The Only One: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

[[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|Our beloved protagonists]] are the only people who can handle the problem.

A variation that often occurs, particularly in shows or movies where there is a [[Race Against the Clock]] situation, is that those who are responsible for taking care of a particular situation (such as the bomb squad) will, for some reason, not be able to make it in time to resolve the problem that the protagonists are facing. In this scenario, the experts may be fully competent and on the side of the angels, but are prevented for some reason from taking care of the problem themselves, meaning that the untrained protagonists are forced to be [[Closest Thing We Got|the only ones who can take care of the problem]]. This often works to increasing tension; will the non-expert [[Wire Dilemma|cut the right wire]]?

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* The anime adaptation of ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]''. The main characters amount to a single squad of civilian draftee militia. Much like [[It's Up to You|in the game]], the country's actual professional army is presented as a bunch of tactically incompetent blowhards who want to hog all the glory and use the [[Uriah Gambit]] on the protagonists. They never amount to anything useful and get blown to bits by the enemy.

** In ''Die Hard 2'', the terrorists are renegade U.S. troops, the military troops sent to take out the terrorists are in cahoots with them, and for most of the movie the airport security guards actively oppose McClane's heroic efforts.

** From ''Live Free or Die Hard'':

* In ''[[Blue Thunder]]'', the villains are part of a [[Government Conspiracy]] that has the local police department on its side. [[The Hero|Frank Murphy]] is forced to hijack the titular [[Black Helicopter]] and fight an aerial battle against police and military forces in order to provide cover for the evidence he's collected to make it to a reporter. Averted at the end when the U.S. Justice Department does in fact start an investigation.

* Subverted in ''[[Lethal Weapon 3]]'', in which Riggs persuades Murtagh that they are the only ones present who can defuse a bomb because, of course, "the bomb squad never arrives on time!" Unfortunately, Riggs fails the [[Wire Dilemma]], the bomb goes off, and the building collapses, causing millions of dollars worth of damage... and at that point, the bomb squad arrive, having made it in plenty of time to defuse the device had Riggs and Murtagh not interfered.

** In ''[[Star Trek Generations]]'', there's really no excuse. The Enterprise B is just being taken for a test stroll around Earth and doesn't even have most of its weapons or medical crew, and yet it's miraculously the only ship within range of the [[Negative Space Wedgie]], even though it's still very close to Earth, which presumably has a lot of ships nearby.

*** The Enterprise is the only ship in range, but at / near to Earth in ''The Motion Picture'' (in drydock after a refit with a few teething problems) and the ''The Wrath of Khan'' (on a sub-warp training cruise for cadets) as well. So not only does Starfleet seem to have no other ship near to Earth other than the Enterprise in three movies (the first of which establishes that Starfleet Headquarters is on Earth), they're actually ready for front-line service.

Scott sighed. "Of course not. There never are, are there? Sir." }}

*** The novel also provides an explanation for the ludicrous situation of having only a single starship in Earth's solar system to protect the Federation capital. Apparently, losses in recent years have streched Starfleet thin (Continuity Nod cluster ahoy), and there was great concern in some quarters precisely because of the limited defense. The V'Ger incident proved these critics right. Why the same situation crops up in later films still needs explaining, sadly, but that's not this novel's concern.

** ''[[Star Trek V: The Final Frontier]]'' has Kirk's crew charged with saving the diplomat hostages in their malfunctioning ''Enterprise-A''. Kirk actually calls out the Admiral assigning him on this. The movie tries to justify it by saying that Kirk is their best captain. ([[Black Hole Sue|Yeah, William Shatner was director and had a story credit.)]]

* Spoofed in ''The Hidden'' (1987) when the Chief says that is the cop protagonist is reassigned:

* [[The Fifth Element|Korben Dallas]] is the only man for the job who has the certifications for a (ridiculously) long list of weapons, ''and'' is still alive.

* Justified in ''[[Executive Decision]]'' after Sergeant Matheny, the squad's explosives expert, is critically injured and paralyzed, aviation engineer Dennis Cahill (who has been left behind to "keep an eye" on Matheny) is forced to try his hand at defusing the bomb. He does just that, in a manner that Matheny admits he never would have thought of.

** Similarly Dr. Grant joins in the final assault on the terrorists because there are not enough commandos left to take out all the terrorists at once.

* Pick any [[Superhero]] movie and chances are, that one hero will be the only character in that universe with the powers/gadgets to take down the many supervillains that pop up.

** In the ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider Man]]'' series, five super-powered villains show up throughout the series but Spidey is apparently the one and only superhero.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* In ''[[The X-Files]]'', [[Agent Mulder]] and/or [[Agent Scully]] were often the only ones who could defeat the [[Monster of the Week]] - partly because of the astonishing amount of [[Corrupt Hick]] law enforcers they encountered, and partly because they were usually [[Dying Like Animals|the only ones who believed or accepted]] that the threat actually existed in the first place.

'''The TARDIS:''' But I always took you where you needed to be. }}

* The local police force vs. FBI variant is the central plot of an ''In the Heat of the Night'' episode, in which the Sparta DA's daughter is kidnaped and Gillespie's force - using their small-town savvy - competes (almost literally) with by-the-book FBI agents to locate her.

** The show was also named Stargate: SG-1. Presumably if they had a Stargate: SG-3 we would get to see SG-3 [[Hero of Another Story|running around and taking care of business]]; we just don't because they're not who the show focuses on.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' is the Chosen One, the only one who can defeat the vampires, demons, etc. etc.

** Later ''inverted'' by the appearances of Kendra, Faith, and {{spoiler|eventually, the entire Slayer Army.}}

* The FBI agent characters in ''[[Numb3rs]]'', especially Don, are not exactly incompetent, but it often tends to look like they need Charlie before they can solve cases. Granted, he's one of the main characters, so cases where they didn't need him wouldn't take up whole episodes, but still, there's got to be someone in that office who can catch a criminal without calling in a mathematician.

* Taken to extremes in ''Las Vegas''. The hotel security team is a veritable crime fighter unit that hunts down (and sometimes judges and punishes) suspects all on its own. LVPD is mostly content with picking up the criminals at the end of the show. Moreover, said hotel security team only consists of Ed, Danny, and Mike. Literally every bad guy is personally captured by Danny, never mind there being dozens of other guards in the hotel.

* From ''[[Sharpe|Sharpe's Challenge]]'':

'''Sharpe''': I don't see no bugger else. }}

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The ''Living City'' campaign featured the most incompetent 15th level fighters imaginable as its local police, called the "City Watch". It was claimed that the police weren't incompetent, just portrayed that way so that the players could be the main heroes and not just call the cops to handle problems. Of course, many players believe that [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|by that point]], even if they weren't incompetent, they wouldn't be able to do much against high-level threats anyway.

*** The setting has a few higher-level characters, but they often come into play only at a time where the PCs already out-level them.

*** Also, this justifies the inclusion of the Warforged, hideously expensive sentient golems used in the latter stages of the Last War (which happened to last about 100 years). They were worth their price because of the unorthodox strategies they allowed (try besieging someone who has no need of food or water. Also, consider the [[Easy Logistics|ease of logistics when operating somewhere gettings supplies to would be difficult]]) and because they came out of their Creation Forges classed as fighter 2. PC classes represent an enormous potential in this setting, so for many jobs they were indeed The Only Ones capable of doing them. After the war, they also were The Only Ones capable of handling jobs like salvaging sunken ships or working in other hazardous conditions.

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' discovers that this week's [[MacGuffin]] was stolen a week ago, and sounds peeved that the world thought it could get along without her:

'''Kim:''' Well, I ''guess'' they thought wrong. }}

 

[[Category:Universal Tropes]]

[[Category:The Only One]]