T1B

time travel (of course)....when you have to change the past to "fix" the present/future--all over the place lately: Lost, Heroes, Star Trek blah blah blah etc......and the drug that makes you dead for a while and then you wake up again to improbably foil your adversary/escape the impossible situation. the latter is my new fave.

when the writing isn't strong enough to actually produce a coherent narrative, you can always turn to time travel or the drug that makes you dead for a while...

The time travel thing is what really soured me on Heroes. The fact that Hiro could time travel anywhere to any time period (and the show's over-reliance on this plot device) made pretty much anything that happened subject to change. At least on Lost, the characters didn't really have any control over where/when they ended up, which makes it a little more palatable.

Either way, the time travel thing isn't nearly as bad as chalking up an entire season of Dallas to the "it was all just a dream" plot device.

the drug that makes you dead made an appearance in an epi of Dollhouse i saw over the weekend and an epi of True Blood. in season 1 of Dollhouse, there was also an escape through the kitchen (to where the secret corporate super-safe was hidden) and an additional fight in a different restaurant kitchen for a kind of film motif double-play.

i'm also noticing the widespread use of people sipping out of coffee mugs and cups that have no liquid in them. you can tell by the haphazard way they are handled.