Some of the most memorable figures in TV history are certified geniuses, but they wouldn't be very interesting if they did everything completely right. These characters prove that big brains can't stop people from making even bigger mistakes.
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00:00What's up everybody, Griffey here. Some of the most memorable figures in TV history
00:05are certified geniuses, but they wouldn't be very interesting if they did everything
00:09completely right. These characters prove that big brains can't stop people from making
00:14even bigger mistakes.
00:16You remember House, right? The hospital where 97% of patients were misdiagnosed? Thank goodness
00:22Dr. Gregory House is a medical mastermind and had a knack for properly diagnosing patients
00:28and finding unorthodox ways to save them. Go back and watch an episode or two. You're
00:32going to find a surprising number of STD jokes. Like, more than I'm even comfortable making.
00:38You probably didn't forget that House is an abrasive narcissist who tends to treat
00:42human beings more like test subjects. But he was lovable, so it's all good.
00:48In the House season 5 episode Last Resort, a lone gunman takes House, 13, several patients,
00:55and a few other hospital personnel hostage in Cuddy's office. The man, named Jason,
01:00has been very sick for a while, and he's holding hostages in order to get treatment
01:04from the best doctor in the hospital. House is delighted, as always, at the chance to
01:09solve another medical mystery.
01:11What about an x-ray or something? Good idea. Oh, damn. I left my CT machine in my other
01:18pants.
01:19Unfortunately, House's thirst for another puzzle leads him to a point where he actually
01:24returns the gun to Jason after giving him an MRI. You'd think that do-no-harm includes
01:29not giving a weapon to an unstable man, but House's interpretation of the Hippocratic
01:34Oath seems to be different from everyone else's.
01:37You're so afraid of being ordinary, of being just another doctor, just another human being
01:42that you'll risk other people's lives.
01:44But you know what? House was right. He got the diagnosis correct. So the moral of the
01:49story is, I don't know what the moral is. But he was right.
01:55Just because you can invent something doesn't mean you should. That's never stopped Rick
01:59Sanchez, though, who's built everything from a tiny universe that powers his car to
02:03a method of turning people into pickles. Rick and Morty is full of moments in which Rick's
02:08genius comes back to bite him, but none have had more disastrous results than his love
02:12serum from season one.
02:14In the episode Rick Potion No. 9, Morty tells Rick that he has a crush on his classmate
02:19Jessica and asks for a love serum in order to seduce her. Rick whips up a concoction
02:24without much trouble, and it works great. A little too great. It latches onto Jessica's
02:29flu virus and becomes airborne, affecting everyone on the planet outside of the Sanchez-Smith
02:34family.
02:35Morty, come on, we gotta get you out of here. You're not gonna believe this because it usually
02:38never happens, but I made a mistake.
02:40Rick tries to invent his way out of this mess, but he only makes it worse, causing
02:44people everywhere to mutate into distorted monsters. Which seems like an oddly specific
02:49side effect. After his third attempt, he decides that the entire universe is compromised, so
02:54he transports Morty and himself to a nearly identical parallel universe where they take
02:59the places of another Rick and Morty who just got blown up.
03:03Parallel universes. What can't they solve?
03:06But Rick did technically solve the problem, which is the best way of solving things. Technically.
03:12Tyrion Lannister was a Game of Thrones fan favorite from the start. Peter Dinklage's
03:17Hand of the King understands the difference between right and wrong, while not allowing
03:21that to hinder his work as a player in the great game. He's not a psychopath like his
03:26father Tywin, but he also doesn't adhere to a black and white morality like Ned Stark.
03:31In Season 7, when Daenerys arrives at Dragonstone, she has a huge army and three dragons, plus
03:37Tyrion as her Hand. By the time Tyrion's first military stratagem is over, Daenerys
03:42has lost all her allies in Westeros and most of her fleet. It's a massive failure, and
03:48it's all Tyrion's fault.
03:49We have a plan. It's still the right plan.
03:51The right plan! Your strategy has lost us Dorne, the Iron Islands, and the Reach.
03:57If Tyrion had let Daenerys land Drogon directly at the Keep right away, as she and her allies
04:02wanted, countless lives would have been saved. There might have been collateral damage, but
04:06nothing that compares to the alternative losses, as Cersei wouldn't have had time to prepare.
04:12Tyrion gives some reasoning to Daenerys about the common people, blah blah blah, but it's
04:16hard for her not to think that he just wanted to avoid deep frying his siblings. His abject
04:22failure would probably be talked about a lot more today if Season 8 hadn't been such
04:26a train wreck.
04:28For a show about consistently lying to the cops, Syke tends to be pretty lighthearted.
04:33If you don't remember Syke, the basic premise was Sean Spencer, raised by a father intent
04:38on honing his sharp mind and eidetic memory into the perfect investigative tool, is forced
04:43to tell the police that he is a psychic detective in order to prevent his own arrest. After
04:49that, Sean and his best friend-slash-investigative partner Gus are regularly hired as consultants
04:54for the Santa Barbara Police Department on major cases. Sean's life becomes nearly perfect
04:59when he and SBPD detective Juliet O'Hara finally begin dating in Season 5. Most of
05:06the time, when a main character is keeping a secret from their romantic partner or a
05:09close friend, they seem a little conflicted about it. This isn't the case with Sean,
05:14who lives by the code, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
05:18Sean dates Juliet for two years before she finds out he's not a psychic, and he isn't
05:23even the one to break the news.
05:25Falling in love with you was never part of the plan, okay? This whole thing started because
05:30my ass was on the line.
05:33Had Sean chosen to tell Juliet his secret from the jump, it's likely that her reaction
05:37would not have been as strong as it was. Instead of a confession, Juliet figures it out via
05:42a clue hidden in Sean's jacket pocket. She's a detective. Her job is to detect things.
05:51The breakout character from Family Matters, Steve Urkel, manages to be a genius and a
05:55goofball at the exact same time. He's a brilliant inventor, a true genius when it comes to anything
06:01related to science or engineering, but he's also like the scrappy-do of live-action TV.
06:06In the Season 7 opener, Little Big Guy, Steve moves in with the Winslows and begins taking
06:11materials from the house for his laboratory, which he wants to set up in the basement.
06:16Carl is initially furious because the basement is his private space, but Steve promises him
06:21large profits from his recent invention, the Urkel Squashilization Chamber.
06:26Now, through geometric bifurcation of a factual invector, I can escalate the electron particles.
06:31What?
06:32I can make stuff bigger.
06:35Steve tests this highly experimental and volatile invention without any form of protection for
06:39himself or Carl, who seemingly has no idea that danger could strike at any moment. The
06:45machine short-circuits and spews glowing goo predictably, shrinking Steve and Carl each
06:50to the size of a TV remote.
06:52Now, Carl, there's no reason to get short with me.
06:55Okay, poor choice of words.
06:58Steve should definitely know better than to turn on a nearly untested scientific device
07:03without taking serious precautions. Perhaps he should have brought the chamber to an actual
07:07laboratory and won a Nobel Prize in physics, but that wouldn't be as much fun to watch.
07:12When you think of fake presidents, there's been some great ones. David Palmer, Thomas
07:17Whitmore, Gerald Ford. But you know who is really great? President Jed Bartlett is a
07:22great man. At least that's what the West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin wants you to think.
07:27Bartlett has the kind of mind that comes along once in a generation, and if it weren't for
07:32the savagery and selfishness that pervades American politics, he might be able to accomplish
07:37a lot more in the Oval Office than he does. Bartlett's strong instincts and moral code
07:42mean that he's not afraid to do the opposite of what his advisors tell him will be politically
07:47savvy. But sometimes, the political reality prevents him from doing so.
07:51In the Season 5 episode, Han, a touring musician comes to the White House to meet the president.
07:57This particular musician, Jae-yong Ahn, is an intensely gifted piano player from North
08:02Korea, and he is accompanied by a North Korean military escort. Jae secretly requests asylum
08:08in order to escape the dictatorship, setting off debate within the White House. Bartlett's
08:13instincts tell him to fulfill the request, but his advisors ask that he deny the musician's
08:18request in order to protect North Korea's attendance at upcoming talks regarding nuclear
08:23weapon testing and nonproliferation. Bartlett reluctantly agrees to deny Jae, personally
08:29devastated by having to do so. Almost as soon as Jae and his escorts have left, however,
08:34Bartlett learns that North Korea has pulled out of the talks anyways, meaning that he
08:38sent the musician away for nothing. Gerald Ford would never.
08:43Ted Lasso is known for being good, wholesome fun, and the one reason to get Apple TV. But
08:49that doesn't mean there's no darkness present within the sports comedy series. Case in point,
08:54Nate Shelley, who learns the hard way that turning on a friend never pays. Nate's defection
08:59to the dark side, which takes the form of Rupert's newly purchased football club, may
09:03seem like it comes on a bit suddenly. But it's actually something that's foreshadowed
09:07as early as Season 1. Nate has pretty low self-confidence when he first meets Ted, and
09:12it's only due to the coach's energetic support that Nate is able to come into his own and
09:17present his true genius as a strategist.
09:29The confidence that Nate builds in Season 1 also comes with a chip on his shoulder.
09:33After all, he's eventually comfortable issuing verbal takedowns to anyone he deems deserving.
09:38Nate's attitude becomes more twisted as Season 2 goes on, showcasing both his jealousy
09:43that Roy is receiving Ted's support and the details of his relationship with his judgmental father.
09:48That said, Nate doesn't truly fall from grace until he decides to tell sports reporter
09:53Trent Krim about Ted's recent panic attacks. Trent feels obligated as a journalist to report
09:59the news, but he also feels obligated as Ted's friend to tell him who leaked it.
10:03That just makes it even clearer to Nate that his betrayal was a mistake.
10:08Or Ted Lasso just got worse every season. It's either that, or the character decisions, or both.
10:15In Star Wars Episode V, the Empire Strikes Back. Master Yoda teaches Luke Skywalker to
10:20use the Force not just to move objects, but to see important visions of the past and future.
10:25He knows exactly how important these visions can be, considering that he ignored them so
10:30much that the entire Jedi Order fell. In The Clone Wars, Yoda is considered to be the wisest
10:35of the Jedi, with a strong connection to the Force. It's his go-to method of solving problems,
10:40but that doesn't mean he always follows his own advice. In Season 6, Yoda's Force visions
10:46reveal the imminent rise of the Empire, which is probably something that the other Jedi
10:50would have appreciated a heads-up about. It usually doesn't work out well when people
10:54who see the future attempt to alter the course of events, but why else would the Force be
10:59granting Yoda these visions? Instead of actually doing anything to prevent the rise of Vader
11:04and Palpatine, Yoda instead chooses to witness the fall of the Jedi Order before exiling
11:09himself to the planet-sized swamp of Dagobah. And he never even uses Jedi Skype to talk
11:15to any of the other Jedi. Yoda doesn't get nearly enough blame in the Star Wars franchise.