Basic Trope: The heroes are the only ones who do anything important, even when that doesn't make sense.
- Straight: Our heroes Alice and Bob are detectives in the Tropeville Police Department. Despite having an entire police department around, we only ever actually see Alice and Bob investigate any crimes.
- Exaggerated: The entire police department consists of just Alice, Bob, and the commissioner who calls them when a crime is reported.
- Downplayed: Other police officers and detectives are shown in the show, and are occasionally shown to be doing some police work, but Alice and Bob are clearly the most active.
- Justified: Tropeville is a small town far out in the country, so there's little need for more than two detectives in its police department. They are literally called out to investigate every crime that occurs in their jurisdiction.
- Inverted: The show focuses on Alice and Bob but it seems that all they ever really do is sit around the station chatting with each other, while all the other police officers go out and handle the actual cases.
- Subverted: It appears that Alice and Bob are the only detectives that investigate in the department, but then it is revealed that they only get called for the highest profile cases, and the chief is shown giving less important cases to other detectives. The audience only saw them investigating because the high profile cases are the focus of the show.
- Double Subverted: But the other detectives end up being so incompetent with the lesser cases that Alice and Bob view themselves being morally-obliged to help them anyway.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob take a day off. Tropeville spirals into anarchy the moment they leave.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice and Bob are just one team in large department. The show follows several other teams as well as theirs, and it is clear they all get major cases to deal with.
- Enforced: The show is being run on a shoestring budget, and the production staff can only afford a few regular actors and a very limited number of extras, so they get as much mileage from the main characters as they can.
- Lampshaded: Alice and Bob frequently joke with each other about how they feel like they're the only ones who do any real work around here.
- Invoked: Charlie, the mayor Tropeville, is trying to save money in the town's budget. So he holds a competition to discover who the best two detectives in the police department are, and then fires the rest of the department.
- Exploited: Alice and Bob learn that due to budget cuts, their small-town police department will be cut down to just them and a few office staff. They take advantage of this to run the department however they feel like.
- Defied: Alice and Bob are handed another case by the commissioner, but they tell him that they already have five cases to solve and that they can't handle any more. They suggest he give it to Dave and Ellen.
- Discussed: Bob hung up the phone. “Jeeze, would it kill someone besides us to do some damn work around here?"
- Conversed: "I don't want to work in that department. Their staff is tiny! It'd be like one of those cop shows where the main cast is are the only ones who ever investigate anything. I value my sleep."
- Deconstructed: By the end of their first two weeks, Alice and Bob are completely exhausted and can barely walk. Their ability to investigate crimes gets worse as time goes on, and there are more crimes occurring as they cannot be in enough places to stop them. The last thing they do before finally taking a well-deserved vacation is to walk into the commissioner's office and demand he hire more detectives or they will resign.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Bob's grueling schedule is a lot of work, but their continued successes despite little help from the rest of the department lead to major accolades and quick promotion.
I guess we've got to go back to Always on Duty, since no one else is going to.
