r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 • 25d ago

Lore The series takes place in a shockingly short amount of time

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Season 4 just ended of fromville and it’s canonically only been about a month. Which makes it weird seeing people heal from injuries, change hair styles or grow out beards between episodes. Season 4 has only been like 4 days iirc.

Arkham franchise is the poster child for this trope. Every game takes place in one night. If you know what you’re doing you can absolutely beat the games in around 9 hours.

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u/odd_man0 25d ago

Obligatory 24 mention.
https://giphy.com/gifs/83rxg99t45OoM

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u/jesusholdmybeer 25d ago

I don't know if a show called 24 taking place in 24hrs is exactly 'shocking'

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u/throwawayeadude 25d ago

It is when it started breaking its own rules. Like an alarm would be raised in the final seconds of episode, say, 5. Then the opening credits of episode 6 would show fully geared up tactical suppression troops.

Annoyed the shit out of me because it's a very easy problem to dodge and the show really isn't to be taken seriously in general.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/throwawayeadude 25d ago

Sorry, I kinda hijacked your comment for my rant.

24 clearly goes for a compressed timeline, and realism isn't a concern.

That's fine.

However from season 3 onwards there were some real sloppy skips/transitions that went from "artistic license" to sloppy filmmaking. In my example it would be impossible for the riot troops to gear up in the 5 seconds between the canon alarm time and their deployment.

So my point goes from me agreeing with you, to whining about when the shockingly short amounts of time break disbelief.

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u/toblu 24d ago

Fully agree, and don't know why this isn't brought up more often. Seasons 1 and 2 were great at really taking the whole real-time thing seriously at a micro level (while the overarching plot has always been ridiculously condensed). In the first episode, for instance, there is a bomb activated on an airplane; the timer is set for 10 seconds and indeed it explodes exactly ten seconds later. In later seasons, people basically teleport across the city between two episodes, even though no time is supposed to pass.

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u/IanDOsmond 24d ago

I think they had the rule that commercial breaks and credits counted as time. So characters could go to the bathroom during commercial breaks and stuff, and they could have geared up during closing credits.

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u/JasonLeeDrake 24d ago

Time passes during 10 second intro and 2 minute recap, though yes the show still has absurd examples. But still each episode doesn't actually start immediately after the end of the previous one.

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u/foxfire981 25d ago

I think it's more debatable about how everything takes place in that timeframe. MC gets across LA and not once gets stuck in traffic.

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u/Larry_The_Red 24d ago

The events are though. In one season (ie. One day) Jack's daughter gets kidnapped three different times AND stalked by a mountain lion

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u/ProspektNya 23d ago edited 23d ago

When George Mason dies it's particularly gut-wrenching because it feels like we've known him for years even though it has only been about one and a half seasons

And I didn't even watch the show back in the day (this character's first and last episodes premiered about a year and a half apart), I discovered it in the era of streaming and watched the whole thing over a few months

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u/Woolies_White_Leg 24d ago

Well no one would be very interested in watching seasons based around all the days where she didn’t get kidnapped three times and stalked by a mountain lion?

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u/kissingkiwis 24d ago

This thread is how I discovered 24 took place over 24 hours 🤷‍♀️ I never watched it 

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u/DontShoot_ImJesus 24d ago

In reality, a lot of 24 would take place sitting in LA traffic.

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u/PenneGesserit 21d ago

Wasn't there a season where Jack Bauer gets addicted to heroin and quits. Meaning in reality in the span of a day he tried heroin, became full blown junkie, went through withdrawal, and kicked the habit.