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TV Tropes: Love 'em or Loathe 'em


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Last night, I was watching Obsessed: Dark Desires on ID. This woman brings in 2 paper bags full of groceries and right there on top was a  bunch of loose 'not bagged celery.

 

Really? How many people will actually grab a bunch of celery and not put it into a produce bag before leaving the produce section ? 

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Last night, I was watching Obsessed: Dark Desires on ID. This woman brings in 2 paper bags full of groceries and right there on top was a  bunch of loose 'not bagged celery.

 

Really? How many people will actually grab a bunch of celery and not put it into a produce bag before leaving the produce section ? 

 

People who want telegenic food that looks good on camera? In other words, few, if any, real people.

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The petite or averaged-sized woman who takes out a larger male suspect (or enemy). The Americans and Sleepy Hollow do this well. (Castle also, but Kate's high heels continue to bug me). Mind you, I'm not advocating violence or violence against women. But I love it when a smart female character has the physical savvy to neutralize her opponent.

 

I also love modern shows that tribute older shows or movies. Victorious with The Breakfast Club episode. Psych had a high school reunion episode where Shawn references John Hughes movies and does all of the dances from The Breakfast Club. The Fairly Odd Parents had an episode-long homage to classic cartoons. Veronica Mars had an '80s episode that included a Pretty In Pink scenario.  Fame (okay, not a modern show) had a Wizard of Oz episode. 

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Really? How many people will actually grab a bunch of celery and not put it into a produce bag before leaving the produce section ?

 

Me, for one.  I find produce bags largely unnecessary and wasteful.  The produce has already been handled by numerous people by the time I pick it up and will be washed before I eat it.  I have a few reusable mesh produce bags that I use for multiples of small items charged by weight that would be too difficult to keep together otherwise, but the rest of my produce is kept loose.  Especially something like a bunch of celery. 

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I'm not sure if it occurs often enough to be considered a trope, but I love male-female partnerships that are NOT fated to be romantic. It's the opposite of a trope I loathe. Some of my favorites: Diana and what's his name on The 4400, Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, Carter and Jo on Eureka, Peggy Carter and Jarvis (and Howard Stark) on Agent Carter, Pete and Myka until they fucked it up on Warehouse 13, and Artie and Claudia on W13, Abbie and Crane on Sleepy Hollow (please lord), and all of the variations on Person of Interest. I like friendship and mutual respect.

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How's this for a trope:  if the leads on a show are a man and woman, they have fall in love at some point and become a couple.  Why cant they just be friends/co-workers/partners?  What is wrong with that.  Not all shows have to have a romance front and center just like not all men and women become a couple if they spend more than an hour with each other.
Sing it, sister. Responding in the TV Tropes You Love thread.
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Oh, yeah, Tom and Diana on The 4400. I loved that show. The freshness of their partnership was a big part of it. When under the influence of Diana's 4400 sister Tom admitted that he'd had a stray thought or two about Diana and she just rolled her eyes and laughed at him, I think I loved that show more than I ever had.

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The petite or averaged-sized woman who takes out a larger male suspect (or enemy). The Americans and Sleepy Hollow do this well. (Castle also, but Kate's high heels continue to bug me). Mind you, I'm not advocating violence or violence against women. But I love it when a smart female character has the physical savvy to neutralize her opponent.

 

 

Elizabeth on The Americans is understandable.  She is well trained (I'd go as far as saying exceptionally well trained)  and training is sometimes enough.   She often uses what is around her (like a nearby parked car and an oncoming motorcycle) to her advantage.  So its not  like she has superpowers just very good training.  As for Sleepy Hollow  I don't know that show as well but it is a police officer so I can hand wave some martial arts training so again it's not like an untrained woman beating up muscle heads.  

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I'm not sure if it occurs often enough to be considered a trope, but I love male-female partnerships that are NOT fated to be romantic. It's the opposite of a trope I loathe. Some of my favorites: Diana and what's his name on The 4400, Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, Carter and Jo on Eureka, Peggy Carter and Jarvis (and Howard Stark) on Agent Carter, Pete and Myka until they fucked it up on Warehouse 13, and Artie and Claudia on W13, Abbie and Crane on Sleepy Hollow (please lord), and all of the variations on Person of Interest. I like friendship and mutual respect.

You left out Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson.

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The recent developments on The 100 and the writers' response to questions pertaining to sexuality made me think of this one: I hate it when we're told that a future or alien society isn't as heteronormative as our own culture, but we're never actually shown this. Maybe a single character will exhibit same-sex interest, but it's certainly not as widespread as you'd think for a society where the default is supposedly homosexuality/bisexuality/pansexuality. It's too early to tell with The 100, but I was annoyed when Star-Crossed told us that aliens didn't consider sexuality in the same way that humans did, and the default was for them to be pansexual. But of course we only ever saw the one female alien character with a same-sex love interest, no one else. 

 

It just seems like a cheap way to mark a future/alien society as being ~different from our own, but then the writers have no intention of fleshing it out. But then they still want points for not being heteronormative. 

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The Unholy Alliance. When the typical enemies are beset by another enemy, they have to work together. Typically, it's good for some snippy dialogue. It can go in many directions. They're still enemies. This Changes Nothing! Or, they go the We're Not So Different route. Or, Stay Out Of My Way. Either way, it's a cheat for some character building, but it's a 'fair cheat'. If it's written with reasonable skill, it gives credibility to the protagonists. 

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I'm a sucker for a good Xanatos Gambit. (Where a villain's scheme is so complex that, even if the hero beats them, they still come out ahead in the end.)

Watch any Greg Weisman show. He produced Gargoyles, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Young Justice, and he specialized in the Xanatos Gambit. (Hell, it's even named after one of his characters from Gargoyles.)

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Re: Xanatos Gambit. As Mark Sheppard said about Jim Sterling, the recurring character he played on Leverage: He might not always win but he never loses.

Edited by ABay
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Another one I hate is the  Children's Photographer who never seems to be able to control the kids that he/she is trying to take pictures of. The kids are always running wild and every now and then they will stand still. Then right when the photographer is ready to click, off the kids go,

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Superficially speaking, that every woman, no matter what job, be it garbage man or astro physicist, has model ready looks. 

 

I love this trope too.

 

I'm shallow when it comes to visual media. I can see 'normal' looking people any and every day in my real life. I wanna see pretty people when I'm watching something!

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Fish out of water. Maybe because Perfect Strangers still holds a special place in my heart. It was my favorite part of the first Thor movie, especially when he's in the diner. Love it on Sleepy Hollow.


Also, everyone's on drugs/drunk/sick - something where they are all acting out of character, in-character but exaggerated, declarations of love are made, paranoia, dancing. It's a good way to make a sit-com break out of their routine but then putting it all back to normal when everyone snaps out of it. Parks & Rec did it well.

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Did you see the outtake of the 'selfie' on Sleepy Hollow. *hilarious*. And I love the callback to the Starbucks joke. 

 

I don't know how much this is a trope, but the blow the fuck out of everything plan. Farscape perfected it. They would come up with crazy batshit plans that blew everything up. "Well, fuck these people, let's blow up their bank." I think Leverage kind of did this without the actual explosions; staging a kidnapping and literal nuclear nonproliferation during a chess match. Just batshit that relies on intricate timing and wits. 

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The petite or averaged-sized woman who takes out a larger male suspect (or enemy). The Americans and Sleepy Hollow do this well. (Castle also, but Kate's high heels continue to bug me). Mind you, I'm not advocating violence or violence against women. But I love it when a smart female character has the physical savvy to neutralize her opponent.

 

From the love troupe thread this is the one I hate. It is rare that we see any special skill because of her smaller physical stature, after all she is a six foot tall supermodel before getting acting gigs. She just kicks someone in the head, yes the head not the reachable knee. Not only is she able to take on any man in a heads up one on one fight her most deadly opponent is also a model thin deadly assassin in fashion heels.

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I'm a diabetic and always wanted more people who shared that with me on tv. The only time I've really seen that was on an extremely short lived version of "Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde" that was on a few years ago. Jekyl worked in a hospital, but told everyone he couldn't work after 7 (when Hyde came out) because of his diabetes, because apparently diabetics are reverse vampires and I've taken my life in my hands the thousands of times I've gone out for the evening. Plus, the guy works in a hospital with other doctors who have, one assumes, been to medical school and none of them notices a problem with this? There was also a memorable scene where the main character turns into Mr Hyde in the middle of sugary and his colleagues leap on him and stab him with insulin like it's an epi pen whereupon Mr Hyde collapses instantaneously to the floor. Sigh.

 

If that's what it means to have chronic diseases on tv, I'll be fine without thankyouverymuch.

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Lilly's original partner on Cold Case was diabetic, and it was nice to see it just casually included (sometimes we'd see him testing himself, or there'd be a brief reference to his need to eat), but then when they wrote the character out, they chalked it up to his diabetes -- something about him transferring to a division with more regular hours because of his diabetes, I think.

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Turk on Scrubs was diabetic. The episode that it was discovered was season 4 episode 6 titled "My Cake", which is a pretty sad episode for me. It was mentioned at times, in an off-hand type of way (I think), throughout the series, but this was the main storyline that I could think of off the top of my head. His wife, Carla, is really supportive and fixed a "Turk's Diabetes Box".

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Wilford Brimley on "Our House" was diabetic.  Yes, I know I'm really reaching back into the past.  If memory serves, Brimley himself was diagnosed with diabetes (during the run of the show) so they wrote it in for his character as well.

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(edited)

I'm not sure if it occurs often enough to be considered a trope, but I love male-female partnerships that are NOT fated to be romantic. It's the opposite of a trope I loathe. Some of my favorites: Diana and what's his name on The 4400, Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, Carter and Jo on Eureka, Peggy Carter and Jarvis (and Howard Stark) on Agent Carter, Pete and Myka until they fucked it up on Warehouse 13, and Artie and Claudia on W13, Abbie and Crane on Sleepy Hollow (please lord), and all of the variations on Person of Interest. I like friendship and mutual respect.

I'm fine with this trope for white men/white women, because you're right that the default is always to stick them in a relationship. You should add Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows from the original CSI lineup to your list; Grissom did get involved with another character, but she wasn't the lead.

That said: I think when it comes to white men/women of colour, making them platonic, "no romance here; yuck!" IS the trope. And I know Fitz and Olivia will be brought up here, but a) that relationship was established from the beginning, which is different the the "man and woman are partners, than something more" trope discussed here; b) that is a toxic relationship I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy; c) Shonda shows regularly subvert this trope because she's a WOC herself and knows damn well other show runners are too chicken-shit to go there.

So the tropes I like are: "white men/white women leads start off as partners and become platonic friends only," but "white men/women of colour leads start off as partners but are fated to become the romantic end-game couple." Precisely because each of these are the rare tropes that go against the default story lines on most shows.

I don't think these two tropes can be conflated; the race of the woman being considered for the white male lead makes a significant impact on how far most shows are willing to go with the possibility of real romance, as opposed to only teasing it to keep viewers invested.

Edited by Miss Dee
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That was inherent in the pronunciation.

 

The Internal Affairs in the police department are always the bad guys preventing the good guys from doing their job. Forget about independent oversight or making sure that you just didn't shoot someone for the hell of it. They aren't on the streets. They don't know, man.

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I'm fine with this trope for white men/white women, because you're right that the default is always to stick them in a relationship. You should add Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows from the original CSI lineup to your list; Grissom did get involved with another character, but she wasn't the lead.

That said: I think when it comes to white men/women of colour, making them platonic, "no romance here; yuck!" IS the trope. And I know Fitz and Olivia will be brought up here, but a) that relationship was established from the beginning, which is different the the "man and woman are partners, than something more" trope discussed here; b) that is a toxic relationship I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy; c) Shonda shows regularly subvert this trope because she's a WOC herself and knows damn well other show runners are too chicken-shit to go there.

So the tropes I like are: "white men/white women leads start off as partners and become platonic friends only," but "white men/women of colour leads start off as partners but are fated to become the romantic end-game couple." Precisely because each of these are the rare tropes that go against the default story lines on most shows.

I don't think these two tropes can be conflated; the race of the woman being considered for the white male lead makes a significant impact on how far most shows are willing to go with the possibility of real romance, as opposed to only teasing it to keep viewers invested.

Part of the reason why Warehouse 13 final season had such a revolt. The male/female lead had been "just partners" for the entire storyline and even when each-hi jinks happened and they occasionally ended up in bed together with no memory or whatnot they were always hell bent on proving they didn't do it or weren't in love. Then the final season happen and suffenly they were oh so perfect and in love.

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 Grandma Walton had a stroke, as her actress Ellen Corby did. 

Sports Night wrote in Robert Guillaume's real life stroke, as well.   The character was off for several episodes while the actor was recuperating and then the show consistently dealt with the after affects of the stroke in the second season.  

 

And speaking of Sorkin shows, Jed Bartlet had relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis because Sorkin couldn't give President Bartlet the flu as an excuse to have him watch daytime TV.  It had to be something far more dramatic than that.   That said?  17 people?  The episode where Toby finds out about the MS?  My favorite episode ever (sorry Two Cathedrals).   

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It's not just that. Being platonic, caring friends was literally canon, as in that episode where they were in bed, Myka actually said: this is how I feel about you. 

 

The real reason TPTBs jarringly shoved Pete/Myka into everyone's face was because they were afraid of catching teh ghey from Myka and HG Wells. Let's face it, that's the show OTP by about 17 light years. So they were pissed about it, and broke their toy so no one else could play with it. Basically ruining the show. 

 

I mean "zomg I'm in lurve with Pete!" Because that's how it happens. *eyeroll*

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Elliott and Olivia were never a couple on L&O:SVU, and I don't recall there ever being any sexual tension between them.

Yes, and I loved that about them.  Once He left there was nothing there that appealed to me.

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These three won't cause me to stop watching a show, but they will make my blood boil until I end up accepting that it's where the show is going for the time being:

 

1.  A character's SO has an affair with someone else, and that character is going to make the other person's life hell.  Not the SO--the other person.

 

2.  A grown adult makes a decision involving another person that their loved one (friend, parent, sibling, whatever) hates.  This grown adult ends up dying in a horrible accident and the loved one is going to make the third person, the one they hated, pay dearly for it.

 

3.  During a natural disaster, the guy trying to be a hero tries to save a friend's SO.  When he gets there, the SO is so far gone that there's no way he/she is going to survive. Others, however, can be saved, so the hero leaves to help them.  When the SO dies, the person left behind is so angry that he/she promises to make the person who left pay dearly. 

 

There's a fourth scenario, but you get the point.  I know, it builds drama and keeps the storyline going.  I know in real life there's survivors guilt and the need to blame someone else instead of the one who truly deserves the blame, but damn if doesn't make me grind my teeth from time to time. 

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These three won't cause me to stop watching a show, but they will make my blood boil until I end up accepting that it's where the show is going for the time being:

 

1.  A character's SO has an affair with someone else, and that character is going to make the other person's life hell.  Not the SO--the other person.

 

2.  A grown adult makes a decision involving another person that their loved one (friend, parent, sibling, whatever) hates.  This grown adult ends up dying in a horrible accident and the loved one is going to make the third person, the one they hated, pay dearly for it.

 

3.  During a natural disaster, the guy trying to be a hero tries to save a friend's SO.  When he gets there, the SO is so far gone that there's no way he/she is going to survive. Others, however, can be saved, so the hero leaves to help them.  When the SO dies, the person left behind is so angry that he/she promises to make the person who left pay dearly. 

 

There's a fourth scenario, but you get the point.  I know, it builds drama and keeps the storyline going.  I know in real life there's survivors guilt and the need to blame someone else instead of the one who truly deserves the blame, but damn if doesn't make me grind my teeth from time to time. 

 

I've also noticed an ugly trend how when a husband cheats on his wife, his wife is always somehow to blame, whether it's by other characters or viewers. It's always for a dumb myriad of reasons: She wasn't exciting enough, she didn't want to have sex every damn night, she kept the same hairstyle for too long, her cooking's not that great, she's too ambitious (ugh), or, the one that really pisses me off, she was "arrogant" and "took their love for granted" by assuming the husband would never cheat (uh, that sounds like trust and confidence to me). Shouldn't the husband bear the blame? After all, he's the one who chose to stray!

Edited by Wiendish Fitch
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I've also noticed an ugly trend how when a husband cheats on his wife, his wife is always somehow to blame, whether it's by other characters or viewers. It's always for a dumb myriad of reasons: She wasn't exciting enough, she didn't want to have sex every damn night, she kept the same hairstyle for too long, her cooking's not that great, she's too ambitious (ugh), or, the one that really pisses me off, she was "arrogant" and "took their love for granted" by assuming the husband would never cheat (uh, that sounds like trust and confidence to me). Shouldn't the husband bear the blame? After all, he's the one who chose to stray!

 

I was just reading Carolyn Hax's advice column where a man wrote that his wife had had an affair and after a long period of readjustment he decided to stay in the marriage, but now the wife is telling him that because he didn't appear angry enough about how she treated him, that must mean that he doesn't love her.

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During a natural disaster, the guy trying to be a hero tries to save a friend's SO.  When he gets there, the SO is so far gone that there's no way he/she is going to survive.

This reminds me of an old soap opera trope, that goes something like: during a disaster, the guy tries to save a friend's SO.  When he gets there, they get trapped together and think they're going to die.  Instead of trying to escape, they have sex.  Then, miraculously, they get saved, but the SO is now pregnant.  There is a tedious period (for the viewer) where we are not supposed to know whose baby it is.  Of course, it's the so-called, non-bro-code-abiding, hero's, but the SO feels so guilty that she doesn't tell and marries the original friend.  Years later, the true paternity is revealed and the poor original friend is broken-hearted because he has raised a child who isn't his.  And then he decides to leave the kid high and dry, who turns into a teenager overnight, has issues, and then once again mysteriously ages into an incredibly attractive person who will not be able to have a healthy relationship..

 

Hmm.  That paragraph started to write itself and wouldn't stop.  I should have prefaced it with a, "stop me if you've heard this one before."

 

To bring it back to this thread, I learned to hate it because it all became so damn predictable.  

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The trope I hate is setting us up for a potential big reveal only to find out, "never mind, it wasn't him/her after all.". 

 

I speak of an episode of Route 66 I just saw last night.  In the series, two guys, Buzz Murdoch and Tod Stiles travel the US in a Corvette seeking one adventure after the next.  Buzz was left in an orphanage as an infant and claimed he didn't even know his actual birthdate.  In one episode, the two find themselves in a small town in Maryland and the townspeople think Buzz looks a lot like a notorious family that lives there.  They go to see them and find a strong physical resemblence to several of them.  They mentioned there was a daughter who got knocked up and left the farm 25 years earlier for Baltimore and never contacted them again.  Buzz starts thinking this woman could be his birth mother and they follow every clue to find her.  Eventually they do, and when they meet we think Buzz has finally found out who he was and his birth date.  Except not.  Turns out the woman wasn't his mother and the child she gave birth to died of crib death at 6 weeks of age.  They hug and the guys go on their merry way.

 

It just bugs me how they could have answered at least one question about Buzz's background and they pull the rug out at the last second.

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The one I hate is that at the end of a cop show when the criminals are surrounded and have no chance of escape they still decide that getting in a shoot out with police is the best option.  I mean I know criminals usually aren't the smartest people, but best case scenario is that you shoot your way out and then the cops catch you later and tack "murder of a cop" onto the list of charges. Worst case is that you get killed. The worst are the ones where the bad guys get in these kind of shoot outs when getting arrested probably wouldn't even result in a massive jail sentence.

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