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.

The same is often true for British actors doing American accents. Even the ones who are very good at it sometimes sound fake. The telltale signs are "r's" too heavily pronounced in a "general American" accent, and in a Southern accent, making it too non-rhotic. The vast majority of Southern accents these days are rhotic.

Generally speaking though, I think British actors are better at American accents than American actors are at British accents. Top prize in my opinion goes to Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown. The character has a very specific accent from the Philadelphia area (called Delco for Delaware County) that even many Americans can't produce authentically. Kate's mastery of it adds so much realism to the series.

Oops. I assume autocorrect.

Cannot bear it when people do accents! They're always bad IME. Even the best ones, it's noticeable that they're not using their own accent and it's distracting.
It put me right off Peaky Blinders.
Also dishonourable mentions for Dominic West in The Wire, Benedict C in Eric (which I did still love) and Rafe Spall in Under Salt Marsh.
I want to watch House of Guinness but fear the accents might make me throw a shoe through the telly.

It's not necessarily the saddle, it is the bridle as well (the bit in particular). And there are alternatives. A modern dressage saddle would look in keeping with the time period. The horses are all trained & supplied by professional animal handlers specialising in equines for the film & tv industry, so it would be an easy matter for them to arrange for each horse in their care to have period tack as well as modern. They manage to supply side saddles, so other horse 'costumes' wouldn't be that hard for them.

I'm American, but thanks to BritBox and Acorn, I watch a lot of British TV, especially detective shows. One I saw recently had a plot line that I thought unlikely in the UK. A prominent local man was shot on his doorstep during a family celebration. One clue involved ensnaring a character known to the murdered man a few days later based on the expectation that this character had not heard of the death. Wouldn't the murder, especially with a gun, of a prominent man in a leafy middle class neighborhood been news all over the UK? Even in the US, which is much larger and where sadly gun crime is a daily occurrence, I think this would have made national news.

Well, that's good. Fleabag's depiction of the Hot Priest on the other hand suggested that no one involved had ever met a Catholic priest, or even seen one in the distance, far less asked questions about how they work.

Catholic priests obviously break their vows of celibacy, and are abusive, as he is, but they don't ask to hear confessions from a non-Catholic, and nor do they perform weddings in the back gardens of the bride and groom. Unless there's a special dispensation because one of the couple who want to marry is dying in hospital, in which case it can take place at the bedside, Catholic weddings only happen in Catholic churches.

I’m like your husband! I spend ages looking at the continuity bloopers, then miss parts of the programme!

Weather changes, (a favourite of mine..) from a cold windy day, then in the next scene, it’s suddenly blue sky and obviously really warm. Seasons that are quite clearly not the one they’re meant to be.

As mentioned, Christmas backgrounds of trees in leaf and the sun peaking through.

@RitaIncognita Yes something like that would've definitely hit the headlines over here. Or at least would have spread like wildfire locally beforehand.

Endeavour handling an LP by the grooves.

There's no way Morse would ever, even when younger – probably especially when younger and poorer – have handled one of his precious records like that.

Gave me a sharp intake of breath!

Don’t get me started on film versions of IT 🤣😂!
From the early years ‘lots of flashing lights and swirling tapes’ to more modern computers that appear to have no security features, amazing down
loading speeds, no need to charge the battery, etc, etc, etc…

The Australian doctor in House... He and his diabetic sister (Danni?) arrived on Ramsey St as twins and then proceeded to celebrate different birthdays. Not within a day or two, totally separate dates.

What use is a smart suit or evening dress when you're off to sleep on your mate's sofa or whatever.
@honeylulu that reminds me of another thing. Why do people in film/TV ALWAYS have to sleep on sofas. Many, many people have spare rooms. American houses are massive, but they make impromptu guests sleep on the sofa. Makes no sense.

I hate to lower the tone, but... blood. No, it's not that colour or consistency, and particularly not when the deceased hasn't been discovered for some time. I'm not the expert here, but a family member was a paramedic before retirement, and they always go on about the fake blood on telly.

The soaps almost always get it wrong when anything involving social work services is involved.

The people who write this stuff have clearly never worked in any clinical environments at all!!

Also another one that frustrates me; IVs being inserted without tourniquets, no checking and palpating for a vein, just straight in. Then of course there’s the random injections where an entire needle is poked into someone’s elbow, is that an IV injection, or an IM? Plus the needle goes in so far it would hit bone.

In Casualty/Holby City CT or MRI scans don’t need to be booked, the Dr says the patient needs a scan and they instantly start wheeling the bed off the ward.

I could go on…..

That your comment was unnecessary and patronising. We don’t need someone to explain why things happen on tv which generally don’t occur in real life when it’s obvious why that is.

For goodness sake, it was a playful quip imagining how boring that would be. Stop reading your own issues into people's comments.

Not sure it's been mentioned, but after an argument someone flouncing out of their own living room, office, hotel room, etc and leaving the other person still there on their own. Who ever does that IRL?

Can anyone type? Drives me mad, I've never ever seen an actor who can simulate typing effectively.
Can't stand stage Irishness. I was recently watching "The Affair", where Dominic West was having a sensitive conversation with a guy whose Irish accent was so ridiculous that I don't know how West managed to look sincere and not laugh.

I'm quite taken back by your response to my comment. I was not 'explaining' anything and didn't mean it in a patronising way in the slightest. It's a light hearted thread about TV. Your comment just made me think of how awful it is in reality to park anywhere and how tedious those stupid parking apps can be. And it made me laugh to think about watching that on telly, so no wonder editors don't include it. That's really all. 😟

I can't remember the show but someone had a baby and brought it with them, plonked it down in its basket and just chatted away for hours. At the time I was watching thinking there's no way a 2 month old baby would just be silent in a basket for hours with no food!

Legal shows also often get it wrong. Certainly in the US, the kind of ranting and raving and other histrionics in court that attorneys often engage in on TV dramas would never be allowed in real life.

I don’t know whether the general population are minging and it’s just me but the amount of shows where they sit cross legged on a bed or lie on a bed with their shoes on is horrifying.

TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF.

Not read the thread but the opening credits of Great British Sewing Bee. Scenes of hand sewing the hem on a dress then when the skirt is twirled, it's obviously machine stitched.

There was a taskmaster task based on this. They had to fool the taskmaster into believe the case was either full of empty.