Line #35 SerialEscalation/LiveActionTV


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2	* ''Series/TwentyFour'':
3	** How [[GambitRoulette bad a day]] can Jack Bauer save us from this season? What plots will the terrorist pull this season? Assassinate the president? Steal a nuclear bomb? Unleash a devastating virus? Or many cannisters of nerve gas? How will Jack Bauer kill them? Shooting them with a gun? [[GunsAkimbo Two guns?]] Run on the wall while simultaneously snapping their necks? With a ''cell phone?!'' Biting their necks out?!?!
4	** How many people will Jack [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique torture]] using {{Improvised Weapon}}s this season? How [[ColdBloodedTorture Cold Blooded]] will that torture get? Terrorists, diplomats, his own family?
5	** All that, and Jack never has to eat or go to the bathroom. Ever.
6	*** And how many traitors can appear in these 24 hours?
7	*** How many times can we put Jack Bauer through shitloads of physical and emotional torture and suffering until he's completely broken and either puts a gun to his own head or just snaps and goes postal?
8	* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': When Coulson is speaking with Cal, who knows more about the artifact he's chasing, he asks if it's as powerful as the Tesseract (an Infinity Stone, and one of the six most powerful objects in existence). Cal says yes... [[SubvertedTrope before admitting he doesn't actually know what the Tesseract is]]. In the end, the artifact is important and dangerous, but nowhere near the scale of an Infinity Stone.
9	* The annual crossovers set in the ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'' have been gradually getting larger in scope with each installment.
10	** 2014, ''Series/FlashVSArrow'': The two episodes (one apiece for ''Series/{{The Flash 2014}}'' and ''Series/{{Arrow}}'') are mostly self-contained and have no impact on each other.
11	** 2015, ''Series/HeroesJoinForces'': This time around it's an actual two-parter, with the Arrow episode taking place directly after the Flash crossover, and sets up the next series ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow''.
12	** 2016, ''Series/Invasion2016'': a three-part epic in which Team Flash, Team Arrow, the Legends and ''Series/Supergirl2015'' have to repel an AlienInvasion.
13	** 2017, ''Series/CrisisOnEarthX'': Unlike last year, '''all four shows''' have an episode dedicated to the event (when previously ''Supergirl'' was only a RedSkiesCrossover), plus a few newcomers from ''WesternAnimation/FreedomFightersTheRay'' making their debut. It details the wedding between ''The Flash'' OfficialCouple Barry Allen and Iris West, only for the ceremony to be interrupted by parallel-Earth Nazis.
14	** 2018, ''Series/Elseworlds2018'': This one scales back to three episodes, leaving the Legends out, but '''Superman''' makes his crossover debut and Batwoman is introduced in anticipation of her own show. While previous crossovers were fairly self-contained, this one is clearly stated to be a trial run for a ''crisis'' that's just around the corner...
15	** 2019, ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019'': The one they've been building to for years, featuring a threat to the entire multiverse that brings in cameos from across decades of DC film and television history. Black Lightning makes his crossover debut, [[spoiler: '''Ezra Miller's Flash from the Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse''' makes a cameo]], and it ends with the current CW DC shows becoming a MergedReality to make future crossovers that much easier.
16	** Each season of ''Series/{{The Flash 2014}}'' thus far have their main villains reaching new levels of speed and different ways to foil Barry.
17	*** Reverse Flash could go so fast he could appear to be at 2 places at once. As his name suggests his costume is a darker inverse of Barry's costume.
18	*** Zoom can rip portals into different earths through pure power. His suit is a black version of Barry's suit with a demonic cowl.
19	*** Savitar is InvisibleToNormals, can go so fast he seems to be teleporting. His armor is silver and is about 8 feet tall with blades coming out of his wrists.
20	** The BigBad of the first season of ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' was ComicBook/VandalSavage who other than being completely immortal was mostly a BadassNormal, then in season 2 they were fighting a LegionOfDoom led by [[SuperSpeed evil speedster]] and super genius Eobard Thawn / The Reverse Flash, when they defeated them they unleashed an EldritchAbomination and when they defeated him they unleashed a whole prison [[GenreShift filling history with fantastic creatures]] with the implication that they're saving the worst for last. In this case it could be argued that as the villains are getting more powerful so are the hero's since in this time they've added members higher on the SuperPowerLottery such as [[Franchise/TheFlash Wally West]] and ComicBook/JohnConstantine.
21	* ''Series/TheATeam'': How many rounds of ammunition can they [[ATeamFiring pointlessly waste]] today? How many cars/jeeps/trucks will flip over? Will they destroy more property than in the last episode? Can Murdock's latest delusion be any funnier and/or more ridiculous than the last one?
22	* In ''Series/AuctionKings'', Occasionally [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]], when a piece comes in that is a more extreme version of something they previously sold.
23	* ''Series/BabylonFive'': What with all the {{WhamLine}}s and {{WhamEpisode}}s, sometimes creator Creator/JMichaelStraczynski seemed to be asking "How many times can I screw with the viewers' expectations ''without'' contradicting everything that has already happened?"
24	* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': How could things possibly get worse? Who hasn't had anything life-alteringly horrible happen to them recently?
25	* A big part of the appeal of ''Series/TheBlacklist''. Just when you think it's the climax and things can't get any crazier, something is revealed that takes everything even further. For example, the reveal that Tom is actually a violent spy for the current BigBad is shocking enough, but than the next season reveals [[spoiler: he was actually hired by ''Reddington'', the main protagonist.]]
26	* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': In what ridiculous location or circumstance will the next mangled mystery corpse be discovered? How terribly can we mangle it and still show it on-screen, before the censors tell us to knock it off with the gorn, already? Also, how many times will Christopher Pelant get away with his crimes before he finally gets killed off?
27	* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
28	** How much more emotional trauma can we inflict on Buffy? How many times can the Scoobies prevent the end of the world?
29	** Lampshaded several times in the show, once by the entire Scoobies who respond to Giles saying "It's the end of the world" with (in chorus) "''Again!''" and later by Riley, who says to Buffy "Before I met you I never needed to know the plural of apocalypse".
30	** And how much more dangerous can each season's BigBad get?
31	** What kind of sadistic trauma can we inflict on Dawn this time? Her mother and sister dying within months of each other? Her sister coming back from the dead and ignoring her? Her mother figures breaking up, one of them trying to kill her, the other dying, the first one trying to kill her again and then leaving for months? Her sister treat her like shit again? Turn her into various mythical creatures? It's a wonder the girl didn't snap and slaughter them all.
32	** "Hmm, Angelus certainly did a good job inflicting torture and trauma in Season 2. How can we top it?" They continue this trend throughout the series.
33	** From Season 9:
34	--> '''Whistler:''' "You think you [Angel] and Blondie knocking boots was radical? A vampire and a Slayer? Try a ''pureblood demon'' and an agent of ''ThePowersThatBe''. Evil incarnate and a servant of good. Or, as I like to call them, Mom and Dad."
35	* ''Series/CosmosAPersonalVoyage'': Creator/CarlSagan used this to explain the concept of eternity and infinity: He described the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex Googolplex]]'' as a '''really big''' number (10^(10^100)) and then compared it to the number of atoms in the universe (something around 10^80), and yet he states [[MindScrew that ''infinity is bigger'' and the googolplex is as far from infinity as it is the number 1]]. To put the immensity of the googolplex into perspective, if you tried to write it out (a 1 followed by a googol zeros), you'd run out of atoms to put your zeros on before you finished. Googolplex is one of the ''smaller'' examples of a Really Big Number. To put the insignificance of googolplex into perspective, most people's concept of ''infinity'' is much, much smaller than, say, the first (of 64) terms used to describe [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number Graham's Number]].
36	* ''Series/DeadliestWarrior'': How much [[{{Gorn}} gorier]] can the tests get? How much trash talk can the groups dish out ot each other? How Badass, Evil, and [[AxeCrazy Savage]] can the warriors get?
37	* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
38	** The series finales of the new show seem determined to top the previous ones every year. They've gone from having the Daleks invading Earth, to the Daleks ''and'' the Cybermen invading Earth, to [[spoiler:the Master and a race of devolved humans from the end of time itself actually ''conquering'' Earth and massacring a tenth of the population before enslaving the rest to construct an army of warships that would invade the ''rest of the universe''.]]
39	*** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth fourth series]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd finale]] tops even this, [[spoiler:putting ''every single universe'' in peril. If that weren't enough, it features all three of the Doctor's main companions from the New Series returning, plus Sarah Jane Smith, her son, computer, and robot dog, Captain Jack Harkness and the Torchwood crew, plus Rose Tyler's mother and ex-boyfriend (i.e. around 80% of all returning characters from the New Series, probably excepting only those who couldn't fit filming into their schedules). And let's not even get into which villain from the Classic series returns, or which ship finally sets sail.]]
40	*** The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime 2009 Christmas special]] tops even this, [[spoiler: with the Master turning every single human on earth into a copy of himself, which is only the warm-up to the Time Lords coming back from with the intent of destroying the entire fabric of space/time, to allow themselves to "ascend" and become creatures of pure consciousness.]] The only mercy is that Creator/RussellTDavies stepped down after this, so he wouldn't be tempted to top even this next time.
41	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang "The Big Bang"]] tops even all those with [[spoiler: Daleks, Cybermen, Silurians, Judoon, Sontarans, Sycorax, Autons and more. In an alliance. To trap the Doctor. Which leads to most of time and space never having existed in the first place! Then, the universe gets better, but at the cost of the Doctor never having existed at all. (Okay, he gets better too. But barely!)]]
42	** Hell, [[Creator/StevenMoffat the Moff]] made the ''opening episode'' of Series 6, a WhamEpisode! If that's not SerialEscalation, than what is?
43	*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong "The Wedding of River Song"]] involved River Song changing a ''fixed point in time''. ''History itself'' collapsed.\
44	The Doctor managed to change the same moment safely through some LoopholeAbuse [[spoiler: He just had to be at the lake at the time, so the "Doctor" shot was actually the Tesselecta from a previous episode. The Doctor was inside it. Fixed moment? Changed. History? Intact.]] And then we get to what they were worried about. [[spoiler: the Question? [[TitleDrop Doctor Who?]] Yes, the show's name is a plot point now.]]
45	** The Series 7 [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks opener]] has every Dalek '''''ever'''''.
46	*** And, topping them all, that series' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor finale]] has [[spoiler:the revelation that there is ANOTHER Doctor that has never been discussed before, one who's done something so terrible that the Doctor now refuses to acknowledge ever existed. And that's all after the Doctor finally visits Trenzalore, we find out it's the location of his future tomb, the Great Intelligence rewrites every victory the Doctor's ever had BY ENTERING HIS TIMELINE, and the truth about Clara is finally revealed.]] Oh, and that's just at the end of the episode. It STARTS with [[spoiler:the First Doctor and his very first companion, granddaughter Susan Foreman, stealing the TARDIS and fleeing Gallifrey.]]
47	** And all of THAT is topped in the [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor 50th Anniversary Special]], in which [[spoiler: Gallifrey is rescued with the help of every Doctor — yes, ''including'' the redeemed War Doctor '''and''' the Twelfth Doctor, who doesn't formally debut until the Christmas special that follows]]!
48	** In the follow-up Christmas special [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]], [[spoiler: Eleven, realizing he's actually on his final life, defends one planet for 900+ years — and then Clara convinces the Time Lords to help him from their pocket dimension. He gets a ''whole new regeneration cycle'' and Twelve makes his debut]]!
49	** Series 9 '''starts''' with a two-parter featuring the Twelfth Doctor [[spoiler: encountering Davros as a innocent child and abandoning him, and subsequently embarking upon TheLastDance in 1138 Essex as he prepares to atone with what might require his death when the now-dying megalomaniac realizes who he is. From there, there's the return of Missy (the female incarnation of the Master) as a twisted ally to Clara, a new Dalek city on Skaro crawling with villains, and a part one cliffhanger that suggests Missy, Clara, ''and'' the TARDIS are no more]]! The season ''finale'' is a three-parter that involves (among many other things) [[spoiler: Clara's final fate, a fabled Time Lord-Dalek hybrid warrior, and the Doctor '''finally''' making it back to his home planet and people -- and he's mad as hell. Oh, and on top of it all the finale trilogy's middle episode takes place over 4.5 ''billion years'' and ends up being nothing more than a desperate attempt by the Doctor to save the life of a companion he'd fallen in love with.]].
50	* ''Series/{{Double Dare\|1986}}'': How much more messy could this show get? How much more ridiculous can the stunts get? How much more can the host who suffers from OCD (!) take before even showing it on camera?
51	* ''Series/TheGoodies'':
52	** While the show itself is not an example, one episode has [[GadgeteerGenius Graeme]] start up a pirate radio station outside the five mile limit of Britain for Bill and Tim, then getting the idea to run a pirate post office on the side. He starts going mad with power, adding on a pirate bus station, then a few other ideas, until finally he tries [[spoiler: dragging Britain outside the five mile limit for a pirate ''country''.]]
53	** The show itself could be an example. What new assignment will make [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensue?]] How many [[IncrediblyLamePun Incredibly Lame Puns]] can be worked into an episode? What new [[MadScientist insane]] [[GadgeteerGenius gadget]] will Graeme think up? Can Bill Oddie's background songs ''be'' catchier? What next overblown monologue will Tim lead about England while [[SorryILeftTheBGMOn playing his record]] of ''Land Of Hope And Glory''? And most importantly, (how) ''can the [[BottleEpisode episodes set in one place really be as good as the others]], if not better?''
54	* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'':
55	** How [[IdiotBall dumb]] can Peter/Mohinder/Hiro get? How many times can we get Claire to cry? How much [[DarkerAndEdgier darker]] can this show get? How many powers can Peter have? How many of those will he actually remember? How many overpowered characters that nothing can kill can you put into one show?
56	*** Infinitely, often, loads, virtually all of them, virtually none of them, and six.
57	** How are they going to kill Nathan again in the next Season Finale? We assumed in the first season that he was disintegrated [[spoiler:by Peter exploding]]; the second season had him getting shot several times [[spoiler:by Peter who came from the future]] (don't ask); the third had him getting his throat slashed [[spoiler:by Sylar]], which threw in a new twist by [[spoiler:having Matt mindbend Sylar into permanently transforming as Nathan]] (Again, don't ask). [[spoiler:It appears that they will be stopping this- Nathan has been KilledOffForReal as of the latest episode.]]
58	** How much Sylar can we inject into this week's storyline...just because?
59	* ''Series/ICarly'': How many more things can Spencer set on fire? Exactly how sadist can you make a SadistTeacher? How long can the WordOfGod continue to ShipTease both sides? How neurotic can Mrs. Benson get? How much abuse can be heaped on poor defenceless Freddie? How much more LesYay can they pack into a children's television show?
60	* ''Series/TheIncreasinglyPoorDecisionsOfToddMargaret'': The essence of this show. The titular character is constantly creating increasingly awkward situations with his lies and posturing.
61	* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': How horrible can the people in it get?
62	* ''Franchise/KamenRider'': It's "how many more forms?"
63	** ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'': Adding to the above, how high will the Riders' levels get? How much more ridiculous will the suits look? How much can [[spoiler:Kuroto Dan]] [[RefugeInAudacity get away with]] (and can he get any [[LargeHam hammier]] in the process)? How will [[IronWoobie Emu's day get ruined today]]? Will the next tie-in movies become even crazier? [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking How much of the show]] [[{{Determinator}} can Yuuya Takahashi write or supervise]]?
64	** [[Series/KamenRiderBuild The next series]] outdid themselves with their [[Main/MultiformBalance form]] quantity. This series has over 900 forms, due to [[Series/KamenRiderW W]] gimmick with multiple configurations. Let's not bring in multiple [[Main/SuperMode Super Forms.]] With so many forms, it will be no brainer that Super Duper Form will cause a nuclear blast, just like [[Series/KamenRiderKuuga Kuuga.]]
65	* ''Series/LegoMasters'': What will the teams be asked to build out of Lego bricks next? What kind of outrageous challenge can said build be expected to accomplish and still manage to hold up somehow?
66	* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': What improbable thing can they steal this week? (A hospital? A mountain? A miracle?) How much more terrible can the villains get? (In with the mob? Financially ruining innocents? Kidnapping orphans to use as a cover for their gunrunning operation?) How crazy can Nate's plan be? Who will have a morality crisis this episode? Who can Eliot beat up? How much can they get away with?
67	* ''Series/{{Lexx}}'': Win, place and show must go the second season, in which the BigBad managed to convert ''every piece of matter in the universe'' into one of his robots (except the Lexx and its passengers.) Our heroes ''still'' managed to [[spoiler: defeat him, by causing the universe to collapse and create a wormhole through which they escaped.]] And to top that? In season 3, they [[spoiler:destroy Heaven and Hell. As in, actual Heaven and actual Hell.]]
68	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': What ArcWords are going to come up? Can Ben Linus be even more of a CrazyPrepared MagnificentBastard? How many more questions can they create by answering one of them? Who can they give ADayInTheLimelight to (I mean, we have to get to the dog eventually)? Will they drop hints on a AlternateRealityGame? What type of FlashbackTwist can they do, how about a FlashForward, now how are they going to outdo that, wait, how about a flashback and a flashforward at the same time and they don't tell you until the end!? How can they, what? ''Slaughterhouse Five''!?!
69	* ''Series/MadanSenkiRyukendo'': What [[BigDamnHeroes act of heroism]] will Kenji pull off? How much further can he be [[MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours powered up]]?
70	* ''Series/TheMaskedSinger'': How bizarre will the costumes be this season? Which celebrities will raise the A-list factor even higher? What new mechanic will push the boundaries of the show further? What madcap guess will Creator/KenJeong theorize about next?
71	* Michael Irvin, American football legend, has a TV show on Spike where people who couldn't make the NFL due to external factors are given a chance to compete for one spot in the Cowboys training camp roster, which is basically a shot at having a shot at making a team. After a series of already absurdly difficult practices, they are given a night on the town, which is basically an excuse to get them as far off-rhythm as possible. The next MORNING, he puts them through an {{Unwinnable}} practice, where the only way out is to quit the show. They are expected to last 30 minutes. Instead, they last FIVE HOURS of practices, in the middle of Texas, in September (around 80 degree weather), in what several pro football legends called the most extreme practice they had ever seen. Had the episode been filmed in the month when it had aired (June, 100+ degree weather), the creator/host acknowledged someone absolutely would have died. The only reason why the practice was stopped at 5 hours was because Irvin had to prevent this from happening, as it became apparent the competitors absolutely would not give up.
72	* ''Series/TheMiddleman'': How many awesome pop-culture references can they fit in this week? How much stranger can they get? Can they possibly top ''[[ZombieApocalypse trout zombies]]''? Yes, yes they can.
73	* ''Series/MindFreak'': From Criss Angel being BuriedAlive ''twice'' to him predicting someone trying to kill the president with a grenade.
74	* ''Series/MockTheWeek'': How much more offensive can Frankie Boyle get? Since he's left the show, not very. But then came [[Series/FrankieBoylesTramadolNights Tramadol Nights]].
75	* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': How ''awful'' can the movies get? How obscure can the references be? How many jokes can we pack into one and a half hours? The last is particularly impressive, as most episodes have over 700 jokes, which is to say a joke every '''7.15 seconds''. The fastest riffed episodes have a joke every 5 seconds!
76	* ''Series/MythBusters'': What [[AwesomeButImpractical ridiculously complicated automation]] are we going to construct to test this myth? How much [[StuffBlowingUp crap can we blow up?]] How badly can we totally maim the show mascot, [[CompanionCube Buster?]] How the hell are we going to talk the next poor sap into donating his motorcycle/car/motorboat/747 jetplane to us, knowing it's going to end up scattered across California in a bazillion microscopic pieces? Just how are we going to completely sandwich that compact car between two fully loaded semitrucks like the myth says? How much [[MoreDakka dakka]] can we use? What other novel ways can we find of destroying things? [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking How many ways can we repurpose Grant's one-time sword-swinging rig?]]
77	* ''Series/NinjaWarrior'' (also known as ''Sasuke'' in Japan): This show is one of the most absurdly difficult strength/balance/skill competitions ever. Some of the most notorious obstacles in the 4 stages are the Warped Wall (Stage 1) and the Salmon Ladder (Stage 2). There are 100 competitors in each competition. In the 19th, a particularly evil event, 98 people, including ALL of the "All-Stars", '''failed the first stage'''. The remaining two failed the Salmon Ladder, which is only the second obstacle in Stage 2.\
78	\
79	The show goes up to eleven. In the 25th competition, the two obstacles that were already arguably the most difficult, the Salmon Ladder and the Cliff Hanger, were both ''upgraded''. The Salmon Ladder now has a second Ladder to climb up, and the Cliff Hanger(stage 3)... well, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/300px-Ultimatecliffhanger1_4821.png just look at it.]]
80	* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': How much more brazen can Shawn get? How much more ridiculous can the truth of the next crime be? The latter is a necessity of the format in this case, since due to Shawn nearly always being ''right'', the only way to [[CassandraTruth keep the police from believing him right off]], is to [[RefugeInAudacity commit incredible crimes]]... and we're [[strike:a season]] two seasons past the victim being killed by a tyrannosaur.
81	* ''Series/PushingDaisies'':
82	** How hilariously cartoonish could the murders be? ([[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Emerson in "Smell of Success")
83	** How awful could [[DarkAndTroubledPast Ned's childhood]] get? He's like an onion of trauma, you just peel away one damaging event after another.
84	* ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'': is there any limit to what can be cobbled together out of old parts, lawn mowers, duct tape, K-cars, and the Possum Van? In the SeriesFinale, he made a perpetual motion machine. With corn.
85	* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': For a given episode, how many characters will get killed off, and who will those unlucky characters be? What will General Sebastian "Bass" Monroe use to obtain victory? [[spoiler: First it was a fleet of helicopters, featured in [[Recap/RevolutionS1E10NobodysFaultButMine episode 10]] and [[Recap/RevolutionS1E11TheStand episode 11]]. Then a small atomic bomb, featured in [[Recap/RevolutionS1E13TheSongRemainsTheSame episode 13]] and [[Recap/RevolutionS1E14TheNightTheLightsWentOutInGeorgia episode 14]]. Then anthrax, featured in [[Recap/RevolutionS1E16TheLoveBoat episode 16]]. Finally he used unmanned combat air vehicles (or drones), featured in [[Recap/RevolutionS1E17TheLongestDay episode 17]]]].
86	* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'':
87	** This basically encompasses Bill Brasky's life. How many horrifying and magical things can he do? How many things can he destroy? How many people can he kill? How many people can he rape? How much gin can he drink? And how can we not love him for it? To Bill Brasky!
88	** Also the Stefon segments: How crazy can Creator/JohnMulaney and Bill Hader make the club names? What's going to set Bill off into [[{{Corpsing}} cracking up]]? Not to mention how they ended the love story between Stefon and Creator/SethMeyers (with [[spoiler:a parody of ''The Graduate'' featuring Anderson Cooper and all of the bizarre characters Stefon has ever described]].
89	** One Digital Short featuring Rainn Wilson as the head of a company who assembled his employees to figure out the year's budget. He asks each of them for their opinions, and things start out normally. Then we get to people like "Derek's Twin Brother" (who agrees with what Derek said) and "Red," a redheaded man; after that comes the Invisible Man (who's out sick), the water delivery guy (who doesn't work there), and an employee dressed like Wonder Woman; next comes "Captain Pajama Shark" ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a pajama-wearing man with a shark's fin on his head]]) and a man in a straitjacket; next is a sentient Gigantic Turkey Sub and a talking tiger head mounted on the wall; and then musical guest Arcade Fire chimes in. How could they possibly end such a bizarre sketch? Simple--the entire building explodes.
90	** The "Wing Pit" sketch in the Creator/PedroPascal/Music/{{Coldplay}} episode initially starts like a normal wing commercial that takes place at a UsefulNotes/SuperBowl party. However, the amount of wings and sauce escalate as the sketch goes on alongside the increasingly absurd methods of delivery, such as a liquified alcoholic chicken smoothie, three-thousand chicken wings delivered through a black contractor bag that knocks out a football fan, and airdropped ranch. And then there is the revelation that not only Wing Pit owns the police, but the events in the sketch were done to appease a chicken god of death, concluding with the people at the party drowning in thousands of chicken wings delivered via cement chute.
91	* ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'': What crazy unrealistic situation will happen next week? How stupid and unrealistic will the characters' behavior be? How much longer can they talk about sex before they'll be forced to address another issue of teenage life? Who's the next girl to get knocked up?
92	* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': How much emotional and physical pain can the main leads get? Hm...how about a lot?
93	** This trope sums up the series two finale, with each of Moriarty's plans puts Sherlock at a new low.
94	** Also applies to the series in general, where each series gets weirder and more intense. The first episode of the show has Sherlock solving a peculiar but mundane set of murders. By the last episode, [[he has a long-lost, supernaturally smart sister who he learns killed his childhood best friend and puts him through a series of SadisticChoices which destroy him and everyone he loves.]] And that's just a ''summary''.
95	* ''Franchise/StargateVerse'':
96	** What horrible new SealedEvilInACan will our heroes stumble into and fight for [[SoLastSeason all of the next season]]? What [[LensmanArmsRace absurd new weapons]] will they [[MacGyvering jury rig]] to destroy them? [[NotQuiteDead How many more times can we kill]] [[ButtMonkey Jackson]]? How much more can the [[NeglectfulPrecursors Ancients]] screw up? How powerful can the [[LostTechnology millennia-old weapons]] get, and how quickly can the heroes find them right next to the villain's headquarters where nobody bothered to look before?
97	** Oh, and [[RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun remember when they blew up a sun]]?
98	** And then a Solar System, and then (nearly) a whole Alternate Reality.
99	** Fact is [[Franchise/StargateVerse Stargate]] knows how to make sweet sweet love with this trope and apply just enough RuleOfCool, LampshadeHanging, and [[ContinuityNod Continuity Nods]] to keep it up for eight years, (ten with the reboot).
100	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': Warp Factors can get a little out there in how fast something is supposed to be going. And then you get to Warp 10, which according to the Technical Manual is so fast that you are occupying ''every point in the universe SIMULTANEOUSLY.''
101	** Ironically, saying warp 10 was impossible was supposed to ''rein this in.'' However, they merely made warp ten go from meaning "ten times faster than warp one" to "infinite speed" (whatever ''that's'' supposed to mean) and ships are still TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot.
102	*** This actually makes perfect sense, since warp speed is a parabolic function (see below). Warp 2, for instance, is about 16 times the speed of light, whereas Warp 3 is about 67 times the speed of light. Warp 4: 235c; Warp 5: 711c; Warp 6: 1979c; etc. When you exceed Warp 9, which is about 46,883c, you have to start using decimal values, such as 9.1, 9.5, 9.8, etc., with each increase of .1 being a greater increase in speed than the previous. Starships are not meant to travel at such high warp factors (we finally surpass 100,000 times the speed of light at around Warp 9.72) for more than a short period of time. Warp 10 is, quite literally, impossible to achieve, as it is the terminal limit of the parabolic function and represents infinite speed. Regarding the Voyager episode "Threshold", I recommend other Trekkies do what I do myself: just pretend it doesn't exist. It may ''technically'' be canon, but I can't in good conscience consider it to be so. The writers for that episode ''obviously'' didn't bother with research, and their understanding of Warp Theory is as apparently lacking as their understanding of evolutionary biology, as they so incompetently demonstrate during the last ten minutes of the episode. -=[ * V = 6·(e^W-[{W^2}/2+W+1]) --- C = G-tan(A)/([G-S]+[tan^2{A}+{<G-S>^2}-1]^[1/2])+10 --- D = G-C --- where V = Velocity, W = Warp Factor, D = Delivered Power; G = Generated Power; C = Continuum Drag Factor; A = 5.1050881 radians; and S = 9.8658770244 (Scott's constant. ]=-
103	*** That's not a parabola. A parabola does not go to infinity for finite input values.
104	*** And then Trans Warp was FASTER.
105	*** It should be noted that the warp scale was redesigned after TOS. In TOS, they routinely went past Warp 10, which was retconned as an older system of measuring warp speed that went by the formula "speed-of-light x warp factor cubed" (e.g. Warp 4 = 64''c'' = 19,186,717,312 m/s = Warp 3.48 [TNG scale]).
106	* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
107	** How much worse can everyone's Daddy Issues get? And how much more emotional torture can the boys take before they top themselves?
108	** How much [[FromBadToWorse worse]] can [[CrapsackWorld the world]] get? Can [[OurAngelsAreDifferent the angels]] be even [[{{Jerkass}} bigger dicks]] this week?
109	*** On that count, how will [[{{Jerkass}} either brother]] be able to out-dick even the angels in the later episodes?
110	*** Also please note that they are several seasons past fighting LUCIFER. The CrapsackWorld has been getting progressively ''worse'' from there.
111	** How much more people can die (and be resurrected)? How many more times will Dean die? Him dying has almost become a RunningGag.
112	** How Cosmic a Horror can they [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu punch out]]? [[spoiler:As of Season 11, they've chewed through arch-demons, Lucifer, [[EldritchAbomination Lucifer's predecessors]], and [[TheGrimReaper Death]], and are up against [[TheAntiGod God's evil twin]].]]
113	* ''Franchise/SuperSentai'':
114	** From [[Series/GoGoSentaiBoukenger 2006]] onward: "How many mecha can we cram into a single formation, and in doing so how many {{Mecha Expansion Pack}}s can we introduce?" Fans in the PeripheryDemographic aren't exactly pleased.
115	** ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'': Has finally outdone themselves with regards to team-ups, just look at the page image for it. God only knows what'll happen in the next anniversary....
116	** Starting with ''Series/UchuuSentaiKyuranger'', the series started to explore how far they could go with breaking the standard formula. ''Kyuranger'' reached a total of nine rangers in the first few episodes and ended up with a total of twelve, more than any other show and having all of them be permanent members. ''Lupat'' had two teams of three rangers competing with each other for the whole show who were then joined by a seventh ranger who has two forms. ''Zenkaiger'' was an extremely wacky parody season that had the leader and main character be a non-red ranger and had four of the rangers be robots that turn into forms based on the mecha of previous seasons while the three human rangers are based on the forms of rangers of previous seasons with elements of their mecha and the rangers could summon the spirits of previous rangers to aid them. ''Donbrothers'' is the first time in decades that ''Sentai'' has done a sequel season by retaining several elements of ''Zenkaiger'' it also is unique for having no BigBad for nearly the entire season and focusing mainly on drama. ''King Ohger'' takes place in an AlternateHistory resembling a high-tech version of the Middle Ages with most of the Rangers being monarchs from the different nations and it also bumped up the quality of the CGI by a huge degree, bringing a new level of VisualEffectsOfAwesome to the franchise.
117	* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'': About 15/20 of the players were stupid beyond all belief, never learning to keep an eye on the idol hunting Russell and practically lining themselves up to be voted out one by one. It was assumed there'd never be such a stupid cast ever again...but ''Redemption Island'' takes the cake for dumbest cast ever. When you're playing with someone you already know from the show, that puts a pretty big target on their back. When you're playing with people who have played the game ''multiple times'', were known as the best players in the show when they played, have [[SpotlightStealingSquad been the sole focus of their seasons]], and managed to get shows slanted to keep them around as long as possible, that doesn't just put a target on your back. That basically straps a huge billboard lit with neon to your back reading, "Vote me out - I'm a threat! I'm gonna win!" The ometepes literally ''ignore'' that "vote me out!" billboard on Rob's back and, not surprisingly allow him to win. After the foolish players in ''Samoa'', that amount of sheer stupidity really says something.
118	* ''Series/TheThickOfIt'': How much darker can satire get? How much harder can Malcolm's veins throb? How much more baroque can the swearing get? How much more shit can we pile on every single character[[labelnote:a.k.a.]]Glenn[[/labelnote]]?
119	* ''Series/TomicaHeroRescueFire'': What can we [[InfernalRetaliation set on fire]] as the MonsterOfTheWeek? What's the new finisher? Projectile cars? A hurricane? Rainbow Road?
120	* ''Series/TomicaHeroRescueForce'': How needlessly cool can this show make the {{Rescue}} genre? What kind of WaveMotionGun will be used to save the city this week?
121	* ''Series/TopGear'':
122	** What ridiculously hard task can the producers set the three presenters this week? They've gone from buying used cars and driving from Florida to New Orleans, to buying used, two-wheel-drive cars and driving across ''Africa'' from one border to the other. And what about the episode where they attempted to turn a Reliant Robin into a functioning space shuttle?
123	** A space shuttle that almost worked. The only reason it didn't? One single bolt did not come loose.
124	** I know. Let's drive to the North Pole!
125	* ''Series/{{Vikings}}'': Season 1 had two major battles. The first one involved groups of plus 30 people duking it out and the second close to a 100. Come season 3 the final three episodes involes thousands of Vikings laying siege on Paris and by season 5 there are battles involving over 6000 every other episode.
126	* ''Series/WhereInTheWorldIsCarmenSandiego'': How exuberant and disturbingly ambitious can Carmen Sandiego's crimes get? What priceless relic/building/''country'' will she steal next?
127

Context SerialEscalation / LiveActionTV