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The first thing we see about a character is that they are having sex. Usually this is meaningless sex with a character who we'll never see again. It's used to introduce Arthur in Camelot, Kailee (sort of) in Firefly, and I know I've Seen It A Million Times elsewhere.
Edited by NoraopenNo Title Live Action TV
I remember reading a page a while back talking about a standard USA Network character trope, where everyone lives in an apartment or house that is way too nice for their salary level, does anyone know what that is?
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I can't imagine nothing like this exists - if it doesn't, I'm so looking into launching it, but I just can't imagine we don't. See, I've noticed, any time anyone is pregnant in any show in which characters are ever in danger of anything, the actual childbirth will happen at the absolute worst moment - right in the middle of a crisis in which the mother-to-be is either the one in immediate danger, or she's the only one with the required knowledge to save someone, only she's busy having a baby. Or both. Finagle's Law is obviously a supertrope. Obvious examples springing to mind immediately include Eureka, in which Allison has a baby while trapped in a lab that's about to kill anything living in it, and everyone who could stop it just got their memory wiped accidentally... and Firefly, where in Heart of Gold, as soon as you see that one of the whores is pregnant, you just know she'll have the kid right in the middle of the upcoming fight. But I've seen it a million times. Do we have it? (Not entirely a tv trope, though seems to show up most often there; I could probably find it in other media that use the Rule of Drama, too. )
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Are there any tropes about how multiple romance arcs tend to heat up and see some action at around the same time or during the same episode?
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Played for Laughs normally, two characters who aren't in a relationship argue as if they are and are jealous of something that is not relationship based using Unusual Euphemism.
In *Friends "The One Where Joey Moves Out" Joey and chandler return from a viewing of someone else's flat, and chandler talks with such terms as "Oh please, I saw the way you were checking out his moldings. You want it."
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I posted this before, but I didn't realize that topics got deleted after a few days. Sorry. —- There is a trope where the rich dad offers a guy money to not date his daughter. (The rich dad's daughter, I mean.) This was on the "Death Lives" episode of Family Guy, when Carter offers Peter one million dollars to stay away from his daughter. If memory serves, it was also on Beverly Hills, 90210 in the mid-90s, and Dylan was the guy who was offered the money. Is there a trope page for this trope? I did a search, but the "Overprotective Dad" one was the closest thing I could find.
Also, does anyone have more information about that 90210 episode or other TV shows that have done this? —- hcobb 09:37:25 AM 21st Jul 2011 Gender flipped in "Boys under flowers" Hana Yori Dango
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Is there a trope for the way conversations, especially in a Drama series, tend to end with one person simply walking away? There's a certain formula to it..
Alice: And by the way, Bob, I still remember the Pistachio deal. *walks off*
*lingering closeup on Bob, standing silent with a troubled, uncertain, or angry look on his face*
Smallville was a particularly egregious offender.
Edited by CharisetopenNo Title Live Action TV
Here's one (sorry, two) for you, which I couldn't find after searching:
In about a gazillion movies and TV shows, the camera shows a character reading a newspaper. Usually there'll be a large banner headline and a photograph, all relevant to the story.
The camera only passes over the page for a few seconds so you're just supposed to get the big stuff.
However, in the majority of cases, the text of the actual news article under the headline is often complete gibberish, either a series of repeated sentences, or a made up but improperly written article, or a genuine but entirely unrelated newspaper article they've just cut and pasted over.
Sometimes you might even catch some silly messages from a crafty staff writer, or bits of the script used to fill the space.
The assumption is that nobody (like me) would take the trouble to actually check the text, so they don't bother to write a proper newspaper page. Lazy, I tell you!
Is there a name for this trope? Is it even a trope, per se?
Relatedly, any time someone is holding an important piece of paper, it's rare that it actually has written on it what the story claims it does. Often it's just the lines that the character then reads verbatim (when they're supposed to be paraphrasing or commenting on the document), other times it's just a random, completely unrelated document which you catch tantalising glimpses of during freeze-frame.
Is this the same trope, or is there a name for this too?
Any help would be appreciated.
openNo Title Live Action TV
There is a trope where the rich dad offers a guy money to not date his daughter. (The rich dad's daughter, I mean.) This was on the "Death Lives" episode of Family Guy, when Carter offers Peter one million dollars to stay away from his daughter. If memory serves, it was also on Beverly Hills, 90210 in the mid-90s, and Dylan was the guy who was offered the money. Is there a trope page for this trope? I did a search, but the "Overprotective Dad" one was the closest thing I could find.
Also, does anyone have more information about that 90210 episode or other TV shows that have done this?
Edited by John728openNo Title Live Action TV
Is there a trope that's the reverse of Fake Guest Star where an actor is credited as a main character but only appears in at most half of a season?
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Is there a trope for doing an act on Reality TV specifically to annoy a judge or structuring some portion of an act around annoying a judge?
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Is there a trope for a work referencing itself, but not in a fourth wall kind of way? For instance, Wheel Of Fortune using puzzles along the lines of "Free Spin, Lose a Turn & Bankrupt", "Wheel of Fortune Goes Nighttime", etc.
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Is there a trope for in-universe commentators who seem to be absurdly correct about something (even though RL pundits/commentators tend to talk out of their rear ends a lot)? I've noticed this sort of thing in more than one movie as well (it's implied to be the case in Battle: Los Angeles, for example), but the incident that leaps to mind is on the new series of Torchwood.
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Is there a trope for when a show/movie/book begins that shows the narrator as a character, usually he/she would be sitting somewhere and doing something completely unrelated to the plot or story, such as watching another show, usually to get some sort of witty little retort in.
more often or not they "notice" the audience and introduce the story proper just afterwards.
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What is that trope you get in mostly sitcoms and dramas, sometimes other mediums, where a jingle or short music piece plays during a scene change, especially when it cuts to an establishing shot of the location before cutting to the next scene?
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A group of characters finds a primitive civilization (often in the jungle/island) and it turns out one of them resembles a god/ancient ruler and is then venerated and worshiped. Often, this is accompanied by an image of some kind that looks just like the character.
Any idea what this trope is called?
Edited by sunsroadopenNo Title Live Action TV
A common plot in sitcoms of the 80s and the early 90s would be two characters accidentally seeing each other naked. This was almost always two characters of opposite gender who disagree about everything and are constantly arguing or bickering, but you can tell that deep down they like each other.
Some way, some how, these characters simultaneously walk in on each other naked. Typically, both are undressed to shower, one inside the bathroom, one outside the bathroom. The character outside the bathroom drops their towel, and walks into the room. Typically the rest of the episode involves awkward conversations and trying to get comfortable talking to each other again after the embarrassing situation.
Off the top of my head, the examples I can think of are: - Tony and Angela in Who's The Boss - Steve Urkel and Laura Winslow in Family Matters - Raymond and Lisa in Sister Sister
I'm sure there are many more examples that I can't think of. There has got to be a trope for this, as this was a very common plot. Does anybody know if a trope for this exists, and what it's called?
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Is there a name for a trope whereby we meet one of the main characters in flashback and instead of seeing them at their "best", we see them in some clothing/hairstyle/etc that is distinctly different from how they are now? In both cases I can think of off the top of my head, there is *a* character who dresses the way the main character will dress in the future.
In my head, I'm calling it the "Sartorial Sponge" trope, but idk.
The two instances I can think of off the top of my head are: NCIS, in the S8 episode "Baltimore", where we are introduced to Tony in tube socks and jeans (?) as well as a visible shoulder holster. Compare to today, where he wears suits and ties more often than not. His partner was the one with not only the nice suits and shoes but also the movie references!
The other instance is in White Collar, the S2 episode "Forging Bonds", where we meet Vincent Adler, who is the one to introduce Neal to wearing his very nice suits that have since become synonymous with Neal's character.

What's the name of the trope where characters, typically in mysteries or other shows (Doctor Who in particular springs to mind) finish off each other's explanations? There was also an example in Black Dynamite and they parodied the usage of it in Star Trek The Original Series on Futurama.