Non-Indicative Name/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Non-Indicative Names in Live-Action TV include:

  • Doctor Who: "Remembrance of the Daleks" had a futuristic-tech-looking device called the Hand of Omega, which didn't look anything like a hand. As the Doctor says: "Time Lords are capable of infinite pretension."
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The "scythe" Buffy finds in the last episodes is actually an axe.
  • Star Trek:
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
      • The station has these things called orbs. For some reason they look like crystal hourglasses. Aren't orbs supposed to be spherical? They're also called the Tears of the Prophets, but don't look much like teardrops, either.
      • The Prophets themselves are the Bajorans' gods, while the word "prophet" actually means "one who speaks for a god".
      • For that matter, Sisko is called Emissary, which isn't really accurate. An "emissary" is a person who is sent somewhere to represent the interests of someone else. Emissaries are trusted to use their own judgement to achieve said mission. Sisko is told several times that he is meant to act as a mouthpiece and nothing else. His attempts at initiative in Bajoran religious matters backfire. Every time.
      • And the station isn't in deep space at all; it's quite close to an inhabited planet. It's pointed out in one episode how "human-centric" the name is, as it refers to how far from "Earth" the station is.
    • In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data's pet cat Spot is not a spotted cat; she is a tabby with light orange fur.
  • Mike Myers' character Linda Richman would occasionally throw out one of these for audience discussion when overcome with emotion. Examples include peanuts, Rhode Island, and the Holy Roman Empire.
    • Also Duran Duran, which is apparently neither a Duran nor a Duran.
  • Two-thirds of Saturday Night Live airs on Sunday morning in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones. Also, NBC's Late Night airs completely during the early morning.
    • Also, the Brazilian version of SNL will air on Sundays.
  • The eponymous hotel in Fawlty Towers was not in any way even a single tower.
    • The towers were, one might say... Faulty?
  • A number of movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
    • The B-movie The Brain That Wouldn't Die. A more fitting title would be The Brain That Desperately Wanted To Die, But Wasn't Allowed To.
      • Furthermore, the eponymous character is technically an entire head, not just a brain.
      • The ending credits list the title as The Head that Wouldn't Die, contradicting the opening credits.
    • The Undead did not feature any ghosts, mummies, zombies, vampires, or undead creatures of any sort.
    • There was nothing Satanic about Devil Doll.
    • None of the children in The Space Children were from space, or ever went into space, for that matter.
    • Boggy Creek 2 was actually the third Boggy Creek movie. Of course, the second film was made by different people, so this could be Canon Discontinuity on the part of the crew who made the third movie.
    • Future War: as Crow puts it, "It's not the future, and there isn't a war, but you know me; I don't like to complain."
    • For a superhero called Puma Man, the guy seemed to have a large number of powers that didn't seem all that relevant to pumas.

Mike: I hate to be picky, but I don't think pumas are really known for flying...

    • The Thing That Couldn't Die, a movie about a thing that... well... dies...
    • The eponymous aliens of Pod People don't look like people and don't spend any time in pods. To quote Dr. Forrester:

It has nothing to do with pods. It has nothing to do with people. It has everything to do with hurting.

    • The Dead Talk Back, about a murder victim whose spirit calls from the afterlife to finger her killer... except it all turns out to be a hoax on the part of the investigating scientist. She never really talks back.
    • Teenage Crimewave: For starters, the people in the movie are clearly not teenagers. Even if we assume an extreme case of Dawson Casting, there isn't really a crime wave either; just a mugging followed by the crooks busting out of prison.
    • Teenagers From Outer Space: See Teenage Crimewave above. The title only fits if one assumes an extreme case of Dawson Casting.
    • Teenage Caveman: Ditto.
    • High School Big Shot: Far from being a big shot, the kid at the center of the story is a complete loser. However, in this case, the title was probably meant to be ironic.
    • The Indestructible Man: Got destroyed.
    • Santa Claus does not conquer the Martians. He foils the evil plan of a few of them though.
    • It Conquered The World: It couldn't even conquer a small town.
    • Beginning of the End: The grasshoppers do not, in fact, bring about the apocalypse.
    • Village of the Giants: The giants are from out of town.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus itself, but that's really more of a Word Salad Title. They did, however, do a serious investigative news show called Ethel the Frog in one sketch, perhaps as a nod to The BBC's habit of using nonindicative titles.
    • Another sketch has Blood, Devastation, Death, War, and Horror, a completely tame chat show.
    • Six human, ground-bound men (no pythons, or even snakes of any sort), none of whom are named "Monty," and they perform a sketch comedy show without barnstorming, trapezes, lion tamers, a ringleader, or any references at all to the greatest show on earth. That's pretty non-indicative for four words.
      • You might even call it a meta-indicative title, as the fact that it is a non-indicative title is itself indicative of the content of the show.
  • Several real-life examples are parodied in Mitchell and Webb's "explorer" sketches. Mitchell plays whatever famous explorer discovered and named the area, and Webb plays his second-in-command who points out the obvious disconnect between the name and the place, but ends up having to give in because he's not "the captain."

Webb: Captain, the Lord has delivered us to a truly wondrous land! Lush subtropical plains stretch out as far as the eye can see. It's ninety degrees in the shade even though it's November, there are herds of seven-foot-tall two-legged creatures bouncing across the landscape at tremendous speeds.
Mitchell: Yes. Do you know where it reminds me of? Wales.

  • Brazilian TV Globo broadcasts three soap operas every day except Sunday: 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock, and 8 o'clock. The last one, however, rarely begins at an hour starting with 8 nowadays (due to the news program that precedes it - the delay gets even worse during election period). A common joke is to describe it as "the 8 o'clock soap opera that starts at 9".
  • In 19 years, when have any of the Power Rangers actually performed the duties of a "ranger"? That is, when have any of them ever helped oversee a national park or conducted guerrilla warfare in a forest environment? Then again, a show about park rangers in brightly-colored spandex probably wouldn't be very successful...
    • Power Rangers Zeo's main villain was KING Mondo, ruler of the Machine EMPIRE.
    • The grand prize goes to Treacheron from Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. He's one of the most loyal evil lieutenants in the franchise's history.
  • "Strangers with Candy" is not (typically) about strangers or candy. The show is meant to parody "After School Specials" that are known to drop Anvilicious Stock Aesops on school-age kids, one of the most obvious being "never accept candy from strangers." The title also may refer to the Comedic Sociopath leads; accepting candy from Jerri Blank is probably never a good idea.
  • Psychoville is set all across England, and not in any specific town. The name is, in fact, derived from the title given to foreign releases of The League of Gentlemen, which is set in a specific town, and is not about a league, nor are many of the characters particularly gentlemanly. The title actually refers to the writers.
  • Parodied in an early episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun; during one of their rooftop chats, Harry muses "Why do they call it a fur coat? It's not really fur, and it's not really a coat". Tommy then explains to him that it actually is both those things.
  • Blake's 7, for the last two of its four seasons, was noticeably missing Blake. With the exception of the stunning final episode.
    • And there usually weren't seven of them: The number was usually fudged to mean either six humans and a computer, or five humans and two computers. For part of the series, though, there were six humans and two computers, so... you figure it out.
  • Many fans of Terriers attributed its low ratings and cancellation to the title, which gave the (incorrect) impression that it involved dogs, while failing to convey that it was a noir-ish detective series. Had it been renewed, it might have been re-titled Beach Dicks.
  • Similarly, Cougar Town stopped being about middle-aged women chasing younger men (with the exception of one minor recurring character) after the first few episodes. The makers seriously considered re-titling it, but in the end stayed with the Artifact Title. They do, however, mock the title in the title card every week.
    • Neither is it about a town populated by the large, North American feline.
      • Lampshaded in an episode where the characters steal a sculpture of a cougar from the college one of them attends: "Why does this school even have a cougar? Nothing here has anything to do with cougars." The title card joke that week also says, "Pay attention. The title: Cougar Town almost makes sense this week!"
  • Many of the artists who appeared on MTV Unplugged played electric instruments that were, indeed, plugged in, although the musical arrangements were usually softer and more laid-back than expected from the artists. MTV Turned Down would have been a more accurate name.
  • Played for laughs during a performance of Scenes From a Hat on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Suggestion: What's really going through president Bush's mind during Cabinet meetings.
Colin Mochrie: There isn't even a cabinet in here...

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