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Viewers Are Goldfish: Difference between revisions
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Sort of like how executives think [[Viewers are Morons|viewers are stupid]], they also think you have the [[Did Not Do the Research|memory of a goldfish, which, according to common legend, lasts about three seconds]][[hottip:*: real life goldfish have been proven to have longer memory; a study concluded a maximum limit of seven months. And, if you don't buy that, it's also been [[Myth Busters (TV)|busted]]. Because remembering what happens over the course of a ''whole thirty minutes'' or, god forbid, ''an hour'', is too difficult for [[This Loser Is You|your general media consumer,]] there is a handy little device called a [[Flash Back]] that can be used to rewind, oh, five minutes or so to say, "Hey! This just happened, moron!" [[hottip:*:[[Ad Break Double Take|It may also be the case that a viewer has tuned in partway through the program or series, and therefore has no memory of what happened even moments earlier.]] It may also come from an ancient survey that stated that [[We All Live in America|Americans]] change the channel 20 times every minute on average.
[[Department of Redundancy Department|Executives think viewers are stupid]], [[Self-Demonstrating Article|and they also think you have the memory of a goldfish, which lasts about three seconds]]. Sometimes a necessity in video game plots, due to the possibility of the player saving the game, taking a break of, say, two or three months, and then coming back, [[Now Where Was I Going Again?|having forgotten important plot points during that time]]. In this case, the flashbacks will only seem insulting to the player's intelligence during a non-stop play, in which case they only have themselves to blame. Some recent games try to avert this by putting plot summaries or scenes that otherwise show what has happened up to that point in the [[Loading Screen]]. Others have a character keep a diary which the player can read to remind themselves of the plot so far.
This may also be a justification depending on the format. Sometimes, book series will [[Call Back]] to past events from the previous books when they were intended to be relatively standalone, or in case the viewer read the previous book, then went on to the next one a little while later. TV shows, for example, are often made around commercial breaks, so when you view it on DVD or on a channel that does not use commercials (such as the BBC) it'll seem odd
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* ''[[Fist of the North Star (Manga)|Fist of the North Star]]'' has flashback episodes every time a significant plot arc ends. Sometimes the flashbacks can take up to five episodes to finish.
* ''[[Noir (Anime)|Noir]]'' does this, having a series of flashbacks late into ''the first episode.'' However, this seems to be less about them assuming that [[Viewers are Morons]] and more about [[Stock Footage|conserving the budget by repeating the same sequence over and over]]. Also, a certain important sequence of events gets flashbacked every other episode for a reason, as it gradually reveals more and more of a defining moment in pasts of the characters.
* An instance of this on ''[[Sonic X (Anime)|Sonic X]]'' leads to a quite jarring moment when edited by [[
* The quote at the top of the page isn't too much of an exaggeration of the ''[[Naruto (Anime)|Naruto]]'' anime, with whatever happened in the last five minutes of one episode being recapped in the opening five minutes of the next, and whatever happened in the last minute before a commercial being repeated over the next twenty second after. Although the actual purpose of this is more [[Padding]] than anything else. Then there are the many, many flashbacks. Often to three minutes ago.
** One of the most painful examples is the Zabuza arc where there were as many as 7 flashbacks in an episode during the final fights. Sometimes even to the episode that had just preceded it.
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* In ''[[Street Fighter the Legend of Chun Li (Film)|Street Fighter the Legend of Chun Li]]'', we see a close-up of [[In Name Only|Gen]]'s spider-web tattoo. Not even five minutes later, [[In Name Only|Chun-Li]] is told that the meaning of a map she was given is telling her to find Gen for training. ''It then shows us the exact-same shot of Gen's spider-web tattoo.''
* About half of ''[[Silent Night Deadly Night (Film)|Silent Night Deadly Night]] 2'' consists of flashbacks of the previous movie. The other half consists of Ricky either being awesome, [[Narm|narmful]], or some combination of the two. [[Memetic Mutation|GARBAGE DAY!]] Justified ''a little'' because they'd originally intended to make a tamer edit of the film with some new footage to compensate for the edits, then it ended up turning into a half-redundant sequel instead.
* ''[[
* ''[[The Last Airbender (Film)|The Last Airbender]]''. Even though he expected his viewers [[Viewers Are Geniuses|to be fully versed in the television series]], M. Night Shyamalan decided that he had to repeat the same thing over and over again.
* The makers of ''[[There Will Be Blood]]'' apparently assumed that viewers would not remember that Daniel Plainview's plan was to cut a deal with Union Oil and lay a pipeline to the coast so that he would no longer have to pay rail-tanker fees to Standard Oil unless this fairly simple plan were explained again and again every five minutes or so for the entire length of the film.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* Watching a TV show released on DVD often makes this occur inadvertently, as a piece of action will occur before a commercial break would appear during a TV airing and then occur again a moment later to bring the viewers back into the action after the non-existent-on-the-DVD commercial break.
** [["Previously On..."]] segments are made of this trope when watching on DVD.
* Often occurs in American shows broadcast in the UK. The public-funded BBC channels don't have any advert breaks at all, and British commercial TV stations don't have as many advert breaks as their US counterparts so the breaks they get don't always match up properly with the points the program-makers were intending breaks to take place.
* Repetition is very common in hour-long documentaries that would otherwise be a half- or quarter-hour. Redundancy helps to fill the hour, because such shows tend to be about subjects that really can be explained in a quarter- or half-hour, and they need filler material in order to fill the entire hour. Most American documentaries are completely unwatchable due to the constant recapping of the first three minutes, which also leaves little time to impart any actual information. It gets even more ridiculous when [[The BBC]]'s ''own'' programs do this, and the obvious implication that they're doing it for the benefit of whichever commercial network ends up buying it can be almost insulting at times. Especially when they show you the same recap/coming soon segment twice in quick succession, either side of the non-existent ad break.
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* ''[[CSI (TV)|CSI]]'' does this all the time. First you see the crime scene, then they talk about the evidence, then they process it in the lab and remember collecting it, then they talk about why it matters and when someone has a [[Eureka Moment]], they show you which specific piece of evidence was important.
** One Season 3 episode has a bad example where it constantly goes to a Mitochondrial DNA Lab in Norfolk, Virginia. You know this because every time it switches there, they felt the need to have a location stamp with that information. The scenes aren't even [[Filler|that important!]]
* The [["Previously On..."]] ''[[
* [[Veronica Mars]] does a great deal of this, though it is somewhat justified in that it's large cast means that characters will fade in and out of view with irritating regularity, leading casual viewers to be reminded of their existence. Add to that that the plot is often so thick with so many sub-plots and red herrings crossing each other that the plot can get very confusing at times. On the other hand, the overly long [["Previously On..."]] sequences that occur in every single episode except the first make this trope laughable when marathoning the show on DVD, as the [["Previously On..."]] will remind viewers of plot points brought up a single episode ago. This is especially true when it reminds you of the ending of the previous episode, which you just saw. This is especially infuriating when the same clip is used over and over to remind you of a single plot point.
* [[Lost]] has this in spades. For one example, consider Eloise Hawking: brought up briefly in one episode two seasons before she actually became important. The [["Previously On..."]] segments showed clips from that episode in the one she reappeared in.
* Always done on ''[[Medium]]'': Whenever Allison has her [[Eureka Moment|ding ding ding! moment]], we get a flashback to earlier in the episode so the show can reinforce the connection she's making -- even if it just happened 20 minutes ago.
* Very frequently, [[ESPN]]'s ''[[Sports Center]]'' will begin with a recap of the sporting event that the network just televised.
* The dying WB network came with a [["Previously On..."]] stunt that recapped the first half-hour of hourly shows, apparently for the benefit of viewers who were watching other channels for the previous half-hour. Programs subjected to this included ''[[Gilmore Girls]]''.
* ''[[Flash Forward 2009]]'' has repeated Mark and Olivia Benford's flashforward at least once per episode, more or less beating the viewer over the head with reminders that he's drinking and she's cheating. Word is that viewers might have [[Executive Meddling]] to thank for this. Unsurprisingly, the more popular storylines tend to involve characters whose flashforward was only shown once, or who didn't have one at all.
* ''[[Arrested Development (TV)|Arrested Development]]'', a show praised for being one of the most intelligent on television, succumbed to this later in its run, due to [[Executive Meddling|the higher-ups complaining]] [[Viewers are Morons|the plot was too convoluted for people to follow.]] So, generally, in the last season the first half-minute after the commercial break is devoted to the narrator summarizing everything else to happen in that episode at speeds that would make the ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' narrator blush.
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'''Lois:''' Peter, that happened ten minutes ago.<br />
:: And closer to fifteen seconds in the show itself. Not to mention that of course ''that'' was the exact thing they were arguing about. Making this also an in-universe example for Peter. }}
* ''[[Wolverine and The X Men]]'''s constant recaps of the first couple of episodes in almost every single episode's [["Previously On..."]] sequence. It... didn't take us ''months'' to come to the gripping realization that mutant-hunters are ''bad'' and the X-Men being back together is ''good.'' No, ''really,'' it didn't.
* The entirety of ''[[Dora the Explorer (Animation)|Dora the Explorer]]''. The show treats the viewers as if they have the memories of a goldfish and repeats a phrase so often that if you're older than a toddler and are not allowed to change the channel for whatever reason, you'd be wishing that someone take out a gun and put you out of your misery after watching a few minutes into the show. Unless you're [[Watch It Stoned|high on something]]. Justified, because the target audience really does have the attention span of a goldfish, and you shouldn't be watching it if you're older than five. That would be [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny]] tho. All the repetition in the world will not be able to help there since it's a different trope altogether. It's shown that keeping the child attracted via interactivity (ie. no fourth wall) helps more, but then Dora actually has ''both''.
* ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 (Animation)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987]]'' has an episode once where it flashes back to a scientist explaining what his invention did, then he [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|broke the fourth wall]] and said he hates flashbacks as much as the viewer.
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[[Category:Self Demonstrating Article]]
[[Category:Viewers Are Goldfish]]
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