Once again, Fort Wayne seems to be looming large (or largish) in Hollywood screenwriters’ minds as the sort of archetypal wholesome American city that is deluded and overreaching characters leave behind at their peril.

In a recent episode of TNT’s “The Closer” called “Star Turn,” a father moves his family from Fort Wayne to Los Angeles to either help or force his daughter to launch a singing career.

The daughter becomes a YouTube sensation and then the father dies mysteriously (which serves him right for being so stupid that he apparently thought you have to move to Los Angeles to become a YouTube sensation).

I don’t watch the show, but a co-worker assures me that at one point in the episode the son of the deceased father waxes nostalgic about his favorite Indiana park, mispronouncing its name as “Poke-Uh-Gone.”

That just shows how insidious Los Angeles is. It makes little boys forget how to pronounce the name of their favorite Indiana park.

And in the debut of NBC’s “The Playboy Club,” we learn that Maureen (Amber Heard) has moved from Fort Wayne to Chicago in the ’60s to pursue her dream of being a singer.

In the meantime, she plans to make ends meet by working as a waitress at the titular club, the sort of club where a cheesy stand-up comic might get a laugh just by using a word like “titular.”

Maureen murders a mobster during her first day on the job, which is precocious even by Chicago standards. But other elements of “The Playboy Club” may not strike viewers as quite so edgy.

These days, waitresses at Hooters show more skin than the Playboy Club staff did back then, and kids are welcome to dine at the former.

“The Closer” is in its last season and “The Playboy Club” is in its first, but something tells me neither will be around in a year.

But Fort Wayne will still be here – a resource for screenwriters in search of a place to start their characters down the road to ruin.

Plausible pilots?

Elsewhere in the midst of this new fall TV season, we have CBS’ “Unforgettable,” in which yet another small-screen police detective possesses yet another rare trait or talent that helps her to be a better investigator.

In “Unforgettable,” Carrie Wells has hyperthymesia, a real medical condition involving the ability to recall with perfect clarity the smallest details of one’s life.

“Unforgettable” started me wondering about what other sorts of law enforcement officers and freelancers with unusual aptitudes we might see in future shows.

The following examples are fictional but are packed with plausibility.

“Today Is a Good Day to Die” – Criminal investigator Jack Taciturn is able to learn a new language in only seven days. Curiously, this talent is limited to languages that have been created specifically for, or were inspired by, fantasy novels and science fiction movies. Far from being a drawback, Taciturn’s ability to quickly speak fluent Klingon or Elvish has made him the world’s foremost expert on crimes committed during comic book conventions.

“Arpeggios” – Libby Rachi is a self-taught pianist who can play perfect note-for-note reproductions of musical compositions after only hearing them once. Unfortunately, she can only reproduce music composed by John Tesh. She has, however, been able to carve out a career for herself as the leading copyright infringement investigator in the FBI’s Smooth Jazz division.

“Sound and Fury” – Detective Craig Carom possesses the uncanny ability to echolocate, or emit sound and locate objects by listening to the echo, just like any bat or dolphin. This comes in handy for finding criminals in low-light situations. The only drawback is the loud pinging noise he inadvertently produces.

“Word of Mouth” – Detective Peg Farrago suffers from a rare condition known as “synesthesia,” a melding of senses in which the sound of a word triggers a taste in her mouth. She has grown adept at tasting the sound of various crimes being committed, but some of her enemies have developed a weapon that exploits her Achilles’ heel: She quite literally cannot stomach the music of Celine Dion.

“Warm Welcome” – From Himalayan monks, special agent Hank Halcyon has learned to raise his skin temperature mentally. So adept is Halcyon at this discipline that he doesn’t need to wear a coat in subzero weather. Stationed in International Falls, Minn., he never fails to secure iron-clad confessions from suspects by promising them that if they come clean, he will cuddle with them.