Things you notice aren't right on TV shows

[MoonshineSally]

I'm just starting to watch the TV drama The Lady. After the police are in the flat it switched to a scene with Charles and Diana's wedding accompanied by I Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode - that hadn't been released.

Nobody ever goes and gets changed into comfy clothing when they get in from work, they just stay in their office clothes. If they're a professional they will immediately pour some wine into an extra large glass.

We're the other way round - my husband notices really obscure continuity errors whereas I rarely do.

Christmas films with the trees in full leaf,

That’s reminded me of watching The Haunting of Bly Manor, which was supposed to be set in the early 1980s, and I was distracted by the wallpaper in the little girl’s room which was the Scion Living Mr Fox print, and wouldn’t have existed until the 2010s (we had a matching tablecloth!)
A trifling detail in an otherwise well made series, but I kept thinking it wouldn’t have been so hard to rustle up some period-appropriate Laura Ashley.

The Lady again, they're showing Fergie crashed out in her own bed by every morning no sign of Andrew. She'd also just have had Beatrice or she'd be a young baby so the timing doesn't add up.

Modern make up styles and manicures on period shows like Bridgerton (yes, I know it’s almost unapologetically anachronistic but still bugs me)!

Bad Scouse accents from non-scouse actors, e.g. some in The City is Ours. Half the time they end up sounding Irish, the other half like bad Harry Enfield style caricatures. This creator makes some really funny Instagram videos and she’s bang on. 😂

www.instagram.com/reel/DTc-cAQDChO/?igsh=MXVyYzg1bmYyeHc1Ng==

This always annoyed me in Gavin and Stacey, because I live about ten minutes from where the Shipman home is meant to be. Much like lots of the Essex contingent in the show I and many of my friends and family work in the city (some of the characters maybe do work locally in Billericay, but Gav and his dad are explicitly said to work in London and they talk about travelling in on the train etc). However, unlike Gav and Mick, I’ve ever sat down with my whole family before a work day for breakfast whilst reading a newspaper!

To get into the city for 9am- depending on where in the city and your proximity to a station this end- you’d have to be out of the door at 7.30am at the latest, so sitting down at about 6.45am for your bacon, egg and browse of the Daily Mail. No one does this; if you’re a breakfast eater it’s a quick bowl of cereal with one eye on BBC breakfast or you take your breakfast to work/have a coffee en route.

It’s also always full daylight in these scenes, even in parts of the story clearly set in the winter (and Pam is dressed and made up even though she doesn’t work and has no reason to be up about, cooking Mick and Gav a full English wearing lipstick and a proper bra, but that’s a whole other annoyance!)

There’s also several instances in the earlier episodes of Gav and Smithy meeting for lunch at a pub near where they live whilst Gav is on his lunch hour from work… it would take him longer than his lunch hour to get back to Billericay, never mind order, eat and get back. He’s on a four hour lunch break apparently! And don’t get me started on the black cab Gavin and Smithy take home from Leicester Square to Billericay in the very first episode… a 90minute drive in even light traffic which would probably cost you about £200 (at least!)

As you can see, I’ve thought about this all way too hard, but I didn’t know a single Essex local who didn't watch that show and take issue with all of the above. The only thing I can think is that for whatever reason they were set on the storyline being split between Barry and Essex, but only knew the logistics of the Barry half (Ruth Jones is from near enough to Barry I think, but James Cordon is from Uxbridge, west of London rather than east).

We used to call the Robinsons’ house in Neighbours the elastic house as they had whole families moving in.

Forensics/pathologist types who hunt down and interrogate suspects and solve the whole crime while the police are just there letting them go ahead with it all.

Shows set in the UK that have obviously been created by/for the US market and you’ll have an older English person saying “math” or “parking lot”, it really throws me.

The amount of police shows where people pour and enjoy a good glug of whisky or a large glass of wine, then they get a phone call so off they jump in their car to head off to whatever crime scene is next.

Medical dramas where the same few people seem to work every single shift (and are always scheduled to work together).

I’m irritated when I know the location where something is taking place, and it just doesn’t add up - back in the day, Lovejoy went into the churchyard of a local church, but the interior of the church wasn’t the same church. Inspector Morse was forever going into one Oxford college and coming out of another, or walking down a street that didn’t lead to where he ended up. And candles - in period drama, if you’ve got a big dinner scene, don’t let the candles that are only just lit at the beginning of dinner be burned down to a quarter of an inch before they’ve finished the first course.

When anyone gives birth unexpectedly in a confined space there is never any mess left behind. No blood, wee, poo, vomit or amniotic fluid to be seen anywhere!

Similarly, when people are kidnapped in a car or held hostage there is no evidence of anyone going to the toilet even if it’s been a few days. I wee if I’m nervous or scared so the car boot or upholstery would get damp very quickly 😊

Walking around the house with their outdoor shoes on. No one ever takes them off or changes into a pair of slippers.

But this one really annoys me the most - when someone receives a text and there is no previous text history even though it's a friend or spouse or whatever. Like that text is the very first text they've ever exchanged!

I annoy myself too haha I can’t help but look at the time on any clock in view and it pisses me off when it’s a completely different time even though time hasn’t passed in the scene.

How do people in TV dramas always have immaculately tidy homes? If they don’t it’s because they’re criminals/addicts/ severely depressed. Like their dining or coffee tables or kitchen worktops never have more than the bare minimum on them. I’m not a total slob or anything but I often have a few books, letters, etc lying around.

When the light changes dramatically between takes of a scene. Have just been watching Succession and there’s a scene with Tom and Shiv on a beach and it goes from being really sunny whenever the shot is from one angle to overcast when it’s from another. Really distracting!

There’s so much wrong with this series, but no worse than all other medical dramas. The surgical residents do all the diagnostic imaging, including reporting imaging via viewing screens (MRI & CT is reported on hi-res diagnostic screens by radiologists, not surgeons)

No one ever discusses the cost of treatment, no insurance issues, nothing. Everyone gets the best, most complex treatment irrespective of cost or if it’s covered by their insurance. In America. Yeah. Right.

I’m not even a Dr and I could fact check a medical inaccuracy in every single episode. Why don’t they consult a health care professional?? It’s infuriating.

Empty things: coffee cups, handbags, suitcases. Put something in them! Or at least it should be part of drama training- how to act as though a coffee cup has something in it.
@sesquipedalian this irritated me when I watched Spender in the 90's. He'd drive round a corner in Byker and instantly be in Jesmond. I'd never realised programmes did this as I grew up on a farm and it was only when I went to uni that I lived somewhere things were filmed.

I’ve seen this show a lot and I can’t think of any bit where they say Gavin or Mick work in London? The episode where Mick is on the news for finding the dead body, they mention it’s at an engineering firm in Billaricay and his quote is “well, it’s the last thing you expect to find when you come to work in the morning”.

There are so many things wrong in medical scenes that I could go on about it all night. Not just technical errors but the way people in different roles interact. And I know most shows can't actually represent an entire hospital's staff but the number of times characters take on tasks that would never be within their remit is ridiculous. Or they flit between different departments at will. Soaps are particularly bad for that - they all seem to have one of two token medical characters who know everything. On one episode they are delivering babies, the next looking after someone on ICU and they never seem to come up against a situation they need help with! In fact the very hospitals they work in can cope with anything too. Neurosurgery or paediatric oncology in the local district general hospital? No problem! Nobody ever needs to be transferred to a specialist centre.
Then there's the very dubious employment practices that seem to be a specialty of shows like Casualty and Holby City. Someone announces they are leaving, takes a few things out of their locker and disappears at the end of their shift. Never mind the 3 months notice thing because another member of staff will bump into someone in the pub that night and offer them the Clinical Director's post to start next morning so it doesn't really matter!
As an anaesthetist I have a few particular bug bears. One is tv surgery which seems to have only one of two outcomes - either an instant and full recovery or death on the table. Another is the frequency with which unconscious patients are shown lying flat on their backs with unprotected airways. But the most annoying of all is surgeons who tell anaesthetists what to do and who take charge of the cardiac arrest or other disaster that is the precursor to the almost inevitable death on the table, barking orders to the anaesthetist and theatre staff about what drugs to give etc. Whoever writes this stuff has clearly never witnessed an emergency in a real operating theatre! 😂😂

Police detectives turning up to a crime scene with no hazmat suit on and all computers/flat screens making noises when someone touches them…

Have you noticed how many actors think they can do a scouse accent just by talking down their nose? I worked in Liverpool for several years and never heard a real Scouser talk like that!

Well, Morse did that so we could all do the Morse drinking game. Take a sip when he walks into Balliol and emerges into Wadham quad! Take a sip when he drives the wrong way down Pusey St! Down it in one if someone murders a dodgy don at your college!

It's annoying when actors pretend to drink out of a mug and they take a sip but don't swallow it. Maria Sunderland from old Coronation Street was the worst. I always thought she must have a hamster-like pouch in her cheek.

Dp had a similar froth re peaky blinders, over a bit shot in Manchester. You can't get from there to there via there apparently. I was merely frothing at it not being Birmingham.

Parents wake their kids up for school and they need to go to work and there is 500 different breakfast items all laid out that would have taken even 2 people a week to make