You can tell what examplers are being used in TV scriptwriting courses, because those plots always seem to show up on a lot of different shows.
Many years ago it was “Our Hero/Heroine Gets Audited”. Every show seemed to have an “audited” episode. Then I realized that it might be because the writers might have a common background. I could just see the screnwriting teacher: “Come on, class, conflict is the essence of drama. Characters each react in their own individual way. What would happen if your character were suddenly presented with, say, and auditor?”
Or gets stuck in a sequestered jury. Or has to talk his way through a situation where they think he/she’s an expert. Or… well, you see. But these plots seem to come in clusters. I don’t buy into Jungian synchronicity, so I suspect common drama teachers.
A homicidal maniac/genious who seems to think that using a gun is just no fun (at least until the final showdown) goes around killing scores of young women/people they think deserve it. The FBI/NYPD/NRA can’t find him so they employ the help of an inexperienced rookie/a retired veteran with a troubled past/another beautiful young woman who happens to be a therapist/might be the next target.
I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned the"having a baby in the elevator’ episode. It’s been done on Benson, All in the Family, Night Court, ad nauseum.
To expand a little, the plot of just about every nonanimated Disney movie:
Misfit kids (of diverse ethnicity, gender, wieght, and with the obligatory handicapped one when possible) love playing sport X but are terrible. Grouchy adult Y gets stuck coaching them for some contrived reason or other. The plucky kids and grouchy coach clash at first, but then come to love each other as they work diligently to improve their skills. Meantime, mean, nasty, usually environmentally unfriendly evil team Z, who happen to be the best team in town, are mean, nasty, and environmentally unfriendly. Our heros start off poorly but get better and better until they find that they’re in the city/county/state/national finals against evil team Z. Blah blah blah, they come from behind, almost catch up thanks to stirring halftime speech from now-jovial Coach Y, and the most misfitted of the misfits beats the most evil of the evil team at the last second to win the game by one point. Heart warming ensues.
Bah!! Enough with it! It’s so damn bland!
Oh, and the other I had to mention:
Boss Hogg and/or Roscoe cook up a scheme to commit a crime and pin it on the Duke boys. Bo, Luke, and sometimes Daisy, Uncle Jesse, and/or Cooter stumble onto the plot and they all come together to foil it with a plan that requires a whole hell of a lot of driving. Oh, wait. I guess they did do away with that one already.
[Dukes of Hazzard related hijack]
I was so disappointed with how smarmy the show became in the later years. I remember how in the first episode, the Duke boys nearly got caught hauling moonshine, which violated their parole. To get money, they robbed a truck carrying slot machines and installed the machines in various businesses, pretending that they were doing it for charity. When Uncle Jesse found out, he made them actually give half the profits to charity. Now THAT’s the way the Dukes should have behaved all the time.
[/Dukes of Hazzard related hijack]
Tired Christmas TV specials
You forgot the special with the neighbor/friend who hates Christmas because they never got Present X from Santa Claus when he/she was a kid. He/she gets Present X that year and afterwards Main Character A asks Main Character B when B got the chance to buy and secretly deliver Present X. B responds that he thought A did it. Often concluded with a race to look out the window and/or jingle bell sounds.
And don’t forget the second most popular: birth in a desolate area (deserted island, cabin in woods, etc.).
Good cop is unwillingly stuck with guarding/transporting a witness/prisoner, but the dirty cops come after them, so they can’t trust anybody on the force and have to break the case themselves. (Usually both of these people have some sort of big character change during the movie, too.)
And another (“The Blues Brothers” was probably the latest of these.):
(a) Group of people are being trained for something (flying the space shuttle, being soldiers, etc.) despite many mean people’s objections, but only partway throught their training they are accidentally stuck in a situation where only they can save the day/save themselves by using their skills which, because they were too young/the wrong gender, no one else thought they would ever learn
one other thing that is so overused is the whole:
“Think it’s not possible for an SUV to cost under twenty seven five and still have standard side impact airbags?
Think no SUV comes with a built in dish drainer?
Think you only have a limited amount of money to spend on gas?
THINK AGAIN”
I mean, what are they going to say at the end of that ad other than “think again”?
My pet peeve: Octogenarian ex-Nazi villains and interracial motorcycle gangs!
Hollywood is terrified of offending people, but they HAVE to have villains. But those villains can’t be black, Hispanic, Asian, or a member of ANY other group that might complain. So, the villains have to be 90 year old ex-Nazis!
If Nazis are TOO implausible, crimes are always committed by a rainbow coalition of bad guys- preferably bikers. There has to be a black one, a CHinese one, and a Latino, but the leader has to be a white guy with a Mohawk.
TV plot: main character decides to GO INTO BUSINESS FOR THEMSELEVES. This involves food, usually cookies. Sometimes, some kind of sauce. They are sucessful but soon find they are IN OVER THERE HEADS. It is very amusing when they end up covered in flour/sauce.
The only good version of this was on Taxi, and only because it involved Andy Kaufman, concaine, and withdrawal-induced hallucinations.
The hero has a superior who’s an anal-retentive bureaucrat, who’s constantly disciplining the hero for breaking the rules. When the hero discovers a common pattern to the mysterious crimes, the superior ignores even the most blatant evidence that the hero is right, comes up with a politically convenient rationalization, and orders the hero suspended/arrested/shot when he won’t drop the case.
I see one I call the “Child in the Well” plot line.
Two typically opposing sides (Boss Hogg and the Dukes, for instance, or “Our Hero” and the person, or group of people that are always giving him/her a rough time) have to band together to achieve a goal.
Sometimes it’s a child in a well. Both sides are choked up about the kid stuck down a well, and will put aside their differences long enough to rescue said child from said well. And then (sniff sniff) learn that their “enemies” aren’t so bad after all.
There can be multiple variations on this. They can band together to fight off a villian that threatens them both, or they can band together to save the town from a natural disaster. Just about any scenario is possible.
Husband/father is sick of his job. Makes comment to wife about how easy she has it, just sittin’ at home. Wife is indignant. Both claim that their own responsibilities are the more difficult. Husband and wife switch roles for a day/week/whatever. Husband is completely overwhelmed. Sometimes the wife is too. Both parties learn their lesson.
I’m tired of the plot where Crime A is committed, Police arrest suspicious person B, Lawyers prosecute B, then at the last second, B turns out to be really innocent, Crime A commited by Person C. Person B goes free. Person B is usually either 1. Helpless Female (Lifetime is bad about this)or 2. Smartass UberBastard whom even Mother Teresa would cheerfully rip his/her intestines out slowly with a fork. (See NYPD, L&O, Horrorcide, The “Practice”)Person C is usually of some minority group known to commit crimes in the area, and was in no way referenced in the show.
A common ending in action movies: The good guy and bad guy engage in a fistfight. The good guy wins. But lo! the bad guy pulls out a gun from somewhere and goes to blow the good guy away. The good guy sees it just in time and BLAM! he blows the bad guy away just before he gets shot himself. Think: Die Hard, Blue Streak, Lethal Weapon, etc.
And the elevator is stuck because somebody bumped into the button that says “push to stop” and they can’t get it going again and either that baby thing happens and some macho guy passes out while watching or else two people who can’t stand each other are forced to confront their issues and leave the elevator best friends. Or both, if the elevator is big enough.
When I was in the elevator business we were transitioning from “push to stop” to “pull to stop,” which can’t be bumped accidentally. I accused management of attempting to destroy the sitcom industry.
How about when the disgruntled worker lets off some steam by writing his/her boss a very nasty letter. Disgruntled worker then goes to sleep or something, and their helpful spouse/friend/child mails the letter. Doh!! Now the guy must get that letter back, and will stop at nothing to prevent the boss from reading it. Of course, tampering with the mail is a Federal Offense, and the mailman can’t just give the letter back, so the poor worker gets himself into all kinds of situations (one of them invariably involving the bosses glasses) to prevent the letter from being read. Of course, in the end, either the boss reads the letter and commends the worker for his ‘guts’, or the worker actually gets the letter back mere seconds before the boss is to read it.
I remember once seeing that plot in two separate shows, one airing right after the other. One was Laverne and Shirley, and the other might have been Three’s Company. I know I have also seen it on The Flintstones and The Simpsons.
Rose
