Things that only work once that you see used repeatedly

[Zontar]

In fiction, weather it be drama or comedy or anything else, there are some things that only work once. And sometimes, due to the reaction people had to the first time it was used, the writer keep repeating it, despite the fact it only worked once. What are those which you have seen?

For me, one that really irritated me, was the use of the overly long mundane thing in Family Guy back when I still watched it. This worked by having a character stop everything, and spend a fair bit of time with the only thing happening on screen being the character doing whatever it is, such as spending 30 second watching Peter open a can with a manual can opener. The first time it was done, it was funny because it wasn't expected and, despite braking the narrative flow, it was something that used the absurdity of being so mundane juxtaposed with everything else in the episode to make it work as a joke. By the time I stopped watching the series, it had become so common in its use it was a boring, unfunny waste of time that was just one of the multiple reasons I stopped watching. It was only funny once, yet they kept bringing it back.

 

[Frezzato]

*Whoops, I missed the spirit of the thread. Sorry.

I really liked the idea of what they did in the first Dead Space, specifically:

Spoiler

The part where you exit out of the store menu and there's a thingie/creature RIGHT THERE! AHHH GOTCHA!

Being attacked while you're inside a menu, I've seen that done before...maybe after Dead Space came out. Like in Saints Row 3 and 4. Sometimes while you're doing something, say, shopping for clothes, your wanted meter will go up without your doing. That happened to me once because Professor Genki was right outside killing people and somehow I got blamed. The same applies if you're in two-player and the other player decides to cause some mayhem while you're doing something else, like customizing a car.

But regarding Dead Space, it was a brilliant move for the devs to make the shopping menu a "safe space". And they kept within the confines of that rule throughout the game. But the instant you LEFT that menu you were fair game. Thankfully they only did that once. Or, I don't know, maybe something had followed me to the store and I just didn't see it until I left the menu?

I also seek out the scariest movies I can find, and I buy the ones I love. Horror is very hard to do well, and I'm glad that more high quality horror is being produced around the globe. It's a never ending escalation with me regarding horror movies.

These days, zombies are done. Like overdone. The "monster of the week" thing happens every few years or so. In the 80's it was slasher movies, I don't know what the 90's monster flavor was, but these days it's definitely zombies. I think the only zombie movie I enjoyed was 28 Days Later. Everything following that pretty much fell flat.

 

[Thaluikhain]

These days, zombies are done. Like overdone.

Yup...not just overdone, but done badly. They come from all sorts of sources, but end up being the exact same boring zombie that makes little sense to begin with. "Hey, that's weird, the dead are coming to life and attacking people, and you have to shoot them in the head" isn't interesting anymore.

Now, people could do all sorts of things with them, but feel obliged not to.

 

[Queen Michael]

I'd say the overly long gags on Family Guy worked at least once more. I'm talking about the gag about bad Dinsey sequels, where we get to see about thirty seconds of Aladdin 4: Jafar Might Need Glasses. It's just Jafar trying out different sets of lenses at the optician's for thirty seconds, and the longer it goes on, the more hilarious it is that Disney would actually release something so dull.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The Weeping Angels from Doctor Who were very good, so they keep bringing them back and changing everything that made them good.

 

[Queen Michael]

Superman-style superheroes. You know the kind. Muscly. Super-strong. Flies. Has a cape and tights. It works for Superman, but it doesn't work for any other guy. Every other example I've seen of that kind of hero has either been a straight-up deconstruction, like in Irredeemable, or at least a variation, like in Powers, or at least ditched the tights, like Thor did.

 

[Demagogue]

The end of movie plot twists. When I first remember seeing it done in the Six Sense (I'm sure it isn't the first to do it) it was interesting, made me want to watch the movie again to essentially fact check the movie and see if they slipped up anywhere.

However, it has become so overdone in even more than just Shyamalan's movies.

 

[Queen Michael]

The Weeping Angels from Doctor Who were very good, so they keep bringing them back and changing everything that made them good.

Word. They were really good in "Blink." But from there, things went downhill.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The "Would you date" threads. Funny once. Not funny anymore.

EDIT: Ah, the mods finally deleted them. Good riddance.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Pretty much this-

I first saw this back when I was in High School when it was on Shockwave (hey kiddo, you know what that was?). I literally cannot breath after watching that but everytime I watched it now (like a second ago as I typed this), I react nothing to it at all.

 

[Ratty]

Jump scares. The way I see it every horror movie deserves exactly one, two if they earn it. (i.e. if you do it twice it better not be "oh it was just the cat" the second time) Anything beyond that is gratuitous and usually varying degrees of annoying and boring. Hasn't stopped them from being all over the place in modern horror films.

 

[Recusant]

I think you're missing the bigger point here: it's not that it only works once, it's that it only works for you once. The fact that you have heard a joke/heard a story/experienced a plot element to the point that it lost its value doesn't mean anyone else has; you are not the center of the universe. I know it has always been fashionable to decry anything lacking novelty as "cliche", but c'mon. Would you have complained about the introduction of Sherlock Holmes when Doyle was just redoing what Poe had done forty years earlier?

 

[sageoftruth]

Certain internet arguments/observations. Insightful and eye-opening the first time. Then someone else makes the same observation a few weeks later and you go, "What? This crap again?"

 

[RedDeadFred]

People that link the same strawpolls over and over. Yes, haha, you're wasting everyone's time with some lame poll that has some completely random answers which mean nothing. It's funny once, but man it gets old. I'm still hopeful every time I see one of these: http://strawpoII.me/3733317 , it'll be something that actually interesting. Also, screamers are another thing that usually only work once. Now, everyone can see them coming.

 

[Artemisalpha]

The end of movie plot twists. When I first remember seeing it done in the Six Sense (I'm sure it isn't the first to do it) it was interesting, made me want to watch the movie again to essentially fact check the movie and see if they slipped up anywhere.

However, it has become so overdone in even more than just Shyamalan's movies.

The plot twist has been around since at least the time of the Greek tragedies. As one of the oldest storytelling devices of mankind, it's certainly ok to think that it's overused - but I wouldn't lay too much blame at Shyamalan's feet.

 

[The Wykydtron]

The entire "everyone dies" thing in Game of Thrones/Attack on Titan. It's fine in GoT because nobody is really trying to compete with RR Martin in terms of characters killed in a book and AoT does its shit well, aside from bizarre plot armour on its main characters but since AoT aired, there's been a few anime trying to capitalise on the surprise mass death factor. I'm still waiting for Mikasa to die in the manga too when I catch up to it, she's just too godlike to NOT kill for shock appeal y'know?

Basically this is me crying about Akame ga Kill. The boss battle of the week heavy fighting anime that just loves the sudden death moves. By which I mean in one moment everything is fine then the VERY next frame of the scene everything is fucked.

It's one of those where you simply cannot have a favourite character because they all die. I stopped watching the moment the first important person died and i've just asked my friends about the rest. Shame because it's a pretty cool anime, I just don't have fun watching characters where everyone is walking around with their own personal Buster Sword sized Sword of Damocles dangling above their head with really badly tied rope.

[sub][sub]Also i'm told that Mine dies, not even the tsundere character is safe from these heartless monsters. Unacceptable.[/sub][/sub]

I can't trust any lighthearted fighting based anime now because I have to be on guard for random backbreaking tonal "we want in on that AoT cash money" shifts.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Superman-style superheroes. You know the kind. Muscly. Super-strong. Flies. Has a cape and tights. It works for Superman, but it doesn't work for any other guy. Every other example I've seen of that kind of hero has either been a straight-up deconstruction, like in Irredeemable, or at least a variation, like in Powers, or at least ditched the tights, like Thor did.

I disagree because Captain Marvel.

Spoiler: YEAH!

 

[cojo965]

The end of movie plot twists. When I first remember seeing it done in the Six Sense (I'm sure it isn't the first to do it) it was interesting, made me want to watch the movie again to essentially fact check the movie and see if they slipped up anywhere.

However, it has become so overdone in even more than just Shyamalan's movies.

The plot twist has been around since at least the time of the Greek tragedies. As one of the oldest storytelling devices of mankind, it's certainly ok to think that it's overused - but I wouldn't lay too much blame at Shyamalan's feet.

Maybe, but how many people today know of those? Modern stuff is easier to relate with so forgive some going to that. However, Demagogue is talking about the ending twist that had no build-up or foreshadowing of (or at least seems so on the first viewing for some).

OT: I don't have something like what the op asks so I'll offer something that never works: heavy handed sequel hooks Godzilla 98 being a particular bugbear of mine for this reason. A movie should resolve the plot it's dealing with in the immediate not setting up a future that you don't even know will happen. It worked for Iron Man because the movie didn't drop it's sequel hook until you were already out of the theater, allowing it to just be a good movie on its own while having a hook just in case that future plan is possible. In other words, end definitively while remaining open enough that if a sequel is feasible you can make one, Godzilla 14 being my favorite go-to for a demonstration of my point. Of course, this leads to another peeve of mine: the sequel that nobody fucking asked for. Do you remember Dragonheart? Do you remember how much you cried at the ending? Great film wasn't it? Now then, do you remember Dragonheart A New Beginning, the sequel to Dragonheart? I don't, never watched it, but I fucking know that I never watched Dragonheart and thought, "man that was a good movie, but if had more dragon on dragon violence, (I did read the synopsis of the sequel mind) tossed out everything that made the original special, and became a completely generic fantasy film, it would significantly improved." On top of that, who the fuck was clamoring for a Dragonheart 3!? How the fuck is a space dragon going to mean a damn thing for the original?

 

[Kyrian007]

These days, zombies are done. Like overdone.

Yup...not just overdone, but done badly. They come from all sorts of sources, but end up being the exact same boring zombie that makes little sense to begin with. "Hey, that's weird, the dead are coming to life and attacking people, and you have to shoot them in the head" isn't interesting anymore.

Now, people could do all sorts of things with them, but feel obliged not to.

I agree, zombies are done and overdone. But... if you really want to see someone who took a "zombie movie" adapted from a zombie story, and made it unique. Try Pontypool.

Spoiler

I can't really promise you it's good. That's a matter of taste. I can say I was glued to my chair watching it. There's NOTHING else in the zombie genre like Pontypool.

As far as "things that only work once." I've seen a negative experiences listed. But some of those "only work once" experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. I can't imagine re-playing Telltales' The Walking Dead, maybe not for years. But that was a great couple of games. Only a couple of hours of gameplay, but I'd have payed double full price for the experience.