History UnbuiltTrope / LiveActionTV

** [[invoked]] A commonplace trope in ''Star Trek'' fanfiction is the MarySue - a guest character who appears in a story set in a familiar franchise, and proceeds to wow everyone with his or her superior talents, impresses the Captain, and often enjoys a romantic interlude with one of the established characters. It was in fact a Trek fanfic story from 1973 which introduced the term Mary-Sue, although the term quickly spread beyond Trek. Wesley Crusher is a Canon Example of such a character, being 15 like the prototype. Star Trek itself had an excellent analysis and deconstruction of this concept, ''in the second episode ever broadcast''. In the 1966 episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E2CharlieX Charlie X]]", Charlie is a 17-year-old who is roundly praised by the characters introducing him, just like they would a Mary-Sue. He has amazing talents, just like a Mary-Sue. But he has limited social skills, and his attempts to deal with Janice Rand as a 'girl' go as you might expect, despite her patience. Kirk, far from being wowed by him or his talents, tries his best to steer his behaviour. In the end it is realised that he can't function in society so is removed from it, back to the aliens who gave him his powers. If this was made today, it would look exactly like a deconstruction of the concept of Mary-Sue, showing what would really happen if a superhuman came aboard and tried to run the ship himself. But this was seven years before Mary-Sue was invented.

* It's a common trope in many sitcoms revolving around an ensemble of friends for two of them to become a couple or even get married and live together in the apartment where the group spend most of their time, but for the roommate who was living with one of them to continue to live with them. Examples include Ted, Marshall and Lily in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''; JD, Turk and Carla in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''; and Leonard, Penny and Sheldon in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. However in ''Series/{{Friends}}'', the show that largely codified the format, when Chandler moves in with Monica they are both shocked that Rachel assumes she will continue to live in the apartment with them and spend most of the episode trying to think of a way to tactfully ask her to move out.

* ''Series/FawltyTowers'' is the TropeNamer for a [[FawltyTowersPlot plot built on a web of lies that implodes]]. Basil Fawlty shows what kind of person would need to tell lies compulsively: a very unpleasant, if comical, nutcase who is unable to accept criticism or responsibility for his actions and must lie to cope with a fragile go. However, the show frequently demonstrates why these kind of antics only make his life worse:

** [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"]], with its famously chilling TwistEnding, would be a {{deconstruction}} of [[spoiler:''Franchise/ToyStory'']] if it hadn't come out three decades before it. The old question of [[spoiler:"what happens to sentient toys when they're abandoned by their owner?"]] isn't just an unsettling bit of FridgeHorror — it's the entire premise. [[spoiler:Five dolls, who aren't aware that they're dolls, wake up in a Salvation Army bin with no way of knowing where they are or how they got there, and the entire episode follows them slowly going insane as they futilely try to escape.]]
** The episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number Twelve Looks Just Like You]]" is an absolutely vicious take on the UnnecessaryMakeover trope. It posits a world where, as soon as children reach adulthood, they're expected to alter their appearance into one of a small number of acceptable bodies. The protagonist is a teenage girl who resists this social pressure, and is ultimately forced into it, and brainwashed so that her personality is more socially acceptable as well. It would seem like a brutal takedown on the modern culture of casual cosmetic surgery and the many "makeover shows" that encourage it, except that it was made in 1963.
** [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E126LivingDoll "Living Doll"]] can now look a little odd to those who've only seen parodies or films which took from the same idea like the Chucky films or Annabelle. For a start, Talky Tina isn't torturing Erich just for fun nor is she malevolent to everyone, seeing herself as a guardian for his stepdaughter Christie with whom Erich has a tense, volatile relationship due to Christie acting as a reminder of his inability to father children. The story is less about jump scares and more about the psychological tension of Erich being pushed to breaking point by Tina and the story even leaves it ambiguous if Tina is actually malevolent and sentient or Erich is simply hallucinating the whole thing until the very end. Even when Tina does kill him, she doesn't do it directly, simply placing herself at the top of the stairs and causing Erich to slip and break his neck.
** [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife "It's A Good Life"]] is one of the most famous episodes and was the inspiration for many later horror stories with kids as the antagonist, most famously ''Film/TheOmen1976''. But Anthony is quite different from many of those he inspired. Unlike later works where the kids are [[CreepyChild as creepy as possible]] or [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior knowingly manipulative and sadistic]], Anthony is portrayed as a relatively normal kid who honestly thinks he's helping everyone around him with what he does and his mood swings and self-centeredness are normal for a kid his age. It's just that combined with his powers, they lead him to do awful stuff to those he deems bad. The horror of the story is not that Anthony is a born monster who enjoys hurting people but how terrifying such powers would be when possessed by even a well-meaning kid who simply can't use them responsibly and whose parents are too frightened to discipline him.