Jonathan Creek/YMMV

• Angst? What Angst?: In "The Grinning Man", Joey comes face to face with her friend's corpse, in a scene that has earned an impassioned entry under Nightmare Fuel on this very Wiki. By the next scene she has completely recovered her composure, and at the end of the episode is looking forward to writing it up in her blog.
• Non Sequitur Scene: In "The Seer of the Sands", Carla's husband casually mentions that he was once married to a man. Carla understandably freaks out, but after the episode in question, it's never brought up again.
  • Also, in the episode "Danse Macabre", what was the deal with the Creepy Child who was obsessed with rotating blades? You'd think it would trigger a Eureka Moment, but...nope.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Carla Borrego's crime show Eyes and Ears, which sensationalized various murders in order to get high ratings. Jonathan's face in "The Chequered Box" is fairly priceless when he witness actors restage a hypothetical murder in which the female victim is punched in the face and strung up with a noose.
• Failure Knight: Maddy, to a certain extent. Her particular niche of crime writing - bungled police investigations - is implied to have been inspired by her mother's suicide shortly after being brought up on a (possibly) false shoplifting charge.
• Fetish Fuel: Paul McGann's Shirtless Scene in "The Judas Tree". Just, unf.
  • There's a link to screencaps of that in his entry on the Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have! page.
• Fridge Horror: In the second episode of the first series, "Jack in the Box," Maddy describes Alan Rokesmith's eyes and retrospectively recognizes the "hollow calm" of a man who intends to commit suicide in poetic, almost flowery terms. By the time the second series rolls around, we find out she likely recognized the same look in her mother's eyes prior to her own suicide when Maddy was just 17.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In "The Wrestler's Tomb," we see Maddy hacking into a presumed victim's voice mail account to get a lead on their movements for her story. Five years later...
• Hilarious in Hindsight: After exposing a murderous inspector on air, Jonathan is shocked to find out Eyes and Ears wants him to do 26 more episodes on impossible crimes. Jonathan Creek ran for 27 episodes.
  • In The Grinning Man, there was a subplot about 3D skin flicks. about a year and a half later...
• The Masochism Tango: Platonic version with Jonathan and Adam.
• Nightmare Fuel: See Live Action TV/Nightmare Fuel
• Replacement Scrappy: Surprisingly averted after Maddy left the show. Although she is far and away the most popular sidekick, both Carla and Joey were generally accepted by audiences.
  • Nevertheless, it's probably not entirely coincidental that the series without Maddy ended up being the last.
• Retroactive Recognition: Fair warning—if you watch QI before you watch Jonathan Creek, you may find it difficult to take Alan Davies seriously.
• Tear Jerker: Barry's recounting Maddy's childhood for Jonathan and Jonathan joining her at Gordon Hill in "The Scented Room."
  • In the same episode, we have Maddy's admission that she might have "stepped in front" of the wreckers knocking down her childhood home if Jonathan hadn't arrived when he did.