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resolved Depressing Facility Daycare Live Action TV
An evil government facility or private laboratory is performing experiments on children (or, if not so evil, keeping children who might be dangerous otherwise under control), and they'll have this sad underground daycare with a bureaucrat's idea of what makes kids feel happy and safe - old toys and puzzles, faded out painting on the walls, an artificial "outside" look with fake clouds, trees and grass...
Is that a trope?
resolved When someone can help, but doesn't Live Action TV
Someone is in trouble, and a friend has the ability or means to help, yet doesn't do so.
Example: I need to get my finances in order but can't. A friend with a financial background could offer his advice or outright help in the matter, but stands by and watches me struggle.
resolved When someone suddenly looks more attractive Live Action TV
A woman removes her glasses and suddenly becoming gorgeous in the eyes of her love interest.
resolved Experiment on orphans, so no one will care Live Action TV
A Deadly Doctor wants to do illegal experiments for AIDS treatment. In order to minimize the risk that he will be stopped, he uses orphans.
resolved Time compressed for dramatic purposes Live Action TV
Events that, in the real world, would occur over months or years are portrayed in fiction as taking place over a few hours, days, or weeks. Some examples:
1. Trials: On television, they make it look like a person gets arrested, and then their trial happens a few weeks later. In reality, it can take months or years. They do the same thing with civil cases: The car accident happens, the next day someone gets served with a complaint, there are one or two depositions over the course of the following couple of weeks, then there is a dramatic trial. Pretty much every legal procedure show (The Practice, Law and Order, JAG, etc.) does this.
2. Medical problems: Someone goes to the hospital with a medical problem. Over the next day or two, their doctors do a long list of scans, blood tests, biopsies, and other tests. Once the problem is diagnosed, surgery is scheduled for the next day, and then after a couple of days of recovery the patient, now cured, goes home. House, MD is a prime offender.
Is there a Troupe for events that would normally take place over a long span of time being portrayed as occurring in an unrealistically short timeframe for dramatic purposes?
resolved Effective life sentence Live Action TV
A person is convicted of several crimes, not one of which comes with a life sentence. However, due to the number of these crimes, he's sentenced to 240 years in prison.
resolved you have to overcome a fatal flaw to fight the villain at hand Live Action TV
this is more of a "do we have this trope" but I think it happens in Power Rangers a lot and it's like Die or Fly but without gaining super powers
Edit: the trope I was originally describing was Crisis Makes Perfect but after looking at it I realized I was looking for a more broad "you have to get over a Fatal Flaw in order to fight a villain"
Edited by Wild-Starfishresolved No divorce? Pay with your life Live Action TV
A particular Jewish woman wanted a divorce. Unfortunately, under the religious rules, only the husband can grant it to her; if he refuses—which he did—she remains married to him for the rest of his life. (Note that this is not Artistic License – Religion.) Once she realized that no pressure would change his mind, she payed to have him murdered.
Edited by Someone1981resolved Not actually eating Live Action TV
Whenever characters on television shows eat, it seems like they never ACTUALLY eat anything. They just move food around on the plate with their forks.
resolved IP address out of range Live Action TV
An IP address is the technical address which a computer uses to communicate on the internet. It's made out of 4 numbers, each in the range of 0 to 255; in one episode, an IP address is used where the first number is 392.
resolved Revenge on the police Live Action TV
A police officer is shot. It turns out that the shooter's brother is dead, probably murdered, the shooter (a couple days after his 18th birthday) believing that the culprit was a police officer—although clearly not that police officer.
Edited by Someone1981resolved Poor Sidekick Live Action TV
A sidekick who belongs to a lower economic class than the hero's. The hero can be either rich or middle class, but the sidekick is stereotypically "poor".
This happens for a variety of reasons:
- To show the hero doesn't have class prejudices, as he befriends a poor person and treats them as an equal. Or, to show the hero didn't abandon his poor friend when they became richer.
- So the sidekick can show some street smarts and help the hero whose skills are based in training and book-learning.
- To satirize the Upper-Class Twit who's manipulated by his lower class Hypercompetent Sidekick, or make a political point about class disparity.
- To contrast the characters' upbringing, sometimes showing the hero as being Spoiled Sweet.
- Because the hero is so spectacularly rich, everyone else is poor in comparison.
- As Wish-Fulfillment for the Audience Surrogate sidekick.
- Because their poverty makes the sidekick more prone to be a Damsel in Distress.
- Because the sidekick is still a beginner, and the hero became richer through his adventures.
- Because the Heroic Comedic Sociopath is a miser who doesn't pay his sidekick enough.
Is that a trope?
Edited by Mac_Rresolved Good for the Actor, Bad for the Character Live Action TV
A character in a TV show keeps experiencing failure because if he succeded, it'd mean the character would be written off, or the show would end. I'm thinking in particular about the last episode of Community^ where Annie imagines a future where she fails at her dream FBI job to move back to Greendale (for what is clearly supposed to represent a seventh season of the show), meaning the character would still be on the show, but people would feel bad for her.
Or, it could be the inverse - something's bad for the actor, but good for the character - an actor gets unceremoniously fired, and the character is Put On A Bus To Heaven and given a happy ending offscreen.
resolved Fantasy Sequence B-Plot Live Action TV
I know this might fall into Complaining About Shows You Dont Like a bit, but I figured since there's a trope for Undercover When Alone, there might be a trope for a related issue:
Alice and Bob are shown doing some stuff during part of the story, then it's revealed it was All Just a Dream Alice was having (or some sort of fantasy/hallucination). But, wait - if it was Alice's dream, why did parts of the story focus on Bob doing something that's not related to Alice, and without her knowledge? Or even, how does Alice dream incorporate stuff she doesn't know but Bob does? Sometimes the dream even features a character who never even interacts with the two of them!
The reason, of course, is that the writer didn't think the story through. That is:
- The writer didn't decide it was a dream until later on in the story, after the nonsensical parts had already been published.
- It would be too obvious that it was all just a dream if the story only focused on the dreamer, because other episodes don't have the same focus.
- The story is Strictly Formula to such an extent that the writer doesn't know how to write an episode without including those mistakes.
- Some sort of Voodoo Shark makes it so dreams work different in the story's world.
resolved Honestly dishonest characters Live Action TV
You know when a character has no scruples about being dishonest, sleazy, hypocritical, etc etc etc, to the point where they will come right out and say it. Like they might not necessarily be a terrible person, they just know they're not morally upstanding.
I have two specific examples I can think of. In Succession when Kendall asks Stewy if he can have his support in a board vote and Stewy goes "I can promise you I'm ethically, morally, financially behind whoever wins". Stewy's notorious for this, there's also another line where he simply goes "I'm kind of a selfish person, so."
The other example I can think of is the bit in The Newsreader where Gerry complains about a series of terrible joke recommendations his CEO gives him for his comedy show. When Helen says "but you ignored him, right?", Gerry says "oh no I said them, but I have no integrity, you stick to your guns."
The important thing is that these characters admit to their insincerity or selfishness or whatever, and furthermore, don't have shame or a desire to improve. Is this a thing, or am I going insane.
resolved Protest against the dead at his funeral Live Action TV
A teenage Serial Rapist was murdered (covered by a previous episode, so not troped in this one). In the middle of his funeral, a group of girls (as far as we know, none of them were his victims) yell that he was a rapist, and hold up a sign "Mourn the victim, not the rapist".
Edited by Someone1981resolved Everyone Else is Cheating Too Live Action TV
An Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist is planning on cheating at a competition, only to discover he doesn't have the advantage because everyone else is cheating too (thus it once again is a real competition, to see who's the best cheater). Or, a group of people have an uneasy agreement and the protagonist plans on breaking it, only to discover everyone else is also breaking it.
A variation - the protagonist undergoes Character Development and abandons his cheating ways before the proper competition, only to get beaten by everyone else who didn't.
A flashback scene will feature characters wearing stereotypical fashion items of the era, to an exaggerated level, even if in the series' present time they just dress in clothes that might be common in different settings, such as suits, white shirts, and so on.
For instance, in The Simpsons, Dr. Hibbert has a short hairdo that doesn't really stand out, but in flashbacks he'll have jheri curls, braids or dreadlocks depending on the era.
Even Homer wears a nondescript white shirt and jeans, but is fashion-focused on flashbacks, like in That '90s Show, he wore an 8-Ball jacket over a hoodie... even though when the show actually aired in the 90ies, he had the same white shirt.
Might be a Justified Trope in that characters might care more about fashion when they're young, but still...