One episode of Babylon 5 had Delenn being questioned by an inquisitor to determine her worthiness using harsh methods. When he hears the door open he says, without looking, "And the third player in our little drama arrives at last," implying he knew it was Sheridan and that he'd been expecting him to show up eventually. In Diamonds Are Forever, Bond drops into Willard Whyte's penthouse suite and, having been observed by Blofeld, is greeted by Willard Whyte (actually Blofeld with a disguised voice) with the words, 'Howdy. Welcome, son. We've been expecting you'. In Man of Steel, while standing at Jonathan's grave, Lois tells Clark she knew he'd show up if she just kept digging. Naturally, he's right behind her. The trappings of human drama – plausible characterisation, sadness, empathy, tragedy, loss – are an easy way to stop a film being boring. But it’s a technique that displaces boredom with anguish, not fun, and that’s not what Bond films are supposed to do. Craig is a great actor and, throughout his James Bond tenure, has clearly yearned to make the character a believable human being. But the job of playing James Bond is to remain watchable despite not being believable. That’s harder than acting – it requires magnetic star power. Only Sean Connery ever really mastered it, but all of the others, except Craig, at least tried. Sometimes, in a tragic-dramatic twist of fate, the Anticipator will be waiting for their opponent calmly and patiently after uttering one of the above phrases, because there's Nothing Left to Do but Die. If they are tired of fighting, then they may enjoy One Last Smoke before the big showdown.

was expecting you – to entertain me Ah, Mr Bond. I was expecting you – to entertain me

Trespassing to Talk: A character breaks into another's home and waits to confront them when they arrive. The Dead Zone: Johnny plays this trope very well by sometimes exploiting his Spider-Sense and sometimes just being really intuitive.He has a bunch of guards and inmates lined up to orchestrate a riot on the off-chance that one of the lawyers who put him away stops by the prison, even having a phone line at the prison to call so he can make clear to Matt how much he's screwed before leaving Matt at the mercy of his henchmen. The problem with it is that, at the end, James Bond dies. I really hope that everyone still reading either already knew that or doesn’t give a shit about James Bond, though I warn the latter group: I’m not going to get on to anything important like economics or gardening. This whole Bond death thing is buzzing around my head like a miniaturised Sean Connery on Little Nellie. The climax of the film is riveting and tragic, but it’s not just Craig’s acting or the film’s direction that gives it its power – we are moved because of the vast hinterland of warmth and nostalgia we feel for a character we’ve been watching all our lives. The current film-makers are wantonly expending emotional capital the vast majority of which was earned by other people. A precious resource has been squandered in one attention-grabbing and ultimately miserable moment.

Timeline – Robbie Williams

Rumpelstiltskin does this in the Pilot of Once Upon a Time: When Prince Charming and Snow White go to consult him, they are warned to do three things: 1) Stay out of the light, 2) keep their faces hidden, and 3) not mention their names. All three turn out to be useless, as Rumpelstiltskin not only knows who they are, but has been waiting for them to show up. Justified because he A) can see the future and B) has been planning for this moment for years. The Anticipator is a character who (whether villain or hero) can somehow sense the presence, or, without fail, await the supposed-to-be-a-secret arrival of another character. James Bond is famous for the "I've been expecting you" lines in many of the movies. As stated in multiple real-life interviews, this one-liner has become one of the main reasons that the real life MI6 would consider James Bond to be a terrible spy, because "no matter where he goes, he's expected". John Rain: In The Killer Ascendant, Professional Killer Rain is hunting rogue CIA agent Jim Hilger. Knowing that Hilger is planning to murder a Dutch official when they return home after work, Rain decides Hilger will be staking out his victim from a park across the road. Then Rain wonders if Hilger has anticipated his arrival, and is actually waiting in ambush for Rain. So he enters the park from a different direction, and sure enough sees a man with a gun lying in wait. It's then that Hilger springs his trap — the man lying on the ground is an innocent bystander that Hilger murdered and left there as a Sleeping Dummy, so he can ambush Rain in turn. Daredevil (2015): Thanks to long-term scheming from behind bars, Wilson Fisk is able to pull this off in season 3 repeatedly.Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Glory, the Big Bad of Season 5, does this all the time as she's a Physical God. As a result, every film, every scene, every hat landed on a hatstand, every grin at Desmond Llewelyn’s sternness, is now brutally recontextualised. When Connery wins at roulette, when Roger Moore attempts re-entry, when Pierce Brosnan merrily drives a tank through St Petersburg, they are all portraying a man destined to lie bleeding, heartbroken and alone, missing the daughter he never really knew, waiting to be blown to bits by his own country’s missiles. It’s quite the buzzkill.