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openTroping reality TV shows (e.g. Drag Race) - contestants, presenters and judges Live Action TV
So...
Following on from this post
on the Character Page Cleanup Thread, and this earlier Creator Page Cleanup
discussion, there seems to be a grey area with regard to troping reality TV.
Administrivia.Real Life Troping clearly says:
So, looking at something like RuPaul's Drag Race -
- I can see that the competing drag queens (who have very carefully constructed personas) can potentially be troped as characters in their drag identities.
- ...but do we trope the judges and others (e.g. the 'pit crew' teams, who have no alter ego and are scantily-dressed support staff) - we have character page tropes entries for them all, and things like Age-Gap Romance and Token Minority (for the only straight guy) troped for the real people. That feels like a step too far.
- We also have Characters page examples for things like Older Than They Look (no Real Life) for RuPaul, Berserk Button (referencing her Real Life childhood bullying) for judge Michelle Visage and similar examples from the contestants' real pre-show, offscreen lives. In some cases I'm not sure they've even been directly mentioned in the work itself.
I know an awful lot of effort's gone into some of the pages, and I don't want to make major changes without a consensus (which didn't really happen with the previous forum threads, hence this post) - the one comment on the last post seemed to agree that this crossed into NRLEP, though.
What are people's views?
Edited by Mrph1openRangers Live Action TV
I just signed up and would like to add to this folder. There are several prominant TV shows featuring rangers that are not yet included and I'd like to add them.
The Lone Ranger Walker, Texas Ranger Laredo Trackdown
In movies there is also the Comancheros In Western Animation there is the series Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.
I'm happy to make the additions myself but don't see a way to do that. Is there a tutorial?
openUnintentional Sympathy in Star Trek Picard Live Action TV
The YMMV page for Star Trek: Picard features two examples of Unintentionally Sympathetic:
- The Zhat Vash was right all along! The Admonition is a message to synthetic life that there is other synthetic life willing to invade and destroy all organic life if called upon, in order to save their fellow synthetics. The Soong-type androids start to bring these horrors into the galaxy, and the only reason why nothing more happens is because it takes a while for them to come through the wormhole, allowing a small window to shut down the beacon. It's probable that anyone faced with the evidence would come to the conclusion that artificial life is too big a danger to allow to exist. Especially the Federation, who already ban genetic engineering of organic life because of the risk of starting another Eugenics War. What also helps is that "mad AI goes rogue" is one of the oldest plots in Star Trek history, appearing in no less than 7 episodes of The Original Series and only going up from there. If you lived in the Star Trek universe, there's wall-to-wall evidence that you should never trust a machine that can think for itself lest you want to be killed, enslaved, or both. Even Data wasn't safe from this as he'd become Brainwashed and Crazy and a threat to others a few times himself.
- One could also say the same for Control as in the later half of season 3 the Borg effectively highjacks Starfleet from within and plans to use said new “assimilated” fully organic drones as the seed base of a new even more advanced and dangerous Borg collective to threaten and ultimately rule the entire galaxy with until the end of time. Control would’ve had access to all the Enterprise NX-01’s logs including those of the incident involving the Borg and the knowledge that a “visit” from a very real bio-cybernetic threat easily capable of assimilating others, quickly adaptable defenses, and has access to technology far more advanced than anything Starfleet, the Federation, or even the surrounding powers currently had at their disposal isn’t so much if they show up 200 years from the logs being recorded but when! While that doesn’t excuse nor justifies Control’s actions, Control was originally programmed to help protect the Federation from any and all threats but when it tried to figure out a way the Federation could win against a confirmed future threat that, for all intents and purposes, had no vulnerabilities that could be exploited (at least for long anyway), combined with the limitations of Control’s own programming, preemptively wiping out all life in the universe was the “best” solution he could come up with to stop them and save everyone.
I could be wrong about this but I thought US is about characters that come off as sympathetic, even though the story doesn't want viewers to sympathize with them. Granted, the show kinda shoots itself in the foot by portraying the Higher Synthetics (insert Mass Effect reference here) as genocidal racists, but the entries for US don't do themselves any favors by portraying the Zhat Vash and Control as genocidal racists themselves.
What do you think about this? Is there a cleanup thread for this trope or something?
openSapphire and Steel Word of God Invoked Live Action TV
Paul A removed the "[invoked]" from the Distress Ball example where Word of God was mentioned on Sapphire and Steel, mistakenly thinking it was related to Invoked Tropes and not realizing it was to prevent the unsightly marker from appearing on the main page. I sent them a message explaining it, but they haven't responded and may not realize they had to re-add it themself. Can a mod please re-insert it, as if I did it myself I'd be edit warring?
Edited by NOYBopenBad one-off edit Live Action TV
Tropers.imajakov's first and so far only edit, from about a month ago, was to add an entry to Series.House for the nonexistent trope "Genius Level Intellect." The entry itself didn't have any grammar issues and did accurately describe the show and title character, but, well... that isn't a real trope. They also wrote it out un-wikiworded as "Genius Level intellect" (complete with capitalization error)
Edited by Dirtyblue929open B99, s6 ep3. Live Action TV
In 'The Tattler' episode, we meet Mike Joseph, a musician wannabee.
(The rest is my opinion, based on body language.)
Initially, he is friendly with Jake, but when Jake shares how active & fulfilling his life is, Mike seems to become bitter because how his carrier isn't going anywhere.
He quickly shifts tones by insisting on talking about Jake's high-school experience as a rejected classmate & he somehow seems amused about the subject, at Jake's expense.
I've read the TVT page of the episode, but I don't feel like there is the trope I am looking for.
So, my question, after giving the context, is, What Is This Trope?
When someone you'd assume to be your friend, doesn't hesitate to lower your self-esteem by digging up all of your insecurities or flaws, just to feel less small about themselves?
And, even in contexts where their reputation isn't in danger, they just don't hesitate to bring into conversations what their 'friend' isn't comfortable with?
Edited by PassionFloweropen 80s Horror/possession TV (mini?) series/film Live Action TV
Right! A little obscure here. 80's British TV show/mini-series/film about a possessed teenage girl. Set in a pretty normal urban British household. Myself and my sister both remember so I know I didn't dream it 😁. I only really remember one scene, the mother comes into the bedroom and the daughter is twisted into a weird pose with a scissors stuck in her shoulder/chest/clavicle. It's wrecking our heads for years here as all both of us can remember is that scene. I've tried many different Google searches and come up with nothing.
I know it's not: Hammer House of Horror/Mystery, Tales of the Unexpected, Dramarama, Ghostwatch, Moondial, Dead of Night.
Cheers
openRemoving a page redirect Live Action TV
I'm currently working on reworking the Giant Robo page into mediums (i.e. manga for the manga, series for the Toku show, anime for the OVA) instead of clumping every entry on one page. However, the current page for Giant Robo is a redirect to Giant Robo. I don't know how/if I can remove the redirect by myself. Is there a way I can do this, or is mod interference needed?
openDropped a Bridge on Him example Live Action TV
A long while ago I added this example to Recap.Doctor Who S 27 E 13 The Parting Of The Ways:
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Not to anywhere near the extent of say, the Sixth Doctor's death-by-falling-over or the Eighth Doctor's regeneration not (at the time) being explained at all, but the fact that Rose was able to store the vortex energy for several minutes and only got a headache as a result, while the Doctor is killed by just storing it for a few seconds raised more than a few eyebrows.
Another troper later added this underneath the entry:
- Considering that Rose was able to bring Jack back to life, the Doctor might have been able to heal Rose, but couldn't heal himself.
This resulted in a third troper deleting the entire example with "Repair, Don't Respond" in the edit reason. However, would I be right in thinking that the second-level bullet point was speculative troping, and that the right course of action would have been to just delete that rather than nuking the whole example?
Looking back on it I'm not very happy with how I worded the example in the first place anyway, but just so I'm not engaging in a (very slow-motion) edit war, would I be okay to put the example back in as this:
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Doctor's dying as a result of holding the vortex energy in his body for roughly five seconds before he returns it to the TARDIS was seen by some fans as an abrupt and poorly-explained reason for his having to regenerate, especially since it comes right after Rose kept the same energy in her body for several minutes of screentime, while using it to wipe out the Daleks and resurrect Jack.
openWhat do you do with a page mostly plagiarized? Live Action TV
I’m doing a plagiarism clean-up of Doctor Who’s trivia pages. I got tipped off a while ago that almost every page of the first Three doctors’ pages has examples (mostly under What Could Have Been) that have been plagiarized from either the show’s wiki or this comprehensive website
(which the wiki itself has cribbed from).
For example, several trivia examples from the episode “An Unearthly Child” (the very 1st episode of the series) had been plagiarized from it’s wiki article’s story notes.
- The first school scene was re-written to reduce the tension between Barbara and Ian. In the original script, Ian says, "When I've had a bad day, I come in here [the staff room], and I want to smash all the windows". Barbara retorts, "It hasn't been a bad day", and Ian remarks, "You're just naturally like that?" Barbara replies, "I hope not. I've had another kind of day. A very puzzling kind of day".
- Ian and Barbara's relationship was much more romantic in the original script.
- In the original script, the "PRIVATE" notice at the junkyard was originally supposed to appear significantly newer than the lettering on the gates. The junkyard was also supposed to contain "a broken-down old shed".
And while doing cleanup the trivia page for the episode “The Romans”
and it is seeping with plagiarism, up to and including Wikipedia.
So how should I go forward with this? I’ve been editing previous pages to remove plagiarism, but this particular page is compromised with it.
Edited by CanuckMcDuck1openQuick question on the WhatHappenedToTheMouse entry on the PRTF character page Live Action TV
Back in June 2023, I removed the What Happened to the Mouse? entry from Gluto's section in the Characters.Power Rangers Time Force page (history is here
). V-Nerd re-added it nearly a month ago here
.
In many stories, some characters enter the story, serve their role, and move on without any fanfare. If they have served their purpose and exit the story, then it's not a What Happened to the Mouse? situation just because there isn't some final "where are they now" information given. The trope is for cases where a character simply disappears without reason or acknowledgment by the rest of the cast. Plus, it's also a plot point. In this instance, Gluto slipping away during the final battle between Frax and the Rangers by freezing himself is a reasonable explanation for him leaving the story.
Rather than get involved in an Edit War, I'm bringing this up here. That said, any thoughts on what should be done?
Edited by gjjonesopenHow to word this Live Action TV
Having just seen the show, I've started editing the page of Ripley (staring Andrew Scott as the titular Tom Ripley).
In it, there is an Actor Allusion as John Malkovich plays a character (and in the trailer even says he like Ripley's name, though the context is different in the show itself), having played the role of Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game (2002). This has already been added.
However, on top of this, it's revealed he plays the character of Reeves Minot, a character with a major role in the plot of Ripley's Game. Would this be playing the actor allusion trope straight further, exaggerating it, or something else?
openQuestionable edit. Live Action TV
These two entries were recently posted on YMMV.Young Sheldon by user "marshenwhale".
1) Under Unintentionally Sympathetic:
- Sheldon throughout the entire show could be considered this, since he clearly is on the spectrum but the show never directly acknowledges this or delves into it, all of the times where he acts stuck up or talks down to his family for his intelligence, they treat him like a kid who is just being bratty, but since he is neurodivergent, it means his parents never handle his behavior correctly. This is probably at it's worst in "An Entrepreneurialist and a Swat on the Bottom" where Sheldon is portrayed as being completely in the wrong for calling Meemaw selfish and trying to run away to see a lecture when nobody will take him, but the fact is that Sheldon literally does not understand why what he is doing is wrong considering he doesn't read social cues properly, and is shown to not understand when he is hurting people's feelings because from his perspective, he's just stating facts. So Meemaw spanking him and him later getting grounded makes all of the adults in his life look like morons since they have clearly seen by this point that Sheldon doesn't think in a typical way and just choose to ignore it.
2)Under Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- Going off the point above in Unintentionally Sympathetic, basically the entire family in most of their conflicts with Sheldon since they all fail to recognize that he isn't neurotypical. This doesn't apply to Georgie since he rarely fights with Sheldon, but it does make George, Mary, and Meemaw all look really dumb. You could argue that this is a result of Mary being very religious and therefore not being very educated on what the spectrum is, but considering the show takes place over multiple years you'd think at some point one of the adults in Sheldon's life would wonder if it applied to him. Worst of all, this even makes Missy look really bad, because as a child growing up in the 80s and 90s, she most definitely would have learned what someone being neurodivergent was at some point but never even brings it up, which causes all of her dislike towards Sheldon to make her look like a total jerk instead of just a child lashing out at being the The Un-Favourite, which is clearly what the writers were going for.
I have some issues with this. For one, while hinted at in both The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, Sheldon has never been confirmed to be neurodivergent, not even by Word of God, who blatantly refuse to answer definitively. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say he is, but there's no official confirmation.
Also, the post reads like the poster has a bit of a bias. Neurodivergent or not, some of the shit Sheldon pulls is uncalled for and would reasonably make most people angry. When I watched "An Entrepreneurialist and a Swat on the Bottom", I was under the impression that Sheldon knew what he was doing was wrong but did it anyway because his needs are more important to him than everyone else and he acts like that quite often in both shows.
Should this stay or not? Or should it be re-written? I'll let the tropers decide since this is YMMV and I am not the biggest Sheldon Cooper fan so I'm likely biased in My own way.
openSomething in Muppets (2015) That Never Actually Happened? Live Action TV
So I recall something in the page for The Muppets (2015) that's been there for a while now.
- Big Eater:
- Piggy gorges herself on a basket of cheeses after Fozzie manages to break through her emotional barriers by accident.
- Kermit is revealed to be a stress eater. He even asks for more food after eating so much that he can't move.
While I can confirm it's true Kermit is a stress eater, I can't find anywhere else that brings up a part where "He even asks for more food after eating so much that he can't move." and I've looked through the episodes and it doesn't seem to happen. Did I miss something, or did somebody put up misinfo for the sake of troping with one hand? (considering what 'eating so much they can't move' usually means.)
Edited by RedBerryBlueCherryopenSpeculation? Live Action TV
I found this on Fridge.Ghosts US:
- Many of the ghosts have a power related to who they were as a Living or how they died.
- (Multiple valid entries)
- Hetty's ghost power, if it matches the matriarch of the original, would be the ability to appear in photographs (but not electronic media). This would be in line with her responsibility in life, having to maintain the proper appearance for all the excesses she and Elias (mostly Elias) did during their lives.
As of the end of season three, Hetty's ghost power has not yet been revealed (unless you count being able to use the telephone cord she used to strangle herself as a rope as a power). The entry even mentions that this hasn't yet been confirmed. Would it be okay to delete the entry on Hetty on the grounds of speculative troping?
openAbby Cadabby Live Action TV
From PeripheryHatedom.Live Action TV:
- Showing that history can indeed repeat itself, Abby is currently getting the same treatment as Elmo, mainly from the generation of young adults and teens that grew up watching and fell in love with Elmo. Abby's popularity with the older fanbase is a Broken Base—some find her a refreshing change from the two decades of Elmo (although how long this will last before they start getting annoyed by her remains a question), while others still don't care and still want the focus to be back on Big Bird and the Muppets (and human characters) of their time. The root cause of the hatedom here is The Generation Gap combined with a Nostalgia Filter, combined with a heaping dose of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
openPedro Pascal Roles Live Action TV
A while back, someone greatly expanded the filmography section of Creator.Pedro Pascal, with roles previously unmentioned and/or lacking their own pages. Some of these include instances of him playing himself in something nonfictional, or narrating a documentary. Do these usually go on actors' pages?
Today I removed a credit for him hosting SNL, because I noticed pages for actors who've hosted more than once don't mention it in the filmography.
openAgenda-based editing Live Action TV
A large portion of regularmordecai’s
edits here center around the Stranger Things scene where Eleven hits Angela with a skate for bullying her (most of them are on the show’s YMMV page) and it definitely seems agenda-based as they keep pushing the message that fans shouldn’t have enjoyed that scene and exaggerating Eleven’s actions (such as calling her a school shooter despite the fact that she didn’t kill anyone). This has been going on for about ten months now and on several occasions I tried making these entries more neutral but they promptly edited them again to add additional complaints, often using weasel words to make it sound like much of the fandom agrees with them when it’s likely just their personal opinion. They recently added an entry
under the Nightmare Fuel page bashing real-life fans for thinking Angela had it coming and calling them “foolhardy”
for allegedly saying they wished they could have done the same to their bullies (and the entry is improper at any rate since the page is about the show itself, not real-life events).
openCall-Back vs. Continuity Nod Live Action TV
I came very often upon examples of Call-Back that don't fit for not being plot-significant, and move them to Continuity Nod. As the description of the trope specifies:
- [A Call-Back is m]ore or less a Shout-Out to itself — but if that's all that it's doing, then it's a Continuity Nod; a Call-Back brings back an element that is actually relevant again.
However, on Andor S2E10 "Make It Stop", one such move of mine was reverted by palm529sw, despite the two concerned examples being pure flavor with no relevance at all to the episode. I did PM this editor, but got no response yet.
I'd like to have confirmation that my interpretation of Call-Back is correct, and that I can move the two examples back to Continuity Nod without being accused of edit warring.
Edited by StFan

I noticed on the Recap pages for Breaking Bad that Fan Disservice is listed any time we see Walt naked.
If I'm correct, Fan Disservice is for sexual situations deliberately played up to be disturbing or uncomfortable (like the show's infamous "Happy Birthday, Ted" scene, which ironically wasn't listed anywhere until I added it myself), not "character gets naked in this scene and they're unattractive". The examples don't list why the trope counts, it just says "Walt was naked in this scene." It even lists it for a serious moment where Walt undresses to get in the shower only to pass out on the floor while Skyler tries to talk to him.
Examples:
The page for the episode "Peekaboo" lists the trope because of Spooge and his girlfriend (two ugly meth-heads) even though neither are seen naked or in an otherwise sexual situation.
I ran a wick check and couldn't find enough misuse otherwise to justify a TRS thread or a clean-up thread so that's why I'm presenting it here. Cut these examples?
Edited by supernintendo128