Series / Shortland Street

Kia Ora, Welcome to Shortland Street Hospital!

Shortland Street is a New Zealand Soap Opera set in an hospital on Shortland Street in the fictitious Auckland suburb of Ferndale. It focuses on the lives of the physicians, surgeons, nurses, and hospital staff that work there, along with their families and friends who all live in Ferndale.

Having been on TV since 1992, Shortland Street has been New Zealand's premier soap opera for over 30 years. Shortland Street has produced numerous stars both domestically and internationally with the likes of Martin Henderson, Marton Csokas, Joel Tobeck, Temuera Morrison, Antony Starr, Karl Urban, KJ Apa and many more having come from or appeared on Shortland Street at one point or another.

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Is it Tropes or is it me?:

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• '80s Hair: Nick and Kirsty for about the first year of the show's run had hair which wouldn't have been out of place in the '80s. Given that New Zealand took a wee while to join the rest of the world in the '90s, a lot of early fashion and hair on the show looks like an '80s throwback in 1992.
• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Hugo Carmont for Mark Weston. Hugo tried killing Maia Jeffries for what he saw as getting in the way of Mark, who he was in love with for defending him from bullies back when they were at school together.
  • Quinn Cox simply doesn't care that neither Nicole nor Maeve are interested in a threesome with her. She's more than happy to keep going with both and do a bit of homewrecking.
• Aborted Arc: TK had a past as a meth cook and meth user when he was younger. This was touched on during his storyline with former friend Mackie Bowen... and has not been brought up once since in the sixteen-plus years he's been on the show.
  • Matt Mcallister seemed to be headed towards a romance with Minnie Crozier before the axe fell on most of the cast at the end of 2000, so a hasty about face needed to occur and the plot was dropped.
  • A big complaint about 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. Other things like any possible follow-up from the hospital shooting, Britt Adams quitting and suing the hospital, Noah going away for therapy and coming back were all dropped without a word over the course of the year too.
  • Maeve started 2023 in jail after a six week timeskip. She got out after talking to Rebekah and then it was never followed up on again. It's barely been acknowledged since and we never saw how or why Maeve got locked up in that time.
  • 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. The change was so sudden that he's tried pushing Kirsty away and has all but outright said he's gay which the show is clearly building up to 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.
• Absent Animal Companion: Steve Mills' dog Killer just stopped showing up for reasons which were never addressed.
• Accidental Murder: Sass killed Mason in self-defense, a fitting end due to all of his crimes, particularly against the Warner family.
• Accidental Pervert: Harry and Stella thought Harry's new flatmate, Thaddeus was perving on them about to get down to business on Harry's couch when they turned on the lights and found him standing there. It turns out he'd mixed up his medication and was sleepwalking.
• Action Girl: Kirsty Knight might have been the show's first Ms. Fanservice, but she was also a badass in her own right, not afraid to stand up to anyone corrupt or untrustworthy in her 6 years on the show. It almost got her killed a few times.
• Actor Allusion: During Stuart Neilson's return for the 25th anniversary special, it was mentioned he is now a doctor practicing in Seattle - a reference to Martin Henderson's role on Grey's Anatomy.
• Affably Evil: Greg Feeney was a charming guy with a friendly enough personality. He was also a drug dealer and could dish out a good beating, as Harry Martin once found out.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Eli Lynch's nickname for old pal Chris was "Goldie."
  • Emmett would start calling Sage "Clover."
• The Alcoholic: Rachel Mckenna, along with her father, Michael. Brenda Holloway too.
• All Abusers Are Male: Nick's father Barry, Cameron Scott's mother's partner and Michael Kruse's stepfather were all abusive partners to their female lovers.
  • Carla tells Nicole emphatically that "all men" are abusive, a belief she picked up after being abused by multiple men throughout her life. Ironically, she's either oblivious to or accepting of her own abusive behavior: she manipulated Nicole, kidnapped both Nicole and Pele, and generally overstepped professional boundaries as a counselor.
  • The show subverted this trope with a lesbian domestic abuse storyline wherein Maeve's ex-partner Saskia was being physically and emotionally abused by her current partner Jodie.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • Tuesday Warner develops a slight crush on Wiremu Potae and even tries her hand at being "gangsta" to fit in with him.
  • Minnie Crozier's list of boyfriends included a street kid, a neo-nazi, a womanizer and a control freak.
  • Alice Piper cheated on Mark with a prisoner named Zane who kidnapped her during a hostage situation at the hospital.
• All Just a Dream: Damo Johnson had a counselling session with Carla Crozier which turned into her pushing him down on the bed demanding he make love to her... and then Damo woke up in a cold sweat.
• All Lesbians Want Kids: Averted with Jay Copeland, played straight with her on-again, off-again wife Maia Jeffries.
• Alone with the Psycho: How Alice ended up in Joey's clutches. Also how they showed Joey was the Ferndale Strangler to begin with, by having him alone with Tania Jefferies.
• Aloof Big Brother: Chris to his brother Guy.
• Alpha Bitch: Seem to crop up from time-to-time, mainly at Ferndale High. The earliest example of this was Rachel Mckenna's rival Charlotte Olson. Stuck-up? Check. Tried to make Rachel's life a nightmare? Check. Got a girl's academic award taken off her for getting pregnant? Bullying Minnie Crozier? Manipulating all those around her? Check, check, check.
• Always Second Best: Usually the case for Nick Harrison as far as Stuart Neilson went. Stuart got the respect, the girls and the jobs, Nick got treated like a leper in comparison. Originally played straight and then subverted with Nick and future wife Waverley. Waverley originally wanted Stuart until she realised she loved Nick.
• Amicable Exes: Chris and Kate Hannah still get along quite well after their brief time as a couple was over.
• Amoral Attorney: Hugo Carmont was introduced as Mark Weston's lawyer friend who helped get Eti Kawaka and Claire Solomon cleared from accusations of being the person doing home invasions in 2005. Hugo himself was one doing the invasions. He also slept with Li Mei Chen over a bribe of 6000 dollars for her boyfriend Norman's medical care and held it over her as blackmail.
• Anyone Can Die: The show used to keep long-term characters reasonably safe. After 2008, even they haven't been off-limits. Long-time characters Toni Warner and Sarah Potts were both killed off after seven and ten years on the show respectively as prime examples.
  • Most recently, this was Subverted at the last possible second with TK Samuels – one of the show's longest-running characters, second only to Chris Warner. TK was taken off life support after being injured in the 2023 shooting and it really appeared that he was going to be killed off after fourteen years on the show.
• Armoured Closet Gay: Nate Adamson was introduced bullying Hunter Mckay with several others for seeing Hunter as gay because of some ads Hunter had been in. Nate would keep denying he was gay, even leading on Hunter's sister Sophie and taking her virginity. It wasn't until Hunter took him out to a nightclub to pick up guys that Nate threw himself at Hunter.
• Arranged Marriage: Dr. Vani Naran went through with her arranged marriage, while Dr. Li Mei Chen and Nurse Shanti Kumari did not go through with theirs.
• Artistic License – Law: The Hannah family are instantly kicked out of their house by their landlord when she walks in on Curtis and Jack smoking cannabis. New Zealand tenancy law requires landlords to a) give 48 hours' notice before visiting unless it is an emergency, and b) give at least 90 days' notice of termination, unless the landlord gets an order from the Tenancy Tribunal.
• Asshole Victim: This show is fond of this trope. Notable examples include Darryl Neilson, Bernie Leach, Oscar Henry, Ethan Pierce and Brett Franklin who all committed terrible crimes before being murdered by someone that they had tormented.
• Asian Rudeness: Dr. Grace Kwan (though she quickly mellowed) and especially Dr. Li Mei Chen.
• Attempted Rape: Used to show what kind of a vile human being Darryl Neilson was in 1992.
• Audience Surrogate: Whenever the show had an Aesop to deliver in the very early days of the show be it teen pregnancy, contraception or AIDS, Marj would be the one to be misinformed or voice ignorant opinions before being corrected, usually by Meredith Fleming.
• Back for the Dead:
  • Tom Neilson was written back in in October 1993 to properly finish the disappearance storyline which started back in February that year so he could be killed off in November.
  • After being Put on a Bus in 1995, Dr. Michael Mckenna made two brief returns: Once in 1997, and then again at the end of 1998 which lasted into early 1999. At the end of Mckenna's second return stint, he died of a heart attack as actor Paul Gittins had ruled out any future returns and wanted the character to be killed off.
  • Original receptionist Marj Brasch left the show in 1996 after being elected to Parliament. She made brief returns in 2002 (for Nick and Waverley's wedding), in 2012 (for the show's 20th anniversary) and in 2017 (for the show's 25th anniversary special). In her 2017 appearance, she dies quietly sitting in the reception from age-related heart problems.
  • Julia Reinhart (nee Reynolds) came back with her new husband Dylan in 2018 only to be murdered by Dylan so he could have Kylie Brown, Julia's sister to himself.
  • Phoenix Warner returned in August 2020 getting a drug addiction storyline, dying of an overdose in October.
  • Dr Emily Devine also returned in 2020 after 24 years, suffering from dementia and eventually dying.
  • Naila Karim would return with granddaughter Lulu in 2023, get in a car crash and die in the space of two weeks.
• Back from the Dead: Lionel Skeggins makes a brief cameo appearance in the 25th anniversary special, eighteen years after he supposedly died.
  • A pair of humourous examples happened with Rangi Heremaia and Joey Henderson in the show's 30th Anniversary special, with both characters making reference to being dead as part of a skit in the form of a mock commercial.
• Bad Influencer: Max Lynch is a well-known influencer, if Monique and Selina's reactions to him being in the hospital are anything to go by. He forced his family's pilot Jay to let him fly the helicopter, crashed it, and let the pilot take the blame for the crash which injured Max and paralysed Jay. Max then had his father pay Jay off not to go to the papers and sink Max.
• Bald of Evil: Mason Coutts. Corrupt, dodgy, ran a crime syndicate, responsible for several murders.
• Bastard Bastard: Finn Warner/Connelly/Burton was the sperm donor son of Chris Warner and Carrie Burton who grew up to be an arrogant rich doctor who looked down on anyone below him in terms of wealth and ended up beating his wife Esther. He also wound up sleeping with Chris's girlfriend at one point and burnt bridges. While not being evil, Finn was certainly a douchebag regardless. There's a succinct irony in Finn's twin brother Frank having been a career criminal yet also being a charming guy with a heart of gold underneath it all.
• Battleaxe Nurse: Robonurse Carrie Burton and Judy Brownlee seemed to be this until it was revealed they were more firmly in Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory. Both were grumpy older women who expected nothing but the utmost professionalism from their nurses and took no guff from anyone while on the clock. Yvonne tried putting Brenda in this category, ironically showing her a photo of Carrie on the show's 15th anniversary and saying Carrie was "probably Brenda back in the day."
• Because You Were Nice to Me: As discussed below, Richard Minogue posing as Hamish Flynn couldn't bring himself to rip Yvonne off because she treated him with the love he'd always wanted from a mother. His exit was an interesting contrast to the real Hamish, who politely told Yvonne "thanks but no thanks" to getting close.
• Being Evil Sucks: More a case of "being dodgy and making bad life decisions sucks", but Kieran Mitchell ended up in a lot of bad situations because he couldn't pull himself away from a life of crime. All he wanted was a peaceful life with Libby/Sophie/Whoever he was with depending on the year, but his past kept catching up to him.
• Big Bad: Mason Coutts ended up being a rare case of this because as Mayor of Ferndale as well as being the leader of a corrupt syndicate of thugs, Mason wound up doing wrong by multiple characters whether personally or by extension. As a matter of fact, every single cliffhanger in the 2016 Season Finale turned out to be connected to Mason in some way, and the show's 25th anniversary heavily featured Mason finally being taken down.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Ethan Pierce and his Nessus Bio co-owner/funeral director Stirling Haldane. Ethan stole bodies, Stirling helped him harvest them. Ethan then turned on Stirling and bumped him off once Stirling became a liability.
• Big Brother Instinct: Sunil Kumari may have been a bit of a prick, and while part of it was because of his preferential trade agreement with Dinesh Jivani's family and his mistrust of Scotty, he was in part looking out for his little sister, Shanti.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Drew and Maeve attended therapy sessions to deal with their issues with a Brightshine appointed counsellor in 2023. Disturbingly, said sessions were being recorded by Brightshine head and hospital CEO Rebekah Anderson and being saved for nefarious reasons.
• Big Good: Chris Warner, the man, the myth, the legend.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Warners, naturally. Subverted minus one or two exceptions by the Samuels family.
• Bilingual Bonus: Any time any of the characters speak in Maori.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Streetkid Dominique Coombes had a rough life, with a father who beat her and then having to turn tricks for a living. That was still no excuse to use James Thornton as a patsy, while admitting to his mother that she was only leading him on. While Dominique was never presented as being nice, up until that point she'd been presented as showing Jerk with a Heart of Gold tendencies.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: And not at all how Gerald got off from getting a warning for looking up porn on work computers by Callum with the knowledge of his affair with Riley.
• Black Sheep: Darryl Neilson. Marj and Tom were salt of the earth people with hospital jobs, Damian helped troubled kids, Patrick was only seen once but not evil and Stuart was a Troubled, but Cute Nice Guy. Darryl was a bastard through and through and the show's first real villain.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Nicole (blonde), Maeve (brunette), and Harper (reddish auburn).
• Blood from the Mouth: How Mo Hannah died in the 2018 Season Finale.
• Bludgeoned to Death: Scott, by Rebekah, during the fires.
• Bondage Is Bad: Ethan Pierce was into bondage, which was used as another way to show how dark and evil he was.
• Boomerang Bigot: Scotty was the very picture of a self-hating Maori, pretending he didn't speak any of the language. It was later revealed he did, and he eventually embraced his culture thanks to Shanti.
• Bottle Episode: One Friday night episode during the Brightshine takeover of Shortland Street featured (until the last couple of minutes of the episode) Drew and Maeve in separate rooms talking to the same therapist.
• The Boxing Episode: TK and Hone had a sparring match in an episode in 2008 when Hone came back. In the first of many signs Hone wasn't who he used to be, TK accidentally knocked Hone loopy and Hone went feral, only stopping when TK knocked him on his arse.
• Brainless Beauty: Dawn Robinson. Beautiful, blonde and completely braindead. Jed the gym instructor Gina Rossi briefly dated was a male version, also notable for being played by the late Kevin Smith. (No, not THAT Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith, the Kiwi actor.)
• Bratty Half-Pint: Harry Warner as played in his tween years with convincing menace by Reid Walker.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: A stock trope at this point for many, many teenage girls who've graced Ferndale over the years.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Rachel was going through the worst of her alcoholism and in a crappy relationship when she told Cameron Scott she wasn't interested. He broke down and told her he'd be better for her and she said she knew. But she also told him he deserved better than her right now. This would lead to Cameron leaving Ferndale for good.
• Break the Haughty: Hoo boy, did Jerk Jock Casanova Hunter Mckay arrive to Ferndale with an ego. 2007 started with Hunter and his equally materialistic sister Sophie bullying Scarlett Valentine to the point she tried to run him down and left her taking off for Australia after Hunter slept with Scarlett, dumped her and then ran her down to anyone within earshot, breaking Scarlett's heart. At the end of the year, Hunter would end up a blubbering mess in a driveway after older woman Tess Adamson fled Ferndale after Hunter proposed to her, breaking HIS heart at the end of 2007, in somewhat of an ironic bookend.
  • Parker had a long line of this. He got shot by Milo, suffered nerve damage to his hand, had to overhear Stella tell Harry she loved him over Parker followed by Parker leaving Ferndale in a huff. He'd return the next year as a home invader threatening Marty and Esther into getting him Zeclastian, having become addicted trying to treat his PTSD and would then be admitted into ED having suffered an overdose. Suffice to say, the arrogant jock got broken mightily.
• Break Them by Talking: How Marty Walker managed to stop Milo Cross's rampage. Marty blew up at Milo calling him a useless waste of space and a piece of shit who he'd love to see rotting in jail and broke Milo to the point Milo shot himself.
• Bridal Carry: An incredibly heartbreaking example with Steve Mills carrying his girlfriend Sarah's dead body into his house after she passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage in his backyard.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Nick Harrison wound up turning into this when he was a high school student, being fantastic with numbers and a star economics student, eventually getting a business degree at University. When he finally got his shit together as an adult, he became a very good and very effective business manager at Shortland Street Hospital under Chris Warner.
• Bros Before Hoes: TK's nephews Wiremu and Tane may have fought over pretty criminal Harmony O'Neill, but at the end of the day, they were loyal to each other when she tried to play them against one another.
• Broken Bird: In a deconstruction of The Vamp, Brooke Freeman was originally introduced, she was presented as a seductress unafraid to use her sexuality to get ahead. It was revealed that deep down, Brooke was a neurotic wreck with an extremely fucked up family life and was in an abusive relationship with Ethan Pierce to the point she couldn't see herself as anything BUT a sex object.
• Broken Pedestal: Winston Kimiora absolutely idolised his big brother Lincoln. Winston was yet another person let down by Lincoln's meth addiction. Stuart Neilson told his brother Darryl he once thought he was "the best." That had obviously changed by the time we first met the two.
• Brought Home the Wrong Kid: Turned out not to be the case in 1994 with Adam Brady. First appearing, claiming to be the real Nick Harrison, he turned out to be mentally ill and delusional.
• Butch Lesbian: Jay Copeland.
• Call-Back:
  • Once Claire Solomon was found dead in a dumpster, having been the first victim of Joey Henderson, they threw in a nod to Craig Valentine's rivalry over Sarah Potts with Claire's brother Andrew, referring to Andrew as "a pathetic little number cruncher."
  • Lily Scorpion, Morgan Braithwaite's alter-ego/comic book character was the name Lionel Skeggins used as a ghost writer for a magazine, several years prior.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Daniel Potts frequently called his mother by his first name. Tends to be a habit when you were raised as her brother for the first 14 years of your life.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Tuesday Warner did this in spectacular fashion. After spending most of her life babysitting her drug-addled father Guy, and following a car crash which almost killed Tuesday, Guy, her cousin Harry and her aunt Toni, Tuesday chewed Guy out for being a poor father and told him that if given the option, she'd rather live with her uncle Chris instead.
• Camp Gay: Shortland Street usually avoids this trope, but two noticeable examples were temporary Director of Nursing Duncan Winters in the 90's, and Jason Kirkpatrick in 2017. Duncan was a genuinely nice, bubbly guy, whereas Jason's was a facade.
  • Hospital receptionist Stanley is a flamboyant old gay man with personality in spades.
• Camp Straight: Or Camp Asexual, to be more specific in the case of the extremely effeminate Gerald Tippett.
• Captain Ersatz: Leroy Raumati seems to have been hastily written in to replace his cousin Curtis Hannah after the unexpected departure of Curtis' actor. Leroy still sounds like a younger Curtis.
  • Vili the ambulance driver might as well be a The Other Darrin for Prince Kimiora. Same build, same height, same appearance, the only difference is that Prince was Maori and Vili is Samoan.
• The Casanova: Dr Chris Warner. In a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, his son Finn Connelly counts too.
• Cat Fight: A memorable one in 2001 between Rachel and the fake Samara Hindmarsh.
• Celebrity Paradox: Paul Holmes still had his TV show within the world of Shorty as he'd play himself in 1993, but he also played a character named Leslie Grant later on in 2010.
• Characterisation Marches On: A lot of characters tend to fall under this as the writers start with a base personality and expand the characters as they get to know the actors. Sometimes this will happen within weeks.
  • Rangi Heremaia was originally a stereotypical northern "cuzzy-bro", Lionel Skeggins was an immature prankster, Tiffany Pratt was a bimbo party-girl who wore lingerie to work, TK Samuels was a laidback slacker and Nick Harrison was a juvenile delinquent before they became the characters they're more well-known as.
  • Rachel being a spoilt brat who once tried seducing Stuart Neilson by stripping down to her underwear is impossible to reconcile with the bolshy, no-nonsense Rachel everyone knows and loves.
  • Blue Nathan was a teenage tearaway who got into a fight after stealing from the hospital in his first episode, something it's hard to see the current version of Blue doing. Ditto Blue's mother Kate who assaulted Jack, the teenager Blue got into the aforementioned scuffle with. Kate originally came across as a street tough tomboy, strange when you see the motherly and feminine Kate she turned into.
  • Craig Valentine was a lot more laidback in his first appearance on the show, coming across as a level-headed, laidback Troll. Craig Valentine, the same character notorious for being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold whose short-fuse was a central point in several storylines.
  • David Kearney got a kick out of trolling Johnny Marinovich in his first week on the show and seemed a lot less serious than he'd go on to become.
  • Gerald Tippett was obnoxious, dismissive, pompous, rude, apathetic towards patients, incredibly smug and arrogant and caused Yvonne to break down on his first day over his lack of consideration towards her photo of the recently murdered Claire, before quickly mellowing out into someone who while still flamboyant was a genuinely nice guy.
  • Callum Mckay was more of a slimy grifter than the arrogant, yet fatherly and professional guy he'd become.
  • Logan Barns was more obnoxious than the kind-hearted yet still unashamedly bogan character he'd become when he first showed up.
• Character Shilling: Sarah Potts to an annoying degree between late 2004-late 2006. Did you know Sarah was amazing, gorgeous and in-demand if you were a man? Don't worry, you were told for about 2 years straight.
• Chick Magnet: Evan Cooper managed quite well for a Ridiculously Average Guy. He managed to wrangle some of Ferndale's hottest women, even older women Marnie Dougan and Kylie Brown at various points. Stuart Neilson managed to draw them in too.
• Child by Rape: Minnie Crozier, in a surprisingly non-villainous way as explained below.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Where did Sean Kearney get to? After leaving in 1996, the writers seemed to forget David Kearney had 2 sons. While Fergus played a prominent role from 1996-2001, Sean never returned and his actor didn't show up again until 2008 playing a completely different character.
  • Greg Feeney skipped town in 1994 with Nurse Jo Jordan. When he came back in 1995, she'd been forgotten about and never got mentioned again.
• Clear My Name: Rangi had to do it in 1998 when old people on his ambulance route were getting beaten up. Chris had to do it in 2012 when his son's crazy teacher Hayley O'Neill was found beaten to death and her boyfriend framed Chris.
• Cliffhanger Copout: When Shortland Street Hospital was burnt to the ground during the out of control bushfires ripping through Ferndale in 2022, the big question over summer in New Zealand was "What will the new hospital look like?" The answer? There was no new hospital. They simply rebuilt it exactly the same (somehow in the space of 5 weeks, those most be some fast builders) except with a bluer colour scheme and a few new set pieces.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Crazy nurse Layla Cornwall was this for Nelson Copeland. She eventually hung herself after Nelson got back together with his ex-girlfriend Jesse.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Shortland Street has been on the air for a long while now and still hasn't come close to finding anyone who has compared to Gina Rossi-Dodds as far as having your head in the clouds goes.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: Ant Richards went on the run for 2 years only to summon Sarah Potts and Craig Valentine to a house to show them his research on how dodgy Scott-Spear were. Craig thought he was totally nuts until he confirmed a few things Craig had suspicions of. Because of Ant's evidence, Scott-Spear were taken down and their CEO was arrested.
• Closet Key: Nicole, for Harper.
  • Also Leanne for Rosalyn, and vice versa.
  • In 1994, Annie Flynn was this for Meredith Fleming.
  • In 1999 we had Laura Hall for Caroline Buxton.
  • In 2007, Hunter Mckay for Nate Adamson. Unlike the previous examples, Hunter wasn't interested as he was in a low-key relationship with Nate's mother.
• Clueless Detective: Lara Wade tried masking the fact she was this by aggressively bullying most of the male staff working at Shortland Street while tring to find the Ferndale Strangler. James Scott and Callum Mckay called her on it repeatedly. Her predecessor, Robyn Gardner wasn't much better.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Since 2007, staff scrubs are colour-coded according to their department. Until 2017, female nurses wore lilac, male nurses wore dark blue, emergency department staff wore light blue, theatre staff wore purple, and orderlies wore oatmeal. Starting in 2017, the nurses started wearing maroon and theatre staff stated wearing teal.
• Condescending Compassion: Tiffany tried to give Dr Emily Devine a makeover to make her less of a nerd and told her such in no uncertain terms. Emily told her where to go.
• Consummate Liar: Parker Dawson loves lying and swindling to get his way, usually at the expense of Harry Warner. It almost worked twice.
• Continuity Nod: In 2010, Callum Mckay stated that Shortland Street didn't throw Halloween parties anymore, due to Brenda Holloway's murder back in 2007.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • In the mid 2010's, such anomalies as Grace Kwan's twins suddenly disappearing via Chuck Cunningham Syndrome and Jonathon Mckenna being attracted to Gabrielle Jacobs in spite of being 100 percent gay until he reappeared. Both were Hand Waved later.
  • Chris Warner celebrated his 40th birthday in 2005 and his 50th birthday in 2017.
  • Tillie Potts was born in 2011 but returned after a three year absence in 2019 as a preteen.
  • No mention has been made of David Kearney no longer being blind. Or what happened to Ellen Crozier, for that matter when he returned in both 2020 and 2022.
  • Harry Warner's daddy issues circa 2023 don't make any sense. He was never neglected by Chris nor was Chris the overly sleazy serial bedhopper he'd been prior to 2010. Harry and Chris always had a good father-son relationship with Chris being an excellent dad to Harry after Toni died. Yet Harry is written like he left Chris after Toni died and that they had a hostile relationship.
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: The reason Nick hated Michael Mckenna before his rebellious tendencies were dropped. As Dr Mckenna was the show's authority figure and Jenny's boss, he was used to show off how "cool and rebellious" Nick was supposed to be.
• Corrupt Church: Brightshine.
• Corrupt Cop: Sgt Clint Allen spent most of 2017/2018 making life hell for the Hannahs and playing the "I'm a cop" card when they tried to retaliate.
  • Brady Nash is a more serious version of this trope, being far more serious than the aforementioned Sgt Allen. Racist and elitist, he clashed with TK and Frank, who was working to help disadvanted kids caught in the legal system, and at his lowest point stalked and tried to kill Frank.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Infamously, Jack Hewitt. Harry became this for Rahu and Stella, deliberately sabotaging surgery on the former after allowing him to be stabbed by a drug addict on a bender.
• Cruel Twist Ending:
  • Jay Copeland was supposed to leave Ferndale for Australia and put her ex-wife Maia behind her and make a new start. She ended up being the 3rd victim of the Ferndale Strangler.
  • Tiffany Pratt managed to successfully talk a suicidal patient down from jumping off of a building. Unfortunately, Tiffany herself would then slip off the building and be declared braindead.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: Tiffany tried to go full lingerie with her uniform complete with high heels. While her character changed, she still retained her sexier version of the nurse's uniform complete with white stockings and garters.

D-F

• Daddy's Girl: Tuesday fits this to a tee, as did Scarlett Valentine before her and Sophie Mckay at the same time.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Kieran Mitchell came to New Zealand remembering nothing of his past. He would eventually be killed off in 2010 having his chickens come home to roost by way of his criminal past in Thailand catching up to him.
  • Hone Ropata returned in 2008 with an absolutely horrific case of PTSD due to witnessing multiple murders and rapes in Africa along with the bombing of his clinic.
• Darker and Edgier: The Jason Daniel era from 2007-2009, which featured crueler, more sadistic villains than in previous eras, previous characters coming back as darker and more troubled versions of themselves and most characters leaving were killed off. It was during this period that the show got three Broadcast Standards Authority warnings in six months, having gone 16 years without even receiving one!
  • A lot of viewers felt that the show headed in this direction during and after the fires, with Shortland Street destroyed and the Obviously Evil Rebekah and Brightshine having fully taken over. The show seemed to move back into a lighter tone after Rebekah (presumably) went to jail for Wilder's murder.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Luke Durville. Into voodoo, taxidermy and other matters of the macabre with a socially awkward personality. Luke Durville. Also one of the nicest people you could ever meet.
• Date Rape Averted: Kirsty Knight fought off Darryl Neilson. Libby Jeffries was rescued from Justin Salt by her sister's boyfriend Ant Richards.
• Dead Guy Junior: Sass Warner, born Sarah Burton was named after Sarah Donnelly by Carrie Burton who was flatmates with and one of Sarah's closest friends.
• Deadpan Snarker: Rachel Mckenna's default setting. Monique Strutter is pretty good for a large helping of this too.
  • This was Carmen Roberts to a tee. Guy was her favourite target to a point they almost split up over it.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Samara Hindmarsh wasn't really Samara Hindmarsh. An identity thief named Lily Jansen, "Samara" came back to New Zealand in 2001 to establish a relationship with "childhood friend" Chris Warner. Upon getting into a feud with Rachel Mckenna, "Samara" got engaged to Chris Warner before being revealed as a fraud by the real Samara's parents.
• Death of a Child: Rose Crozier-Kearney tragically died of cot death in 1998. Tama and Shannon Hudson's baby boy Ngakau died of an illness in 2003. Toni Warner also miscarried her and Chris's second son, James in 2005. Marty and Esther's unborn baby was stillborn in 2023 with Marty having to choose between his son and his wife.
• Death Wail:
  • 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.
  • Sam Aleni famously yelled his wife TP's name before the overturned car with her and Steve Mills in it exploded, killing the two.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Li Mei Chen slowly became this before her fiance Norman died. Even afterward, she was less of an anti-social misanthrope than she had been when she first arrived.
• Dehumanization: How Joey justified killing his victims. Kieran strangled him while telling him that the women he killed were "innocent, trusting women", while Joey argued that they were "cheap slags who got what they deserved."
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Played with a lot in the early days of the show, where Dr. Mckenna was depicted as either a Father to His Men or a greedy, self-serving Jerkass who was as bad, if not worse as some of the dodgier clinic CEOs.
  • Ferndale is often depicted as a large suburb within Auckland, but at other times, it is an expy of Auckland.
  • Drew Mccaskill has three personalities: Papa Wolf and laidback friend to all, obnoxious Jerkass Manchild or Straw Misogynist. He's been on the show for five years and the writers still can't settle on which is his true personality.
  • How pleasant and tactful Selina To'a and Monique Strutter are seems to vary from episode to episode.
• Depraved Homosexual: Jason Kirkpatrick beneath his original facade of being a fun flirty guy was this. Jason turned out to be Dr Finn Connelly's stalker who went by the name "Sexy Eyes" online, going as far to break into Finn's house and watch him sleep. After being revealed, Jason would kidnap Finn's girlfriend Esther before leaving her to die due to her heart condition (she survived) and then hide out in Finn's operating room and attempt to force himself on Finn.
• Despair Event Horizon: Steve Mills crossed it after his girlfriend Sarah Donnelly died in his arms on her birthday. Steve tried to hide his grief before breaking down.
  • Chris Warner hit it at the end of 2020 season after his son Phoenix died of an overdose, nearly Driven to Suicide to the distress and concern of his family.
  • Wilder's death for Maeve.
• Determinator: Rangi Heremaia managed to learn to walk again despite being confined to a wheelchair for most of 96-97.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Jill Kingsbury died in the arms of Hunter Mckay after getting accidentally stabbed by a security guard during a pharmacy breaking at the end of 2011.
• Died on Their Birthday: Sarah Donnelly would die outside at her own birthday party.
• Did Not Die That Way: Subverted multiple times. Maeve is at first (correctly) convinced that Brightshine had something to do with Wilder's death. She's then conned by Rebekah into thinking it was a drug overdose due to depression, as the autopsy found massive quantities of ketamine in his system. Rebekah then "confesses" that Scott drowned Wilder and she witnessed it, only to confess again finally that Scott drugged Wilder's drink and attempted to drown him but couldn't finish the job and Rebekah did it herself.
• Dirty Old Man: Laurence Godfrey had a sexual relationship with Li Mei, who was several decades his junior.
  • 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" along with trying to grope Alison Raynor.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Joel Tobeck's first role, Craig Develter was very much this. He tried to bring Rangi down to his level to no success.
  • Monique was horrible to Esther after finding out that Esther had to perform an emergency urostomy on her due to her gunshot wound.
• Disney Death: TK after the shooting.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Drew Mccaskill accidentally performed breast augmentation surgery on a girl who lied about her age. Her father would attempt to shoot up the hospital in the 2015 finale.
  • Pick a victim where Joey was concerned. Claire was killed because she told him she barely considered them friends after she used him to make Kieran jealous. Meg was killed for coming onto him while drunk. Jay was killed solely for being a lesbian while Beth was killed because she attacked him accidentally and hurt him. Brenda was killed because she knew too much, Tania was almost strangled for (what Joey thought was) her leading him on, and he targeted Shanti for what Joey thought was her playing Dinesh and Scotty at the same time. Alice just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of these women deserved what Joey did to them, even if they escaped (relatively) unscathed.
• Distaff Counterpart: While not on the show at the same time, James "Scotty" Scott was a male version of Carrie Burton: Both extremely stern, professional head nurses who expect nothing but the best and most professional behaviour. However, neither were abusive, neither abused their power and both were extremely kind, loyal people outside of work hours and both had softer sides. While Carrie was compared to Brenda Holloway, Carrie had more in common with Scotty due to their positions of power.
  • Done on purpose with Nick's ex-girlfriend Nicola. She was a female Nick, with a similar name (Nick Harrison versus Nicola Halley), was blonde, wore glasses and had a similar personality. When she returned in 2000, she'd ditched the glasses as he had and became a businesswoman to match Nick being the business manager of the hospital.
• Does Not Like Men: Te Rongopai Rameka can't shut up about how awful men are. Unless she's in a relationship, in which case they're fine. Yes, this is another instance of the writing team in 2019 writing things they don't know and being unable to write a realistic feminist.
• Domestic Abuse: Initially done badly and then played horrifyingly straight with Finn Warner in 2018. Originally being treated as a leper because he lightly shoved Esther off of him as a reflex, he would later snap, slap Esther and then assault her in his kitchen. Done earlier with Bernie Leach, Cameron Scott's mother's boyfriend Kevin and Jemima Hampton-Rees' partner Patrick.
  • Maeve's ex-partner Saskia was revealed to be a victim as well, although it didn't occur on screen.
  • Alexis, a patient of Maeve and Logan's who the two go out of their way to help, ends up being killed by her abusive boyfriend Gavin. Whether her death is purposeful on Gavin's part or not is unclear.
• Doom Magnet: Chris Warner and TK Samuels have both had their share of dead wives and girlfriends between them along with several dead family members a piece.
• Driven to Suicide: One of Shorty's earliest controversial storylines was Nick and Stuart's friend Miles overdosing on headache pills after being yelled at by Stuart for throwing Stuart a surprise party and trashing his parents' house.
  • Attempted by Maeve after Wilder's death. Thankfully she was rescued from the water by Vili and Monique and was able to be resuscitated.
• Dr. Jerk: Dr Justin Salt was a shitty human being AND a rapist to boot. The only good thing about the guy is he WASN'T the Ferndale Strangler as originally suspected. His friend, Dr Gavin Capper partook in the same rape Justin did, but at least he had SOME people skills.
  • 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. Emmett would get better once he returned in 2024 though.
• Drugs Are Bad: Frequently used as a point of drama and tension. Notable examples include:
  • Mackie Bowen, TK's best friend was introduced as being a little bit off, but then was revealed later to be a full-blown meth addict to a point of selling TK out to a bunch of drug dealers and forcing him to cook meth for them before getting arrested.
  • Guy Warner returning as an antagonist in 2007. After finding out about his addiction, his brother Chris tries desperately to get him into rehab, which he eventually agrees to, but not before causing a car crash which injured Tuesday and Harry, and nearly killed him and Toni. Even after rehab, he relapses, much to Tuesday's horror. In 2017, a nurse named Deb was found to be a morphine addict and was shown to be a total loser so as if to say "hey kids, if you do drugs, you'll end up a drug thief, a bad nurse AND a horrible parent!"
  • Drugs caused the dramatic season finale of 2011 with Hunter Mckay's drug addiction spiraling out of control for half of the year.
  • Phoenix Warner died of an overdose in 2020 after losing a battle to painkiller addiction.
  • And again with Dr Lincoln Kimiora being a meth addict.
  • The entire 2015 finale wouldn't have happened if Gareth Hutchins hadn't been smoking methamphetamine again, causing him to bring a gun into the hospital.
  • And again with Vili To'a, ending with him getting high while on duty, causing an ambulance crash which ended with him being severely injured and his girlfriend Jojo dead.
  • 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. This would lead to the world's fastest drug epidemic leading the the year's cliffhanger where a bunch of drug seekers would invade the hospital ending with Rahu stabbed to death and Marty overdosing on Chris's yacht.
• Dude, She's A Lesbian: Was explained to Mark Weston about Maia repeatedly. It never seemed to sink in even after he managed to ruin both he and Tania's marriage.
  • Vincent struggled mightily with this when it came to Maeve, genuinely seeming to think he had a shot with her despite the fact that she's very openly a lesbian and married to Nicole. This wasn't helped by a very poorly-worded pep talk from Damo along the lines of "maybe you'd have a shot if Nicole wasn't around... but she is."
• Dull Surprise: Daniel Potts' girlfriend Loren Fitzpatrick back in 2010 had one facial expression: Mildly wide-eyed and teeth clenched. There's phoning it in, and there's turning it into a talent.
• Dumb Blonde: Dawn Robinson.
• Dumbass Teenage Son: Nick Harrison was originally this for his mother Jenny, being both socially inept and a total dumbarse academically until his character development kicked in.
• Eagleland: Type 3, with DHB consultant Martha Riley being a flirtatious, boastful, mildly watered-down loudmouth.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Modern viewers would be confused to see that prior to 2000, the Hospital was originally a small clinic set in an entirely different building. This was due to filming being done in a different location to where it's done now with very few sets making the transition.
  • On that note, in 1992, Sam and Kirsty had flatmates who weren't part of the cast. Sam had a petty criminal named Wayne, while Kirsty had a flatmate named Julienne who briefly dated Dr Mckenna. From 1993 onward, characters would exclusively live with other characters who had something to do with the clinic/hospital.
  • In the first 6 months of the show, American bands like Pearl Jam were used as background music. This proved costly so they switched to Kiwi bands as backing music.
  • For the first few months, the show seemed very cheaply put together with very few patients in the clinic unless they were part of a storyline, along with nearly no staff other than the core cast. There were also no recurring cast members to speak of.
  • The show's iconic greeting "Kia Ora, Shortland Street" wasn't introduced until 1993.
  • Shorty's traditional silent credits after an important character death didn't occur until later on. When Sarah Donnelly, the first hospital staff member to be killed off died, we simply had an instrumental version of the show's closing theme.
  • Other oddities from the beginning include the coffee shop having plain white walls as opposed to the more stylish designs it was well known for and a lack of the nurse's station set which was a key part of the clinic after it was built. You also had several RHA bureaucrats treated as important patients due to being shareholders in the clinc, something which was mostly abandoned after Noel Sturgess was written out in 1994.
  • Michael Galvin, Ngahuia Piripi and Angela Bloomfield all brought up the point in separate watchalongs of early episodes of the show that in the early days a lot of actors seemed to be talking with semi-RP accents.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Guy Warner showed back up in 2007 in an antagonistic role as a paranoid drug addict who stole Chris's family and caused a car crash during the finale, before leaving in 08, promising to get clean, disgusted with who he'd become. In 2020 during a Zoom call with Chris, it was apparent Guy had gotten himself clean and sober once more, reverting to who he was in the 90s.
• Easy Amnesia: Rachel Mckenna got struck by lightning in 1998 causing her to change from a Deadpan Snarker into a kind woman with a massive crush on Nick. It took a small electric shock from a malfunctioning lamp to switch her back.
• Elder Abuse: Mark Shawn, Rangi's new ambulance partner in 1998 turned out to be the mystery culprit breaking into the homes of old people and putting them in hospital before being caught by Donna Heka.
• Elevator Failure: The Shortland Street Hospital lift is infamous for breaking down at the most inconvenient time.
• Emo Teen: Lulu Chatfield. Jasmine Cooper went through a period of this after almost dying in 2011.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Madonna Diaz assumed that her daughter Joy was behaving evasively because she was a lesbian (Madonna's religious beliefs had previously caused friction between her and LGBT characters like Maeve and Nicole). Joy was actually sleeping with Junior, the nephew of Madonna's partner.
• Erudite Stoner: Dr Simon Hilton-Jones, a very brief character who happened to be a hippie doctor was hinted at being this.
• Establishing Series Moment: Episode one opens with Sam Aleni and Tom Neilson driving down the road in their ambulance to a pregnant woman giving birth. Tom's son Stuart claims paternity of the child with a shocked Tom looking on, followed by us switching to Hone Ropata meeting Marj Neilson and Kirsty Knight. Dr Mckenna calls in to speak to Hone and we then shift to a gym instructor finishing a class before we meet Dr Chris Warner which then leads to the show's first ever sex scene less than five minutes in. Welcome to Shortland Street indeed.
• Estranged Soap Family: There have been very few families on Shortland Street who aren't. The Warner and Samuels families are the most triumphant examples of these, given how many long-lost relatives and kids there are.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Even Ethan Pierce was disgusted when his body-harvesting partner Stirling Haldane's intentional negligence led to a 10 year old boy becoming infected with HIV due to Haldane forging a death certificate for a 59 year old hooker.
  • Kieran Mitchell tried to force Ethan to buy his shares in Nessus Bio since while Kieran had dodgy contacts, he drew the line with what Ethan was doing.
  • The only thing which kept Darryl Neilson from being a complete scumbag was the fact he genuinely loved his wife and kids.
  • During his killing spree in the hospital, Milo Cross drew the line at shooting Harper and her three young children, having lost his parents earlier in the year.
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Well duh. It's been the show's bread and butter as early as the first episode with who else? Dr. Warner aka Dr. Love.
• Evil All Along:
  • Rangi's new ambulance partner Mark Shawn turned out to be the sick freak who'd been invading homes and beating the elderly, the very crime Rangi got accused of in 1998 before he'd even been introduced on-screen.
  • Ditto Hugo Carmont in 2005. He was revealed to have been the home invader who drove the Harrisons out of Ferndale months before he was introduced.
  • Simon Ashton in his 2020 return was revealed to be an organ harvester, dubbed the Creep, who preyed on the homeless.
• Evil Cripple: Craig Develter, who kept trying to corrupt Rangi during Rangi's stint in a wheelchair.
• Eviler than Thou: Kane Harvey was a remorseless thug, who was less evil than the Hitman Don Lennox, and both of them answered to the head of Scott-Spear John Grainger who was killing people with dodgy drugs AND ordering the murder of anyone trying to shut them down.
• Evil, Inc..: The Pharmaceutical company Scott-Spear conducted unethical research and had a tendency to put hits out on people when they were close to uncovering the truth. Sometimes, even innocent people like Huia Samuels got killed too.
• Evil Old Folks: Ian Reid, the father of Tank Reid was revealed in September 2018 to be the Beechwood Beast, a serial rapist in his 60's. He murdered a former cop and beat Zoe Carlson so badly she miscarried her baby.
• Evil Redhead: Robyn Stokes.
  • As of 2023, Addie Lynch. Addie bumped off her own father for the reason of pure greed.
• Evil Versus Evil: Mackenzie Choat, the sadistic psychiatrist vs Oscar Henry, the manipulative rapist. Mackenzie almost won by blowing up Oscar's hospital room with him in it and stealing all of the money he had embezzled from the clinic prior. She was then swindled by Affably Evil ex-drug dealer Greg Feeney upon trying to leave New Zealand.
  • Rebekah bludgeoning Scott to death with a fire extinguisher. Sure, she was the only who actually killed Wilder, but it was Scott who got Wilder high and into the pool, attempted to drown him (at Rebekah's orders), and stood by while she murdered a teenager in cold blood. He also worked with her to cover it up, going so far as to give a speech *at Wilder's funeral* about the supposed "drug problem" that allegedly killed him, when the only reason he had drugs in his system was that Scott had drugged his drink.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Finn Warner, who has attracted crazies of both genders. First he had Ashley Whitley lusting after him, and then crazy orderly Jason.
• Everyone Is a Suspect: Played straight during the Ferndale Strangler storyline with several leaked potential endings showing Callum Mckay and Justine Jones, James Scott and Luke Durville as alternate killers.
• Excessive Mourning:
  • Nicole treating everyone in the hospital (all of whom also went through a traumatic experience) like crap because Quinn died.
  • Maeve as well, given that her entire personality for 8 months was "Wilder died."
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • 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.
  • At the end of 2023, Harry sabotaged surgery on Rahu, who'd been stabbed by a drug-crazed patient not long after Rahu found out Harry forged his medical qualifications. Harry would passively watched as Rahu was stabbed without fighting the patient off, which would lead to Harry performing surgery on Rahu, who would bleed out on the table.
• Fake Faith Healer: Baxter Cormack became one of these, even though he genuinely believed he had the power.
• Fake Food: All of the food at the coffee shop and Lionel's food cart was fake back in the early days of the show.
• Fake Pregnancy: Evil Carla Crozier tried to pull this stunt on husband Bernie Leach. Unfortunately for Carla, her husband was a scumbag too and beat her to a bloody pulp.
• Faking the Dead: Justine Jones in 2008. When Scott-Spear hired a hitman who planted a mobile-phone-activated bomb in her car, she used it to her advantage by switching the SIM card with her own phone's, activating the bomb to convince the company she was dead and fled to Australia.
• False Soulmate: Rebekah, for Maeve. Even though Maeve at one point tells Nicole that Rebekah is "the woman of her dreams," it's such an unbelievable pairing given Maeve's contempt for religion, how clearly evil Brightshine is, and the fact that Maeve was convinced Brightshine was responsible for Wilder's death until pretty much the moment she and Rebekah got together. It was such a clear mismatch that a lot of audience members were convinced that Maeve was double-crossing Rebekah to avenge Wilder's death.
• Fat Bastard: Bernie Leach. Rotund, slimy and dishonest, Bernie was also a verbally and physically abusive husband to Carla. Carla was no angel, but she didn't deserve what Bernie did to her.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Dominic Thompson and Darryl Neilson could both switch on charm when need be, but were, for the most part, complete and total scumbags with no redeeming qualities.
  • Ian Seymour could turn on the charm at a moment's notice. He was also one of the more sinister villains of the 90s.
  • Simon Churchill seemed classy and articulate until it turned out he was a hooker-beating misogynist.
  • Rebekah Anderson, leader of the Brightshine Church. Kind, loving, and welcoming to all. Also ordered her youth pastor Scott to drown Maeve's son Wilder when he started uncovering too much accidentally about the church, and who caved Scott's head in once Maeve realised he (supposedly) drowned Wilder and tried to kill Logan.
• Fiery Redhead: Long-time character Rachel Mckenna, and before her, her mother Alex.
  • As of 2023, recurring character Addie Lynch.
• Flat Character: Even Paolo Rotundo described Andrew Solomon as this, citing his reason for leaving the show due to Andrew being "the most boring fucking character on the show" and saying "I can't fucking do anything with this guy."
• Flanderization: TK Samuels started out as Huia's laid-back cousin who was highly self-confident although kind, like a Lovable Jock without the sporting background, who occasionally lost his temper under understandable circumstances, i.e. when the Ferndale Police referred to Alice as "The Victim" after being kidnapped by Ferndale Strangler and Serial Killer Joey Henderson rather than her name. From 2010 until 2016, TK turned into an arrogant alpha male more akin to a Jerk Jock who often lost his temper, threatened other characters, bullied others and flew off the handle with minimal provocation. He slowly started reverting back to a similar personality to his old self come 2017.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Jack and Curtis Hannah. Jack is the intelligent, academic gay one, Curtis is the Troubled, but Cute manwhore with a rap sheet and a heart of gold. Interestingly, the Hannah Brothers meet the original cast notes for Nick Harrison and Stuart Neilson from 24 years prior to the letter.
• Foreshadowing: How did Joey Henderson know that Claire Solomon's body was wrapped up in plastic unless he was the one who killed her? As a matter of fact, most of Joey's murders had foreshadowing set up subtly, to make sense once he was revealed but to not have been obvious unless you knew what they were going for.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Dr Eve Reston originally seemed rather quirky and unable to express emotion properly while maintaining a very, very fucked up idea of what made a strong woman. Then things took a dark turn when it was revealed Eve had been killing patients and harvesting body parts in order to perform research in the name of "science," all while framing a drug addict nurse named Deb for the murder of one patient in particular. All of a sudden this woman who seemed like a feminist Captain Ersatz of Gabrielle Jacobs was a Distaff Counterpart to Ethan Pierce instead.
• Feuding Families: The Crombies and Heywoods in the brief time they intersected in 2001. Eventually, the Crombies left town because of the Heywoods.
• Forced Out of the Closet: Rachel did this to her brother Jonathon by reading his diary out loud to their parents. Being the 90s, it was treated as a big deal. It took Jonathon and his boyfriend Jamie almost getting beaten outside a nightclub for Dr Mckenna to accept his son's sexuality.
• Freeze-Frame Ending: Used originally then eventually dropped where we'd freeze on a character before fading out to credits as the show's theme kicked in.
• French Jerk: Jean-Luc Mafart, Alison Raynor's husband was not only abusive, but he was a terrorist to boot.
• Fun Personified: Kip Denton was a wild and wacky guy who ended up becoming on of the show's most popular characters. Vinnie Kruse filled in this role during both of his stints.
• Frontier Doctor: Subverted with Dr. Hone Ropata, as in the first episode he has returned from a stint in the jungles of Guatemala.

G-J

• Gay Aesop: Jamie Forrest and Jonathon Mckenna circa 1993.
• Gold Digger: Tiffany Pratt's original personality.
  • Subverted with Monique Strutter. She's a former model and PA to Shortland Street's CEO who's attractive, glamorous, and admittedly superficial at times. But she's also a feminist and a hard worker who genuinely fell in love with Eli Lynch and refused to take his money.
• Good Feels Good: Eli felt this way after being generous with his company's medicine for the first time rather than putting profit over people. He even lamented before his daughter murdered him that he raised her and her brother wrong by making them materialistic and greedy.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
  • Has evolved rather interestingly over the years. In the early days of Shortland Street, standards and practices at TVNZ were so strict a racist ambulance officer couldn't use any major slurs so came across as quite cheesy, and writers were concerned the word "placenta" was too risque for a 7pm timeslot. Starting from 2018, the word "shit" is allowed to be used infrequently.
  • Stuart Neilson was told by another character in 1993 that he swore on TV after telling Paul Holmes to "get stuffed." Again, stronger language is AOK by 2018- standards.
• Grumpy Old Man:
  • Craig Valentine was this in doctor form.
  • Tom Neilson was this to Sam Aleni as his older colleague in the ambulance service.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Maeve and Nicole. Nicole is affable and well-meaning even if she screws up quite a bit with Maeve; Maeve is combative and guarded.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Oh look, Craig again! Craig was known to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation and got himself in trouble several times because of it. TK became this during his Flanderization years as well.
  • Maeve has one of these, even before Wilder's death. Social injustices, in particular, seem to set her off.
• Hand Wave:
  • 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.
  • During 2024's timeskip between the cliffhanger and first episode, Emmett Whitman somehow got hired back by Chris who was in charge while Esther was helping Marty get clean from his drug addiction. The only explanation as to why a character who'd previously been a completely bigoted scumbag managed to seemingly reform and get hired was an off-handed remark that he'd "taken a class to be more sensitive to others."
• Happily Ever After: Kip Denton and Alice Piper's final appearance featured Kip becoming Alice's Victorious Childhood Friend and had them frolicking down a beach in beautiful Rarotonga. Before them, Nick and Waverley properly exchanged wedding vows in front of a priest at Chris and Toni's wedding and departed for Taranaki. As seen below, the two are still together, 17 years later with several kids.
• Happily Married: In a rarity for the soap, Nick and Waverley Harrison are still together as of 2022, with 6 kids to boot!
  • Drew and Harper have had their rocky moments, especially during Harper's disappearance. However, they've stuck it out through all of that, centered each other, and are generally viewed as a solid couple.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Toni Thompson was this to start with before mellowing out and settling down after having her and Chris' son Harry. Alice Piper stayed this way and was well-known for her partying ways.
• He Knows Too Much: The reason Wilder was drowned at the Brightshine party. Named by Rebekah when she confesses to Maeve that she killed him.
  • The reason Scott-Spear took out hits on Ant Richards, Craig Valentine and Justine Jones, among others.
  • Why Harry let Rahu get stabbed and then sabotaged his surgery.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Daniel Potts became a model citizen after a boot camp in 2009. Fergus Kearney became one of the good guys upon his release from a youth detention centre for burning his aunt's house down. A good guy who occasionally made really, really stupid decisions, but not an antagonistic person anymore by any means.
  • Damo Johnson showed up as a power-drunk IT support guy who feuded with Chris Warner and Mo Hannah. After leaving, he'd come back with a less antagonistic attitude due to being so well-received during his first run.
  • Emmett Whitman came back in 2024 no longer affiliated with Brightshine and having done sensitivity training. Emmett would get along with gay nurse Sage Stewart, nicknaming him "Clover", defending him after Harry Warner threatened him, even joking with him after accidentally receiving a love letter Sage wrote for Nazar Arshad. Emmett's only antagonistic behaviour once he returned was towards Harry, who he saw through immediately and despised for his personality and upbringing.
  • Former Stalker with a Crush Jason Kirkpatrick returned in 2018, medicated and under the new name Sebastian St. John. Not long after he returned he saved Esther's life by calling an ambulance after finding her down an alleyway, signifying his good guy status.
  • Richard Minogue, AKA the fake Hamish Flynn admitted to Yvonne before he was arrested for defrauding multiple people that he was originally planning to do the same to her. But because of Yvonne's unconditional love, even when causing issues with Yvonne's husband Ian, and caring for him as if he was her son, Richard grew to love her too. He gave her the details of her real son before leaving with the police.
• Heel–Faith Turn: Claire Solomon tried her damndest after falling in love with the highly religious Baxter Cormack. It stuck until Baxter started peddling faith healing and left her.
• Heel Realisation: Jim Matheson upon being confronted by Martin "Sticky" Stickwell in regards to raping Barbara Heywood. After months of denial, Jim realised what he'd done after Sticky told him about how when he didn't get his way, he used force.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Chris had a big one in 1994 after getting addicted to painkillers in the aftermath of the car crash he caused which ended up claiming the lives of Steve Mills and TP Aleni.
  • Steve himself had one in the aftermath of the death of his girlfriend Sarah Donnelly. After ignoring his grief, Steve eventually broke down in front of Carrie Burton.
  • Maia Jeffries ended up in a mental institution in the aftermath of her shooting of Ethan Pierce.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Craig Valentine knew it was all over once his heart problems started kicking in while being pursued by Don Lennox and his thugs. Nonetheless, he sacrified himself to help take down Scott-Spear once and for all.
  • Steve Mills went back for Kirsty and TP after driving his car off the road in an argument with Chris. He managed to get Kirsty out just fine, but the car blew up while he was trying to rescue TP.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Sam Aleni's flatmate Wayne was never, ever seen in spite of frequently being mentioned in 1992.
• Hidden Depths: Nick was a star pupil when it came to economics. This would translate later down the line when he became the clinic's (and later hospital's) business manager. Chris even lamented after coming back that one of the things he'd struggle getting used to was Nick Harrison not only being his business manager, but that he was good at his job.
• High-Powered Career Woman: A lot of Shorty's female bosses have been this. Julia Thornton, Sofia Martinez and Rachel Mckenna most definitely fit into this category. Subverted by Patricia Hewett, Harper Whitley, and Monique Strutter.
• Hilarious Outtakes: The blooper show Naughty Shorty aired in 2012 as part of the 20th anniversary. An updated version of Naughty Shorty screened in 2017 as part of the 25th anniversary.
• Hippie Name: Judy's real name was Blossom Brownlee.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Someone had gone around Ferndale beating up prostitutes in 1993. Evil nursing manager Paul Churchill was uncovered as the culprit when he was busted by Carmen Roberts taping his ribs which had been bruised by a hooker fighting back.
• Hollywood Atheist: Maeve and her contempt for religion.
• Hollywood Autism: They tried avoiding the usual tropes with Dr Gabrielle Jacobs, but created a bunch of new ones by having Gabrielle trying far too hard to behave "normally."
• Hollywood Healing: Rangi Heremaia went from being in a wheelchair to fully able to walk with no problems whatsoever in the space of a year.
• Hollywood Tourette's: Angus Phelps, complete with totally inappropriate coprolalia.
• House Fire: Used a few times in the show's early years. Tom Neilson almost burned down his house, Ellen Crozier burned hers down with a cigarette after falling asleep. Then you had Fergus Kearney burning his aunt Liz Stokes' house down.
  • Carla Crozier did this to Chris Warner on purpose in 2021.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Mike Galloway and Jean Hallows were this. Oliver Driver being a legitimate 6' 5" will do that.
• Humiliation Conga: Smug DHB consultant Martha Riley got this as a fitting end to her tenure at Shortland Street. Showing up to micromanage the hospital with a vendetta against Chris Warner and managing to piss nearly every single staff member and HOD off with her smug bureaucratic behaviour, Riley installed Callum Mckay as the new CEO after trying to install Hone Ropata. Upon having an affair with the married Callum, Riley attempted to woo Callum away from his wife Justine at a suave dinner featuring Callum, Justine, Chris and her PA Libby Jeffries. Savagely rejected by Callum, Riley, drunk and humiliated would attempt to call out Justine only to have Callum tell her to shut up. The next day, her final day at Shortland Street, Riley would get chewed out by Justine, chewed out by Libby who Riley tried to blame for the hospital knowing about her behaviour, chewed out by Craig in her final debriefing and final broke upon seeing Callum and Justine sitting at the foot of the table, holding hands.
  • Drew Mccaskill is arguably going through this as of October 2023. He first quit Shortland Street due to the co-op plan, which would cap his already-well-over-six-figure salary and which he repeatedly called "socialist" and "communist," making him look immensely greedy and out of touch given that the plan was designed to fairly compensate nurses. While declaring his departure from Shortland Street as a surgeon, he fell off a chair and ended up a patient at the hospital for several days. After getting a contract with Randerson's, a private clinic renting a Shortland Street OR, Drew wanted to return to Shortland Street but couldn't terminate his contract due to a $50,000 break fee. He got Randerson's to fire him by playing incompetent, which led them to pull their lease from Shortland Street entirely, depriving the hospital of a necessary income stream. When Esther came to confront Drew about this, she found him fist-deep in a butt-shaped cake celebrating his return to Shortland Street. This was also witnessed by a furious Addie Lynch, who found the celebration insensitive in the wake of the recent death of her brother Max at Drew's home; Drew couldn't help but agree that the cake made him look like... well, an ass.
• Hypocrite:
  • Te Rongopai Rameka, DHB appointed 2IC of the hospital came in while Chris was on holiday, accused Chris of nepotism by giving his children and girlfriend jobs, while getting her nephew a job on hospital grounds. Te Rongopai claimed to be a feminist, all while slut-shaming Chris' pregnant girlfriend Zoe. Te Rongopai also used her anti-Warner agenda to try and prevent Finn Warner from being reinstated under the guise of "looking out for his wife" and abuse victim Esther. When Esther told Te Rongopai where to stick it, Te Rongopai tried exposing Finn and Zoe's affair as a plan B.
  • Addie would return after Max was killed in 2023, angry and wanting to find the killer. For those keeping score, killing her father for money reasons? Fine. Killing her brother for being a prick: Not fine.
  • Joey in 2008 not long before getting caught managed to get an arsonist who'd turned up at the hospital to confess to him that he did it, but also that he enjoyed it arrested. For those keeping score: Strangling and overdosing your colleagues? Fine. Pyromania? Not fine.
• I Am Not My Father: Chris tried his best to not end up like his father, Sir Bruce. Guy pointed out in 2008 that he'd wound up exactly like their old man. Thankfully Chris became a different person after a stint in jail in 2012.
• Ice Queen: Li Mei Chen is still the most triumphant example of this in Shortland Street's years on the air.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • Maeve has been guilty of this more than once, attempting to bypass correct parental control protocols to save patient lives.
  • The crux of Hone being reminded he wasn't in Guatemala now. Hone ran an emergency procedure on the pregnant Lisa Stanton without an authorisation and against the pushback of Carrie.
• Idiot Ball: 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. Likewise every step of Drew and Vili's assault and kidnapping of a pedophile rugby coach. The former needed the Idiot Ball to work. The latter only exists and continues because of it.
• If I Can't Have You…: Hugo Carmont made the lives of those around the target of his obsession, Mark Weston's lives a living hell simply because they were taking away from his time with Mark.
• Inheritance Murder: In a sense. Addie Lynch gave her father Eli a fatal dose of a new anti-cancer drug, forcing a heart attack in the process, to protect her investment in the family's pharmaceutical company. Eli was planning on making the drug that saved him as well as the drug helping motor neuron disease patient Teina free for all, which Addie claimed would bankrupt their company. This, along with Eli planning on signing Power of Attorney to his fiancée Monique, drove Addie mad.
• Insistent Terminology: Pele Kruse-Miller's name absolutely *must* be pronounced with a hard B as is traditional in the Samoan language. No exceptions.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Leanne and Rosalyn aren't quite having sex when Nicole and Maeve get back from their date, but things were certainly headed quickly in that direction.
• It Runs in the Family: Luke Billingham became a father at 16, just like his father Lionel. Rachel Mckenna is an alcoholic, just like her father Michael. Phoenix Raynor was involved in a few love triangles, just like his dad Chris.
• Jerkass: Early Nick Harrison, Charlotte Olson, Frank Hill, Owen Sutherland. Depending on the circumstances, there are a lot of other characters who may fit firmly into this territory from time-to-time.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Depending on how wrong you think Kip Denton was when it came to being a dope-growing slob, the house he, Scotty and Shanti lived in WAS Kip's house. Shanti had no right going through his things, and certainly had no right to act entitled when Kip told her she had made him feel like a stranger in his own home.
  • Nick was right losing it at Stuart over their dead friend Miles. Miles was friends with both boys, yet Stuart was the one getting everybody's sympathy when Miles and Nick were closer while Stuart screaming at Miles over an out of control party was the last straw before Miles committed suicide.
  • Drew, when he yelled at Justine Lloyd (and to a lesser extent Leanne) for saying repeatedly that it was prayer that saved her daughter Cassie after her skating accident. A doctor lashing out at a mother who almost lost her daughter does cross a clear professional line, and it was revealed that Drew only got as emotional as he did due to stress from Harper's postpartum depression. But even though Drew shouldn't have lost his cool, the sentiment itself was justified: Justine and Leanne were being pretty dismissive of (and even ungrateful for) the hard work and ingenuity of the Shortland Street staff by chalking the success of Cassie's multiple treatments up to the power of prayer. As part of a separate storyline, he also wasn't wrong about how Esther's plan of capping surgeon earnings to pay nurses more being bullshit and not too dissimilar to communism.
  • Alcoholic homeless person Howie Stonehouse told Brenda that as a recovering alcoholic, she was only one drink away from being like him while she was talking down to him. He was later proven right.
  • Harper, Nicole, and Maeve were put on blast by Marty after pranking Drew, with Marty telling them it was a workplace and that Harper wouldn't have put up with that type of behaviour as HOD. No matter how surly his tone, he was right.
  • Speaking of Maeve, while Louisa, a woman whose partner kidnapped Cassie's baby Knox started overstepping boundaries by breastfeeding Knox when Cassie wasn't around, Louisa was correct in calling Maeve out for lying about how long Louisa was able to stay at Harry's apartment (Maeve had told Louisa she'd been given two weeks to live there to try and get rid of her quickly) and that Maeve wasn't really Knox's grandmother given Wilder (Knox's father) wasn't really Maeve's son and that Maeve was trying to overstep boundaries by telling Cassie how to raise her own son.
• Jerk Jock: Parker Dawson has shades of this. Parker has the classic rugby player build, along with the arrogant attitude and narcissism to go with it. As full of himself as humanly possible, Parker has managed to show off his jealousy and hidden insecurity by trying to sabotage Harry's relationship with fellow newbie Stella Reihana and drugged Quinn Cox and left her unable to perform a surgery.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Nick was this as he went through adolescence. Yeah, he made some boneheaded decisions and was a tad surly, especially when it came to Minnie Crozier, but he cared for her and his other friends deep down.
  • Kieran Mitchell had a lot of dodgy connections and died as he lived- not necessarily making the smartest life decisions. Underneath it all though, Kieran showed he was loyal to his friends and family several times during his run. The complexity made him a fan favourite with many wishing he would return one day.
  • An early example of this was nurse Carrie Burton. Nicknamed "Robonurse" by the other staff for her cold, efficient, stoicly professional manner, underneath it all, Carrie was a loving and motherly woman which became apparent when she gave birth to her triplets Frank, Finbar and Sarah.
  • Speaking of said triplets, Frank was a bit dodgy, but also a nice guy who loved his family, grew to love his biological father Chris and spent different stints looking out for and giving advice to both of his younger brothers, Phoenix and Harry.
  • Craig Valentine too, in spite of being a grumpy prick.
  • Nazar Arshad is an extremely stern, professional, no-nonsense sort cut from the same "doctors are above nurses" cloth as many arrogant doctors before him. However, Nazar does apologise when he's wrong, came to appreciate Vili speaking out about his pedophile coach from when he was a child and helped Sage learn a thing or two here or there.
• Joggers Find Death: How Kip Denton and Alice Piper found the dead body of Jay Copeland.

K-R

• Karma Houdini:
  • Cam Mccaskill got off scot-free despite slipping several times in regards to his drug habit. His boyfriend's brother Curtis Hannah wasn't so lucky, taking the proverbial bullet and getting sent to jail for one such transgression.
  • Eve Reston died before getting to face any comeuppance for her murdering and harvesting patients for her disturbing medical experiments. She contracted an illness and died by that point before it could happen, but it seemed by that point the writers forgot what she'd originally gone on the run for before bringing her and Boyd's twins back to him.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After almost killing a patient as a side effect of stitching up Harry Warner along with other methods to sabotage Harry, spiking Quinn's drink with LSD, flirting with Monique and getting away with these and other acts of dickery for a month and a half, Parker Dawson's surgical career came to an end after getting his hand destroyed by a bullet after getting shot by Milo.
• Large Ham: The other flavour some of the early actors came in when the show first started.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Isaac Worthington manipulated, conned and almost murdered his way into leaving Ferndale rich. After having his trust fund frozen once he escaped to the Philippines, Isaac ended up stranded and penniless in a foreign land with no way back to Ferndale. Mackenzie Choat deserved to be doublecrossed and left broke by Greg Feeney in 1999.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: During its final year in the original clinic setting due to Long-Runner Cast Turnover, Nick, Rangi and Minnie ended up being the last few characters left from the early 90s. So you had a bunch of strangers in the same setting as the original cast to a point it almost felt surreal. By the middle of 2000, the original set would be discarded and by the middle of 2001, we'd have an entire cast refresh to make things feel new again.
• Leit Motif:
  • "Anchor Me" by the Muttonbirds was one for Hunter Mckay and Tess Adamson's May–December Romance. Hunter requested it to a radio station as their song and it played again later that episode after they slept together for the first time. It popped up again once the two were exposed by Tess's son Nate and Hunter moved in with Tess. It would pop up again when Tess fled Ferndale in shame, leaving Hunter brokenhearted and crying in her driveway, comforted by his father and finally when Hunter was grieving, going through his phone at the same place in the park the two had been on a date earlier in the year.
  • "Pink Frost" by the Chills was one for murderer Dominic Thompson. Makes sense considering the song is about murder.
• Let Them Die Happy: Maeve comforting a dying Quinn by telling her that Nicole (Maeve's wife) reciprocates Quinn's feelings. Though based on the way Nicole has been acting in the wake of Quinn's death, it seems as though Maeve may have been right, whether she knew it or not.
• Lighter and Softer: The Steven Zanoski period from late 2009 until 2013 and the early part of Simon Bennett's second run from 2013-2015. Complaints with this era include villains being more annoying, storylines that tend to drag, and characters being less likeable.
• Light Is Not Good: Brightshine "Church" (read: Cult), especially their leader Rebekah and their youth pastor, Scott. Scott would drown Wilder Mullens after he deflowered a daughter of one of their members and attempted to suffocate Logan to death after Dawn fell in love with him after Dawn and Scott had sex outside of wedlock. Rebekah would find Scott beaten up by Maeve and then cave his skull in with a nearby fire extinguisher for "shaming the church." Her real motive for the murder was likely to silence the only witness (and co-conspirator) to her earlier murder of Wilder Mullens.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • Nick and Rachel's dynamic. No matter how many insults they threw at each other, they were still best friends, even getting married in a sham wedding to protest student allowance rules at university. Apart from Rachel briefly being not herself after being hit by lightning in 1998, the two were never more than best buds.
  • Nick also had this with Minnie Crozier after Johnny Marinovich and Nick's mum Jenny started dating. They still had this dynamic briefly after Johnny and Jenny split.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Maia Jeffries from 2004-2011, Maeve Mullens from 2019-present.
• Local Hangout: The coffee shop Gina Rossi worked at started the trend and shared this status with the Kennedy's Bar beginning in 1993. Throughout the 90s, the coffee shop and the frequently renamed Kennedy's/R Bar/Lionel's/Buzz Bar were where all the staff gathered. These were eventually succeeded by the Hospital Cafeteria, The Dog's Day Inn and Coltrane, the latter two replaced with the IV and Sugar. Eventually, Sugar stopped being a thing, and we still have the hospital Cafe and the IV.
• Location Theme Naming: Waverley Wilson's family had the quirky tradition of naming children after the New Zealand towns they were conceived in: Waverley, her brother Stratford, her sisterAmberley (the only one named after a town outside the Taranaki region), and her cousin Eltham.
• Locked in a Freezer: How Geoff Greenlaw died after being clubbed over the head and left for dead by Dominic Thompson.
• Long Bus Trip: Chris and Guy returned to Shortland Street after 5 and 11 years respectively. Guy outright stated when they left they were only supposed to have been gone for 2 weeks.
  • Carla Crozier, working under the name Carla Summerfield, returned in 2021 after two decades after she last left.
  • David Kearney returned in a cameo in 2020, before returning as a regular in 2022.
  • Brooke Freeman and Pania Stevens returned during the first week of January 2023 having not been seen since 2014 and 2016, respectively.
• Long-Lost Relative: The show's favourite method of introducing new members of the Samuels' family. TK's family makes the Warner family tree look basic.
  • Nicole was introduced as Morgan Braithwaite's long lost half-sister.
• Long-Runner Cast Turnover: It first aired in 1992, and as of 2020 only one of the original cast members remains (Dr. Chris Warner).
• Long-Runners: The first episode aired on 25 May 1992, and the show celebrated 26 years and nearly 7000 episodes in September 2018.
• Loony Fan: Ross Clarkson, who wouldn't leave Craig alone after Craig saved his life.
• Love Hungry: Quinn, with Nicole, to the point of kissing her twice and telling Maeve about it. She later swore to Maeve that she wasn't trying to break up Maeve and Nicole, but as Quinn herself said during the big reveal, "actions speak louder than words, you know?"
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Monique Strutter is one of these all grown up. Vain, but well-meaning underneath a somewhat selfish exterior.
• Loveable Rogue: A staple of the show. Chris Warner in his early days, Daniel Buchanan, TK Samuels in *his* early days, Kip Denton, Drew Mccaskill.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Done to Ali by his mother's new boyfriend. As it turns out, he was also her old boyfriend.
• Luke, You Are My Father: A man named Hamish Flynn showed up claiming to be Yvonne Jeffries' long-lost son who she and her husband Ian adopted out when they were teenagers. He turned out to be a conman, but it wasn't long before the real Hamish showed up.
  • Daisy, who claimed to be Logan's sister via his father, who was a sperm donor. Turns out, she was right. She repeatedly misidentified possible "diblings" (donor siblings).
• Magical Queer: Nearly every single gay guy and the occasional previously straight guy falls in love with and becomes a more complete and wonderful person due to the influence of Jack Hannah. Person enters Ferndale, meets Jack, either comes out of the closet or dumps their partner and falls head over heels.
• Mal Mariée: Anne Kahu's marriage to Victor Kahu turned into this pretty quick. She fell for Victor's son Nelson Copeland hard and the feeling was more than mutual. To say Victor was mad is an understatement.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Wilder's drowning – at one point, even Maeve believes Brightshine's coverup story that Wilder overdosed on ketamine and drowned accidentally.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Craig wasn't sure Scarlett was his because his wife began cheating on him with his brother around the time she got pregnant.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Nick didn't want a bar of his son Lucas due to his girlfriend Angela dying of cancer she couldn't get treated due to her pregnancy and left the care of his son to Waverley, Rachel, Rangi and Donna. He'd get better.
• May–December Romance:
  • Happened twice with Jenny Harrison, once during an affair with Guy Warner, and again with Johnny Marinovich. After Jenny and Johnny split up, Johnny would embark on this with 19 year old Ramona Derby. Would happen again in 2007 with Hunter Mckay and his friend's mother Tess Adamson.
  • Originally played for laughs with Damo Johnson and Leanne Black, but then played straight later on.
• Memorial Photo:
  • Tess and Megan at their joint funeral.
  • Yvonne's photo of Claire at reception.
• Mercy Kill: Kylie Brown euthanising her mother Norelle.
• Misplaced Retribution: Kylie, Lana Jacobs and Emma Franklin went after Boyd Rolleston because they thought he'd murdered Kylie's sister. Not only was Boyd not responsible, Kylie's sister was still alive. At the time, anyway...
• Mistaken for Cheating: How Nick and Serena Hughes' relationship ended. Nick assumed Serena, like everyone else wanted to jump Stuart over him because they'd been spending so much time together. For once, he was wrong.
• Mistaken for Gay: Before he came out as Asexual, Libby Jeffries thought her childhood friend Gerald was Camp Gay. It's the flamboyance, you see.
  • Madonna thought her daughter Joy was being secretive after they moved in with Vili, his sister Selina and her son Junior because she was a lesbian. Joy was being secretive because she was in a relationship with Junior and lost her virginity to him a day previous.
• Mistaken for Junkie: Played to a comedic effect in 2006, where Eti Kawaka was busted by Maia and Jay with white powder on his nose while acting shifty, claiming he got it from Maia's mother Yvonne. It turned out to be icing sugar with Yvonne low-key helping Eti cheat on his diet.
• Moment of Silence:
  • Used in the mid-00s to denote a particularly dramatic ending to an episode, often a death. You'd have the end scene followed by silent credits.
  • Used after Maeve found Wilder's body in the pool, along with slow motion showing the horror of the party guests and the collective attempt to resuscitate him.
  • Once again used at the end of Milo's siege on the third night.
• Moral Myopia: Pointed out to Madonna by both Vili and Selina with her hitting the roof finding out Junior and Joy were sexually involved. Junior and Joy clapping? They're teenagers, not married, it's a sin. Madonna and Vili doing the same thing before marriage? No problem here.
• Mouthy Kid: Nick had no problem running his mouth at adults, especially his mother and Dr Mckenna when he was a teenager. He grew out of it as he got older with his big mouth being replaced with a world-weary snark.
• Mr. Fanservice: Many, many examples over the years, but Dr Daniel Buchanan was a triumphant example in the late 90's. Charming and handsome with a strong Australian accent, he was clearly there to draw in the show's female demographic.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Kip Denton was a great guy but loved his illegal narcotics quite a bit.
  • Frank Warner is, for the most part a great guy. He just tends to make a lot of stupid life decisions.
  • Thaddeus is a really nice guy, jovial and friendly and extremely socially awkward. He also had a habit of sampling drugs he wasn't supposed to as a pharmacist. It ended up with him getting fired, getting hospitalised and sent to rehab on Chris's dime.
• My Local: The IV Bar and Bistro was Shortland Street's local since 2006 until 2023 when it was replaced. Various other bars have been locals in the past.
• Naked People Trapped Outside: Hunter Mckay while hiding from Tess Adamson's son Nate. Lead to a hilarious moment where he was spotted by her neighbours.
• Near-Death Experience: After being taken off life support following his gunshot wound, TK traveled through a forest in his subconscious, seeing his ex-wives Roimata and Sarah. While they didn't speak, it was clear that they were sending him back to the living, given that his heartbeat then returned on its own against all odds.
• Near-Villain Victory: Ian Seymour ALMOST completed his Hostile Takeover of Shortland Street had it not been for Kirsty Knight's elite amateur sleuthing skills and the help of Dr David Kearney.
• Never My Fault: Hunter Mckay couldn't see how he'd caused Scarlett to snap and nearly run him over in a schoolyard even after his sister explained it to him.
• New Old Flame:
  • Dean Cochrane was Moira Crombie's. It didn't end well, but the two reconciled and eventually got married.
  • We were introduced to Stella's former boyfriend Teina, who came into the hospital as his symptoms of Motor Neurone Disease worsened.
• Nice Guy: 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. Thaddeus Fleiss is a genuinely kind, well-meaning guy in spite of being socially awkward.
• Noble Bigot: Judy Brownlee was slightly racist and was slightly homophobic but was such that she was more a product of her upbringing than a bad person.
• Not Blood Siblings:
  • Carmen Roberts and Greg Feeney, step-siblings who had a relationship in their teens after their parents were married.
  • Minnie Crozier dated her stepbrother Fergus Kearney on and off for several years.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent:
  • Dr. Li Mei Chen is from China, and yet she speaks with a flawless Kiwi accent.
  • Sophie and Hunter Mckay are both Australian, yet they don't even attempt to disguise their accents. (Well, not for long. Lee Donaghue tried an Aussie accent. He gave up.)
  • Jake and Scarlett Valentine, much like the Mckay kids are supposed to have lived in Australia until they moved to Ferndale. Calum Gittens and Nicole Thompson obviously didn't get the memo.
  • Lucy Wigmore didn't bother either, making the fact she was supposed to be the same character as Laurie Foell even more jarring. That makes for 3/4 of the Mckay family who didn't have Australian accents.
• Notorious Parent: Steve Mills' father Declan Kennedy was a career criminal who ended up leaving Steve and partner Carrie Burton behind due to his criminal activities.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Both Johnny and Chris couldn't stand Tiffany's parents, Vern and Adele Pratt.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Most DHB-related characters, such as Huia Samuels at first.
• Obviously Evil:
  • Darryl Neilson was as subtle as a brick to the back of the head. Slimy, manipulative and with the villainous widow's peak to match, Darryl was the clear bar for Shortland Street villains for years to come.
  • Dr Ian Seymour had quite similar traits to Darryl, minus the family to hide behind and make excuses for him. Ian looked like an archetypical 90s bad guy with the Beard of Evil, dark suit and when he spoke, Evil Sounds Deep was in full effect.
• Offscreen Breakup: Leanne and Rosalyn, when Leanne reveals that Rosalyn cheated on her with a man. This was followed by an offscreen hook back up when Leanne left to travel the world and took Roz with her.
• Older Than They Look: Angela Bloomfield looked the same age as Karl Burnett when she was younger despite being 4 years older. Tyler Read was an extremely convincing 15 year old for a 22 year old man.
• Old People Are Non Sexual: The Neilsons were never shown or even hinted to be sexually active at that point in their marriage, again to tie in with them being a boring old 90s couple. This is essentially a dead trope nowadays as even the older characters are implied to be doing the wild thing with their partners.
• Once More, with Clarity: The retcon of Wilder's death showing that while Scott held him under in the pool, he couldn't finish the job and looked to Rebekah. Rebekah herself later confirmed that she was the one to finish the job.
• One-Steve Limit: To an extent. While there have been several shared first names over the years, you'll never have a shared first name between current characters.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: 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. Sass Warner's real name is Sarah. The only one who calls her that was her evil, late husband, Mason Coutts.
• Orderlies are Creeps: Usually subverted with the single exception of Steve Roberts back in 2007. Completely intentional given he was a red herring for the Ferndale Strangler. Played straight with Pete, the orderly who stole Cassie's baby in 2023.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
  • When the show featured an international doctor from the USA, his accent lasted about a week. Shanti Kumari had a rather thick Indian accent when she started, but at some point in 2008, Nisha Madran's native Kiwi accent started becoming more and more prominent until any prior accent was but a memory.
  • Ido Drent got better at muting his natural South African accent over time but he had a lot of slip-ups when he first took over the role.
  • Claire Solomon was supposed to be English, but had an accent which slipped in and out of a bad attempt at an English accent and Emily Robins' natural Kiwi accent.
  • Claire's brother Andrew was Kiwi mixed with Italian due to his actor, Paolo Rotondo being born in Italy, but having lived in NZ most of his life, thus his hybrid accent.
  • Lee Donaghue tried (emphasis: tried) a slight Australian accent when he started as Hunter Mckay. It didn't last long.
  • Out of the Lynch family, daughter Addie seems unable to keep hers up most of the time. While the entire family have shifty accents which vary in region between the three, Addie is the worst offender because hers barely *stays* American.
• Outliving One's Offspring: It's a soap, so Death of a Child is fairly common. This happens with Chris and Phoenix, Nicole and Kiri, Esther and her baby with Marty, and Maeve and Wilder.
• Pac Man Fever: Usually averted even as far back as 1992-93. Andrew Fleming's Gameboy made use of actual Gameboy music and sound effects.
• Papa Wolf: Eli Lynch of Lynch Pharmaceuticals to his son Max. After Max forced their pilot to let him take control of their private helicopter paralysing the pilot and injuring Max, Harry Warner went to Eli telling him what Max had done. We'd find out that Eli was a kind, generous man and as moral as a big pharmaceutical executive could be, but when Harry hinted he'd tell the media, Eli threatened to end Harry's career and bring down hell upon the Warners.
• Parental Favoritism: Sean Kearney was the golden child of the Kearney family. This was part of why Fergus went feral and burnt his aunt's house down in 1996.
• Perma-Stubble: Drew Maccaskill.
• Perpetual Poverty: The Crombies. It didn't get any better after patriarch Earl died in a car crash.
• Phony Degree: Dr Katherine Blake, real name Wendy Mulligan forged her paperwork to get a job at the clinic in 1993.
• Police Are Useless: Detective Lara Wade was more of an incompetent bully packing a guilty until found innocent mentality with any male suspects during the investigation of the Ferndale Strangler. She was called out by several characters for making up bullshit charges as she went along because she still didn't have a single lead by the end of 2007. Her undercover plant Tracey Morrison was almost as bad, being blatantly untrained as a nurse and getting kidnapped and non-fatally dumped in the rubbish by the Strangler to show he wasn't fucking around. Both would quit the force in disgrace in 2008.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In conjunction with the Anvilicious nature of the early days of the show, almost every bit of dialogue out of racist ambulance driver Dennis Cracknell's mouth was a racial slur, calling the Maori and Pacific Island staff of the clinic "boongas" or "jungle bunnies." Upon meeting Dr Ropata, Dennis called Hone an orderly and appeared genuinely shaken-up that a Maori could be a doctor.
• Post-Rape Taunt:
  • Zac Smith made a habit of this to anonymously torment TK and Roimata. He broke into their house and left her underwear on their bed and left a feather on their doorstep.
  • Ian Reid tormented Claire, one of his victims by calling her a whore who couldn't keep her legs shut. Naturally, this lead to Claire needing to be pulled off of him after trying to punch his face in.
• P.O.V. Sequel: Done three times on June 14, 15 and 16 2023. Milo's gun rampage through the hospital is shown from the perspective of different characters at different points. The 14th is shown from the perspective of the staff as they find people gunned down and hide, the 15th is filmed more from Milo's point of view and reveals more of his actions which aren't shown on the 15th, and finally the 16th ends with the reveal of whoever Milo shot at but wasn't revealed on the two nights prior.
• Pretty Boy: Rahu Parata is more of an old-school pretty boy type, being good-looking, lean and long-haired, rather than the bodybuilder types Shorty loved casting for awhile.
• Product Placement: 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, particularly Hubbard's breakfast cereals to a point it almost feels like a commercial during a TV show.
• Professionals Do It on Desks: Monique and Marty got snapped doing the nasty on Chris Warner's desk at one point.
• Properly Paranoid: Ant Richards ran after Huia Samuels was killed by a carbomb attached to his car in 2006. He returned to help Craig Valentine and Justine Jones expose Scott Spear, watching over his shoulder the whole time, frightened they'd find him and kill him and telling anyone who'd listen the company was evil. After they killed Craig and attempted to kill Justine, Ant hauled arse again, point proven.
• Psycho for Hire:
  • Don Lennox, mechanic by day, hitman by night. He was the one who torched Craig Valentine's car with him inside, he had members of the White Tails shoot up an operating theatre because Chris Warner visited him with knowledge of Scott-Spear executives and he was perfectly willing to murder Ethan Pierce for Kieran Mitchell.
  • Several of Mason Coutts' criminal associates were this, willing to bump off Mason's enemies or people who'd outlived their use.
• Psycho Psychologist:
  • Dylan Reinhart engineered a car crash to kill his wife Julia after falling for her sister Kylie, was implied to have killed his first wife in the same way, sexually manipulated dozy town bicycle Dawn and began having Patrick Bateman-esque fantasies about how to kill Kylie's husband Frank while the two were out camping. He also helped Nicole Kruse-Miller through her post traumatic stress after being run over.
  • Mackenzie Choat blew up Oscar Henry and tried to rip off the clinic. While being genuinely in love with Lionel Skeggins, she lost the plot and started drugging his son Luke in order to keep him around after Lionel went missing.
  • How Carla Crozier returned in 2021, working as a therapist under the name Carla Summerfield and using a combination of phychologial manipulation and hypnotic conditioning to get a job at the hospital and manipulate most prominantly Nicole through her relationships with her mother Leanne and wife Maeve.
• Rape as Drama: Minnie Crozier, Kate Larsen and Barb Heywood. Averted with Kirsty Knight, she was supposed to have been raped by Darryl Neilson but Executive Meddling changed the storyline into Date Rape Averted instead. It wasn't until Minnie's rape six years later that the trope was played straight. Also played with Minnie's father, Ryan, having raped her mother when they were younger, leading to Minnie's conception.
• Rape Discretion Shot:
  • Minnie was seen being advanced on by Oscar, followed by the scene shifting to something else, followed by cutting back to a sheepish and frightened Minnie being scared to answer whoever was knocking on her door.
  • Barb was seen struggling with Jim, followed by a scene transition, followed by Jim trying to act if nothing was wrong followed by Barb screaming at him to get out.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Maeve. Nicole even refers to her, unironically, as a "raven-haired beauty."
• Really Gets Around: Par for the course with the type of show Shortland Street is, but special note must be given to Chris Warner, well-known as Doctor Love, who in his 21 years on the soap has fathered 7 children, been married 4 times and been in countless other relationships and that's BEFORE we even go into the number of one night stands he's had. Alice Piper managed to do a lot of bed-hopping in her 4 year tenure and was often mocked heavily by other characters for it.
  • Dawn has referred to herself as the hospital doormat for how many guys she's slept with.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Most of the people running the hospital fall under this provided the intention isn't to make them a Jerkass or a villain at some point. James "Scotty" Scott seemed like a Mean Boss at first in his role as nursing manager, but turned out to be this trope in action. While he could be a hardass, he also cared for his staff and treated them well provided they did their jobs. Rebekah did a decent job pretending to be this during her tenure as CEO, even briefly fooling several characters who would usually be more onto it (Drew, Vili, Harper, Jack).
• Redemption Equals Death: Kieran Mitchell in 2010.
• Rejected Apology: Harper told Selina where to stick her apology after Selina claimed Harper's heroics during the hospital shooting in 2023 as her own.
• Replacement Flat Character: Andrew Solomon was Chris Warner's replacement as CEO. Chris was well-known as a ladies man with a lot of character flaws. Andrew... was an office nerd who was a stickler for rules?
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: In 1998, Michael Mckenna reported to Rachel that his wife and her mother Alex had died according to a Tibetan monastery. Alex would return in 2002 trying to steal Chris Warner's money.
• Retool: A hard one in 2001, two soft ones in 2006 and 2014. All 3 cleared out droves of cast members who were doing nothing, who were generally unpopular or old characters just treading water. All 3 were done to revitalise tanking ratings. The one in 2001 wiped out most of the old cast and replaced them with 16 new characters while the 2006 and 2014 ones were staggered and replaced less with less.
  • People assumed it would be like this once 2022 had the hospital itself blown up and burnt down by a raging fire,but come 2023, the hospital would be rebuilt and the only major difference was a blue colour scheme.
• Right Behind Me: Dawn was standing right behind Lincoln in the IV the night he decided to voice his frustrations with her annoying personality. To be fair, he wasn't wrong.
  • She did this before with Lincoln, her parroting Jack admitting to sleeping with Lincoln's fiance when he was just around the corner.
  • Talia, the mother of Drew and Harper's adopted son Marley, overhearing Drew demanding she take a toxicology report to prove she's on drugs while she was attempting to take Marley back. Talia walked in while Drew was ranting to newbie doctor Stella Reihana and went off at Drew in response.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Craig Valentine to TK Samuels in the Craig-TK-Sarah love triangle.
  • At the moment, Harry to Rahu in the Harry-Stella-Rahu love triangle.

S-Y

• Same Character, But Different:
  • Justine Jones immediately when she was recast. Laurie Foell played her as seductive and ambitious, which Lucy Wigmore's Justine was motherly and level-headed.
  • Wilder Mullens originally showed up as a walking thesaurus disguised as a ten year old. When he went from 10 years old to 14 years old in the space of 2 years with a The Other Darrin, he became a normal teenage boy who no longer used big words as a personality quirk.
  • Where characters with the same actor go, Zac Smith was brought back as a villainous, cheating sexual assaulter in 2012. No explanation was given since in his two prior appearances, he had no villainous traits and was simply a nice guy.
  • Harry Warner came back as a registrar in 2023 using his mother's surname. He also had some daddy issues and tension with Chris which was never there before.
• Sanity Slippage: Maeve after losing Wilder, especially when she starts having visual and auditory hallucinations of him. Things get better for her, but only after she attempts Suicide by Sea in the river at Marty and Esther's wedding, though she's thankfully found and pulled from the river by Monique and Vili.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After surviving Milo's shooting rampage and no longer having a potential surgical career due to his hand being destroyed by the bullet he took during, after being told by Stella she was telling Harry she loved him, not Parker and after hearing how Quinn died during the shooting, Parker packed his stuff and left Ferndale in a huff of self-pity and bitterness.
• Secret Other Family: Caused Ellen Crozier to separate from Johnny Marinovich.
• Secret Relationship:
  • Michael Mckenna and Carrie Burton were shown to have been an item since before the show began by passionately kissing in Michael's office after talking about their individual stresses.
  • Leanne and Rosalyn for the first bit of their relationship–first because of the unfortunate timing wherein Leanne's partner Graham had a fatal heart attack immediately upon witnessing Leanne and Rosalyn's first kiss, and then because they don't want to tell their daughters (Nicole and Maeve respectively) that their mothers are dating.
• Secret Test of Character: 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, Rachel told him she put Shona up to it and agreed to start dating him.
• Self-Harm:
  • Lulu Chatfield had some gnarly cigarette burns on her wrists which were discovered by James Thornton.
  • Blue Nathan started doing this to himself while grieving the death of his girlfriend Ashley Whitley.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Sarah screeched "YOU AND YOUR BABY CAN GO TO HELL!" at Huia Samuels literally seconds before Huia detonated the carbomb attached to the car she was borrowing, killing her and her baby. Sarah felt immeasurable guilt afterwards.
• Serial Killer: Joey Henderson, the Ferndale Strangler. Technically, Kylie Brown given her body count of at least 2 people.
• Serial Rapist: Tank Reid's father Ian, whose history dated back to 1993.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Nick Harrison once made a hell of a racket singing a song about how Gina Rossi and Leonard Dodds loved each other "like Romeo and Juliet" which accomplished nothing outside of pissing the normally mild-mannered Leonard off. On a kinder note, Nick also helped set Marj Neilson and Laurie Brasch up which was much better received.
  • Dawn and Monique have consistently been this for Maeve and Nicole. Dawn even uses the term outright when she and Logan run into Nicole waiting for a date with Maeve when the latter two got back together.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Thirteen-year-old Pixie Hannah has never appeared to go to school, even though older brother Jack does. Granted she was battling cancer, but it doesn't explain the lack of correspondence or homeschooling either.
• Show Within a Show: Tides of the Heart, a favourite soap of Minnie Crozier back in the day.
• Silent Partner: In order to screw Sir Bruce Warner over while attempting to buy the clinic, Michael Mckenna made Bruce sign a contract which made him this, unbeknownst to Bruce himself until it was too late.
• The Slacker: TK was this to start with. He quickly grew out after being threatened with a firing by his cousin Huia.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: How Sunil Kumari and Rebecca Scott hooked up. The two met in the middle of an attempted feud Sunil tried to start to prevent Scotty and Shanti from getting married, the two hurled racial slurs at each other which ended up getting Sunil beaten up by Hone Ropata and then the two hooked up realising they weren't so different, race and background be damned, mirroring their sister and brother respectively.
• Slobs vs. Snobs: The crux of Finn Warner's rivalry with Curtis Hannah. Finn was the sperm donor son of Chris Warner while Curtis had a dodgy criminal past and hadn't quite cleaned things up entirely while feuding with Finn. Ironically, their fathers would become best friends by the time of Mo's death in 2018.
• Small Role, Big Impact: While Katherine Mcrae would eventually be recast more memorably as Brenda Holloway 14 years later, her role as Jane Fitzgerald in late 92-early 93 would lead to the show's first famous storyline and cast write-out with Tom Neilson walking out on his family and not coming back until the end of the year where he'd be killed off. Not bad for a character who lasted barely a month and a half.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome:
  • A mild case. Tuesday Warner was born in 1995. She comes back in 2007 at fourteen years old.
  • Tuesday's cousin Phoenix Raynor also went through this despite not being born onscreen, he turned 16 in 2011, but to be consistent with the established timeline of events on the show, his real birth year should be either 2000 or 2001.
  • Harry Warner was born in May 2002, however in August 2015 he was established as being 14 years old. More noticeable if you consider his deceased "girlfriend" Pixie Hannah was younger than him, but her birthday was established as a canon August 2001. Done again with Harry when he returned in 2023, given that medical school normally takes 7 years while Harry was gone for 5. This would now put him at being 22/23.
  • Tillie Samuels was born in 2011. She left on-screen in 2017 then the character returned in late 2019 with a new actress and was established as a near teenager. (An early storyline included starting menstruation).
  • Wilder Mullens went from 10 to 14 in the span of two years and was recast accordingly.
• Someone to Remember Him By: After Wilder was murdered at 16, it's established that his girlfriend Cassie is pregnant with his unborn child. Cassie initially wanted an abortion, and after flipflopping from her, Maeve, and her mother Justine, Cassie decided to keep the baby after all.
• Spicy Latina: Short-lived CEO Sofia Martinez in 2000.
• Spoiled Brat: Harry Warner became this after years of coddling before mellowing out during adolescence.
• Spurned into Suicide: Layla Cornwall hung herself after realising she'd never get her hands on Nelson Copeland.
• Staircase Tumble:
  • Frank Warner. He survived in spite of initial appearances.
  • This is how Toni Warner lost her second child, thanks to Mark Weston and Hugo Carmont's drunken stupidity back in 2005.
• Stalker Shrine: Dominic Thompson was revealed to have had one for Chris, complete with photo of Chris with Hone and Guy with himself taped over Hone, along with a photo of Chris getting married to his third wife Tiffany.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Jason Kirkpatrick of the "insane and obsessed" variety. He'd get better.
  • Played for laughs with Shereez Baker when she fell for Frank Warner.
  • The first few months of the show had Philip Cotton, who was obsessed with Alison Raynor and took a few goes to get rid of.
• Stern Teacher: Laurel Dupree, the recurring principal of Ferndale High, Richard Ormerod at that same school during the tenures of Nick Harrison and Rachel Mckenna and later Minnie Crozier, James Thornton and Lulu Chatfield.
• Straight Gay: Surprisingly common. Shortland Street was one of the first shows in the 90's to portray homosexuals as just normal people who just happen to prefer the same sex. Examples include Jamie Forrest, Jonathan Mckenna and recently, Jack Hannah.
• Straw Feminist:
  • Frequently disappearing character Lily Flores only shows up to spout feminist/vegan/other social justice issue rhetoric, seemingly to make fun of know-it-all teenagers and young adults who don't really know it all.
  • Te Rongopai Rameka claims to be all about helping women get ahead and "fighting a patriarchal system" while simultaneously slutshaming Zoe Carlson.
  • Maeve Mullens uses terms like "mansplaining" occasionally, usually where inappropriate. Described by the show's writers as a feminist, Maeve just comes across more as a manhater than an actual feminist.
  • Monique Strutter also spouts feminist rhetoric but doesn't do it particularly well and happens to be a hypocrite nine times out of ten.
• Straw Misogynist: Ambulance driver Tim Myers who is about as subtle about his hatred of women as a bowling ball to the testicles. This is what led many people to believe he was the Ferndale Serial Rapist. After having his home searched, this was proven not to be the case, but all of Tim's dialogue was still about how much Tim hates women.
• Straw Nihilist: Nick and Stuart's friend Miles Lucas was this.
• Street Performer: TK's nephew and cousin, Tane and Wiremu were pretty talented buskers.
• Sudden Name Change:
  • Fergus Kearney was originally credited as and referred to Fergus Mcintyre in 1995. This is because the Kearney family wasn't introduced until 1996 and the producers decided to make Fergus the unseen, yet often mentioned "Davey" Kearney.
  • John Grainger was John "Markson" in his first appearance in 2006.
  • Seth Packhurst/Pankhurst, which the writers couldn't decide on until finally going with "Pankhurst."
  • Ant Richards was credited as Ant "Dickson" in some 2006 episodes.
  • Even Chris Warner himself got hit with this, being both Christopher Alexander Warner and Christopher Bruce Warner at separate points.
• Suicide by Sea: Attempted by Maeve. Thankfully she was rescued by Monique and Vili.
• Surprise Incest: Months after their tryst had ended, Rangi Heremaia and Donna Heka were most upset to find out in the last episode of 1997 that they shared the same father! A two year long Story Arc resulted, during which Rangi and Donna eventually established a friendship, then embarked on intentional Brother–Sister Incest before breaking up again. As 1999 drew to a close, Donna made the discovery that her mother had had an affair about nine months before she was born: a blood test finally confirmed that Rangi and Donna were Not Blood Siblings. Unfortunately, Rangi had just declared his love for Janet Maxwell. It took several more months before Rangi and Donna got back together.
• Surprisingly Good Accent: 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.
• Switched at Birth: Turned out NOT to be the case with Nick Harrison and Adam Brady. Adam claimed they were, but it turned out Adam was a schizophrenic and suffered from delusions.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Harper's adultery is treated as wrong but her mental breakdown at the same time is often evoked as an excuse. Her adultery is also frequently compared to Drew sleeping with her best friend, Nicole, at the same time (Harper slept with a stranger in New York), which is not a flattering comparison for Drew.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Maia Jeffries, who shot Ethan Pierce in cold blood after he did everything in his power to make her life hell.
  • The show attempted this with Kylie Brown, but given this was during the show's third Audience-Alienating Era, it didn't work out so well.
• Taken Off Life Support: TK, after the shooting. Miraculously, he survived.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Johnny Marinovich ticked all 3 boxes.
• Tangled Family Tree: The Warners and the Samuels'. Chris and his father have slept around so often and fathered so many children it's hard to know where to begin. Still, they've got nothing on Huia and TK's families who have so many cousins, uncles, aunties, half-brothers, half-sisters, nieces and nephews you need a map to make sense of it all.
• Teen Genius: James Thorton, albeit a more extroverted variety than is standard.
• Teen Pregnancy: Ula Levi got knocked up at 16, gave birth to and then adopted out her baby. Sarah Potts and Meredith Fleming had kids as teenagers too, years before moving to Ferndale.
  • Most recently, Cassie Lloyd, with the deceased Wilder Mullens's baby and the grandchild of the 30-something-year-old Maeve.
• Teens Are Monsters: Milo Cross in spades. First appearing ramraiding in the dystopian Ferndale at the start of 2023, Milo would gleefully lead a group of teenagers beating a sick TK for banning them from associating with TK's daughter Tillie and filming and uploading said beating to the internet. After a few months away, Milo would bash Vili's nephew's friend Johnny with a cricket bat because Johnny singing opera in the park was bothering him. Showing no remorse, Milo was last shown threatening Marty for finally calling the police on him. After being released into a halfway house, Milo would escape and then go on a violent shooting rampage throughout the hospital, shooting Logan Barns, Quinn Cox, new Ambulance Officer Shazza Quigan and the hospital's daycare attendant, killing the latter three. The next night we'd see he also added Monique and Parker to his list of victims. Finally on Friday, we'd see he shot TK before turning the gun on himself.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In a manner of speaking. Robyn Stokes was dumped by Andrew Solomon in favour of Sarah Potts, yet the two stayed friends. However after trying to manipulate her way back into Andrew's bed, Andrew told Robyn to no longer contact him, and Andrew's sister Claire would reject Robyn as well. Robyn would leave Ferndale in disgrace a third time having done so twice in 2001 and 2002. However, unbeknownst to Andrew, Claire and Sarah, Robyn took advantage of Andrew after he injured his head and had sex with him prior to leaving and made a reappearance at Sarah and Andrew's wedding, pregnant with twins. Andrew would leave Sarah for Robyn and the two would leave for England.
• The Ditz: Waverley Wilson in her younger years, Bella Cooper later on. Caroline Buxton was originally this before Character Development kicked in.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • And boy, did Carla Crozier bite back hard. Carla took it upon herself to get revenge on her abusive husband Bernie by bludgeoning him with a candlestick during the first big Ferndale Earthquake in 1996.
  • Heavily implied to be how Ian Reid met his end. A mystery assailant stabbed Ian to death while he was already in hospital recovering from being stabbed in prison. It was heavily implied to be nurse Claire, one of his rape victims.
  • Stella and Monique getting their revenge on serial predator Al Bryant. After being assaulted by Al and almost screwing up his brain surgery, Stella reported Al to the police, who then threatened Stella he'd put in a complaint and claim she tried to kill him intentionally. This almost worked until Monique, who'd realised she'd been groomed as a minor along with several others called the police herself and got Al arrested.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Nick was this as a teenager to Stuart, Kirsty and Gina.
• The Generic Guy: Noah Forrester is proving to be this as far as the registrar team in 2023 goes. Harry Warner is obviously Chris's first-born son with a few new traits due to being played differently, Stella Reihana is the Nice Girl genius, Quinn Cox is queer and shown to have some predatory tendencies, and Parker Dawson spends his time being the cocky jock of the crew. Noah's only real distinction is an attraction to Cece King and... that's it. He's the quiet one of the bunch.
• The Lad-ette: Rebecca Frost was somewhat of a tomboy in the 90s, Delphi was absolutely this in her first couple of years, playing rugby, having short hair and being best friends with Tama Hudson.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Several characters have given these to others.
  • Sophie Mckay got one from her boyfriend Angus Phelps in 2008 after having the gall to call Angus 'self-absorbed.' Angus proceeded to explain why that was a case of pot meet kettle.
  • Sarah Potts copped a few of these. She once got told she didn't have friends, just people she uses by Chris, got chewed out in ED once by Scarlett Valentine for wrecking her father's relationship with Huia and got chewed out for trying to stooge Kip Denton off because he was fun and unconventional as a doctor by Kip himself.
  • Martha Riley got one of these from Libby Jeffries on her way out of the hospital on her last day, capping off her Humiliation Conga.
  • Chris verbally tore Guy a new asshole at the start of 2008 over he and Toni's actions from mid-late 2007 leading to Guy, Harry, Toni and Tuesday all almost dying in a car crash caused by Guy, telling Guy that he was a selfish bastard and unfit father who ruined Chris's family.
  • Marty gave one of these to Leanne upon finding out that the last thing Graham saw before dying was Leanne and Rosalyn kissing.
• The Sociopath:
  • Dr Ethan Pierce. So much so that he once threw a dinner party just to piss the guests off and cause in-fighting on purpose. And that was the tip of the iceberg.
  • Joey Henderson, to the point he had to actually train himself to fake emotions.
• The Stoner: Mike Galloway was the ninties version, Kip Denton the updated mid-00's kind.
• The Vamp: Aleesha Cook seduced Nick and had him wrapped around her finger while trying to be the second woman to defraud the clinic the same year Mackenzie tried. Rachel's last action before she left for New York was exposing Aleesha and saving Nick from a broken heart.
• Title-Only Opening: From 2013-onwards.
• Tomato Surprise: The entire episode where Maeve confronts Rebekah about spying on her therapy sessions is a very complex version of this. The first half of the episode sets up what seems like more Maeve and Rebekah romance along with Drew, Nicole, and Harper drama and Rebekah catching Monique trying to steal her laptop. The second half starts with Maeve revealing that she knew Rebekah had been lying to her and showed two separate plots to take Rebekah down: Drew, Harper, and Nicole's and Monique, Chris, TK, and David Kearney's.
• Too Dumb to Live: Do you know how stupid Dawn Robinson has to be to have been this after all of the airheads on the cast over the years?
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Shanti Kumari. After she died due to the actions of psychotic doctor Oliver Ritchie, Scotty imagined her while planting a tree in her memory in his backyard with her family, smiling at him, swinging back and forth on the swing in their backyard.
• Took a Level in Badass: Caroline Buxton went from braindead receptionist who still slept with stuffed animals into a nurse who also managed to fill in Kirsty Knight's old role of amateur sleuth/bad guy stopper within the space of about 2 years.
• Took a Level in Dumbass:
  • Before being revealed, Joey Henderson was a cold, efficient killing machine, bumping off every single target he lined up in his sights and leaving the police in the dark as to his true identity. Post-reveal, Joey botched every murder he attempted, became sloppy and eventually lead the police right to him. He also somehow lost all traces of impulse control along the way, being unable to even get along with his colleagues or flatmates which he'd been shown to do perfectly fine before he was revealed in the 2007 cliffhanger.
  • Partially to push the show's new over-the-top feminist stance, Drew Mccaskill was turned from a suave ladies' man/highly qualified surgeon with a hidden heart of gold into a stupid manchild incapable of making smart life decisions if his life depended on it. He's even on home detention for accidental tax fraud, apparently too stupid to have kept his business receipts for the bar he and Harper own. He's become such an idiot he even tried committing Home D fraud!
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • TK Samuels went from being a chill, nice guy to being an overly-aggressive alpha male who would lose his temper and rage at people with only the slightest provocation. Thankfully, he's reverted back to being someone similar to his original personality in 2017.
  • In the 90's, Sam Aleni went through this but with a proper explanation. After his wife and best friend died in the same car crash, Sam took off to England and worked as a sex worker. Once he came back to Ferndale, he was a changed man, bitter and twisted rather than friendly and kind as he had been and gave up on religion. It wasn't until just before he left Ferndale in 1996 that he would re-embrace his faith.
  • David Kearney as the DHB representative for Ferndale in 2022 was a lot more focused on numbers and budgets than being the reasonable owner of the clinic he was in the 90s.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Johnny Marinovich spent his early years on Shortland Street as an antagonistic jerk. While not an outright villain, he wasn't a particularly pleasant guy either, being quite arrogant and pompous. During his last year and a half on the show, due to cast turnover and the like, Johnny became essentially the main character of the show and thus he became a lot nicer and a lot less abrasive. His popularity increased because of it too.
  • TK's temper showed up occasionally, but he mellowed out into more of a Papa Wolf than a rage-fuelled Alpha male wannabe during the later portion of his run on the show.
  • Li Mei tried her hardest before she died unexpectedly of the Stryker Virus in 2006.
  • Emmett came back in 2024 having done sensitivity training. While still winding up Sage, it's less from homophobia and more a stern mentor trying to get the best out of an immature kid. Emmett does still speak his mind, but he's no longer a bigoted dick.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Hugo Carmont had this on Mark Weston, at least at first. Mackie Bowen attempted to do this to TK, trying to drag TK back into the gutter to feed Mackie's meth addiction as TK had been a meth cook in his younger years.
• Tragic Stillbirth: Implied to be what happened to Marty and Esther's baby.
• Tragic Villain: Richard Minogue, who stole the identity of Hamish Flynn, the child Yvonne and Ian Jeffries adopted out when they were young was an identity thief and serial fraudster who used his previous job in social services to track down and scam old women who adopted out their children at birth. But rather than do it purely For the Evulz and greed, he was doing it because he himself had been adopted out by a rich woman at birth who shunned him when he tried contacting her.
• Trash the Set: The second big Ferndale Earthquake in 2000 was an excuse to ditch the small local clinic set that had been the main setting of the show and upgrade to the new hospital set which has been the setting of the show since.
  • Subverted at the end of 2022 when Waverley Harrison accidentally caused a massive bushfire which spread to Ferndale and torched both the hospital and the IV, leaving a need for new sets in 2023... which turned out not to be the case because somehow within 5 weeks an identical hospital was rebuilt.
• Trauma Button: Noah seeing Dawn polishing her gun at the kitchen table already began upsetting him due to his trauma from Milo's rampage, but having to perform surgery on a patient with a gunshot wound triggered his PTSD, complete with flashbacks causing him to run out of theatre, screaming and hyperventilating.
• Trauma Conga Line: Being a soap, most characters will go through this at some point, but the most egregious example in recent years would be nurse Alice Piper. In the space of a year, Alice was kidnapped and almost murdered by a serial killer, turned to drink as a result and then fell pregnant and didn't know whether the father was her partner or a drunken one-night-stand. Said partner was then murdered and her baby was born premature and died (with paternity left unresolved). In her grief, Alice then turned to Ethan Pierce for comfort but he ended up posting a sex tape of them online before promptly being murdered himself. Naturally, Alice was found near the scene of the crime and was a suspect but ended up helping the real culprit (Maia Jeffries) cover up her crime. When Alice went off to Rarotonga to rekindle her romance with Kip Denton, she'd definitely earned her happy ending.
  • Shereez Baker had to leave Ferndale after terminating her baby, an abusive relationship with misogynistic Tim Meyers, being held at shotgun point by hillbillies and drugged by a housemate with perverse love for her who was believed to be (but turned out not to be) an organ harvester known as the Creep.
  • Within the span of a couple of months, Maeve had her wife leave her, found her son's lifeless body after his murder, got sent to prison on false accusations of having killed her son, witnessed the violent death of a fellow inmate she'd become friends with, lost her job as a nurse, and tried to drown herself after beginning to hallucinate her dead son. Fortunately, she was rescued and found a new life partner in Brightshine Church leader Rebekah... who then gaslit her into believing that her son's death was a drug overdose for which Maeve was responsible, spied on Maeve's therapy sessions, and publicly manipulated Maeve into declaring allegiance to the church she'd (correctly) suspected of killing her son. In the ultimate knife-twist reveal, it turns out that Rebekah herself–the woman Maeve had called "the woman of her dreams"–actually killed her son.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Marty kept losing patches of time due to his PTSD from Milo shooting himself. He first forgot he was even there when it happened, lost Esther's kids at one point, forgot assaulting a journalist and has blacked out during the middle of conversations.
• Tricked to Death: Scott got Wilder into the pool to drown him under the guise of baptizing him.
• Twisted Christmas: Enforced - the show goes off air for a month over the Christmas/New Year period, so the last episode before Christmas is a cliffhanger to lure viewers back in the new year.
• Twofer Token Minority: Gay Maori Jack Hannah and Bisexual Maori Lincoln Kimiora.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: While not the classic definition of ugly, Lionel Skeggins getting married to the drop dead gorgeous Kirsty Knight definitely counts as this. Some might say the same about Gina Rossi and Leonard Dodds, depending on how attractive you found Gina.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Damien and Darryl Neilson, as both played by Mark Ferguson. Damien was supposed to be Darryl's younger brother, but because they're played by the same actor, some sources claim they're supposed to be twins. Reruns several years ago revealed that no, Damien was the younger brother.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Maeve frequently plays the role of Understanding Wife when it comes to Nicole's anxiety, starting from the first night they get together.
• Villainous Breakdown: Zac had a pretty almighty one when he was sprung for kidnapping and sexually assaulting Roimata. Victoria Anderton's rant at Harper about what a 'misogynist pig' she thought Drew was was quite scary too, for that matter.
• Villainous Crush:
  • Joey Henderson had one on both Claire Solomon and Tania Jeffries,rejection from both made them targets of his serial killing. He succeeded with Claire, not so much with Tania.
  • Simon Ashton took Esther Samuels' rejection badly, kidnapping her on again off again love interest Curtis Hannah and got as far as removing a kidney before he was taken down.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Many examples again over the years, Nick and Stuart were the original example and started a tradition which has carried on all the way up to and including Boyd and Drew.
  • Nick and Rachel were and probably still are the gold standard. Rachel would hurl insults at Nick and Nick would occasionally give them back, but the two were Like Brother and Sister and were always there for each other at their lowest moments. Woe betide you if you messed with Nick while Rachel was around as Aleesha found out. Never more was their friendship summed up when Rachel left for the first time. She gave Nick a photo from their sham wedding to which Nick responded that he was looking for a photo frame. Rachel told him she'd kick his arse if he lost the photo. Nick responded by telling her she was "the most way cool chick I've ever met."
• Wedding/Death Juxtaposition: Tess's mother Megan is stabbed by Tess's stepfather at Tess's wedding reception. She dies immediately.
• We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Chris Warner tried to save Don Lennox in spite of Don being the murder of Chris' best friend. Don would die on the operating table in spite of Chris' best efforts.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Kip Denton, surprisingly, up until the point he realised his father was trying to turn him into a clone of himself, after which Kip threw his father out.
• Wham Shot: One particularly notable example was the episode which started off the Ferndale Strangler storyline. TK threw a basketball too hard at Mark Weston, the ball landed in the dumpster behind Mark, after which TK jumped up to retrieve the ball before landing and looking mortified at whatever he saw. Mark mocked TK, jumped in himself, looked disturbed as well before we cut into the dumpster to see a dead Claire Solomon buried beneath the trash.
• What Does She See in Him?: Pretty much everyone in the hospital aside from Monique when it comes out that Maeve is dating Rebekah, of all people.
• White Sheep: Scotty's family consisted of a prostitute sister, jailbird brother, mother who abandoned the family and father with a gambling addiction. Scotty was a disciplined ex-army member who became a nurse dedicated to his craft.
  • Tiffany Pratt was the only one of her family who wasn't a petty criminal or con artist.
• Who's Your Daddy?: Deliberately enforced by Carrie Burton who originally didn't want to know the identity of her triplets' father. Played straight by Toni Thompson who didn't know who her son Harry was the son of out of three candidates (Adam Heywood, Matt Mcallister, Chris Warner). In both cases, Chris Warner, manslut extraordinaire was the father.
• Widowed at the Wedding: Tom Griffiths at his and Tess Hutchinson's wedding reception, when Tess is stabbed by her stepfather. Her mother Megan, also stabbed, dies immediately; Tess only makes it as far as a Shortland Street operating room before succumbing to her own wounds.
• Will They or Won't They?: Supposed to be invoked with Ali Karim and Dawn Robinson. Everyone saw it coming, so it wasn't really a surprise.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Mason Coutts had a bad habit of doing this to anyone he no longer had a use for.
• You Monster!: Maeve, to Rebekah, when Rebekah confessed to killing Wilder: "YOU KILLED MY BABY!" Maeve also does this to both Scott and Justine Lloyd when she suspects them–ironically, after Maeve beats Scott to within an inch of his life during the fire, it's Rebekah who finishes the job.
• Younger Than They Look:
  • 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.
  • 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 when she was recast as Shelley Crombie. She hadn't aged at all in those five years making her look the right age.

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