History Series / ShortlandStreet

* HandWave: Zac Smith was certainly never a sex offender during his first two runs on the show. So you'd think there'd be some explanation as to why he suddenly became a sociopath in his third run. You'd be wrong. All that we got in the way of an explanation was Rachel Mckenna telling Sarah Potts that "you can know someone for a while without actually knowing them," then never mentioning him again.

* SurprisinglyGoodAccent: Marianne Infante is so good at doing Madonna's Filipino accent that it can be surreal to hear her use her natural Kiwi accent for the first time if you're used to watching her as Madonna.

* AffectionateNickname: Eli Lynch's nickname for old pal Chris was "Goldie."

* CrazyJealousGuy: Infamously, Jack Hewitt.

** Emmett Whitman, the new doctor who Brightshine hired from Central when they took over Shortland Street, has few to no redeeming qualities. Along with assaulting Vili for no apparent reason, trespassing a patient with dementia, and trying to ban the use of Te Reo Maori in the ED, Emmett is homophobic, arrogant, racist and elitist to a point that he's almost a parody.

* FreudianTrio: Often Maeve (id), Nicole (superego), and Harper (ego). This is clearest in cases where Maeve actually crosses ethical lines, such as getting a teen patient's father to give consent for a precautionary tetanus shot against the wishes of the patient's anti-vax mother. Nicole's insistence that the parents had the right to refuse and the nurses couldn't intervene was in line with the rules, which makes sense considering her leadership role but made her completely myopic to the very real and unnecessary risk the parents caused their child to incur. Harper was the moderator of the three; she correctly noted that Maeve's behavior crossed the line while also taking time to acknowledge Maeve's frustration about the situation.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Maeve when trying to get parental consent for a tetanus shot for a young patient who'd been cut. Sensing that the mother was more firmly anti-vax than the father, Maeve got the father alone and got him to consent, infuriating the mother. When she was confronted on this by Nicole, Maeve justified it by saying that tetanus would have been a worse outcome.
** Maeve *again* after secretly giving a blood transfusion to teen cancer patient Millie at her request, even after her father refused to consent on her behalf. Millie rebounded extraordinarily in exactly the way she would've if she "had" been given the transfusion, and somehow no one questioned how that happened or pieced together Maeve's involvement except Nicole when Drew told her he was missing blood donations of the same blood type as Millie's. Maeve's justification was, again, that the ends justified the means; Nicole, given that she was Maeve's direct supervisor and wife, understandably had more complicated feelings about the matter.
* IdiotBall: To a frustrating degree sometimes. The entire Brightshine storyline ran on this. If anybody had actually used their brains and realised "Hey, something isn't right with what Rebekah is telling me", she would have been busted long before she eventually was.

** Arguably Maeve Mullens. Her own son once described her as a "dickhead know-it-all," but she's shown to be deeply caring and to consistently fight for what's right.

* LovableAlphaBitch: Sophie Mckay to an extent.

* ProductPlacement: Shorty has had a deal with Apple for awhile now where iPads, iMacs, Macbooks and iPhones are the only devices used by anybody in Ferndale. Back in 2007, everybody used brand name iPods. Certain food brands are now displayed commonly in 2023 as well.

* NiceGuy: Surprisingly given his supremely fucked-up upbringing, Ezra Whakapono was a genuinely nice kid. Lionel was this in the early days of the show which is why he became a fan favourite.

** Max Lynch was essentially brought back to die (or potentially be killed, depending on the outcome of the investigation) at a party at Drew and Harper's.

** Arguably Wilder's drowning storyline for Maeve. Maeve is a HollywoodAtheist who was intolerant to Brightshine even before it was revealed to be a CorruptChurch. This made it all the more ironic that her son got sucked into the church via his relationship with Cassie–the daughter of one of Brightshine's leading members–and ended up being drowned when he got too much dirt on Brightshine's financials via his work on the app.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: Rangi was propositioned by a prostitute friend of Rachel's named Shona. Once Rangi turned her down, telling her he was in love with Rachel told him she put Shona up to it and agreed to start dating Rangi.

** Natalie Dennis played a recurring school friend of Nick's in 1992, which if she were the same age as Karl Burnett would have made her 21-22 playing a 16-17 year old in 1997. She hadn't aged at all in those five years making her look the right age.

** When Quinn showed up, Maeve and Nicole were a solid, if somewhat boring, couple. During Quinn's tenure, they ended up seemingly near divorce for the second time, getting closest in the immediate aftermath of Quinn's death without ever really discussing the fact that Nicole cheated on Maeve with Quinn. Sometime after that, Quinn was entirely forgotten and the two seem closer than ever.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Nobody knew him as "Dr Stickwell" or "Martin." It was nearly always "Sticky." Likewise with TP. Her full name was Talita Palele. Strangely when she was married to Sam and took his surname, rather than change her nickname, she was TP Aleni.

** Stuart Neilson was supposed to be the first gay character until the writers had second thoughts and decided to suddenly make him super religious out of nowhere. In fact the change is obvious with knowledge of this when you see that he's all but outright said he's gay until suddenly... he's depressed at having sex before marriage and wants to be a priest after the deed. Stuart telling his parents about his intent to be a priest and his father's reaction to it very much comes across as a hastily re-written "have you tried not being gay?" speech.

* YoungerThanTheyLook: Lucy Wigmore was only 6 years older than her on-screen son, Lee Donaghue. Ido Drent was only 24 when he left the show but looked early-30s. Laura Thompson was, surprisingly the same age as her on-screen stepson Curtis Hannah, who was supposed to be a teenager. Then there's the curious case of Li Ming Hu, supposedly only 16 when she was cast as Li Mei Chen. DR Li Mei Chen, that is. Ria Vandervis absolutely looks to be the same age as her character Harper but is only 39, whereas Harper has strongly been hinted to be in her mid-40s.

** The show's original example of this was the original DHB (or RHA as it was known back then) bureaucrat, Noel Sturgess, who tried to get the then 18 year old Kirsty Knight as his personal "assistant."

** Maeve committed multiple ethical violations in service to her patients and seemed to think it made her a righteous rogue crusader for justice, rather than a nurse on the knife's edge of losing her job.

[[folder:0-F]]

** The Halloween 2023 episode showed teen patient Lucas appearing to literally come back from the dead. Esther and Chris attribute this to Marty incorrectly calling his death; Marty attributes it to Lynch Pharmaceuticals "wonder drug" Zeclastion.

** A big complaint about early 2023. Dystopian Ferndale after the fire at the end of 2022? Forgotten after a week. Nicole's friend Hugo who randomly showed up? Leaves after a week with no explanation who he is. Madonna's storyline with scammer Marc? He's revealed to be the burn patient she treated at home, gets restrained by Rahu after attacking her, Madonna meets with another victim of his scams and... she's not seen for a week, starts a new storyline and it's never followed up on.

** And again with Marty and Zeclastion. What started out as him taking an experimental organ regeneration drug as an antidepressant (which the drug developers later discovered it had the potential to be), he quickly moved on to snorting the drug and using it recreationally. The drug is revealed to be a street drug of abuse in Ferndale soon after.

* BrokenPedestal: Winston Kimiora absolutely idolised his big brother Lincoln. Winston was yet another person let down by Lincoln's meth addiction.

* DeathWail: Maeve's heart-wrenching scream echoing through the Brightshine party when she finds Wilder's body in the pool (both she and the audience later learn he was already dead at that point). Maeve again when Drew tells her in the hospital that nothing more can be done for Wilder.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Nobody knew him as "Dr Stickwell" or "Martin." It was nearly always "Sticky."
* OrderliesAreCreeps: Usually subverted with the single exception of Steve Roberts back in 2007. Completely intentional given he was a red herring for the Ferndale Strangler.

** Josh Gallagher once his Hero Syndrome kicked in and he started putting people's lives in danger. Isaac Worthington pulled this once he went drunk on riches in 2011. Zac Smith did this upon his third appearance in 2012.