Sweeps Week: The Top 6 Tropes

Save These Tropes For Sweeps

TV is shaped by corporate demands even more than storytelling. Four times a year, Nielsen Media Research surveys households across the country to determine the most popular programs. Advertisers will pay more to show their products during a popular series, so networks hold a quarterly event called Sweeps Week when TV shows go all out.

Big moments, major plot shifts, anything and everything that will get viewers watching is the name of this game. It has given viewers all-time classics, endless meme fodder, and caused a handful of shows to jump the shark. So what were the Top Sweeps Week gimmicks? Let’s find out.

#6 Sweeps Week: Wedding Episodes

There are wells that Sweeps Week loves going back to for easy attention. You are cordially invited to learn about this gimmick meant to join networks and advertisers in holy matrimony.

Wedding Episodes are an excuse to get the cast into fancy outfits and emotionally charged scenarios. Fans are sure to tune in to see X and Y’s “will they, won’t they” relationship reach its climax with an “I do.” Writers can also go the easy route and make the wedding into a clip show’s framing device.

It wouldn’t be Sweeps Week if the wedding went off without a hitch. Missing rings, runaway brides, a king’s murder, Nazi armies from Earth-X invading, something will happen to raise the stakes. Writers might also pull a cruel twist ending and reveal the wedding was a play, trap, or other scenario meant to look real without being real.

#5 Hyped-Up Homosexuality

Let’s go back to ye olden times of the late 80s and early 90s. Everyone knew about confirmed bachelors and spinster aunts, but around Sweeps Week, TV shows were suddenly willing to admit that gay people exist! 

Hyped-up homosexuality bet on viewers being interested in a once taboo topic. A main character, almost always a woman, becomes romantically interested in someone who is the same gender?!  A lot of shows went for a fake-out instead, setting the stage so female characters kissed beautiful women or shared suggestive scenes, but weren’t gay. Yeah, detective Sally made out with a girl in a strip club, but only to hide her from an abusive pimp! She’s totally straight!

This gimmick lost power as the LGBTQ+ community flourished, aside from a brief runback for transgender characters mixing genuine exploration of the community with easy transphobic jokes. Most showrunners have realized that honest LGBTQ+ relationships are much more popular than a cheap trick and started treating them as seriously as cis romances. 

#4 Returns/Departures

Actors come and go more often during Sweeps. The only thing Sweeps Week loves more than advertising a major character’s departure is a former star’s return.

Departures are an easy way to draw attention to your show. The beloved major character’s last dance before riding off into the sunset with no guarantee they’ll ever be seen again. Darker series may even kill the character. Which will it be? Tune in and find out if they make it.

Returns are the “hell yes!” moments. A former ally shows up at the heroes’ darkest hour to save the day. We can learn what they’ve been up to and see how they interact with new characters or developments. Villain returns ratchet up the tension as forgotten foes rise again to seek revenge.

#3 Special Guest/Crossover

Need a quick boost come Sweeps Week? Then let’s ride some coattails. I know a celebrity or two who might show up for a buck. And if they want to bring their famous persona along, well, so much the better.

Special guests are an easy way to drum up hype. Find a big-name celebrity who is willing to appear in a role, bringing their fans to the show. If you’re lucky, those fans will stay instead of bailing. On rare occasions, the special guest may join the cast, making the sweeps week special their debut.

Crossovers are a bigger deal. Two shows exist in the same world or their universes collide thanks to some Macguffin. How does one set of characters react to another? Who wins in a fight between heroes? Can anyone survive the villains teaming-up? There’s a wealth of stories to tell, but the hard part is making sure both sides come off well. Unequal crossovers are never fun for anyone.

#2 Sweeps Week: Cliffhanger

It can’t be! A play-along joke in the article? Will our Sweeps Week coverage ever be finished? Will you learn the penultimate trope? Will our lovely editors make us replace this section? Find out in the paragraph below: same Movierewind time, same Movierewind website!

This trope was old when TV was young. Ask your grandparents about the days when they’d watch movie serials at the theater and be left in suspense on how Tom Tyler and Linda Stirling were going to survive the latest inescapable threat.

Cliffhangers make perfect season finales, especially if your show is coming back during Sweeps. Put your characters into a situation where they seem doomed, or set up a mystery, then let fans stew for a few months so they’ll be chomping at the bit to learn what happens. Just make sure you have a good resolution. Nobody needs deus ex machinas like an offscreen porpoise sacrificing itself to save Batman and Robin from a torpedo.

#1 Plot Twist

Cliffhangers are a good way to keep fans coming back, but what if Sweeps Week doesn’t line up with a premiere or ending? There’s still one way to make or break a show. It’s… wait, not that one! I destroyed that gimmick!

Plot twists are the big, make it or break it moments. No mere trope, but something that changes the entire story’s direction. That random villain isn’t a demon, she’s a god. The Macguffin that lets characters cheat the magic system? It’s made from living human souls. The dark knight killed your mentor and father? No. He is your father.

Plot twists must make sense. You aim for it to happen during Sweeps, but should never throw one in just because it’s Sweeps. One Piece did it perfectly, revealing after 25 years and over one thousand episodes that the main character’s power wasn’t being made of rubber, but that he’s a Popeye-esque cartoon character. That twist should have jumped the shark, but instead made perfect sense as the culmination of his powerset. You never want a plot twist to derail everything like like The Rise of Skywalker revealing that Emperor Palpatine is somehow alive and manipulated everyone.

What trope gets you to tune in for Sweeps Week? Did we miss your siren song? Tell us in the comments below.

Jared Bounacos

Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.