| rdfs:comment | - A gentle Retcon to allow a previously unmentioned love-of-their-life to pop up for a main character in an episode. Characteristically a Temporary Love Interest, this is a simple way to skip all the boring foreplay and jump right to the intensity. Usually, it ends in death, Put on a Bus, death on a bus, or with some similar Reset Button. Often, the character with the New Old Flame is already (re-)married, and it turns out it's not just the audience that's surprised. Elegantly done, it can leave us with The Woobie. Compare to Remember the New Guy?, Romantic False Lead.
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| abstract | - A gentle Retcon to allow a previously unmentioned love-of-their-life to pop up for a main character in an episode. Characteristically a Temporary Love Interest, this is a simple way to skip all the boring foreplay and jump right to the intensity. Usually, it ends in death, Put on a Bus, death on a bus, or with some similar Reset Button. Often, the character with the New Old Flame is already (re-)married, and it turns out it's not just the audience that's surprised. Clumsily done, this can mess with the memory of a previous relationship carefully established over a Story Arc, and anger 'shippy fans. The inverse situation, where the character does remember the love-of-their-life, but the reunion cures them of it, is Old Flame Fizzle. Elegantly done, it can leave us with The Woobie. Compare to Remember the New Guy?, Romantic False Lead. Examples of New Old Flame include:
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