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

[ForFunAquaTurtle]

Make up in full after operations

They tell their children to go upstairs or to another room - and they just do without question. Like that happens in rl!

Tenby breaks the ‘not SW of the A5 rule’, though obviously that’s in wales not England and I’ll guess the -by is a coincidental anglicisation of a welsh name?

Tenby breaks the ‘not SW of the A5 rule’, though obviously that’s in wales not England and I’ll guess the -by is a coincidental anglicisation of a welsh name?

I knew someone would come up with an exception!

According to Wiki, Tenby's Welsh name is Dinbych-y-pysgod. I should think Tenby comes from an Anglo-Norman scribe making his best guess at Dinbych.

Another one, when they locate a story in a specific place but no one in the programmes has the accent of that place.

There was a BBC programme a while back called Gwen (?) about a district nurse with the woman from the Dr who spin-off set on Bristol. Her house was up the road from mine.

NO ONE HAD A SOUTH WEST ACCENT, let alone a south Bristol one. It was really annoying, plenty of people move here but not that many!

The Harlan Coben dramas where someone working in a typical profession like a teacher lives in a mansion, or the husband has some mysterious property business that brings in ££££, that he never seems to work at and is always pottering around at home.

Like the phone numbers that began with 555.

Currently watching The Capture and it's full of these - bad lock picking with an electric toothbrush, bad facial recognition, sideways conversations with a passenger while driving at speed on inexplicably empty roads.

On the plus side, the lead character did start to look a bit greasy and dishevelled after a late night. But then she had a brainwave in bed and raced out of the house looking pristine, again.

One I spotted that I don't think I've seen here. Rough estate with lots of concrete and blocks of flats. Horrible alleyways that you know would stink of piss yet people don't walk through them, as fast as possible, with a look of disgust. And not a scrap of litter.

And which always star Richard Armitage...getting to the point where if you see him coming, you'd best walk in the other direction lest you're caught up in a murder!

Bad lock picking.

I dabble in lock picking and I have been known to tell people on TV "you don't need that pick, it's a Yale lock you can just rake it"

I don’t think it matters about locations - obviously there has to be some poetic licence for filming. I mean hosts of things are in a studio or film set so clearly they are not eg on the moon!

I always raise my eyebrows at driving: twisting the steering wheel back and forth along a completely straight road. No gear changes - whatever the car. And handily everyone leaves vital papers/a gun in the glove compartment and if you need to steal a car, never fear, the keys will always be left in the ignition. No one has a remote locking or keyless-entry vehicle, even if the film/programme was made in the last year.

The police also only seem to work office hours!

It’s a good job I’m not a smoker, I don’t think I’m coordinated enough to do that properly

My favourite was the Broadchurch episode that had the murder victim's relatives scampering around trying to find a prosecution barrister.

I think the original Montalbano must give Sicilians a giggle. He appears to own the only car (unless he's tailing someone, in which case a second is permitted).

Yes!! I couldn’t watch Broadchurch as the accents in that were so bad.
An event near where I live now was dramatised. No one in that had a local accent!

Westcountry accents on TV are all the same mash-up of yokel/pirate! In the real world, a Devon accent is quite different to Somerset. The only people I’ve heard do a Devon accent well are French & Saunders, who have both lived here for extended periods.

Unless they are at home in the late summer sunshine, just about to sit down to dinner lovingly prepared by their long-suffering spouse, in which case they will get a phone call from the station demanding they immediately drop everything and drive into a remote forest (suspiciously close to their home and where day has turned to night in 20 minutes) where they will foil another attempted murder in the nick of time and arrest the villain.

Looking at you, Midsomer.

Speaking of summer, I remember seeing either a movie or a television show, part of which was was set in the Highlands of Scotland in summer. In one scene they were having an outdoor cookout. It was about 8:00 p.m.and pitch black night with tiki torches burning. Even my American self knows that it's still light at 8:00 p.m.in the summer in the Highlands of Scotland, actually anywhere in Scotland I'm pretty sure.

"oh hi bouncer...my grandma must not be home my dog answered the phone'

I don't think there has been a better line written in any TV programs ever.😆😆😆😆

I've had a few holidays in the Highlands on biking trips. and on those wonderful days when it's not raining, it's wonderful to be able to sit outside when there's still some light at eleven o'clock.

Houses are nearly always huge immaculate OTT mansions.

People talking to themselves, or about each other under their breath. Worst offenders: TBATB, TYATR.

No one locks or unlocks their car door

I live in Australia and my colleague excitedly told me he was going to be in London for Christmas and was looking forward to the snow. He was visibly crushed when I broke it to him that it would be freezing, wet and there would unlikely be a snowflake in sight. He genuinely thought it was going to be like the films.

We had an Australian visitor a few years ago who was disappointed to learn that we hardly ever have snow here in south Devon. The day after she arrived it snowed for 3 days!