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Flanderization/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions
M*A*S*H pothole
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* Chloe from ''[[Smallville]]'' went from someone who was okay with computers to being able to [[Reverse Polarity|trace a bug's point of origin]], discover [[Magical Database|anything about anyone]], and she even had a shot at decoding a Kryptonian virus on her PC... when all the power on Earth had been shut off. Basically she filled in any [[Plot Hole|Plot Holes]] where the writers couldn't think of a way to get Clark to the place he needed to be. There's even an episode where Brainiac downloads its intellect into her, pretty much super-Flanderizing her computer skills.
** More than an episode. It turns out he was responsible for her intelligence going out control and she was losing more and more of herself as time went on.
* Corporal Walter "[[Hypercompetent Sidekick|Radar]]" O'Reilly in ''[[
*** Radar's turnover happened early in the first season; around the same time Ugly John and Spearchucker left the series.
** Subverted with Corporal (later Sergeant) Max Klinger, who slowly stops his attempts to get out of the army as a crossdresser. He comes up with some pretty creative alternatives, however, including attempting to eat a jeep, threatening to set himself on fire, and pretending that he's seeing the camp as Toledo, Ohio ([[Actor Allusion|Jamie Farr's hometown]]).
*** Klinger was still in the "wear dresses" stage by the time he tried to eat a jeep or set himself on fire. What's more, he seemed to [[Took a Level In Dumbass|become much more stupid]] as the series progressed.
**** [[Fridge Brilliance]] (or [[Fridge Horror]]): he was becoming more and more desperate and mentally exhausted by the horrors of war to the point where his sanity and common sense was eroding. It happened to Hawkeye, Charles, and Potter, after all.
** Frank Burns started out as a sanctimonious, hypocritical Bible-basher who spouted off on the sanctity of marriage while engaged in an adulterous relationship with Margaret Houlihan. He went from that sober, unremarkable (and somewhat boring) character to a manic paranoid hebephrenic moron (with a side order of John Birch-esque jingoism) within just a few episodes.
*** Probably one of the more destructive forms of Flanderization out there -- the writers (and Larry Linville) had painted themselves into a corner with Burns, and in the end, Linville finally decided he could not go anywhere more with the character. The writers [[Long Bus Trip|had Burns flip out and be committed to a mental hospital]], to be replaced with the surprisingly Flanderization-resistant Charles Emerson Winchester III.
*** Destructive not just for the character but also for the show as a whole. The original Frank Burns (in the book and movie) was outwardly a solid, capable, trustworthy member of the conservative "silent majority", which is how he got away with being a bad surgeon - his incompetence was obvious only in the operating room, where the brass feared to tread. Linville's Frank Burns basically wore a flashing neon "BLITHERING IDIOT" sign around his neck. This didn't only make his relationship with the higher-ups and his position as the camp's second-in-command wildly improbable, it made viewers wonder why a competent professional like Houlihan (who despite everything was ''never'' portrayed as anything less than a first-rate nurse) would give him the time of day.
**** Even more bizarrely, the producers of the TV show changed Frank's specialty from general surgery to proctology simply because they thought proctology was funny. But proctologists weren't on the list of surgical specialties eligible for the draft - a good thing, since in the 1950s most proctologists weren't actually surgeons.
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