<p>I forgot the “librarian rule!”</p>
<p>All librarians (smart young women, accountants, etc.) wear glasses and have their hair pulled back. Despite striking features, we know they are ugly. Then, all they have to do is take off their glasses and let their hair down and they are BEAUTIFUL! Sort of like Clark Kent and Superman…</p>
<p>I hate chase scenes with impossible routes… you know, seeing the cars speeding east and then the next scene they are at some point west, careening north until the next scene when they have ended up at a point to the south. This includes the chase described in the book, “The DaVinci Code” … you’d think a novelist could get hold of a map before writing a book. (But then you don’t want to get me started at the ridiculous holes all the way through that book).</p>
<p>Now that I watch t.v. with my laptop and internet connection handy, I’ve taken to also checking up symptomology for various diseases mentioned on t.v. shows and rather frustrated at the results. Let’s just say that House invariably has it wrong even after the point in the show where he thinks he’s got it right (and how come the entire staff of that hospital hasn’t been sued for malpractice?)</p>
<p>And it probably should go without saying that while I will tolerate a little bit of relaxation in legal procedure and standards of evidence to allow the plot to move forward, I do get very miffed at those long speeches that tv lawyers are routinely allowed to give setting for their entire theory of the case while cross-examining witnesses who can’t get a word in edgewise.</p>
<p>OK, as long as this is a college board… how about those tv shows where the teenage kid is never once seen opening a book or participating in any hobby, sport, or academic activity worth noting, yet somehow manages to get admitted to Harvard through some odd sort of expedited rolling admission process which entails applying sometime in March and receiving notice of admission shortly thereafter, sometimes in the same episode but never more than 2 weeks later… and then after much hemming & hawing, the kid decides that he/she doesn’t want to leave his friends, so he/she ends up to attend the local no-name college where conveniently all the kid’s friends from high school have also decided to enroll.</p>
<p>There is always a parking spot right in front of the building and no meter. No one circling the block endlessly looking for a spot…</p>
<p>zutsuit: Yep, we lovelove “Firefly” around here! </p>
<p>I am learning much about things to watch/listen for on TV (I love the tree frog observation…)</p>
<p>Also, though we do watch “House”, it drives me nuts that those docs do EVERYTHING from the initial exam to surgery, to running the MRI/CT machine to performing each and every lab test to going to the patient’s home/place of work/etc to determine the cause of this week’s mysterious ailment…</p>
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<p>No, but I was a Zoology major as an undergrad. I once annoyed my kids when were were watching “The Lion King.” In the opening scenes there is a line of leafcutter ants carrying leaves and sticks up a limb, and I spoke up in the theater and said “Wrong continent! Leaf cutter ants live in South America!” (Groans from embarrassed daughters.)</p>
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<p><em>Flying</em> birds often sound like redtails on TV. In desert scenes you invariably hear California Valley Quail (the CA state bird, BTW) calling in the background. And it’s always the “gathering” call - the call the quail use to find each other after the flock has been scattered.</p>
<p>More:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>No bomb may be disarmed with more than 2 seconds left on the timer.</p></li>
<li><p>Stereotypes. These may have changed from generation to generation but they still reflect lazy writing.</p></li>
<li><p>Middle class people live in nicer houses/apartments and drive nicer cars than their occupations would normally allow.</p></li>
<li><p>When something that would ordinarily be startling is a few seconds away from happening, you hear the “something startling is about to happen” music and you get to brace yourself.</p></li>
<li><p>The woman that’s “hard to get” at the beginning of the movie will definitely come around, usually somewhere in the middle.</p></li>
<li><p>If the protagonist is a cop, he’s a loner that doesn’t play by the rules.</p></li>
<li><p>Anybody can be trained to do someone else’s job in as short a time as the script needs.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Haha coureur. We once watched a colony of leaf cutter ants in Mexico but I didn’t realize they don’t exist anywhere else.</p>
<p>You yell at movie screens eh? I laugh too loud at the movies…</p>
<p>churchmusicmom: Did you see Serenity, the movie based on Firefly? It came out in theaters in September 05…described (quite accurately) as “sure to satisfy all fans of the series.”</p>
<p>All deserts have either saguaro cactus or Joshua trees – or both.</p>
<p>California oak trees grow on slopes all over the world.</p>
<p>It’s possible to ride a horse from the California gold fields to Monument Valley in less than a day.</p>
<p>The man playing Santa Claus will turn out to be the real Santa Claus every time!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>sax, my favorite case of the parking-space-in-front-of-the-building is in John Favreau’s Swingers (<a href=“Swingers (1996) - IMDb)%5B/url%5D”>Swingers (1996) - IMDb)</a>. If I recall, there are a few times where multiple cars pull up together and get parking spaces. And it takes place in Los Angeles!</p></li>
<li><p><em>spoiler</em>
What about the line that is a giveaway that the character is going to die soon. I knew the girl in the most recent James Bond movie was doomed when Bond tells her that he loves her.</p></li>
<li><p>The classic movie driving faux pas is in The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman drives to Berkeley on the top level of the Bay Bridge (aka the wrong direction)</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>If some unknown character with few lines suddenly shows up among the show’s regulars, you s/he will be dead by the end of the episode.</p></li>
<li><p>Any basically-good character who somehow does some terrible thing must die by the end of the show to atone for the accident or crime.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Several of my faves: One selfish character will fall asleep and have an obnoxious dream about him/herself as Scrooge, and all the other characters as the ghosts of Christmas whatever, and find the 'true meaning of Christmas". in the same vein, one child will win some award at school, or the lead in the play, or the editorship of the school paper, and abuse his/her power, but by the end of the episode learn the “true meaning of friendship”. Yet another holiday-themed one is when all of the present are stolen by an underpriveledged child the tv family has taken in or a homeless person or whomever, and they all learn the friggin “true meaning of Christmas”—again. Another is when a goofy character overhears a medical discussion about an animal or something and assumes it’s him and he’s dying…hilarity ensues…UGH! I love the one about “House”—so true!</p>
<p>The Stupid Misunderstanding because of a tiny random error–The letter gets delivered to the wrong address, the answering machine gets erased, the note falls off the table, etc etc. Because of this, lives are ruined, relationships are torn asunder, chances for happiness are missed. Throughout the show, any possibility of the error being fixed is always avoided through more and more improbable plot twists, until the final resolution, where order and happiness are miraculously restored when the truth finally comes out. </p>
<p>Any version of that plot just ties me up into knots of frustration; my H will actually suggest I not watch it.</p>
<p>I’m afraid garland may be a closet soap-opera watcher. ;). Without her plot devices, though, I don’t think the soap operas could even exist :p.</p>
<p>Nope, never watched one!</p>
<p>Edit: in fact, that’s one (of many) reasons I don’t watch soaps or other badly written series shows, because they tend to rely on that kind of device.</p>