alt title(s): Adventure Town
Maybe they're
Drifters Walking The Earth. Maybe they are being
chased by the law. Maybe they are just trying to get home. Whatever the reason, our main characters go to a new place each week that results in an adventure that they have to solve in 42 minutes (60 minutes minus the commercials). Often the heroes will be
Mistaken For Spies when they get there. Count
on a local or two to help.
The location version of
Monster Of The Week. Compare to
City Of Adventure and
Wacky Wayside Tribe. In
Science Fiction shows, instead of going from town to town, the protagonists tend to go from world to world (thus travelling to "
Adventure Planets"). Combined with
Alternate Universe to make "Adventure Universes" in
Sliders. Combine it with
Time Travel and you get
Quantum Leap. Combine with both space travel and time travel (plus the occasional alternate universe), and you get
Doctor Who.
Set Right What Once Went Wrong is often associated with this. Wandering heroes like
The Drifter and the
Knight Errant are built to save
Adventure Towns.
A subset would be the
Town With A Dark Secret. Best examples are from movies like
Bad Day At Black Rock,
High Plains Drifter, or
Hang 'Em High. The town is complicit in some evil criminal past and the arrival of the stranger disrupts their efforts to keep the lid on.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- One Piece has several, except they're adventure islands, and they tend to spend an entire Arc there.
- Kino's Journey has the main character visit a new Adventure Town in most episodes, occasionally visiting several new ones in a single episode. Each Adventure Town tends to have its own physical laws, technological level, and eccentric characteristics. Frequently subverted by Kino's aloofness preventing her from actually taking part in an adventure.
- The Pokémon anime has a lot of these.
- The original Dragon Ball started out this way, and GT as well.
- Trigun quite blatantly does this, especially the first season.
- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle provides examples of Adventure Universes, although major plot key to the Myth Arc was hidden in one of them.
Comic Books
Film
- Every film in the Blind Swordsman series has Zatoichi wandering into a new one of these.
Literature
- A Series Of Unfortunate Events takes this approach. Some of the "towns" are individual foster parents for the orphans. As the books progress, they become more like actual towns including a lumber mill, a boarding school, and even an actual village called the Village of Fowl Devotees, an unusual community where arbitrary laws and birdwatching are Serious Business.
Television
- Played straight by most of Star Trek (except Deep Space 9)
- The Stargate franchise fits this trope also
- Doctor Who features Adventure Times that are often also Adventure Planets and at least twice an Adventure Universe.
- Firefly often visited Adventure Planets and Adventure Moons as the crew of Serenity went on jobs.
- Classic Stern Chase versions include The Fugitive, The Incredible Hulk, and Nowhere Man.
- Route 66, Kung Fu, Knight Rider, The X Files, Supernatural, and The Incredible Hulk did this every week.
- The Littlest Hobo is a classic Canadian series that exemplifies the Adventure Town theme, what with wandering hero strolling into a new town every week to set right whatever domestic issues they may be facing, only to head off into the sunset by the end of the episode. Only the hero in question is a dog.
- Most Canadians older then 25 can sing its "Maybe Tomorrow" theme from memory to this day.
- Those of us even older remember the original theme - "Road Without End"
- How is Cheyenne not on here already? Not only is it a perfect example of the trope, but this troper is fairly certain that it was the first live TV example (it ran during the late 1950's). Cheyenne Bodie, the only recurring character after the first three episodes (during which he had a sidekick), aimlessly wanders the West, taking on odd jobs and having adventures.
Video Games
- In My World My Way, every town is an Adventure Town...even the little hamlet out in the oasis.
