Basic Trope: A series' status quo never changes.
- Straight: Bob frequently loses his job, but always gets it back by the end of the episode.
- Exaggerated:
- Negative Continuity: All drastic changes will be reverted without any explanation.
- Strictly Formula: When the repetition of the storyline elements decreases the likelihood of additional changes.
- Bob frequently destroys the entire world, but it's always replenished by the end of the episode.
- Bob has a horrific gruesome death every time, but is unexplainably alive and well by the start of the next episode.
- Downplayed:
- The cast changes regularly, but the situation is always the same, so the show will always have the same setting.
- The status quo does change, but very slowly or only through season premieres and finales.
- Justified:
- The world is stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop.
- The Status Quo is enforced, in-universe, by an actual god.
- Inverted:
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Every episode of the series changes the status quo, and the show follows one big arc.
- Wham Episode: An episode destroys the status quo permanently and carries that change over in subsequent episodes.
- Subverted: Bob expects to have his job back by the end of the day, but finds out getting it back is not so easy.
- Double Subverted: A multi-part episode arc deals with Bob's job loss, only for his position to be restored with no hard feelings on either side.
- Parodied:
- Bob shoots his mother, and when Alice looks upon him in shock, he tells her not to worry because she'll be back by the end of the episode anyway.
- The status quo is literally a god, and doing anything that is against the status quo is grounds for The Scourge of God.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes changes to the status quo stick, and sometimes they don't.
- Averted: There is an actual ongoing continuity in the series. Drastic changes to the story tend to stick, and are not just conveniently reset at the end.
- Lampshaded:
- "Don't worry, I'm sure all of our problems will be solved by the end of today or tomorrow. Everything will be back to normal like always."
- "Isn't it odd how we have been the same age since forever?"
- Invoked:
- Ignored Epiphany: When the character rejects change.
- A change occurs that threatens to shake up the series' dynamics, so the characters scramble to prevent the change from messing with the show.
- Exploited: The characters frequently go straight to the Godzilla Threshold when solving problems, because any collateral damage caused will have disappeared by the next episode and all the characters know it.
- Defied:
- Bob finally asks himself why the hell he keeps going back to the job if he's so inept at it that he can't go a day without losing it. The next time he loses the job, he resolves to leave it behind and find a job that he's actually good at.
- Bob has had enough of letting the status quo push him and others around saying what they can and cannot do, he challenges it and wins and changes it. Depending on his morality if evil he changes it for the worse, but if good he obliterates the status quo so the rich and powerful are made sure that they have to follow certain moral procedures in order for them to stay rich and powerful, basically some checks and balances are added against the status quo to protect the people from being exploited and extorted and oppressed for many generations. In short if he is good he changes it for the better.
- Bob's status quo will change even if he has to put a gun to the face of his (metaphorical) god to make it happen.
- Discussed: "Just imagine, if everything stayed the same then!"
- Conversed: Alice: "This show is so boring Bob, nothing ever changes here...!"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice gets excited whenever something changes in later episodes...only for it to be for naught. A few episodes later, as a result of things only seeming to change but winding up being the same, Alice winds up depressed and/or cynical, thinking "What's the point in trying to change something that will always be the same? Worst case scenario? She goes insane.
- Even changes that would unambiguously be for the better are reset at the end of the episode. As a result, the characters live in a world in which nothing can EVER get better.
- The resident Butt-Monkey develops severe depression because their life can never improve because of how their universe works. If nothing ever changes, why bother trying at all?
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played For Laughs: Characters reference the status quo never changing for Lampshade Hanging gags.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice, realizing that the status quo is god, murders several characters under the justification that they'll come back anyway.
- Every episode ends with Alice being forced to return to people who abuse her.
- Bob gets a wife and she gets pregnant in the same episode, but then they both die in the same episode.
- Played For Horror: The Status Quo is literally being maintained by a God of Order or god-like Eldritch Abomination who is a total Control Freak and will go to any lengths to maintain what it sees as order. This includes keeping the designated couple apart to preserve the Unresolved Sexual Tension, murdering any Temporary Love Interests, preserving the Forever War between The Alliance and The Empire, breaking any captured criminals free, and preventing any permanent Character Development by subjecting any character trying to change to Mind Rape. The end result is a Cosmic Horror Story where the characters are forced to eternally play the same roles for the amusement of this wicked entity that they have no hope of resisting.
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