Sometimes, when the police are trying to solve a case and a large number of suspects and/or persons of interest are being interrogated (or perhaps simply interviewed), the questioner is shown getting an answer from one person, then asking a follow-up question that gets answered by an entirely different person (suggesting they are merely asking the same series of questions over and over again), which causes a seamless blending effect.
Compare
Terrible Interviewees Montage,
Two Scenes, One Dialogue.
Examples of this trope include:
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Film
Live Action TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Earshot," the gang splits up to investigate who might be the potential killer. The scene cuts between Willow, Xander, Oz, and Cordelia interrogating different people around the school.
- A variation in the Freaks and Geeks episode "The Diary" - Coach Fredericks has all the boys in gym class recite the prank call Bill made the previous day. Hilarity Ensues.
- Firefly: In "Bushwhacked," seven of the Serenity crew are arrested, resulting in a truly hilarious game of this - especially given that half of them are reacting comically, and the other half are being excessively serious.
- In an episode of Titus the gang got thrown off a plane when they were Mistaken for Terrorist. Most of the next episode was an Interrogation Montage of the True Companions, all speaking to a Fourth Wall Federal Marshall.
- Used in an episode of NCIS in which several members of an insurgent-fighting marine unit use suspiciously identical phrases to recount the events of the same skirmish.
- In the Doctor Who new series episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp," the Doctor asks a number of dinner guests about the death of Professor Peach, in a manner much like the novels of Agatha Christie (who is a major supporting character in this episode.)
- In the Castle episode "Deep In Death", Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito simultaneously interrogate three members of a drug gang about a murder.
- And in the episode "A Rose for Everafter", a murder occurs at a wedding and there are several montages of the detectives interrogating the wedding guests.
- Occurs in the Dollhouse episode "A Spy In the House Of Love" when Echo is interrogating the Dollhouse employees.
- American Horror Story: Asylum inverts this in "The Coat Hanger." A small number of officials, plus the Monsignor and Dr. Arden, question Leigh about why Sister Jude would try to kill him. The truth is that she did it in self-defense, and it's all part of an ongoing ploy to keep Jude out of power in the asylum.
- A comedic example of this occurs in The Office US where Dwight interrogates the employees of Dunder Mifflin over a joint found in the parking lot. Of course, it ends with Jim taking the piss.
- NCIS Los Angeles: In "Free Ride," Callen does this to a sailor and a Marine in the brig for fighting in the mess, in hopes of finding clues about the murder of the carrier's resident NCIS Agent Afloat.
- Person of Interest:
- "Prisoner's Dilemma" has one between Carter and four men (including Reese) who are suspected to be the Man In The Suit.
- And again in "Proteus," involving a seismograph used as a lie detector.
