‘Stop drinking fake coffee!’ Your most annoying things about TV
‘Want to make a suitcase look heavy? Put something in it!’
Empty coffee cups. You can tell from the way people hold them that there’s no liquid in them, never mind hot coffee – surely they could at least fill them with water? Ditto suitcases – how many times do you see a character lifting suitcases with effortless ease, not wincing or bumping them off their leg as they lug it to the taxi. mikebhoy
I used to work in the theatre. I can tell you this – if you want an actor to look like they are lifting a heavy suitcase/bag there is only one way. Get a suitcase/bag and fill it with enough stuff to make it heavy. There is no other way, believe me, no matter what you tell the actor to do. Ortho
Road rage
They always find a parking space, or plonk their car down anywhere without acquiring a ticket in streets unusually void of traffic for the time of day. roquebrun
I’ve never seen anybody in a TV show or movie pay the taxi driver before getting out of the cab. I know it could be pre-paid or on account but still ... PeteTheBeat
Does anyone actually do this?
Knock at the door – character turns off TV before going to answer it. Never known that to happen in real life. cas7jd
Knocking on doors with, “Let’s see if he’s in.” Of course he is. Would you really be broadcasting it otherwise? towel
To show how rushed or stressed a character was they’d light a cig, take two draws then angrily stub it out. When I used to smoke, that was infuriating. I would think “They’re five quid a pack, what are you doing?!” Beeswithteeth
Silly crime shows
Even the most competent detective seems to have to respond to a killer asking for a few moments alone with
“yes, of course”, or a late-night telephone call to discuss an urgent matter with “come to my office tomorrow morning”. However smart, they never seem to learn. vsbain67
What gets me is when the victim goes into a dark house and starts looking for trouble, yet fails to turn the lights on! It makes no sense: you wouldn’t look for an axe murderer in the dark. Or with creepy music. You’d put something cheerful on, or get the barrel organ going. I would anyway. Hebe50People being interviewed by the police in a murder enquiry, particularly at their workplace, where although they’re clearly being considered as suspects they continue to work – unpacking boxes or cleaning a car or fiddling with a computer keyboard. If I was being interviewed by the police for anything I’d be aghast and couldn’t possibly keep working at the same time! TangoMikeBravo
Shocking subtitles
The subtitles thing is shocking. I’ve stuck them on when being considerate late at night with the volume. Lots were either truncated, so if you solely relied on them you’d miss the gist of whole plot lines or (I assume) some form of ‘on the fly’ translating of the words/ sound, and the subtitle getting some words completely wrong for something sounding similar. Rich45s
Please complain about bad subtitles as often as you can. I translate STs for a living. Sometimes my work is really good. Sometimes less so, when I am asked to translate 1200 STs overnight, for a Chinese/Korean/Spanish etc video and with the help of an English ST file that is often even less intelligible than the Chinese/Korean/Spanish etc audio. BaZu007
The no-courtesy call
Characters hanging up the phone without saying goodbye, thereby leaving no indication whether the conversation was actually finished or not. I’ve never experienced this in real life but it seems exclusively the case on TV. tradervic78
People never say goodbye on the phone. Ever. They just hang up. And while we’re at it, why aren’t people messaging? Everyone messages/WhatsApps/Snapchats etc. Who actually calls each other any more? Apart from my mother. kdee6969
As we know, real life phone conversations actually go, ‘Bye’, ‘Bye’, ‘Cheers’, ‘See you’, ‘Take care’, ‘And you’ … until one person puts the phone down. pjwhams
No credit where it’s due
Cutting the credits at the end of a programme is very unfair to the cast and crew. I once complained to the BBC to suggest that the next version of iPlayer should have a setting which stops the big strip of other programme suggestions covering half the screen at the end of programmes and stopping me watching the credits. Of course I didn’t get anywhere. Johnnybi