Here a wick check will be performed for Audience-Alienating Premise.
Why?: While the trope is supposed to be about works that failed due to their bizarre premise, it gets misused for any work with a bizarre premise.
Wicks checked: 11/50
Note: For the purposes of this wick check, some research may need to be done as to whether a work bombed financially.
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Correct use (work bombs financially due to bizarre premise) (2/50)
- X-Men: The 2009 Alternate Continuity miniseries X-Men Noir suffered from this. Understandably, not many fans wanted to read a 1930s period piece where the X-Men were a gang of sociopathic criminals without superpowers, and where the protagonist was actually "The Angel
" (an obscure superhero from Marvel Mystery Comics who most fans had never heard of). As a result, the miniseries isn't well-regarded by many fans today. Valid, work did fail. - The Buzz on Maggie: While the show was generally liked by most of the people that watched it (a select few of which consider it a legit Cult Classic while most of the others merely consider it So Okay, It's Average), is an extremely (in fact, probably parodically) stereotypical Slice of Life tween sitcom aimed at tween girls (naturally a crowd known for being rather squeamish to put it lightly) that takes place in an overflowing garbage dump infested with sentient anthropomorphic flies, sentient, visibly humongous germs, and various other types of insects who may or may not have gained their anthropomorphism from prolonged radioactive fluid/gas exposure. These reasons lead to the show only lasting one season. Valid
Work has bizarre premise but does not bomb financially (1/50)
- Codename: Kids Next Door: The show was very successful, but many people were weirded by the series having a wacky premise that takes itself seriously. Remember, this is a series about a secret association of children fighting against a cabal of child-hating adults, where the classical things children hate (discipline, homework, veggies, etc.) are actual weapons against kids. The weird art style and the Continuity Lock-Out didn't help much either. The YMMW entry states itself that the show was successful.
Complaining (2/50)
- God's Not Dead: The film's message is basically "not being a Christian makes you retroactively "evil", while being a Christian gives you the right to belittle/discriminate Non-Christians." Needless to say, very few people like a film that teaches that. Film was a smash hit that made back 30 times it's (admittedly small) budget. Entry is predicated more on complaining about it's message.
- The Emoji Movie: The mere thought of having an entire feature-length film about emojis didn't tick with many. The movie's real demographic problem was summed up best in this review:
- "With its bright colors and cute characters, The Emoji Movie clearly was made, presumably by adults, for young kids, even though it's about technology in a way that a person has to be at least a pre-teen in order to appreciate. It's a movie that's too bland for adults, too cutesy and juvenile for teens and pre-teens, and too confusing for kids. In other words, it's a movie for no one, except all of the companies that signed on to have their mobile applications and games blatantly promoted without a lick of shame on the part of the filmmakers."
Plot, not Premise (3/50)
- YMMV.Dies Irae: The mere fact that this novel has Nazis as its villains as well as someone as infamous as Reinhard Heydrich as its main Big Bad, and that these same Nazis are given quite a lot of character and humanizaton to the point that some aren't even portrayed as evil (in a work of fiction made by the Japanese, no less), is enough for it to be a turn-off for many. This was even lampshaded by one of the producers in a Crunchyroll interview, who justified it as an artistic, not political, decision. Whether or not the work did well, this isn't the premise of the work, and so doesn't count.
- YMMV.Koi Kaze: Koi Kaze is a shining example of this. It's squick enough because Nanoka is sixteen and her love interest is in his late twenties. It gets unbearable when you learn they're brother and sister. Even the most avid Brother–Sister Incest fans stay away from the series as it's too realistic for them. It has little-to-none of the fluff, fetishization, or melodrama associated with works themed around the topic. Not only is this bash-y, but the incest part is a reveal, not the premise.
- YMMV.Save The Date Pixelberry: The plot can be summarized as such: An unprofessional (female and only female) accountant gets fired for having an outburst in front of the CEO of the company, who is also controlling and stubborn, so she has to resort to wedding planning as a way to make ends meet. To get a perfect wedding for her portfolio, she has to do tasks beyond planning the weddings (talk to family members, get mementos for her clients, etc). Readers decried both the plot and the mechanics because of many factors like the abuse of the wedding themed books (this was released along with America's Most Eligible Wedding Edition, Desire & Decorum 3, Red Carpet Diaries 3), the personalities of Lauren and Justin, having to spend diamonds to fix weddings for the characters of the week, etc.
ZCEs (1/50)
- Empire of Satanis: As one reviewer said"I have no idea what you're supposed to do with this thing. If you just play the characters being as evil as they can be, it veers into becoming a cliched, unfunny "Aristocrats" joke...I suppose you can introduce intrigue and interparty conflict and moral themes, but to do that you have to go beyond the superficial "tentacled whores" approach the game takes to its core concepts."
Other misuse (0/50)
Financial Status Unclear 2/ 50
- YMMV.Sonic Labyrinth: A Sonic The Hedgehog game that takes away the very things that made Sonic stood out amongst the crowd to begin with? Yeah, probably not the greatest of concepts. Even if the game is just So Okay, It's Average at best, the mere concept of a slow Sonic game where he can't run fast at all alone was a major turn off for many players from the start and it's the main reason why the game continues to get mocked to this very day, regardless of the game's actual quality. I can't tell if it sold well or not.
- YMMV.Whitefern: This book's premise following a similar not well received add on series to the Dollanganger series triggered this for many hardcore VC Andrews fans. Again, there's no telling how well the book actually did.
Indexes/not applicable (0/50)
- Fleabag Monkeyface: It came out at a time when Grossout Shows were on their way to becoming discredited, and is fittingly obscure as a result.
