Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,516
edits
Status Quo Is God: Difference between revisions
"over the past decade or so" -> "in the early 21st century"
(This page was getting big, with some very large sections. Moved all of the examples to subpages.) Tag: Replaced |
("over the past decade or so" -> "in the early 21st century") |
||
Line 7:
The reasoning for this is probably that the creators want the audience to ''instantly'' know everything about the characters and situation, without having to bother with such things as "what happened last episode". For example, they may use a [[Expository Theme Tune|title sequence that tells us everything we need to know]], or, if the series has a serial plot, flashbacks, since [[Viewers Are Goldfish]]. Much like [[Failure Is the Only Option]], any changes ''at all'' are resolved with a [[Snap Back]] or [[Reset Button]]. And God forbid anyone change the status quo of the [[Reed Richards Is Useless|surrounding world]].
This trope is especially true for cartoons, where networks want to be free to broadcast reruns in any convenient order or lack thereof. Cartoons with [[Story Arc]]s have slowly started becoming more popular
It can be very difficult to juggle an unchanging status quo without gradually turning off your audience; characters and situations which never change tend to get stale after a while, and audiences can get a bit tired of seeing the [[Reset Button]] being pushed every time it looks like something might happen to change things—especially if the thwarted change was potentially more interesting than the current status quo. Furthermore, there's a risk of [[Moral Dissonance]]. Writers sometimes conflate a storytelling imperative with a moral one, and expect viewers to approve of the [[We Want Our Jerk Back|reversion of positive character development]] or of a character turning down her dream job so that she can keep the same drinking buddies.
| |||