Twenty-Four Hours to Live
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| Related tropes/genres | Poisoned |
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Twenty-Four Hours to Live is a trope is used in fanworks when one half of a duo has twenty-four hours (or some very specific variation of time) to live.
Sometimes a drug is administered on purpose, a bad guy's motive to kill one to make the other suffer. In other instances, the antidote is held as ransom, forcing the victim to commit a crime.
A variation on this trope is the accidental exposure or ingestion (example: food poisoning) of a substance that requires treatment, something that is complicated by the exposed party's innocent disappearance.
In any case, the resolution usually comes down to the wire, with the rescue and antidote happening within minutes of death.
Some Canon Examples
- In the Starsky and Hutch episode A Coffin for Starsky, a bad guy from the past injects Starsky with a drug that will kill him in twenty-four hours, something that sets the detectives off on a frantic search for the serum.
- In the Starsky and Hutch episode The Game, Hutch consumes a can of soup that is infected with botulism before he and Starsky start a game of "hide and seek." Starsky must locate Hutch to save his life. This episode is sometimes referred to as "Bad Soup."
- In the MacGyver episode "Nightmares", Mac is injected with a poison that will kill him in 24 hours unless an antidote (in exchange for information) is administered.
Fanwork Examples
A ticking clock is almost always present in the Merlin vid 24 HOURS where an evil sorcerer says Arthur hasn't long to live.
- Welcome to the Jungle by Barbara Nice-Miller is a Sentinel story. "Jim is poisoned and given only 24 hours to live. Can he and Blair find who did it and why -- and the antidote -- before it's too late?"
- "From the Darkness" by L.A. Carr is a Kung Fu: The Legend Continues story in the zine Splinters of Light. In it, a deadly drug is used in an attempt to kill Kwai Chang Caine. In a race against time, Peter must get the antidote to him.
- In "Sweet Revenge" by Debbie Cummins, a story in the Star Trek: TOS zine More Missions, More Myths, someone is out to murder Kirk. Affected with a slow acting poison, Kirk still manages to investigate the incident, while McCoy frantically searches for an antidote.
- The zine A Small Circle of Friends #3 contains the Star Trek: Voyager story "Poisonous Thoughts" by Kristi Nelson. In it, Chakotay's been poisoned, and unless Janeway turns an "innocent" man over for execution, she won't be given the antidote.
- From the Equalizer story, "Double Play" by Korinna & Kelley in the zine McCall's Memoirs, McRobert McCall has been poisoned and lies in a coma while Mickey, Control and Scott seek a way to flush out the perpetrator and obtain the antidote.
- From the zine Trust Your Senses #2, Lost and Found by Barbara Nice-Miller. Bad-soup, Sentinel-style.
- In the Merlin vid 24 HOURS a stranger shows up and says that Arthur has only 24 hours to live and Merlin fights to save Arthur.