Darth Wiki / A Good Show

One of the stories emmaliza will write one day. She promises.

The story revolves around 6 students and one student teacher from an 2005 high school, suddenly transported back to 1979, on the set of a TV show, which one of the student's uncle directed before his mysterious disappearance. The 7 from 2005 find themselves alternately trapped on the set and the houses of 7 members of the cast and crew. They spend a year there, trying to puzzle out their situations and getting involved in the convoluted Soap Opera worthy lives of the people they're stuck with.

Tropes shown

• Abusive Parents (Patricia & Victor, Gordon)
• Allergic to Love (Bizarre variant, it's not his own love Joseph is allergic to.)
• Anyone Can Die ( Natasha, Corrie, Victor, Joseph)
• Am I Just a Toy to You? (subverted, Elena really is just a toy to Robert.)
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence ( Charity and Grigory)
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other (brother/sister version; Victor and Patricia get a lot of this)
• The Baby Trap (Amy's pregnancy in the finale is implied to be this)
• Berserk Button (Isobel, you do not attack her sexuality.)
• Bittersweet Ending
• Bottle Episode (Inverted, pretty much every episode is done with minimal sets, cast and budget— with the exception of about 3 episodes.)
• Break the Cutie (Charity. Also Isobel, to a degree)
• Break the Haughty (Victor)
• Broken Bird (Charity, Corrie, Robert— everyone in one way or another, but they stand out)
• The Chessmaster ( Pedéa is controlling EVERYTHING)
• Clingy Jealous Girl (Amy, Olivia, Pedéa)
• Cloud Cuckoolander (Gordon, Isobel, Charity to a degree.)
• Contrived Coincidence (Osmond's crush on Corrie was awfully convenient.)
• Cosmic Plaything (everyone, in a ridiculously literal way)
• Cosmic Retcon ( Joseph, in a way)
• Cut Himself Shaving (Robert does this constantly. It works less and less as the series goes on.)
• Deadpan Snarker (pretty much everyone, at one point or another)
• Death by Irony ( Victor, he doesn't get how bad Amy is until she Mind rapes him into killing himself)
• Defrosting Ice Queen (Corrie, gender flipped with Hann and Victor)
• Deus Angst Machina
• Disproportionate Retribution (Amy makes a habit of this— the abuse of Isobel and Robert and Mind Rape of Victor come to mind.)
• Does Not Like Men (Corrie, although not as extreme as some examples. This attitude improves in any case.)
• Domestic Abuse
• Doppelgänger (Isobel and Pedéa.)
• Dreaming of Things to Come (Natasha's dreams foreshadow the way she dies)
• Driven to Suicide ( Victor, Joseph)
• Dysfunction Junction
• Everyone Meets Everyone
• Fake Memories ( Joseph, everyone knowing Joseph)
• Foe Romance Subtext (Isobel and Amy)
• Fourth-Wall Observer (Charity and Grigory)
• Framingthe Guilty Party (Osmond)
• From Bad to Worse (the series features BAD THING. AFTER BAD THING. AFTER BAD THING.)
• Freak Out (Charity)
• Freudian Excuse (abound)
• Genki Girl (Charity)
• Genius Ditz (Charity's Genre Savviness)
• Genre Mashup (Supernatural Soap Opera + Dramedy + Mind Screw + Paranoia Fuel + No Fourth Wall + Dysfunction Junction = This show)
• God Is Evil (Played with - Pedéa is evil, no doubt of that, and she has god-like powers— but only to a degree, and she's not alone in her god-likeness)
• Have We Met Yet? (Isobel knows (of) Grigory right off the bat— he is confused.)
• Head-Turning Beauty(Corrie, sympathetic version)
• Herald (The spirit who tells Grigory and Charity that they're fictional)
• Her Heart Will Go On (Isobel finds out [[spolier: Thomas is dead]] about as soon as they get back to '05. Not that she actually knows who he is anymore. And she's probably pregnant.)
• Heroic Sacrifice ( Joseph. Natasha in the 'Wonderful Life' episode counts too)
• Hidden Depths
  • Corrie started out as a bitter, sarcastic, unfeeling and all-around unpleasant. She turned out to be a genuinely loving woman, jaded by the treatment she had receives over her appearance, from several men using her for sex and not giving a whit to her as a person, to years of sexual harassment. She is cut out of this persona by the Power of Friendship, notably with Charity, and was warm and caring and willing to do anything for the ones she cared about - but still snarky.
  • Hann was just a Jerkass first off. But then he turned out to be an isolated Jerkass with trust issues, who comforted his worst enemy and cried because he missed his mum.
  • Victor. Prejudiced, arrogant, bitingly sarcastic and hypocritical— turns out the arrogance was a cover for having no self-worth, and no matter how cruel he was to his loved ones, if you hurt them, you would pay.
• Hourglass Plot (Patricia and Victor. Patricia starts off as the quiet, depressed, self-hating one, Victor as arrogant and loud. Patricia gains confidence coupled with growing fury at the world, and becomes shrewish and just as disruptive as Victor once was. Victor, meanwhile, is totally broken and Driven To Suicide.)
  • Charity and Corrie. Charity is The Cutie and Corrie the Broken Bird; Corrie is redeemed by the Power of Friendship (or possibly...), Charity becomes a broken cutie
• A House Divided (Tends to happen a lot, with everyone forming little separate branches)
• Ho Yay (Hann and Gordon (up to hugs and hand holding), Charity and Corrie (Corrie: "You taught me to love, and to care..."), Robert and Hector are something of a subversion— they started of simply as Ho Yay, but then it became text)
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming (all about the type of plot twist in the episode)
• If I Can't Have You… (Pedéa did this to Robert's father)
• Intergenerational Friendship (several.)
• It's All My Fault (People take on blame for all sorts of things.)
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold (Victor, Hann, Paul)
• Karma Houdini (Amy, whoever killed Natasha)
• Lampshade Hanging (To a truly INSANE extent. Lack of a fourth wall makes this easy)
• The Lancer (Victor)
• Laser-Guided Amnesia (All the '05 people)
• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places (Charity, Robert)
• Locked in a Room (the whole series turns out to be Robert and Isobel, locked in a room together, with many complications)
• Love Dodecahedron (Elena and Thomas are married but he's really in love with Isobel, who Robert has some feelings toward which he hates himself for but that's really Pedéa putting those feelings in his mind and trying to cause a relationship between the two as a stand-in for her relationship with Robert's father, meanwhile Robert carries on an affair with Elena which is meaningless to him but she has fallen for him hard, Robert really seems to be in love with his wife Amy, but he may also have some feelings for Hector, who is deeply in love with him and deeply bitter over his reaction to their one-night-stand 3 years ago.)
• Love Hurts (A lot.)
• Love Makes You Evil (Pedéa, Amy, Olivia)
• Love Triangle (the great subtextual Love Triangle, Joseph/Charity/Grigory)
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Isobel)
• Manipulative Bitch ( Pedéa. Just... Pedéa)
• The Masquerade (All the '05 people have to keep their presence in '79 unknown from most of the world.)
• Masterofthe Mixed Message (Robert.)
• May–December Romance (Isobel and Thomas)
• Mind Rape (Amy's long attack on Victor, which left him broken, quiet and terrified, and Driven to Suicide— also, what Pedéa did to Robert has elements of this (and it's also, in a way, attempted (3rd-person) physical rape as well.)
• Mind Screw
• Mistaken for Cheating (subverted— Robert really is cheating, just not with who his wife thinks he is.)
• Mistaken for Gay (Victor, with tragic consequences)
• Moe (Charity)
• Mood-Swinger (Paul)
• Mood Whiplash (Constantly. A special mention goes to episode 6.)
• Murder the Hypotenuse (Amy tries this, but it doesn't work and the girl wasn't really a Hypotenuse anyway)
• Musical Episode (Literally, “The Musical Episodeâ€�)
• Mysterious Past
• Myth Arc
• Near-Rape Experience (A somewhat complicated one)
• No Fourth Wall
• Odd Friendship (You would expect Corrie to absolutely despise Robert. Who would expect him to be try and sleep with her. Neither of these things happen and they are best friends.)
• Papa Wolf (Grigory, Victor)
• Paranoia Fuel (the different things that happen are all different kinds of Paranoia Fuel – you can get taken from everything you've ever known. You can not be able to go outside. You can not see your loved ones for a year. If you wind up stuck with someone horrible who'll kill you if she thought she could get away with it? Tough luck, deal with it. You can be killed just to try and push other people together. You can lose control over who you're attracted to so you think you're becoming a pedophile. You can not be able to contact anyone you ever knew because you don't even exist yet. All sorts of things.)
• Parental Substitute (Grigory acts as a father figure to Isobel – he's really her uncle)
• Pet the Dog (Any time Hann brings up his mother and little sister. A lot of Victor's actions to Patricia too)
• Powers That Be (The spirits)
• Power Trio (the triplets; Victor, Alice and Patricia are said to have been a Power Trio – Victor as the id, Alice as the Ego, and Patricia as the Superego. However, Alice is absent from everything, and Victor and Patricia are suitably dysfunctional)
  • Hann, Victor and Gordon form a vague sort of Power Trio, with Hann as the super-ego, Victor as the id and Gordon as the ego.
• Platonic Life-Partners (Robert and Corrie)
• Plucky Comic Relief (Subverted twice – Robert appears to be a slightly silly Casanova and Henpecked Husband, destined to be comic relief – but he proves himself to be possibly the biggest woobie of all of them. Charity spends half the series as plucky comic relief, until she is broken. Badly.)
• Plucky Girl (Isobel, Charity)
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend (Olivia. Pedéa is a psycho ex girlfriend to someone not in the main cast)
• Really Gets Around (Robert, Charity)
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech (Isobel and Amy make quite a few of these to each other)
• Sacrificial Lion ( Natasha)
• Sad Clown (Isobel, Gordon)
• Scars Are Forever (a few scars Isobel's gotten from Amy) 28
• Shadow Archetype (Corrie, to Natasha)
• Shrinking Violet (Patricia, Elena)
• Show Within a Show (Ashber Syndrome)
• Shut Up, Hannibal! (Isobel pulls one of these on Amy: “You're a crazy abusive freak. Why do I care what you think of me?â€�)
• Soapbox Sadie (Isobel)
• Stalker with a Crush (Olivia, who is Joseph's ex-girlfriend. Robert is a stalker with an artificial crush)
• Star-Crossed Lovers (Isobel and Thomas, Robert and Hector)
• Stepford Smiler (Pretty much everyone to some degree)
• There Is Only One Bed (done on purpose in the finale – it does not end well)
• Time Travel (Obviously)
• Tomato in the Mirror
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth ( Natasha)
• True Companions: One of the most screwed up examples in existence... But still an example.
• Tsundere (Isobel, type B. Paul, type A)
• TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary: In-Universe. (Charity's constant use of trope names, and everyone else's resulting confusion, is a running gag. Grigory picks up on the habit, which displeases him.)
• Uncanny Family Resemblance (Robert and his father... the plot wouldn't work otherwise.)
• The Unfavorite (Patricia and Victor's sister Alice, is apparently much preferred by their Father, making them both the Unfavorite)
• Woman Scorned ( Pedéa, again. Olivia too, and arguably Amy – she sure thinks she's been scorned)
• Wonderful Life (Variant where Charity wishes they had never come to '79, understandable as the '05 people spend most of the series trying to get back to '05. The Aesop isn't actually that they needed to go to '79, it's that the '79 people needed them – just about all of them wound up dead or broken in some way, and eventually Charity sacrifices her happiness (and, well, Natasha's life) for them all.)
• The Woobie (just about everyone)
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit (Amy, in a bizarre case: she person she convinces that she's the “victimâ€� is the same person she says is the “villainâ€�. It ends badly.)
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl (Robert can't defend himself from his wife because of this.)
• Yandere (Amy, Olivia and Pedéa)
• You Can't Go Home Again (The Wonderful Life episode)

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