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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 Didn't Go to the Funeral Live Action TV
Alice is mad at Bob because Bob didn't show up at Charlie's funeral - usually, this is serious enough to have the two of them not speak for years.
When they do reconcile, Bob explains he wasn't being disrespectful by not going, he was just so sad about Charlie's death he was in denial.
What's the closest trope to that situation?
resolved Former partner became corrupt Live Action TV
An episode features the main character meeting up with a former partner/friend/whatever. Before the episode is over, it's revealed that the partner is now corrupt/evil/incompetent/whatever. That leads the main character to angst about what happened to him.
Then the bad guy gets punished and is never heard from again.
resolved Overwhelming visions Live Action TV
In this scene from The Expanse, Holden unlocks the Ring Station archives for the Investigator. In the process, he is treated to incredible visions of what happened to precursors who created the protomolecule. These visions cause Sensory Overload.
Is there a trope for visions like this?
Edited by ginsengaddictresolved No one makes an appointment to see this important character Live Action TV
OK, I've only seen this twice done serially, usually it's one offs. Basically, an important character like Da Chief, the leader of a faction or even an antagonist very regularly has other characters angrily storm into their office making demands or accusations. To the point it seems they either have no secretary, security, door locks, or simply have an "open door policy" that lets everyone in, no questions asked.
I first noticed it in Smallville where Lex had just about everyone do this to him. But more recently in Land of the Lustrous where the hero at least twice storms into the office of the head antagonist / frenemy during their explicit off hours to discuss things.
resolved Scope Creep Live Action TV
This could be for other things besides TV, but that's where I've seen it the most obviously. The tone doesn't shift, the genre doesn't shift, the character motives are still largely the same, but things go from focusing on small-stakes, inter-personal drama and action to large stakes, "we have to save the world!" action. Kinda a MCU-ification of the show's direction.
A couple of examples spring to mind. Penny Dreadful starts out as a gritty, realistic depiction of Victorian England mixed with occult, where the focus is on the characters dealing with supernatural threats and the very mundane threats of a restrictive society and its own burdens/expectations. But by the last season everyone has super powers and they're on a quest to save the world from being swallowed by demons or what have you.
Firefly/Serenity also does this. The show starts out with a 'not exactly smugglers' crew struggling to make ends meet while dealing with their personal struggles and history, but by the end of the show (the movie), they are on a quest to uncover a secret, and basically topple the government / start a new revolution.
The MCU up to the Avengers Endgame movies is like this, too; the first few movies are pretty independent, with (bizarrely) low emphasis on the superpowers and magic. They focus on smaller villains that are a lower-stakes, personal challenge/threat to the hero. Eventually everyone has superhuman abilities (explained in-universe or not), flinging spells and lasers and whatever in a big battle to save not just the universe, but every alternate universe as well!
The tropes in Tone Shift don't really fit, because there is no change in the genre, or adding magic where there wasn't before, or anything like that. Fantasy Creep is the most overlap that I can see, like the entry for John Wick, but a lot of shows start out with a imho more interesting premise that is explored in the early seasons but as the characters become more powerful, and defeat all their lesser foes, bigger foes and greater stakes move in and the show changes from the initial premise to "we must save the world from existential danger!"
I feel like this is already on here but I can't find it!
resolved Romance out of nowhere Live Action TV
Is there any particular trope - might be YMMV, I don't care - for situation where out of the blue Alice and Bob decide that yep, they are suddenly a thing, despite spending past 15 years of a Long Runner as Friendly Enemy at best, just enemies on average? There is no build up, no chemistry, no nothing, the characters just suddenly fall for each other in the middle of the final season. For added bonus, it's not even the creators bending down to fandom demands or similar, it just happens, because.
Edited by Tropiarzresolved The Truth Will Set You Free Live Action TV
Is there a trope for this concept, rather than than just citing it specifically as part of As the Good Book Says...? Like, characters discovering the truth or making the truth more widely known has some sort of liberating effect on their situation. There may or may not be some turmoil involved.
resolved Killer found by saying something only the killer would know Live Action TV
Ok so imagine crime drama where a woman is killed and they are interviewing the husband, the husband says something like "please detectives, find the man who stabbed my wife 12 times" but the cops never revealed to the husband that she was stabbed, or that it was 12 times, so how does he know? Obv it means he is the killer
resolved Part-time or occasional jerkass Live Action TV
I want to do some edits on some TV pages where the main characters will sometimes come out with casual homophobia or fat-shaming or other insulting commentary. They are overall sympathetic characters, so it's not Jerkass, but the comments certainly don't meet current societal standards, and barely met those standards when the show aired. Think Chandler from Friends, the cast of Seinfeld (on a good day).
Deadpan snarker isn't really it either, because it's not deemed funny.
Edited by DeesbyFiresolved Characters name is in the closed captions Live Action TV
So I was watching Twisted Metal (2023) and a character is only named via subtitle/closed caption. Which trope is this?
resolved A Deal/Bargain Trope Live Action TV
In the second half of the miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream Berry Gordy, founder of Motown, is shown trying to convince Michael Jackson to participate in Motown's 25th anniversary telecast with his brothers. MJ, though tired of making TV appearances at that point, eventually agrees to join, but only if he was given a solo performance slot to perform "Billie Jean".
Now, exactly what bargaining/deal trope would this fall under? I've checked most of the bargaining tropes, but they don't seem to fit this situation. (EDIT: For reference, here's the scene in question
)
resolved No Title Live Action TV
I looked through Signature Tropes and I didn't see anything that seemed to fit...not sure if we just don't have it or it's under a different name. What I'm thinking of is a particular action that someone, usually the host of a game show or talk show, does that may or may not be coupled with a Catchphrase but is signature to that person. The specific examples I have in mind are Johnny Carson's golf swing at the end of his opening monologue on The Tonight Show to transition to the orchestra and Graham Norton's jazz hands-like gesture that he does with his "Let's start the show!" after the opening skit of every episode of The Graham Norton Show. Do we have this?
Edited by Willbyrresolved 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 Everybody Followed Fashion in the Past Live Action TV
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...
resolved Kill.the endangering wildlife Live Action TV
La Guardia airport, New York City, has an ongoing problem of geese who endanger planes taking off and landing. To deal with this, the airport has been killing off the local goose population.
resolved Slowly learning explanation for all the weird things in the scene Live Action TV
It's the thing where at the beginning of the episode a character will enter the scene or something like that and all the other characters will have absurd things going on, such as one of them having a fully shaved head, one of them dressed in a ridiculous costume, etc and then they start telling the story, and the whole episode is set up of multiple flashbacks from earlier in that day where you slowly learn how each of the absurd things happened.
I feel like this usually happens in sitcoms like on Disney channel or nick.
resolved ''Series/EerieIndiana'', episode “The Losers” Live Action TV
In this show, it’s established that the reason things go missing is because there’s a secret agency whose job it is to steal things (think pens, socks) in order to keep the economy going. It’s established canonically that one of the things they steal is pacemaker batteries, leaving the dark implication that they are indirectly responsible for deaths. The show touches on this briefly when one of the workers expresses a qualm, only for his boss to tell him, “There’s no room for pity in this business!” Would this fall under Fridge Horror? Inferred Holocaust?

I've seen this a lot but can't really pinpoint too many examples - stuff in the late eighties/early nineties having title cards with purple, teal, pink and yellow, with elements like swirls, triangles and squiggly line patterns in the background.
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?