Top 10 TV Show Plot Cliches

TV can be a great thing, but sometimes it gets a bit repetitive.

We all love some shows so much that when someone makes a blatant ripoff, suddenly, everybody is making a show like it. Just ask CSI or Survivor.

These are the top ten clichés in TV show plots. Feel free to change the list as you wish!

The Top Ten

  1. Detectives Fighting Crime

    Ugh! There are about ten shows that fall into this category on CBS alone. You already have CSI, NCIS, other types of those two, Supernatural (if it counts), Hawaii Five-O, Bones, and only about a million more. I'm waiting for the day that crime shows completely die out because I don't like them.

    Criminal Minds is my favorite crime show. Not only do they fight crime, but they also use psychology to figure out the unknown suspect's motives.

  2. Reality TV Contest

    I personally love this genre, and the cliche can be forgotten about because each show has its own plot and there aren't any rip-offs except for The Glass House (which is cancelled). Survivor started it, but now there are tons of shows like this. Due to them all being distinctly different, it makes the cliche less blatant.

  3. Two Lovers

    This makes basically any plot device completely predictable. How many times has a show become popular because of some hot guy and some hot girl? It works as a minor feat of a plot, such as in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which comes up with original and diverse material every episode. However, as the full focus of the show, it makes the development stages generalized and tedious.

    Lots of shows focus on couples. Let's take a look at a few: Mike and Molly, The Big Bang Theory (not fully, but still), Melissa and Joey, and pretty much any sitcom these days. Shows like this obviously have their own plots and characters, making them more unique than detectives fighting crime. So I still think this is the reason it doesn't get much notice.

  4. An Abused Character

    Every single show seems to have one of these: Meg, Squidward, Wendy, Leonard (TBBT), and Harold are a few. Their entire plot focuses on being abused, and we don't get to see much more about them. Sometimes it's for the right reasons (Wendy), other times it's wrong (Meg or Squidward).

  5. A Family's Life

    The Simpsons focused on this, but it wasn't much of a cliche at the time. Now we have Family Guy, Two and a Half Men, and almost any sitcom. The plots like these get so stale it makes me puke. I prefer a show about two families being focused on equally.

  6. Dysfunctional Family

    How many Nickelodeon sitcoms feature just that? Well, Henry Danger, Nicky Ricky Dicky and Dawn, and The Thundermans are just a few.

  7. Blackmail

  8. Battle of the Sexes

    Every show has had at least one episode where girls fight boys, and it's getting old.

    Battles of the sexes and blackmailing episodes need to end.

    And if it's Disney, girls always win.

  9. Everyone Gets Married in the Final Episode

  10. New Baby

    Either because in a family show the youngest child is no longer young and cute, because a couple finally hooked up, or even as an excuse to write out a character. Furthermore, often the baby is a preschooler or even a grade schooler a mere season or two later. Either way, the child adds little or drags down the show.

    11. The Newcomers
  11. ?

    Trying to Grow a Mustache

  12. ?

    Body Swap

    13. The Contenders

  13. Picking on Haters

  14. Love Triangle

  15. Underwater Search

  16. Beach Episode

  17. Girl Between Brothers

  18. New Transfer Student

  19. Time Travel

  20. Royal Doppelgänger

  21. Sleepwalking

  22. Find All of a Certain Item Before the Villain

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