Strictly Formula / Live-Action TV

• According to Jim: Usually Jim does something that he doesn't want his wife to know. His wife finds out about this. Rather than confront him, she will try to maneuver him into having no choice but to confess.
• Adam Ruins Everything: Each episode opens with a character, the ruinee, performing some mundane activity relating to the topic of the episode and stating some popular misconceptioninvoked. Adam then suddenly appears, corrects the thing they said, turns to the camera, and says "Hi! I'm Adam Conover, and this is Adam Ruins Everything." Adam spends the rest of the episode debunking three common misconceptions about the topic held by the ruinee, at one point bringing in a special guest who is an expert on the topic and enters the scene in a silly way appropriate to the topic, while the ruinee becomes increasingly frustrated until they hit a Heroic BSoD, at which point Adam brings them out of it with a "positive takeaway". Lampshaded in "Adam Ruins Science":
  Adam: Winnie, wait! I thought you knew the structure of my show!
• The UK version of The Apprentice has a very clear formula that every episode follows (with the exception of the interviews and final task). Namely: We see them in the house, they get a call from Lord Sugar, they go to some famous building to hear him explain the task, get split into teams, choose a leader/come up with a product/brand/whatever, get split into two sub teams for two tasks (which it splits between every few minutes), they complete the 'task', the day ends, they go to the boardroom to hear the results. And then we get to see the winning team enjoy a treat, the losing team stuck in the Bridge Cafe, three people (including the project manager) end up in the firing line with their strengths and weaknesses outlined and someone eventually get fired (complete with catchphrase and walk to taxi). Cue 'next time on The Apprentice' clip montage.
• A Case for Two: Someone get murdered, and the police arrest the most likely suspect. The suspect claims to be innocent and hires the attorney (Renz, Franck, Voss or Lessing) as his lawyer. The attorney does all the paperwork, talks with the police and attends court. Meanwhile, Matula does all the actual research and investigation work, often getting into fights and knocking out the bad guys. In the end, the original suspect usually (but not always) turns out to be innocent after all, and the real culprit is found.
• Castle: Victim of the week gets killed, Castle talks with Martha and/or Alexis about their problem of the week, Beckett calls, UST begins, Lanie and/or Perlmutter give us the gory details, questioning, more UST, lots of looking at the white board, plot twist, Martha and/or Alexis chime in on the case while working on their problem of the week, more questioning, more UST, Castle epiphany, they get the bad guy (chasing optional), Castle goes home and sees how Martha and/or Alexis solved their problem of the week. And did we mention the UST? Unless it's a two-parter or about Beckett's mother. Then all bets are off. But not the UST.
  • Starting with Season 4, when the UST was finally resolved, those scenes in the formula got switched with Castle and Beckett attempting to hide their relationship from someone. And the plot is always resolved by genre-savvy and there's usually a red-herring genre-not-so-savvy moment where novelist's instinct leads them wrong to justify the continued skepticism of the force as a whole.
  • Another mandatory ingredients: Beckett talks in the interrogation room with Suspect Number 1, tells him with absolute confidence: "That's why you killed her", he denies, surprised, outraged or smug, in the next scene Ryan or Esposito confirms that the Suspect #1 has a rock-solid alibi. Most likely the sequence will be repeated at least once in the same episode, with another suspect(s).
• Catfish: The TV Show: Almost by design. The episode always starts out with Nev and Max goofing off before reading the e-mail from their latest hopeful. The person details how they've been talking to someone online for a while, but the person either won't video chat with them or won't meet up with them. Nev and Max visit them in their hometown to get more details. They then perform a google image search and find the person whose pictures are being used fradulently, and/or a friend of the potential catfish. They arrange a meetup with said catfish, who 9 times out of 10 is not the person they say they are (and in some instances may even be the wrong gender). At the end of the episode, they catch up with the catfish and catfished person months after filming ended.
• Cold Case
  • The Beginning: To musical accompaniment related to the era, the Victim of the Week is shown in his/her time period doing whatever he/she does for a living, then cut to the corpse. Flash to present, where Rush & co. get their first lead on the case (either through previously-buried evidence, or a relative of the deceased with new information.) Cue One-Woman Wail and credits.
  • The Middle: The detectives interrogate a chain of suspects, each one revealing another plot development in the flashback. Almost every flashback is preceded by accusing the person of the murder, who then denies it, briefly flashes to their younger self, and reveals another side of the story. They return to the precinct at least once to study evidence, and multiple times for good ole Perp Sweating. The last 20 minutes proceed to deconstruct the suspects' original motives until the person they return to with 5-7 minutes left, who confesses (with this flashback recreating the murder scene.)
  • The End: As another piece of time-period-appropriate music plays, the killer is marched through the precinct, usually seen by another character. Vignettes are shown of the key players of the case going on with their lives in the present, in both their "past" and "present" appearances. A cardboard box marked "Case Closed" is filed in the evidence room. Someone who was really close to the victim sees an apparition of him or her, who turns and slowly fades away. The detectives resolve their romantic tension. Roll end credits.
• Columbo: Every episode followed the same pattern:
  • The first 20 minutes would see the murderer setting up an elaborate plot to kill their victim
  • Columbo would turn up at the crime scene looking incredibly dishevelled
  • After a brief investigation of the crime scene, Columbo would interview the murderer, generally with the excuse that he was 'just tidying up loose ends'. The conversation would meander, with the Lieutenant seeming to concentrate on anything but the murder, often with rambling stories about his wife or other members of his family. He would then leave, only to casually drop in a line which revealed he'd spotted a crack in the murderer's plan.
  • The murderer would try and continue with his life, only to be continually haunted by Columbo who would turn up in the most unlikeliest locations, continually pestering the murderer.
  • The episode would end either with a) Columbo finding the conclusive piece of evidence and presenting it to the suspect or b) Columbo getting the murderer to incriminate themselves.
• CSI: Miami
  • Episodes follow the same basic pattern: a murder victim is found, after which we get a cavalcade of people who just happened to be at the murder scene shortly before or after the murder ("I was never there", "We have evidence to show that you were", "OK, I was there, but I didn't kill him", repeat at least 2 or 3 times), and by the end of the episode they get the person who did it to confess. The original CSI was at least a bit more varied than this (in that only maybe 40% of episodes follow this format).
  • CSI and CSI: Miami both can be boiled down to: Murder victim and initial interviewee, most of the episode is focused on a Red Herring who turns out to be innocent, and wait, it turns out to be the first person all along.
  • Every single interrogation goes the exact same way: suspect is initially uncooperative, Horatio removes his shades and makes a smoothly intoned threat, cut to the suspect looking down, beat, suspect reveals everything they know. Every single one.
• In Deadtime Stories, the individual stories themselves vary, but the Framing Device always follows a certain pattern:
  • The babysitter shows up at the kids' house, and either the kids jump out and scare her, or she jumps out and scares them.
  • The kids ask to be read a deadtime story. The babysitter does so (sometimes trying to trick the kids into thinking she won't).
  • At some point during the story, we cut back to the kids and babysitter, as they talk about the story a bit. Then we return to the story.
  • Near the end of the story, we cut back again to the kids and babysitter, as the babysitter promises the story isn't over yet. She then says some variation of "buckle your seatbelts, because you're in for a bumpy ride!"
  • We see the Cruel Twist Ending, and a cut between the story and real world as both the characters in the story, and the kids being read the story, scream at each other.
• Doctor Who is very much not this trope, but has fallen into it during brief periods:
  • Terry Nation's Dalek stories became notorious for having the same virtually identical plot about the human resistance taking on the Daleks and winning. When Philip Hinchcliffe pointed out to him that the Dalek episode Nation had written for the new Doctor was exactly the same as several of the old ones ("we like it, but we like it so much we think we've already bought it multiple times before") Terry Nation completely broke all of the rules when he wrote "Genesis of the Daleks", the best story of his career and one of the best Doctor Who stories ever. Unfortunately, the addition of Davros just meant Dalek stories from that point on were a different identical plotline which now had Davros getting backstabbed by his own Daleks at the end.
  • Season 5. Six out of seven stories in the season are virtually identical "base under siege" plots and five out of seven feature a recurring monster. The one non-siege, non-recurring-enemy plot, "The Enemy of the World", was considered by the 80s fandom as being a bizarre Out-of-Genre Experience in this context and panned, though after its rediscovery it was re-evaluated as one of Troughton's best. All of the stories in this season are considered decent, most fans will have at least one story in this season they consider a classic, and many fans - particularly the BNFs of the 80s - praise the show for settling down into a routine of solid horror stories here; but many others mourn the loss of Doctor Who's trademark Genre Roulette in favour of a routine of going to a base on [PLANET] to fight [MONSTER] along with with a band of [3-6] people, one of whom is the commander, and some of whom are working with the monsters and are the real threat. Season 6, while the quality is more patchy (it contains hated stories like "The Dominators" and "The Space Pirates") does at least change up the formula with a Space Western, a psychedelic Mind Screw, Anachronism Stew, Spy Fiction, Alien Invasion, an early Robert Holmes story incorporating some of his Creator Thumbprints, a Wham Episode...
  • Ask any Classic Who fan what a Classic Who story is supposed to be like, and they will immediately tell you - after a cutaway introducing the characters in this new world, the Doctor and his assistant exit the TARDIS, run into a mild scrape that hints at a bigger mystery, and then get captured while the villains put more of their machinations in motion. Either the Doctor or the assistant sees something scary (after escaping, or while trying to help save the other), which is the first Cliffhanger, roll credits. The middle two episodes are a lot of time running down corridors and/or getting chased in quarries, while the villains slowly pick off sympathetic guest characters and each other, and the Doctor attempts to get the suspicious locals on his side despite his funny behaviour. In the final episode, most of the villains have been taken care of by guest characters, but the biggest threat remains, and so (after some more running) the Doctor does something mildly sciencey/Magic from Technology and saves the day. This was by no means the plot template for all serials, but it certainly feels like it was, being the typical form of the iconic Hinchcliffe era and the Williams era as well as a few Pertwees, early Troughtons and most 80s Who. Both the old and new series have lampshaded this structure on numerous occasions, and the Classic story "Carnival of Monsters" and the New series episode "Heaven Sent" both trap the Doctor in an artificial dimension made up of corridors, a chasing monster and a time loop.
• The TLC Reality Show Four Weddings is formulaic by design (four brides attend each other's weddings, rate them in various categories, top bride wins dream honeymoon), but even who they have is formulaic. They will usually have someone who has a traditional wedding, someone who has a traditional wedding WITH A TWIST (she's wearing sneakers, they're all going to dance), a Sassy Black Woman who has something unusual (i.e. praise dancers, a rapper), a destination wedding, and a foreign wedding. Something will go wrong in one of the weddings, and there will be one that the other brides hate.
• Almost every episode of the Girls x Heroine! TV shows amounts to the following: the characters will run into something in their daily lives; the enemies will sneak a corrupted MacGuffin into a human's hands, turning them into the Monster of the Week; the girls fight and defeat them, purifying the MacGuffin.
• Highlander: The Series tends to follow a general formula, with a few variations: Duncan meets an immortal he met some time in the past, and ends up decapitating him.
• Home Improvement has to be one of the most formulaic shows ever aired. The layout: Tim makes fun of Al on Tool Time and later does something stupid to upset Jill, who is dealing with the latest parenting issue; Tim goes to Wilson (who doesn't show his face in a new and clever way) for advice, parrots back a mangled apology to Jill, and all is well.
• Every episode of CBBC show Hounded follows a basic formula, though it's Justified by the "Groundhog Day" Loop the series takes place in. After waking up and delivering the opening exposition, Rufus goes to work and meets his "new" co-workers (who invariably get his name wrong). Rufus' future self turns up and zaps him into an Alternate Universe to stop Dr. Muhahaha's Evil Plan of the Week, giving him a bunch of random items that later turn out to be quite useful. Rufus meets up with the AU versions of his co-workers, there's a weird musical interlude, Mu's plan is thwarted...and then, despite Rufus' best efforts, Dr. Mu or his assistant hit their Reset Button and the whole day starts over again.
• House has the main character go through almost the exact same pattern every episode to find the solutions everybody else misses. This was much truer of House in seasons one through three. After the mass firing at the end of season three, things were mixed up just a bit for a while, returned to normal, but went off the rails (in a VERY good way) once House started seeing dead people. Many episodes still fit into the basic formula of the show from before, but they have also done others that completely break the mold. House's moment of realization was even lampshaded in one episode, when House stopped talking in the middle of a conversation and the other party said, "You're about to run out of here, aren't you?" He did. It was lampshaded another time when Cuddy asked him how he was going to come up with the diagnosis, and House said he'd go and talk to Wilson about something completely unrelated.
  • Parodied in the "Did you try the medicine drug?" story, which has been turned into a GIF.
  • Also parodied in a golden-era Cracked article.
• In the documentary series I Shouldn't Be Alive, the story is always: people go on a trip, their technology fails and/or they make a stupid mistake, and they get lost in the wilderness. The searchers usually miss them the first time, and they see an opportunity for rescue but aren't spotted. They fend off depression, a dangerous animal, and/or a medical condition, and are found just hours before death. The story ends with The Reveal: Real Life rescue photos.
• There is very little that sets Investigation Discovery true-crime shows apart barring the most basic of theming. And that's exactly what makes them so addicting.
• Jerry Springer turned this into an art-form for trash talk shows. Every episode follows a similar format regardless of which subject is being tackled (usually cheating partners or KKK zealots):
  • Most segments start out innocently enough with the guest talking about how they found out about the show (they just happened across it on TV) and start talking about how much they love their boyfriend/girlfriend. The audience appreciatively coos in response, while Jerry plays dumb and acts as if everything is normal.
  • The guest reveals that they've (a) either been cheating on them with someone else, who they've also brought to the show, (b) know that their significant other is cheating on them and is going to confront them on television, or (c) are going to reveal a shocking secret about themselves to their family. At this point, the audience begins to grow increasingly hostile, while Jerry tries to rationalize the situation.
  • If the guest is cheating on their partner, they'll bring out the person they're cheating on him/her with. S/he will yell and scream at the audience that "they don't know" him/her, while the audience grows openly hostile, with several members standing up and threatening to walk down to the stage and assault the person themselves.
  • The aggrieved lover will come out on stage, and 9 times out of 10, a bell will sound in the background, with both or all participants beginning to beat each other as security staff struggle to separate them. If the fight is brief, the bell will likely sound again and the participants will go back to fighting. Eventually, the group is separated and the aggrieved party will sit on the opposite side of the stage, sometimes with a guard sitting between them.
  • During the Q&A session at the end of each episode, expect to see at least one guest insult an audience member and attack them, at least one additional fight, and at least one girl (sometimes two) who accept free beads in exchange for getting up on stage and pole-dancing while flashing the audience.
  • Every episode ends with Jerry moralizing the current subject and musing about why people mistreat the ones they love, before telling the audience to love each other and stay safe.
• Kamen Rider:
  • The protagonist gains his powers, most of the time unwillingly, and these powers are always related to the shows villains^note although there are 4 exceptions to this - Kamen Rider X, whose powers were originally made for marine exploration, but were modified to fight GOD; Kamen Rider Super-1, whose powers were created for space exploration; Kamen Rider J, whose powers were made by benevolent earth spirits; and Kamen Rider Agito, whose powers were given to humans by the Overlord of Light to stop his brother, the Overlord of Darkness; however, Kamen Rider Kiva can count as an exception as well, since while the titular Kivats can be used for evil, Kivat-bat the Third voluntarily chose to help Wataru defend humanity from the start. The Rider then battles the Monster of the Week over the next several episodes while discovering more about the plot, all the while gaining new forms until getting a final one after some much needed Character Development, all leading up to the final bad guy. The Heisei Era also added more Riders to the cast, who often conflict with the protagonist because Poor Communication Kills.
  • Each episode also has a formula: Just a normal day in the city, then a Monster of the Week comes or the Victim of the Week is terrorized by said monster, Rider comes in, HENSHINS, kicks his butt, then finishes him off with a needlessly flashy Finishing Move, final explosion optional.
• Every episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (U.S.) follows the more-or-less exact same format:
  • Prior to Gordon's arrival, we get a montage of the restaurant owner's experience serving a test dinner to a number of patrons and learn about their history with the restaurant. At least one of the participants is incredibly neurotic, snarky or both, and there's lots of yelling and screaming in the kitchen.
  • Gordon meets one-on-one with the restaurant owner, who without fail claims that their food quality is "10 out of 10" and is at a loss to understand what's going wrong with their business. Interviews are spliced in from other participants who explain clearly how the business is losing money, and how the owner is too short-sighted to understand what's going on.
  • Gordon arrives for a sample lunch and is met by one of the waitresses, who usually criticizes the restaurant's food and tries to warn Gordon away from certain dishes (or overstates the quality of the food). Gordon proceeds to make snarky jabs at the poor quality of the food, while the servers, chefs and owner get plenty of reaction shots as they struggle to deal with what's happening. Expect to see the chef always lose his cool and start getting flustered or angry.
  • Gordon pulls the staff together for a quick post-lunch discussion and tries to yell sense into them, while the chef or owner refuses to admit that anything is wrong and yells back at him. Expect to see waitresses crying and the chef storming out of the kitchen after Gordon lambasts him in front of everyone.
  • A test dinner service is held that night, and Gordon watches in dismay as the cooks quickly lose it under pressure and begin yelling at each other. Gordon conducts an inspection of the food storage and inevitably comes across old/moldy food, raw meat being stored on the same shelf as cooked items, cockroaches, rats, mildew and/or mold. Gordon confronts the chef and cooks, who play dumb and often make the excuse that they were "going to throw it out" or "it was made yesterday", while the owner stares in disbelief.
  • Gordon pulls everyone in again for another meeting and yells at them for their lack of care, before threatening to walk out on them. It is at this point that the owner will have a dramatic change of heart and finally admit that something is wrong while piano music plays in the background. If this doesn't work, expect Gordon to pull together members of the owner's family for an intervention, complete with lots of tears and anguished cries for help.
  • Gordon redesigns the restaurant and begins to give the cooks lessons and how to prepare a handful of signature dishes they can use for the following night's service. Once the next dinner begins, the chefs initially have trouble keeping up with orders but quickly pull things together and get orders out.
  • The staff have learned overnight how to fix their restaurant, and Gordon cautions them to stick to the principles he's taught them before leaving.
• Each episode of La rosa de Guadalupe are a self-contained plot, and they follow the same structure for every episode:
  • The episode begins with the protagonist facing a difficult situation. Usually they will get targetted by the Big Bad of the episode, though it can also be a woman's personal struggle.
  • A friend, parent, or family member becomes aware of the protagonist's problem, and offers their help. They're often a devout Catholic and either have a small shrine dedicated to the Lady of Guadalupe, or a small statue or image of her.
  • When the conflict reaches its Darkest Hour, they will pray wholeheartedly to the Lady of Guadalupe in hopes that she can help them solve the protagonist's problem. As this happens, a white rose will mysteriously appear in front of any image of the Virgin, which means she's heard their prayers.
  • The protagonist will find the white rose.
  • Cue a series of events that lead to their problem being solved. For cases where the protagonist are stuck in a troubling situation such as being kidnapped or in peril, the Virgin will directly intervene. We know this has happened because a light breeze blows on the protagonist's face at the end of the episode, as an Ethereal Choir plays in the background.
  • The protagonist or a side character learns An Aesop which they narrate to the audience, and the white rose vanishes just as it came.
• Law & Order: There's always a plot-irrelevant prelude leading to the discovery of a corpse, the cops questioning irrelevant characters, a plot twist at the 20-minute mark, an arrest at 30 minutes at which point we switch from the cops to the DAs, and another plot twist 45 minutes into the show where the DA finds out what really happened. The halfway switch between the police investigation and the lawyer work was quite explicitly by design so that the two halves could be split as independent half hour installments.
• Every episode of Life After People. Two or three prominent cities / buildings and a selection of animals (usually household pets, farm animals and / or pests) and plants around a certain theme are selected. Every episode then jumps forward one day, several days, a week, a month, a year, a century and so forth to show how they cope without human care (spoiler: the buildings eventually collapse or crumble away; the animals and plants usually thrive, albeit undergoing lots of changes in the process) until a point is reached several centuries or millennia in the future where there's nothing left. Each episode also features a brief look into a real-life location which has been abandoned by people to see what effects nature has had on it.
• Each episode of Llan-ar-goll-en follows the same formula: Prys and Ceri are hanging out at their lighthouse until something goes missing, and the person missing the thing will sound the siren. The detectives get called to action, and start investigating the scene once they arrive. While gathering more clues, the conflict is later boiled down to three suspects. Once this happens, Prys thinks he's cracked the case and goes to (lightheartedly) interrogate these suspects. After a lot of wrong accusations, Ceri figures out the truth and solves the mystery correctly. Cue her Signing Off Catchphrase and The Stinger, and expect an "Everybody Laughs" Ending. And that's just the abridged version, where you're missing out on all of the catchphrases that are said Once an Episode.
• Lucifer (2016) can fall into this at times. The Police Procedural plot line typically goes like this: 1) Someone is murdered (or almost murdered) 2) Lucifer and Chloe investigate the crime that usually relates to a personal problem in Lucifer's life somehow 4) The evidence points to one person but that person didn't do it 5) They figure out that it's actually the person they least suspected. Episodes that are more Myth Arc heavy typically won't be as formulaic, however.
• Tabloid talk show Maury has a pretty limited set of episodes, e.g. people with congenital defects (or "heroes" as the show often refers to them), paternity tests ("That baby looks nothing like me!"), disrespectful teenagers who are cured of being brats by boot camp ("You don't know me!") and "Jack Hanna brings animals that pee all over the stage". Not only are the topics limited to about a dozen options or so, each topic itself is played strictly to formula: if you've seen one "Who's the daddy?" episode you've seen all of them.
• Medium: 1) Alison has a dream with an obvious twist which anybody but her would be able to guess. 2) Allison has breakfast with her family and some small but endearing drama develops. 3) Alison meets up with her boss or that cop, and they present a case and she tells them that either a) she's either been dreaming about and which she knows something is wrong or b) there's another more important case which is tangentially related. Alison knows they have the wrong suspect. 4) The small family drama reaches its head. 5) Alison takes some small step to hunting down the killer herself. 6) The police's first suspect proves to be wrong. 7) Alison has her life threatened as a result of her stupidity during step five. 8) Alison survives and solves her mystery. 9) The small family crisis resolves itself. 10) Alison has another dream confirming that everything will be fine now. 11) Alison makes some sort of glib, self-satisfied comment to her husband.
• Mission: Impossible. Nearly every episode begins with Jim finding the tape and getting the mission, picking out the photos of the team he's using and then explaining part of the plan to the team in his house while they sit around testing the gadgets they're going to use.
• Monk: While solving a murder is the main plot for most episodes, there are a few episodes in which Monk helps investigate other crimes, such as kidnappings in the season two episode "Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny" and the season three episode "Mr. Monk and the Kid", or a failed murder plot in the season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil". There are a number of times where the episode is not about the murder itself but about finding evidence to arrest the killer, e.g. "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert", "Mr. Monk and the Birds and the Bees", or "Mr. Monk and the Genius", and episodes where the murder is related to the main plot, e.g. in "Mr. Monk on Wheels". And some episodes actually start as a totally different type of case, but eventually a murder happens, e.g. a suspected abduction turns into a murder case in "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized". Episodes generally follow one of four plot lines:
  • The killer is known, and how the crime was committed is known. Monk spends the episode trying to find evidence to arrest that person.
  • Monk knows who the killer is, and knows what the motive is, but the killer has a seemingly air-tight alibi. The episode is spent trying to break that alibi and find out how the killer did it.
  • In a number of episodes, the plot involves trying to find out the killer, how the murder was done, and why.
  • In some episodes, the killer's M.O. is known, but not who did it or why.
• Murder, She Wrote always followed the same formula. There's a murder, and the victim had several possible enemies. One of the suspects is Jessica's niece, nephew, long-lost friend or love interest of the same, and the police always zero in on that person. Jessica must then catch the real killer, usually by Engineered Public Confession or by using something only the killer would know. If the murderer's story is particularly tragic, it ends with Jessica shaking her head sadly, otherwise there's a Mood Whiplash cut to the "Everybody Laughs" Ending. The pacing was also always the same. Expect the body to fall at about the 20 minute mark, and the wrongful arrest of the obvious suspect at the 40. On the rare occasion there was a dead body before 15 minutes, there's going to be a second death in the show later. And finally, only once in a blue moon was the last frame of the episode (which is frozen in place with the Executive Producer credit) something other than Jessica alone.
• Perry Mason: Each episode ends with The Perry Mason Method: Mason will call back a previous witness who seemed inconsequential for the entire episode, then grill him into admitting that he was the real culprit in open court, exonerating Mason's client.
• Police, Camera, Action! zig-zags this trope, although the general formula is:
  • Cold Open with narration on what's to come in the episode (from April 1997 onwards)
  • Presenter (usually Alastair Stewart) does link from location (often with staged police pursuit or similar), footage of careless driving, and one footage involving a police pursuit (three intros before the commercial break, two intros after the commercial break, although some episodes do it as two intros/three intros, and vary the amount of links).
  • Discussion of An Aesop in each sequence.
  • Creative Closing Credits ("And finally..."), although this is not done for the 2007 Soft Reboot series.
  • Where it is not Strictly Formula though, is in terms of content, which is always Different in Every Episode, precisely to avoid this trope being too problematic.
• The first couple seasons of Power Rangers (before they left Earth), outside of season premieres and finales, generally followed a fairly strict formula. A minor dilemma involving the civilian identities of the rangers pops up, the Big Bad (Rita/Zedd/King Mondo/Divatox/whoever) takes inspiration from it and have their monster creator design the Monster of the Aesop around it, a Mook attack occurs for whatever reason (no morphing just yet), this escalates into the Monster of the Aesop attacking (requiring the Rangers to morph), Big Bad makes it grow (sometimes without bothering to wait for the Rangers to fight it on foot), the Rangers call forth their Humongous Mecha, Monster of the Aesop gets squished by Stock Footage, and the plot ends with the Rangers solving their civilian issue. Sure, sometimes it swaps things up (some episodes have the Rangers defeat the monster on foot), but it almost always followed that general formula.
  • On a series-wide basis, one thing that's almost always present is a ranger's rivalry with one of the enemy generals - there's been 5 cases (Zeo, Turbo, Time Force, Ninja Storm and Jungle Fury) where this wasn't present^note most of the time, it's with the Red; Wild Force, Dino Thunder, Operation Overdrive, and RPM have it with the Yellow, Black, Blue and Black, and Black rangers respectively; and while Super Megaforce didn't have such a rivalry, it's red Ranger, Troy, had already experienced a rivalry of this sort in the first season.
  • This also applies to its source material, Super Sentai - aside from episode plots, starting with Hurricaneger, Sentai has used a 5 year pattern - said pattern being Experimental^note the standard formula is played with and/or deconstructed, with new concepts and introduces new colors to the core team, Wacky Stuff^note a return to form, usually being even more cornier than normal, and is usually a bit more cartoonish, Action^note returns to the normal tone of Sentai, has a "cool" gimmick with the battles, and the action is much more intense, Fantasy^note more of a focus on mystical powers and abilities, usually with a good amount of Elemental Powers and Anniversary^note heavy focus on Mythology Gags, usually with some collection element.
• The show 7th Heaven always seemed to feature the same plot: kid makes mistake, kid must pay for mistake, kid's mistake affects overly righteous parents, righteous parents forces kid to learn from mistake. And to make matters worse, the kids always seemed to suffer from Aesop Amnesia as they would commit that very same mistake in the next episode.
• Typically, a Rosie & Jim episode goes like this:
  • The host is writing a new book (John), drawing a new picture (Pat) or writing a new song (Neil)
  • In order to find inspiration for the book/picture/song, they go off on a trip down the canal with the two eponymous ragdolls following them, often times they'll be presented with a problem that prompts them to go on the adventure in the first place and they'll often learn something new about wherever they're visiting.
  • Duck calls Rosie And Jim back to the Ragdoll and they'll play a game related to their adventure before the host comes back and starts writing their new book/drawing their new picture/writing their new song inspired by what happened during the day.
• The Sifl and Olly Show:
  • Each episode is broken into segments, with most segments being found in every episode, including "Calls From the Public," "Rock Facts," "A Word With Chester," "Precious Roy's Home Shopping Network" and "It's Almost the End of the Show."
  • Precious Roy segments would also follow the same internal formula: Sifl and Olly introduce the product, during which time Sifl admits to having a specific problem that the product would solve. Olly agrees that Sifl has "serious-ass _____ problems." They take some calls, which cause Sifl to lose his temper and have to be calmed down by Olly. Then they hear from Precious Roy, who spouts a non-sequitur and finishes with his catchphrase, "Suckers!"
• Star Trek has a habit of recycling old character traits and mixing/overlapping them into new crewmen. For instance, each show has featured or at least attempted a do-over of Spock and Bones. Each show features a wet ensign (Chekov, Wesley, Nog, Kim, Mayweather) who is supposedly representative of Earth's finest. Each show features the Klingons, or some thinly-disguised variant thereof. Each show tended to revolve around a bartender after the success of Whoopi Goldberg's Guinan (famously, the Enterprise series finale sidelined the regular castmates in favor of "Chef"). It is also common for Trek series to feature one (or more) character who feels trapped between two cultures.Voyager had the others well-beaten in this respect: It had the Half-Klingon hybrid B'Elanna Torres, the ostracized Native American Chakotay, the former Borg drone Seven of Nine, and the Emergency Medical Hologram.
  • Voyager, in its bid to succeed in syndication like its predecessor TNG, soon attracted criticism for the formulaic nature of its plots.
    • The series leaned heavily on a particular trifecta: crewman gets stranded on planet, time travel, or a negative space wedgie which attacks the ship — with two or more sometimes occurring in the same episode! Apart from a few exceptions, such as Tom Paris and the Doctor, the characters also tended to run in circles and re-learn the same "lessons" over and over. Janeway learns the importance of holding onto her principles. Tuvok learns to put aside logic and trust his gut. B'Elanna learns to control her temper. Neelix dotes on children. Seven rediscovers her humanity. For the most part, you can view these episodes in any chronological order and not miss a thing.
    • Episodes centred around Torres boil down to one of three plots: she's pissed off, she's broken something and has to fix it, or she wants to screw someone.
• That '70s Show got pretty bad for this when Eric and Donna were dating. A dozen episodes a season of "Eric says something jerk-y, Donna freaks out, both talk to their respective groups, Donna realizes she overreacted, they make up, the end".
• Time Gentlemen Please follows the same formula every episode. A plotline is introduced, usually involving a recurring character entering the pub and talking to Al Murray. He attempts to resolve the situation, which usually results in him annoying other characters. Throughout the episode, the characters say their catchphrases, constantly. Somebody tries to touch Lesley's Tigger, which results in Leslie almost beating them up but being bribed free crisps just in time. At some point the plotline is resolved. Usually, all of this takes place within the pub. If there ever was a show that is the archetype of strictly formula (namely being built entirely around catchphrases and one location) this is it.
• Wizards of Waverly Place: To a point. However, when maximum possible mileage has been obtained from a gag (eg: Harper being in the dark about magic), they stop doing it.
  • Most KidComs follow a pretty strict, formulaic template which can sometimes conflict with a show's premise; for instance, the adult with the most screen time is generally meant to be a buffoonish Adult Child, which works when they're a sculptor or work at a Burger Fool, but causes believability issues if they're a karate sensei.
• The X-Files seem to follow this pattern: Something creepy happens on a remote location, followed by the opening montage and theme. Mulder and Scully are informed, he tells her about existing X-files like this and reveals his crackpot theory; she offers a scientific explanation. The duo travels to the site and encounters several witnesses/survivors. They run around the woods/darkened rooms and bicker a lot. One or more of the survivors are killed in a grisly fashion. If it's a Myth Arc episode, Mulder meets with his current Mysterious Informant. Scully does the science but finds nothing. Mulder, meanwhile, witnesses something that completely confirms his earlier theory. The culprit is killed, captured, or destroyed if it's not human. Any evidence the duo uncovered is mysteriously destroyed or not-so-mysteriously confiscated by The Government. Scully or Mulder writes a report saying that the evidence of supernatural is inconclusive, and the file is closed.
• Disney Channel is probably an even worse offender than Nickelodeon. Since the huge success of Lizzie McGuire and That's So Raven, almost all of their shows have had some teenager(s) living a normal life with a TWIST, with their one same sex friend and one friend of the opposite sex (possibly a future love interest). There's almost always a ditz and person who's an absolute jerk, usually because they're a popular kid at school. Also, the star will be (either in-universe or in real life) a singer who sings the theme song of the show and/or gets shoehorned into singing as much as possible in the show.
• The USA Network has a habit of creating shows with Strictly Formula individual episodes that integrate into a far more interesting Myth Arc via B-plots. This allows them to establish a dedicated following while avoiding Continuity Lockout—which means that casual viewers can tune in to most episodes and still be entertained enough to stick with it. Juliet Litman of Grantland noted the system and has a series of reviews dedicated to it.
  • Burn Notice: The standard week-to-week plots are this; the overarching Myth Arc isn't. In the standard plots, someone comes to Michael who needs... extralegal assistance. Mike will usually have to go through plans A through C, with a little bit of Indy Ploy, before saving the Client Of The Week, often while having to work around the client's good-intentioned "assistance". The Myth Arc tends to be a lot more chaotic, usually merging with the usual plot in the season finales.
  • Monk. Every. Episode. Which is fitting: he has so many phobias that need his life to go completely according to schedule, and the show shows his life.
• Every single Brazilian Soap Opera (which usually have a 6-8 months run), specially the ones aired by TV Globo, can specially Egregious at this. 90% of the main plots are about a forbidden love between a lovable underdog and a lovable rich, and the antagonist in these cases is always a Rich Bastard who is "in love" with the aforementioned rich part of the Official Couple, and spends the whole run of the show using one gambit after another to try and break them apart. There's a Foreign Background for a couple of episodes (usually Europe, Middle East or Asia) and a set of Plucky Comic Relief characters. In the last episode, the main couple get married and the villain is killed or goes to jail. Sometimes the villain will be killed by an unknown murderer some 20-30 episodes prior to the end, and the subsequent episodes will completely revolve around the mystery of who killed the villain.
• Dave Barry wrote a book about his family's trip to Japan, and describes how his wife was able to accurately describe what was happening in an episode of a Tokyo Soap Opera without knowing a word of Japanese, just through knowledge of soap tropes.
• Without a Trace, like the above-mentioned Cold Case, was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and is part of the CSI-verse. In fact, having premiered a year before Cold Case, the latter show is arguably its Spiritual Successor. Despite technically being its polar opposite—WAT has the urgent need to find the possibly still-alive victim, CC's victim is long dead—it follows a similar format:
  • (1) The victim disappears after an opening sequence in which we meet them and get a hint of what led to their disappearance, (2) The cops are brought in, (3) We get numerous interviews with friends and family that lead to flashbacks that start to spell out what happened culminating in one that finally tells us everything, (4) Then the victim is found alive or dead.
  • There are some slight variations on the ending—sometimes, like CC, there's a musical montage of the cops and the victim's loved ones.
  • Throughout the episode, from the moment the victim vanishes, we get a time stamp of how long they've been missing—from as little as 27 minutes to as much as 4 days—to heighten the tension and the desperate need to find them.

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