Best TV stupidity of all time

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture

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Stupidity: There's no way April would mistake Slash, his debut episode in Season 4, for one of the turtles as he's got spikes on his back, dressed differently too.

Rob245

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine picture

Waltz - S6-E11

Stupidity: Near the end of the episode, Sisko hits Dukat over the head with a metal pole and knocks him out but does not remove the phaser Dukat has on his person, which he promptly uses a short time later to steal a shuttlecraft, stranding Sisko.

More Star Trek: Deep Space Nine stupidity
Adam-12 picture

Log 81: The Long Walk - S1-E14

Stupidity: They are looking for a red convertible. No other description of the car. A red convertible pulls up behind them and passes them. The ragtop roof is up but it's still matches the description. Doesn't faze them in the least.

terry s

More Adam-12 stupidity
Mysteries at the Museum picture

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Stupidity: An RAF officer is wearing a gold stripe on his shoulder boards instead of blue. On his lapels, he wore a corporal's insignia, and on his left pocket was an American colonel 's eagle. A soldier described as British was wearing American platoon sergeant stripes.

More Mysteries at the Museum 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

More Friday Night Dinner stupidity
The Tomorrow People picture

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Stupidity: The Tomorrow People tend to enjoy walking into and walking out of most scenes rather than teleporting. In particular, when fighting and needing to run away, they'll teleport to get a better fighting vantage instead of teleporting out of the situation.

More The Tomorrow People stupidity
More The Bugaloos stupidity
Bones picture

The Signs in the Silence - S6-E21

Stupidity: Bones realises she could pull a wisdom tooth from Amy in order to identify where she grew up and find her birth parents. Which works, but at no point do they consider simply going through missing person records with the relevant info. They know how old she is, they know roughly when she disappeared, not like there are hundreds of 3 year olds going missing every year, especially not with Waardenburg syndrome. By that age her deafness would have been apparent, which would narrow the pool hugely.

Jon Sandys

More Bones stupidity
Lexx picture

I Worship His Shadow - S1-E1

Stupidity: At the start of the episode, the Brunnen-G planet is about to be under attack by His Shadow in a big ship that is capable of destroying the surface of the planet and everybody on it in under a minute with its fire power. It seems the Brunnen-G had time to respond, seeing as they send a counter measure against His Shadow... Except that they only send a single squadron of 6 fighters. Their planet is about to be obliterated by His Shadow's killer ship, and they only send up 6 fighters. And of course, they fail and all die except for Kai. (00:01:45)

Quantom X

More Lexx stupidity

24 (2001)

24 picture

Day 4: 11:00 P.M.-12:00 A.M. - S4-E17

Stupidity: When the couple is in the plant they call Jack on the cellphone, he instructs them to open the case and separate the book from the activation device. This was stupid, he should have told them to destroy it, since the codes had changed the moment Air Force One crashed, and it would take about 1 hour to make this work. This is explained later on in the show.

More 24 stupidity
American Horror Story picture

Camp Redwood - S9-E1

Stupidity: Brooke uses a flashlight to enter the cabins rather than turning on the cabin light switches. The camp has electricity powering the lights, TV, etc.

Scott215

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Magnum P.I. picture

First the Beatdown, Then the Blowback - S3-E4

Stupidity: At the end of the episode, Makani's skull is returned to the cave where it was originally buried. But it is left in a basket on top of some rocks at the entrance to the cave. It would seem to me that that is not going to be a very safe place, as anyone can see it. Should it not have been buried out of sight?

toroscan

More Magnum P.I. 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 Fire picture

Run Like Hell - S11-E14

Stupidity: Mouch is investigating an arson allegation. He states to a lady he's going to do his thing and speak to some of the residents. As he goes down the hall to speak with the residents he passes a huge stain on the carpet that looks like blood or something and walks right past it without stopping. (00:23:57)

Snag.1

More Chicago Fire stupidity
Columbo picture

Murder by the Book - S1-E2

Stupidity: Why does Jack Cassidy plant the lighter in the office when he could just pretend he has forgotten it? Does not make sense.

More Columbo stupidity
Buffy The Vampire Slayer picture

The Harvest (2) - S1-E2

Stupidity: The master goes through all the trouble of making Luke the vessel so Luke can go and kill several people and risk getting the attention of the slayer, when all he had to do is have his minions go out and kidnap a bunch of people and bring them to him and he could've fed off them himself.

brianjr0412

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The Greatest American Hero picture

It's Only Rock and Roll - S3-E11

Stupidity: When the gangsters show up at the house Pam and Dak Hampton are hiding in, Pam is captured. Dak then attempts to flee by running out the front door. What a dumb move. No surprise that he got captured as well.

Gavin Jackson

More The Greatest American Hero stupidity
Mobile Suit Gundam picture

Time, Be Still - S1-E14

Stupidity: The Zeon commandos who plant the bombs on the Gundam correctly identify Amuro as the pilot. The Gundam is completely defenseless and pilotless during the whole bomb removal process - they could attack at any point and make the bombs explode shooting them like they did for the first one, but they just don't.

Sammo

More Mobile Suit Gundam 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
Black Space picture

Episode #1.8 - S1-E8

Stupidity: There's a gunman that just opened the school doors, and he's looking at the police like "a deer caught in the headlights" and they are all pointing their weapons at him and he's holding a gun mind you, but somehow these cops let him run back into the school without even taking a singe shot at him. His background was clear too, so if the cops fired there would've been no collateral damage if they had a shoot out. (00:35:00 - 00:35:30)

More Black Space stupidity

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