Unrealistic things you see in films or TV programmes.

[Twinklettoz]

Inspired by watching El Camino on Netflix... Lots of breaking of burner phones. Literally just snapping them in half... Er I'm sure that doesn't stop your phone being traced.. Surely it's the sim card you need to destroy..
What do you find unrealistic in films or on TV?

Well quite!

Coronation street here...
Craig decided to be a copper and within months he'd got in, done training and was on the street. Now he's pretty much the only policeman you see.
If they need any emergency service it's there within 30 seconds, no waiting 4 hours for an ambulance there!
The coffee is always cold because they drink it straight down.

Thought of another.. When people are in hospital on a hospital bed and dramatically leave as they have other business to attend to.. So they rip out their tubes and catheters and drips and walk off as if they are in no pain whatsoever. A catheter being ripped out would fucking kill!

When someone wants a chat and the other person says “walk with me”.

There seems to be a much higher number of burials (rather than cremations) on TV than in real life.

I'm in my late 40s and I have never been to a burial - I've been to many cremations, though. My understanding is it's quite difficult/expensive even to get a burial plot.

My guess is that the desire for the poignant standing-around-a-grave scene outweighs anything else.

How did Rainie and Stuart suddenly become Funeral Directors with no qualifications.

Why doesn’t Tanya Abi’s mum have anything to do with baby Abi. Surely a devoted and loving mum would morph into a devoted and loving nan.

People can have buses fall on top of them and get blown up, trapped me in burning buildings/houses and not have a scratch on them.

I have two:
Harrison Ford in Clear and Present Danger. Gets attacked by a mob of drug dealers while in a convoy in a South American country. Every else gets killed, but he walks away with just a scratch on his head.

Doctors in Holby City and Casualty. “I think I need some tile away.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Now!”
And off they go, no notice or agreement with the management and no thought of the patients who need their help.

@Kithic

I do fold but that isn’t what they’re doing. They’ll have a big basket of stuff and will just be flipping stuff in half, so like folding a t-shirt in half then tossing it somewhere else. I fold the items as I sort them into who they belong to/where they should go and put them neatly in piles.

I do get it because it’s to make the scene look more ‘natural’ in a family type drama like The Middle (where I usually see it) but I just look at Frankie folding clothes in half then tossing them aside as she has a voiceover in her head and it looks such a weird way of doing things. Why fold them back into the basket they’ve just come from and not into the place they belong?

@Hen2018

When someone wants a chat and the other person says “walk with me”.

I've done that! And had people say it to me. It's always in a jokey way though, like we're in a tense US drama.

When people are rushing out of a bar etc and throw money on the table - I know doing that has already been mentioned, but some questions: 1) how do they always have so much cash? do americans particularly just carry wads and wads and never pay on contactless/card? 2) they never actually look at the notes or count it out - surely sometimes you'll end up putting down £50 for your two coffees or $6 for your three course meal 3) why don't the staff ever shout OI?

When there's been a murder, or even several, and people merrily carry on about their business without being upset or scared. Agatha Christie is particularly full of people happily playing tennis etc and being cynical about the so-called 'murder'. Realistically if you were in a hotel or village and the person next to you was done in I'd be bricking it and probably weeping hourly, and leaving ASAP if allowed.

Similarly, when the police tell someone their friend/neighbour/hated boss/ex-wife has been murdered, even when they later turn out to have nothing to do with it they are pretty much totally uninterested, no-one ever goes "OH MY GOD, what happened? when? who did it? this is horrible. Who's going to feed the cat? Can I help? how awful" etc.

@FoxgloveSummers

The best Agatha Christie for this is ‘and then there were none.’ There are ten of them, being killed off to match a rhyme where ten little soldiers get killed off one by one and when the butler’s wife gets killed second they mention that he had to ‘cobble together a cold supper for them’ because the woman was the cook. That’s their only real issue with her death, I couldn’t stop giggling.

Women waking up with perfect makeup still in place. Mostly American.
Medical dramas with the oxygen bag flat at a pancake and clearly not full of oxygen.
Playing with food and never finishing it.
Being in snow and not cold
Cars that never need fuel and go for hundreds of miles on one tank.

Working out someone's password from some obscure but known origin. As if!

"Playing with food and never finishing it." YES this is particularly unrealistic when it's (often) teenagers. Most healthy teenagers have eaten all their food and grabbed a packet of crisps and a sandwich before an adult has had time to plate theirs up.

[quote Kanaloa]@FoxgloveSummers

The best Agatha Christie for this is ‘and then there were none.’ There are ten of them, being killed off to match a rhyme where ten little soldiers get killed off one by one and when the butler’s wife gets killed second they mention that he had to ‘cobble together a cold supper for them’ because the woman was the cook. That’s their only real issue with her death, I couldn’t stop giggling.[/quote]
I couldn't even READ (or watch) that one as it sounded really grim. Clearly I'm not cut out for life in St Mary Mead/suspicious islands.

It’s honestly not grim it’s just totally daft and hilarious.

I agree with a pp saying Suits as well. Why do people let Harvey, Jessica and Louis speak to them like that, if I was Mike I’d be in at a tribunal pronto. Well not Mike but if I was any type of legit lawyer I’d be complaining.

About the murders: who the h*ll would still live in Midsomer???!!!!!

@grey12

About the murders: who the h*ll would still live in Midsomer???!!!!!

Albert Square in Eastenders is also a highly dangerous place to live !

I reckon it does wonders for the property prices from a buyer's point of view. Hell, I'd be tempted.

I think with the classic murder mysteries/ whodunnits the convention is to make the victim not particularly liked so there there is a proper motive and lots of suspects.

The Middle is about a very average family, and all the kids have problems!

I haven't seen that, will have to give it a go.

Re the Middle - I wouldn’t say that Sue needing braces and Axl being a bit of a thick jock classifies them as “having problems”

In soaps people always have enough money to go abroad to live for ages. They decide to go, buy the flights and that's it, off they go.

The only and BEST shagging up against a wall is in Buffy in the episode aptly titled Smashed.