Things I hate about TV shows - Page 8

[ddanbe]

Strange. When 'The Hulk' gets angry, he always looses his shirt. But never his pants?!? He also most have lots of expences buying new shirts every time.

[Reverend Jim]

Been a while since I thought of something to add...

I hate the trend these days of showing text messages on a character's phone. These are impossible to read from across the room, even on a big screen TV. In order to keep up with the show I have to keep pausing and walking across the room. In the Cumberbatch/Freeman version of Sherlock, however, instead of showing the screen, they'd show pop-ups of the messages in letters large enough to read. So it can be done correctly. It just mostly isn't.

[Reverend Jim]

I've seen this more often of late. They want to show how alone or isolated a character is (typically the lead) so they show that character unwinding by doing laps in a public pool. Somehow the character is the only person in the pool. No other patrons, no lifeguard, no other staff. Nobody at all. And the lights are always turned way down. I have never been in a pool when there wasn't at least one other person present, yet the lead character always swims in a pool completely alone.

[Reverend Jim]

I've been watching a fair bit of old TV shows and old movies. I've noticed that there were a lot more long shots in older shows. And by that I mean duration, not distance. It seems that camera work has followed attention span in that the average shot these days seems to last 2-3 seconds. Perhaps Max Headroom (pilot episode) had it right when they predicted/posited blip-verts. For those who never watched Max Headroom, blip-verts were commercials that were so highly compressed that when watched caused some viewers heads to explode.

I find this particularly bad in home reno shows (my wife loves these) in which they show the rooms of a house before and after reno, but you only get 1-2 seconds of any particular scene - not nearly enough time to assimilate what is being shown.

[Dani]

Currently the thing I hate most about TV shows is how much time elapses between seasons. I feel like I've been waiting for season 2 of Severance on AppleTV for forever! (It's been over 2 years already since season 1 debuted.) Speaking of that, is there ever going to be a second season for Squid Game? I can't imagine that Netflix wouldn’t invest more in something that was so popular and made them so much money.

[Reverend Jim]

Fer sher. You pretty much have to watch the previous season again before you start the next one. I'm still waiting for season 2 of The Old Man (Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow). At my age sometimes I lose the thread if two weeks goes by between episodes. Sometimes I'll wait until the end of a season before I watch any of it. I especially hate it when a good show gets canned before the story is told. Case in point - Flash Forward was a really good show that never got a second season. I ended up reading the book it was based on, but it was so different from the series that it didn't answer any questions.

Then there are series like Revolution which were just stupid from the get go.

[pritaeas]

is there ever going to be a second season for Squid Game

Yes, already announced, available soon.

[Dani]

That's my point, though. Gone are the days when a show would break for a summer and the next season would start up again in the fall.

[Reverend Jim]

Gone are the days

That's pretty much the case for everything. I remember when TV sucked all through summer vacation and I couldn't wait for the end of September for the new seasons to start. Of course it was bittersweet because September also meant back to school.

I'll mention a few more things that may have been mentioned before but I don't feel like rereading the entire thread to make sure.

The interrupted first kiss. You all know this one. They play out the mutual attraction between two leads with the "will they - won't they" tease. When they are finally in a position for that first kiss they take so long approaching each others lips and just before they finally connect they are interrupted.

The "it's complicated" explanation. It really isn't.

The "I'm finally going to tell her my big secret" scenario where just before the big reveal something happens to thwart it. How many times did Clark Kent decide to spill his guts to Lana Lang, and didn't?

The misinterpreted situation where one person just happens to come into a scene at exactly the right moment to draw exactly the wrong conclusion.

Any scenario where the aftermath can be summarized as "hijinks ensue".

[KomalBhatt]

You know, there are few things more frustrating than getting interested in a TV show only to find it falling short of expectations. From the overly predictable plotlines to the underdeveloped characters, there's a huge list.
But what really get irritated by is when the dialogue feels forced, like the writers are trying too hard to be clever or funny. It just takes me right out of the story and makes me wish I could write the script myself. And don't even get me started on those endings that leave you waiting anxiously for what feels like forever, only to have a really disappointing resolution. It's like they're toying with our emotions for the sake of ratings, and honestly, it's exhausting.
Also reality shows, don't even get me started on this
For eg this over popular Indian reality show, which is not so real btw
https://www.adgully.com/salman-khan-s-bigg-boss-most-liked-hindi-tv-show-125909.html
Another thing I find annoying is, the lack of diversity in both casting and storytelling. It is a major letdown. It's high time TV shows started reflecting the real world instead of showing tired stereotypes and plain stories. Give us something fresh, something authentic.

[Reverend Jim]

Why is it that when people in shows light a fire (like when setting a vehicle on fire) with a lighter, they always throw the lighter into the puddle of gasoline? Do they not realize that a lighter is reusable?

On a related note, researchers tried hundreds of times to ignite a puddle of gasoline by throwing a burning cigarette into it. They were successful exactly zero times.

[Dani]

Do they not realize that a lighter is reusable?

They do it to show how they live life on the edge by proving to the world (and the television audience) they won't have any more use for a lighter.

They were successful exactly zero times.

Researchers, schmearchers. But has Myth Busters had a go of it?

[Reverend Jim]

Actually, I think they did with the same results. Supposedly the temperature of the cigarette is below the flash point of gasoline.

Did anyone else suffer through the final season of Star Trek: Discovery?

[Reverend Jim]

It's time to revive this. Because there are so many contributions to this thread, some of these things may have already been mentioned but here goes anyway.

The "documentary" within a show. Having the characters being filmed by a documentary film crew makes for a boring show. Done in The Rookie (at least twice), Strange New Worlds, etc.

Two characters who hate each other get into a face-to-face shouting match, then stop and start kissing passionately.

Constant misuse of pronouns. The correct phrase is "between you and me", not "between you and I".

In an much older post I ranted about detectives using a clear acrylic sheet instead of a white board. I finally got an answer when a new doctor in an ER asked why the board was transparent and the answer he got was "so we can see through it". Obviously the only reason is so we can see the faces of the people writing on it instead of the backs of their heads.

This is the same reason Tom Cruise takes off his flight mask in the Top Gun movies, which, becaause fighter jets are not pressurized, would result in him dying. Also the reason astronauts in movies have lights inside their helmets so you can see their faces.

[Dani]

It was Myth Busters that did that test.

You call the Myth Busters researchers? :-P

Aren't they just folks that had careers doing TV stunt work before landing a TV show where they play Bill Nye in their garages and backyards?

[Reverend Jim]

You call the Myth Busters researchers?

They tried 100 times throwing a lit cigarette into a pool of gasoline and it failed to explode every time. I don't think you need any qualifications to conclude that this is a trope with no basis in reality. If they had PhDs in pyhsics and chemistry how would that affect the validity of the results?

I think they also debunked the "get hit by a bullet and fly backwards through a window" trope by shooting at a pig carcass. Simple physics learned (at least when I was a lad) in high school proves that if the bullet had enough force to knock you down, the recoil would have the same effect on the shooter.

Every now and then I see a news story on some high school kid doing amazing science. Would you discount their results just because they didn't have any letters after their names? Look at the data, the process, and the results. If the results are valid and repeatable then they deserve to be accepted as valid.

The history of scientific discovery is littered with people who had no other qualifications than curiosity, intelligence, and the ability to think logically. Isaac Newton's degrees were in arts and look what he accomplished.

[Dani]

I would still call them a high school kid doing amazing science. I wouldn't call them a professional researcher. That has a completely different connotation to it.

As for the Myth Busters, no diss to the science that they do do, but if they were professional researchers, they would be publishing their findings in scientific journals. They wouldn't be creating sensationalist television where their primary motivation is ratings.

[Reverend Jim]

That still doesn't invalidate the findings. Keppler initially didn't want to publish his findings on planetary motion and those ideas were radical at the time. Would you have accused him of only wanting the money from book sales?

In 1783 John Mitchell posited the idea of a stellar body so massive that light could not escape. He called it a dark star. He was not an astronomer. Rather he was a clergyman.

But I think we're getting off topic.

[Reverend Jim]

Not quite a TV "thing" but I hate when I'm watching youtube commentaries on older movies and the video posters feel the need to add noise to movie clips. For example, this video focuses on the 1953 Movie, The War of the Worlds (the good one, not the Tom Cruise crap version or the 2025 WTF remake). They show clips and add scratches and blotches because old movies have been played so many times the celluloid has been damaged. Anyone can go online and find a 1080 hi-def copy of this classic movie. Literally any other movie that still exists in some form has been digitized, cleaned, and up-scaled to hi-def. So enough with the fake noise. Note they even add moving scratches to a still photograph of H. G. Wells.

[Reverend Jim]

I've been binge-watching ER since I've long forgotten the details. Why is it that no one is ever allowed to be happy? Dr. Green gets remarried and has a baby, then finds out his brain cancer has returned. Dr. Rasgutra gets married to Dr. Gallant who for "dramatic" reasons decides to abandon his new bride to return to Iraq, where he is killed. Dr. Rasgutra jerks around Dr. Barnett repeatedly, and just as she is about to tell him they can be together he is hit by a truck and loses both legs.

I understand a drama has to have drama, but this does not mean continuously pulling the rug out from under people and denying them even a tiny bit of happiness.

[woooee]

I've been binge-watching ER since I've long forgotten the details. Why is it that no one is ever allowed to be happy? Dr. Green gets remarried and has a baby, then finds out his brain cancer has returned. Dr. Rasgutra gets married to Dr. Gallant who for "dramatic" reasons decides to abandon his new bride to return to Iraq, where he is killed. Dr. Rasgutra jerks around Dr. Barnett repeatedly, and just as she is about to tell him they can be together he is hit by a truck and loses both legs.

I understand a drama has to have drama, but this does not mean continuously pulling the rug out from under people and denying them even a tiny bit of happiness.

There is a difference between drama and soap opera IMHO. I like dramas but will not watch soap operas.

[Dani]

Ditto.

[Reverend Jim]

I hate when shows have two people driving and talking in a car, and the driver spends 75% of their time looking directly at the passenger.

[Reverend Jim]

Having a character do something that is completely out of character simply for the sake of introducing dramatic tension. Like having a husband who is absolutely faithful have a one-time romp with someone he has just met. It makes no sense other than the writers were out of ideas.

[Salem]

Totally unrealistic portrayal of cars.

• You can park anywhere in a movie, and never get a ticket - but not IRL
• You never need to lock your car - good luck with that
• Roads are empty of traffic, unless it's a chase scene.

[Dani]

I was watching TV the other evening and noticed that the charactes were chatting with each other, looking at each other, while one was supposedly driving. After reading this thread, I couldn't unsee it.

[Reverend Jim]

I don't know if this is still a thing, but for shots of the driver and passenger taken from the front, it was common for the film crew to remove the rear-view mirror.

[Reverend Jim]

If there is a security door with an electronic keypad control, breaking/shooting the control panel will either open the door or lock it shut, depending on what is required by the plot.

[woooee]

Totally unrealistic portrayal of cars.

• You can park anywhere in a movie, and never get a ticket - but not IRL
• You never need to lock your car - good luck with that
• Roads are empty of traffic, unless it's a chase scene.

Keys are left in the car so some stranger/ criminal jumps in, starts the car, and drives off.

[Reverend Jim]

I may have mentioned this before but why is it nobody ever says goodbye at the end of a phone call?