Every once in awhile, even your favorite TV show has a cliche episode that makes your eyes roll.
For me, it is “twins”…one bad/one good…one dead/the other alive…same old same old. As soon as I see the story of “…and twins…” in the capsule, I dread seeing it.
Another is the “high school reunion” episodes…always the same jock/homecoming queen drama re-hashed and the “funny” fat girl now pretty, or football hero a drunk…yawn.
What are TV plot cliches you hate?
Another variation on twins: the boy and girl who are exactly identical except for underwear content; this usually leads to one (normally the girl) passing for the other for some reason.
The “girl (it’s usually a girl) moves to new school, runs into trouble with most-popular-girls who are a bunch of braindead bimbos, but in the end she becomes super super super popular and she goes to the dance with the captain of the football team (basketball players never get laid) and everything is just SO perfect” thing; it’s like they watched Grease and never understood it (plus, no braindead bimbo presidents in Grease and Tony isn’t a football player). Sometimes combined with the “girl passes for her twin brother” thing.
There’ll be more, but why is it that whenever a spaceship/S.G. traveller; lands on a planet where a Human colony has been wiped out by a mysterious force there is ALWAYS a surviving little girl who ALWAYS hides away from the Humans even though you’d think that she’d run to them with both arms out.
The “Getting Stuck Someplace” scenario. Locked in the basement, frozen food locker, bank vault, etc. As a result of the confinement, two people learn more about each other blah blah blah.
Man is introduced to a child a never knew he had.
A man and a woman who have nothing in common or, in extreme cases, hate each other are forced to work together.
Cliches I hate:
Clip shows
Token episodes: Usually, if a cast is all black or all white, they have a “token” friend who is an ethnic minority. About once a season, the episode focuses on their problems. The ones I thought were most irritating were Alfonso Ribero on Silver Spoons, Al’s black friend on Married with Children, Apu on the Simpsons or the white neighbors on the Jeffersons. There are some good ones though like any episode of that 70’s show that features Fez.
Travel episodes, especially to Hawaii.
Resolved sexual tension. (Why did you have to marry Jeannie?!?)
Annoying kids that are picked because they’re cute (Full House, Saved by the Bell) rather than their ability to at least have some comic timing (David Faustino.)
The “It’s a Wonderful Life” and/or “Christmas Carol” dream sequence. I think the FCC required every sitcom in the 80s and 90s to do this at least once.
“I tried this miracle hair treatment/self-tanner/pain reliever/recipe and it’s utter disaster. And here comes my date/my dad/my boss/my in-laws!”
Agreed. Well, mostly. Because “Pine Barrens” is the tits.
Worse than a man and woman who hate each other but are forced to work together: man and woman realize despite all that squabbling that they are madly in love. (Hey, I have worked with some major league assholes and never ONCE did I feel any sexual tension or fall in love.)
So she could start wearing miniskirts. 
No way! Griff was the most important member of NO MA’AM and Apu is just awesome.
Foot chases where the good guy is running after the bad guy (or vice versa) and neither one can shoot worth a damn. Strangely enough, neither could hit the broad side of a barn, yet in the good guy’s case, he is often a cop who has to qualify his ability to shoot.
The ugly female who takes off her glasses and lets her hair down suddenly becomes beautiful.
Many, many (perhaps a majority) of cops can’t shoot that well.
“I know you are trying to save the world but what about our relationship!!?”
Seen most recently (by me at least) in Flash Forward. Drives me up the freaking wall and makes the women look like utterly selfish bitches.
When someone is ill and his or her family is hiding the diagnosis, the unwell person “really” knows something is wrong. I was relieved that this week’s Mad Men didn’t fall into that rut.
Any “very special episode” of any teen show where the main character either sex for the first time or has a friend killed in drunk driving accident.
Two characters are talking, then a third character shows up behind a door or something and overhears part of the conversation. The third character then proceeds to draw wildly inaccurate conclusions based on the bit of the conversation s/he heard and drama ensues.
Sword fights. 'Nuff said.
Sports scenes where the game is decided by a last second TD, or a bottom of the ninth homer, or that penalty shot called with no time on the clock (which isn’t technically possible, IMHO)
Bad guys who can’t hit the hero despite their advanced weaponry and superior numbers.
The tough cop whose partners always wind up getting killed.
The lard ass detective who runs like Jesse Owens when after a perp, generally catching him after scaling an 8 foot chain link fence.
Funny guys who shag the ladies who are way too hot for them.