OBVIOUSLY EMPTY COFFEE CUPS
In case you couldn’t tell from them being whipped around as if filled to the rim with air… tilted at 45-degree angles… or by the hollow “plock!” sound made when set down on a counter/desk. We could go on (and once did.) Also see: Obviously empty handbags, purses and suitcases.
THE DOORBELL FAKE-OUT
That thing where your doorbell rings shortly after your roommate/spouse has left — and it’s very late at night, and there is the threat of danger — but you assume, “Oh, silly Suzie, did you forget your keys…?” But no, Suzie never forgets her keys. Instead, it’s the evil person, and he is here to kill you.
THE INSTANT WEDDING OFFICIANT
Don’t get us wrong — sometimes it is rather sweet/meaningful when a couple gets to be wed by a close friend. But more and more it seems as if “I got ordained online during the commercial break!” (as Cisco above did) is a go-to gimmick to insert a major or recurring character into a wedding/vow renewal ceremony.
I have used “a word…” more than once – mostly because it has more than once been used on me over the years. So I’m to blame. (or at least my professors and former boss are to blame). Sorry!
My pet peeve is on cop/federal agent showsis they call in SWAT for back up. SWAT is in full gear and ready to go but the hero of the show who hase barely any protection on always goes in first.
My other peeve you covered. Why do they hollar COPS/FBI 30 feet away.
Related to this – when the cops rush into the house and one of them goes into one part of the house, looks around for about 5 seconds and yells “CLEAR!” even though they couldn’t possibly have checked all the closets, under the beds, etc.
Yes! Exactly!! I just wrote that exact same comment, but the page refreshed & my comment didn’t get posted. I love cop shows, but that always bugs me!!
I’ve said “Can I have a word, please?” a few times. Also, another troupe I’m tired of are love triangles. They’re so contrived and are formed just to make more drama. Write an organic story and pull the drama from there, not from “Timmy is in a relationship with Suzie, but has feelings for Barbie.” So boring.
I despise love triangles. Thanks for mentioning it.
You’ll never take Vaughn’d from me. But only the original. 💙
“What do you got?”
You mean like when the detectives show up at the crime scene and say to the beat cops, “whadda we got?”
–When detectives or other trained experts are talking to each other– one says something in order to transmit information to the audience about what’s going on, even though it’s something that would be completely obvious to the other person. (Then the other one responds that “In that case, we should do this,” even though that would also be completely obvious to the first one.)
FBI‘s Jubal often barks out painfully obvious next steps. You half expect one of the minions to respond, “Well, yeah.”
Or, since they’re responding to Jubal, they could use his oft-repeated response: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Yes! And the first season they really put the majority of that stupid exposition burden on poor Missy Peregrym. So much so she looked like a complete idiot and you wondered how she became an FBI agent.
“Get your f’ing hands off of me!”
When the armed goons come in and kidnap the heroes wife and rebellious daughter and the kid yells “Get the hell away from me!” as if these mercenaries are going to stop in their tracks and apologize for violating her personal space.
One of my peeves is EVERYONE’s phone has EVERYONE already in their contacts complete with a picture of said person calling…
Ah, you forgot the worst one: characters getting in their cars, hopping on the subway, or whatever, and traveling 20-30 mins to knock on their coworker’s/friend’s/family member’s front door just to have a two minute conversation about something, then turn around and promptly leave, as if that whole exchange wouldn’t have simply been a two-second text message in real life. All because the director/writer wants their characters/actors to swap dialogue out loud and face-to-face. Ridiculous. (The Chicago shows are especially guilty of this.)
One of the worst tropes in internet comment sections is starting with the snarky “you forgot.”
They said right out that it wasn’t an exhaustive list.
+125 TVLine Power User points (no cash value)
“But somehow, on shows such as The Rookie, getting from wherever you might be in a major metro area to the place where a crime is being crimed usually takes inside of 15 off-camera minutes.”
:
Also, in the case of the Rookie, when the EMS called to any crime scene is always your fiance
Nah.
The worst one is guns with ‘silencers’ on them that only make a ‘pew pew’ sound. That’s even remotely close to being true.
Even with the most effective suppressors, a gunshot is well over 100 decibels, (even up to 130!) which is louder than helicopters, jackhammers, or a even a jet airplane taking off.
What a technical answer for someone who is not a hitman…
TV characters almost never set up exact time for a meet-up.
Also, TV characters dramatically leaving restaurant by themselves, even though they could have just, you know, walked together.
“The empty coffee cup” syndrome was really obvious on “Gilmore Girls” — especially since that show was obsessed with coffee. (By the same token, one of the most interesting things about “The Big Bang Theory” was that the cast members were actually eating food, not just pushing it around their plates, during the many eating scenes.)
Even if the glass or bottle has liquid in it, I hate when the actor puts it to their lips and obviously doesn’t drink anything. I know, any slurp or swallow would probably get picked up by a microphone, and they don’t want risk dribbling down their chin, or hiccuping, or smudging their lipstick. Still, it looks ridiculous.
At least the Starbucks cup in Game of Thrones wasn’t empty.
Best comment by far!
I can understand why as obviously they don’t want an accident that sees the liquid spill but while you couldn’t really fix the 45 degree or more tilt issue they could fix both the sound and the way the actors would hold a full cup rather than an empty one due to the weight with ease for take away coffee or travel mugs. All you ned are sealed containers containing liqud that fit snuggly inside the actual drink container, this would give it weight and change how the actors hold it and give it a better sound. Open mugs would obviously be tougher as the risk is you see the container so the liquid doesn’t look natural, you would need the container to be so pure that it was so see through it was basically invisible so all you would see was the liquid although even then you would have to be careful that the liquid was far enough down that it couldn’t touch the top of the container
Ja! ” is “Who are you? The nerd of liquids!!”
Some enhancements to the comments above:
1.) When the cop goes it alone, it’s always at night, or down a dark basement /tunnel and the lights don’t work. They don’t even try to tune them on.
2.) Just in time salvation: One minute they’re in the police station, the next they’re saving the hero. Doesn’t matter how far away it is.
3.) The number of bullets expended only counts when someone’s actually counting, and there’s only one left but three people to shoot. Oh my! (see number 2 above.)
4. It’s raining going down one street but the sun is shining going down the next (see”Unstoppable”).
5.) None of the bad guys can shoot worth a darn.
6.) None of the good guys shoot to wound or kill until the last five minutes of the show, no matter how clear the line of sight is and there’s no one else around.
7.) No one ever has to go to the bathroom. Ever.
An add-on to #6: The good guys shoot all the lackeys and bodyguards (who are probably just doing their jobs), but never manage to hit the Head Bad Guy in charge (who needs to be around for future episodes).
The bathroom thing is especially annoying when someone is kidnapped or tied up and held captive in the basement for several hours or longer and the subject is never addressed.
On more than one occasion, the soap opera Days of Our Lives did a storyline where a woman was literally held prisoner in a sarcophagus for days without any access to bathroom facilities, and it was never referenced.
The bathroom thing is easy to get around since it’s not shown in real time for most shows. On 24, though it was very obvious. Jack never had to use the bathroom?
That’s the reason for the commercial breaks with the ticking clock. Jack used the bathroom then, just like the viewers.
I always thought it would be funny for them to do an hour of 24 where Jack was stuck in the bathroom with diarrhea.
.
“Jack, the bad guys are about to blow up Dodger stadium!”
.
“I know, Chloe, but that gas station sushi I had for dinner is going right through me!”
Unless it’s a woman dramatically following a man into the men’s room.
The T-bone one reminded me of another car related one. When the person law enforcement is chasing gets hit by a car. Happens all the damn time on tv shows.
We must have been thinking alike! See below.
-Quinn getting T-boned while texting Rachel in Glee.
-Carrie getting T-boned and then getting captured by Abu Nazir in Homeland.
-Stan getting T-boned by Francine while singing “Drops of Jupiter” in American Dad.
I’m sure there are many, many more.
Also the follow up to “Stop! Or I’ll..Chase After You” is the baddie running into the street without looking and getting mowed down by a speeding truck/bus, killing him and thereby stumping the LEO who needed him for info.
It’s gotten to the point where you can predict it up to a minute ahead. So tiresome.
On the no message history thing? Yeah I’m one of those people that doesn’t hang on to old messages. I mean there are exceptions of course (like my family group chat that spans years 🤭) but I will periodically go through and delete my messages to free up storage space (a habit I picked up when my phone only had 8Gb of storage and half that was usually bloatware).
Juan Dixon, is that you? 🤣🤣🤣
I knew somebody who deleted his messages because he didn’t like a “cluttered” messaging app page. Then he would get confused about what people were referring to when they’d text back and you’d have to almost start the conversation over. I just stopped texting him and would just call. 🙄
My dad does this on an almost daily basis. I don’t get it, but that’s him.
I’d add the ease with which people open locked phones, dead of night, person unconscious or dead and they just barely aim the phone and it opens. Heck sometimes I can’t get mine to open when I’m staring right at it in the daytime.
Related to this is the completely absurd way the technical computer whiz can always hack into any private or government system and especially any surveillance cameras instantly, with virtually no effort.
You forgot the biggest one! As two characters are leaning in to kiss, one of their phones buzzes extremely conveniently and instead of ignoring their phone, the moment is ruined.
I don’t like when people meet up at a restaurant or bar, they order, then one has an emergency or gets mad & leaves the food or drink untouched.
And nobody pays the server
Sometimes they just throw some random bills on the table without finding out how much they owe, but I guess that’s better than nothing.
Of course most people don’t even carry cash anymore, making it more absurd.
The tiny text messages are driving me crazy. Not everyone’s watching a show or a movie on a 50 inch tv. Many of us are watching on their phones so it’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what’s being sent or received
I have a big screen and still can’t read a lot of them. Makes me crazy.
I consider pausing, rewinding, and then getting up to get closer to the TV so I can read the text message part of my exercise routine I do it so often.
This drives me nuts! Even on a 50″ screen the message isn’t always easily read, and often isn’t displayed for long enough to read anyway. I wish they would just caption the text in the corner of the screen or something.
Speaking of the car wreck, one that still haunts me is from Dawson’s Creek when Mitch is enjoying an ice cream cone, the cone drops and Dawson’s father dies. It was so tragic! He and dawson’s mom were reconciling and then… ugh! So sad!
But after you saw that, you NEVER AGAIN ate an ice cream cone while driving, right?
The hanging up without saying goodbye doesn’t really bother me. In real life it would be rude, certainly, but on tv, it just takes up time. If it’s not integral at all to the plot, if it’s not setting up a punchline, then I don’t care if I don’t see it.
I wouldn’t say it annoys me, but it is something I *always* notice. Once you see it, you can’t not notice it, so it does take me out of the moment.
The way I explain it to myself in my head canon is that they actually do say “Goodbye” but they just edit it out to take up less time.
To the opposite of the “just a scratch” point made above. I hate when someone gets shot in the arm/shoulder/leg, and is immediately shown as unconscious or dead. That’s not how that works.
At least on Castle, in the episode “Cuffed,” when they’re trying to get her up on his shoulders he notices her heels and asks “How do you run in these things?”
Meanwhile, no one was better at making Talk Nerdy to Me appear legit than Seeley Booth
I don’t know why, but even before I read your comment, I was thinking of things that always drive me crazy and I thought of Seeley Booth. I loved the show, Bones, and I watched every episode when it originally aired and still watch repeats, but it always drives me crazy when Booth and Brennan go together to question someone and Booth introduces Brennan by saying, “And this here’s my partner, Temperance Brennan”!
The infinite resolution surveillance cameras still bother me. Yes, there are cheap 4k cameras available in real life, so it’s maybe not as unrealistic as it once was, but the cameras on TV still usually have grainy and cheap looking pictures, but can still zoom in on reflections in mirrored sunglasses.
No, the real trope is that the picture always looks grainy at first and then someone says “Enhance” and it magically becomes clear enough to read the text or whatever. I don’t think I have ever seen an “Enhance” button on any real-world photo app.
My favorites were on CSI, where they would pull a crystal clear, case-breaking image from a reflection off a spoon or something.
Twin Peaks did it better in an iconic scene from the pilot where Agent Cooper magnfifies a paused video image of Laura Palmer and sees a reflection of biker James Hurley’s motorcycle literally in her eyeball! Amazing.
One that no longer applies but always bugged me in the old days was when a guy would light up a cigarette and then put it out after exactly one puff. Why even bother? Those things cost money! At least Walter Matthau made a joke out of it in ‘Charade” (h/t the great Peter Stone).
Loud music drowning out the dialogue is a big pet peeve for me! New Amsterdam was the worst I’ve ever heard.