The anti-establishment cowboy cop, who fights his anal-retentive bureaucratic superiors to do the right thing.
Just ask him first! ASK HIM! God, that’s annoying.
In real life, I’m sure if you snuck into a wedding reception for the Secretary of the Treasury’s (or any other Cabinet member’s) daughter as an imposter and then stayed with their family under false pretenses, you would be welcome in marrying his other daughters. Not beaten by Secret Service agents and locked away forever as a crazy person.
Breaking up any weding because you realize you can’t live without the other person. IRL, you would get your fucking ass KICKED.
The rich girl dating the total shmuck that her family and friends totally disapprove of. At the end, they come around and realize that her happiness is too important not to let her marry this unemployable loser.
Just to be fair, she’s rich. Why does she need an employable loser? 
Suspect gunned down on the courthouse steps by a vigilante mother (Shaft, and at least one episode of Law and Order: SVU, which for bonus points, managed to do this while playing the mother as a bad guy for it)
Any cop/detective/hospital drama has the episode where someone is either crushed or impaled by an object. Removing the object will kill them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENSE!!
In virtually all american movies, the russians are portrayed as one-dimensional, evil creatures. It really gets laughable-in the latest Indian Jones turd, the Russian woman looks like Natasha from “Rock and Bullwinkel”…“squirrel have secret documents”
Wasn’t there an episode of Grey’s Anatomy where a dude came in impaled by a live bomb or something?
Which, incidentally, I’m told happens from time to time in warzones, where some poor dude gets hit by an RPG that doesn’t go off. I’ve heard a story where this happened to a guy in Afghanistan, and they lowered him into a foxhole before they started operating so he would only take out the medical guys working on him if the warhead went off.
My JROTC instructor told us this at the beginning of class one day, then asked us if anyone felt they were having a bad day.
Character A has inadvertantly done something wrong that will have grave ramifications for Character B. Of course, Character B doesn’t know it (yet). Character B will be walking out the door, going somewhere.
Character A: Honey, there’s something I have to tell you.
Character B: What’s up?
Character A: (Pause) Nothing.
Character B walks out the door obliviously, not bothering to press the issue.
It is inevitably accompanied by a later scene in which Character B discovers the betrayal, and confronts Character A, who breaks down in tears and says:
“I wanted to tell you. I tried. I really tried, but I just couldn’t!”
Character B will of course always forgive this transgression before the end of the flick.
Oh, on that note: The EVIL/CARELESS WITH HUBRIS Americans/Military. For the full effect, the US military taking control of the situation in some crappy little foreign country (like, say, England ;)) and then proceeding to make a total cluster of things. An excellent example of this is 28 Weeks Later.
This tends to drive me nuts if it’s done in a way that doesn’t make sense, though it can be fun if done reasonably well like in StarGate (where the US Military tries to take control of the situation on a planet on the other side of the galaxy, but at least they manage to help out in the end:D)
And on a related note:
“Renegade cop and his straitlaced new partner… INTO MY OFFICE! NOW!”
I hate it when someone is bothered by something and you see them asleep, tossing and turning with a frown on their face, obviously deep in nightmare territory, and then they WAKE UP! Suddenly sitting up, eyes wide open, sweating. Sometimes accompanied with a “NO!”
Anybody in the history of the world actually do this?
I don’t think you’ve a fair assessment there. I can’t recall Spock ever trying to explore his human side. Other people tried to push him to be more like a Earthman – most typically McCoy & Chapel, but I seem to recall Uhura being gulty of it at least once – but he was having none of it.
I can’t see Odo being guilty of this either. From the very first episode he was trying to locate his people, which is rather the antithesis of trying to fit in with the solids; and once he found the other Changelings, he was torn between the instinct to be with his own kind and the desire to stay with the friends he loved and the society which he had grown up in (rather than the one which cast him out as a baby for its own purposes). (I’ll conceded that the Founders realized this was an error and apologized for it.)
I don’t think people IRL scream, “No!” but I think they may kind of gasp or something. I know I did the whole sit-up-gasping-in-fear thing last night when I dreamed I was being eaten by alligators.
Oh yes. And it’s not just “No!”.
I envy your peaceful slumber.
When Eldest Son was in elementary school, I heard him arguing with someone in his sleep. From down the hall it sounded like the adults on a Peanuts Special. All I could make out was the tone and the final, aggrieved, words.
“Oh. All. Right.”
It was kind of funny, but kind of sad to think of him losing arguments in his sleep.
Well-meaning character is charged with the care of another’s beloved pet, only to see it die. The owner won’t know the difference if the caretaker replaces the pet with one that looks just like it, right?
Two people who are always bickering and at each other’s throats are actually in love, even though they don’t know it.
Doesn’t make any sense and is used far too often.
The dumb husband and the smart wife.
Having sex once means you get pregnant.
Um… how’s that a cliche?
Only takes once.