Badass/Live Action TV


 * The Unit. But, on a team of badass Special Forces operators, Sergeant Major David Palmer Jonas Blane is the biggest and baddest of them all.
 * Jack Bauer of 24.
 * Tony Almeida and Bill Buchanan deserved to be mentioned as well.
 * As does Aaron Pierce.
 * Renee Walker, too. And Chloe O'Brien had a few badass moments herself.
 * On Nikita there is the titular heroine, Nikita Meers, as well as her lover/ally and former handler/teacher Michael.
 * Percy, Amanda, Roan and Ari Tasarov as well.
 * Owen Elliot occasionally.
 * Other characters get moments that qualify them for this as well, including Nikita's former student, Alexandra Udinov, her CIA contact Ryan Fletcher, as well as Nikita and Michael's friend and ally, Seymour Birkhoff. Very nearly World of Badass.
 * And now ex-Navy Seal Sean Pierce.
 * Vaughan Rice of Ultraviolet
 * Mr. Chapel from Vengeance Unlimited certainly qualifies: He will do anything and everything (except use guns) to give the bad guy his.
 * Dark Angel When Zack turns himself into the police and Manticore to keep Max safe, he is taken off in a humvee, as it drives off.. He GRINS SMUGLY at the guards
 * The WWE's Stone Cold Steve Austin beat his boss up, poured beer on him, filled his prize Corvette with mixed concrete, and pulled various other stunts, with no lasting ill-effect on his career prospects, despite attempts at George Jetson Job Security. He would also beat up teams of four, five, or more wrestlers on a weekly basis. His template has since been followed by many other top faces (though with considerably less success).
 * There are other Professional Wrestling Badass templates, such as 'The American BadAss' Undertaker. It's a common theme, with again varying degrees of success.
 * All the Ultraman, but special mention goes to the original Ultraman, Ultra Seven, Ultraman Leo, Ultraman King, Ultraman Zero and the evil Ultraman Belial
 * Tendou Souji from Kamen Rider Kabuto, who frequently displays confidence beyond the point of arrogance; to be fair, this rather unappealing trait is the reason his Zecter (henshin device) picked him as Kabuto in the first place.
 * Most of the past 3 decades of Kamen Rider protagonists fit this mold, especially the original, Hongo Takeshi; the precursor to Tendou, Kamen Rider Stronger; and the titular character of Kamen Rider Hibiki.
 * Probably the biggest badass out of any of Shotaro Ishinomori's works, however, is Ken Hayakawa, of Kaiketsu Zubat.
 * Lots of them in Super Sentai. Some of the more notable: Gai Yuuki/Black Condor, Mikoto Nakadai/AbareKiller, Doggie Kruger/Deka Master, Wolzard, Gosei Knight, Captain Marvelous/Gokai Red.
 * A non-warrior example from the new series of Doctor Who, Mr. Saxon, the Master, cheerfully gasses a dozen or so key governmental figures, makes fun of the US President before having him vaporised, and then dances to a pop song as he ends the world, all the while being a rather Magnificent Bastard.
 * Please, the Master was a Badass before John Simm. Watch "Logopolis" and Anthony Ainley's master class in Magnificent Bastardry, especially the part where he
 * Then again... considering that the Ninth Doctor was able to make Daleks RETREAT when he yells at them,and possibly wiped out HIS ENTIRE RACE in the Great Time War to end said war, and also wears that battered leather jacket with the very, very short (if any) hair, I'd personally surrender as fast as I can if I found myself facing him.
 * Badass essentially sums up every role Christopher Eccleston has ever played.
 * In the episode "Forest Of The Dead", the Tenth Doctor reminds the advancing Vashta Nerada (shadow predators who can render victims Stripped to the Bone in a matter of milliseconds) that they're in the largest library in the universe, then tells them to look up "The Doctor". They do. Then they immediately back off.
 * Eleven gets a similar moment in his first appearance, telling the aliens of the week who are about to destroy Earth, "Hello. I'm the Doctor. In other words, run." They do.
 * Ace once beat the crap out of a Dalek with a baseball bat. That is all.
 * In a similar moment of Companion vs. Dalek badassery, River Song once made a Dalek beg for mercy.
 * 4 Daleks weren't even fazed by the prospect of facing 3 million Cybermen (for good reason) but instinctively recoiled when they heard the Doctor was around.
 * It's not all a matter of who's afraid of him. In "The Christmas Invasion" we see an alien lightning whip thing coil around three people and reduce them to steaming bone in an instant. The Doctor casually grabs the whip, yanks it out of the alien's hands, then goes on a big long ramble about what a nice nap he had all while poking around the ship, in front of hundreds of aliens who could easily kill him.
 * Let's face it. The Doctor is the Gallifreyan equivalent to Chuck Norris.
 * Chuck Norris is the Earth equivalent of the Doctor. The Doctor is more Badass.
 * Peh. The Third Doctor got there before any of them. What other Doctor got to chase a villain in, successively, a car (while standing on the runner at the side of said car), a helicopter, a futuristic car designed by himself that flies (the Whomobile!) and an inflatable raft (driven over water and any land that got in the way)?
 * Ten, Eleven and River Song have made monsters run away and/or crap themselves by basically saying, "Hi, it's me!"
 * Specifically River managed to make a Dalek beg for mercy three times in a row, while wearing a very small, very cold smirk on her lips. Then in the second episode of series 6, she killed an entire room full of the Silence without breaking a sweat while flirting with the Doctor, before being asked by Rory what exactly she's a doctor of and remarking "Archeology" while getting her gun back out of its holster to shoot a Silence without turning around. Keeping in mind that you forget about the Silence the moment you can't see them anymore.
 * Are we forgetting that in the episode "Dalek" Nine made a dalek beg for mercy and responded by torturing him some more?
 * would be made of Badass. So naturally, she is.
 * And most recently, Canton Everet Delaware III. Practically the Whoinverse's answer to Dirty Harry, he absolutely Shot Him.
 * How the heck didn't Rory Williams, The Last Centurion, get here yet!?
 * Everybody was too overawed at the sight of him taking down a stone Dalek with a blast from his handgun, then infiltrating a Cyber Ship, staring down a Cyber Commander with a dismissive 'Oh, don't give me those blank looks', standing stony-faced while he blew up a whole Cyber Fleet behind him for emphasis, then leading a hopeless-seeming battle against Headless Monks and winning to remember to add him to the page.
 * He's made of Badass!
 * And of course, the story of how he became the Last Centurion in the first place: guarded a large stone cube, armed only with a sword and arm-gun, for 2000 years. Never sleeping, never eating. He guarded it through the fall of Rome, and dragged it out of the London Blitz, all while made of plastic- not exactly the strongest material in the world. And 2000 years later? Not a scratch on him.
 * Rory quietly withstanding HOUSE's Mind Rape that nearly emotionally crippled Amy. Because, again, the whole 2000-years-old thing probably helps withstand mental torture.
 * Really, most of the Doctor's companions achieve some level of badass after awhile with him.
 * The spinoff series, Torchwood is not lacking in badasses either. Every member of the team has done some hardcore stuff, though one of the most badass team members would be Owen Harper, a Combat Medic who literally fought Death itself and won!
 * On Alias, anyone whose last name is Bristow or Derevko.
 * Also on Alias, Anna Espinoza, Kelly Peyton, and Renee Rienne
 * On Chuck, Agent John Casey is badass to the point of hilarity.
 * Yeah? You laugh at him. I'd recommend running immediately after doing so.
 * Future!Hiro, HRG, Niki's alter ego Jessica, Sylar, and Claire in Heroes.
 * Wesley Wyndam-Pryce from Angel
 * He kept a girl in his closet, slept with the female Big Bad, killed his "father" and the Qwa'ha Xhan. You get the point.
 * Buffy Summers, Faith Lehane and Kendra Young on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
 * Badass is the second half of any Slayer's job description, right after "slaying vampires".
 * Mal, Zoe and Jayne on Firefly, as well as River during the big damn rescue in "War Stories" and Simon in "Ariel" as well as in the Big Damn Movie. Shepherd Book takes on extra points as, unlike the others, he doesn't shoot to kill..
 * Actually, the entire crew of Serenity is badass, let's just leave it there. Even sweet Kaylee . And Inara  . And Wash   And he's just he pilot.
 * Weevil on Veronica Mars. For the first season, at least. This culminates in the second season, where he kills the guy who stole his biker gang by tasering him and taping the drugs he was carrying to the underside of the guy's bike, knowing that when he reported back to the crime family who owns the drugs that they would search the bike and "deal" with him - thereby leaving him in the clear.
 * While they might look young, cute and vulnerable and act like slightly pansyish woobies, you do not want to mess with Supernatural's Sam and Dean. Just ask Meg, Gordon   or the Crossroads Demon.
 * And that's just when Sam has his big brother around. When in season 3 Sam  becomes even more badass than normal and we are treated to a montage that culminates in him cutting off his shirt, removing a bullet from his abdomen and stitching himself back up, alone, without drugs, in a seedy motel room.
 * Special mention also goes to Dean, who unlike Castiel and Sam has no supernatural powers whatsoever: spending forty years in Hell, clawing his way out of his own grave, and being so far the only human on the show who's managed to kill an angel.
 * Castiel's also been getting his fair share of total badass moments since he came on the scene in season 4.
 * Out of all the villains on the show Lilith has to be the biggest Badass of them all. Unlike Azael managed to pull of an amazing mix of Badass and Nightmare Fuel..
 * Lucifer himself. Just, for example, when he takes out a hotelful of gods, and one archangel, in about five minutes, without any noticeable effort.
 * Most of the characters have had their moments on Lost, but Mr. Eko and Sayid are badasses all the time.
 * Mikhail "Patchy" Bakunin from the third season of Lost.
 * Stargate
 * Teal'c
 * Ronon Dex is the Stargate Atlantis equivalent of Teal'c.
 * Bratac, still kicking ass at over 130 years of age.
 * Sam Carter. BLOWS UP STARS!
 * Jack O'Neill. And Daniel Jackson. Actually, just say that most SG teams are made up of badass.
 * SGA is full of badasses:
 * Sheppard. He has a Wraith for buddy and he pulls off suicidal missions on a daily basis.
 * Teyla. She's essentially Xena on steroids, coupled with Mama Bear in the last season.
 * Even Rodney. It's a well-known fact that if you point a gun at his head, he can get shit done faster than Carter does.
 * The Asgard, as a race, are purified, weapons grade Badass with a capital B. You want Crowning Moments of Awesome as well as Badassitude? Just watch for an Asgard battlecruiser entering the scene. The Ori count as well.
 * The cast of Farscape was made of badass. Even tiny Rygel earned some badass points, decapitating the man who had tortured him years before and carrying his head around on a stick for the rest of the episode. In the words of Zhaan (a priestess, by the way), they've "kicked more ass than you've sat on."
 * Dr. House from House and Dr. Cox from Scrubs are as badass as doctors can get.
 * Scrubs, however, definitely has the most badass janitor in the universe.
 * Rome: Titus Pullo, and to a marginally lesser extent, Lucius Vorenus. And let's not forget the sequence where Pullo and his gang confront a rival gang. The rival gang leader calls for parley.   Really, they're the epitome of Bad Ass, the pair of them.
 * Cameron, and to a lesser extent, Derek Reese.
 * And to a greater extent, Sarah Connor.
 * Hawkins of Jericho, who once frightened a man into giving up information by pretending he was going to be inflicting torture that would somehow involve Drano and knees.
 * Surprisingly, Olive Snook turned out to be Pushing Daisies' resident Badass. Surprising, because she's also The Ditz, usually manic, and less than five feet tall.
 * Ned proved himself to be quite badass on a couple of occasions, especially his sword fight in "The Fun In Funeral".
 * Burn Notice
 * Michael. Sure, he can kill you with one of his eyebrows. But he can also manipulate you into fashioning the noose around your own neck.
 * Sam Axe. Not only is he played by Bruce Campbell, but he's more than capable of keeping up with Michael and being a hell of a Cold Sniper.
 * Fiona Glennane
 * The cast of the UK drama Spooks, but in particular Harry Pearce, Roz Myers and, qualify as badass.
 * Red Dwarf: Ace Rimmer... Everybody loves him! what a guy...
 * Eliot, Christian Kane's character in Leverage. The man held off three goons and a guy attacking him with meat cleavers using a saucepan, a whisk, and HORS D'OUEVRES! If that is not Badass, I don't know what is!
 * There's also, I don't know, the rest of the team as well, they managed to, which in the Hardison's own words "is considered overkill by the Department of Defense".
 * Tyr Anasazi in 'Andromeda'.
 * How have we gone this far without recognising the badass that is Gene Hunt?
 * Leroy. Jethro. Gibbs.
 * Admittedly, though, all the others have turns at this role - Abby repeatedly shocking a bad guy in season three while wearing a court suit and yelling at him, Tony beating up a guy with a knife despite being tied to a chair, and Ziva shooting and knife-throwing her way through episode after episode. Even McGee sometimes gets into the act.
 * Season 7 opener, anyone?
 * Worf from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He got a badass upgrade during the series, from defeating many Klingon Warriors all with a mek'leth in 'Way of the Warrior', to 'Call to Arms' where he faced 20 Jem'Hadar (who are also Badass Super Soldiers) in a consecuitive match, and killed them all until he was too tired and injured to even stand, much less fight. The First even said "I cannot beat this man, I can merely kill him."
 * Star Trek should not be mentioned on this page without mentioning Captain James T. Kirk. The man was hardcore.
 * Likewise, Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko spent most of his series either punching aliens in the junk, flying around wrecking shit, or calling BS on alien gods.
 * He punched-out Q! He punched-out Q!
 * Bah, forget Sisko and Worf. Kira Nerys kicked major ass. Even when she was extremely pregnant!
 * Janeway had her problems, but she had the balls to make an alliance with the Borg in order to fight an even more powerful enemy. Go watch Scorpian again.
 * Fonzie from Happy Days was the probably the closest thing you could get to Badass in a 1970's show imitating the 1950's. But still, he won every fight he was in, and always had a girl on each arm.
 * Paul Ballard from Dollhouse. He takes down three Russian mafia toughs after being shot, then a few days later, while still in stitches takes down four scurity guys, even after they taser him. And his fight with the other cast badass, Boyd should be the stuff of legends.
 * Omar comin'!
 * In series 5 of Red Dwarf, they gave Lister a badass upgrade. He also had some badass moments in series 7.
 * Even Rimmer (that's Arnold Judas Rimmer, not Ace), cosmic butt-monkey and all around failure, gets a baddass moment in the finale of season 6. In a story where they meet their future selves (all of whom are jerkified versions of themselves), whom then open fire on the "current" crew killing Cat, Lister and Kryten - Rimmer takes a gun and blows the time machine to hell as Starbug is blowing up around him. Prior to this point Rimmer was a coward who was afraid of his own shadow, despite being virtually indestructible as a hard light hologram.
 * Actually, Rimmer makes the transition to badass just before that. When deciding whether to give their future selves the Time Drive, or fight, he asks Kryten if they have any chance of winning. Kryten replies that they have no chance at all. Rimmer then votes for 'fight', producing perhaps one of the greatest phrases in the series: "Better dead than smeg."
 * Also when Death comes to collect him he kicks Death in the balls.
 * Also that vending machine was pretty badass, considering its a vending machine, "I will destroy you"
 * While all the characters of Sanctuary have their moments of badass, Dr. Helen Magnus is the ultimate badass of the show.
 * NERV pilots had more Parental Abandonment and a worse leader, but handled it somewhat better when on the job, and at least it was done to them, rather than something that they did. The leaders/special strike team of Sanctuary are less professional than NERV, if that's even possible. NERV has one evil teammate, their leader, while Sanctuary has two evil teammates, both forming a two-man Unwanted Harem and Love Triangle to their female leader.
 * The BAU from Criminal Minds. Every single person on the team gets multiple moments of badassery, from Badass Bookworms Hotchner, Reid, and Prentiss to Chessmasters Rossi and Gideon to Genius Bruiser Morgan to Gun Slinger JJ and Elle to the Oracle of Quantico herself, Garcia.
 * Battlestar Galactica
 * Admiral William Adama (among others) beats a superhuman robot to death with a torch, goes head to head with a more powerful vessell to save two crew members and always has the best epic speeches ever written.
 * His best friend, Saul Tigh.
 * One of the first things Kara Thrace does in the miniseries is go at it with Tigh. Later she rams Lee's viper onto her own and pushes it backwards to land both ships in the nick of time. And this is just the miniseries! Later she crash lands on a moon, rips open a Cylon raider, and learns to fly it in a matter of hours, duct-taping her name to the wings.
 * Laura Roslin is a political Badass who becomes president on the same day she got asked to resign and found out she had terminal breast cancer.
 * Shameless Yvonne Karib - uses her baseball bat to threaten or attack anyone who messes with her shop including debt collectors and armed soldiers.
 * iCarly: Sam Puckett. Threaten Carly, and you'll only survive if Carly lets you.
 * The A-Team. All four of them. Hannibal even falls into Colonel Badass.
 * Saejima Kouga and Suzumura Rei from Garo. Both kick ass hard every time they fight. The fight in the final episode is the ultimate proof of this
 * Smallville, being a show about, you know, Superman has its share of these. Clark himself has become one of these as the show progresses, while Lionel and Lex Luthor were from the start. Then there's Green Arrow, an enormous Badass Normal, his Justice League of America, who define Badass Crew, Major Zod, who eventually graduates to Four-Star Badass without breaking a sweat, and Metallo who managed to take on Clark and Zod at the same time. Green Rocks or no Green Rocks, that is Badass.
 * Jonathan Kent was also pretty Badass when given the chance. More superheroes have also begun appearing: Hawkman is an enormous Badass, as are Action Girl Kara Kent, and the Martian Manhunter. Brainiac, Complete Monster that he may be, is a Badass Bookworm, and Badass Teacher par excellence. Dark Action Girl Tess Mercer doesn't do to badly either.
 * Olivia Dunham of Fringe. So very much. Peter Bishop definitely has his moments.
 * Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks.
 * As well as Sheriff Truman and DEFINITELY Deputy Hawk.
 * In Community episode The Science of Illusion Annie and Shirley quibble over this title in their buddy cop duo.
 * Carter Grayson of Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue. People might complain about his lack of Character Development, but this is the man who tried to run over the Monster of the Week with his jeep in the very first episode. How do you improve on that?
 * What, no love for Tommy Oliver?
 * What about Flynn and Dillon from Power Rangers RPM?, the latter drove through a nigh-impenetrable security system meant to keep the forces of the series equivalent to Skynet at bay without a scratch to his car, the latter did the same in a bus (and IS SCOTTISH!).
 * Temperance Brennan of Bones is trained in several types of martial arts and she's not afraid to use them, usually doing so with total calm and a perfect deadpan. There's a reason she's usually not allowed a gun.
 * John Reese, in Person of Interest, made of equal parts Michael Westen and Harry Callahan.