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

[ForFunAquaTurtle]

Make up in full after operations

Waters breaking followed immediately by woman pushing baby out.

That actually happened to me, in my second labour, @Joystir59. I’d been in Labour for 24 hours, but my waters didn’t go until I was 10cm, and ds2 was born only a few moments later.

There was a lovely one of these in Shetland, @ErrolTheDragon. DI Perez left a shop, and walked down the road to Lerwick harbour - but the shop was in a street in Kilbarchan - a village near Paisley (and near where I live) - and the harbour was actually Lerwick, on Shetland - so it would have been a heck of a walk!

Some of the next series of Shetland was filmed in Lochwinnoch - another village near me - so I anticipate some equally improbable journeys.

I think that @Joystir59 meant waters breaking before contractions start, when the cervix isn't dilated.

You were in strong labour when your waters broke at full dilatation.

In crime drama when in the police stations, officers/staff getting up and wandering off from their desks and leaving their computer still logged in.

That was a massive no-no when I was working, you logged off even if you were just going to the photocopier a few yards away.

I used to smoke and wonder how non-smoking actors do it because non smokers will choke on the smoke -maybe it’s a vape.
Also non smokers will have a weak grip of the cigarette - your second and third fingers get lots of practice if youre a regular smoker. So it looks a bit shoogly sometimes in films etc

They don’t inhale. They hold the smoke in their mouth for a bit then puff it out the side.
its one of my pet hates.

Not a smoker and genuinely never understood this 'don't inhale' stuff. How else do you smoke? Every puff/ suck involves an inhale!

I decided to dip into silent witness once, picked an episode at random. There was a very contrived scene in which Forensic Worker 1 sits down at his desk and delivers a terrible line about accidentally locking his computer and oh dear now he has to type in his password! All so Bad Person 1 can make a show of spying his password over his shoulder.

Tell me writers have never worked in the corporate world without telling me!

It’s a long time since I was a smoker but you don’t inhale as you suck, otherwise you’d choke! You suck as you would a drink through a straw, then inhale a breath through your mouth and that takes the smoke into your lungs. Non smoking actors don’t do the inhale bit, so they have a mouthful of smoke to get rid of.

Got it - thanks!

World War Z, zombie film, had me shouting at the TV when they crash landed in Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales and walked to Cardiff

That movie pissed me off so much. Basically justifying the segregation wall in Palestine and then blaming the Muslim lady that was making loud noises for the fact that the zombies came.

Kids films where kids using karate/ king fu can beat up grown adult men (3 Ninjas, looking at you) .

Women in post-apocalyptic terrible situations who still manage to look great and never seem to have their period (still manage to get pregnant though when it suits the plot).

Never heard on any tv show ever
"Oh hang on... I need a wee before I leave"

Lots of expanses of glass that are always super clean. This really used to bother me in House M.D.!

Dina is The Last of Us clearly found the last Dyson left on earth as her hair was always perfect.

A pub, bar or cafe that everyone in the series goes to and chats to others

Knocking on someone's front door and being let in without saying who you are (especially in these video doorbell times)

Walking into a house without ringing/being let in and overhearing vital information. In some cases walking back out without anyone knowing you were there

Never saying goodbye or goodnight after a call or visit. Brief visits that should have been phone calls or emails

Only ever having a bite from a breakfast, lunch or dinner spread then walking away

Switching the TV on just as important/relevant news is breaking

Heavy rain during romantic scenes - but the protagonists don't run for cover or reach for an umbrella

Cast members with ordinary jobs living in a spacious apartment or house in an expensive city

Court scenes that would never happen in real life (in the UK) e.g. loud objections, gavel banging, surprise witnesses, brand new evidence being admissible etc

Social services/child protection being very responsive and decisive (e.g. removing a child after a phone call) when in real life they take much longer to investigate and often end up closing the case

Haven't read every post but love this thread. If not mentioned before it's the unpacking of shopping in a kitchen and putting away very obviously empty dummy cans and boxes.

The casting can take me straight out of my suspended disbelief. When a family look absolutely nothing like each other. I see to watch Corrie back in the day and wonder how the mum of Gail with the big chin could have birthed a daughter with no chin.

There didn’t used to be hairdryers so hair dried naturally -a bit like the scraggly chopped hair that was in fashion a few years ago. Like some of the younger Mitford girls in Outrageous.
You could twist hair in rags and have ringlets. But hair also was washed less often.
Not often hair in progs set in the past looks like that.

Loving this thread. My sister’s partner pointed one out a couple of months ago and now I can’t stop noticing it. Lots of tv dramas seem to have scenes where people are having conversations whilst brushing their teeth - either a couple with double sinks in the bathroom or someone wandering into the bedroom to have a conversation whilst brushing. They don’t ever seem to have electric toothbrushes (presumably because you wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation over the buzzing). They all seem to live in extraordinarily big houses (including for example a teacher and nurse couple 😳) so you’d think their funds could stretch to electric toothbrushes 😂

It always gets me when they say "go and play in your bedroom" to the child, usually at a moment of imminent drama, and the child obediently runs off without a word 😂

I'm afraid this would not have happened in my house.

It always gets me when they say "go and play in your bedroom" to the child, usually at a moment of imminent drama, and the child obediently runs off without a word

And when they're seen again, sometimes years later, the parents don't notice that it's a completely different child.

There's also all the occasions when both parents are in the pub or wherever with no mention of who's looking after the child.