Worst Sci-fi Plots out there

[Col.Foley]

Funny. Most of the plot points that have been named I really enjoy. Especially good time travel and AU stories. (War without End. Squee! )

But the one that I really do hate is the libido one, those can be fun if mixed in with other plot elements. The Naked Time, and Naked Now for instance. But, when it is just it, it can be trying for anything more then just a first watching. Torchwoods Day One for instance.

[nx01a]

(War without End. Squee! )

"They're all over the place! They're killing us. Can anyone hear me? They're killing us! Can anyone help us? This is Cmdr. Susan Ivanova of Babylon 5... Here it comes. Here it comes!"

[Col.Foley]

"They're all over the place! They're killing us. Can anyone hear me? They're killing us! Can anyone help us? This is Cmdr. Susan Ivanova of Babylon 5... Here it comes. Here it comes!"

Yeash...awesomeness. in a bottle.

[The Prophet]

Tropes like these, for me, are only bad if the writing is bad and they stick to the cliché of it 100%. If written correctly, they can provide excitement and entertainment that we wouldn't get othwerwise.

Time-travel, for example. Heroes Season 1 pulled it off amazingly; in 5 Years Gone giving us insight into how the future would be like if NY was destroyed, how the characters would change and cope with such a disaster; Future!Hiro and Future!Peter being badasses, and Sylar's potential.

Alternate Universes give an example of how things could have turned out if certain situations or characters didn't play out how they played out in the our Universe. There but for the Grace of God is a perfect example of this; if Daniel never joined the program and Carter didn't join the military; Jack & Sam would be engaged but Teal'c would never have joined the program and Earth would wind up being destroyed. The characters placed in different circumstances, having subtley different personalities, and how our characters re-act to themselves.

It was all a dream plot, whilst usually mundane and having no lasting consequence on the plot, can unveil a world of insight on specific characters; whilst not specifically Sci-Fi; House MD's 2x24 No Reason and 4x15 House's Head, whilst set in a dream, tell us how House would react to specific situations, and seeing as what a usually reserved and cynical person he is, shows us how he thinks and acts deep inside.

Amnesia provides the same insight; how a character would act if all of his experiences and social-development were stripped away. Atlantis' Tabula Rasa is quite a decent example of this, imho. Most of the cast having their memories impared, and the viewer too having no idea what is actually occuring, being as lost as the characters; having the plot revealed in bursts of flashbacks.

Bringing Back a Dead Character, whilst really clichéd and usually being unexplained and not worked upon at all, being cheap and unrealistic, can have some quite deep effects if written correctly; BSG has this with the Cylon Rebirths, how the characters react to seeing people they've come to know return to them (Clones work in with this too, the Cylons being the same people, but different copies being different peopl too). Starbuck's death and return and Lee's reaction to it being emotional too.

What really bugs me is the bad writing when these tropes are being used, or when they're explained away by technobabble. Mainly, if the writers don't use them successfully or view their full impact, glazing over them, then that really bugs me. Normally I'm excited about Time-Travel, AUs and all, but they can be pulled off terribly.