24 Overused TV Tropes We’re Drained Of
TV series can be impressively inventive and surprising. The best shows offer captivating storylines and compelling characters. However, some shows aren’t as creative and rely on familiar tropes that make audiences yawn in annoyance.
We get it, tropes can be fun and engaging. They can also be bland and uninspired, with many viewers finding some common TV tropes totally washed-up.
1. Disastrous Weddings
Whenever there is an important wedding in a sitcom, everything goes wrong. They lost the dress, they destroyed the flowers, or an elevator trapped the groom. The trope was enthralling at first, but it’s been painfully overdone.
The same goes for births, as the father is always stuck in traffic or the mom goes into labor on an airplane.
2. Surprise Survival
Nothing bums us out like a beloved character dying, but it has to happen sometimes. Well, an emotional character death loses all depth and intrigue when the character miraculously appears alive and well in the next episode or season.
It’s not a shocking twist — it’s a lazy trope.
3. Love Triangles
While love triangles can be somewhat realistic and entertaining, they seem to be a crutch for many TV writers.
Whenever they need to shake things up and create drama, they just throw in a third person to complicate a romance, which can ruin our love for certain characters and couples.
4. Unnecessary Miscommunication
We’re all tired of this one. Since the dawn of time, sitcoms have relied on simple miscommunications to drive the plot. It made more sense when smartphones weren’t around, but it was still weak.
Conflict that characters could resolve with one clarifying sentence or a quick text is boring for viewers.
5. Slow-Burn Romances
To be clear, we love a thoughtful and romantic slow-burn. But many sitcoms rely on the will-they-won’t-they dynamic too much. It becomes painfully apparent and takes all the excitement out of the couple.
It’s especially annoying when nothing is stopping the couple from being together!
6. Special Guest Star Murderers
Shows like Law & Order often have special guest stars who are major actors. It’s exciting for viewers to see a familiar face!
But at this point, when you see a big star in one of these shows, it’s almost guaranteed that they’re either the suspect or the victim, which takes the mystery out of the episode.
7. “English, please?”
We’re begging TV writers to stop doing this one. Characters use this phrase when a nerdy character or academic person says something complex and technical. Someone listening turns to the intelligent character with a puzzled look and irritatingly says, “English, please?”
It’s not funny, and it’s kind of rude.
8. Walking Off Fatal Injuries
Adrenaline can definitely help humans do insane things, but some shows rely on this idea too much. When a character stabs someone in the stomach or shoots them in the chest, the odds of them being able to stand up, let alone run after a villain, are low.
People can’t just walk off a fatal injury!
9. Dream Fakeouts
You’ve all seen a movie or show that takes you on a wild ride, only for the ethereal music and wavy transition to reveal that “it was all a dream…”
This trope was striking initially, but it’s become so common that it frustrates audiences. It makes us feel like we’ve been ripped off or duped.
10. Gay Panic Jokes
Sadly, some of the most loved shows, like How I Met Your Mother, are guilty of this.
Gay panic jokes are when two characters of the same gender are vulnerable with one another or in close proximity, and they make a huge deal out of how they aren’t gay.
11. Mirror Pep Talks
Has anyone actually ever given themselves a pep talk aloud while looking in the mirror?
TV shows use this trope to convey the main character’s state of mind to the audience, but it just feels awkward and sloppy. These pep talks always conveniently and perfectly set up the exposition for us.
12. Distracted Driving
We get a little stressed when a character drives while barely looking at the road. In a show, the driver will take their eyes off the road to look at the passenger during a conversation, which we may do in real life.
But they look away for five seconds or so at a time, which is ridiculously dangerous and unrealistic.
13. Flanderization
Many sitcom fans are tired of Flanderization. It’s when characters become exaggerated caricatures of themselves in the later seasons of a show.
Their unique traits are aggressively amplified, and they become woefully unrealistic. This often happens when a show runs out of steam and storylines.
14. Secret Twins
Daytime soap operas have been using this trope for decades, so it’s surprising that more reputable shows still lean on it. Television series use the secret twin to explain so many fantastical plots.
It’s disappointing when we were hoping for a genuinely clever resolve, not this overused and absurd idea.
15. Unlimited Bullets
Some guns only hold one bullet at a time; some have as many as 17 rounds. We don’t care what kind of gun the writers want to give the character, but we do care when they fire 25+ bullets and never have to reload.
Archer does an excellent job of avoiding the unlimited bullets trope, and other shows should take notes.
16. The President Appearing
Nothing is truly serious in action and espionage shows until the United States president shows up. It feels like writers don’t think we’ll take the threat or conflict seriously until POTUS walks in and tells us it’s bad.
There are other ways to convey the severity of a situation!
17. Knocking People Out
TV shows imply that a foolproof way to safely make someone unconscious is to bop them on the head with something hard and heavy. First of all, hitting someone’s skull hard could very easily kill them.
Second, it is not at all guaranteed they’ll pass out! And third, if it did work, they wouldn’t wake up like nothing happened; they’d be severely concussed.
18. The Law of Inverse Fertility
This one is sad. The Law of Inverse Fertility in TV states that the more a character wants a baby, the more fertility issues they’ll have.
Characters who don’t want children can get pregnant by making eye contact for too long, while those who want to be parents experience insurmountable issues conceiving.
19. Opening With the End
Listen, we know that nonlinear storytelling can be effective and interesting.
However, too many series nowadays show us the ending at the very start of the episode or season, which can ruin the suspense and intrigue. In storytelling, it’s okay to bury the lede sometimes.
20. Token Minorities
While this trope may seem outdated, it still rears its head in modern TV all the time. Many series feature token minority characters, like a gay brother, a magical black person, or a disabled coworker.
While we realize this is a form of progress, it’s time to do better and use minority characters and actors as more than pawns for performative inclusion.
21. Chuck Cunningham Syndrome
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome is when a character disappears from a TV show without explanation.
The term comes from Chuck Cunningham’s exit from Happy Days. When this happens, audiences get no closure or clarification, and the series often retcons that they never existed, gaslighting the audience.
22. Formulaic and Repetitive Seasons
Just because something worked once doesn’t mean it will work again. It’s disappointing when writers run out of ideas, so they just retool the ones they already used.
This has happened in series like Archer, Scream Queens, and Shameless, where one season closely mimics a previous one, giving the viewer a dull deja vu feeling.
23. Special Pregnancies and Babies
When a sitcom starts to run out of steam, they often bring in a pregnancy and baby to spark new opportunities for storylines. While many viewers love this trope, others feel it’s a crutch writers lean on when story ideas dry up.
It’s especially frustrating when they use the pregnancy to drive the plot, but then the baby is practically nonexistent later, like in Friends.
24. Tragic Reality Show Stars
This trope refers to the tragic backgrounds of many reality TV cast members. Series like Survivor, Big Brother, and American Idol used to have relatable, average-Joe cast members. But now, every single contestant has lived the saddest, most unfortunate life.
While we feel for these folks, we’re tired of the predictably devastating backstory of every cast member.
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