Life After People/YMMV
- Adaptation Displacement - Inspired by the book The World Without Us which, due to its success and also to perhaps because it was named one of Time Magazine's Books of the Year for 2007, suddenly made this subject very popular. The National Geographic Channel also had a very similar show at the same time called Aftermath: Population Zero.
- Idiot Plot: The show essentially makes it clear that humanity literally disappears overnight, instantaneously without any actual method or cause beyond A Wizard Did It. Many of the show's points (accurate or not) are because of this otherwise impossible scenario, especially the Tear Jerker mentioned below. Especially important is the problem of ALL of humanity dying without anything else on the planet being affected, despite the fact that humanity would be one of the most resilient species on the planet in the face of catastrophes and disasters, including biological ones. Humanity's relative "immortality" is not our constructions, but our ability to survive and adapt, which is why we came to dominate the planet in the first place. Thus, anything that wipes out humanity would also wipe out a vast majority of life on Earth as well.
- The idea that most human achievements, with the exception of very sturdy and already long lasting buildings like the pyramids, will have disintegrated or be unrecognizable within a couple of thousand years, if not just a few hundred years.
- Tear Jerker: For pet lovers, at least. The pilot episode of the first month or so takes extra care to mention the millions of cats, dogs, hamsters, and fish all locked inside their houses, waiting for humans that will never show up. And then they had to show cats pawing at the doorknob and dogs scratching at loaves of bread, desperate for food.
- Also the Real Life fate of the animals in the New Orleans aquarium, nearly all of which died after Katrina because the facility was evacuated and nobody was there to keep their tanks' water from turning foul with wastes.