It 2x worse when the characters are in a will they won't they relationship. Cause this shit happens right before they get together just to keep them apart for several more season.
I guess that makes sense, but I’ve always felt like if characters don’t stay together due to minor misunderstandings, then they shouldn’t be together at all. Find someone else who won’t act all dramatic over a small misunderstanding.
It's especially annoying because usually it would be incredibly easy to interject and explain, but the person doesn't say a word. It's such a lazy excuse for storytelling.
“Wait, I can explain!”
>other person for some reason never lets them communicate at all because it would destroy the paper thin plot that depends on no one being allowed to talk it through for ten seconds
Or instead of explaining, they dance around asking for a chance to explain, saying how important it is they tell the other person something, how the other person really needs to hear what they have to say...
JUST FUCKING SPIT IT OUT AND SAY IT THEN
Protagonist is facing a complex problem in the main story line, then on an unrelated secondary story line, usually a family or friend problem, the protagonist has an eureka moment and finds the solution to the main problem.
-wait a second, you said pancakes!? Of course! *frantically looks through papers* that’s why the cancer treatment is not working! You are genius Mark! Sorry I have to run now.
As much as I loved watching House, this happened so often.
It's not the only show I've seen do it but I reckon at least 60-70% of the shows episodes had at least one eureka moment based on something said to House.
In a similar vein, and in this case pancakes, usually goes something like:
Protagonist: "I just can't figure out how to save the planet!"
Supporting Character: "Man I sure could go for some pancakes! With syrup, heck yeah."
P: "Wait wait wait, say that again." \*thinking\*
SC: "I said heck yeah."
P: "No no, the other thing, what was it..."
SC: "Syrup?"
P: "No no, the other thing!"
SC: "Pancakes?"
P: "Yes that's it, SC you're a genius!"
SpongeBob:
Patrick, say that again.
Patrick:
That again.
SpongeBob:
No, the other thing.
Patrick:
No, the other thing.
SpongeBob:
No, what you said before when you--
Patrick:
No, what you said before when you...
SpongeBob:
Never mind! I've got an idea.
Patrick:
Never mind! I've got an idea.
When the character drowns or their heart stops, and another character tries to resuscitate them. They keep going and another character tells them “it’s too late, he’s gone” and they keep going, crying. Finally they give up, thirty seconds pass, and then dead character coughs and is suddenly alive again!
I just feel like it’s so overly done I could just fast forward 5 minutes once I see them begin mouth to mouth.
And any CPR, "LIVE DAMMIT!" scene like that. If you've ever seen someone resuscitated from CPR, you'd know the first thing they do is: lie there until transported to a hospital for several days or more of recovery.
Remember Lost? Jack's a doctor whose specialty was punching someone in the chest and screaming in their face. >!That's how he saved Charlie after they found him hanging in the woods.!<
One of the reasons I love Bob's Burgers so much. Bob and Linda genuinely love each other and they're both competent and work together to parent and run the restaurant
True, but I meant it more like most sitcom dads have "useless" as like a cornerstone of their character and Bob isn't like that. Of course they all get into hijinks but being incompetent isn't his defining trait
I’ve seen the moronic, doltish husband make its way to a TON of commercials. It’s like if the company wants to market to women over 35, they immediately make the husband stupid in the commercial. And the wife comes in to save the day (of course by using their product).
In the context of the Honeymooners, while still a troublesome trope, it didn't come across the way some might think. Everybody knew he wouldn't dare and the smart money would've been on Alice winning that fight. But to your point, you're not wrong. It was "a different time".
Alice was always correct. Ralph always admitted it. Alice never backed away because she knew Ralph was a Teddy bear. They threw insults at each other equally. You want misogyny? Burns and Allen.
My opinion of the worst killjoy, controlling, selfish wife was a tie between Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond, and Patricia Richardson from Home Improvement. The battle of the Patricias...
She was so cold and I would always hate her in scenes with Raymond and then when the parents would visit I’d feel terribly sorry for her and her existence. it’s the only reason that show worked cause Debra and Ray alone were very unlikable characters
Don't forget that he at the same time basically is the most confident guy in the world that has literally no doubt in himself when doing practically anything himself, including things he has never done before.
I think this is more of a problem in the later Star Trek which are supposed to be more "realistic". The original series made no presence to be realistic and a main purpose was to do topics that wouldn't be allowed on TV undisguised at that time. It's often theatrical, allegorical. Consider "The Day of the Dove" where the crew, and some Klingons, are trapped into endless war. Kirk has a line containing the words "stop the war now" in the middle of a sentence and Shatner deliberately pauses to turn it into a separate sentence. Vietnam, of course.
One thing younger viewers don't get is that there was no home recording or DVD and if you missed an episode it was forever. Hence you have to resolve a story in one episode
I was okay with that. Seth MacFarlane obviously wanted to make a show just like one from the Silver Age of Star Trek all along, and in the third season he got to do it.
* hero is distancing themselves from their loved ones to protect them
* hero finally realizes they can't protect their loved ones by distancing themselves from them, let's them back into their life
* hero's loved one immediately dies
I am tired of all the "memory loss" arcs/storylines.
"Frank hit his head repairing a light fixture. Let's take him to a doctor and then immediately dig up his past to jog his memory! Haha silly Frank looks like you have your memory back!"
I am re-watching X-Files and this is literally just about every episode. Scully will get suplexed by a ghost and be just staring there like "wtf ghosts ARE real" and then 2 scenes later she'll be like "don't be ridiculous Mulder there's no scientific proof that bowling balls exist".
/the show is still extremely fun to watch
It's cool the way they set up Scully and Mulder as a non believer, and a die hard believer, but with everything Scully went through and saw, it stopped making sense very quick.
X files was always Scully saying, "what do you think it is, Mulder?" Then saying that his idea is impossible.
Later in the show, she'd, IDK, bend over to tie her shoe, and a moonman would jump out from behind a trash can and explain everything. "Sorry, Mulder. I missed it. Maybe I'll catch it next week!"
/But it was still a cool show
I'm watching Boston Legal, and they straight up never lose a case, no matter how guilty their client is. Also, judges in Boston can just disregard the law and constitution and make their own rules.
I remember a lot of cartoons having this problem. As a kid, I found Rocket Power unbearable because the main characters were just so naturally good at literally everything.
One of the main characters is getting married, when organizing the guest list, they learn that their partner is no longer on speaking terms with their parent amd doesn't want them at the wedding. Main character tracks them down and invites them anyways, partner is initially very upset, but reconciles with their parents and thanks the main character for inviting them. One: it's a super shitty thing to do, two: if you're only just learning that they no longer speak to their parents, you don't know them well enough to be getting married. I especially notice this one, because it's something that I hypothetically could have done had my ex and I ever get married, so I can really appreciate what a disrespectful thing it is to do.
Another marriage-related one that bugs me is when the batchelor/batchelorette party episode reveals that the couple has no friends of the same gender outside of the cast, who they sometime didn't even know at the time the show started. This is especially noticeable in shows with a workplace setting- so apparently they have no friends outside of work.
When a character gets hit on the head and just falls asleep for hours and then wakes up like nothing happened. In reality if you fall unconscious for more than a minute that means serious brain trauma and requires immediate hospitalization.
125 lb women being able to fight off multiple assailants in hand-to-hand combat. I'm a woman myself and I find that trope so dumb and immersion-breaking. I can suspend my disbelief if it's a one-on-one fight and the woman does something particularly clever to gain the upper hand, but for the most part I just roll my eyes through it.
Also, in post-apocalyptic stories, the women too often look like they're wearing makeup and have clean-shaven armpits/legs. Like, the world ended, but women are still raiding the makeup aisles and finding time to shave?? Pleeeeease.
That's what annoys me about the live-action Mulan movie vs the animated one.
Animation: A trained fighter is chasing her. She runs for her life and is clearly terrified.
Live: Oh, it's a trained fighter 3 times my size? Whatever. Kick - kick - punch, he's defeated.
Animated Mulan is superior in every which way:
Animated: normal girl trying and failing to fit in society's expectations of the time, yet her family still love her for who she is, but at the same time are realistic to the time period of what being a woman means in their culture
Live: YOU HAVE A POWER BEING REPRESSED AND IT IS BECAUSE MEN!!
Animated: Upon joining the army, starts of as realisitically weak and untrained, THE SAME AS HER FELLOW (MALE) SOLDIERS, but through incredible determination, intelligence and hard work rises up to be one of Shang's best soldeirs.
Live: YOU HAVE A POWER READY TO BE UNLEASHED AND IT IS BECAUSE FEMALE EMPOWERMENT!!!
Animated: Using same determination, intelligence and hard work, is able to defeat the main villain using approriate team work with her fellow soldiers and all the skills she learnt through training, with a combination of realistically stumbling through and finctional badass prowess
Live: YOU ARE NOW ABLE TO USE YOUR POWER BECAUSE WITCHES!!
As soon as a woman starts an action scene, my wife and I start the timer for when the character will do a flying triangle on her opponent. Hollywood LOVES throwing that move into every action scene with a woman.
The first one bugs me a lot. But I also think it's down to very few actresses wanting to bulk up for action roles. One of the reasons I really like Katee Sackhoff in sci fi action is that she looks more like a fighter than Daisy Ridley or Rosario Dawson did.
That's why I loved Atomic Blonde.
Even in the behind the scenes bits they made it clear It was like "You're a a 5'9 at a buck twenty, they have half a foot and 50lbs on you. For every one hit these men make you have to do four." or something like that, and they showed her character strategizing, distracting, and using weapons to beat those men.
I loved the movie for the BTS parts alone.
Honestly, anyone winning a fight against multiple assailants in hand to hand combat bothers me. I don't care how big or tough or skilled you are, you're not going to beat three or more people in hand to hand combat.
Same with characters being clocked on the head with a 2×4/baseball bat/lamp/etc.
If it's the lead role, they get walloped and just shake it off like it's only a mild inconvenience. If it's an enemy? Instant knock-out that lasts however long it takes for the protagonist to complete some kind of task.
Ever notice in science fiction, how beings from Earth have different skin colour and hair styles? However beings from other planets are representatives of their entire planet and all have the same hairstyles and personalities.
Or every planet is one biome—desert planet, water planet, etc. Earth has multiple ecosystems…
oh, and in that vein, any time someone visits a planet looking for something, everything is conveniently in one place. Like, if you came to Earth for a specific person and found them where you landed vs. on another continent etc.
Stargate SG-1 would usually play the cliche completely straight, but once this happened:
Scientist Guy: I'll need 24 hours.
General: You have 12.
Scientist Guy: No, sir, it doesn't work that way. 24 hours is the best I can do.
Made me chuckle a bit.
(For the record, the Science Stuff the guy was doing did in fact take the full 24 hours in-universe.)
Wasn't there a scene in Star Trek: Next Gen, where Scotty says to Geordie something to the effect of "You never tell them how long it will really take. How else are you suppose to look great when it is done faster".
When I was a kid growing up in the 80s-90s, I really hated those recap episodes. It seemed like every sitcom did it. It would be the characters sitting around and having flashbacks to scenes from episodes earlier in the season.
Just a glorified rerun advertised as a new episode. Hated that stuff.
I don't know if they still do that in modern shows but it was a pain in my ass as a kid.
Clip shows. In the days before streaming and binge-watching, episodes like that were occasionally done to bring new viewers up to speed.
Plus, they were cheap to make.
It was also a great way to give everyone a break as your typical clip show is about 7 minutes of new content (if that).
Twenty plus episode seasons were apparently akin to a death march.
On the other hand, one of my favorite community episodes is where they make fun of clip shows by doing one with a bunch of scenes that never happened on screen.
Community is truly one of the greats.
I think there was usually a reason for it. If I recall correctly, the Scrubs episode like that was because the writers started striking mid-season. Or maybe it was that they blew the budget on one big, expensive episode and had very little left.
But yea, during a rewatch I always skip those episodes. That said, I don’t think they ever thought that would make for a good episode. It was basically “fucking hell, we gotta fill 30 minutes of airtime somehow, or the network will be up our asses.”
They're clip shows. They were created both to pad the series for syndication but also to recap episodes as back then, once an episode aired, that was it for a long time (at least until it ran in syndication).
Clip shows used to score strong ratings because viewers could revisit some of the funnier moments from the series, something that, at the time, was not common.
It's like the writers were all sick that week, and needed to make an episode.
It wasn't so bad when all you had was cable.
But with streaming services, it's like I'm getting a full recap of the episodes I watched over the weekend.
Punching bag character
They don't really do anything wrong but are constantly the butt of the joke, annoyed, abused, etc
Ex: Squidward, Meg from family guy, Gary/Jerry/Terry from Parks and Rec
I love this one too. My GF and I are huge fans of the show and love the way he got his final send off too. Poor Kyle was the real punching bag of the show.
Male and female protagonists cannot just be good friends or colleagues. They must get romantically involved with one another, then breakup and go through an awkward period. Don’t worry though, they will get back together in no time!
When there’s extreme time pressure (like a bomb ticking down, collapsing mine, burning building) and the characters decide now is the time to confess their feelings and have a heart to heart chat.
Misunderstandings that cause a conflict that would never have happened if a person was more patient and listened more.
Person 1: I can't believe they said that! I will now hate them forever!
Person 2: Have you talked to them about it?
Person 1: No! I'm so mad, why would I talk to them?!
Then at the end they finally meet face to face and realise it was all a big misunderstanding.
It works in stories where the immaturity or lack of social skills is the whole point of the story, like teen dramas and coming of age stories, but when it's a contrivance just so the plot can happen, or as a cheap shortcut to tension and resolution, it's really frustrating.
I call it Sabrina Syndrome.
A wise figure tells the main character not to do something. It's usually something very reasonable, and obvious.
Main character ignores them and does the thing.
Things go wrong in pretty much exactly the way that wise figure said it would.
Things end up ok in the end often due to just dumb luck.
Main character is applauded for saving the day when their actions could have (or did, depending on the story) gotten people killed.
With a few exceptions, the fact that sitcom families are never in any financial problems. All seem to be doing well with nice homes, etc.
Couple of exceptions that come to mind would be Roseanne and 2 Broke Girls.
>Couple of exceptions that come to mind would be Roseanne
Yet, here in Vancouver, I would kill for a house like in Roseanne! It's a HOUSE, with MULTIPLE BEDROOMS. OMG. That would be like $2M here.
If a sitcom is on long enough, eventually the female gravitates toward being a shrew and the male devolves into a doofus. It happens too often in order to create antagonism and drama in the relationship.
When a girl become a complete hottie after taking off her glasses.
This trope has caused young girls who need glasses to think they are ugly and makes them insecure.
Remember when Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball did a reverse "girl takes her glasses off" trope and still is the only piece of media to ever had done that?
She is a TV weather girl, covering this unique town that gets food from a machine the main guy invented. It uses water, and is up in the air, and it malfunctions.
She is actually smart, but portrays herself as dumb to stay in the industry. The guy realises she has the equipment needed to see what's happening up with his machine, and tells her she'd be better seeing it with her hair up and her glasses on when he realised she's almost blind for reading. THEN he really starts falling for her.
Lot more story than that, but she's rocking the hair up and glasses look by the end.
Are you intentionally quoting Not Another Teen Movie?
If people haven't see it, watch it. That trope shouldn't still exist, as Natm parodied it so fucking well
What bothers me with this trope is that they intentionally cast hot girls, but then make them ugly by giving them really dorky thick rimmed glasses, braces, unflattering clothing, and a bad hairstyle, but then suddenly, at the film's climax, she takes off her glasses, gets her braces removed, let's her hair down, and puts on a nice dress and *GASP* she was beautiful all along!
As a guy who's struggled with this kind of body insecurity, I wish I could be good looking with that little effort put in.
Also glasses and braces exist for a reason. It's not like people WANT braces, it's just something you have to deal with if you want nice teeth. And if you don't want glasses you either have to deal with putting in contacts on a daily basis or pay thousands for LASIK.
Hero mindlessly slaughters 100 henchmen before getting to the Boss.
"Oh, I can't kill the Boss, or I would be just as evil as him!"
What about those 100 henchmen you just murdered?
Henchmen attacking the hero one at a time. Im not some diehard fan of realism, I too want to see cool awesome action hero do cool awesome action things, including defeating hordes of foes by himself. But at least make it LOOK believable. Did fight coreographers even see a real life fight where multiple people fought one person? They all jump at the same fucking time. No real street thug, no matter how dumb he is would wait for his turn, or take turns.
When someone is drugged with a dart or a cloth over their mouth or an injection, and they collapse within a micro-second. Sedatives don't work that way.
No one ending conversations with a goodbye.
Like, I get it, it is a pacing thing. But once you realize no one does it, you can't help but picture the guy on the other end like, "Hello? Hello? Oh, okay, fuck you too, then".
Mother /wife makes a hot breakfast for 5… all characters sit in front of their bacon /eggs/pancakes/coffee/juice .. barely take a bite .. then rush off to school /work leaving their plates full. All that work for nothing and they starve !
Character has headache, ingests dozens of pills at once and chews them like a bunch of skittles.
Don‘t do that. Best case scenario, they taste weird or chalky. Kinda bad case, pill gets stuck in your throat or your oesophagus. Drink some water with your pills. Worst case, you broke the coating and your medicine will get destroyed in your stomach and does nothing or only produces unintended effects; or gets released all at once, essentially giving you a massive, bursty overdose.
If your pills/tablets are meant to be chewed, they will explicitly say so on the box.
I don’t know if this counts as a trope but:
*Character knocks on door. Leaves it for 2 seconds and proceeds to knock harder and faster*
I’m not sure if the writers have just never knocked or answered a door but they seem to think if you don’t teleport to it immediately it means someone isn’t home.
Unnatural dialogue, like they have a ton of pop culture references at the ready. Or they just talk super fast to make it seem more witty. “Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do”.
When the girl on the room escapes her attacker by hitting over the head with a lamp, he falls to the ground unconscious and his gun is next to him, but she runs to the other room to check if her dog is ok instead of tying up her attacker and taking his gun
100% has to be the “revealing the killer” moment on certain crime shows….
Absolutely pointless to sit 5-6 characters around a table or in a room and keep jabbing backwards and forwards until someone confesses or it being painfully obvious who the killer is and still playing on it like it’s a huge reveal.
Cases in point:
Murder she wrote
Death in paradise
Death in Paradise is at least self aware about this. When the detective changed from Ben Miller’s character to Kris Marshall’s, when the first case was solved one of the policemen says something along the lines of “What now chief? Gather all the suspects together in one place?”, to which Kris Marshall’s character replies, “No, why on earth would I do that?”.
This was asked a few days ago & my answer is the same. It bugs me when a pregnant woman's water breaks & they immediately start wailing & writhing in pain.
It doesn't work like that. There's no intense pain when your water breaks. The average time between water breaking & contractions starting is 8-12 hours. Obviously this varies by every woman but water breaking *naturally* & immediate contractions starting doesn't happen.
Characters dislike each other from the start. Conflict continues to grow until the inevitable fight. When the fight reaches its apex they suddenly grab each other, kiss, and then start clawing each other’s clothes off in a mad dash to the nearest bed.
Crime shows where the real culprit is always revealed in the last two minutes of the show. It makes every other attempt at a red herring boring and unbelievable, because you immediately know the show won’t reveal the real culprit until the end. It’s like:
Me: “Oh they’re arresting the dad? Looks like he’s the one who did it…” *checks time* “Nah, it can’t be him because there’s nine more minutes until the show ends.”
Show: *delivers plot twist in the last couple minutes where it turns out the real killer was actually the daughter*
Me: “…Yup, figured“
Just kills all dramatic tension. Law & Order always had a great format because you never know in that show…they could arrest the killer within the last few minutes, but they might also arrest the killer in the first few minutes, with the real drama surrounding the trial. It makes for way more actual suspense.
The unstoppable villain who at the end of the show suddenly is beaten without really anything changing, just the plot needs to end so the villain loses.
Moody teen loner who plays by his own rules and gets a hard time from bullies but who ultimately ends up knocking them senseless and then gets the girl whose prior relationship with one of those bullies is revealed to be both superficial and problematic but who now experiences real love with brooding sensitive boy, who is revealed to have a heart of gold underneath it all, despite his tragic upbringing.
That annoys me too, sonetimes, when there is no presumption of regularity and/or familiarity with characters. Like, if I see somebody go to a bar and I don't really know them, or the bartender, the broad "beer" request annoys me, though I understand the need of not wanting to promote a non-sponsor during a narrative.
However, if it were... say Norm on Cheers, or there was a safe bet that the bartender and customer should know one another, I can suspend disbelief in that specification isn't necessary, as the bartender may know what sort of beer the person prefers/wants.
Similarly, if a regular customer were to stop at a gas station and tell the clerk they want a pack of smokes, I can more easily suspend that disbelief and presume the clerk knows what the regular smokes, especially having personal experience in that regard.
Historical fighter XY opens his shield cover with each sword strike and a sword pierces his plate armor. His plate armor... which is made to withstand swords. Knights were walking tanks. I instantly hate every movie which does this.
Attorney here, we actually do that if you have a trial coming up or some other reason to be stuck in the office past 6. It may not be specifically Chinese food, I think that's a carry over from when it was only Chinese and Pizza restaurants did delivery.
Edit: though I will say Chinese has to be the most popular, maybe because it's the main form of takeout where you can get some vegetables too, idk. The Chinese place near my law school had to be raking in cash during exam season, when there were typically still plenty of cars in the law school parking lot at midnight most nights.
Two tropes jump to mind.
Whenever they want to establish a character is smart, then they came from Harvard. There are other excellent schools.
Two straight characters of the same gender pretend to be a gay couple to get a
couples discount. The management does not believe them until they start bickering. Apparently, because bickering is the defining characteristic of a relationship.
It has always annoyed me that characters in TV shows will go to a bar or a coffee shop and order a drink and then leave either without drinking it or after just a sip or two. Who does that?
Exposition dump dropped into casual dialogue.
"Of course he's done that, he is my brother and his father's son after all, and I would know since I basically raised him after our mother died and we had to fend for ourselves in Vermont where we lived until he moved away for work. Anyway..."
We're not idiots, we can fill in the gaps if you give us enough to work with.
Evil or morally grey character sees the light and then immediately sacrifices themselves as "redemption".
No, dude, "redemption" is sticking around and cleaning up your mess. You still took the easy way out.
The "wife is always right" trope. For example, Deborah in Everybody Loved Raymond set a time to go out with Raymond and, instead of going, she decided to try put a curl in her hair, which she never did before and it made her unable to go. Raymond was then in the dog house for HER breaking the very rule SHE AGREED TO. The Wife Is Right trope just justifies shitty behaviour cos the wife is always right even when she's most certainly in the wrong. She could burn the house down and, somehow, it'd be the husband's fault, it's a bad trope and only worked when the wife wasn't an active part of the problem.
Meanwhile, you have shows like My Wife And Kids where the wife can be right but she's also just as wrong as the husband. I genuinely loved that show because neither the man nor woman were perfect, they were both morons at the best of times and it played out beautifully.
The men can be fallible, but the women need to be just as fallible too, otherwise you just make the relationship look incredibly hostile and toxic and it's just not funny.
The dramatic childbirth scenes with the over-the-top Lamaze breathing and/or woman shrieking in pain (bonus points if she yells at her partner for “doing this to her”).
When a character talks in a gobbledygook language and everyone understands them perfectly and the character understands the normal talking people perfectly.
Gliblabanaka!
You’re right! The coffee IS pretty bad!
I have the same thing with One Direction Phone Calls where someone unnaturally repeats what the other person we can’t hear says instead of talking normally.
“So what you’re saying is you want to meet at the bar this evening and scope things out?”
I’ve heard this called the Lassie Trope.
Bark bark!
What’s that?! Timmy’s in the well?!
I HATE that shit.
Boomhauer isn’t even speaking gibberish. His is a very real accent I have heard IRL and can even understand. It’s most prevalent in the backwoods parts of East Texas.
Artificial drama through hidden time jumps. E.g.
The bank robbers enter the vault - the police are pulling up outside.
The bank robbers start cutting into the safe - the police are running up the stairs.
The bank robbers are starting to grab the money - the police burst through the doors...
.....and find an empty room! Because the robbers left long before the police ever showed up.
Fuck off with that fake drama BS.
I hate how moms in movies are portrayed as such walkovers and treated with so much disrespect. But the behaviour is never called out for being wrong. She will bring sandwiches and cookies up to her childs bedroom and get chased away. Or she will make a massive breakfast spread with pancakes and fruit and bacon, and everyone just rushes past, because they not hungry.
minor misunderstanding + lack of communication = major conflict
It 2x worse when the characters are in a will they won't they relationship. Cause this shit happens right before they get together just to keep them apart for several more season.
The drama keeps people invested. I'm more of a fan of they do, and then the show focuses on something else more interesting than "will these two fuck"
I guess that makes sense, but I’ve always felt like if characters don’t stay together due to minor misunderstandings, then they shouldn’t be together at all. Find someone else who won’t act all dramatic over a small misunderstanding.
It's especially annoying because usually it would be incredibly easy to interject and explain, but the person doesn't say a word. It's such a lazy excuse for storytelling.
it's wild how SO MANY classic sitcom story lines like this have been rendered unbelievable/absurd due to the ubiquitous existence of cell phones.
[удалено]
“Wait, I can explain!” >other person for some reason never lets them communicate at all because it would destroy the paper thin plot that depends on no one being allowed to talk it through for ten seconds
Or instead of explaining, they dance around asking for a chance to explain, saying how important it is they tell the other person something, how the other person really needs to hear what they have to say... JUST FUCKING SPIT IT OUT AND SAY IT THEN
But, then we wouldn't have had Three's Company.
Protagonist is facing a complex problem in the main story line, then on an unrelated secondary story line, usually a family or friend problem, the protagonist has an eureka moment and finds the solution to the main problem. -wait a second, you said pancakes!? Of course! *frantically looks through papers* that’s why the cancer treatment is not working! You are genius Mark! Sorry I have to run now.
As much as I loved watching House, this happened so often. It's not the only show I've seen do it but I reckon at least 60-70% of the shows episodes had at least one eureka moment based on something said to House.
At least in House they do it openly. They call them “epiphanies” and everyone seems as annoyed and incredulous as you are.
In a similar vein, and in this case pancakes, usually goes something like: Protagonist: "I just can't figure out how to save the planet!" Supporting Character: "Man I sure could go for some pancakes! With syrup, heck yeah." P: "Wait wait wait, say that again." \*thinking\* SC: "I said heck yeah." P: "No no, the other thing, what was it..." SC: "Syrup?" P: "No no, the other thing!" SC: "Pancakes?" P: "Yes that's it, SC you're a genius!"
SpongeBob: Patrick, say that again. Patrick: That again. SpongeBob: No, the other thing. Patrick: No, the other thing. SpongeBob: No, what you said before when you-- Patrick: No, what you said before when you... SpongeBob: Never mind! I've got an idea. Patrick: Never mind! I've got an idea.
This is the part I can’t stand. The “say that again” gag. Like, you already had the revelation. Why do you need them to say it again?
You mean, the entire Dr House series? Lol
When the character drowns or their heart stops, and another character tries to resuscitate them. They keep going and another character tells them “it’s too late, he’s gone” and they keep going, crying. Finally they give up, thirty seconds pass, and then dead character coughs and is suddenly alive again! I just feel like it’s so overly done I could just fast forward 5 minutes once I see them begin mouth to mouth.
And any CPR, "LIVE DAMMIT!" scene like that. If you've ever seen someone resuscitated from CPR, you'd know the first thing they do is: lie there until transported to a hospital for several days or more of recovery.
Giving up during CPR, period. No matter how long it's been, you keep going until EMTs arrive.
Remember Lost? Jack's a doctor whose specialty was punching someone in the chest and screaming in their face. >!That's how he saved Charlie after they found him hanging in the woods.!<
The nagging killjoy sitcom wife and the incompetent moronic sitcom husband.
One of the reasons I love Bob's Burgers so much. Bob and Linda genuinely love each other and they're both competent and work together to parent and run the restaurant
Well.. both *semi*\-competent.
True, but I meant it more like most sitcom dads have "useless" as like a cornerstone of their character and Bob isn't like that. Of course they all get into hijinks but being incompetent isn't his defining trait
Hey, I’d like to introduce you to my friends Bob and Linda Burger
That's your name, right? Bob Burgers?
I’ve seen the moronic, doltish husband make its way to a TON of commercials. It’s like if the company wants to market to women over 35, they immediately make the husband stupid in the commercial. And the wife comes in to save the day (of course by using their product).
I hate it when commercials show men as incompetent parents. Most dudes with kids know how to change a diaper without help from the mom.
Ah the nagging wife - One of these days, Alice...
Domestic violence used to print money from what I can tell about the golden years of television.
In the context of the Honeymooners, while still a troublesome trope, it didn't come across the way some might think. Everybody knew he wouldn't dare and the smart money would've been on Alice winning that fight. But to your point, you're not wrong. It was "a different time".
Alice was always correct. Ralph always admitted it. Alice never backed away because she knew Ralph was a Teddy bear. They threw insults at each other equally. You want misogyny? Burns and Allen.
I do adore the Honeymooners. She knew not to take him seriously and they both legitimately were crazy about each other.
"That's not an astronaut; he's a TV comedian. And he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife."
My opinion of the worst killjoy, controlling, selfish wife was a tie between Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond, and Patricia Richardson from Home Improvement. The battle of the Patricias...
She was so cold and I would always hate her in scenes with Raymond and then when the parents would visit I’d feel terribly sorry for her and her existence. it’s the only reason that show worked cause Debra and Ray alone were very unlikable characters
Don't forget that he at the same time basically is the most confident guy in the world that has literally no doubt in himself when doing practically anything himself, including things he has never done before.
His looks are also mediocre, at best, while his wife is drop dead gorgeous.
Man dumb is funny. Woman smart is good. Keep show going. Many laughter.
This is the exact plot of dozens of sitcoms throughout the decades
If you haven't seen it, watch "Kevin Can Fuck Himself." Turns that trope right on its head.
You can say Kevin James, it's okay
The Star Trek Resolution - Huge, complex problems that in some cases go back centuries can be resolved in the last ten minutes of a one hour show.
I think this is more of a problem in the later Star Trek which are supposed to be more "realistic". The original series made no presence to be realistic and a main purpose was to do topics that wouldn't be allowed on TV undisguised at that time. It's often theatrical, allegorical. Consider "The Day of the Dove" where the crew, and some Klingons, are trapped into endless war. Kirk has a line containing the words "stop the war now" in the middle of a sentence and Shatner deliberately pauses to turn it into a separate sentence. Vietnam, of course. One thing younger viewers don't get is that there was no home recording or DVD and if you missed an episode it was forever. Hence you have to resolve a story in one episode
Someone doesn't remember the "to be continued..." cliffhangers of old shows.
They handled this pretty well in the orville I'd say. The show has been written really well.
While i agree, the entire idea behind sending a second star ship after the Enterprise for "second contact" was absolutely brilliant.
I hope Lower Decks gets 10 seasons.
Really have enjoyed The Orville, but man they really lost the humor in the third season.
I was okay with that. Seth MacFarlane obviously wanted to make a show just like one from the Silver Age of Star Trek all along, and in the third season he got to do it.
“Space conflicts hate this one weird trick!”
Read Red Shirts by John Calzi, it's funny. The red shirts people realize they are in a tv show and they are the only ones dying... Edit: John Scalzi*
* hero is distancing themselves from their loved ones to protect them * hero finally realizes they can't protect their loved ones by distancing themselves from them, let's them back into their life * hero's loved one immediately dies
Every Spider-Man ever made.
This is why people in the Spider-Man sub voted for Peter B. Parker as their favorite Spider-Man awhile back. He doesn't have that
Outside of the Spider-Verse so far.
I am tired of all the "memory loss" arcs/storylines. "Frank hit his head repairing a light fixture. Let's take him to a doctor and then immediately dig up his past to jog his memory! Haha silly Frank looks like you have your memory back!"
"Frank? Oh, you mean my doppelganger I killed back in '95...oops."
Characters making dumb/out of character choices to advance the plot
I am re-watching X-Files and this is literally just about every episode. Scully will get suplexed by a ghost and be just staring there like "wtf ghosts ARE real" and then 2 scenes later she'll be like "don't be ridiculous Mulder there's no scientific proof that bowling balls exist". /the show is still extremely fun to watch
It's cool the way they set up Scully and Mulder as a non believer, and a die hard believer, but with everything Scully went through and saw, it stopped making sense very quick.
X files was always Scully saying, "what do you think it is, Mulder?" Then saying that his idea is impossible. Later in the show, she'd, IDK, bend over to tie her shoe, and a moonman would jump out from behind a trash can and explain everything. "Sorry, Mulder. I missed it. Maybe I'll catch it next week!" /But it was still a cool show
It used to be the main characters always getting first place
I'm watching Boston Legal, and they straight up never lose a case, no matter how guilty their client is. Also, judges in Boston can just disregard the law and constitution and make their own rules.
I remember a lot of cartoons having this problem. As a kid, I found Rocket Power unbearable because the main characters were just so naturally good at literally everything.
One of the main characters is getting married, when organizing the guest list, they learn that their partner is no longer on speaking terms with their parent amd doesn't want them at the wedding. Main character tracks them down and invites them anyways, partner is initially very upset, but reconciles with their parents and thanks the main character for inviting them. One: it's a super shitty thing to do, two: if you're only just learning that they no longer speak to their parents, you don't know them well enough to be getting married. I especially notice this one, because it's something that I hypothetically could have done had my ex and I ever get married, so I can really appreciate what a disrespectful thing it is to do. Another marriage-related one that bugs me is when the batchelor/batchelorette party episode reveals that the couple has no friends of the same gender outside of the cast, who they sometime didn't even know at the time the show started. This is especially noticeable in shows with a workplace setting- so apparently they have no friends outside of work.
When a character gets hit on the head and just falls asleep for hours and then wakes up like nothing happened. In reality if you fall unconscious for more than a minute that means serious brain trauma and requires immediate hospitalization.
No matter the family size, there's only a quart of milk in the fridge.
Smart guy: *Technobabble* Cool guy: IN ENGLISH 😡
125 lb women being able to fight off multiple assailants in hand-to-hand combat. I'm a woman myself and I find that trope so dumb and immersion-breaking. I can suspend my disbelief if it's a one-on-one fight and the woman does something particularly clever to gain the upper hand, but for the most part I just roll my eyes through it. Also, in post-apocalyptic stories, the women too often look like they're wearing makeup and have clean-shaven armpits/legs. Like, the world ended, but women are still raiding the makeup aisles and finding time to shave?? Pleeeeease.
That's what annoys me about the live-action Mulan movie vs the animated one. Animation: A trained fighter is chasing her. She runs for her life and is clearly terrified. Live: Oh, it's a trained fighter 3 times my size? Whatever. Kick - kick - punch, he's defeated.
Animated Mulan is superior in every which way: Animated: normal girl trying and failing to fit in society's expectations of the time, yet her family still love her for who she is, but at the same time are realistic to the time period of what being a woman means in their culture Live: YOU HAVE A POWER BEING REPRESSED AND IT IS BECAUSE MEN!! Animated: Upon joining the army, starts of as realisitically weak and untrained, THE SAME AS HER FELLOW (MALE) SOLDIERS, but through incredible determination, intelligence and hard work rises up to be one of Shang's best soldeirs. Live: YOU HAVE A POWER READY TO BE UNLEASHED AND IT IS BECAUSE FEMALE EMPOWERMENT!!! Animated: Using same determination, intelligence and hard work, is able to defeat the main villain using approriate team work with her fellow soldiers and all the skills she learnt through training, with a combination of realistically stumbling through and finctional badass prowess Live: YOU ARE NOW ABLE TO USE YOUR POWER BECAUSE WITCHES!!
"Giving female leads a GameShark code for infinite health? That's feminism right there" - Some CEO.
As soon as a woman starts an action scene, my wife and I start the timer for when the character will do a flying triangle on her opponent. Hollywood LOVES throwing that move into every action scene with a woman.
I'm pretty sure that's Black Widow's only move.
The first one bugs me a lot. But I also think it's down to very few actresses wanting to bulk up for action roles. One of the reasons I really like Katee Sackhoff in sci fi action is that she looks more like a fighter than Daisy Ridley or Rosario Dawson did.
That's why I loved Atomic Blonde. Even in the behind the scenes bits they made it clear It was like "You're a a 5'9 at a buck twenty, they have half a foot and 50lbs on you. For every one hit these men make you have to do four." or something like that, and they showed her character strategizing, distracting, and using weapons to beat those men. I loved the movie for the BTS parts alone.
>125 lb women being able to fight off multiple assailants in hand-to-hand combat. "I had four older brothers."
Honestly, anyone winning a fight against multiple assailants in hand to hand combat bothers me. I don't care how big or tough or skilled you are, you're not going to beat three or more people in hand to hand combat.
Not unless it's power rangers where the guys attack you one at a time and the others just do backflips until it's their turn.
I used to crackup watching Walker Texas Ranger. The bad guys would form a circle and fight Chuck one at a time.
Same with characters being clocked on the head with a 2×4/baseball bat/lamp/etc. If it's the lead role, they get walloped and just shake it off like it's only a mild inconvenience. If it's an enemy? Instant knock-out that lasts however long it takes for the protagonist to complete some kind of task.
Ever notice in science fiction, how beings from Earth have different skin colour and hair styles? However beings from other planets are representatives of their entire planet and all have the same hairstyles and personalities.
And one singular culture and language for their entire species.
And wear the same outfit.
Or every planet is one biome—desert planet, water planet, etc. Earth has multiple ecosystems… oh, and in that vein, any time someone visits a planet looking for something, everything is conveniently in one place. Like, if you came to Earth for a specific person and found them where you landed vs. on another continent etc.
Mind you, Aliens seem to always end up directly above the White House
It’ll never work “It has to”
"It'll take me 12 hours" "Do it in 2" "Well shit, why didn't i think about just doing it faster? Duh"
Stargate SG-1 would usually play the cliche completely straight, but once this happened: Scientist Guy: I'll need 24 hours. General: You have 12. Scientist Guy: No, sir, it doesn't work that way. 24 hours is the best I can do. Made me chuckle a bit. (For the record, the Science Stuff the guy was doing did in fact take the full 24 hours in-universe.)
Wasn't there a scene in Star Trek: Next Gen, where Scotty says to Geordie something to the effect of "You never tell them how long it will really take. How else are you suppose to look great when it is done faster".
When I was a kid growing up in the 80s-90s, I really hated those recap episodes. It seemed like every sitcom did it. It would be the characters sitting around and having flashbacks to scenes from episodes earlier in the season. Just a glorified rerun advertised as a new episode. Hated that stuff. I don't know if they still do that in modern shows but it was a pain in my ass as a kid.
Clip shows. In the days before streaming and binge-watching, episodes like that were occasionally done to bring new viewers up to speed. Plus, they were cheap to make.
It was also a great way to give everyone a break as your typical clip show is about 7 minutes of new content (if that). Twenty plus episode seasons were apparently akin to a death march.
On the other hand, one of my favorite community episodes is where they make fun of clip shows by doing one with a bunch of scenes that never happened on screen. Community is truly one of the greats.
I think there was usually a reason for it. If I recall correctly, the Scrubs episode like that was because the writers started striking mid-season. Or maybe it was that they blew the budget on one big, expensive episode and had very little left. But yea, during a rewatch I always skip those episodes. That said, I don’t think they ever thought that would make for a good episode. It was basically “fucking hell, we gotta fill 30 minutes of airtime somehow, or the network will be up our asses.”
They're clip shows. They were created both to pad the series for syndication but also to recap episodes as back then, once an episode aired, that was it for a long time (at least until it ran in syndication). Clip shows used to score strong ratings because viewers could revisit some of the funnier moments from the series, something that, at the time, was not common.
We call them Martini Moments. Hawkeye and B.J. sitting in their tent, drinking their homemade booze and reminiscing.
It's like the writers were all sick that week, and needed to make an episode. It wasn't so bad when all you had was cable. But with streaming services, it's like I'm getting a full recap of the episodes I watched over the weekend.
Punching bag character They don't really do anything wrong but are constantly the butt of the joke, annoyed, abused, etc Ex: Squidward, Meg from family guy, Gary/Jerry/Terry from Parks and Rec
I hate this so much, mostly because it reminds me of how I was treated by basically every friend group I was ever part of
Kids fear difference. As I get older I realize that being unafraid of being different is my favorite quality about myself.
Shut up Meg
Garry Jerry Terry, nice one. But of course they gave him a "huge" redemption tho. Also he had Kyle to punch. -dont be so pretentious kyle
I love this one too. My GF and I are huge fans of the show and love the way he got his final send off too. Poor Kyle was the real punching bag of the show.
Male and female protagonists cannot just be good friends or colleagues. They must get romantically involved with one another, then breakup and go through an awkward period. Don’t worry though, they will get back together in no time!
Yes, that or they have to be gay
When there’s extreme time pressure (like a bomb ticking down, collapsing mine, burning building) and the characters decide now is the time to confess their feelings and have a heart to heart chat.
Misunderstandings that cause a conflict that would never have happened if a person was more patient and listened more. Person 1: I can't believe they said that! I will now hate them forever! Person 2: Have you talked to them about it? Person 1: No! I'm so mad, why would I talk to them?! Then at the end they finally meet face to face and realise it was all a big misunderstanding.
It works in stories where the immaturity or lack of social skills is the whole point of the story, like teen dramas and coming of age stories, but when it's a contrivance just so the plot can happen, or as a cheap shortcut to tension and resolution, it's really frustrating.
"I have important information that would clear up this conflict if I told someone, but I can't because reasons."
Not telling people stuff because reasons is tight!
I call it Sabrina Syndrome. A wise figure tells the main character not to do something. It's usually something very reasonable, and obvious. Main character ignores them and does the thing. Things go wrong in pretty much exactly the way that wise figure said it would. Things end up ok in the end often due to just dumb luck. Main character is applauded for saving the day when their actions could have (or did, depending on the story) gotten people killed.
With a few exceptions, the fact that sitcom families are never in any financial problems. All seem to be doing well with nice homes, etc. Couple of exceptions that come to mind would be Roseanne and 2 Broke Girls.
Malcolm in the middle. Arrested Development, ... Love 2 broke girls.
>Couple of exceptions that come to mind would be Roseanne Yet, here in Vancouver, I would kill for a house like in Roseanne! It's a HOUSE, with MULTIPLE BEDROOMS. OMG. That would be like $2M here.
If a sitcom is on long enough, eventually the female gravitates toward being a shrew and the male devolves into a doofus. It happens too often in order to create antagonism and drama in the relationship.
When a girl become a complete hottie after taking off her glasses. This trope has caused young girls who need glasses to think they are ugly and makes them insecure.
Don’t forget removing her ponytail too and letting her hair down.
Remember when Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball did a reverse "girl takes her glasses off" trope and still is the only piece of media to ever had done that?
No, I'm not familiar with that!
She is a TV weather girl, covering this unique town that gets food from a machine the main guy invented. It uses water, and is up in the air, and it malfunctions. She is actually smart, but portrays herself as dumb to stay in the industry. The guy realises she has the equipment needed to see what's happening up with his machine, and tells her she'd be better seeing it with her hair up and her glasses on when he realised she's almost blind for reading. THEN he really starts falling for her. Lot more story than that, but she's rocking the hair up and glasses look by the end.
Are you intentionally quoting Not Another Teen Movie? If people haven't see it, watch it. That trope shouldn't still exist, as Natm parodied it so fucking well
As long as she doesn’t have paint on her overalls
I personally think that girls look better with glasses but then again I'm a guy with glasses as well so...
What bothers me with this trope is that they intentionally cast hot girls, but then make them ugly by giving them really dorky thick rimmed glasses, braces, unflattering clothing, and a bad hairstyle, but then suddenly, at the film's climax, she takes off her glasses, gets her braces removed, let's her hair down, and puts on a nice dress and *GASP* she was beautiful all along! As a guy who's struggled with this kind of body insecurity, I wish I could be good looking with that little effort put in. Also glasses and braces exist for a reason. It's not like people WANT braces, it's just something you have to deal with if you want nice teeth. And if you don't want glasses you either have to deal with putting in contacts on a daily basis or pay thousands for LASIK.
Hero mindlessly slaughters 100 henchmen before getting to the Boss. "Oh, I can't kill the Boss, or I would be just as evil as him!" What about those 100 henchmen you just murdered?
Henchmen attacking the hero one at a time. Im not some diehard fan of realism, I too want to see cool awesome action hero do cool awesome action things, including defeating hordes of foes by himself. But at least make it LOOK believable. Did fight coreographers even see a real life fight where multiple people fought one person? They all jump at the same fucking time. No real street thug, no matter how dumb he is would wait for his turn, or take turns.
When someone is drugged with a dart or a cloth over their mouth or an injection, and they collapse within a micro-second. Sedatives don't work that way.
Infantilized husbands and boyfriends, who can't seem to do much of anything without their big mom wives/GFs helping their little brains out.
5 bad guys shoot hundreds of bullets with machine guns - they hit no one at all...cops fire 5 bullets and kill 5 bad guys....
Always getting a parking spot right in front of wherever you are going in the city.
No one ending conversations with a goodbye. Like, I get it, it is a pacing thing. But once you realize no one does it, you can't help but picture the guy on the other end like, "Hello? Hello? Oh, okay, fuck you too, then".
Hot sassy wife who is married to dumb selfish man. King of Queens I’m looking at you.
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Why Modern Family though? Jay isn’t dumb and Phil isn’t selfish
Mother /wife makes a hot breakfast for 5… all characters sit in front of their bacon /eggs/pancakes/coffee/juice .. barely take a bite .. then rush off to school /work leaving their plates full. All that work for nothing and they starve !
Will they/won't they. We all know they will, just get it over it
Dumb fat dad with a smart hot wife.
Character has headache, ingests dozens of pills at once and chews them like a bunch of skittles. Don‘t do that. Best case scenario, they taste weird or chalky. Kinda bad case, pill gets stuck in your throat or your oesophagus. Drink some water with your pills. Worst case, you broke the coating and your medicine will get destroyed in your stomach and does nothing or only produces unintended effects; or gets released all at once, essentially giving you a massive, bursty overdose. If your pills/tablets are meant to be chewed, they will explicitly say so on the box.
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The "dumb dad" trope. C'mon, I know it's common but it gives the impression that every single dad in the world is like that.
I don’t know if this counts as a trope but: *Character knocks on door. Leaves it for 2 seconds and proceeds to knock harder and faster* I’m not sure if the writers have just never knocked or answered a door but they seem to think if you don’t teleport to it immediately it means someone isn’t home.
Dumb husband/man of the house
Unnatural dialogue, like they have a ton of pop culture references at the ready. Or they just talk super fast to make it seem more witty. “Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do”.
The hip, smart and young bipoc female who has to explain the new hip product or service to the bumbling idiot white male.
And the 9yo with the 35yo personality. Soooo tired.
When the girl on the room escapes her attacker by hitting over the head with a lamp, he falls to the ground unconscious and his gun is next to him, but she runs to the other room to check if her dog is ok instead of tying up her attacker and taking his gun
Tough guys who are loners that just don't give a damn...but also apparently regularly have their whole body waxed.
100% has to be the “revealing the killer” moment on certain crime shows…. Absolutely pointless to sit 5-6 characters around a table or in a room and keep jabbing backwards and forwards until someone confesses or it being painfully obvious who the killer is and still playing on it like it’s a huge reveal. Cases in point: Murder she wrote Death in paradise
Death in Paradise is at least self aware about this. When the detective changed from Ben Miller’s character to Kris Marshall’s, when the first case was solved one of the policemen says something along the lines of “What now chief? Gather all the suspects together in one place?”, to which Kris Marshall’s character replies, “No, why on earth would I do that?”.
Why tf do people always leave doors open? Like they walk into thier house and they leave the door open... l don't get it even from an in universe view
Moron dads.
This was asked a few days ago & my answer is the same. It bugs me when a pregnant woman's water breaks & they immediately start wailing & writhing in pain. It doesn't work like that. There's no intense pain when your water breaks. The average time between water breaking & contractions starting is 8-12 hours. Obviously this varies by every woman but water breaking *naturally* & immediate contractions starting doesn't happen.
Swinging kitchen doors
Teenaged daughters always being so much shorter than their mothers, especially when they also have tall dads.
The very average looking husband who it also on the thick side. With the smoking hot, intelligent wife.
Men beating the granny out of each other, then when they finish they have a little cut on their lip.
Ubiquitous squealing microphone. If there’s a scene with a microphone, there will be a microphone squeal.
Characters dislike each other from the start. Conflict continues to grow until the inevitable fight. When the fight reaches its apex they suddenly grab each other, kiss, and then start clawing each other’s clothes off in a mad dash to the nearest bed.
Crime shows where the real culprit is always revealed in the last two minutes of the show. It makes every other attempt at a red herring boring and unbelievable, because you immediately know the show won’t reveal the real culprit until the end. It’s like: Me: “Oh they’re arresting the dad? Looks like he’s the one who did it…” *checks time* “Nah, it can’t be him because there’s nine more minutes until the show ends.” Show: *delivers plot twist in the last couple minutes where it turns out the real killer was actually the daughter* Me: “…Yup, figured“ Just kills all dramatic tension. Law & Order always had a great format because you never know in that show…they could arrest the killer within the last few minutes, but they might also arrest the killer in the first few minutes, with the real drama surrounding the trial. It makes for way more actual suspense.
All the dads are doofuses. Or they’re dumpy with hot wives.
The unstoppable villain who at the end of the show suddenly is beaten without really anything changing, just the plot needs to end so the villain loses.
Characters not wanting kids, get kids and all of a sudden realize that's what they wanted all along.
That men who work in construction are all uneducated cat calling pigs.
Moody teen loner who plays by his own rules and gets a hard time from bullies but who ultimately ends up knocking them senseless and then gets the girl whose prior relationship with one of those bullies is revealed to be both superficial and problematic but who now experiences real love with brooding sensitive boy, who is revealed to have a heart of gold underneath it all, despite his tragic upbringing.
Someone ordering a "beer" and receiving a "beer."
That annoys me too, sonetimes, when there is no presumption of regularity and/or familiarity with characters. Like, if I see somebody go to a bar and I don't really know them, or the bartender, the broad "beer" request annoys me, though I understand the need of not wanting to promote a non-sponsor during a narrative. However, if it were... say Norm on Cheers, or there was a safe bet that the bartender and customer should know one another, I can suspend disbelief in that specification isn't necessary, as the bartender may know what sort of beer the person prefers/wants. Similarly, if a regular customer were to stop at a gas station and tell the clerk they want a pack of smokes, I can more easily suspend that disbelief and presume the clerk knows what the regular smokes, especially having personal experience in that regard.
Historical fighter XY opens his shield cover with each sword strike and a sword pierces his plate armor. His plate armor... which is made to withstand swords. Knights were walking tanks. I instantly hate every movie which does this.
I love it when a sword pierces several layers of mail and then comes out the other side which means it pierces them twice, lol.
I am allergic to the picture you have painted.
Shots of lawyers working late and eating Chinese food with chopsticks directly from the carton.
Attorney here, we actually do that if you have a trial coming up or some other reason to be stuck in the office past 6. It may not be specifically Chinese food, I think that's a carry over from when it was only Chinese and Pizza restaurants did delivery. Edit: though I will say Chinese has to be the most popular, maybe because it's the main form of takeout where you can get some vegetables too, idk. The Chinese place near my law school had to be raking in cash during exam season, when there were typically still plenty of cars in the law school parking lot at midnight most nights.
Two tropes jump to mind. Whenever they want to establish a character is smart, then they came from Harvard. There are other excellent schools. Two straight characters of the same gender pretend to be a gay couple to get a couples discount. The management does not believe them until they start bickering. Apparently, because bickering is the defining characteristic of a relationship.
It has always annoyed me that characters in TV shows will go to a bar or a coffee shop and order a drink and then leave either without drinking it or after just a sip or two. Who does that?
Exposition dump dropped into casual dialogue. "Of course he's done that, he is my brother and his father's son after all, and I would know since I basically raised him after our mother died and we had to fend for ourselves in Vermont where we lived until he moved away for work. Anyway..." We're not idiots, we can fill in the gaps if you give us enough to work with.
Evil or morally grey character sees the light and then immediately sacrifices themselves as "redemption". No, dude, "redemption" is sticking around and cleaning up your mess. You still took the easy way out.
The "wife is always right" trope. For example, Deborah in Everybody Loved Raymond set a time to go out with Raymond and, instead of going, she decided to try put a curl in her hair, which she never did before and it made her unable to go. Raymond was then in the dog house for HER breaking the very rule SHE AGREED TO. The Wife Is Right trope just justifies shitty behaviour cos the wife is always right even when she's most certainly in the wrong. She could burn the house down and, somehow, it'd be the husband's fault, it's a bad trope and only worked when the wife wasn't an active part of the problem. Meanwhile, you have shows like My Wife And Kids where the wife can be right but she's also just as wrong as the husband. I genuinely loved that show because neither the man nor woman were perfect, they were both morons at the best of times and it played out beautifully. The men can be fallible, but the women need to be just as fallible too, otherwise you just make the relationship look incredibly hostile and toxic and it's just not funny.
Computer hacker nerd with sarcastic tone and usually skinny.
The dramatic childbirth scenes with the over-the-top Lamaze breathing and/or woman shrieking in pain (bonus points if she yells at her partner for “doing this to her”).
“I wrote to you every day. Why didn’t you reply?” “What letters?” Gives me an anger headache and sad.
White guy is super dumb in every Black show.
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When people have a quickie in a supply closet and just walk out to go back to work right after
When a character talks in a gobbledygook language and everyone understands them perfectly and the character understands the normal talking people perfectly. Gliblabanaka! You’re right! The coffee IS pretty bad! I have the same thing with One Direction Phone Calls where someone unnaturally repeats what the other person we can’t hear says instead of talking normally. “So what you’re saying is you want to meet at the bar this evening and scope things out?” I’ve heard this called the Lassie Trope. Bark bark! What’s that?! Timmy’s in the well?! I HATE that shit.
Boomhauer and Chewbacca are my responses to this one
Those worked extra well since sometimes even the other characters would misunderstand them.
Boomhauer isn’t even speaking gibberish. His is a very real accent I have heard IRL and can even understand. It’s most prevalent in the backwoods parts of East Texas.
Woman vomits = pregnant. So overdone.
Artificial drama through hidden time jumps. E.g. The bank robbers enter the vault - the police are pulling up outside. The bank robbers start cutting into the safe - the police are running up the stairs. The bank robbers are starting to grab the money - the police burst through the doors... .....and find an empty room! Because the robbers left long before the police ever showed up. Fuck off with that fake drama BS.
Nerdy Asian who serves as a sidekick to the white main protagonist.
Mentalist did the opposite.. White guy was the funny one while the Korean one was the badass
Goofy black guy who serves as a sidekick to the white main protagonist.
Temporary amnesia
Dream sequences that change any course of the plot going forward. Married with Children, you get a big pass!
When held at gunpoint asking the gunman to "please do it, put me out of my misery etc" renders them physically unable to fire.
Power of friendship
The wife doesn’t want sex. I’m my experience Al Bundy is closer to reality than any other show that depicts how much men and women want sex.
I hate how moms in movies are portrayed as such walkovers and treated with so much disrespect. But the behaviour is never called out for being wrong. She will bring sandwiches and cookies up to her childs bedroom and get chased away. Or she will make a massive breakfast spread with pancakes and fruit and bacon, and everyone just rushes past, because they not hungry.