Status Quo Is God - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Thank goodness everything is back to normal! Which is the only way it should ever be."
— Marge Simpson, The Simpsons

"Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'."
— Ronald Reagan

A more extreme version of Failure Is The Only Option, in which almost nothing changes. This usually happens in a series with no overarching conflict. The reasoning is probably that they want the audience to instantly know everything about the characters and situation, without having to bother with such things as "what happened last episode". For example, they may use a title sequence that tells us everything we need to know. Much like Failure Is The Only Option, any changes at all are resolved with a Snap Back or Reset Button. And God forbid anyone change the status quo of the surrounding world.

This trope is especially true for cartoons, where networks want to be free to broadcast reruns in any convenient order or lack thereof. Cartoons with Story Arcs have slowly started becoming more popular over the past decade or so, perhaps influenced by the popularity of the many, many anime series which have an ongoing continuity. Or, perhaps, simply as a result of a generation of Americans and other Western audiences (implied by the previous statement) growing up with more complex media as the Eastern audience had the generation before along with the increasing availability of personal creative display via the Internet. It's still especially common in sitcoms, though — and as a result, there are plenty of Broken Aesops created by the fact that, although characters have learned their lessons or attempted to improve their predicaments, nothing ever really changes.

It can be very difficult to juggle an unchanging status quo without gradually turning off your audience; characters and situations which never change tend to get stale after a while, and audiences can get a bit tired of seeing the Reset Button being pushed every time it looks like something might happen to change things — especially if the thwarted change was potentially more interesting than the current status quo.

This aspect can also often apply to Shipping in well... fiction in general. Ever get the feeling that while a certain story may enjoy some Ship Tease but only the fanfiction seems to be the only stories that actually develop these insinuated romances and the writer(s) would like to keep it that way? Ever notice how many times there are characters whose sole purpose in the plot is to be a perpetually unrequited love interest? (Though granted often enough if that is the case then the script will just LOVE to remind us every chance it gets.) Fortunately while there are some cases in which it can either go in a good way or a bad way. But there is a pretty darn good chance that many stories will love to imply potential romances every chance they get but whether if they actually do anything BUT imply them can be a different story.

Negative Continuity is what happens when the writers become too aware of the ramifications of this: they change anything and everything every episode, knowing that absolutely none of it will ever stick.

For the opposite, see Nothing Is The Same Anymore.

Examples

Anime and Manga

In general, whenever an anime movie is released, it is treated as little more than filler and rarely if ever affects the plot of the main anime thanks to the movie being produced after the anime.
- Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie plays with this trope, as the characters literally mention how many powerful cards they have that they will never use again, and how they will never mention the events that happened in the film again.
- The Netherworld is never mentioned after Poltergeist Report.
- Bleach: Memories of nobody does this but they actually have an explanation. Similar to Pokemon: The First Movie it can take place any time in the anime's story arc but at the end, everyone is forced to forget the events of the film so naturally no one would remember it. Especially since nobody would believe them if they did.
- Subverted in the first couple of Digimon movies, in which the first three actually explain something important to the backstory of the Adventure arcs such as the events at Highton View Terrace, DNA Digivolution being seen for the first time, and Willis who was mentioned briefly in Adventure 02.
- The first Full Metal Alchemist anime ended with a film that acted as a conclusion to the anime's story in a subversion.
  - Similarly, The Digimon Tamers movie "Runaway Locomon" also acts as a sequel to the events of the series.
Dragonball Z did this with sagas. Yes, the new Big Bad comes in and kills a bunch of main characters, and a couple cities nobody cares about, but at the end of the season, there will always be a dragonball hunt, and things will be restored. Until the next alien/robot/wizard comes out the sky and starts killing people again.
Love Hina manages to reset practically every character or relationship development, even finally getting into Tokyo University or Naru shouting she loves Keitaro at the top of her lungs when he is only a few feet away seems to have no effect whatsoever.
- Averted by the end, thankfully. Sometimes at the last possible second, but averted. Still doesn't make up for them toying with it earlier.
Though not entirely bound to the trope, Ranma ½'s only means of advancing its story appear to have been introducing new characters (possibly explaining its over time rather large cast), or having an existing character learn a new combat technique (usually to little lasting avail). Two of the story's main features, the relationships of the characters and the curses that some of them carried, remained set in stone despite the characters' many attempts to alter them one way or another.
- It's not just Ranma ½. This pretty much describes every Rumiko Takahashi regular series (swapping "curses" for "mental hangups" and "unkillable bad guys" where applicable). Maison Ikkoku being the sole exception (So far...), and even then, change took 96 episodes to arrive and stick.
  - This is painfully common in Inuyasha. Naraku proves to be such an unkillable bastard that he manages to maintain his status as the Big Bad for several hundred chapters, and is generally always the Man Behind The Man for every other villain who doesn't happen to be a Monster Of The Week.
  - Which explains why Inuyasha lasted so friggin' long. Seriously, is there a trope for "super-long series that maintains the status quo because people don't stop watching it?"
Face it: Ash's Pikachu is never going to be a Raichu. This is explained in a few Kanto episodes, most notably when the Vermillion Gym match has it face its evolved form. In-universe, it's a matter of pride. In real life, it's because they'd have to redesign the series' iconic mascot.
- Bulbasaur — while not quite as popular as its teammate — has this same dilemma when it shows signs of evolution (unlike Pikachu, Bulbasaur evolves by level). Once again, it's explained as a matter of pride. It's likely really because Ivysaur and Venusaur, while more powerful, aren't as cute. Bulbasaur has a Crowning Moment Of Awesome as a result when it uses the Solarbeam attack for the first time.
  - It was a pretty good reason to give him the new attack though, since (in the pokemon game series) if you choose not to evolve a pokemon it'll learn high level moves faster.
- On this note, Ash will always hit the Reset Button whenever he finds out about a new set, ditching the Big Three of the last in favor of the next. Don't even start on Team Rocket, who are perhaps the masters of maintaining the status quo of being villains.
  - At least they let their Pokemon evolve though.
The Get Backers do not make a profit. Ever. On the off chance their task is performed to one hundred percent perfection and their client is on the up-and-up, they'll spend it almost instantly.
Ditto the crew of The Bebop (as far as their financial fortunes went, at any rate).
And again ditto Lupin III. There's also the egregious example of the movie Island of Assassins, which ends with Lupin and Fujiko both trapped in a blimp that they can't leave without activating a lethal poison, and with the one known antidote explicitly shown to have failed. Needless to say, it never comes up again.
Anime filler naturally can't affect the overall plot too much. Two interesting examples from Naruto:
- Sasuke is in the hospital at the end of the Search for Tsunade arc but gets revived in time for the Land of Tea filler arc. Since the next arc begins with Sasuke in the hospital, he gets injured again in the filler.
- In the Fuma Clan filler arc, Naruto and Sakura fight Kabuto...but since he's too major a villain to kill off, it turns out to be someone else in disguise.
  - The same filler arc features Orochimaru. Also as a disguised filler villain. Speaking with villain-disguised-as-Kabuto. Amongst themselves. In character as Orochimaru and Kabuto! Though presumably the idea was that Orochimaru left these disguised villains behind in his base as decoys, the way it was presented manages to combine all the worst aspects of Never Trust A Trailer within the context of the episode itself.
- This also applies to any filler arc that has at least some potential to get Naruto close to finding Orochimaru and/or Sasuke (Mizuki, Bikochuu, Land of Sea, Three Tails). In the Treasure Hunt arc, Tsunade threatens to send Naruto, Hinata and Kiba back to the academy if they fail- they obviously don't.
- She was probably lying in the first place.
- The Three-Tails filler arc focuses on the struggle between Konoha and Orochimaru over the Three Tailed Beast. If you read the manga, you know that Akatsuki manages to capture it, making the outcome no longer a surprise.
The "perpetually broke" version of this trope was given a unique triple subversion in One Piece. Despite being pirates, the Straw Hats don't usually have much money around. In one anime filler arc, they finally have gotten their hands on a pile of gold, but they end up in tightly secured Marine base. Just when they make it back to their ship and are on their way to freedom, they realize that all their gold was confiscated by the Marines. Just when you think they'll sigh and suck it up, they turn around and break into the base to get it back. A couple of islands later, they have it converted to cash and, soon enough, two of their three hundred million Berries is stolen and spent before they can get it back. But at the end of it all, the money went into materials used to build them a kick ass new ship.
- In Movie 4, in which they enter a contest with the same amount of berries as the worth of the aforementioned pile of treasure, they win the contest, but are forced to leave before they collect their winnings.
In Excel Saga the Status Quo literally is a god.
Keroro Gunsou is particularly devoted to this trope. Let's face it, Keroro will continue building Gunpla and ticking Natsumi off, Tamama will continue eating candy and obsessing over Keroro, Giroro will continue to be infatuated with Natsumi and shine his guns, Kururu will continue being a jerk and eating curry, and Dororo will continue to sit in a corner and cry. NOTHING SHALL CHANGE.
- Lampshaded in one episode where Momoka visualises herself still watching Fuyuki quietly from a corner. In the future. Where both are well into their eighties. Apparently the Japanese are known to age well, but still...
This happens to the U.C universe of Mobile Suit Gundam the Federation will never turn competent and stop hiring Complete Monsters and the Zeon movement will never stay dead.
- Actually, Zeon finally gets put to rest in Gundam F90, in a battle with the Oldsmobile Army on Mars. At which point, the Federation only gets worse, until it becomes completely irrelevant by Victory Gundam.
Harima will always be in love with Tenma
Inu Yasha. Just, Inu Yasha.
- While the series is very episodic one of the movies can be very guilty of this. Namely by two aspects of the movie such as a rather questionable quote from Sesshomaru: "I am Sesshomaru and I protect no one!" And earlier in the movie Inuyasha's necklace got broken and was free from Kagome's "Sit Boy!" but unfortunately at the end of the movie Kagome tricked Inuyasha into putting it back on.
  - Though to be fair in one of the other movies it was debatable, namely on how Inuyasha and Kagome had a tender makeout scene. (Fans of the pairing needless to say generally loved it. And even certain folks whom normally don't like it appreciated this movie for actually doing something with it than the endless tension that goes on in the series. However its an anime movie based on an anime TV show so therefore its not canon.
To Heart 2: After thirteen episodes and five OV As, the Unlucky Everydude still hasn't chosen a girl out of his Unwanted Harem.
In Gintama, no matter how many jobs the protagonists take on, they will never make any profit. And the rent never gets paid. Ever.
- Subverted with Gintoki's sword. It is revealed in one episode that in case one gets broken, he just orders another from a galactic shopping channel and has it customized so it looks exactly the same as the previous one.

Comic Books

Marvel/DC Comics live by this trope. The worst offender of this being the "One More Day" arc in the Spider-Man comics that made at least half the known Spider-Man comics null and void.
- The marriage of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Mary Jane has long been a sticking point in the craw of Marvel; long before "One More Day", the entire Clone Saga was created just to give them a big fat Reset Button to undo it with. And again, it invalidated a good chunk of Spider-Man's history, until it slipped into Dork Age status by fan demand.
- The irony being that the "status quo" that many of these retcons are returning to hasn't been the state of affairs of at least twenty years; arguably, for most of the readers, Spider-Man's marriage is the status quo.
  - One typically has to look at the non-A-List titles or characters to see some progression of some sort. Generally, the less popular iconic characters are much more prone to change and development because less people will get in an uproar. Superman dies - mainstream media talks about it. Half the Marvel mutants get depowered and/or killed. Eh, it's a plot point someone mentions while dealing with the important stuff.
Hal Jordan is Green Lantern again! Thank goodness that 14 years of Kyle Rayner filler is over, right? Thanks a bunch, Dan!
- Now being joined by Barry Allen. All this will suit some tastes more than others.
- Given that the first thing publicly revealed about the upcoming Green Lantern movie was that it wouldn't be Jordan, it seems some very important people hate the status quo.
Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel actually didn't believe in this, but was forced into it by the editors at DC: he wrote a story in 1940 in which Superman tells Lois Lane his secret identity, and it isn't magically retconned away at the end of the issue. The story was drawn and inked before DC bosses got cold feet and scrapped it. Nearly 60 years would pass before Clark Kent and Lois finally hooked up.
The X-Men will never succeed. Mutants will always be Hated And Feared. Why? Because Wangst sells more books, and True Art Is Angsty. How's that for a Downer Ending?
- Also, Professor Xavier will always be crippled. Always.
  - Or rather, he's doomed to be periodically cured via some amazing impossible-to-replicate miracle of science, after which he gets to walk around for about a year's worth of issues before some horrible mishap leaves him crippled again, in the exact same way he was before. This has happened at least three times.
The Archie Comics Love Showdown storyline promised that Archie would chose either Betty or Veronica once and for all. The four part story ends with him choosing Cheryl Blossom, but was followed up with a special that essentially sets the situation back to normal.

Films

Godzilla will always come back to either: A) fight other (possibly more evil) monsters; B) destroy a major city (Usually Tokyo), or C) both. No matter HOW many times the JSDF try to stop him. Even when Godzilla IS defeated, he manages to come back in the next film.
- Though this case could be more Strictly Formula than Status Quo Is God.
- Oddly enough, comic book writers like to subvert this. In Planetary the Four kill off the Kaiju in their crusade against weird and recently in Marvel Civil War it was explained that the arrival of Japanese Superheroes allowed Japan to put an end to it's Kaiju attacks. Moral of the Story: the way to kill off a status quo is with another status quo.
High School Musical has a song all about this.
- This results in Sharpay possibly being more empty-headed and bitchy by Senior Year
Two words: James Bond.
Indiana Jones: see "James Bond." He finds lost treasures, and they're never heard from again. The Lost Ark? Somehow The Government packs it away, and doesn't even X-Ray it or anything. The Holy Grail? He drops it and loses it! The Crystal Skull? Nukes the Fridge.

Literature

The Red Dwarf novel Backwards, written by Rob Grant (who co-wrote the original six seasons of the television show). In this book, the "best end" Grant could come up with was having everything revert to as it is in the TV series, in spite of two of the cast dying and the other two being reverted in age by 10 years.

Live Action TV

According to producer Ron Moore, the new Battlestar Galactica makes a conscious effort to avert this trope, the idea being to introduce irrevocable change on a regular basis so the show doesn't stagnate and become the same episode over and over again. Some viewers naturally experience possible side-effects.
Chuck. Every time Chuck and Sarah are finally, properly going to get together, Bryce pops up, meaning that all the relationships are reset by the end of that episode.
Gilligans Island
- Obviously this series was built entirely around this trope— i.e. it's all about how they want to get off the island; but that would end the series, so it can't possibly happen.
Psych. Shaun and Jules and their relationship. They’ve never really displayed any overt affection towards each other, but Shaun has turned down some relationships with characters that would obviously change the dynamic of the show because of some unspoken thing that they’ll get together eventually.
- Status quo averted for at least the Season 3 finale.
British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf tends to subscribe to this most of the time. It doesn't matter if one of the crew is turned from robot to human, or if reality itself is collapsing, Status Quo will almost always be returned in form. Exceptions are made for the start of the 6th, 7th and 8th seasons, where a new Status Quo will be applied for the rest of that season, no matter how little sense it makes. This even includes bringing back a former character, who had left to go hop around the multiverse at random. However, because it's a scifi-sitcom-comedy, this series gets a decent excuse.
Seven Days has essentially no character development. Frank and Olga never get their relationship past the flirting phase. Donovan never gets to backstep (or do much of anything else). Ramsey still hates Frank's guts all throughout the series even though Frank stuck out his neck to protect him on multiple occasions.
- It's partly, though not entirely, justified by the show's Time Travel premise: that virtually all the onscreen character development gets literally reset-buttoned at the end of every single episode must make the situation infuriating for Frank, since he's the only one who can remember any of it.
As irritating as this trope can be in light-hearted series, it's even moreso in serious drama. Spooks has managed to hit both Anyone Can Die and Status Quo Is God, the latter for destroying half of south-east England, murdering the Royal Family, killing the parliament and leaving one of their main cast on death's door, before revealing the whole thing was a training exercise.
An accusation sometimes leveled at Star Trek Voyager.
- Voyager fits the Failure Is The Only Option trope far better. They did not stick to a status quo; there was a lot of character development. Watch Caretaker, then watch Endgame and tell me the characters haven't changed.
Lampshaded by That70s Show. Kelso complains at length that he's gone for the entire summer and nothing's changed. the minute he leaves, Jackie and Hyde are all over each other.
I haven't properly seen The Office in ages, but from what I understand of what's been going on lately, it seems to be turning into this.

Tabletop Games

The new edition of Warhammer 40000 states that mankind has entered the Time of Ending, with the long-awaited fall of the Imperium imminent. However, The End Of The World As We Know It is very, very unlikely.
- On the other hand, the series has seen the introduction of new races, and changes to old ones — the Tyranids, for example, are a vastly different force from the Genestealer infiltrators that first attacked the Imperium.
- This troper thought that the whole point of Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 was that the world is always almost about to end.
- You can't really blame GW for forestalling the inevitable galaxy-wide apocalypse at this point — things have gotten so bleak that if anything major does happen, whether it be the Imperium collapsing, the Necrons fully awaking, or what have you, it'll change the background so much that the galaxy could very well die. Yes, all of it.
White Wolf is not fond of this trope. In the original version of The World Of Darkness, any apocalypse foretold in a gameline would come to pass when that game went out of print, ending with the Time of Fire when the oWoD ended. The new one is designed as a more static universe. Likewise, Scion has the Overworld War take noticeable steps between the three main books.

Video Games

Pretty much every MMORPG, as covered in Perpetually Static. There are exceptions, though...
- Ever Quest II, for example, has occasional events that change the political landscape of the world, usually coinciding with expansions. Gameplay doesn't change much unless you're in one of the new starter cities, but the status quo is sometimes allowed to change.
- Also, EVE Online. Player organizations can and do control large areas of the game, and ownership changes all the time depending on how the latest war is going.
  - And the in-game story advances with each expansion, as well...
- Kingdom Of Loathing lampshades this by revealing that nothing (literally) the player can do has an effect on the place.
- In Plane Shift, since the game hasn't reached version 1 yet, time is officially frozen and all changes to the world are accomplished via Ret Con. The only exception is the brief "Crystal Eclipse" storyline that bridged versions 0.3 and 0.4, which introduced two new gods and left a definite mark on the game's history.
- This is largely the case in World Of Warcraft; Gnomeregan is never going to be reclaimed no matter how many billions of times the players clear it. An even worse example is the troll faction being displaced from its home isle by a single 10th level character that any of their town guards could butcher. One notable exception occurred with the release of patch 2.4, where the Captured Super Entity the Blood Elves used to create their own paladins escaped, and its entire captivity was revealed to be a divine Xanatos Gambit for the purpose of motivating the leader of the Blood Knights to swear fealty anew to the Light - which she did, willingly and enthusiastically. Even though the existing status quo was only slightly over a year old, many players called Dork Age on the change.
  - Also, when someone opens the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, they are going to stay open after the event concludes, and all associated benefits, including a mount and a fancy title, cannot be gained anymore. The developers are said to be going to treat Frostmourne in roughly the same way.
  - WoW does, however, manage to noticeably avert the trope with the Death Knight starting zone, which makes elaborate use of instancing to change the world a player perceives as the plotline progresses — a town full of hostile human units at the beginning is later inhabited by friendly undead units, for example. This occurs in more than one place in the expansion; for example, after one completes the quest to kill Varimathras, he disappears for good. Thanks to something called 'phasing', this can happen for all players.
- City Of Heroes flirts with this from time to time. While some villain groups have seen sufficient progress (especially the Fifth Column's eventual destruction and reformation into the Council), many fans have wondered just *how* many times, say, Countess Crey has to get arrested for murdering the original Countess Crey and taking her place for it to stick. The game never offers a reason why she's said to be in jail at the end of the story arc, but gamewise, her company and her persona are still just as effectively evil as ever.
  - Also how many times the "Save Statesman" arc could possibly make any logical sense. You'd think the Freedom Phalanx would at least tie a bell around his neck to stop this from happening so often...
  - City of Villains players know that there is no placating Blue Steel, no matter how hard they try.
Most Nintendo games follow this rule, at least, the major iconic ones anyway. No matter what, Peach will always be captured again and Mario will try to save her. Link is in a similar problem with Ganon and Zelda. Though the former set is willing to bury the hatchet every once and a while.

Web Comics

Averted in Schlock Mercenary, where their fortunes have shifted up and down, having gone through multiple ships, and have lost and gained secondary characters on many occasions.
Ctrl+Alt+Del recently managed this, despite one of the characters becoming pregnant, by having her subsequently miscarry.
- Ethan now OWNS the video game store, which he's renovated himself. And he and Lilah are now officially married. That sounds to me like actual plot.
The webcomic Sexy Losers had a rule, declared early on by its creator in his annotations: "Everyone is locked into their sexual perversion of choice." This did mean, unfortunately, that his characters had little wiggle room — note how quickly the storyline "The Seduction of Madame X" cuts off; by the seventeenth time he's recycling jokes. Eventually, the series came to an abrupt halt, which may have been the writer realizing he was out of things he could do with the characters without breaking his rule.
In The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob, Bob's roof will always, somehow, get repaired after having been destroyed earlier in the story. Lampshaded by the fact that it is unapologetically a Running Gag.

Web Original

Completely averted, and possibly subverted, in Whateley. While it is played with using Jade, by later in the series, Don Sebastaino of the Alphas is in the hospital, Tansy is running the Alphas, and Jade now has breasts and gender reconstructive surgery that works!

Western Animation

Code Lyoko literally does this with the Reset Button. Until the fact that XANA becomes more powerful with each Return to the Past was revealed, every episode ended with everybody on the verge of death when the time warp wiped the problems away.
- Unfortunately the story also starts falling into a larger sort of status quo as it develops, one so immutable that it allowed fans to start predicting the outcome of the show's cliffhangers in advance. No matter how many times characters like Sissi and Jim prove their usefulness, they'll never be exempt from the Masquerade. There will never be more Lyoko warriors than the four main cast members, and Franz Hopper will never be devirtualized. This trope's prevalence as the show went on was only made all the more frustrating by the official website offering fan polls on things like "which supporting character should become a Lyoko warrior".
The Dragon Hunters, like the Get Backers, never do lasting profits, despite all of Guido's schemes toward this end.
Duck Tales — and, in fact, any other appearance of Scrooge Mc Duck — is oddly obsessive about this trope, even to the extent of Scrooge very rarely managing to walk home with the treasure he's seeking. Do they really think that an extra million or so dollars would have any effect on the lifestyle of a man with five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and ten cents?
- No, but whatever he might say, Scrooge isn't doing it for money, but sense of adventure he can't get behind the desk. Considering that usually if he got the treasure, this would essentially say it's perfectly OK for a rich American to steal the national treasures of some Third World countries, the status quo ending is infinitely preferable. Don Rosa has even made a story or two that lampshade this fact.
- "saying it's perfectly OK for a rich American to steal the national treasures of some Third World countries? Duck Tales is based on Indiana Jones, and doesn't he specialize in doing exactly that, each time? I don't recall him getting any government's permission to raid their lost arks.
- The comics that Duck Tales is based on are even worse, and that extends to comics that don't feature Scrooge at all. This is understandable, since there are probably hundreds of artists in many different countries making the comics, and most of them ignore the other artists. Depending On The Writer, the stories may instead have Negative Continuity.
  - The Barks and Don Rosa comics have some continuity, just read The Life and Times of Scrooge Mc Duck.
  - With the Mc Duck books, there is continuity, but it's done by author instead of having one for the entire series. Most writers will callback to previous stories they created but will ignore the ones made by others so as not to mess with anyone's long-term story plans. The exception is Don Rosa, who considers all Carl Barks stories canon to his own universe and has written several sequels to Barks tales.
Family Guy had an episode in which Peter gets plastic surgery, resulting in a fit, handsome guy. Of course, this being Family Guy, the episode ended with him falling into a vat of lard and becoming fat again. Even worse was the episode where Lois gains a lot of weight after Peter's vasectomy. In the end she has quickie liposuction and surgery and ends up looking exactly as though she had never gained the weight at all. Never mind that in real life, such surgery is extremely invasive and has a long recovery, not to mention the fact that the body undergoes permanent changes if it has been obese (like skin stretching).
- But Family Guy changes on occasion: Peter lost his job at the toy factory permanently (at the end of the episode, they point out how odd it is that the status quo has not been restored). Cleveland and Loretta separated and stayed that way. And Bonnie finally had her kid, with whom she had been pregnant with for over six seasons.
- Recent seasons have subverted this, with Brian's lasting relationship with Jillian (Okay, they broke up in the end, but they were together for about a season's worth of episodes.)
- This trope is occasionally lampshaded. Peter once told Bonnie that she's been pregnant for six years, have the damn kid already. Also, Lois got fired from Fox News. Why? Who gives a damn, the episode is over and everything is back the way it always is (her words, more or less).
- There was also the time Peter was declared legally retarded. Lois who he burned earlier comes back with no damage done, though she will smell like fries for weeks. Also in the episode where Peter's father-in-law goes bankrupt. His wife who has married Ted Turner divorces him for no good reason.
Futurama lampshaded, deconstructed, and parodied this trope in an episode about television. When the main cast is forced to reshoot the final episode of Single Female Lawyer to prevent an alien invasion, Leela (as the titular character) decides to accept a marriage proposal. This angers the aliens, who proceed with their invasion until Leela improvises an ending that would result in her character remaining single, placating the aliens. (The fact that real life shows often destroy the status quo during the final episode is ignored.) The aliens are satisfied with this ending, and leave peacefully. With everything back to normal Fry has a short monologue (serving as a Spoof Aesop) about how things should always go back to normal at the end of an episode. The Camera then cuts to a devastated New New York, most of it having been destroyed during the episode. Of course, the status quo is restored by the next episode, so it's not actually a subversion. But it was a pretty good episode.
- After the end of the series and Bender's Big Score changed things somewhat, fans have taken to accusing The Beast With A Billion Backs of needlessly bowing to this trope.
Averted in Gargoyles, for the most part. Eliza's brother becomes a Mutate for instance and remains that way, a process that takes place over several episodes; later episodes deal with Talon's impromptu clan and responsibilities. Broadway shoots Eliza by accident and develops a series long hatred for firearms. The eventual reveal of the Gargoyles to the world at large springs the Quarrymen into the forefront. And so on.
No matter how many times Ron Stoppable from Kim Possible learns to use Mystical Monkey Power Kung Fu, learn to deal with his fears of monkeys and Camp Wannaweep or has become special for just anything, he will revert back to his status quo in the end of the episode or before the next.
- He did stay on the football team, leaving his mascot days behind.
- And he kept dating Kim. And kept his job. All which took place in the Post Script Season...
Moral Orel presents a possible subversion. It took ten episodes (out of the third season's 13) before we saw anything of the aftermath of the major events of the second season's finale, "Nature", where Cheerful Child Orel calls out his father. However, the reason for this is because all those episodes take place before and/or during "Nature".
The Powerpuff Girls has this all the time. In one episode, the girls travel so fast that they are warped to the future, where for 30 years evil has reigned. Out of complete stress and confusion, they try to escape from it all by traveling so fast they they warp back to the present time, thus achieving Status Quo.
- Oh yeah, whenever the city is in ruins, its back to normal the next episode. Few things remain destroyed, an example being a bridge in a nearby city.
The Simpsons, with a few exceptions.
- Played with in some of the few episodes which avert this trope; many of them feature endings that make it seem like the status quo will once again be restored, only to change it up on the viewer at the last second. The classic example is the episode where Milhouse's parents divorce; the episode ends with Kirk singing a romantic song for Luann in a last-ditch attempt to win her back. It looks like we're in for a heartwarming reunion, until Kirk asks her to come back to him and she replies "Oh God no!" They stay broken up.
  - They DID eventually get back together, but that was ten seasons later.
Goof Troop featured an episode where Goofy was elected mayor of the city, but curiously that never came up again.
Danny Phantom uses it some of the time, with the more notable instances being the end of Reality Trip, where Danny mindwipes everyone except the people who knew prior to the start of the episode. For that matter, he bounced back unusually quickly from the extremely intense encounter with his future self.
- The former example is especially annoying because despite its use of this trope, the series also makes frequent uses of multiple Story Arc and Character Development with said changes actually staying during the show's run.

Music

Yeah, Status Quo are great, aren't they!
- Requisite link to Incredibly Lame Pun.

Real Life

European politics from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the start of the Pax Britannia in 1815 revolved around the "Balance of Power," meaning any state that grew too powerful or ambitious (and in the process disturbed the existing balance of power) usually found itself at war with a coalition led by the next-greatest power. This is why no one has ever conquered all of Europe.
- Hell, you could even count the two world wars as Balance of Power politics, with the two greatest powers (Britain and Germany) on opposing sides.

Stand Alone Episode

« Script Speak »

Story Arc

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys

Examples