Smallville

Items may not be in exact order.

Fade in to a scene of normal, everyday life, where things suddenly go inexplicably wrong. Scene either ends with the death of a no-name or Clark looking confused (psst, Clark! Here’s a hint: He has superpowers, too!)

Opening Credits ("somebody save me!")

Clark talks with friends or family about everyday life. Depending on who he’s talking to he either complains about how he wants to be normal or acts awkward because they don’t know his secret.

Clark and the gang decide to look into the unexplained event.

Lex is forced to take a break from drinking scotch and shooting pool in his mansion to either argue business with his dad, or do damage control on a laboratory fuck-up.

Chloe hacks into a secure government/corporate database with relative ease to retrieve information about the unexplained phenomenon, implicating Lex

Clark barges into Lex’s mansion, interrupting yet more scotch drinking and pool playing, to confront him; Clark gets indignant over Lex maintaining his innocence while simultaneously lying through his teeth about his knowledge of caves, spaceships, and such.

Chloe and Lana have female share time and talk about their feelings.

Lois says something irritating, and Clark looks at her like she has two heads.

Lionel Luthor does something truly evil that has implications far beyond the mere mortal concerns of this one episode.

Clark, despite the ability to process information at superhuman speeds, finally uncovers more of the mystery once it appears in front of him like a stack of flash cards.

Lana gets captured by the bad guy.

Although Clark- who travels at close to light speed- can canvass every square inch of town in a matter of moments, he prefers to have Chloe hack another database to determine Lana’s whereabouts.

Turns out Bad Guy was either a meteor victim, or found a way to alter meteor rock to gain his powers. One address sticks out like a sore thumb.

Upon getting the address, Clark zips off at superspeed while Chloe is still talking to him.

Clark finds super-powered bad guy, but gets trapped by kryptonite (I hope he’s OK)

Clark escapes / is freed from the Kryptonite, and superspeeds to Lana’s rescue

Superpowered bad guy is thrown across the room into a wall mere moments before Lana would have been killed.

Cleanup phase: If Clark gained a love interest other than Lana, she dies. Anyone who learned Clark’s secret loses their memory, or leaves Smallville to walk the earth as an avenging warrior. Clark and Lex come to some form of understanding.

The Lana Effect: Lana whines about her life and Clark’s lies. If they were together at the beginning of the episode, they are now in some form of separation; if they were separated at the beginning of the episode, they are now patching things up.

It turns out Lex was involved with the bad happenings, but he thinks his motives were noble.

Clark sits in his barn and laments how hard it is to be immortal, have god-like powers, male-model looks, a blond and a brunette both obsessed with him, and a billionaire for a best friend.

Lionel does an Evil check. Yep, still Evil! He smiles an evil smile as he drinks his evil scotch. It’s all going according to plan – an Evil plan.

24

Events might not occur in this precise order.

• Jack is thrown for a loop by the last hour’s events.
• Someone is dead
• Jack calls CTU (Command Transfers Unexpectedly)
• CTU tells jack where to go.
• Jack goes there.
• Jack kicks major ass.
• CTU changes command.
• Jack interrogates person.
• Jack gets information.
• 2 CTU members find time while trying to stop WWIII to talk about their relationship.
  
• Jack is forced to break the law to get the next piece of the puzzle.
• Jack is now wanted by the authorities
• The Main Bad Guy phones orders to lesser bad guys
• Jack calls Chloe to get what he needs without CTU’s knowledge.
• Chloe frowns, acts bitchy, and then magically solves the problem by walking in to the somehow unsecured server room and hacking the system.
• Jack breaks more laws to get what he needs.
• CTU closes in on Jack
• Jack talks to whoever happens to be in command of CTU at the moment, and explains why he had to do what he did.
• Jack is exonerated.
• Jack is now in command of CTU strike team sent to arrest him
• Jack is forced to make a shit deal in exchange for the next piece of information
• Jack, or CTU on Jack’s behalf, calls president to get approval for shit deal.
• President stalls until Jack uses the proven negotiating tactic of “WE HAVE NO TIME!”
• Jack makes deal.
• Jack is betrayed.
• Someone marches in to CTU, immediately displays how clueless they are, and then announces that he or she is now in CTU.
  
• Jack enlists aid of Common Citizen/ Low-level Law Enforcement
• CC/LLE is Killed
• Informant is killed, device is stolen, or piece of information turns out to lead just slightly higher on the bad-guy ladder.

If not the finale:

• Either the Main Bad Guy turns out to be a Lesser Bad Guy by means of a new phone call, or the Main Threat turns out to be a diversion for a Much Greater Threat.
• A critical event happens precisely on the hour.

If it IS the finale:

• Jack mows through Main Bad Guy's henchmen like a chainsaw through butter, kills the main bad guy and saves western civilization
• Something happens on the hour to completely wreck Jack's life.
  

House

Not all items occur in exact order.

• Patient gets sick.
• House is too busy to care.
• Setup of House dealing with secondary patient’s trivial malady.
• Something happens to make Patient/ Patient’s family unlikable.
• Something unexpected happens.
• House now cares.
• Setup of episode’s life/love lesson with his friend in Oncology.
• House alienates his boss.
• House asks staff for opinions of sick person’s condition.
• House condescendingly disagrees with everyone’s consensus opinion.
• Situation arises where THE PATIENT WILL DIE if House follows the rules.
• House breaks the rules to follow his hunch.
• Patient almost dies.
• Boss threatens House while simultaneously covering his ass.
• Elaboration of this Episode’s life/love lesson with friend in oncology.
• House lets his staff follow their hunch with more tests.
• Resolution of secondary patient’s trivial malady.
• Patient almost dies.
• House realizes that his staff was almost right, but something doesn’t fit.
• House interrogates patient / unlikable family member
• It is discovered that the patient/ patient’s unlikable family withheld important detail.
• Withheld information changes diagnosis.
• House does last-ditch test that could possibly kill patient
• Test determines that it's actually someting entirely different that's killing te patient
• Situation arises where THE PATIENT WILL DIE if House follows the rules.
• House breaks the rules and saves patient.
• House acts smug for only taking four tries to get a correct diagnosis, and having wiped his ass with the hippocratic oath
• Recovering patient and family deal with painful secret.
• Resolution of this Episode’s life/love lesson with oncologist friend.
• House is sad because he has to walk with a cane.
• The end.