TV Tropes: Love 'em or Loathe 'em

[Shannon L.]

5 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Agree 110%. Adam Sandler used this double standard to absolutely ghastly, repugnant effect in That's My Boy. I only ever watched a review of this vile thing, and I honestly wanted to shower afterward. Seriously, WTF were the writers thinking?!

Oh, they weren't. Silly me.

This is what ruined Big for me.  Ugh...just no. 

[WinnieWinkle]

3 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

This is what ruined Big for me.  Ugh...just no. 

I loved that movie the first time I saw it - and I still think Tom Hanks was amazing playing a 12 yr old boy but no, just no - in what world is it ok that they waited until he turned 13 (13!) before he had sex with his colleague?

[DrSpaceman73]

12 hours ago, WinnieWinkle said:

On the topic of age inappropriate relationships if it isn't appropriate male to female it's not appropriate female to male either!  I am specifically referencing the school boy older woman romance here.  The first two examples that come to mind are teenage Frasier and his music teacher and middle schooler Charlie Harper and (it would seem) almost every teacher he encountered.  It is not funny - but it also seems to be some male fantasy that TV writers put into their shows and no one blinks an eye.  If a middle school girl had had a sexual relationship with a teacher it would not have been played for laughs!

The worst part of the frasier story was it wasn't just him, that piano teacher was doing it with all her students it seemed.  Which means she was basically a child predator.  

[Wiendish Fitch]

9 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

The worst part of the frasier story was it wasn't just him, that piano teacher was doing it with all her students it seemed.  Which means she was basically a child predator.  

Ugh, that episode was so gross. It was played for laughs that she was still preying on her young students, instead of seeing it for the disgraceful crime that it was. 

[Ambrosefolly]

On 2/28/2021 at 9:54 AM, WinnieWinkle said:

On the topic of age inappropriate relationships if it isn't appropriate male to female it's not appropriate female to male either!  I am specifically referencing the school boy older woman romance here.  The first two examples that come to mind are teenage Frasier and his music teacher and middle schooler Charlie Harper and (it would seem) almost every teacher he encountered.  It is not funny - but it also seems to be some male fantasy that TV writers put into their shows and no one blinks an eye.  If a middle school girl had had a sexual relationship with a teacher it would not have been played for laughs!

I know that Frasier lost his virginity to his music teacher and dated only younger men, but I thought Drew Carey was the one that lost his virginity to his band teacher and the "punchline" was that she deflowered a lot of her teenage students. 

[tennisgurl]

Watching older shows, especially from the 90-00s, its really creepy how many student/teacher relationships were all over TV and how it was so often played as romantic and not as a horrible sexual abuse by an adult towards a child. Buffy, Dawson's Creek, Pretty Little Liars a bit later, and those are just teenagers dating teachers, that doesn't even count teenagers dating random grown ass adults and everyone just being alright with it. Buffy also had the weirdly specific and also creepy "immortal dates teenager" trope. I guess the idea is that its alright if they look young, even if they're actually a few hundred or thousand years old, or that, I don't know, if your old enough it just cancels itself out? 

A trope I love? The "its the series/season finale and all of the characters from throughout the show, including reoccurring and minor characters, come back to all team up and save the day" final battle. Its so tropey and I love it so much. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Double whammy trope - they all team up to save the day - and they're all the same because they're clones. 

[Ambrosefolly]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

A trope I love? The "its the series/season finale and all of the characters from throughout the show, including reoccurring and minor characters, come back to all team up and save the day" final battle. Its so tropey and I love it so much. 

While most tropes leave me anger, I do like when a prior cast member returns for the series finale. I loved Sarah Michelle Gellar's return to All My Children as a mental patient that fights vampires...which was a bit of a call back to that episode in season 6 of BTVS where Buffy was in a mental institution and the ending showed her still in the mental institution. 

[SVNBob]

9 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Double whammy trope - they all team up to save the day - and they're all the same because they're clones. 

One of my favorite podiobook series is based on this.  Bonus trope: they're all clones of the Big Bad.

[Spartan Girl]

On February 28, 2021 at 3:08 PM, Ambrosefolly said:

There was an episode I think in the first season of Law & Order SVU, where the victim was a woman that a let's just say highly charged personal life: random trysts with men, sex clubs, Tinder type stuff. She as also a school teacher that was real attentive to her students. She would tutor them privately and spent extra time. After an exhaustive investigation SVU found out...none of her relationships with her students were any way romantic or even inappropriate. She was a teacher that cared a lot and didn't allow her personal life effect her professional one. 

There was that other SVU episode where a boy accused his teacher (Melissa Joan Hart) of raping him, while she claimed he assaulted her and got her pregnant resulting in her getting an abortion. The squad believes the boy because the teacher had been fired from her previous job for supposedly taking her male students to lunch. Only it turns out later that she was telling the truth: the boy DID rape her and the student lunches at her last job were perfectly legit -- the real reason she got fired was because her boss was sexually harassing her. So that was another example where the show avoided that trope.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Spartan Girl

[DoctorAtomic]

7 hours ago, SVNBob said:

One of my favorite podiobook series is based on this.  Bonus trope: they're all clones of the Big Bad.

I was talking about Orphan Black. 

Farscape did a great job of bringing back the old characters to rob the bank too. 

[kiddo82]

The TV cop who resists counseling for possible PTSD.  "I just want to get back out there.  Let me do my job.  Just sign off that I'm fine."  Probably because he's taking. It. Personally.  

[merylinkid]

Because those pesky rules are put in place by "bean counters who never walked a beat."   They don't know what its really like out there.   Or the "rat squad" (i.e. internal affairs) is requesting anger management of whatever because they "just are out to get good cops."

[BlackberryJam]

3 hours ago, merylinkid said:

Because those pesky rules are put in place by "bean counters who never walked a beat."   They don't know what its really like out there.   Or the "rat squad" (i.e. internal affairs) is requesting anger management of whatever because they "just are out to get good cops."

Oh Oh oh...the police detective who investigates his wife/sister/mother/ex-girlfriend's murder! (Note that it's always a woman getting murdered.) His fellow cops help him and slip him information because they know how much detective cares! So stupid. SO STUPID.

[Shannon L.]

On 3/31/2021 at 7:59 PM, kiddo82 said:

The TV cop who resists counseling for possible PTSD.  "I just want to get back out there.  Let me do my job.  Just sign off that I'm fine."  Probably because he's taking. It. Personally.  

I'd love to see characters more accepting of therapy in tv shows.

[magicdog]

On 4/2/2021 at 9:03 AM, Shannon L. said:

I'd love to see characters more accepting of therapy in tv shows.

IRL therapy is mandatory following certain situations.  When there's been a shooting (cop kills a suspect even in self defense), if the officer in question has been the victim of a crime himself, etc.  Usually there's a legitimate reason for it (to determine of the person is dealing with the trauma in a healthy manner) and is fit for duty.   It would be nice to see it offered and taken.

Quote

The TV cop who resists counseling for possible PTSD.  "I just want to get back out there.  Let me do my job.  Just sign off that I'm fine."  Probably because he's taking. It. Personally.  

IRL, they do have to take it, but there was a time when it was optional.  Many cops back in the day used to be war vets (WW2/Korea/Vietnam era) and probably dealt with it on their own because that was the way.  Some used drugs or alcohol to deal with it.  Fortunately, there are other options now.

 

On 4/2/2021 at 4:30 AM, merylinkid said:

 

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by magicdog

[Ohiopirate02]

On 4/2/2021 at 10:41 AM, BlackberryJam said:

Oh Oh oh...the police detective who investigates his wife/sister/mother/ex-girlfriend's murder! (Note that it's always a woman getting murdered.) His fellow cops help him and slip him information because they know how much detective cares! So stupid. SO STUPID.

I see someone watches SVU and the new Law and Order Organized Crime.  

[BlackberryJam]

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I see someone watches SVU and the new Law and Order Organized Crime.  

This will probably shock you, but I’ve not seen an episode of SUV in...what feels like a decade? Has it been on for a decade? It’s several years and I probably only watched it twice. I’ve never seen Organized Crime.*

But if that’s the trope these shows are churning out, I’m not missing anything. 😉

*This probably goes in Unpopular Opinions, but I find nothing appealing about Chris Meloni and thought his SUV character seemed like everything shitty about police detectives.

Edited April 3, 2021 by BlackberryJam

[GHScorpiosRule]

16 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

This will probably shock you, but I’ve not seen an episode of SUV in...what feels like a decade? Has it been on for a decade? It’s several years and I probably only watched it twice. I’ve never seen Organized Crime.*

But if that’s the trope these shows are churning out, I’m not missing anything. 😉

*This probably goes in Unpopular Opinions, but I find nothing appealing about Chris Meloni and thought his SUV character seemed like everything shitty about police detectives.

I think you mean SVU? And L&O: Organized Crime just premiered this week.

[BlackberryJam]

47 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I think you mean SVU? And L&O: Organized Crime just premiered this week.

Probably. I never cared enough about the show to figure out the name. Also, isn’t Organized Crime the one with Vincent D’Onofrio? There’s another one? The mafia themed episodes of Original Recipe L&O were always the worst ones.

[Raja]

1 minute ago, BlackberryJam said:

Probably. I never cared enough about the show to figure out the name. Also, isn’t Organized Crime the one with Vincent D’Onofrio? There’s another one? The mafia themed episodes of Original Recipe L&O were always the worst ones.

That is Criminal Intent, Trial by Jury was a half season and out. Los Angeles did a half season then a soft reboot for the second half. Homicide Life on the Street and Chicago PD have done crossovers with the original Law & Order and SVU

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

Probably. I never cared enough about the show to figure out the name. Also, isn’t Organized Crime the one with Vincent D’Onofrio? There’s another one? The mafia themed episodes of Original Recipe L&O were always the worst ones.

No. The one with D’onofrio was Criminal Intent and that ended in 2010.

Organized Crime is a new one.

[Zella]

4 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

This will probably shock you, but I’ve not seen an episode of SUV in...what feels like a decade? Has it been on for a decade? It’s several years and I probably only watched it twice. I’ve never seen Organized Crime.*

But if that’s the trope these shows are churning out, I’m not missing anything. 😉

*This probably goes in Unpopular Opinions, but I find nothing appealing about Chris Meloni and thought his SUV character seemed like everything shitty about police detectives.

I always thought Unstabler was a piece of shit too. I enjoyed Criminal Intent well enough before it decided to give Goren his own Moriarty. Jesus, those got tedious. 

[Raja]

59 minutes ago, Zella said:

I always thought Unstabler was a piece of shit too. I enjoyed Criminal Intent well enough before it decided to give Goren his own Moriarty. Jesus, those got tedious. 

I only kept watching when we had the regular cop Detective Logan episodes  the Sherlock's of D'Onofrio's Goren and Jeff Goldblum's Nichols mostly didn't work for me. Chris Noth reprising his role  was the first sense of Wolf having a soft spot for some of his actors/characters  who crossed shows and franchises.

[Zella]

7 minutes ago, Raja said:

I only kept watching when we had the regular cop Detective Logan episodes  the Sherlock's of D'Onofrio's Goren and Jeff Goldblum's Nichols mostly didn't work for me. Chris Noth reprising his role  was the first sense of Wolf having a soft spot for some of his actors/characters  who crossed shows and franchises.

I liked Logan. I could not stand Jeff Goldblum's character. 

[kathyk24]

2 hours ago, Zella said:

I liked Logan. I could not stand Jeff Goldblum's character. 

I loved the Logan episodes they felt like the crimes we would see on Law and Order. I didn't mind Nichols he was quirky but not over the top like Goren. I'm getting tired of shows killing female characters it's becoming a overused trope. I'd love to know why Dick Wolfe can't give Eames her own show I'd sign up for Peacock to watch that.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

I've probably mentioned these before but I feel like I've seen about 6 million instances of these in the last few weeks:

• People seeing dead people.  I know many folks who have died and they don't pop up and chat with me again and again or even stand in the corner and brood.  There is a psychological phenomena of people thinking they hear the voice of someone who has died or thinking they see them briefly.  This has to do with stored memories. However, that's not the same as the person showing up repeatedly and chatting away.  More people on TV are BSC then we have been led to believe.
• People completely trashing their house because they are upset.  They could be angry, depressed, disappointed.  Regardless the go to action is to start breaking things.  Glad to know they can all afford to 1) get that cleaned up and 2) purchase replacement items as needed. 

[CoderLady]

33 minutes ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

People completely trashing their house because they are upset.  They could be angry, depressed, disappointed.  Regardless the go ton action is to start breaking things.  Glad to know they can all afford to 1) get that cleaned up and 2) purchase replacement items as needed. 

Angry person walks into a room, stands there fuming and looking around, and sure as shit always does a forearm sweep of everything off the nearest flat surface. Bonus points for smashing a mirror and staring into the jagged shards. I hate that I just can't roll with the raging because of my "Who's gonna clean that shit up, fool?" internal voice.

[DoctorAtomic]

This is why every town needs a local batting cage. Get in there and take some swings for 10, 15 minutes and get it out of your system.

I threw a chair in my office one time though. It felt good. 

 

[Zella]

I used to think the trashing the house in a fit rage was an over the top thing that only ever happened on TV or movies, but my brother actually did punch a hole through his wall after being notified of a death in the family and a girl I went to school with did bash in her bathroom mirror during a mental health crisis, so now when I see it on something, I don't question it. 

[Trini]

Overused tropes:

Using chess to show a character is super smart,

Chess analogies in general.

There are other games, TV writers.

[Mabinogia]

19 hours ago, Trini said:

Overused tropes:

Using chess to show a character is super smart,

Chess analogies in general.

There are other games, TV writers.

This reminds me of one of my favorite moments in BBC's Sherlock. Sherlock and Mycroft, the two greatest minds in London (if not the world) are shown all pensive, sitting across from each other. It was easy to assume they were playing chess, as all super smart TV people do, but alas, they were playing Operation! It was a funny moment because of the defied expectation. I'm sure the Brainy Brothers have played many a game of chess, but it was nice to see them playing something a bit less obvious. 

[WinnieWinkle]

19 hours ago, Trini said:

Using chess to show a character is super smart,

 

Also used to have someone who clearly is not super smart beat the super smart person.  Usually in a couple of moves.  

[Zella]

In the episode of Endeavour I watched this week, there was chess as part of the murder. I assumed that brainiac Morse would be a chess fanatic, but I found it refreshing when other characters assumed he'd be really into chess, and he was just like "Meh." LOL

Edited May 1, 2021 by Zella

[Spartan Girl]

Here’s another trope that annoys me: Two characters have a one-night stand and the next morning the woman tells him it was a mistake and then promptly acts hurt when the guy agrees that it was a mistake. Way to enforce the stereotypes that women can’t make up their minds or say what they actually mean!

[DrSpaceman73]

Well on the tv show or movie 99 percent of the time that one night stand will turn into a relationship.  

[Kromm]

On 4/29/2021 at 10:39 PM, Trini said:

Overused tropes:

Using chess to show a character is super smart,

Chess analogies in general.

There are other games, TV writers.

I've seen Go used a few times. It's arguably just as complex as Chess, albeit using a different kind of thinking. Also, there are (unsurprisingly) cultural associations with Go, and these days you'd face cultural appropriation charges if neither player was Chinese, but probably also stereotyping accusations if they are. 

Ditto for Mahjong.  Unlike Go, most of us have likely played this one (or at least the loosely based solitaire game with the same tiles), but let's be honest about how it would come off if a bunch of white people were shown playing it, or the baggage of scenes with Asian people doing so (always older in the stereotype, right?). 

Poker is often shown, but of course the inferences from it are totally different.  It's shorthand for people kicking back, often excluding women, but if women ARE shown it's a "one of the boys" add-on to the shorthand about relaxing. When Picard was invited to the regular Poker game on Star Trek, it was clear shorthand he'd let his non-existent hair down. Only in Vegas caper movies is poker used to imply intelligence. 

There's Bridge I suppose. The older white people echo of older Asian people playing Mahjong. 

Dominoes?  Either seen as a kiddie thing, or if shown played seriously, yet another Asian stereotype, typically two old Chinese guys sitting in a park playing it. 

Checkers?  Again seen as kiddie. 

Monopoly?  I've seen it used as a plot device in TV and movies, but the messaging on it is pretty typically one thing: to take one or more people and imply someone in that group is super-competitive (and if they crow about winning maybe have bad sportsmanship). 

I'm running out of ideas here. When other games ARE used they seem to have just as much, if different, baggage from Chess. 

Backgammon used to be a thing, but on TV although I've seen it occasionally, I've never seen a coherent subtext to it. 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Kromm

[kiddo82]

11 minutes ago, Kromm said:

I'm running out of ideas here. When other games ARE used they seem to have just as much, if different, baggage from Chess. 

The first one I can think of is Scrabble and to a lesser extent Trivial Pursuit.  Even in real life Trivial Pursuit requires less strategy and sometimes you just get lucky getting a question you know.  It seems like if there is a trivia challenge on TV it's more used to show how the seemingly dim character is kind of a trivia savant or you get a Slumdog Millionaire type explanation for how they know all these random questions.  

I had never heard of Go before Knives Out and I have never heard about it since.

Edited May 1, 2021 by kiddo82

[Shannon L.]

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

Here’s another trope that annoys me: Two characters have a one-night stand and the next morning the woman tells him it was a mistake and then promptly acts hurt when the guy agrees that it was a mistake. Way to enforce the stereotypes that women can’t make up their minds or say what they actually mean!

I know this is a movie, but that's the one thing that annoyed me about When Harry Met Sally.  He stays all night, she wakes up to him getting dressed and he says "I have to go to work and so do you".  Perfectly valid point for leaving and punctuates it with the fact that she also has a job that she has to get to.  He asks her to dinner that night where she gets her wish to say "it was a mistake" before he does.  Suddenly, she's pissed at him for.....what exactly?  She claims he darted out after they had sex.  Um....no he didn't. 

[Anduin]

I wonder if they'll ever start using video games as a demonstrator of intelligence or ability. "He's ranked [whatever] in Starcraft 2" or "she runs the biggest guild in WOW" or "that group pulled off a massive heist in EVE."

I doubt it'll happen any time soon. Maybe when kids who played video games become the suits at the top, they'll push the producers and writers to include those elements. Or the other way around. The writers know that world, they start chucking in a little more reality.

On the other hand, we've already passed the point where that should start happening. Wikipedia says the Playstation 1 had a heyday from 1994 - 2000. Have none of the PS kids worked their way into the upper sections of TV hierarchy? Last I checked, games were treated as either from the Pac Man/Space Invaders era or 'murder simulators' like GTA.

Of course, I don't watch much contemporary TV. I may have missed something.

[Kromm]

1 hour ago, kiddo82 said:

I had never heard of Go before Knives Out and I have never heard about it since.

Belieing my own contention that mentioning it implied Asian stereotypes, a proper search shows it was in "A Beautiful Mind", a movie inherently about intelligence, and I'm just not remembering the scene. Apparently its somewhere in "Tron: Legacy" too and again I'm forgetting it. The TV version of "12 Monkeys" apparently had it, but I've never seen that show. 

There's more. I have vague memories, just no specific.  Apparently it's big in Manga, which means probably in Anime as well, despite the Chinese instead of Japanese origin (as even the Japanese admit, great huge chunks of their culture is borrowed from the Chinese). 

Fact I just found out: The company Atari is named after the same word, used in go for approximately the same reason as "Checkmate" in Chess!  But it's a Japanese word, not Chinese. Ergo, it's clear the Japanese are pretty invested in the game. 

It's actually an easy game to learn. I learned it and played it against a roommate years ago.  But the mental leaps to be really good are something else. If anyone is REALLY good at the game Othello (aka Reversi) I'd recommend trying Go. It's not the same, but it's a vaguely similar kind of thinking. 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Kromm

[PrincessPurrsALot]

2 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Well on the tv show or movie 99 percent of the time that one night stand will turn into a relationship.  

And the woman will become pregnant because somehow women never use birth control other than condoms. 

1 hour ago, Shannon L. said:

I know this is a movie, but that's the one thing that annoyed me about When Harry Met Sally.  He stays all night, she wakes up to him getting dressed and he says "I have to go to work and so do you".  Perfectly valid point for leaving and punctuates it with the fact that she also has a job that she has to get to.  He asks her to dinner that night where she gets her wish to say "it was a mistake" before he does.  Suddenly, she's pissed at him for.....what exactly?  She claims he darted out after they had sex.  Um....no he didn't. 

I hate this movie with a passion.  You've added one more reason to my list.

[kiddo82]

8 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Here’s another trope that annoys me: Two characters have a one-night stand and the next morning the woman tells him it was a mistake and then promptly acts hurt when the guy agrees that it was a mistake. Way to enforce the stereotypes that women can’t make up their minds or say what they actually mean!

I'm rewatching ER from the beginning and I just saw a scene where Doug wakes up with a woman whose name he didn't remember who claims she didn't remember his name either.  As he leaves he says he'll call her.  She just waves him off and says, "No you wont." before rolling back over to go to sleep.  She wasn't indignant or hurt.  (Maybe a little disappointed, I mean, it is Clooney after all.)  She doesn't chide herself for making a "mistake."  It was mostly like, "It was fun for a night but I'm not broken up that we're not getting married."  In fact, he seemed more taken aback than she did.  I found that strangely refreshing and forward thinking especially since this was 1995.       

Edited May 1, 2021 by kiddo82

[Shannon L.]

27 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

I'm rewatching ER from the beginning and I just saw a scene where Doug wakes up with a woman who's name he didn't remember who claims she didn't remember his name either.  As he leaves he says he'll call her.  She just waves him off and says, "No you wont." before rolling back over to go to sleep.  She wasn't indignant or hurt.  (Maybe a little disappointed, I mean, it is Clooney after all.)  She doesn't chide herself for making a "mistake."  It was mostly like, "It was fun for a night but I'm not broken up that we're not getting married."  In fact, he seemed more taken aback than she did.  I found that strangely refreshing and forward thinking especially since this was 1995.       

Arrow did this once.  He gets up to leave not long after and sincerely apologizes saying that he really does need to get to work and she says "Do I look like I need to cuddle?".  He was a bit taken aback as well, then smiled, nodded and left. 

[Zella]

People never play strategy games like Risk on TV--at least not that I recall seeing--but it seems like at least a thinking game. I always liked Risk better than chess because I could kick my brother's ass up and down a Risk board. He always kicked my ass up and down a chess board. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Quof]

22 minutes ago, Zella said:

People never play strategy games like Risk on TV

Big Bang Theory

[Bastet]

25 minutes ago, Zella said:

People never play strategy games like Risk on TV--at least not that I recall seeing

Kramer and Newman had an epic game going on Seinfeld.

"It's a game of world domination, being played by two guys who can barely run their own lives."

[Zella]

2 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Kramer and Newman had an epic game going on Seinfeld.

"It's a game of world domination, being played by two guys who can barely run their own lives."

OMG  I have to find that scene. I'm laughed so hard at just the idea of it. 

[Bastet]

2 minutes ago, Zella said:

OMG  I have to find that scene. I'm laughed so hard at just the idea of it. 

Here's the whole Risk storyline:

 

[Zella]

Just now, Bastet said:

Here's the whole Risk storyline:

 

Thank you so much!