Realities that don't exist in TV land

[QueSyrahSyrah]

Inspired by the ongoing curtains thread, what realities of the world do you consistently see ignored in TV and Film?

I'll start; Car Insurance. We've been watching a show recently where the characters are forever borrowing or swapping cars with family and friends. Vanishingly unlikely that everyone has open all-driver insurance (unless that's a more common thing in America maybe?).

A character in Labour never makes it too the Labour ward, will give birth at home or in ED.

This!
And they always start off with their waters breaking, which in fact usually happens at the end of the first stage.

People over the age of 50 reading without glasses in a badly lit room. How is this possible!!

in American programmes (the good wife, I’m looking at you) people being arrested/charged and ending up in court the same day. And the lawyers are always perfectly prepared. Obviously no year long backlogs in the courts like in England.

That would be frowned upon on MN.

Or some random person will deliver it for her.

In shows/films set somewhere cold no one ever has a drip of snot hanging from their nose, just as no one has sweat patches when things are set in hot places.

Sex is a weird one, brokeback mountain is wild, no one is bottoming after eating tins of beans.

People are up and about reallt early, in Corrie adults and children sit and have a leisurely coffee in Roys before school/work, what time do these people get up in the morning.

Pets are never ill unless they need to be put down/die of old age.

CPR - the person being revived never vomits, which is actually the most frequent complication.

ExH knew one chap who was unlucky enough to inhale the vomit when giving mouth to mouth in the early 80s.

And before that she was always in her room with a colouring book. Wasn’t seen from one month to the next. Very poor parenting 😄

No wonder Tracey turned out like she did, listening to her Shakin’ Stevens tapes for months on end in solitary confinement.

Not to mention the head transplants.

Ah yes, the head transplants too. A tragic but known side effect of too long upstairs listening to tapes.

Similar to this - if a female character feels sick or throws up - she is pregnant. Pregnancy is the only reason women ever vomit.

Yes and no woman ever realises she's pregnant for any other reason than vomiting, then having a look of slow realisation as the penny drops.

No one has any other symptoms or signs, just morning sickness. No one realises they could actually be pregnant because they had unprotected sex, then worries about it. It's just OMG I threw up... oh shit... I'm... pregnant!
every time!

Sometimes people do go to the toilet, but the more action hero you are, the less you need the toilet. Jack Bauer - never.

@BatshitCrazyWoman @SirChenjins @BuddyandTinsel fair enough, maybe it’s just me then with the UTIs 😂 I can guarantee I will have cystitis in the morning if I go to sleep after sex without a wee! I’m very jealous of you all!

Re: moving house etc, I think it's because if they showed much of them doing stuff like that, people would complain in their masses about it being boring

oh don't! that made my eye start to twitch (mind you, i kind of get my mum's point. Watching Sharpe once got me and my dad into a half hour long discussion about the differences/advantages of a howitzer over a short cannon)

One from something we're just watching now (and again maybe this is an American thing that just undermines the point of my own thread) but flight tickets.

In TV and film if someone is surprising someone with flights or a holiday they always present them with physical tickets. I don't know about anyone else but I've not seen a physical flight ticket since about 1998?

I guess it's not the same visual effect to airdrop someone a boarding pass though 🤷🏻‍♀️

If someone takes flowers to someone to apologise, the flowers will definitely end up plonked upright in a bin.

People having long, involved conversations in loud, crowded clubs.

I too have given deep thought to the Shawshank Redemption poster - my theory is that he unpinned the bottom, rolled it up so he could into the tunnel, then let it down behind him, and then he could get out. But then wouldn't the poster look suspiciously battered from being rolled up and down daily? Hmmm...

I love this thread! I'd add booze - characters drinking all the time, pouring massive glasses of wine every evening and then still being able to get up and function with glowing skin and looking perfect, whereas the reality would be a face full of spots and being exhausted every morning.

On the soaps, everyone constantly arguing and snapping at each other. In reality, people don't like conflict, and everyone would soon stop taking to you, particularly if you lived on the same street. But no, in soaps characters charge around being rude and arguing. So unrealistic.

When a character has something important to say, the other character always seems completely oblivious to the nervous/shaking/crying/white-faced friend in front of them, and cuts them off because that character needs to leave immediately to get their car mot'd or remember out loud to phone the vet for their cat's routine innoculations, leaving the crying friend standing there mouthing 'but, but...'

Absolutely this - I would need to write any conversations down on a bit of paper.

CPR is usually quickly successful and the patient gets up and walks off the trolley after ROSC is achieved.
And on that subject, resus is generally well-organised on the telly - not the occasional shit-show it can often be, especially if the cardiac arrest happens in a corridor.

Any time a horse appears in a scene, it neighs.

HORSES DO NOT COMMUNICATE LIKE THAT.

See also: tack that is completely wrong for the period (e.g., grakle nosebands in dramas set in the 19thc etc) or wrongly fitted (the infamous upside-down Pelham in an episode of Poldark).

In saying that, one of my favourite things to do is watch a programme with a subject matter expert (say, a midwife or a paramedic or a pilot or a lawyer) and watch them slowly melt down as the errors build up.

Do screenwriters not do any research or fact-checking any more?

Curtains never drawn at night, so anyone lurking outside can see everything that's going on.

DH used to work in insurance and moans about sprinklers going off when there's a fire on screen and a friend used to work in a hospice and ruins anything with end-of-life by grumbling "it's not like that really".

Ex-Copper DH nearly ruined Happy Valley for me when he watched them raid a house from the front without sending anyone round the back, so the perp obviously did a runner out of the back door.

It’s obvious once it’s pointed out.