Always on Duty: Difference between revisions
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In fiction, this doesn't seem to be the case. The [[Cool Starship]] runs into the [[Negative Space Wedgie]], and who has the watch? [[The Hero|Lieutenant Hero]], [[Ensign Newbie]], and [[Mauve Shirt|Helmsman Recurring]]. A crime occurs? It's always our usual squad sent to find out what happened.
There also exists a tendency for senior members of the organization to be at the controlling station all of the time. [[The Captain]] may be responsible for the whole ship, but seems to spend all her time on the bridge, for no stated reason. This is realistic in some
The reason for this is clear enough: Unless your production has [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], there's only so many people who can be shown at a time. Even then, its hard to make the audience care about all of them at once. So while having rotating watch stations would be realistic, it is hard to do well.
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*** Lampshaded on one occasion where O'Neill gets in, from leave, just as an Offworld Activation is going on. Teal'c, Daniel, and Sam are already in the control room. O'Neill points out that he just got in ''early'', and asks what the others are doing there. Teal'c still lives on base at this point, Daniel says he came in as soon as he heard someone new was dialing in (though it's implied he never left the base), and Sam...well, she had been working so late that ''she hadn't left yet''. This distresses O'Neill, who had apparently ordered her to get a life.
* A throwaway line [[Early Installment Weirdness|early on]] in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' once references an officer who mans the control center during the night shift, as part of an attempt to avert this trope. That said, we never see or hear of that officer outside that one line, and whenever we see [[The Bridge|Command and Control]] during the night, it is almost always being run by [[The Lancer|Commander Ivanova]] and [[Bridge Bunnies|Lieutenant Corwin]].
* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Discworld]]'' City Watch novels, where Vimes's insistance that he's always on duty is the despair of his wife, Carrot is always on duty because Vimes is, and Nobby and Colon are sufficient [[Weirdness Magnet
* The various lieutenants of homicide who appeared on ''[[Perry Mason]]'' seemed to show up at every murder (or, occasionally, suicide) that occurred in [[Los Angeles|L. A.]], despite the time of day or night.
* Jack Webb did his best to avert this in ''[[Dragnet]]'' and ''[[Adam-12]]''. It is made clear that our main characters are one team out of many working one shift out of many and that just as much happens off-camera as on. Similarly averted on ''[[Emergency]]''.
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