The Hero is defusing a bomb or outrunning an exploding freighter, landing a damaged passenger plane or doing some other extraordinarily dangerous act of heroism. The other characters can't see him, can't detect him, and just have his radio to talk to.
Suddenly, there's a huge explosion. And silence.
The other characters ask, "Are you there? Do you read?", their faces getting grimmer and grimmer as they realize that they may be talking to nobody but a charred corpse.
But suddenly, "This is Captain Jack Amazing reporting in." The inevitable reply is, "You had us worried there, Captain."
Sometimes there's no reason given for the delay — there's no interference and the hero must have been safe for a minute or more, he just didn't reply for any reason but for tension. Sometimes, though, this is part of a Reentry Scare or they were in shock.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- At the end of the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing TV series' last episode, the crew is not sure whether Heero made it, but then he comes in with his signature, "Mission Accomplished".
Comic Books
- Tintin: In "Tintin: Explorers on the Moon", Mission Control is increasingly worried when there is no response from the rocket crew 30 minutes after their moon landing. Cue Tintin hailing that all is good up there.
Films — Animation
- In Finding Nemo, although this exact phrase is never used, this example is certainly reminiscent of this trope. The following exchange occurs after Nemo, also known as Sharkbait, successfully jams the filter of the fish tank:
[the sound of a jammed filter is heard]
[the fish collectively gasp and swim to the filter]
Deb: Sharkbait!
Bloat: Sharkbait, are you okay?
Gurgle: NO!
Gill: Can you hear me, Sharkbait?
Deb: [sobbing] No!
Gill: Nemo, can you hear me?!
Nemo: [appearing behind them] Yeah, I can hear you.
[the fish collectively gasp and turn around]
Gill: SHARKBAIT, YOU DID IT!
[Deb sighs with relief and Bloat laughs]
Gurgle: [hugging Nemo] Sharkbait, you're... COVERED WITH GERMS! [screams and swims away]
[the rest of the fish laugh]
Gill: That took guts, kid.
Films — Live-Action
- Cat Women of the Moon opens with this trope, as White Sands desperately tries to contact the crew of Moon Rocket 4 who have passed out due to the crushing G-force of takeoff. After they rouse themselves, Captain Laird barks at the others to check their instruments rather than take a second to let Mission Control know they're still alive. This is actually the correct thing to do, but it presents him as a by-the-book hardass.
- Occurs in The Right Stuff, when Chuck Yeager is trying to break the sound barrier for the first time. After a lot of crashes that occurred when nearing Mach 1, the ground team mistake the Sonic Boom for an explosion. Then he calls them over the radio.
- In a more comedic example, happens several times in A Hard Day's Night when The Beatles get where they're supposed to be at the last minute. Only one or two of those were life-threatening. Also subverted once, when everyone starts reacting that way to them arriving in time for the final run-through — except there's only three of them...
- There is also a moment like this near the end of Give My Regards to Broad Street. This one wasn't life-threatening either, but it may have been sanity-threatening.
- In Apollo 13, the re-entry sequence was played like this. Everyone is listening in suspense, the words "Odyssey, this is Houston," are repeatedly spoken over the radio; tension mounts, and mounts, and the seconds tick by in portentous silence, until finally we hear "Hello Houston, this is Odyssey..." And Mission Control Rejoiced. The real-life original response managed to be even more ironically mundane: "Okay, Joe," and nobody cheered - mission control waited for Lovell's confirmation that the command module was floating right-side up and ready to be recovered note before the celebrations started.
- In WarGames, the folks at NORAD know that if the sensors are correct, various bases have just been nuked, and the delay before the answer to 'Are you still on?' comes back is pretty long.
- Star Wars:
- A variant in A New Hope. When the heroes are about to be crushed in the trash compactor, C-3PO doesn't lose radio contact with them, but he does mistake their cheering when the compactor stops for screams of pain.
- The Empire Strikes Back: After Han sets out to rescue Luke in the blizzard, a rescue team attempts to contact him multiple times to find his location, with them being relieved upon hearing his response.
Literature
- Parodied and inverted in Discworld (as it is The Grim Reaper worrying about someone not dying):
Old Person: One hundred years! Up yours, Baldy!
Death: Yes, you really had me worried there for a moment.- Played relatively straight, though lampshaded, in Guards! Guards!, where Captain Vimes hears a variant of this ("You were nearly a goner there, Captain"), from Nobby Nobbs, and thinks to himself that there could be worse things to hear after awakening from serious injury, such as "Did anyone get his number?" or "You two hold his hands behind his back."
Live-Action TV
- Stargate-verse in general loves this trope.
- In Stargate Atlantis, during one episode (where the Stargate crew are battling a sentient computer virus) it happens twice: once when the virus tries to vent the heroes into space as they try to shut down the fighter craft the virus was using to hide in, and once when they had to fight a virus-controlled craft within the corona of a nearby star.
- Stargate SG-1 has O'Neill jumping an about-to-explode Stargate through the Earth, with a scare about whether or not he was able to eject.
- Subverted in Stargate Universe, when they attempt to land a shuttle on a planet with extreme upper atmosphere wind speeds. There's the standard "Oh no, we're in trouble!" -> "Are you there?" -> silence -> "Yeah, we're fine." dialogue... then the shuttle loses power and crashes hard on the planet's surface.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: At The Consortium's facility, after Ann is forcibly teleported by Castor to a distant location to engage Melissa in battle, Ayane frantically attempts to contact Ann repeatedly after losing her signal, with her worries diminished once Ann replies that she's alright.
Ayane: Ann? Ann!? Can you hear me? Please answer me!
Ann: I can hear you, Ayane. I'm all good.
Ayane: You had me so worried! Where have you been? - Beyond: Two Souls: Once Jodie closes the rift in "The Condenser", she calls out for Aiden who doesn't answer. She worries that he may have been trapped in the Infraworld but after a few seconds he answers her calls, much to her relief.
- Final Fantasy X-2 has this happen to Yuna after she falls into the hole created by Vegnagun in Djose Temple and ends up in Bevelle after exiting the Farplane. "Yuna, reporting in."
- The vector-graphics arcade video game Lunar Lander seems to have been based on the Appolo 11 event, right down to the computer error requiring the player to take manual controlnote .
- Several times in Mass Effect 1, with Shepard losing comm signal for extended periods, such as on Feros or during the final mission, with an agitated Joker calming considerably when Shepard finally gets through again.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption:
- There's a brief section where Samus teleports to a distant location on Bryyo and is too far from her gunship to receive transmissions properly.
- The game does this at the end with the obligatory Earth-Shattering Kaboom, when everybody in GFS Olympus thinks Samus didn't escape from Phaaze in time. They later see that she did.
Web Comics
- Subverted big-time in Girl Genius, when Ax-Crazy Bangladesh Dupree doesn't escape from a bomb, she inexplicably and uncharacteristically refrains from dropping
one on an Infernal Device (at least from Bang's point of view).
Minion: Orders, ma'am?
Bang: ... We could assemble a device team. It may be rigged to defend against tampering. So we'll want a wire man with a quick pull return system. Once we shut it down, Klaus could study it or something.
[long beat]
Bang: pfffftbb! HAHAHAHA! Or we could just blow it up!
Minion: Whew! Had me worried there, Captain!
[bomb drops, with the usual mayhem to follow]
Western Animation
- In two Code Lyoko episodes, Jérémie tries to get into contact with the rest of his team on Lyoko and there is a considerable pause, making him worry (the first time has him crush a can in an Ad-Break Double-Take-type scenario). However, either Aelita comes in to calm him down or Odd screams into his eardrum.
- DuckTales (2017): In "The Most Dangerous Game Night!", Louie and Huey are trying to hide the fact that Gyro and Launchpad have shrunk down and are interacting with a microscopic race, dubbed "Gyropuddlians," within McDuck Manor so that the family can have a normal night in for once. Then Launchpad calls Louie and tells him that the Gyropuddlians are trying to conquer the not-Jenga tower the family is currently playing with. The tower collapses and the call drops, causing Louie and Huey to believe Gyro and Launchpad have been crushed and desperately dig through the blocks. Launchpad calls back a few seconds later, explaining that the Gyropuddlians are fast.
- Love, Death & Robots: In "Suits", Beth is worried when Hank doesn't respond after Jake's mech detonates. He thankfully comes back online, only to let them know the bad news.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Mystery of a Thousand Moons", Jaybo Hood is in contact with Obi-Wan and Anakin via intercom and gets worried when the latter don't answer after the superweapon explodes in orbit. After a few seconds, they do answer with "We're fine, kid."
Real Life
- During the descent phase of Apollo 11, a number of things went wrong that you do not want to go wrong, particularly when you're many thousands of miles from home. First, the communications between the lunar lander Eagle and Houston kept dropping outnote . Second, the astronauts were found to be landing long of their intended landing spot by 2-3 miles (though thankfully still within their "landing ellipse"). Third, the lander's computer failed five times during the landing programnote . Fourth, with Neil Armstrong flying manual during the final phase, Houston called up to inform the astronauts that they were running low on fuel, and had only 30 seconds before it became an abort situationnote . Then, in rapid succession, comes "Contact light." "Shutdown." "Okay, Engine stop." and then Armstrong's famous "Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed." Mission control was so wound up (and surprised by the phrasing — "Tranquility Base" was a spur-of-the-moment innovation by Armstrong) that CapCom Charlie Duke couldn't get his words out; "Roger, Twan — Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot." It was more tense than many today realize: Armstrong and Aldrin had to concentrate on piloting the lander over an unexpected boulder field and crater, and made it down just 17 seconds before it turned into an abort situation.
- And on Apollo 8, first mission to orbit the moon, the engine burn to return to Earth took place behind the moon, out of radio contact, on Christmas Day. The conversation when contact was restored:
Jim Lovell: Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.
Mission Control: That's affirmative. You're the best ones to know. - In aviation the principal set of priorities is "aviate, navigate, communicate", which means you have to fly the plane first, then make sure you know where it's going and only then talk to other people. So, the more tense the situation is, the more likely pilots are to stop responding to the dispatcher, because they need to concentrate all of their attention on piloting the aircraft.