Girl Of The Week - Television Tropes & Idioms

Galaxy Angel parodies this; in each of Ranpha's episodes, she falls over a new hot guy, but they all look and sound the same.
Pokemon, subverted (Brock never has even a slim chance of actually getting the girl).
- Well, almost never. There have been some very rare instances of girls actually being interested in Brock, but they always go their separate ways by the end of the episode anyway.
- Also subverted in that half the girls are either Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny, who all look/sound/act the same.
The anime series King Of Bandit Jing offered this as a feature, with a different pretty girl in each of the Adventure Towns the titular hero journeyed to.
The manga Eat-Man also featured many of these, most of them kinda underaged.
In Princess Tutu's second season, this trope is combined with Victim Of The Week to give Mytho a new conquest in many episodes.
Makoto of Sailor Moon usually fell for each minor male character shortly after their introduction.
- And they all remind her of an ex-friend, even Haruka.
Not so much Girlof The Week as Girl of the Movie but the Naruto movies seem to love this trope. Naruto's had at least one older woman giving him a kiss, a Distressed Damsel literally offering to have his babies (which, due to the way she phrased it, Naruto unwittingly accepts), and in the second Shipuuden movie he ends up with the current Girl Of The Week clutching him to her chest (it would be Marshmallow Hell if she had bigger... tracts of land while tearfully claiming that she'd never leave him...) Being non-canonical of course, no one of them ever shows up again.
This theme is basically the premise of Golden Boy.

Cinematic example: The "Bond girl" is a staple character of the James Bond movies. Notably, the two times Bond managed to get too serious about the girl, she died - Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Vesper Lynd in the 2006 version of Casino Royale.
- Very interestingly, Devil May Care Had the Bond Girl turn out to be a Double-O in her own right.
Subverted in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where the original love interest returns as a major character.
- It's even revealed that her son is also his son and they get married at the end of the film.
The original Batman films. Batman had Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), Batman Returns had Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Batman Forever had Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman).

Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series employed this trope. At least one of the women left her people to join Fafhrd, but where is she in the next book?...
- She's there just long enough to suffer Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome, as I recall.
- Then, there is a story where they set out, full of vim, certain that they would bump into someone from their old adventures — and owing to the wrath of certain gods, meet up with girl of the week after girl of the week, and everyone of them had made her own life and rejects them both. (Until the very end, where abject humiliation succeeds in winning the two they least wanted to meet.)
- Though The Twain both end up more or less as faithful (more or less) married husbands in the last stories, set on Rime Isle.

The Girl of the Week was frequently used on Magnum PI. In fact, when they weren't Girl of the Week episodes, they were probably Temporary Love Interest episodes.
- Pretty much a staple of PI series from the 50's to the 80's (e.g. Vegas)
Knight Rider. Just...Knight Rider.
The guys in The Professionals never have the same girl for more than one episode. Generally, if Girl of the Week is blonde, she will be dumb and annoying. If she's brunette, she will be mildly intelligent, but still in need of looking after. Most notable Girls of the Week are Ann in Involvement (Doyle's girlfriend) and Marikka in Fall Girl (Bodie's girlfriend).
Hogan's Heroes did this a lot. The women could be German civilians, members of the underground, foreigners, or even German officers, and the Heroes would still go for them.
Billy from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had enough of these to give almost any other character on this list a run for their money. He got more romantic subplots than any other Ranger and probably still holds the record as the franchise's biggest in-canon stud.
Every romantic interest on Silver Spoons for anyone besides Kate and Ricky's father Edward.
Seinfeld also often used Girl of the Week. Though the increasingly petty reasons those relationships ended (liking a certain commercial, eating peas one at a time, having "man hands," etc.) could be considered lampshade hanging.
- They actually did hang a lampshade in one episode where Elaine asked Jerry, who is worrying about his new girlfriend, "What are you worried about? You're dating a new girl, like, every week."
In the first season of Beverly Hills 90210, many episodes focused on Brandon's Girl Of The Week. Late in the season, Brenda actually commented on it. (See: Lampshade Hanging)
- Sometimes this would flirt with "Very Special Episode" territory, since most of the girls Brandon hooked up with had some kind of "issue" connected to them, eg., the girl with the baby, the black girl, the racist girl—never let it be said Brandon wasn't an equal opportunity dater.
The repeated use of Girls of the Week in later seasons of Sliders was criticized by fans, although they were usually temporary love interests since most of the time they died tragically at the end of the episode.
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr. featured several Girls of the Week. Brisco got kissed by many beautiful women, but his heart always belonged to Dixie Cousins.
Most early seasons of Frasier rarely had Frasier Crane with a girlfriend who stayed around longer than an episode; sometimes they didn't even break up, she simply wasn't there any more an episode later. In later seasons, the girlfriend might stay for a mini-arc but would likely be gone after. Often a focus of Lampshade Hanging as Frasier obsessed about his inability to commit. In one memorable episode, most of the former love interests made a cameo in a Dream Sequence on the subject.
All of the main male characters of the Star Trek spinoffs got at least one Girl Of The Week (and occasionally Crusher and Troi would get a Guy Of The Week). As for the original? They were all hogged by Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Mostly Kirk.
- This was such a common event that characters who keep getting the Girl Of The Week in a TV series are sometimes referred to as 'Kirk' or 'a Kirk', either as criticism or compliment, often by geeky characters. See various episodes of Stargate Atlantis as an example, with Rodney Mc Kay calling John Shepherd 'Kirk' after he has met and conquered the Girl Of The Week - but then he's jealous! The epitome of this was when Shephard tried to hit on Rodney's married sister in the episode 'Mc Kay and Mrs Miller' (S3 E08).
- This specific example was hilariously lampshaded in the In Living Color skit The Wrath of Farrakhan. The line that had me crying with laughter? 'You even take the ugly ones, Captain!'
The Saint, especially during Ian Ogilvy's time as the hero.
Bergerac (the detective from the island of Jersey, not Cyrano) was a more constant type of chap. He went through a girlfriend per season.
While Doctor Who has typically lacked in romance, the new series has done this in the third series. In Human Nature and Family of Blood the Doctor, while temporarily human and with no memory of his previous life, falls in love with a human. Martha comments that the Doctor's instructions to her never mentioned anything about him falling in love, which means the Doctor must have forgotten about last year's Temporary Love Interest, the Madame de Pompadour. (Although since he's an immortal time traveller, it could have been millennia between the end of the second series and the start of the third.
- And he's still not over Rose after millennia?
Quantum Leap loved this trope - justifying it in that Sam's scrambled brain would pick up on the feelings of the person he replaced and that his pursuit would set the GOTW and the person Sam leapt into "on the right path".
- Besides which, unless it was a two-parter Sam would be forcibly "leaped" out of the situation, therefore he couldn't have an ongoing relationship with any of them. (He had a wife in his "present" but didn't remember her. She decided that was for the best: because if he knew, she knew he'd feel obliged not to pursue any GOTW no matter how right it would be for the person he leaped in to.)
A common trope on The Wild Wild West.
Most of the episodes of Flight Of The Conchords, mainly because most of the duo's songs are love songs. Mel is the only regular female character, and she's a stalker that they cannot stand. The only recurring girlfriends are Sally (3 episodes) and Coco (2).
- Possibly lampshaded with the song "Carol Brown", in which Jemaine imagines being sung at by a choir of his ex-girlfriends...all of whom we've never seen before.
Drake from Drake And Josh; pretty self-explanatory. There eventually came an episode where Drake does wish and attempts to have a committed relationship, but we never see this girl again either. The guy's pick-ups change so much that Josh has even commented and/or mixed up some names to remember.
- This was even lampshaded at one point...
Josh: Lucy might end up being the girl you date for more than three weeks
A few episodes of the Lee Van Cleef/Timothy Van Patten series The Master that appeared on MST 3 K followed this trope to a tee, the first featuring a young Demi Moore. They weren't all pining for Tim, but there was always a young woman or two, of variable relevance to the plot.
MacGyver, especially in the early seasons.
Time Trax had very few episodes without one of these.
A very commonly used trope in The Sixties spy series The Man From UNCLE (befitting the series's status as a James Bond knockoff). Usually the GotW wound up in the arms of suave operator Napoleon Solo, but the occasional episode would give her to distaff fan favorite Illya Kuryakin.
In the early seasons of Monk, the title character's assistant, Sharona, would often have a Guy of the Week. He was usually revealed to be either the murderer or some other criminal.
Stargate Atlantis is filled with this. Ascended Ancients, non-ascended Ancients, Princesses, Female Starship Captains, etc etc.
How I Met Your Mother. How many candidates have we had for the mother, now? A few dozen? And let's not even get into Barney's numerous conquests.
30 Rock has girls/boys of the season for both Liz and Jack. They also tend to break up with people around the same time. It's eerie.
Fans of Forever Knight referred to this phenomenon as "Neck of the Week."
Big Pete had several Girls Of The Week, especially in the last season of The Adventures Of Pete And Pete.
Milked for all it was worth in an episode of Wizards Of Waverly Place where everyone is thrilled that he's dating someone, and he rattles off a list of Girl Of The Week's that's been with, only for his brother to say 'Nope, don't rememember them'
Frequently used in Disney Channel shows
Any of Zack's love interests on Saved By The Bell that wasn't Kelly, Tori, or Stacy. Including Lisa, even though she was a main character for the entire run of the series, Slater's sister (never seen before or after), and the homeless girl that moved into his house with her father.

At least the radio show of Have Gun Will Travel has the main character Paladin returning from his adventures to a new Girl Of The Week. Subverted in that he wasn't always successful in the attempt.
Harry Lime almost always had one of these (generally some girl he was attempting to scam) in The Many Lives Of Harry Lime.

In Avatar The Last Airbender, Zuko, or better yet Sokka, has multiple love interests. However, Zuko ends up with Mai, and Sokka with Suki.
- The abridged series has Sokka proudly declare "I got hos in different area codes" when this is brought up.
- Interestingly enough, the Suki was originally intended to be this, but was brought back and made a permanent love interest due to fandom demand.
Tammy the squirrel and Foxglove the bat in Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers. There were others too, including Sparky, a rare example of a "Boy of the week", for Gadget. It was a fairly regular trope in the show.

Sapphire: Ivanka, Michiru, and Élodie.
- Averted in Episode II. Michiru would fit this trope, but Alec refuses to fall for her, still waiting to be with Ivanka again.
  - Although, Alec and Michiru eventually try to make love, but are rudely interrupted by Daisuke.

Ratchet from the Ratchet And Clank series, seems to be quite the ladies man for a short furry dude. It started mainly in the second game, first with Angela Cross, Sasha Phyronix in the third game (she made a cameo in the fourth), a character named Hydrogirl offered Ratchet to 'come hook her up' if he was ever near her home planet at the end of the fourth game, the most recent games seem to have Talwyn Apogee in this role.
- Clank himself is probably more successful. Hell, the dude literally was a robot James Bond in his big-screen movie role.
Dante from the Devil May Cry series has almost had one for each game. The first had Trish, the second had Lucia, the third (a prequel) had Lady and then in the fourth he seemed to have both Trish and Lady at the same time. Lucky bastard.
The Uncharted series both fits and subverts this trope. In the first game Elena Fisher is the main love interest for Nathan Drake. The second has Elena absent at first and instead has an even older flame, Chloe Frazer supposedly rekindling her relationship with Drake. Halfway through the game, Drake runs into Elena which starts a love triangle of sorts. At the end after Elena has seemingly died (they even show Drake standing next to a Tibetan grave), the game reveals her to actually be alive and well (the grave was for another supporting character), Chloe and Drake go their respective ways and Drake and Elena officially become a couple a last. Awwwwww
- And they do it whilst bickering into the sunset.
Sonic The Hedgehog has this played straight and averted, depending on the continuity.
- In the AoStHseries, Sonic had a new love interest every other episode. Averted on the rare occasion when his job was to set the Girl Of The Week up with her true love and to save her from Robotnik's advances. He "married" Robotnik himself disguised as said love interest.
- He also hooked up a former Girl Of The Week with Robotnik's son, which worked because they were both robots.
- Completely averted in SEGA's Sonic for obvious reasons, where he has best-freind of the week instead.

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