupidity

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