History Series / JohnDoe

* NakedOnArrival: The series begins with John Doe awakening naked with an unusual physical feature on his body, in the middle of nowhere, with no memory of who he is. The better-remembered ''Series/KyleXY'', which came out a few years later, opened with a basically identical scene. (The main difference being that John mysteriously has an extra scar and Kyle [[BellyButtonless mysteriously lacks one]].)

Not to be confused with the VideoGame/MetalGear "John Doe" or ''Film/{{Se7en}}'''s serial killer. See MrSmith for the usage of placeholder names like "John Doe" in fiction.

* BottleEpisode: Episode 9; "Manifest Destiny"

* BrownNote: The DJ in "Tone Dead" was killed by a subsonic tone played through his equipment, triggering a fatal epileptic seizure. John and Dr. Rachel even describe the UrbanLegend that [[TropeNamer named the trope]], but stop short of using the name outright.

Not to be confused with the Franchise/MetalGear "John Doe" or ''Film/{{Se7en}}'''s serial killer. See MrSmith for the usage of placeholder names like "John Doe" in fiction.

A man wakes up on an island off the coast of Seattle, unsure of who or where he is, unable to see in color, and with a strange mark on his body. But he knows everything, every single scene of every single movie, the composition of bullets from all sorts of RareGuns, the full history of Jack the Ripper, etc. He makes friends and solves crimes for the police.

* AncientConspiracy: PHOENIX.

* CaliforniaDoubling: Vancouver variant. They got tricksy once with an exterior of the Lynnwood Hotel. Lynnwood is a town near Seattle, which lends seeming credence to the setting... except that the Lynnwood Hotel is indeed in Vancouver.

* DeathInTheClouds: "Manifest Destiny"
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Karen Kawalski.]]

* FetalPositionRebirth: The pilot episode.

* QuestForIdentity
* RetiredBadass: Digger.

* TheBartender: Digger.
* WordOfGod: Explaining a lot of things due to cancellation.

* RealityEnsues: As pointed out in PhlebotinumBreakdown above, John's EncyclopedicKnowledge does not make him immune to the effects of plain old random chance. In addition to the horse-racing example above, the ColdOpen of another episode has him advising blackjack players on how to play certain hands based on probabilities, resulting in them cleaning up. Eventually, one of his predictions about what should happen falls through, resulting in everyone except Karen (who ignored his advice) losing money to the house. Probabilities aren't certainties, after all.

NeedsWikiMagicLove quite badly.

* InjuryBookend: The title character had his universal knowledge erased by lightning in the beginning of one episode, only to have it returned by getting electrocuted later in the episode.

* AskAStupidQuestion: When his memory is on the fritz doe to a lightning strike, John looks at an almost-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and asks himself "How many shots in a fifth", drains the bottle, and answers himself with "That many".[[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke The real answer]], assuming a standard US shot of 1.5 ounces, is 17, but some jokes just [[AntiHumor aren't meant to be funny]].[[/note]]

* RealityEnsues: As pointed out in PhlebotinumBreakdown above, John's EncyclopedicKnowledge does not make him immune to the effects of plain old random chance. In addition to the horse-racing example above, the ColdOpen of another episode has him advising blackjack players on how to play certain hands based on probabilities, resulting in them cleaning up. Eventually, one of his predictions about what should happen, resulting in everyone except Karen (who ignored his advice) losing money to the house. Probabilities aren't certainties, after all.

Not to be confused with the Franchise/MetalGear "John Doe" or ''Film/{{Se7en}}'''s serial killer.

* DoNotPassGo: Doe confronting a serial killer with all his abilities (living OmniscientHero, monochromatic vision) after faking his death and appearing behind him to tell him he has been caught. [[spoiler:The killer was faking it, by the way.]]

* PhlebotinumBreakdown: Even with John's EncyclopedicKnowledge, occasionally the [[RandomNumberGod law of averages]] will give him a kick in the pants. Case in point in the pilot: John picks trifecta after trifecta [[HorseRacing playing the ponies]], but he suffers a bit of a setback when one of his picks doesn't play out.

* CoolCar: Immediately after making a fortune [[HorseRacing picking trifectas]] in the pilot episode, John buys a Shelby Cobra, which he drives throughout the rest of the series.

* AncientConspiracy: PHOENIX.

* GenreBlind: The local police seem slow at figuring out the blatantly obvious, and sometimes John himself shares their myopia. One of the more glaring examples is in "Shock to the System", when john has briefly lost his EncyclopaedicKnowledge: There's a series of murders in the RedLightDistrict and a note signed "JTR", and only Digger is GenreSavvy enough to realize the killer is invoking JackTheRipoff.

* {{Pun}}: Lt. Avery finds some Ecstasy in the DJ/lawyer's drug screen. "That was some pretty happy pee."

* BrownNote: The DJ in "Tone Dead" was killed by a subsonic tone played through his equipment, triggering a fatal epileptic seizure.

* PhlebotinumBreakdown: Even with John's EncyclopedicKnowledge, occasionally the [[RandomNumberGod law of averages]] will give him a kick in the pants. Case in point in the pilot: John picks trifecta after trifecta [[HorseRacing playing the ponies], but he suffers a bit of a setback when one of his picks doesn't play out.