I loved Farscape, but there were far too many plots where some alien fungus or the
like invades Moya and infects her or her inhabitants, and it boils down to a race
against time to thwart the fungus before it completely takes over the ship/inhabitants.
What is your least favorite done-to-death plot tropes in your favorite shows?
I am absolutely in love with House M.D. but the show is pretty much the same every time - someone is sick, they can’t figure out what it is, they get worse, somehow House figures out what rare or weird disease it is. There is a bit of variation, but not much. But I am sad when I miss an episode.
Not a show, but Spider-Man comics in the 60s always used the same plot:
Sometimes they took two issues to do this.
Doctor Who, which I love, usually has the same plot:
Well, on “Three’s Company,” they kept using the plot where the landlord thinks Jack is gay, and he really isn’t.
Then there was that plot on the “X-Files” where they’re finally about to explain the whole alien conspiracy, and the only person who knows the secret gets killed.
Oh, and remember how the castaways on “Gilligans’s Island” were always just about to escape, and then Gilligan did something stupid to screw it up?
Lucy wants to be in the show, Ricky won’t let her, so she comes up with some hairbrained scheme to get around him.
I had to stop watching Scrubs because it’s the same damn gushy everyone-comes-to-the-same-empty-generalization-about-life ending every episode.
Star Trek went through two of these phases. Early on in TNG, it was: The Enterprise is under threat from some (alien attack/spatial anomaly/horrific malfunction) and young Wesley saves the day, hooray!
Then, in the fourth season of Voyager, it was: The Voyager is under threat from some (alien attack/spatial anomaly/horrific malfunction) and Seven of Nine’s nanoprobes save the day, hooray!
Though it’s by no means my favourite, I was thinking about Voyager earlier today, occasioned by seeing Jeri Ryan on a magazine cover. I realized that I’d never really found her attractive, and the clumsy unsubtle way she was thrown at fans was off-putting. The overused recurring plot involving her (and the holographic doctor, and earlier on, Data) was the character spending an entire episode learning how to be human. Not only is this tedious (I’m watching for aliens and sci-fi tech; I already know how to be human), the version of human that was always considered the desirable norm was such a cliché, childish, simplified baby-boomer middle-American stereotype. Apparently being an individual was fine, as long as you were the right kind of individual.
I am always wondering if they will find that ultimate disease, the one they are always searching for, yet never finding: LUPUS!
Three’s Company also used the “someone overhears something and misinterprets it” so much it’s still considered a cliche.
And then there’s Timmy, Lassie and that damn well.
For a couple of seasons there, it seemed *Star Trek: TNG * had only two basic plots: 1) the holodeck goes nuts, and 2) a time paradox screws with the space-time continuum. However, every once in a while the writers would throw in the Emergency Back-Up Plots: 1) Data goes nuts, and 2) Q shows up and screws with the space-time continuum.
There was a Friends episode where the tall blonde walks into a room where they’re watching television, sees it’s Three’s Company and asks which episode. Chandler answers, “I think it’s the one where there is some kind of misunderstanding.” Blonde says, “OK, then we don’t need to watch it,” and turns it off.
I was reading the unfilmed Firefly scripts and one of them was remarkably similar to “The Message”: (1) Old war buddy of Mal’s shows up; (2) Buddy gets in trouble with the authorities; (3) Serenity crew gets caught in the middle. I have a feeling that if the show had gone on longer, that formula would have gotten a lot of workouts.
Also, Law & Order episodes where they prosecute some corporate executive for indirectly causing a crime-- the blood diamonds episode, the fast food sickness episode, the HMO episode, etc.
There’s pretty much the entire Dragonball series. Goku meets a new invincible seeming challenger. Goku’s buddies try to fight the new challenge and lose. Goku fights and is losing. Goku suddenly gets more powerful/figures out how to do something new. Goku wins and the challenger joins him, and from that point on can’t fight worth a crap. Rinse, repeat.
Of course it never happened in a single episode, usually about 12.
Same show, different plot device: Jack and one of the roommates behind closed doors, doing something innocuous (like rearranging the bed). The other roommate is listening in on the other side of the door:
“Oh, put it right there, Jack!”
“You like that?”
“Yes!”
and etc
Whereas my most overused SDMB plot device is posting something that’s already been mentioned. :smack:
Sam gets choked an awful lot on Supernatural. (Of course, he’s very sexy while it’s happening, so it’s all good.)
And then, my top hated plot device: Kim’s in peril (again? Must be Tuesday) on 24.
Let’s not forget the cruel monotony that was watching Halvsie run around in circles for 30 minutes every episode.
But that led to the classic Seinfeld bit where Kramer is acting like a dog and barks out that there’s trouble at the Old Mill Restaurant.
Having never seen Lassie, I wouldn’t have appreciated the Seinfeld bit without the cliche being part of common usage.
I was happy when Criminal Minds broke the cliche of “the team finding the hostages at the last possible minute before anything really goes wrong” a couple weeks ago when the show actually had one of the hostages dying as the kidnapper wanted.
Anyone remember **Kung Fu[/B]?
He walks into town, meets girl, gets in a fight, kicks everyone’s ass, walks out of town (intermix with various “snatch the pebble from my hand” flashbacks)… Every week.