39,327
edits
New Neighbours as the Plot Demands: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Dai-Guard moved page New Neighbours As the Plot Demands to New Neighbours as the Plot Demands: Lowercase prepositions) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
A [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Geographic Flexibility]], when writing a small town setting for long enough, you start introducing [[Remember the New Guy?|new characters everyone apparently knows, but has never mentioned before]]. In [[Police Procedural]] and medical shows, new neighbours are handy for [[Ripped from the Headlines]] and [[Freaks of the Week]] plots.
Can be a feature of a [[Quirky Town]]. If the city was larger, it'd be a [[City of Adventure]]. See also [[Twenty-Four-Hour Party People]], [[Long-Lost Uncle Aesop]], and [[Remember the New Guy?]].
{{examples}}
Line 18:
* Early seasons of ''[[Smallville]]'' had a new meteor rock freak every week.
* ''Everwood'', including the flavor of the week patients.
* British police show ''[[Heartbeat]]'' takes place in a small town of Ashfordly, which seems to have a ready supply of people committing various crimes, and in later seasons [[Writer
* ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'', complete with one of the new characters dying in the episode they are introduced. Seems like Cabot Cove is the murder capital of the east coast.
* Cardale in ''Peak Practice'', another medical show example. Possibly lampshaded in one episode:
{{quote| "Who'd have thought we had a world class jazz musician in our town?"}}
* The characters of Kate and her family in ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' have apparently lived in Locksley all their lives, even though it's a reasonably small village and they've never been seen or referenced before Season Three.
* The "small town" of ''[[Eureka]]'' keeps adding new characters to the point where Carter, who's been there approximately five years by now, still doesn't know everyone (or even, apparently, most people).
* ''[[Midsomer Murders]]'' takes an entire county of small towns as its setting, but it's been running so long that this is a problem anyway.
Line 31:
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In the first few days of playing ''[[Animal Crossing]]'', a new neighbor moves in every day.
* ''[[
* Arguably [[The Sims]], in particularly The Sims 2 and 3 if you're following the stories of the Maxis/EA premade families.
Line 38:
** Also, neighbors of the Simpsons (aside from the Flanders) occasionally appear at random, then disappear, never to be mentioned again.
*** Although this too has settled down a little. Flanders lives on one side, Laura Powers lived on the other side (until that house was bought by {{spoiler|Sideshow Bob wearing someone else's face}}, with a brief mention of Powers leaving). More distant neighbors are seldom specified, although Mrs Glick seems to live on the same street somewhere and the house across the road was once owned by George Bush Senior and then by Gerald Ford.
* ''[[Fillmore]]'' reuses the faces of previous episodes' characters, but they never speak or do anything of importance. Outside the safety patrol itself, no character features in more than one episode, [[Remember the New Guy?|even those who have a history with the regulars]].
{{reflist}}
| |||