LOST

Some directors seem to think that all forms of explosives make giant balls of fire, making no distinction between high explosives and incendiaries.

Locke causes Boone to hallucinate the death of Shannon. This could also be applied to the final season of the show, with the "flash-sideways" revealed to be nothing more than some sort of elaborate afterlife waiting room.

"The bad guys are always lousy shots in the movies. Three villains with Uzis will go after the hero, spraying thousands of rounds which miss him, after which he picks them off with a handgun." --Roger Ebert

The Man in Black serves as one of the main villains for the show. I think you can guess what color he wears.

Don't bother wearing a hat over your completely shaved head. It could be the middle of a Rio summer, but UV radiation doesn't affect baldness.

"I saved you a Bullet!"

In many movies with fight scenes, rain will fall from the sky to add drama to the battle, even if no indication of rain appeared before. Bonus points if rain falls during the final battle.

While it's not a bomb, it still counts. In the Season 4 episode The Other Woman, Daniel Faraday and Charlotte Lewis travel to the Tempest station to stop a deadly gas from being emitted onto the Island. Faraday manages to complete this objective with 1 second left on the clock.

Chasing for the one you love, the terrorist that's about to flee the country, or a diamond that accidentally slipped into someone's pocket.

When a person dies in a movie, another person will close their eyes.

Do I pull the green wire or the red one? Maybe the blue one. Every bomb maker, regardless of skill level, will make their devices with multi-colored wiring to aid in diffusal. When will they learn to just make them all red?

Sometimes a woman needs a hero to save them.

Most characters have a screwed up past--Sawyer and Locke in particular come to mind.

They want to fly on a long flight across The Pacific ocean with bad airline food and the various other problems they have. Then the plane has to crash for some reason. It's either a magnet or fate that did it.

A plot device in which a character switches allegiances at the last moment. Most double crosses end badly for the double crosser.

Sometime characters like drugs a little more than they should and can occasionally slip into a fantasy realm of their own imagination. These dreams can range from psychedelic wonderlands to nightmarish incarnations of hell.

A character is shot, stabbed, or otherwise in a condition where he or she may die at any moment. But instead of passing on, as most dying people tend to do, the character will find time to give a dramatic final speech.

Even though it's never made entirely clear what the Dharma initiative actually /did/, they were certainly shady enough.

Once the car hits the water they should only have minutes to escape; but all to often, they get away.

The hero is framed for a crime he didn't commit, and now must escape the police and the villain...all while trying to prove his innocence.

Did your father die before imparting all his wisdom? Don't worry he'll come back and help you out. But think twice before responding to him, no one else sees him and hilarious antics will ensue.

A character tells his or her comrades to escape immediately so that they can be safe.

Usually one of the protagonists adversaries become a friendly close to or at the movie's conclusion.

A Heroic Sacrifice is when a character makes a sacrifice for the benefit and well-being of others. This is quite possibly the most prevalent cliche in cinema today.

Bad guy's cornered, so what does he do? Why, point a gun at some innocent person!

Alex to Sayid. Also, Desmond to Sayid when Desmond is skipping through time and confused in "The Constant".

Jacob & The Man in Black are demigods of sorts.

Jack up there on the right.

"We either live together, or we die alone."

When nursing clearly fatal wounds which would mean certain death in real life, fictional characters have a tendency to shrug it off as if it's nothing more than a flesh wound.

Hurley can talk to dead people.

The Economist episode had Sayid, in a flashback, in Russia and you guessed it. There's snow on the ground.

You see the protagonist looking down a hallway, the music begins to lower, just as she's about to open the door at the end of the hallway BOOM a cat jumps out followed by a loud stinger.

Once captured, the traditional request by the main protagonist to the main antagonist to let his love interest go free. Generally makes the protagonist look more heroic, and is always denied by the antagonist. Usually preceded by "Do whatever you want with me...". Sometimes "the Girl" is replaced with other loved ones, friends, or just innocent civilians.

Awwww...how romantic.

The hero is about to fall off that cliff, but at the last second, he manages to grab his teammate's hand/the edge of the precipice!

You...can't...trust...urrgghh...

Splitting up is the hardest thing to do. In most movies, it's also the DUMBEST thing to do. Something unquestionably horrible is guaranteed to happen the second the group disbands in opposite directions.

Any Hollywood movie featuring scenes in Britain will likely take place in central London. Anywhere else in Britain, that’s not London, will be shown as countryside full of cows and sheep.

Sayid begins a romance with Shannon on the island, only for her to be quickly killed. When he finally reaches his long-lost love after getting off the island, she is quickly murdered. Poor Sayid.

Any time anything remotely bizarre or high concept happens, the universe creates a weird old guy with the keys to understanding it all.

Superhero (or criminal) grievously wounded, picked up by friend, but refuses to go to the hospital for fear of exposure.

One of Hollywood's most popular fallback phrases. Wherever you are - it's not Kansas.

The island is off the map.

A character is calmly in the middle of a sentence when suddenly they are shot or stabbed by something off-screen. Examples of this are Wash from Serenity or the Doctor from 3:10 to Yuma.

They especially stand out on Mr. Eko.

Despite being stranded on an untraceable island, most of the male character's facial hair stop short of beards.

Used in Season 4. Report on discovery of staged Oceanic crash site.

We all remember "those" parts of movies where someone falls off of a bridge or something equally horrific and everyone assumes that the person is died, yet they come back later.

Nothing shouts 'These are the bad guys!' like a gruesome execution witnessed from afar. All the incentive any hero needs to decimate an enemy P.O.W. camp (or unholy temple).