In the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie the villain pretends to have supernatural powers obtained via the occult. Holmes is skeptical, even though other characters in the film believe it (even Watson), but in the end all the magic is proved to be baloney and the skeptic is vindicated.
In the Star Trek TNG episode “Devil’s Due,” a con artist pretends to be some planet’s version of the devil by pretending scientific processes are examples of her magical powers. Picard is skeptical, and he is proved right by the episode’s end.
Speaking of Star Trek, “Why would God need a starship?”
I came in to mention that psychic arc - it really chapped my nips, especially considering the “prediction” that pushed Murdoch over the edge was, “I’m hearing your dead fiancée - she wants you to stop obsessing and move on with your life,” which is the biggest lump of cold reading bullshit ever.
The worst thing about that episode was a character telling Murdoch that he should give woo a chance considering that he believed in God. I’d have loved him to reply, “Oh yeah. Well, time to stop believing in God, I guess.”
Of course, that would be irrational as a later episode showed the psychic to be real, which raised the question of why she wasn’t strapped to a chair in the police station like the Pre-Cogs in Minority Report.
The OP’s example (which I haven’'t seen) somehow reminded me of the Cheers episode “The Ghost and Mrs. LeBec” (which I haven’t seen since it originally aired over 20 years ago—was it that long?!), in which Carla thinks she is being haunted by her dead husband Eddie LeBec, and participates in a seance hosted by her psychic. Frasier plays the role of the skeptic, and (IIRC) he is proven right in the sense that the “woo” truly is a sham, but the psychic really does help Carla deal with Eddie’s death.
“Scooby-Doo” is, of course, the first thing that sprang to mind. And would the OP count detective stories in which something mysterious happens that looks or is alleged to be supernatural but turns out to have a natural explanation? Some of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories work this way, and I’m sure there are many other examples as well.
When COLUMBO came back in '89, his first case involved the phony psychic who (a) was about to start a lucrative job with the conned Pentagon officers who thought the guy could help with the Cold War, and who (b) murdered the Amazing-Randi-esque stage magician who knew enough to debunk him.
Our hero of course proves the psychic is a phony and a murderer. (I didn’t really need to write that last part, did I? He’s Columbo.)
Does Malcolm in “Jurassic Park” count? He was very skeptical that the whole enthusiastic “What could go wrong?” attitude of the project would prove right, and he was absolutely correct. Not exactly skeptic vs. woo but more skeptic vs. blind optimism, so I’m not sure it’s relevant to the thread.
This is a persisting issue of mine. I loathe the almost inevitable endorsement of the credulous perspective in most all television shows and movies. Perhaps growing up with the original Scooby Doo has something to do with this.
I was hopeful about the Mentalist too. I’m still a fan, but they really blew it when they had the red-headed psychic tell Jane some stuff about the death of his family, and he ends up weeping about this.
This issue seems particularly to infect children’s programming. So much of it seems geared towards convincing kids that to be a skeptic means to be socially awkward and unliked, and ultimately to be proven wrong. Of course, when one comes around to belief in the end, one is popular and accepted.
The thing I wonder about is how kids resolve this with the more prevalent message of children’s programming that the ultimate concern is that you just be yourself. Apparently you can be yourself as long as yourself isn’t skeptical about bullshit.
That follows the popular real-life attitude toward skeptics, that we’re horrible spoilsports who don’t want anyone to feel happy. I’ve just been astounded at the hate and vitriol that a simple link to Snopes in response to a chain email glurge generates.
The most bizarre manifestation I have seen of this is in Harry Potter. Hermione – a student in a school of magic, which, among other things, is populated by ghosts-- is skeptical of divination/fortune-telling and in the end, she’s proved wrong.
If your definition of popular entertainment includes web content, there’ll soon be a new anti-woo series called Occ the Skeptical Caveman produced by the SGU folks.
Is she? As I see it, she’s skeptical of Professor Trelawney’s claimed abilities, and she’s right about that. Professor Trelawney’s actual prophecies are nothing that can be taught to students, and she’s completely unaware of having made them.
I don’t think Hermione is skeptical of the concept of magical future-telling in general, just Trelawney’s pretensions.
I had forgotten a lot about Scooby Doo until my daughters started watching them, and I mean watching a lot of them, I think I have about 15 different movies and show DVDs. There are a couple where the ghosts are real, and those are the worst. Thankfully the girls like those the least.
I tried to like the Mentalist as well, but after there was a couple of shows when Jane couldn’t tell the psychic was bull I stopped watching.
I’ve had to stop talking about some things in real life. Just the other day at lunch we were talking about the flu shot and vaccinations and one guy said he didn’t go it because he didn’t want to get sick. He also said he didn’t think vaccinations worked and were harmful because a friend’s kid had died after one. People wonder why I don’t talk much.
just thought of something - I like Big Bang Theory, and Sheldon esp often spouts great anti-mumbo-jumbo lines. But there was an episode where Leonard mocked Penny for believing in psychic crap. Of course, Penny got mad & Leonard caved. It was all handled so badly. Leonard hurt Penny’s feelings by mocking her, he didn’t try to educate her nicely, so of course she’s not going to change. Just a silly, sitcom, but still.
By the way, how I hated that show with Patricia Arquette as a psychic helping the police. Not to mention the horrid Ghost Whisperer. talk about pandering to the lowest common denominator.
There are a few Sherlock Holmes stories, most notably “The Hound of the Baskervilles” where Holmes doesn’t accept a supernatural explanation for something and is proved right.
Yeah, Medium (the Arquette show) was just stupid, as was GW (also known in our house as “JLH’s Boob Show”…there were an awful lot of gratuitous negligee scenes in that show).
I watched about half a season or so of Medium. Hmm, maybe I even watched a bit more of it than that. I developed a bit of a hate-on for it, actually.
Anyway, for the purposes of this discussion, one funny thing I noticed was that even though she was essentially always right - was always helping to solve crimes, and even though they had her officially involved as a consultant or whatever her role was, pretty much every episode and every new case she was met with skepticism. IIRC, even her handler person doubted her every time.
It was kind of like validating woo over skepticism repeatedly was part of the point of the show.
I think it’s pretty clear from the book that Hermione doesn’t believe in fortune telling at all. She also thinks Trelawey is a fraud, but that’s not the only operative factor.