Discussion History Main / MidSeasonTwist

Plus, there are seasons out there that only have eight episodes, or less. (Take Oz, for example.) There are episodes that serve a similar function to the type of episode that the trope considers, but they occur in the second or third slots, instead of the seventh and possibly penultimate slots. If you\\\'re really ramping up the action and removing the exposition just before the final episode (like the trope suggests that this quintessential episode to provide) then you\\\'re probably doing something wrong with the show\\\'s construction. It strikes me that the episode is describing an episode of structural significance about 1/3 of the way through the season (marking the shift from the classical first to seconds acts) instead of happening arbitrarily during the seventh episode.

The explanation also misses the importance that Sweeps place on the narrative construction, and on seasonal breaks. The biggest episodes are always 1/3 and 2/3rds of the way through the season because they occur just before a break (and therefore need to build to a climax) and because ratings periods tend to occur during those points (cause and effect is a complicated issue here). The reason being, seven or so episodes are the largest ammount that shows can easily pump out before the dead ratings period of Christmas.

Is there a better place on this wiki to suggest this change?


And that Doctor Who example is really ropey. It means that the Christmas Special, and episode that\\\'s aired in isolation and technically considered to be part of the previous season\\\'s production should be considered the first episode of the next season.

Penguin - Again, all of his targets bar the cops are other criminals. Joker targets civillians primarly, and in the same game posions hundreds or thousands of people. Complete difference in catagory there; nobody beats the Joker in the evil department which, since this trope is for the 1% of villians, means Penguin is out by the \\\"henious by the standards of the story\\\" rule. He may be more vile the other villians, but he\\\'s less vile than Joker by a long shot, so he\\\'s automatically out of the running.

As for Shepherd, where are you getting the idea that he wants to be famous or for America to dominate the world? Price is the only one who says anything like the former, and it\\\'s more that history would remember Shepherd as a war hero, not that his goal was to be one. Sheperd\\\'s own motivation was to shake America out of the apathy it was in, and it was all motivated by him losing 50,000 of his own men, which contradicts your notion he doesn\\\'t care abou them. He never targeted his own men, just called down an airstrike right next to him to try and kill Price and Soap, which was a very genre saavy move on his part considering, well, it\\\'s [[{{Badass}} Price and Soap.]]

And again, top 1%. He at least as a half-way decent goal, trying to make America stronger. Compare to Makarov, who murdered a lot more people personally for the love of murder, whose end goal was to have Russia steamroll over the rest of Europe, killing even more people. Then we have Al-Asad, who blew up his own capital with a nuke rather than let someone else but him have it. And finally, Zakahav, who helped Asad with the nuke, had his Ultranationlist target loyalist civilians, killing them en mase, and his last major act was to try and nuke two civillian centres.

So again, he\\\'s out by process of elimination.

Finally Kerrigan. [[MoreThanMindControl She no longer funcions by a human set of morals]] on account of the infestation making her no longer human. She gets redeemed which automatically disqualifies her (there is no \\\"but this happened, so it doesn\\\'t count!\\\" clause, if you\\\'re a Complete Monster redemption of any kind is impossible, end of story). As for nothing she does that isn\\\'t heinous, she forced the UED out of the sector. You know, the military force of a faccist goverment whose backstory involved eliminating all non-English languages, religions and cultures and [[ANaziByAnyOtherName committed a genocide of 400 Million people in the name of genitic purity.]] At the end of Brood War she had the chance to take her swarm and wipe out the entire sector, but refuses to because she\\\'s sick of the killing (another thing a CM can\\\'t do) and spends the next 5 years not bothering anyone. And when she does come back, it\\\'s only to look for the artifacts.

As for not allying with the Cerebrates, they were openly trying to kill her. Not caring about butchering Zerg? [[WeHaveReserves There were billions more who weren\\\'t being commanded to destroy her.]]

And finally, the other CM\\\'s. Mengsk, who betrays the people who fought to make him Emperor, including his most trusted operative Kerrigan. He allowed a whole world to be conumed by the Zerg to ensure no one would be left to oppose him, and made a point of tracking down the last children of the Old Families and having them all killed, despite none of them knowing what had happened or being a threat to his power. Add to that continuing the Confederacy mind-rape policies, and allying with the Dark Voice to make more Hybrids. Hell the only reason why the Dark Voice isn\\\'t on this list is because it\\\'s crowning moment of \\\'\\\'\\\'omnicide\\\'\\\'\\\' happened in a vision.

So, those examples fail on several levels each, and would only contribute to trope decay for this article. Since the article is locked and is about to be cleaned up, you\\\'re going to have to take it to the forums and convince people that they should be added.

Penguin - Again, all of his targets bar the cops are other criminals. Joker targets civillians primarly, and in the same game posions hundreds or thousands of people. Complete difference in catagory there; nobody beats the Joker in the evil department which, since this trope is for the 1% of villians, means Penguin is out by the \\\"henious by the standards of the story\\\" rule. He may be more vile the other villians, but he\\\'s less vile than Joker by a long shot, so he\\\'s automatically out of the running.

As for Shepherd, where are you getting the idea that he wants to be famous or for America to dominate the world? Price is the only one who says anything like the former, and it\\\'s more that history would remember Shepherd as a war hero, not that his goal was to be one. Sheperd\\\'s own motivation was to shake America out of the apathy it was in, and it was all motivated by him losing 50,000 of his own men, which contradicts your notion he doesn\\\'t care abou them. He never targeted his own men, just called down an airstrike right next to him to try and kill Price and Soap, which was a very genre saavy move on his part considering, well, it\\\'s {{[[Badass Price and Soap.]]}}

And again, top 1%. He at least as a half-way decent goal, trying to make America stronger. Compare to Makarov, who murdered a lot more people personally for the love of murder, whose end goal was to have Russia steamroll over the rest of Europe, killing even more people. Then we have Al-Asad, who blew up his own capital with a nuke rather than let someone else but him have it. And finally, Zakahav, who helped Asad with the nuke, had his Ultranationlist target loyalist civilians, killing them en mase, and his last major act was to try and nuke two civillian centres.

So again, he\\\'s out by process of elimination.

Finally Kerrigan. [[MoreThanMindControl She no longer funcions by a human set of morals]] on account of the infestation making her no longer human. She gets redeemed which automatically disqualifies her (there is no \\\"but this happened, so it doesn\\\'t count!\\\" clause, if you\\\'re a Complete Monster redemption of any kind is impossible, end of story). As for nothing she does that isn\\\'t heinous, she forced the UED out of the sector. You know, the military force of a faccist goverment whose backstory involved eliminating all non-English languages, religions and cultures and [[ANaziByAnyOtherName committed a genocide of 400 Million people in the name of genitic purity.]] At the end of Brood War she had the chance to take her swarm and wipe out the entire sector, but refuses to because she\\\'s sick of the killing (another thing a CM can\\\'t do) and spends the next 5 years not bothering anyone. And when she does come back, it\\\'s only to look for the artifacts.

As for not allying with the Cerebrates, they were openly trying to kill her. Not caring about butchering Zerg? [[WeHaveReserves There were billions more who weren\\\'t being commanded to destroy her.]]

And finally, the other CM\\\'s. Mengsk, who betrays the people who fought to make him Emperor, including his most trusted operative Kerrigan. He allowed a whole world to be conumed by the Zerg to ensure no one would be left to oppose him, and made a point of tracking down the last children of the Old Families and having them all killed, despite none of them knowing what had happened or being a threat to his power. Add to that continuing the Confederacy mind-rape policies, and allying with the Dark Voice to make more Hybrids. Hell the only reason why the Dark Voice isn\\\'t on this list is because it\\\'s crowning moment of \\\'\\\'\\\'omnicide\\\'\\\'\\\' happened in a vision.

So, those examples fail on several levels each, and would only contribute to trope decay for this article. Since the article is locked and is about to be cleaned up, you\\\'re going to have to take it to the forums and convince people that they should be added.