Wicked Science is an Australian television series, which debuted on July 2, 2004. The series focuses on Toby Johnson (played by André de Vanny) and Elizabeth Hawke (played by Bridget Neval), two teenagers who are accidentally turned into wizards of science by a freak-accident in a school laboratory. The series was originally run on Network Ten from 2004 to 2006, after which it then moved to Disney Channel. Wicked Science has also screened on ABC 1 and ABC 2.
This show provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: After deciding that she is Surrounded by Idiots, Elizabeth creates a self-learning AI whose primary directive is to 'Protect Elizabeth', which it does a little too well, holding her prisoner from the dangerous outside world.
- And the Adventure Continues: Unlike the first series, the second series ends with both Toby and Elizabeth still having their abilities. The final scene has Russ accidentally turn a Koala into a 50 foot monster which destroys Toby's roof with everyone simply laughing and about to spring into action to deal with it.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: An episode had Toby trying to find an ancestor for Russ to be proud of, eventually having to go back to the Paleolithic, of course, at that point said person would be the ancestor to all modern Europeans and white Australians, Russ would have no special connection with them in any way. Paleolithic Europe also looked suspiciously like Australia...
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: A Koala and a toy doll get this treatment by Toby and Elizabeth respectively
- Big Eater: Russ, an episode even features him in an eating contest, except Sacha's mind is in his body.
- The Bully: Garth King. His favourite punchbag is Russ, Toby's best friend. Garth acts as Elizabeth's henchman in most episodes.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Verity, she often also acts as a Minion with an F in Evil.
- Cassandra Truth: The second episode has Toby scoring a perfect test thanks to his genius. Given he had been a C-level student before, he's suspected of cheating and Stephanie adds to it by planting test answers in his locker. Toby tries to prove to everyone his genius by fixing an anti-gravity mower. Elizabeth sabotages it, so it looks like a prank with no one believing Toby's claims he and Elizabeth are super-geniuses. Toby also realizes if he does reveal the truth, he's likely to be turned into a lab rat while Elizabeth has free reign over the school. Thus, Toby and his friends have to keep it quiet with further claims of Elizabeth's antics ignored.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Mr Tesslar, Principal Vyner and all the secondary student characters who similarly disappear in the second series and are replaced with nobody mentioning them again.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Happens to Mr. Woods who's pants fell down in front of the students, exposing white boxers with math formulas.
- Compilation Movie: The first series received one of these in broadcast form and DVD release.
- Country Cousin: Toby's cousin Sacha Johnson lives with Toby and his father as she comes from the country to attend school in the city.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Elizabeth, so many times. In one episode Dina runs against her as class president and Elizabeth splashes paint on her, tries to get her fired, and nearly kills her. In another episode Sasha gets a higher grade than Elizabeth and Elizabeth responds by making all of Sasha's teeth to fall out.
- Entitled to Have You: After they both become geniuses Elizabeth more than once invokes this as a reason why Toby could only ever be truly happy with her.
- Evil Genius: Elizabeth uses her new intelligence as a way to get money, power and what she most desires: Toby's affections.
- Evil Is Petty: Most of Elizabeths schemes arise from a petty place.
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Happens to Russ when he accidentally becomes a genius for an episode. Happens to Verity when she gets a ring that enhances the wearers confidence. Even happens to Elizabeth when a cold virus somehow compels her to use her powers to do nice things for everyone before nearly killing her.
- Forced Transformation: An episode features Garth's little cousin accidentally having his DNA be progressively hybridised with that of a spider, leading to him being able to spit webbing and behave more like a spider before being reversed. Russ and Sacha are turned into flies by a ray set up by Elizabeth. Elizabeth also later uses a similar device to painfully transform Toby progressively into a more and more frog-like creature in an attempt to cause him to act more bizarrely and make a poor first impression on his girlfriends parents.
- Freak Lab Accident: Toby and Elizabeth initially get their powers this way thanks to a frog stepping on a keyboard.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Russ and Sacha have this happen to them.
- Girls with Moustaches: One episode has a female character grow a beard after her Mad Scientist friend tried to cure her baldness.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Happens to Toby in the final two episodes with regards to Elizabeth when her plan to make him jealous succeeds.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Unusual one which also doubles as an Alternative Reality Episode, Elizabeth traps Toby in an alternative universe where they are a couple. She has a Reset Button that she keeps using in order to make Toby accept the new reality.
- Hologram: Elizabeth creates a hologram of Dina to frame her for vandalizing a car.
- Human Popsicle: Happens to Elizabeth when Toby decides to flash freeze her in order to kill a virus that threatens her life. A version also happens to Mr Woods when he gets trapped in a crystal structure, for some reason.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Happens to Dina.
- Intangibility: Elizabeth develops a means of making matter capable of passing through other solid matter given the application of enough force by making it's inter-atomic bonds slacker. However, it leaves the object changed prone to eventual disintegration and she requires Toby's help to find Jack and save his arm after he accidentally exposes himself. In a later episode she uses a spray to give a similar temporary effect as part of an elaborate ghost prank.
- Invisibility: An early episode has Toby develop an invisibility paint to hide the damaged car of their teacher. Elizabeth later develops her own invisibility paint, but it apparently adheres best to skin and hair. Leading her to become an Invisible Streaker in order to spy on and ruin Toby's date with Nikki. Unfortunately for her, as with Toby's paint, it was water soluble...
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: An episode involves Verity accidentally becoming a part plant hybrid and occasionally undergoing a physical transformation into a swamp monster before transforming back, keeping it a secret and leading her to terrorise the local community.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Toby feels this way in the first season and eventually turns himself normal. However he gets his genius back at the beginning of the second season and immediately admits that he missed being superhuman smart. Afterwords he never complains again about his powers and makes no attempt to remove them from himself or Elizabeth despite knowing how.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Jack wants to discover Toby and Elizabeth's secret to become a genius himself.
- Kiss of Life: Subverted when Russ reluctantly tries this on an unconcious Elizabeth only for her to wake up just in time and immediately punch him in the face.
- Latex Perfection: Toby constructs a special choker which allows Dina to wear Elizabeth's face and voice. This plan however, fails to mention that Dina is substantially shorter and heftier than Elizabeth and would thus make a strange impersonation.
- Lightning Gun: Elizabeth builds a device capable of generating controllable bolts of lightning, including steerable ball lightning, all to coerce Toby to take her to a dance by threatening to use it on his preferred date if he doesn't.
- Love Potion: Toby creates super-pheromones so guys become irresistible to girls. It doesn't end well.
- The Masquerade: Toby and Elizabeth have worked together so their genius is not discovered.
- Missing Mom: A framed photograph of Toby and his parents when he was young is prominent in his room. It's implied in one episode early on that his mother is dead and she is never mentioned again.
- Naïve Newcomer: Sacha serves as this briefly in the first episode of the second season.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Toby's first big mistake when gaining super-intelligence was showing it off by scoring a perfect 100 on his test. This had his teachers convinced he was cheating and not believing his claims of suddenly being smart. Elizabeth was far more cunning in not flaunting how smart she was, still maintaining her average grades, so no one suspected what she was capable of. Toby soon realizes that if he were to convince people of his smarts, he'd likely end up in a government lab. Thus, both Toby and Elizabeth play down they're the most brilliant people around to keep up appearances.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: When Toby clones a dinosaur for the second time it goes as well as the first.
- Pheromones: Toby tries to use these to make a Love Potion, with predictable results.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Russ again.
- Put on a Bus: Dina Demiris is mentioned very briefly in the first episode of the second season. She is said to be travelling with her family across Asia for a year and is never mentioned again. "How cool is that, taking the year off to travel the world. *Beat* Tell me more about Sacha"
- Rapid Hair Growth: In the episode "Amazon Lab"
- Reset Button: At the end of every episode, everything soon goes back to normal.
- Save the Villain: Toby has had to help Elizabeth more than once when her experiments gave her unexpected results. Elizabeth returns the favour on occasion. Elizabeth even pretends this is happening, once to spend time alone with Toby and once to lure Toby into a trap.
- Satellite Love Interest: Bianca is largely this for Toby in series 1 and Nikki is this for Toby in series 2.
- Shrink Ray: Prominent in the series, complete with the ability to also enlarge things.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Sacha briefly obtains the power to understand and communicate with animals, (Even skin mites) after a device Elizbeth uses to surpress Toby's hyperfunctioning hits her and inexplicably gives her this power.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Sacha Johnson is this in the second season for Dina Demiris.
- Teen Genius: Basically the premise of the show.
- Teleporters and Transporters: Elizabeth and Toby each create one of those, though only Elizabeth uses one in the second series.
- The End... Or Is It?: The last scene of the first series reveals that Elizabeth still has the settings for the MFE ('Genius code') to turn herself back into a genius and ends with a close-up of her giving a Kubrick Stare before turning to give our unaware heroes (and Verity) a long Psychotic Smirk.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: The final two episodes have this happen with Elizabeth and Toby.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Toby and Elizabeth. Yeah, I know we're talking about a kid's show, but c'mon! Just kiss already.
- Viewers Are Goldfish: The Opening Narration to every episode: "Hi! I'm Toby. I'm just a regular student. Well, I was before I got zapped, now I'm some kind of science genius! The only problem is, Elizabeth is, too!"
- Weather Manipulation: An episode has Elizabeth build a high-powered microwave emitter which can cause intense rain clouds and high winds. She later also builds a machine to control lightning.
- With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: Elizabeth goes from a geeky, unpopular girl to a femme fatale after her transformation into an evil genius.
