In US TV shows, why do they....

[pookamoo]

... always make people sleep on the couch?

They have huge houses, presumably with more than one bedroom, certainly big enough that they would have a spare room, but unexpected guests and husbands in the dog house always have to sleep on the couch.

Why?

Anyone else noticed this? Same in films, they always "make up the couch"

You're not telling me this house where one old lady lives has only one bedroom?

I remember in Modern Family when the granddad got upset that he had to turn his office into a nursery for the new baby. And I was like "are you really telling me your house only has three rooms?"

Although this rule applies doesn't to UK shows. Yesterday I was watching EE and couldn't understand how Carol, Sonia, her girlfriend, Whitney, Cindy and Liam all live in a house that is much, much smaller than mine :/ And on EE they only ever use the sofa for illicit affairs rather than going upstairs to their many bedrooms.

YES!

Exactly, it's Modern Family etc, Desperate Housewives and the like.
Maybe we have the opposite kind of TV houses in the UK.

Last night we were watching Grimm and a character said "The spare room is all made up for you" and I was almost punching the air!

Ha - I just said EXACTLY the same thing to DH on Sat. We were watching The Kids Are Alright and Julianne Moore sleeps on the couch after falling out with Annette Benning (well OK she had slept with Mark Ruffalo-hello. I digress). ANYWAY seemed like a big enough house for a spare room. PLUS they all have basements anyway. There is also an awful lot of couch sleeping in Vampire Diaries and their houses are gi-frickin-normous.

WHY????

Yes, Vampire diaries is def another culprit, isn't it?

they tend to not lock doors either and people can just barge in

(I'm watching Friends again. they don't even need keys!)

Yes why do people never lock their doors?

Modern family house really really pisses me off. It's a massive house Phil the father is a realtor and yet the sisters have to share a room

Cam and Mitch's house annoys me the most. The both claim to know about interior design and expensive furniture but's such a dark, boring house. It always looks like an old lady's house.

It is often true though that enormous houses only have three or four bedrooms, as they all have their own bathrooms and huge closets to go with them. Of course in a British house these closets would be used to sleep in!

I was just going to say, I think it's because of all the bathrooms, they have like one for every bedroom often do they not?

brian that explains the EE situation then!