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alt title(s): Villain Of The Week; Freak Of The Week  
Now you're just embarrassing yourself.
T-Bone: "Crud! What is that thing?" Razor: "Giant monster of the week?"
—from the Swat Kats episode "Unlikely Alloys"
Episodes where the characters fight a villain and the whole story is wrapped up at the end never to be dealt with again. Can be seen as the complete antithesis of a Story Arc. Can also be seen as a Big Bad arc compressed into one episode.
The term (a play on Movie Of The Week) was originally coined by the writing staff of The Outer Limits (1963), which sought to distinguish itself from its biggest competitor, The Twilight Zone, by promising viewers a new monster every episode.
Variations crop up from time to time. The 4400 and Smallville for example are sometimes discussed in terms of the "Freak of The Week." Mystery Of The Week is the detective series version of this trope.
Sometimes, the monsters get ridiculous, especially in fillers, where they are almost always themed after the plot of the episode. Futari Wa Pretty Cure had a giant vacuum cleaner early in its run, for example; Digimon Adventure, a walking garbage dump.
Often used in collaboration with an Adventure Town, may or may not be Monogender Monsters. Contrast Monster Mash.
Examples
Anime
- Pokemon, Sailor Moon and others in their genres are notorious for this. This trope is very common in some varieties of anime, and in anime it tends to take a very egregious form that, after watching a few episodes, causes the audience to start asking uncomfortable questions like "Well, why don't the bad guys attack all at once instead of one at a time?" Writers usually stoop to handwaving if they deal with the question at all.
- Which caused a Dub Induced Plot Hole in the English Macekre of Tokyo Mew Mew. If there's now an "army" of Monsters of the Week, why do we only see one at a time?
- Both parodied and played straight in Magical Project S, which has Pixy Misa summoning a new "Love-Love Monster" in half of the episodes. The show and its characters are quite aware of both the futility of these creations (as the incantation of "Calling Mistakes" suggests) and their formulaic nature (in an episode where Misa introduces a small army of them, Sammy dryly says "I've seen all those already").
- Fist Of The North Star, moreso in the anime than in the manga, varies between these and genuine story arcs.
- Voltron, the 1980s paragon of the trope.
- And Mazinger Z, of course, is the 1970s paragon, although Dr. Hell sometimes sent two or three at a time as well. Subverted in Mazinkaiser, where Dr. Hell a large number monsters at once against Z and Great Mazinger, and wins.
- Samurai Pizza Cats. Lampshaded in one episode, where the Big Cheese introduced the robot menace he'd prepared for this episode with "Monster of the week, please enter and sign in."
- The N.M.E. in Kirby: Right Back at Ya would provide King Dedede with a new monster with which to try to kill Kirby just about every episode. Naturally, Dedede is just too cheap to buy more than one at any one time.
- Of course, he did go into debt buying them. N.M.E. actually had to send a monster to collect the debt without him realizing (At first). Still was defeated though.
- Some early episodes of Full Metal Alchemist had a version of this: If there's a plot important character in the episode we have not seen before, he is probably the Villain Of The Week. The main exception to this rule is Roze. 'Course, a fair share of these episodes turned out to be important to the plot later.
- Played with and used straight by Rah Xephon. The Dolems mainly show up on a one-a-week basis, although some of them survive their initial appearance and go on to reappear later.
- Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure arguably boils down to this... except it's "villain for the next month and a half", due to the length of the fights.
- The series didn't adopt this format until Part 3 began and Stands were introduced, as Parts 1 & 2 were arc based. Interestingly enough, this format helped the popularity of the series, as the fights were unique and the Stand users diverse.
- For about the first half of Speed Grapher, Suietengu's plan to recapture Kagura is to have his henchmen sic a different Euphoric on Saiga. They never live more than two episodes after being introduced.
- Early chapters of Yu-Gi-Oh generally featured a "Bully Of The Week." His role was typically to scam or beat up Yugi's friends, at which point Yugi would challenge him to a Cooking Duel or the local equivalent. Most notably, The Rival Kaiba started out like this.
- Every season of Digimon starts out this way as the new characters learn the ropes and the viewers learn the new characters (and in some seasons, new universe.)
- Save maybe the fourth season where it pretty much states that most all monsters are entire sub races of digimon, save a few, from the start.
- The anime Dai-Guard hangs a lampshade on this one by having scientists predict that the conditions necessary for the alien giant monster invaders to appear will repeat themselves roughly once every week.
- Figure17 plays this completely straight, although there is strong continuity as well. By the end of the series the monsters don't even look different from each other- they just get slightly upgraded powers.
- This does become less prominent as the plot goes on, however, as emphasis shifts toward Tsubasa and Hikaru's relationship, with some episodes not featuring a Maguar at all, and others being dedicated to particularly large and important, multi-episode fights.
- Witch Hunter Robin got a new witch every week for the first half. Then things changed rather abruptly...
- Mobile Suit Gundam, while extremely arc-based, still managed to introduce a lot of new enemy mobile suits in a monster-of-the-week fashion.
- G Gundam is a better example of this trope than just Gundam in general, really.
- G Gundam is THE best example in gundam, because this was the entire point behind the series, to draw on the Monster Of The Week fan base, or more specifically the robot of the week fanbase, because that was how most robot shows were done prior to Gundam.
- Played straight in Gao Gai Gar with the Zonders, though taking things in canon time passage it could more likely be considered the "Monster-of-the-half-a-week".
- The majority of Martial Arts And Crafts opponents in Ranma 1/2 ended up like this, from the comical and ridiculous (Sentaro Daimonji of the Martial Arts Tea Ceremony School, Picolet Chardin of La Belle France School) to the serious and dramatic (Prince Herb, Ryu Kumon, Saffron.) Then the anime took it above and beyond with outlandish Rivals of the Week who used toys, eggs, calligraphy, or even crepes. Only rivals who had preexisting relationships with the cast, such as Ryouga, Mousse, and Ukyou, were given the chance to stick around and become regular characters.
- Played straight by Genesis Of Aquarion, though at first the monsters were just regular Cherubim Soldiers with some kind of new ability that the team had to find a way to overcome by using lessons from earlier in the episode to unlock a new attack.
- Bleach started out like this, with Ichigo fighting a different hollow each chapter. Though after Rukia got taken back to Soul Society, it became more Story Arc focused.
- Inu Yasha was literally this for nearly every episode outside the last anime story arc. Once the manga got past the point of the anime ending, it changed up a little bit.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha started out like this, then Fate intervened.
- Often overlooked, but Neon Genesis Evangelion also started like this. A review even calls it the best Monster Of The Week show ever.
Literature
- The Doc Savage novels are always this except one because Doc is so good at what he does (lobotomies).
- In the books of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, earlier-written ones in particular, the vast majority of villains are only there for the book or trilogy, and books set later or earlier completely forget that these villains ever existed. Odd, considering that they tend to be Imperial forces. The exceptions are Aaron Allston's run on the X Wing Series, which had the campaign against Warlord Zsinj; the Coruscant Nights trilogy, which had one-book guest appearances by Prince Xizor and Aurra Sing; and roughly anything Timothy Zahn writes.
Live Action TV
- The X Files occasionally had a weekly monster, for a while. The X Files is famous for not quite wrapping up a MOTW and closing with an Or Is It ending.
- Unusually, while most fandoms considers MOTWs to be fillers, a large group of The X Files fans considered the weekly monster episodes to be superior to the Myth Arc episodes, especially in later seasons... mostly because the latter were made up as they went along.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer interspersed Monster Of The Week episodes with Story Arc episodes, especially toward the beginning of the season. This became less common in later seasons.
- Just under half of the episodes of The 4400 were like this. Several episodes would focus on a specific person out of the fourty-four hundred people who had dissapeared and been returned (and, later on, people who had taken the promicin shots handed out by Jordan Collier), what sort of supernatural power they had developed, and a problem they had created (either willingly or otherwise) that would be resolved by the end of the episode. As stated above, it could in this case perhaps be more accuratley called something like 'Freak of the Week', as the people in focus weren't always deliberately antagonistic.
- In SF author David Gerrold's book about writing the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", he recounts seeing the first episode broadcast, which featured a creature that sucked all of the salt out of people's bodies, thereby killing them. He hoped Star Trek wasn't g oing to turn out to be a Monster Of The Week show.
- Doctor Who was originally supposed to be an edutainment program... until the Daleks showed up, whereupon it careened irreversibly into Monster Of The Week territory.
- Notably, the old series was made up of serials, usually three or four parts...making it more like monster of the month. Though, the new series follows this trope straight.
- Kolchak The Night Stalker could be considered the ultimate archetype. It was, in fact, even mockingly dismissed by some as "Kolchak's Monster of the Week" when its transfer from a pair of movies to a TV series ended up not quite panning out.
- The second season of Dark Angel is a good example of this trope, and suggests that it was supposed to be a One Season Wonder.
- In the Tremors series, monsters of the week were produced by a chemical compound called "Mix Master" which, once released into the valley, randomly scrambled together the DNA of all living things except humans. This created monstrosities ranging from acid-shooting plants to giant shrimp.
- Extremely common in Toku, especially Kamen Rider and Super Sentai (and by extension, Power Rangers). This isn't terribly surprising, as the action and fights are the main draw of these shows (not that's a bad thing, nor that good storytelling can't go along with that) Indeed, Super Sentai has multiple-stage monster of the week fights, culminating in a robot vs. daikaiju showdown.
- Power Rangers may well be your average Westerner's introduction to the very concept.
- The 51 Undead in Kamen Rider Blade are actually in conflict with one another to see which will be the dominant species on Earth (the human Undead was the winner of the last such competition, hence us). It can probably be assumed most of them are simply laying low and gathering their strength at the beginning of the series.
- Lampshaded in one episode of Power Rangers Ninja Storm. The Big Bad tries to send two giant monsters at once against the heroes, only to be informed by his henchman that they can only afford to enlarge one at a time.
- Kamen Rider Den-O is a slight variation on this, as almost every episode is a two-parter (or more); therefore, almost every Monster Of The Week actually lasts at least two weeks - and that's not counting the ones that were just slightly rebranded and reused, or those revived to serve as the Big Bad's army in the Grand Finale.
- The escaped souls from Reaper fit the title more literally than most examples of this trope.
- Supernatural usually has actual monsters, more so in the first two seasons.
- Heroes seems to be drifting into this territory with the escape of the inmates from Level 5.
- Big Wolf On Campus. Since it's technically a Monster Mash, that's reasonable enough.
- House, except the monsters in this case are microscopic.
- Ultraman is probably one of the most fitting examples of this trope.
- Highlander often has an "Immortal of the Week" that Duncan MacLeod has to fight at the end of each episode.
- Charmed utilized this, although it became less prevalent in later seasons.
- Primeval, just what will come through the Anomaly this week?
- Smallville has Meteor Freak of the Week, mutants created by kryptonite. Season 6 also gave us the Phantom Zone escapees-of-the-week. As the series has progressed, it has much more of a Story Arc, but of keeps the Monster of the Week format.
Tabletop Games
- Although a different medium, episodic RPG campaigns also fall into this pattern, as gaming groups usually get together to play once a week.
Video Games
- The monthly Full Moon Shadows that the party fights in Persona 3 at first seem to fall into this category; however, later on, it is revealed that they are all actually fragments of a single Shadow, Death, who is the herald of Nyx, the one destined to bring about The End Of The World As We Know It.
- A literal example in The World Ends With You for the DS: each week of the Reaper's Game is presided over by a "game master". These are especially powerful reapers who, what do you know, transform into monstrous versions of themselves when you get to fight them.
Web Original
- The web fiction serial Dimension Heroes often has the Dimensional Guardians fighting a new monster in every chapter, though it must be pointed out the fights still help to advance the story arc.
Western Animation
- The various varieties of Scooby Doo usually had a Guy In A Monster Suit Of The Week.
- Ben 10 lives on this. Considering the strange and varied varieties of trouble that tend to occur wherever Ben goes, one feels sorry for this kid's hometown if summer vacation ends.
- Lilo And Stitch The Series uses a kid-friendly variant, the titular pair try to find a peaceful place for each monster to live.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man has Spider-Man fight a Supervillain of the week.
- Though a lot of these were the result of the machinations of one or more of the show's three Big Bads- Tombstone, Doc Ock, or Norman Osborn, rather than isolated encounters.
- Megas XLR practically lives off this, along with a fair bit of lampshade hanging. "Cool. Lets go see what kinda monster I get to beat up this week!"
- Martin Mystery
- The various ghosts of both The Real Ghostbusters & Extreme Ghostbusters fit neatly into this trope.
- On Swat Kats, this phenomenon also cropped up as the "Missile of the Week" used to deal with the current problem at hand. And no complaint from this troper about the SK quote. ;)
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force usually follows this rule, with the monster somehow spawning out of Shake or Carl's short-sighted actions or out of nowhere.
- When not facing their Rogues Gallery, the Powerpuff Girls mostly just take on different monsters.
- Spoofed in Sev Trek: Puss in Boots (an Australian parody of Star Trek The Next Generation).
Lt. Barf: Captain, we are being hailed. I recommend we go to Red Alert!
Captain Pinchhard: We haven't even met them! Isn't that a little premature?
Lt. Barf: Every week we encounter aliens who try to destroy or take over the ship. It would save a lot of time if we assumed the worst now.
- Martin Morning demonstrates this, with the odd twist of the protagonist being the new monster each episode.
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