Can You Hear Me Now?: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

With the advent of the computer age, writers still don't quite know how to work [[Cell Phone]]s into a story. It used to be all you had to do for a survival adventure story was plop a bunch of people away from electricity to completely strand them at the mercy of wild animals''/''[[Ax Crazy|serial killers]]''/''zombies—but cell phones are making that [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH2B9F-GPm0 harder and harder for writers to do believably]. Even in comedy situations, there are some plotlines (such as [[Locked in a Room]]) that only work if the characters don't have cellphones. This means that cellphones are [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0 lost, broken, stolen, and run out of power far more than they should ]. The range of cellphones are also ridiculously reduced from what they are in real life—maybe writers are confusing them with two-way radios, or don't realise that most modern phones allow long-distance and international calls. Or, you know, maybe they're deliberately using [[Artistic License]] to artificially [[Drama-Preserving Handicap|preserve the drama.]]

* ''I Can't Believe it's not the [[Justice League of America|Justice League]]!'' has the Super Buddies sent by [[Booster Gold]] to 'the deepest, darkest pits of Hell! (muahahaha!)' and are able to call their headquarters. It's [[Lampshaded]] when Max Lord immediately demands to know what service they have.

* Operatives on the [[Global Frequency]] had ''really'' cool phones that appeared to use their own satellite network and give users access to any electronic resource Aleph could hack into. They also had audio/video capabilities that were terribly advanced when the graphic novels came out, but in late 2009 seem roughly on par with high-end iPhones and the like.

** Which proves that writers don't need to bypass cell phones to create tension; ''these'' geeks '''kick''' '''''ass''''', but they still get into trouble the phones can't gimmick them out of.

* In ''[[Planetary]]'', the Drummer receives a cell call while on the Authority's extradimensional spaceship/headquarters. Possibly justified in that the Drummer's superpower is control over information and information transmission.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' occasionally used the Sonic Screwdriver or other alien tech to give a phone Universal Roaming, allowing them to make a call from anywhere, anywhen to anywhere, anywhen. Without any special dialling code or anything. Possibly justified if they were modified to relay from the TARDIS, which is a sentient, telepathic time machine... in a phone box. Only interference either from [[Satan]] or the nearby black hole in "The Impossible Planet" was able to put it out of range.

* Any cell phone can be used to summon [[The Devil]] in [[Reaper]], provided that you know his personal cell number. [[Justified]] though, as a magic ritual is involved in this procedure. The phone is merely the conduit.