The One With - Television Tropes & Idioms

When somebody wishes to discuss an episode of a TV programme and they can't remember what it's called, they will usually describe it as "The one with..." or "the one where..."

Sometimes, such a phrase will literally be used as a name for something (which may lead to slight confusion similar to Who's on First?).

See In Which a Trope Is Described.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Parodied in Duel Masters. The episode in which Shobu duels Hakuo is entitled "The One Where Shobu Duels Hakuo".

Film

Star Trek IV is often simply called "the one with the whales."
- Even The Other Wiki will re-direct you there if you use it as a search term.
- Brazilian magazine SET decided to do something similar to every Star Trek film: "the one with the bald model", "the one [where] Spock dies", "the one [where] Spock comes back to life", "the one with God", "the one where the Klingons become nice", "the one with Kirk and Picard", "the really fun one", "the one with F. Murray Abraham in awful make-up" and "the one with the bald clone".
- And now there's The one with two Spocks
"Do you have that one with that guy who was in that movie that was out last year?"

Live-Action TV

Friends referenced this by starting every episode title with the words "The One (With/Where)..." apart from the pilot and the finale, and even the pilot has an alternate title.
- Specifically, the pilot is now listed on IMDb as "The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate" and the Season 1 DVD set also uses that title. The Other Wiki still calls it "The Pilot". The season finale is titled, logically enough, "The Last One".
- 30 Rock referenced this in an episode guest-starring Jennifer Aniston, as well as cast members of Night Court in an unrelated sub-plot. The episode's title? "The One With The Cast of Night Court."
- Mock the Week's Funniest Book Ever references it a couple of times, with the fictional Friends episodes "The One You Haven't Seen Before" and "The One Where You Realise That It's Not As Funny As It Used To Be".
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is often called "that show with the guy and those robots".
One Doctor Who story is famous as "the one with the giant maggots". Its actual title is "The Green Death".
- Neil Gaiman, writer of the episode 'The Doctor's Wife' said that he hopes to get the approval of a cab-driver, like this;
Cabby: What episode did you do? The One with the Angels?
Neil: No, the One Where The TARDIS Becomes Human.
Spoofed on Arrested Development, which has two episodes titled "The One Where Michael Leaves," where Michael doesn't actually leave and "The One Where They Build a House," where they don't actually build a house.
That '70s Show was originally going to be called Teenage Wasteland, but after focus groups were repeatedly overheard referring to it as "that '70s show," the producers decided to just go with it.
Peter Kay titled his sketch show That Peter Kay Thing, because he knew that's what people would call it no matter what the actual title was.

Video Games

That one game with the gun that shoots shuriken and lightning.
"The Man With The Machinegun" is Laguna's theme.
The video game company "thatgamecompany".
Portal 2 has, as it's ninth chapter, The [Part Where] He Kills You, which is also an achievement.

Comics

Used in Fables. Many issues have an Arc name and a chapter name, followed by short description starting with "In which...."
Spoofed in the Far Side compilation book "Wiener Dog Art", where in the index there are headings for letters A-S and U-Z but no entries. Every single panel was listed under T, for "The one about __".

Web Original

That Guy With The Glasses. He's that internet guy. Y'know, the one with the glasses?
You Know, That Thing Where...
The recap site The Agony Booth parodies this in their review of the Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain" by describing the episode "The Ultimate Computer" as "The One With The Ultimate Computer."
- Their Insurrection recap goes straight, by citing "The One with the Nazis" ("Patterns of Force") and "The One with the Romans" ("Bread and Circuses").

Western Animation

Duckman has a third season episode titled "The One With Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role".
Futurama executive producer David X. Cohen refers to the episodes "Jurassic Bark" and "Luck of the Fryrish" as "the one with Fry's dog" or "the Fry's brother episode", respectively, even though he seems to know the rest of the episode titles. Interestingly, he always seems to remember the production codes for those episodes...
Drawn Together had the first season episode "The One Wherein There Is A Big Twist".
Batman The Brave And The Bold: Because of the team-up aspect of the show and the revolving door of supporting characters, this show's episodes are often referred to in discussion as "The One with Plastic Man" or "The first team up with the Blue Beetle", etc.
- In universe, Aquaman will name his adventures in this manner ("I shall call this adventures The One Where Larger Than Life Heroes Come In Small Packages!")
The first few episodes of Family Guy were named after old radio murder mystery play titles that had nothing to do with the episode plots. It didn't take long for the writers to have to resort to "That story in which Peter..." in order to talk among themselves about certain episodes. Shortly afterwards the show started to use titles that refered to the plots.

Radio

Adventures in Odyssey had a two-part episode titled "The One About Trust". It's actually one of the best episodes of the series, but there's no denying that the title is accurate.

Real Life

There is a brand of German wine called "Der mit dem Wolf" ("The One with the Wolf"). True enough, there is a wolf depicted on their logo.

One Word Title

Title Tropes

The Place

One Thing Led to Another

Stock Phrases

Open And Shut Case

troperville

tools

toys

Examples: