They succeed in turning a relatively contrived situation into a terrific showcase for Mr. Pacino's talents.

Before Penrose, it was conceivable that singularities only form in contrived situations.

Worse than these issues, the Post felt that Schaeffer neglected to develop the characters in favor of coming up with contrived situations for them.

But ultimately, the review noted, "the novel misses its mark, with an abundance of two-dimensional characters and contrived situations.

Iris Murdoch puts realistic characters in contrived situations, and shows how their moral views and understandings affect their lives.

Those are fictional characters in contrived situations.

But this is almost impossible to do, even by recourse to highly contrived situations not encountered in the wild.

Consider another contrived situation:

Today it is hard to defend these contrived situations and I can only repeat that the communication barrier remained a huge issue.

Greg's 2002 Fox series didn't work out well, possibly because his puppet brilliance was immersed in contrived situations and surrounded by largely unnecessary puppet companions.