Touched By an Angel: Difference between revisions

* [[Artistic License Physics]]: See [[Information Wants to Be Free]] below.

* [[Armor-Piercing Question]]: In the season three episode [http://www.touched.com/episodeguide/seasonthree/307.html The Sky Is Falling] Tess gives three. First she gives to a group of people who are believing in martians. Then later she gives a second one to Monica and finally she gives one Dottie (an angel) who has come to help her (Tess) improve her manners.

* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: The angels being immortal, there are a few episodes that show them in earlier time periods, sometimes helping historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Albert Einstein. The stories are often told to present-day assignments to help them through their own problems. For instance, Einstein's struggle with guilt over how his discoveries allowed for the development of the atomic bomb and the destruction of Hiroshima is told to a scientist to dissuade her from cloning a human being. ([[Did Not Do the Research|Only one of these was, in fact, a Christian]]: Mark Twain was an atheist who mocked religion openly; Einstein was essentially a Deist--if that--and a non-practicing Jew. Out of the three, Lincoln was the only one who was assuredly a Christian. Of course, the angels help non-Christians on a regular basis.)

* [[Cassandra Truth]]: Monica was once institutionalized when she claimed to be an angel, though this was part of her assignment to save another angel who'd suffered a [[Heroic BSOD]].

* [[The Grim Reaper]]: Andrew, the Angel of Death. He doesn't actively reap people - and in fact in one episode he encourages his assignment to get up and keep trying to stay alive - but he does escort them in their journey, and thus his appearances usually (but not always) indicate that someone in the episode is going to die, be at risk of dying, or have to get over someone's death. For having what is probably the worst job in Heaven, he's a reasonably cheerful guy who only expresses dissatisfaction when children are involved (often commenting that he hates those assignments).

** It's occasionally mentioned that Andrew was previously a case worker like Monica, and it's suggested that he's one of the higher-ranked angels, so on the occasions when his appearance isn't related to a death, it's explained as using his experience in the field to lend a hand.

* [[Heartwarming Orphan]]: Several are encountered over the course of the series.

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: "Jacob's Ladder", an angel who's put herself into the loony bin after she thought she had [[My Greatest Failure|failed the girl]] she was guardian over. Turns out God had different plans.

** Gloria herself had one, in the aftermath of trying Ecstasy. The resulting "crash" compounded with feelings of guilt for lying to Tess almost led her to allowing herself and her charge to drive over a cliff.

** Tess, even had one, after finding [http://www.touched.com/episodeguide/seasonfive/524.html a black man lynched].

* [[Hollywood Tone Deaf]]: Monica is revealed to be this in "Voice of an Angel". She has a hard time fulfilling her assignment to help a young singer (played by [[Celebrity Star]] Charlotte Church) because the girl's a bit of a brat yet her voice is so beautiful, making the angel jealous.

* [[Holy Backlight]]: Whenever the angels reveal themselves, they get a spotlight shone on them.

* [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]]: "Promised Land", which would lead to a 3-season series of the same name (which followed Touched on Sunday nights.)

* [[Pregnant Hostage]]: One episode had a bank heist where the robber ordered the pregnant bank teller to go into the safe-deposit area to grab a valuable item. [[It Got Worse|Then a gas leak explosion traps her]] in there and he [[Subverted Trope|orders the other hostages to help him dig her out.]] It turns out [[Zig Zagged Trope|he's her husband and the]] ''[[Zig Zagged Trope|father]]'' [[Zig Zagged Trope|of her baby]] - they were desperate for money and planned it together.

* [[Recurring Character]]: Several other angels. Out of the many "assignments" the angels take on, mentally challenged Joey and his brother Wayne show up multiple times after their introduction in Season One, and appear in the [[Grand Finale]].

* [[Rousseau Was Right]]: One of the repeated themes was that humans are born with a great capacity for love, forgiveness, mercy, and charity, and simply need to be reminded of it occasionally.

* [[Spiritual Successor]]: Seen by many as the spiritual successor to the earlier series ''[[Highway to Heaven]]''.

* [[Springtime for Hitler]]: A professional basketball player attempts this in one episode, agreeing to to throw a game in return for a large sum of money from some gamblers who will win big. He takes a bunch of ridiculous shots trying to miss on purpose, but thanks to the heavenly intervention, he makes every bucket.

* [[Straw Vulcan]]: Gloria several times came close to being this, especially in her first full episode, as she's brand new and it's explained that her brain works like a computer. (She's the first angel created in the 21st century, and God apparently wanted to try something new.) Her flat, unemotional response to a tragedy, combined with the tragedy itself, gives Monica a [[Heroic BSOD]], and thereafter occasionally infuriates Tess too, but that's actually part of the point... she's there to make them reexamine why they react to certain things the way they do.

* [[Theme Naming]]: if one can call it that; there are two different episodes named "The Perfect Game". One revolves around bowling, the other revolves around baseball.