When after a show or a comic book or other work has been using a specifc trope multiple times, its use of the trope peters out and the writers quit applying it. They may even
lampshade it a few times before they learn that it's rather annoying they keep using it.
May be the result of the show
Growing the Beard, but if it's to the detriment of the work it may be a case of
Jump the Shark, which in most cases means a show abandoned what helped make it good in the first place and replaced it with something worse, resulting in
Seasonal Rot. Compare to
Early Installment Weirdness, in which a newcoming series is trying to find its niche, and see
Grandfather Clause and
The Artifact, in which an element of the series which was important at one point no longer has such importance but cannot be dropped because it's so deeply engrained in the mythology.
See also
Overused Running Gag, which may push an author to "outgrow" it as well.
Examples
Anime
Comics
Live-Action Television
- Star Trek:
- The Original Series used Multinational Team in order to present a unified international unit working together for the benefit of all humanity, something that was a pipe dream in the Cold War 1960s. As the Cold War wound down and the idea had more acceptance, later series barely touched on the ethnicities or homelands of the human members of the crew.
- The franchise outgrew the use of a Ms. Fanservice nearly every episode with the start of The Next Generation.
- Many early episodes of Charmed had the sisters solve their daily demonic dilemma with a quick reference check to their Great Big Book of Everything Magical. In later seasons this died down as their experience with magic grew and by the final season they hardly relied on the book at all.
- In fact, they eventually start adding TO the book themselves.
- Cougar Town lost the "I Am Not a Christmas Cake" trope on which it was based pretty quickly in the first season, instead Growing the Beard by focusing on the Nakama and the Unresolved Sexual Tension between the lead and her neighbor; the Artifact Title has been Lampshaded several times in the opening credits. UST also was resolved at the end of season 1.
- Supernatural started as a straight Monster of the Week show, but in seasons four and five moved toward longer, more serious story arcs. Though Word Of God says that this was, at least partly, intentional.
- Canada's Worst Driver and Take That. The show used to have a lot of people nominated out of spite, but now that it's known that the show really tries to help the bad drivers than be just a Point-and-Laugh Show, this has become less common.
- iCarly's Overused Running Gags of Spencer's projects bursting into flames and Gibby taking off his shirt have been increasingly lessened in these past two seasons. Gibby is even asked in-universe by iCarly fans to take off his shirt, but tells them "I do that less now."
Western Animation
