My dad laughed that only in hollywood does messy hair and thick glasses make a girl ugly.
There’s also this old joke/story/urban legend:
Dog comes in with neighbor’s dead, dirty rabbit
Dog owner freaks out, cleans up corpse, sneaks into neighbors yard and puts it back in the hutch
Cue neighbors’ asking what sick fuck would dig up their recently naturally deceased rabbit and put it back in the cage to scare the kids, crying in the background
There’s similar ones with goldfish and such. Often like a version of O. Henry’s the Gift of the Magi
Sluggy Freelance did it ages ago.
One thing I like about *CSI *is that they don’t just do this with women. Not that I like the plot device, but at least they did it with Nick too (and he cried about it–nice to see a tough male cop cry. Doesn’t seem to happen that often.)
I remember that episode, the villain was saying something along the lines of “Nobody ever listened to me!” while holding him at gunpoint.
His reply was a teary “I’m a very good listener…”
I think that was every third episode of Firefly.
Does this one count if the show is in fact about a group of smugglers and thieves?
There was also an episode of Quincy, where he used his medical expertise to point out problems in the evidence. My dad told me that he’d never have gotten on the jury to begin with because of said training. At best they would have just brought him on as a witness/expert, and at worst he would have caused a mistrial.
Of course, the guy who played Quincy was one of the jurors in 12 Angry Men.
Spilling someone’s ashes, which happened on Frasier, Murphy Brown, and they pretended it happened on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. (Sorry if someone else has said this first; I don’t have time to read all the posts.)
Or <insert youth culture craze here>. Kids are dropping dead at these “Raves”. We have to infiltrate the Raves! Kids are dropping dead from playing video games! We have to infiltrate video games! Kids are dropping dead during the school play! We have to infiltrate school plays!
I saw the Step by Step version of this episode recently, and it led me to an idea why this happens. I looked up the actress, and she herself is rather girly now in all her publicity stuff. So my guess is that, when cast as a kid, the actor doesn’t mind being a tomboy, even if she really isn’t, but, later on, she wants to be more girly. Plus, as the show goes on, the actors get more and more say. So eventually they use the plot device you indicate so her character can change.
I hate the psychic or UFO episodes. It seems like every drama in the seventies had one.
When you’re wiring a bomb, you want wire with different colors, so you don’t wire it incorrectly. Bomb-making is the kind of thing you can only do wrong once. What I don’t get is why TV bombs are all wired the same. It’s not like there’s a bomb making manual that states you must always use a red wire between these two componants.
It’s kind of funny-- not that specific in plot but I think each CSI has now done a roller derby episode as well as Bones and a slew of sitcoms.
I haven’t seen it in years, but it used to be when a series started getting stale the characters would get to be part of some talent show.
A special episode where the guest stars all happen to be stars of the same show. I recall Diagnosis Murder doing this with the cast of MAS*H.
The incompetent shooting of the bad guys. Really, you’ve got six guys with Uzis firing away at the hero as he runs for covers. And you miss every single time? And he picks off the baddies one by one with a handgun?
Don’t forget Homer Simpson. (His reason for holding out was a bit less noble though)
Three quarters of the people here should never watch Arrow.
Tonight on Hack–to catch an international diamond smuggler, Hack has to BECOME an international diamond smuggler.
Next week on Hack–to catch a loan shark, Hack has to BECOME a loan shark.
Next month on Hack–to catch a rapist, Hack has to BECOME a rapist.
(Of course in real life, Hack always becomes a rapist)
I haven’t seen Arrow or CW-sibling The Vampire Diaries fall into many cliche plots. In fact, most of why I watch the latter show (past Nina Dobrev and Kat Graham) is the show seems to go barreling towards them and then swerves. The characters still make stupid, often incredibly illogical moves, usually by people who - having lived centuries - should know better, but they’re different stupid moves.
The Tomorrow People, on the other hand…
Yep. It’s particularly egregious when the hero knows that he’s facing multiple mooks, with automatic weapons, and his plan was to run and dodge, while using only a handgun himself.
It’s the dumbest plan ever, and has no right to work no matter what skillz the hero has. Yet every time it does.
JAG has done both. The UFO episode turned out to be some guys faking UFOs to throw people off of what they were really doing. They even did the X-Files Believer/Skeptic dynamic, but reversed so that the male lead was the skeptic and the attractive female was the believer.
IIRC, the psychic episode turned out to be a real thing, but then, Mac is awesome and can do pretty much anything the plot demands of her. I think they only ever did anything with that once or twice.
Well, it makes sense that the bombs would have a consistent design, especially if they’re professionally made bombs (as in something military personnel would use, rather than a would-be terrorist or resistance fighter working in his garage). Pretty much for the same reasons you’d have the wires different colors, plus the whole mass production thing.
There was an episode of Stargate SG1 where the team had to diffuse one of their own nukes when they primed it and then realized that setting it off would be a terrible idea (long story). O’Neill cracks open the case and prepares to cut red wire as instructed, only to realize that all of the wires are the same color (contrary to the instructions the bomb tech back home is reading from).
“You know, I’d like to take this opportunity to say that this is a very poorly designed bomb, and I think we should say something to somebody about it when we get back.”
Speaking of which …
How come I’ve reached 40 without ever once seeing an elevator with an emergency stop button?