One of Our Own

On a Cop Show, one of the regular characters is a suspect. Or on a Law Procedural, one of the lawyers is sued over something. Or in a Medical Drama, one of the doctors has been in a car crash and is rushed to their own hospital. Almost invariably, the character is investigated/defended/operated on by a close colleague, who insists against all protestations that they're able to be objective, which they're not. On rare occasions the character will try to clear their own name, represent themselves in court, or even (because of necessity) operate on themselves.

Not a cheap plot in and of itself, it does however have to be used in moderation, otherwise things become preposterous. The worst offenders are ER (which had Mark's tumor, Carter and Lucy being stabbed, Jing-Mei and Pratt's car crash, Romano's arm being chopped off, Frank's heart attack, a swath of births and much more) and The Practice, which by the end had the characters involved in so many personal court battles that you had to wonder how the firm made any money.

See also Who Watches the Watchmen?, Internal Affairs. Not related to One of Us.

Examples of One of Our Own include:

• Happened to the paramedics of Third Watch quite a bit. Bobby was shot (and killed), Carlos was frequently in hospital for various amusing minor injuries (and one not-so-amusing major disease), Alex was killed in an explosion, and in the Pilot Episode Jerry was shot and had to retire.
  • The police characters were not much better off. Both Bosco and Faith spent long periods of time in hospital.
• A few X-Files episodes end with either Mulder or Scully getting attacked by the perp of the week. Also, by the end of the series, they had both been abducted by aliens. Then there was the episode that pitted Mulder against his former boss.
• Criminal Minds: "Profiler, Profiled" had this happen to Derek Morgan.
  • Not to mention Reid, who gets kidnapped all the time. Not that fans mind...
    • The 3rd season ep "Penelope" was completely made out of this trope, as the team has to find the guy who shot Garcia on her doorstep. (Who, for convenience's sake, also turns out be a serial killer.)
      • The Trope then took over the first nine episodes of Season 5, after Hotch was tortured in his apartment by George Foyet/The Reaper in 5x01. It was background for 8 episodes after that, culminating in the 100th episode with the BAU trying to stop Foyet from killing Hotch's ex-wife Haley and son Jack.
• Outbuildings of Rampart Hospital in Emergency caught fire as part of the second season finale.
• Has happened several times on House, most notably in season two when Foreman as well as House's rat and Cameron, almost catches the disease of the week; season two finale when House is shot; season three when Cameron has an AIDS scare and season 4 when Amber is in a bus crash.
  • Season six starts off this way with House in a mental institution.
  • Thirteen, a member of House's team, is also suffering from Huntington's Chorea.
  • There is also an episode in season 1 that describes House's infarction 5 years before the show started
  • Near the end of season 8 Wilson has cancer. Double irony points since he's an oncologist.
• In Bones, a Serial Killer kidnaps first Bones and Hodgins, and later Booth. Not to mention that Gormagon's apprentice turns out to be Zack.
  • Played with in the episode where the Gravedigger, the Serial Killer who had abducted Bones, Hodgins, and Booth, finally goes to trial. The team realizes that in order to secure a conviction, they have to drop the charges on their own abductions and focus on one of the cases that doesn't involve them directly.
  • The 7th-season episode "The Crack in the Code" introduces a new Serial Killer who is specifically targeting FBI agents (even writing messages in a combination of blood from five different agents), is as technologically savvy as Angela, and is at least as intelligent (if not more so) than Bones herself.
• CSI: In an early season, Nick is a suspect in the murder of a hooker who he had slept with the night before (it was a set-up). Then from season 5 on this became a regular event during Sweeps and Season Finale episodes. Nick gets kidnapped in the end of season 5, Brass gets shot at the end of season 6, 4th ep of season 7 sees Greg get badly beat up when he tries to stop a violent gang, (it kills one of the gang but saves their intended victim) and Sara is kidnapped by the Miniature Killer at the end of the season. Season 8, Warrick is suspected of going vigilante and killing a mob boss they couldn't convict, gets cleared, then shot by the real perp. Warrick dies and the perp is also one of their own, Undersheriff McKeen. Then, Ecklie gets shot, and there's a connection with Mc Keen pulling strings from prison.
• Also happens quite a bit on CSI: NY with Stella's psycho boyfriends, perps seeking revenge on Mac (and one shooting him nearly to death), the ep where Hawkes is framed for murder,the deaths of Aiden and Angell and Danny taking heat for one of his rookies shooting an unarmed man during his stint as sergeant.
• CSI: Miami had it as well. Speed was killed in season 3, Ryan's been in trouble several times, and naturally, with Horatio a few times.
• Subverted by Monk: The Captain's girlfriend really did do it.
  • There was also the one where it looked like Monk had killed one of the people involved in his wife's murder, which he of course hadn't, forcing him to go on the run.
• On NCIS, members of the cast are frequently under suspicion and sometimes even arrested:
  • In one episode, Tony DiNozzo is under suspicion as a serial killer; his evidence was planted by a criminal he helped convict.
  • This happens to him on a regular basis. In the next season, he's accused of killing his ex-girlfriend's father, and the season after THAT, a murder victim is found in a hotel room booked under his name (There's a reason for this). Each time it's treated as less of a big deal. It's even lampshaded by DiNozzo at one point.
    • In the episode directly following the episode where Tony is framed, "Probie", McGee appears to have unknowingly killed an undercover cop. To this day, we still don't know if he did or not. We do know that it was all an accident though.
  • In another, Gibbs' friendly rival Fornell of the FBI is arrested for taking bribes from the mob, and even seems to commit suicide.
  • Ziva David is in trouble at least twice: In "Jeopardy", a suspect dies mysteriously in her custody while she is alone with him (he had a stroke), and in "Shalom" she is suspected as a double agent.
  • For several episodes in season six (led up to in season five), NCIS is searching for a mole among its own team, who turns out to be Michelle Lee.
• Tends to happen at least once per game in the Ace Attorney series, most notably during the fourth case of the first when Miles Edgeworth is accused of murder. And again in Investigations, but only for about half an hour.
  • Heck, start off with the first nonpractice case in the series. After confronting Mia's real murderer Phoenix Wright finds himself accused of the deed after Maya (his assistant-to-be) gets the rap.
  • Done in flashback a few times. In Trials and Tribulations, Phoenix decides to go to law school specifically because of seeing Mia defend him in court and in another Gumshoe's first meeting with Edgeworth is when the new detective is accused of Byrne's murder.
  • And there's also Maggey Byrde, an officer/ex-officer/security guard who winds up accused of murder three times. And convicted once, albeit under false pretenses.
• Teresa Lisbon was a suspect in one episode of The Mentalist.
• In Pushing Daisies, Ned was suspected of killing a business rival, so had to languish in jail for part of the episode. Fortunately, his friends proved themselves to be skilled investigators even without him.
• Scrubs had a season one episode where JD got to witness everything at Sacred Heart from the other side after he developed appendicitis. There was also the season six episode when Laverne was in a coma and the episodes where Carla and Jordan gave birth, all of which occur at Sacred Heart.
• In Foyle's War, Sergeant Milner is a suspect in his wife's murder. It is deduced that he is being framed by a fellow policeman with a grudge.
• Has happened a few times on Grey's Anatomy; George, Callie, and Derek have all been operated on by other cast members.
• Equally frequently on ER. From the very first episode, series regular Carol (though that was not the intent at the time) was treated for a suicide attempt. It would be hard to think of a single character who wasn't a patient as well as a doctor/nurse.
• In Canadian drama Flashpoint, this happens sometimes. In one episode, a rogue sniper purposely lured Ed Lane out to come and get him, after he mercilessly killed an innocent police officer and injured one of his teammates.
• Happens many times in Trauma Center and its spinoff, Trauma Team.
• In Dexter for most of the second season at least two of the cast are under suspicion as being the bay harbour butcher and for at least two episodes the entire team at the office could be suspects.
• Happens all the time in Casualty.
• Law and Order UK: Junior Crown Prosecutor Alesha was raped by a doctor who had previously touched her inappropriately during an exam.
  • DS Matt Devlin was killed by a young man seeking revenge for the police mishandling his brother's murder.
  • The episode "Samaritan" played this twice—the victim was a cop, as was the person ultimately/indirectly responsible for his death (he didn't shoot him, but did nothing as the man bled to death)
• M*A*S*H has several episodes in which members of the 4077th staff are treated by their colleagues for various injuries or ailments. Justified in that it was a mobile army hospital three miles from the front lines, and was therefore frequently bombarded by shelling or attacked by snipers, and because if someone got hurt, there was really nowhere else to take them.
• Due South Ray gets in trouble for shooting someone because the only person who saw it claims the other guy was unarmed. Ray also had powder on his hands from the shooting range, which made it worse. He seeks shelter in the Canadian Consulate, which as it's Canadian soil,gives Fraser time to clear him before he can be 'extradited'.
• Forever Knight Nick got accused of murder once, but it was really Lacroix framing him to try to force him to move on.
• Happened frequently in Dragnet, as Jack Webb's way of showing how the police deal with police-involved shootings,Dirty Cop s,ect. In one, an undercover officer (Kent Mc Cord before he started playing Officer Reed) is accused of robbing a liquor store, and it seems fairly clearly that he's guilty, until he turns out to have a doppelganger who was the real robber. Another involved a detective caught up in bribery and bookmaking, and Friday went undercover pretending he was dirty, to nab the guy.
• Adam-12 got in on it as well. In one episode, Reed faced an intensive grilling after shooting a sniper in self defense. And then there's the hard-hitting 'Elegy for a Pig' episode.