The Queen's Nose was a British Series that ran from 1995 to 2003.
An adaptation of a book by Dick King-Smith, the first few series focused on Harmony Parker, a girl who inherited a magical wish-granting 50p coin from her Uncle Ginger, before he went travelling.
Tropes present in the series include:
- Adaptational Diversity: By later seasons, the cast included black characters and also Romani characters, which were not in the source material.
- Adaptation Expansion: Since the original Season 1 was a standalone book, Season 2 onwards is comprised of original material.
- An Aesop: In general, there was a moral to every episode, even if in some cases it was a Spoof Aesop.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Harmony is this to Melody in the first couple of seasons, though Melody is equally bad, if not worse, towards her.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Harmony and Melody have several moments of this despite their constant feuding.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: A Central Theme of the series, but mostly played for comic effect, especially in later seasons.
- Brit Com: Although it seems like a typical example of one, it isn't quite one; there are Unexpectedly Dark Episode episodes each season and things don't always work out for the protagonists, but Status Quo Is God is zig-zagged.
- Central Theme: Making a wish can have consequences, know what you want in life.
- Character Development: Melody Parker went from the Jerkass sister who was the Hate Sink in Season 1, to Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and eventually a Mellow Fellow and a Nice Girl before disappearing in Season 7.
- Comic-Book Time: In general, characters' ages are only rarely stated in the show, although the show's exact year is vague. Characters do age, but it's more a case of spot the ageing on the show.
- Dance Party Ending: The series finale has a dance party with Carla, Jake, The Chief and Gemma celebrating Carla's marriage proposal and The Chief becoming rich.
- Denser and Wackier: Later seasons (season finale aside) were mostly a lot more comic and over-the-top than earlier seasons, although still grounded in reality.
- Dramedy: Although it looks like a Kid Com, in reality, this is not like American Kid Com series in tone; it's a mix of drama, Black Comedy with An Aesop thrown in, and sometimes it can tackle mature themes. It's more like a sort of kid-friendly version of other sitcoms but with Magic Realism.
- Dysfunctional Family: At first the Parker family were this (as with many a Brit Com at the time), although as characterization marched on, the dysfunction started to fade out.
- '80s Hair: In Season 1 Episode 2, Harmony wishes for her family to be different people, and Audrey, Harmony's mom and Melody, Harmony's sister, have stereotypical 1980s hairstyles (in Melody's case, a skinhead), with Arthur, Harmony and Melody's dad, having a mullet. This was, however, Played for Laughs.
- Expy: Gregory, Melody's ex-boyfriend is inspired by Mr. Tim Nice-but-Dim from Harry Enfield and Friends, although The Ditz part is not used here; he's a Nice Guy and has the same jolly personality but is otherwise different than him.
- Filler: Although this show has British Brevity, there were still in every season - Season 1 aside - which were largely episodes which did not add much to the Story Arc and were otherwise there to provide Character Focus or provide a Breather Episode.
- Gasshole: Harmony is hinted to be one of the burping variety in Season 2. When forced to share a room with her sister, Melody expressly forbids Harmony to burp in the room, implying that burping is a regular habit of Harmony's. This naturally leads to a later scene where Harmony is happily eating crisps and drinking Coke, and shamelessly belching in front of Melody, who goes to sleep in the living room in disgust.
- Girls with Moustaches: Harmony wishes for her sister Melody to become a bearded lady; this is Played for Laughs due to the show's genre, but it's treated as Body Horror from her perspective.
- Girly Girl: Most of the female characters tend to be this, although in one season there was a tomboyish character.
- Gray-and-Gray Morality: No-one is in the right or wrong here, and perhaps due to No Antagonist, the series tends to take this view on morality.
- Hate Sink: Melody Parker was presented as one in Season 1, but because of Character Development she was no longer the older sibling the audience could hate, and as time went on, she mellowed out eventually.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Interestingly, this trope is played straight during Season 6 even though YouTube did not exist in November 2002, although the intended effect is largely the same; Melody Parker is on the receiving end of the humiliation for her pop video.
- Jerkass: Melody Parker was a jerkass towards her sister Harmony in Season 1, but it was due to The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry, but as she Took a Level in Kindness, her jerkass moments disappeared, and only reappeared very infrequently.
- Lighter and Softer: Season 3 in 1998 was light-hearted after two pretty dark seasons; it went straight back to being lighter in Series 6 in 2002 and Series 7 in 2003.
- Long-Runner Cast Turnover: By Series 7 in 2003, none of the original cast were there, not even in a cameo role; it was almost as if the show had changed Character Focus.
- Magic Realism: The Queen's Nose and its effects are the main magical thing in a drama that covers otherwise mundane topics like growing up to more serious topics like relationships, friends falling out etc.
- Ms. Fanservice: Carla in Season 7 was a downplayed version of this; Juliet Cowan, her actor is attractive, but they didn't over-hype this, although photo promos for the show at the time in 2003 did.
- Ms.Imagination: Harmony Parker had imagination as a defining trait in the first seasons.
- Nice Guy: Gregory, Melody's ex-boyfriend has this as his main defining trait; he's not a bad guy but is a bit like Mr. Tim Nice but Dim from Harry Enfield and Friends.
- No Antagonist: In general, there wasn't a Big Bad, across the seasons:
- Season 1 had Melody Parker, who seemed like a Jerkass but the actual conflict was The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry.
- Season 2 had Arthur being arrested and tried for corporate espionage/fraud. It turned out to have been perpetrated by a colleague of his who offered to help him with the court case (to provide himself plausible deniability).
- Season 3 had the crook who had been a kind-of Fagin expy and using Dino as his Artful Dodger.
- Season 4 didn't really have a person causing a conflict, it focused on Arthur and Audrey Parker running a foster home, and the only thing close to an antagonist, Mrs. Dooley, the foster home inspector, wasn't really antagonistic, just doing her job and wasn't working against them. You could argue the local authority is a sort of antagonist, but it's the government, just doing their job.
- Season 5 started off with the foster home being burnt down and Josh and Nick were both implied at different times to have started it deliberately. In the end, both boys' innocence was proven (the fire was an accident) and the subsequent insurance payout covered everything!
- Season 6 had some of the girls from the foster home now staying with now-married Melody and Gregory and their daughter Treasure, and the biggest struggles were getting Melody's pop career off the ground, Gregory making a success of his inventions, and making sure the couple remained happy together. And a jerkass "music agent" in the first half of the season who was actually a skivvy for a local restaurant pretending to be an agent - he never did get exposed as a fake, but was at least sacked for incompetence.
- Season 7 had no real antagonist whatsoever; domestic life was the only real conflict.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: In Season 5, a stand-in for Blackbeard appears, although this is for the subject of a wish for ghosts to appear; he dresses and speaks like Blackbeard of legend.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Chief in Season 7 never had his real name revealed on-screen, and everyone referred to him as that.
- Only Sane Man: Seasons 1-5 had Arthur Parker, Harmony's father, who was often the voice of reason in most episodes, and then Season 7 in 2003 had Carla, Jake's aunt as the voice of reason.
- Patched Together from the Headlines: As the series went on, it tackled what was in the news at the time, excluding political things and New Media Are Evil.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The scenes from the original book where Harmony Parker sees her family as different animals were cut to make it more realistic and also due to special effects reasons; the series was made in 1995 and special effects weren't as good as now.
- Put on a Bus: Harmony Parker disappeared from the narrative as of Season 4, Episode 3, although this was partially due to real-life circumstances.
- Refuge in Audacity: In general, Harmony Parker had this as a tactic when her wishes had disastrous consequences in order to try and, in a more mundane sense, Set Right What Once Went Wrong (without Time Travel here). However, it was very often deconstructed, showing that taking refuge in audacity will have consequences.
- Reset Button: Very often there is somehow a way to unwish things back to normal with the Queen's Nose becoming one when a wish is unwished.
- Satire/Parody/Pastiche: An episode of Season 7 in 2003 featured Carla becoming a very similar character to the speedsters in DC Comics The Flash.
- Space Whale Aesop: In Season 3, Episode 2 in 1998, the aesop was "don't over-water your plants", but in the end it became "Don't overfeed your plants, or they turn into a Botanical Abomination with a Scottish accent!" which also doubles as a Spoof Aesop due to the real-life improbability of this happening.
- Special Effects Failure: In-Universe, Melody's music video became an example due to Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup resulting in a Movie-Making Mess.
- Speech-Centric Work: Despite being a series with gags resulting from Wasteful Wishing, it is fairly speech-heavy, but this fits the nature of the series; the original book wasn't quite as speech-centric though.
- The Stations of the Canon: Season 1 largely followed the book's plotline but was not a complete 1:1 following of the stations as some events were skipped over due to it being a Pragmatic Adaptation and Adaptation Deviation. However, the outcome was largely the same, even if the events happened in a different order than the source material.
- Status Quo Is God: Despite it having a Story Arc, it's a downplayed example of this trope; because the Queen's Nose acts as a sort of Reset Button, things will get reverted, but major changes can and do happen.
- Story-Breaker Power: Despite the coin's potential to be one, this is averted as the coin actually causes conflict as much as resolving it. The coin issues a rule only seven wishes per person can be granted but they don't always work out (from a Doylist perspective, to cause a conflict). Although the magical coin is powerful, it can't and won't solve everything, in many cases use of it causes the conflict.
- The potential for a wish to cause conflict was always far more likely if the wish was made selfishly. Wishes made to help other people usually (though not always) worked out well. The aesop from this being that it is better to help those around you who need it, rather than always focusing on yourself.
- The Chew Toy: In reality, any character who used the Queen's Nose could become this, if only due to not being careful what they wished for.
- Thematic Series: Much like Fargo, although unlike that show it kept most of the main characters until the final series when it went for completely new casts, with no originals remaining.
- Took a Level in Kindness: This was largely Melody Parker's character arc in early seasons as she tried to become a nicer person (although she was never evil anyway); it took a small amount of time.
- Webcomic Time: Although the progression of time In-Universe is vague, Comic-Book Time is partially in effect here, and progression of time does seem to be slower than real-world time. However, characters do age on-screen, even though it's not mentioned explicitly.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The setting is never named explicitly, no matter what season of the show it is; although there is speculation it was Hertfordshire (although Season 1 was very clearly West London and Kensington areas).
