Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: Difference between revisions

 

* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'': One of the reasons Captain James Kirk's dialogue sounds so stilted or fake is that [[William Shatner]] insisted on using varying iambic and trochaic rhythms, presumably due to his Shakespearean training. It was even parodied on ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]?''

* Maldis, a two-episode villain on ''[[Farscape]]'' once took the form of a wizard who always spoke in iambic pentameter.

* In the third season of [[White Collar]], [[Conspiracy Theorist]] Mozzie has started ''knocking on Neal's door'' in iambic pentameter.

* An entire episode of ''[[Moonlighting]]'' consisted of lines in iambic pentameter. For bonus awesome, it was a hilarious parody of ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]].''

** Or, the scene with David, Maddie, and a hotel security officer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT4LqmyjexA all speaking in Seussian rhyming couplets]:

{{smallcaps|Maddie}}: [[Lampshade Hanging|How do you do that?]]<br />

{{smallcaps|David}}: Gotta read a lot of [[Dr. Seuss]].<br />

* One episode of the ''[[The West Wing]]'' had the president and staff wondering about the mental capacity of one of the Justices of the Supreme Court after he issued comments in Iambic Tetrameter, identified positively by the writing staff.

** Ainsley Hayes apparently does this as a nervous tic, such as in this exchange from "And It's Surely to Their Credit":

'''Lionel Tribbey''': Well, not speaking in iambic pentameter might be a step in the right direction. }}

* In the 2000 ''[[Dune]]'' miniseries, the Baron Harkonnen was fond of speaking in rhyming couplets.

 

* There is a very amusing scene in the play ''[[Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet]]'', where the main character, having been sucked into ''[[Othello]]'', realizes that she is now effortlessly speaking in iambic pentameter.

I feel so eloquent and... [[Shaped Like Itself|eloquent]].<br />

My God. I think I'm on an acid trip. }}

** This reoccurs in ''Radiant Dawn'': the prince of Daein, Pelleas, once gives a speech that's mostly in this meter to his troops. Yet Bastian's verse is nowhere to be found.

* In the ''[[Halo]]'' series, the Flood intelligence Gravemind speaks in rhyming couplets of trochaic heptameter ([[Mythology Gag|seven being Bungie's]] [[Arc Number]]). This pushes its already [[Large Ham|impressive hamminess]] [[Up to Eleven]]. For example, referring to Master Chief and the Arbiter,

This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded. }}

** When Cortana asked it why it did so in Human Weakness, it simply said it was preference, as after having consumed many poets from different cultures, it grew fond of their gifts.

* The elven hero Findan from ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]] V'' speaks in various kinds of poetic metre. Many of his lines are haiku.

* In ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Order of Ecclesia]]'', every line Barlowe says between Shanoa losing her memory and {{spoiler|the beginning of his boss fight}} is in iambic pentameter.