Basic Trope: A character taking a vacation from work gets sucked into work during the vacation.
- Straight: Bob is a detective who goes to Vacation Point for some much-needed R&R. While there, a murder occurs, and naturally, Bob is the only one who can solve it.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is completely unable of going anywhere without a murder happening, even trips back home, across town, or to the restroom.
- Bob can't move one foot without someone being murdered.
- Downplayed:
- For a light, comic Breather Episode, the writers send Bob to Vacation Point, where he spends his time applying his world-class forensic mind to silly little provincial "crimes".
- Bob takes a day off work to compete in a Clue tournament.
- Justified:
- Bob is a world-renowned detective, so it's natural that any crimes in his vicinity will get back to him, and his pride will force him to solve the case.
- Someone followed Bob to Vacation Point with a problem or a grudge, and It's Personal.
- Bob is being paid a whole lot of money by the family of the victim to help solve the murder.
- Bob would happily do his job every day, but had to take time off for liability reasons.
- Crime just happens all the time, no matter where Bob is.
- Inverted:
- When Da Chief gives Bob the latest case file, he hurriedly decides to take a vacation.
- Bob's showing up in a new town causes an instant drop in crime rate — he's that renowned.
- Bob's an Amateur Sleuth with a One-Hour Work Week. The one time we see him doing his actual job, somebody gets murdered in the office.
- Subverted: The Vacation Point Police Department seem more than capable of handling the murder investigation, allowing Bob to get his much-needed rest.
- Double Subverted: ...Until a key point in the investigation holds them up, when, yes, they have to call Bob in.
- Parodied:
- Bob is on every police department's speed-dial, and they have a tracker placed somewhere on his body. They always know where he is.
- Bob is a mailman. Every time he goes on vacation, someone ends up begging him to deliver their mail.
- Bob is a cryptozoologist. Every time he goes on vacation, a fisherman discovers a species thought to be several millennia extinct.
- Zig-Zagged: The VPPD can handle it ... until a key point when they need to call in Bob ... but that was really all they needed him for, so he's free to relax after that.
- Averted:
- No murder happens while Bob is on vacation.
- Bob does not go on vacation.
- Bob doesn't have a job.
- Enforced:
- "I'm tired of placing the show in Murder Heights! Can't we travel to a more exotic locale?"
- The writers come up with an episode in which Bob goes on vacation, only to be told it lacks conflict, so the execs insist Bob must be called on to solve a murder when he's supposed to be taking time out.
- Lampshaded: "I swear, I'm going to fire my travel agent."
- Invoked:
- A notorious crime boss who's keeping tabs on Bob makes sure there's a murder in his vacation spot to screw with his vacation.
- Bill Da Chief doesn't want his best detective to get any downtime, so he suggests a lovely little holiday spot ... where he happens to know there's been a string of bizarre murders recently.
- Bill Da Chief is a Trickster Mentor and every time he allows Bob some downtime he makes sure to engineer some mystery that Bob will be dragged into and thus will learn some lesson Bill wanted to teach him.
- Bob got bored on vacation, so he went out of his way to investigate the disappearances at his vacation spot.
- Exploited:
- Bob notices that he can't go anywhere without stumbling on a murder to solve, so he exclusively travels to areas with high crime rates in the hopes that he can solve crimes that would happen anyway instead of causing them.
- Knowing Bob will inevitably solve crimes, vacation be damned, his friend suggests a vacation spot with a case very important to him.
- Defied:
- "You know what? I'm on vacation. I don't care if there's a murder. You have your own detectives, so you can solve the case yourself."
- Alternately, he offers his support over the phone, which is enough to get the VPPD to solve the case.
- Bob plans his vacations in isolated locations with no cell phone reception and nobody else around to be murdered, just to make sure he can avoid his job.
- Bob goes to Bill Da Chief and tells him that he's going to take a couple of days off to go to his brother's wedding and if anything weird happens and he discovers it was Bill's handiwork, there will be hell to pay. Bill decides to not do anything funny, and even stop other schemers from messing with Bob just in case.
- Discussed: "All right, vacation at last. Given my luck, though, I bet someone's going to die at my vacation spot or something."
- Conversed: "Why does this always happen to poor Bob? You'd think he'd be able to take a vacation without getting bugged all the time."
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's wife Alice points out that just because someone has been murdered doesn't mean he must personally solve the case. Bob struggles to draw the line between his private life and his work, and get over his Chronic Hero Syndrome.
- After one too many vacations being interrupted by his company calling and demanding he work at those times, Bob decides to sue his company for breach of contract.
- Bob struggles to cope with the lack of relaxation and his increased stress levels, leading him to get progressively more frustrated with his job and lack of a proper private life.
- Reconstructed: Bob reluctantly abandons his holiday, calling his own department to get himself officially assigned to Vacation Point for the duration of the case and explaining to Alice that they really need him for this one, but they can book another holiday.
- Played for Laughs: Murders happen in the vicinity of Bob under the most comically unlikely circumstances.
- Played for Drama: Nobody is being murdered at Vacation Point while Bob is there, but somebody tells him that that's because all the criminals in town are plotting to kill him. Bob spends his vacation deep in paranoia.
- Played for Horror:
- The criminals of Vacation Point murder Bob in fear/retaliation of him discovering their schemes. It is a Cruel and Unusual Death.
- The murders that take place in Vacation Point after Bob arrives are done by Bob, who (unknown to him) developed a murderous split personality after snapping from too much work pressure.
- Implied:
- The show sticks in Murder Heights, and Bob's vacation happens offscreen. When he comes back and his colleagues ask him how his vacation went, he says, "It might as well have just been work."
- Bob is a single-episode character called in for a special case. Bob does an extraordinary job, all while dressed in sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt.
I'm on vacation, so someone else can edit this. ...Oh, fine. Back to Busman's Holiday it is.
