Line #19 Series/JohnDoe


1	[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_doe_fnus_9827.jpg]]
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3	A man wakes up on an island off the coast of Seattle, unsure of who or where he is, unable to see in color, and with a strange mark on his body. But he knows everything, every single scene of every single movie, the composition of bullets from all sorts of rare guns, the full history of Jack the Ripper, etc. He makes friends and solves crimes for the police.
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5	The series was [[ScrewedByTheNetwork canceled by FOX]] and [[CutShort ends on a]] CliffHanger.
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7	See MrSmith for the usage of placeholder names like "John Doe" in fiction.
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11	----
12	!!Contains examples of:
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14	* AmnesiacGod: [[spoiler:John's access to almost all the world's current collected knowledge pretty much makes him this.]]
15	%%* AncientConspiracy: PHOENIX.
16	* ArtisticLicensePhysics: John's science can be a little spotty at times.
17	* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:What one has to do in order to gain all of the knowledge John now has.]] Then you have to "fall back to earth", so to speak.
18	* AskAStupidQuestion: When his memory is on the fritz do to a lightning strike, John looks at an almost-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and asks himself "How many shots in a fifth", drains the bottle, and answers himself with "That many".[[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke The real answer]], assuming a standard US shot of 1.5 ounces, is 17, but some jokes just [[AntiHumor aren't meant to be funny]].[[/note]]
19	* AwesomenessByAnalysis: He doesn't just know everything, he has the ability to apply that knowledge.
20	* BottleEpisode: Episode 9; "Manifest Destiny".
21	* BrainUploading: A scientist experimenting in this field is killed (by a religious fanatic not by the experiment). At the end, it is revealed that the scientist encoded his mind onto bar codes of several ordinary-looking items.
22	* BroughtDownToNormal: In one episode, [[LightningCanDoAnything a lightning strike]] causes John Doe to regain his color sight and lose his EncyclopaedicKnowledge of nearly everything. The status quo is restored at the end of the episode by another electric shock.
23	* BrownNote: The DJ in "Tone Dead" was killed by a subsonic tone played through his equipment, triggering a fatal epileptic seizure. John and Dr. Rachel even describe the {{Urban Legend\|s}} that [[TropeNamers named the trope]], but stop short of using the name outright.
24	* ChewingTheScenery: John can get a little... emotional when angsting about his amnesia and special abilities.
25	* CodeEmergency: In "Idaho", John uses Series/AmericasMostWanted to put out a Code Adam on himself as part of his search for his identity.
26	* ColorBlindConfusion: The title character was completely color blind except when he saw certain clues or people related to his previous life or the case he was working on, when instead of the usual DeliberatelyMonochrome style the show used from his perspective the items in question would be in color. There was also an episode where a lightning strike restored his color vision but made him lose his EncyclopaedicKnowledge until another lightning strike put things back to normal.
27	* CoolCar: Immediately after making a fortune [[UsefulNotes/HorseRacing picking trifectas]] in the pilot episode, John buys a Shelby Cobra, which he drives throughout the rest of the series.
28	* DeathAmnesia: [[spoiler:With a twist! John lost the memeory of his past life and ''gained'' knowledge about every thing else. After he came back of course.]]
29	%%* DeathInTheClouds: "Manifest Destiny".
30	%%* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Karen Kawalski.]]
31	* EncyclopaedicKnowledge: John Doe knows everything. Well, almost everything.
32	* EpisodeOnAPlane: With the tagline "How do you solve a mystery at 30,000 feet!?" The answer being, of course, by knowing everything, as usual.
33	%%* FetalPositionRebirth: The pilot episode.
34	* FirstEpisodeResurrection [[spoiler:The main character is the way he is because he was killed and resurrected, under the recollection theory that all knowledge is granted to a person when they die.]]
35	* FirstGirlWins: DistaffCounterpart in "Mind Games". The first of the [[SuperBreedingProgram Group Otto]] guys that John and Wesley visit turns out to be Wesley's real father.
36	* GenreBlind: The local police seem slow at figuring out the blatantly obvious, and sometimes John himself shares their myopia. One of the more glaring examples is in "Shock to the System", when John has briefly lost his EncyclopaedicKnowledge: There's a series of murders in the RedLightDistrict and a note signed "JTR", and only Digger is GenreSavvy enough to realize the killer is invoking JackTheRipoff.
37	* HowManyFingers: One of the first signs of John Doe's unusual nature. He responds to the question using medical jargon to explain why the thumb is not technically considered a "finger."
38	* IAmWho: John's reaction when someone [[spoiler:tries to con him into thinking he's this or that person.]]
39	* IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect: Occasionally John will have to talk himself through a complex process; for example, the first time he attempted to drive his CoolCar, he barely lurched 20 feet and stalled out before going over some cool sounding force/vector technobabble, after which he drove like a stunt driver.
40	* InjuryBookend: The title character had his universal knowledge erased by lightning in the beginning of one episode, only to have it returned by getting an electric shock later in the episode.
41	* InstantExpert
42	* JackTheRipoff: The serial killers in "Shock to the System" deliberately invoke this with a GenderFlip of UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, including a taunting message to John, whom they see as a modern-day analog to George Lusk.
43	* LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard: {{Inverted}} in "Remote Control" when John finds the Group 5 patients locked up with a broken-off key in the padlock. There just happens to be an [[ArtisticLicensePhysics aerosol can of liquid nitrogen]] in a nearby cabinet, which John uses to freeze and break the lock.
44	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: John's one of the more unique cases.
45	* MrSmith: "John Doe" is, of course, a placeholder name.
46	* NakedOnArrival: The series begins with John Doe awakening naked with an unusual physical feature on his body, in the middle of nowhere, with no memory of who he is.
47	* NoNameGiven: His name remains unknown (up to the point that the producers of the show never made one).
48	* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Justified by the premise.
49	* {{Omniglot}}: Due to his OmniscientHero nature.
50	* OmniscientHero:
51	** The exact extent of his omniscience is a little vague. He doesn't know what his friends had for breakfast, for example, or top secret things about the president, or what tomorrow's lottery numbers will be. It seems to be: "Anything anyone could conceivably look up in a library, somewhere."
52	** Given the WordOfGod-established reason for his omniscience, an implicit limitation would be 'things that were known when he woke up on the island' -- which obviously wouldn't cover knowledge of things that hadn't happened yet (like his future friends' future breakfast, or tomorrow's lottery numbers).
53	*** On the other hand, this wouldn't explain why he couldn't answer Jamie's question regarding any secret government programs. It doesn't seem likely that certain knowledge that some people deem secret would be hidden from him.
54	* PhlebotinumBreakdown: Even with John's EncyclopedicKnowledge, occasionally the [[RandomNumberGod law of averages]] will give him a kick in the pants. Case in point in the pilot: John picks trifecta after trifecta [[UsefulNotes/HorseRacing playing the ponies]], but he suffers a bit of a setback when one of his picks doesn't play out.
55	* ThePowerOfLegacy: "John Deux" ends with John telling the estranged father of a deceased vagrant that he knew him from working at the same factory, and that "he wanted you to know that he made something of his life".
56	* {{Pun}}: In "Tone Dead", Lt. Avery finds some Ecstasy in the DJ/lawyer's drug screen. "That was some pretty happy pee."
57	* PutOnABus: John's girlfriend. The series was cancelled before it became clear whether or not it was a LongBusTrip.
58	* QuestForIdentity: The premise of the show is that John is searching for who he was prior to his amnesia.
59	%%* RetiredBadass: Digger.
60	* RoomFullOfCrazy: John covers the walls of his apartment with notes about possible clues to his identity. Karen {{Lampshades}} the crazy by asking "at what point do I start worrying about you cutting off an ear?"
61	* SpaceMadness: A metal dome in the forest turns out to be a simulated space vessel, in which astronauts have been confined for months to test the mechanisms and psychological hazards of a manned trip to Mars. Initial investigation suggests the crew have killed each other due to Space Madness from prolonged isolation [[spoiler: but it turns out their air-circulation system was sabotaged, causing a gas imbalance that impaired their reason.]]
62	* SplashOfColor: Whenever John sees someone or something in color instead of his usual [[DeliberatelyMonochrome colorblind vision]], it usually means that person is significant [[ItsAllAboutMe to him]] or to the case he's working.
63	* StalkerShrine: The protagonist has one about himself, as he tries to find clues about who he is. Upon discovering it, Karen comments that it looks like a serial killer's shrine.
64	%%* TheBartender: Digger.
65	* WorthyOpponent: The only reason Lenny "The Mourner" targets John Doe is because he sees the local police as boring, predictable, and no challenge.

Context Series / JohnDoe