What things in tv dramas give away they are not real?

[ForFunAquaTurtle]

Make up in full after operations

You used to be able to go right up to the gate years ago.

What I’ve always noticed is that if ever an industry, town, sport, event, hobby that I know about is featured on a film or TV series then it’s always wrong. Which leads me to believe that everything that I don’t know about is also wrong.

There is an episode of A Touch Of Frost where a woman is pretending to use an industrial floor polisher. Those machines, huge as they are, are almost silent in use. They dubbed over it with the sound of a vacuum cleaner. I don't remember who got killed in that episode nor who did ir, I just remember the woman cleaning.

Scenes set on a farm do my head in. A few hens scratching in the yard constitute a farm. Never a large well run farm with hundreds of animals.

Movies or TV shows set in the US where a couple decide to get married on the spur of the moment, even sometimes at someone else's wedding, and do it within a few minutes of making the decision. Every state in the US requires a marriage license that has to be obtained before the wedding, and many have waiting periods after the license is issued.

But how did Rachel manage to get on the plane to go (alone) on Ross and Emily's honeymoon? And stay in their hotel, presumably, without any of the relevant documentation?

I may be misremembering it but I think that's what happened 🤔

Trains in the north west of England being on time. Or indeed running at all.

Pre 9/11 things were different. See the case of the two boys who snuck on a plane to New York.

https://www.irishpost.com/history/the-story-of-the-dublin-boys-who-ran-away-to-new-york-195027

but I don’t know how she got through passport control without a passport

Whatever the geographical version of anachronistic is. The most famous example is Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman going from Dover to Nottingham via Sycamore Gap.

As other posters have mentioned, if you know somewhere you can spot immediately if the route makes no sense. In the first episode of the BBC's Granite Harbour, set in Aberdeen, the main character seems to walk from the train station to "Police HQ" in Ruby Lane (at most a 10 min walk) via Marischal College and Old Aberdeen, maybe he had some time to kill so took in the sights.

People always make personal visits when in real life a phone call would suffice. Mind you, given that even in huge cities like London, Paris or New York, everyone seems to live and work within a short distance of each other, this isn't really a problem.

Everyone lives in spotlessly clean, tastefully designed houses they could never afford in real lie.

As other posters have mentioned, if you know somewhere you can spot immediately if the route makes no sense.

BBC's Sherlock. I can't remember where they started from, but their taxi driver needed to brush up on the Knowledge if he thought he was taking them the most direct route to Baker Street. I think it was probably intended to take in as many of the sights as possible, for US viewers.

JKR in the first Strike book. He had to go sarf of the river. She described his route, and I'm saying 'no, that is not how you get there from where you started.'

When two characters return home having just driven back from an important meeting or event (bank manager, child's teacher, hospital appointment, etc.) and immediately start discussing is as soon as they walk through the door as if no time has intervened. So what on earth did they talk about in the car on the way back?

Also... parking. So many times a character will just drive up to the building they need to visit and find a space right in front of it, even in central London!

I agree about the routes. Any visitor to London will - in film and tv land - arrive at Heathrow but have to pass Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace on their way to the Cotswolds.

Plus they will cheerily wave off black cab at the end of their epic journey not having paid, let alone being white-haired with shock at the cost.

Whilst it’s unrealistic it would be very dull to watch twenty minutes of someone looking for a parking space.

Also every single flat in Paris has a view of the Eiffel Tower.

She had a passport, she had just flown in from the states for the wedding

A tv show was filmed in my town and things like this happened a lot. I guess only the small percentage who know the area recognise the inaccuracies

There's an old film that was recorded in our town. They walk down one street, which is where my grandparents lived, and turn a corner to end up in a street that my Aunt lived in. My cousin and I always used to shout "if only!" at the tv as it actually took a good 45/50 mins to walk between the two

I agree with this and actually think it's quite dangerous.
We all know that soap / dramas/ films are not real but they all show someone getting cpr for about 30 seconds 95% of the time it's done wrong and yet the dead person is up and chatting within a few minutes.
I think because it's shown so often people would expect the same result in real life and do it wrong and give up to quickly.

All police dramas , the cop finds the perfect finger print and uncontaminated dna within second of getting to the scene and matches it to the first person they test .

And the grave is always conveniently right next to the church, even though all the others nearby are clearly 200 years old.

We have definitely watched the same film ! 😆

I have seen precisely 1 episode when I was visiting my dad. They found a note they thought was Chinese, fair enough.

It turned out it was Vietnamese, would you really mistake "Một chút sương giá" for "丝冰霜"

The location juxtapositions can make you realise how good the continuity people are! I was thinking about it the other day on a visit to Tatton Park - there was a scene in Brideshead Revisited where they left a room in Castle Howard and seamlessly arrived in Tatton’s fernery.
We’re very familiar with Gloucester Cathedral cloisters, they’re apparently a part of Hogwarts and also an abbey in Wolf Hall and various other places.

That leads me to a bugbear - historical dramas using ecclesiastical buildings as secular ones. Usually too grand and ornate, just not the same thing.