What's you favourite tv cliche...

[YesSirICanBoogie]

Any woman visibly pregnant will give birth - probably in a very public place such as a taxi while having complications and getting stuck in traffic on the way to hospital and panting lots.

OOOh when they are pregnant and doing something and then they go 'ohhhhhh'

''The baby is coming''!!

Rather than ...
fuckin hell, Ive had backache for 3 friggin weeks,... contractions on and off for four days, a show, 2 sweeps and a vindaloo...

My favourite is the TV detective puzzling away about whodunnit - then someone says something, or he sees something, seemingly insignificant, the penny drops and it all falls into place .....

When anyone leaves Eastenders they are seen waving sadly from the back of a black cab. Does no one own a car in London?

When someone is cooking they will always taste it and say ''Needs more salt''.

Also when someone goes to a dingy block of flats you will always hear a baby crying from behind a closed door. .

When a new, minor character is introduced in the middle of an action series, he'll be killed off before the end of the episode.

Another pregnancy one... when someone on tv (and in films for that matter) feels their first kick they're always hugely pregnant and it's a proper full on kick, not wierd bubbly feelings and then slightly odd twanging sensations from about 20 weeks as is much more normal. What the heck was the baby doing waiting until they're 35 weeks pg to start kicking?

No-one ever has period pain on TV.

They can always get a babysitter .

Absolutely ANYTHING Horatio Caine says or does in CSI: Miami. dons sunglasses and looks meaningful

Tv cops have always got some dark past, they're either alcholics, bereaved, have killed someone or something similar that sets them apart from all their colleages (apart from the guy in Midsomer Murders, the blandest cop in the world)

Oh yes, the babysitting...does anyone remember Rachel's Most Convenient Baby In The World Ever in "Friends"? You never saw her worrying about childminders, the baby completely disappeared for months at a time while she went to the café to hang out with her all-adult friends as per usual, and she even arranged a job in Paris without batting an eyelid, because hey, it's no big deal to go and leave in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, are likely to be working all hours with no clue as to childcare, and the father is still really friendly and supportive of you and apparently completely not arsed that he'll hardly ever see his daughter again, right? I mean that's really feasible.

Rachel's hair was a cliche in itself.

All bad guys/thugs/alcoholics and drug dealers are always portrayed as Scots!

When someone leaves, and never comes back, no one ever questions why they don't come back for their father,mothers funeral, or sisters wedding etc. Like Meeshell in EE, never came back for her mother's funeral. Or Biancas mum, she never came back either, and they weren't mentioned at all.

The phone never rings just because soeone wants a chat it is always someone relaying bad news or a wrong number at a stressful moment.

A baby in a soap will always
a) Get a life threatening illness

b) Get abducted

C) Be trapped in a fire

D) or all of the above.

Before it is a year old.

Oh, and TV and movie pregnancies....the woman is only ever pregnant-looking around her bump. She maintains the ankles of a ballerina and perfectly elfin features.

And another TV detective one: the cop is always a "maverick" who doesn't play by the rules. There aren't any cops in TV land who just follow procedure, none whatsoever.

If a character in an American film has an Irish accent, he's either a cop or an IRA man

On sitcoms, when parents have a moment to themselves, e.g. the kids go off to grandparets house or something, one always says to the other:

"Ooh listen, can you hear that?"

The other one cocks their head and strains to listen, and then says in a confused voice:

"I can't hear anything...?"

And the first one says, triumphantly:

"Exactly! Isn't it wonderful?"

HOW BLOOMING ORIGINAL!!!!

ER the other night - pregnant woman gets a twinge of a contraction, gets thrown on a stretcher for labour monitoring.

People saying 'I'll show myself out' - as someone here pointed out recently, no one ever says that.

BoF, watch Midsomer Murders, the copper in that is the beigest man on earth. Always follows the rules. Perhaps that was their idea for a USP "I know, we'll have a cop who's not a recovering alcoholic/widower/traumatised in some way, and he'll totally go by the book in every investigation - it'll be unique" Yeah, uniquely dull.

On soaps, I can never understand how they find the time to sit down (all dressed and made up) to a huge cooked breakfast every morning.

All TV writers must be men or women who have not had a child - there's no other explanation.

My fave pg / birth was on 'Doctors' (yes, I know..). There were 3 friends who were all at the same stage of pregnancy and they all went into labour at the same time and all gave birth at the same time at the doctors surgery !! And it turned out they had all been inpregnated by the same man !! Idiocy beyond measure.

Nobody in Eastenders owns a washing machine, they all use the launderette.

Don't diss Midsomer Murders, me and DH love "Tom", his dreary wife Moist Joyce and their bizarrely named failed-as-an-actress-daughter Cully!

Saltire though is right about people not coming back, except that occasionally they get mentioned in a really fake way - Neighbours is good for this. "Oh, Scott and Charlene? Yes they are very happy living in Brisbane with their two lovely children, thank you for asking, Harold. No, I have no idea why they didn't turn up to their mum/dad's funeral, but heyho what the hell!"