I Like the Show, But: The Little Things That Drive You Crazy

[Shannon L.]

This thread is a step lower than the Rage Spiral thread in that it's about shows that you enjoy with the exception of one or two things that drive you crazy, which may or may not have lead to you giving up on it.  For me:

In spite of how ridiculous it is (and it is ridiculous), I really like Prodigal Son.  But, I have a hard time getting past how young the lead characters' mother looks.  The actors are only a few years apart in age, but that isn't uncommon when tv shows do the casting.  However, typically, the actor playing the kid looks younger than their age.  In this show?  The actress looks way too young to be these kids' mother and it makes it difficult for me to concentrate on their scenes together.

Also, anytime the flaws of a character start getting worse to the point of being unbelievable:  The dumb get dumber, the angry get angrier, etc.  I may not give up on the show, but hate that and don't know why there's a tendency for writers to do it.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Shannon L.

[Kromm]

Good thread idea.  I can think of plenty of shows that qualify.

A big area for me are shows that conceptually are good, and manage to eke out being entertaining, but the Host of the show sucks. For example, I barely understand why anyone suffers through seeing Tyra Banks host the current incarnation of Dancing With the Stars, except it's undeniable that the actual dancing can be worthwhile if you mute the show whenever Tyra is onscreen.

Or there's Big Brother. I rarely to never watch it anymore, but understand the appeal is still there.  But Julie Chen has NEVER been a good host.  I can never prove it to anyone, and honestly it's not really worth trying, but many years ago I'm likely the person who sparked the tradition of calling her Chenbot (probably as early as Big Brother 2, although I won't swear to that timing) back on a board called Fans of Reality TV which still exists I guess but which I haven't logged onto at ALL in 7 or 8 years.  It was initially Juliebot, and full disclosure, I don't recall how it morphed to Chenbot, whether it was me or someone else at the same board rolling with a version that sounded better.  It's the Internet, and even back then things often evolved like that.

The name spread and spread everywhere, including Twitter, and it's amused the hell out of me that happened.--especially since I understand Chen herself wound up aware of it and used it at some point.  You know... trying to sound more human by embracing the nickname.

The name really WAS intended to convey how robotic her delivery was.  There simply wasn't any more to it.  She's rebooted and adapted in small ways, and I suppose her delivery is better in some ways, but there's still the sense that this is just a ridiculous job, just for a paycheck, and she certainly knows that and isn't going to ever truly sound sincerely enthusiastic about anything.  And although so much else about the show wore on me and pushed me away a long time ago, it's NOT a rage spiral at all.  Even back then, Julie was a thorn in a strong show, and now she's a thorn in a weaker show.  But not an enraging one, just a tired one.

 

[Shannon L.]

1 hour ago, Kromm said:

A big area for me are shows that conceptually are good, and manage to eke out being entertaining, but the Host of the show sucks.

I've never watched Big Brother, but Dancing With the Stars is one that you can easily mute the host.  I haven't seen it with Tyra and I never had to mute Tom Bergeron, but I did mute the first 5 seconds or so of Bruno until he was past the ridiculous descriptions of what he just watched and moved on to actual critique.

[DearEvette]

This is The Witcher and BlackAF for me.

With the Witcher, I enjoyed it overall but there are some storytelling decisions that frustrated me in places.  For instance, in the big battle why have Yennifer act as the tactical general overseeing the battlefield? The show gave no hint that she had any battle or tactical experience. Meanwhile there were actual warriors on their side who did.  Also the lack of POV for the antagonists made the story feel lopsided. You never get a real sense of the antagonist's motive.

With BlackAF, Kenya Barris is a terrible actor and really should have hired someone else to play him.  He was the weak link.

[auntlada]

I thought I had nothing to contribute here, but on reflection, there is something in Grey's Anatomy that has always bugged me. There should probably be a lot, but I can gloss over the increasingly unbelievable things -- deaths, amputations, cancer, crazy people, fires, floods, etc. -- that happen to the hospital and the people in that hospital because it's a TV show.

But I just don't understand why the chief of surgery is the top person in that hospital, just below the board. Is there not a hospital CEO? A CFO? Our hospital has both those positions, along with several vice presidents who are over various areas. It seems to me that the chief of surgery would be one of the people in senior leadership, but not necessarily the head honcho, and particularly not the one who is always called on to speak to the press about disasters -- particularly when the chief of surgery always seems to be singularly unqualified to speak to the press or even issue a public statement. Shouldn't the hospital also have a public relations/communications and marketing department (or at least a chief communications officer) that helps with that sort of thing?

[Llywela]

I've been watching Bridgerton, which on the whole deserves all the accolades is receiving. But it throws me off that most of the supposedly fresh young Regency debutantes are played by actresses who are clearly in their late 20s if not over 30. I know the show buys itself some leeway by being slightly alternate universe (and that hiring older actors to play teens has historically been common), but those debs would be under 20 and it really shouldn't be so obvious that they are so much older.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Llywela

[BlackberryJam]

4 hours ago, Llywela said:

I've been watching Bridgerton, which on the whole deserves all the accolades is receiving. But it throws me off that most of the supposedly fresh young Regency debutantes are played by actresses who are clearly in their late 20s if not over 30. I know the show buys itself some leeway by being slightly alternate universe (and that hiring older actors to play teens has historically been common), but those debs would be under 20 and it really shouldn't be so obvious that they are so much older.

Men play decades younger all the time and women in their thirties are cast as women in their 50s, so I'm pretty okay with Bridgerton. 

[Llywela]

4 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Men play decades younger all the time and women in their thirties are cast as women in their 50s, so I'm pretty okay with Bridgerton. 

I'm a multi-tasker. I can be annoyed about women in their 30s being cast as women in their 50s and also find it distracting in this particular show that women in their 30s are playing teenage girls. And sure, we also see guys playing teenagers in high school dramas, and it is ridiculous there too, but I wasn't talking about those shows. I was talking about this particular show in response to the premise of this specific thread, which asked about 'shows that you enjoy with the exception of one or two things that drive you crazy'. Bridgerton is the show I'm watching and enjoying at the moment, and that's the thing I find distracting about it. All the guys in this particular show are playing roughly their own age, since all the gentlemen courting the young ingenues are meant to be a good decade older than them (although that said, the younger brother looks older than the older brother, and that was distracting too), and I'm sorry, but if you have a 30-year-old guy playing his own age opposite a 30-year-old woman pretending to be 16, it shows. And I found it distracting, I kept trying to figure out how old the characters were supposed to be, because none of the ages made sense. It isn't a major criticism that requires anyone to leap to the show's defence, and I certainly am not claiming this issue is unique to this show. It was just a minor critique because it bugged me while watching although I otherwise enjoyed the show, which is specifically what this thread asked about.

[DearEvette]

10 hours ago, Llywela said:

I've been watching Bridgerton, which on the whole deserves all the accolades is receiving. But it throws me off that most of the supposedly fresh young Regency debutantes are played by actresses who are clearly in their late 20s if not over 30. I know the show buys itself some leeway by being slightly alternate universe (and that hiring older actors to play teens has historically been common), but those debs would be under 20 and it really shouldn't be so obvious that they are so much older.

Yeah, I don't even notice it with a show like Bridgerton.  But holy cow I absolutely can't watch Pen15 because of this very thing.  So this is not a great example for this thread because I literally can't watch the entire show because those actresses look old as fuck (not really old-old, but they ain't 15) and I just can't turn my brain off enough to go with the conceit of the show because I am so distracted by how old as fuck they look.  LOL.

[Zella]

I feel like older shows (and movies) were even worse about casting people way too old for high school. I've been watching a lot of Westerns lately, and I wish I had a dollar for every time Marlon Brando or Steve McQueen pushing middle age and looking every bit of it is "the kid."

I'm actually watching an old show from the early 60s (Stoney Burke) with Warren Oates as one of the recurring characters, and a couple of times, he's referred to as a "boy." The entire set-up seems to be he and his pals are maybe early 20s. And 1962 Warren Oates is pretty fresh-faced compared to late 60s Warren Oates--I recognized his voice before I did his face--but nobody in their right mind would think he was anything but a guy in his 30s. Every time they do that, I wish I was watching it with someone, so I could exchange WTF looks with them. 

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Zella

[andromeda331]

Madam Secretary, one thing that bothered me from the beginning was Henry and how involved he got in everything. He got involved in missions, training a spy, and bunch of other stuff. If the positions were reversed there was no way they'd have Elizabeth doing any of that crap. She might have a job but mostly be at home, taking care of the kids. They'd never have her do any of the things Henry did.

Edited January 27, 2021 by andromeda331

[WinnieWinkle]

9 hours ago, Zella said:

I feel like older shows (and movies) were even worse about casting people way too old for high school. I've been watching a lot of Westerns lately, and I wish I had a dollar for every time Marlon Brando or Steve McQueen pushing middle age and looking every bit of it is "the kid."

I had the opposite experience over Christmas.  I was watching some old favourites including Holiday Inn and was really surprised when I looked up the two women playing the leads and found they were both only in their 20s when the movie was filmed.  They seemed older - especially the actress playing Lila.   But even actress's looking more mature than their years still end up being at least 20 if not 30 years younger than their love interest most of the time!  I think that's more common in movies but it happens on TV shows too.  Hopefully that's not happening as much as it used to.

Edited January 27, 2021 by WinnieWinkle

[Spartan Girl]

YOU is brilliant but Joe, stop acting like you have a conscience and are morally superior after all the shit you’ve done.

Yes, I know that’s the point of the show, getting into the mind of a sociopath, but this thread is about things in good shows that drive you nuts, and this is mine. Making Joe seem like a tortured soul that has some good in him — the way he views himself anyway — only fans the flames of the fan girls Penn Badgley is trying to set straight.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Spartan Girl

[Irlandesa]

57 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Making Joe seem like a tortured soul that has some good in him — the way he views himself anyway — only fans the flames of the fan girls Penn Badgley is trying to set straight.

Oh man this.  And even though the show is based on books, pretty much all of the things that make it seem like Joe has a code or is tortured or even a victim of circumstances beyond his control are the choices the show has made. 

I don't mind when a show makes chances from a book.  I do hate when those changes end up undermining what I feel is the overall theme of the original work.  And the theme of the books, IMO, was that Joe was a psychopath who lied to himself.  The fact that the book could get that across when it's 100% from his perspective but the show loses that too often even though it has a more objective view irritates me. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

Re: You

They need to stop giving Joe some cute kid to serve as his morality pet. Seriously. The dude's hands are all but caked with blood, I don't believe for a second he has a soft spot for moppets with a shitty home life.

I thought The Good Place was absolutely brilliant, but I really, really didn't care for the Janet and Jason 'ship. I mean, you want to talk about the trope of "the dopey slob who wins the heart of a woman who is a 1,000 times too good for him", this takes the cake (maybe that was the joke, but it still didn't work for me). I didn't buy Eleanor and Chidi's relationship at first, but at least they eventually won me over. 

 

[Spartan Girl]

10 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

They need to stop giving Joe some cute kid to serve as his morality pet. Seriously. The dude's hands are all but caked with blood, I don't believe for a second he has a soft spot for moppets with a shitty home life.

Thank you! It was fine in season 1 with Paco, but with Ellie in season 2 it got old real fast. Although it was awesome when Ellie flat-out Joe that he ruined her life and told him to burn in hell. It would be awesome if in the next season we find out that she's only taking his money and sending postcards so that she can know exactly who where he is and exact revenge. *fingers crossed*

And yeah, I don't buy that he only feels guilty about Delilah and Ellie because they were "innocent". He had no problem killing his girlfriends and framing another man, and the only thing those girls did wrong was not love him.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Spartan Girl

[WinnieWinkle]

I really like Young Sheldon but they're making Mary the fall guy to explain any and all of her husband's failings.  I know Chuck Lorre shows in particular love to have the shrewish woman who emasculates her "men folk" but I really wish that they could resist the temptation to do this in Young Sheldon.  I may have to stop watching if they don't dial this down!

Edited February 7, 2021 by WinnieWinkle

[cpcathy]

On 1/27/2021 at 6:29 PM, Wiendish Fitch said:

I thought The Good Place was absolutely brilliant, but I really, really didn't care for the Janet and Jason 'ship. I mean, you want to talk about the trope of "the dopey slob who wins the heart of a woman who is a 1,000 times too good for him", this takes the cake (maybe that was the joke, but it still didn't work for me). I didn't buy Eleanor and Chidi's relationship at first, but at least they eventually won me over. 

 

I never bought Eleanor and Chidi, not once. I think Kristin Bell was really overselling her performance, the relationship never seemed realistic to me. And I liked Eleanor better when she was a rotten person.

[Danny Franks]

I'm watching Modern Family again on Netflix, and the show is still funny but... one thing (not the only thing) that is increasingly annoying is Cam's staggering insecurity and determination to be offended over everything.

The episode I just watched is one where Haley gets arrested in college so Phil, Claire and Mitchell leave in the middle of the night to bail her out. Cam offers to watch Alex and Luke and Claire says "I don't want to put him out." His reaction, immediately, is to huff about how Claire obviously doesn't respect his parenting skills.

The payoff? Cam finds out that Claire actually thinks he's a great parent, but that he can't bake. And Cam is mortally offended over that as well.

It's just so tiring. It's four seasons in and this is his storyline about eighty percent of the time. How did Eric Stonestreet not lose his mind over having the same story beats every week?

Edited March 2, 2021 by Danny Franks

[Shannon L.]

I just started season 4 of Gilmore Girls.

1. I'm confused as to what Lorelai can and cannot afford. 

2. Not everyone has a quick wit and even those who do do not speak that way continously in every conversation.*

*Oddly enough, this didn't bother me as much in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  Maybe because it wasn't as quint and cutsie.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Shannon L.

[Blergh]

Hazel (1961-1966) was a cute sitcom but it bugged me that somehow Hazel, her neighbors,etc. in that toney New York suburb ONLY seemed to know/employ other servants of Western European extraction and no other ethnicity. I think there was one episode in which they thought they were so 'enlightened' by befriending a Japanese-American valet (who they thought had been born in Japan but whose family had been in the US five generations).  Yep, that was the closest they came to attempting diversity!

[GATenn]

Quote

On 3/1/2021 at 7:07 PM, Danny Franks said:

'm watching Modern Family again on Netflix, and the show is still funny but... one thing (not the only thing) that is increasingly annoying is Cam's staggering insecurity and determination to be offended over everything.

 

OMG, that nearly ruined the show for me. I really felt for Mitch, because damn.

[MadyGirl1987]

9 hours ago, GATenn said:

OMG, that nearly ruined the show for me. I really felt for Mitch, because damn.

The Mitch and Cam relationship was the worst of the show's main couples. Neither of them seemed to care about each other, and too many of their storylines together were about one, or both, of them hiding something from the other or being annoyed at the other about something.

I also got annoyed at how sterotypically gay they were portrayed as. So many of the jokes were about how catty/effeminate they were. And yet, the show gets treated as some big step forward in representation... Representation matters, but I would argue the quality of that representation is as important, if not more so, then the quantity. What good is having LGBTQ+ characters if they play into sterotypes?

[magicdog]

On 9/26/2023 at 6:58 PM, Blergh said:

in that toney New York suburb

Was the location of the hometown ever established?  I know the exteriors were shot at Columbia Ranch in LA (where the Bewitched House and Leave it to Beaver house are) but I don't think the town even had a name much less a location.  It easily could have been a Philly suburb, Connecticut, Long Island or Westchester.  

On 9/26/2023 at 6:58 PM, Blergh said:

Hazel (1961-1966) was a cute sitcom but it bugged me that somehow Hazel, her neighbors,etc

[Snip]

On 9/26/2023 at 6:58 PM, Blergh said:

ONLY seemed to know/employ other servants of Western European extraction and no other ethnicity.

Actually, depending on where one lived (and in some cases when), it would not necessarily be out of place.  In fact, many of the immigrants in the show were from Europe because prior to 1965, they had priority. I suppose if the show had limped along into 1970 they might have had a black maid appear. 

[Blergh]

Hazel had more or less spelled out that they lived in a somewhat distant but driveable NYC bedroom suburb and that the title protagonist herself had hailed from the Big Apple- and virtually every community in the US had African-American citizens at least working if not actually residing  in said communities as far back as 1865 so big FAIL that no African-Americans would have been depicted as domestic employees in 1966 on that show!

Also, one of the most pathetic moments which ostensibly was how unfair her boss Mr. B. (played by Don DeFore who seemed to have had far more fun playing Thorny on Ozzie and Harriet) was via  not enjoying singing of the  choir composed of the Hazel's club of fellow domestic employees happened when the  Sunshine Girls (all still wearing their formal maids' uniforms) sang the most anemic and soulless rendition of that classic African-American spiritual 'Down By the Riverside'. Not only did the rather bland canned studio singers sound NOTHING like the lip-synching performers depicted but they sang it without any levity or spirit. If they weren't going to cast any African-Americans on the show, WHY have the characters  blandly sing a song that is considered one of the best songs of the genre of African-American spirituals? 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Blergh

[magicdog]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

If they weren't going to cast any African-Americans on the show, WHY have the characters  blandly sing a song that is considered one of the best songs of the genre of African-American spirituals? 

Unfortunately those were decisions made by people long since dead so we can only speculate.  They may have been restricted to using singers contracted by the studio as opposed to hiring anyone from the outside, but that's just a guess.  

The Modernaires sang the show's title tune during the closing credits during the first season, but maybe they weren't available to sing anything further.

Edited September 29, 2023 by magicdog

[Raja]

Reading about the domestic help I think the Black community also wanted to get away from "only" that role. Florida Evans being spun off onto Good Times is the only one I remember except The Jack Benny Show's Rochester showing up in syndication.

In relation to the Masters of the Air teaser trailer where use of the Tuskegee Airman was used in a show based in Great Britain and not Italy so "woke" accusations were flying. Then the full trailers came and historians could see that the P.O.W. experience was going to be a big part of the miniseries brings us to a different take on Hogan's Heroes.  

Not the normal how do we handle Nazis objections as comic foil but back to how we portray are own history of Jim Crow. Given segregation there was an almost zero percent chance that Ivan Dixon's "Sergeant" Kinchloe or his replacement Sergeant Baker would have been in the air and easily captured by the Germans. As to be up flying in single seat fighters that segregation demanded and not the Tuskegee Airmen bomber crews who were preparing to go against Japan. And  thus sergeants would be  ground crew would have meant they were at least a Flight Officer or Lieutenant to be a pilot. But in 60s TV that would have made a Black man second in command after Colonel Hogan over the rest of the sergeants at the stalag.

It wasn't until 70s TV that we started seeing the Black police captain type role where Black characters had a position of authority over White men. And now in hindsight I wonder if being in revolutionary times if it is part of the reason Ivan Dixon left the show before the end of its run.

[Affogato]

On 2/26/2021 at 7:19 PM, cpcathy said:

I never bought Eleanor and Chidi, not once. I think Kristin Bell was really overselling her performance, the relationship never seemed realistic to me. And I liked Eleanor better when she was a rotten person.

Oddly i remember the moment when Eleanor saw Chidi as a love i terest. It worked for me in general. They were friends to lovers. But, if this makes sense, friendship and respect were the strongest part of it. It was a real romance, but not a romance novel romance. Maybe think of it— soulmates, not what you think. 

[Affogato]

On 1/25/2021 at 3:15 PM, Llywela said:

I'm a multi-tasker. I can be annoyed about women in their 30s being cast as women in their 50s and also find it distracting in this particular show that women in their 30s are playing teenage girls. And sure, we also see guys playing teenagers in high school dramas, and it is ridiculous there too, but I wasn't talking about those shows. I was talking about this particular show in response to the premise of this specific thread, which asked about 'shows that you enjoy with the exception of one or two things that drive you crazy'. Bridgerton is the show I'm watching and enjoying at the moment, and that's the thing I find distracting about it. All the guys in this particular show are playing roughly their own age, since all the gentlemen courting the young ingenues are meant to be a good decade older than them (although that said, the younger brother looks older than the older brother, and that was distracting too), and I'm sorry, but if you have a 30-year-old guy playing his own age opposite a 30-year-old woman pretending to be 16, it shows. And I found it distracting, I kept trying to figure out how old the characters were supposed to be, because none of the ages made sense. It isn't a major criticism that requires anyone to leap to the show's defence, and I certainly am not claiming this issue is unique to this show. It was just a minor critique because it bugged me while watching although I otherwise enjoyed the show, which is specifically what this thread asked about.

With ‘teens’ i keep on visualizing what the actors would have looked like at that age. If they are convincing ‘teens’ they looked really young and awkward and inappropriate in real life.  Some guy may be 25 in real life but it is weird to fantasize about his 15 year old character being a master of sex and social matters. 

[Danielg342]

On 9/27/2023 at 6:22 PM, MadyGirl1987 said:

I also got annoyed at how sterotypically gay they were portrayed as. So many of the jokes were about how catty/effeminate they were.

They never really kissed- which got so bad it became a running joke and later formed the basis for an episode- which further reinforces the idea they were badly planned characters. Obviously I don't know for sure, but something tells me that the studio never told the actors playing the gay couple that they'd have to kiss on camera. I mean, I get that maybe the network was still leery at the time about showing two men kissing on camera, but it's a massive oversight that, on a show where a married gay couple are regulars, the couple didn't show affection for each other.

[Dimity]

I like Big Bang Theory - definitely a show I will watch if it's on and there are some episodes that are just gold (and some that I will NEVER rewatch).  Anyway, that said, one thing that bothers me about it is the way they act like scientists working at a prestigious university are earning "peanuts" - and this was a theme even before they started contrasting their salaries with what Bernadette and later Penny were earning in pharmaceuticals.  I mean, I know sitcoms rarely make sense with regard to people's incomes, standard of living etc, but this particular money thing just rankles. 

[Browncoat]

3 hours ago, Dimity said:

Anyway, that said, one thing that bothers me about it is the way they act like scientists working at a prestigious university are earning "peanuts" -

It depends on their ranking.  If they're grad students or postdocs, they probably are earning peanuts.  Adjunct faculty, too, are not highly paid.  And I suppose it depends on your definition of "peanuts."  Also too, (and I know this doesn't apply to the show), but it is well-known that if you work as a researcher  for a state university, you will be underpaid relative to those who work in industry or pharma.  If you are a sports ball coach, though, you'll out earn even the University president.  For the record, I have been a scientist at a state university, albeit staff, not faculty, and staff are definitely paid peanuts!

[Dimity]

1 hour ago, Browncoat said:

It depends on their ranking.

Absolutely, but the show makes it clear - well as clear as a show can that doesn't seem to convey how universities actually work - that all the guys are senior in their fields and they are working at Caltech so while they may not make what they could be making in private industry they aren't barely scraping by either, which is a message the show gives whenever their incomes are mentioned.  Annoying.

[proserpina65]

14 hours ago, Dimity said:

that all the guys are senior in their fields

I never got the sense that they were senior in their fields.  None of them even had tenure.  But I will confess to having little idea how any of that works.  It seemed to me they were portrayed as being well paid but not making big pharma kind of money.

[Dimity]

1 minute ago, proserpina65 said:

I never got the sense that they were senior in their fields.  None of them even had tenure. 

When there was occasion for them to be introduced by their titles in Leonard and Sheldon's case it was always "Senior theoretical physicist" and "Senior experimental physicist".  Howard was an aerospace engineer on loan to Caltech from Nasa who went to space so one has to assume (well I have to assume) he'd be at the top end of whatever the salary range would be.  Raj was an astrophysicist but also had family money (although how a gynecologist working in India could be as "Richie Rich rich" as his father apparently was is another financial mystery that the show doesn't explore).

Anyway all that to say I don't dispute that they could have been making more money if their careers had gone differently, what I dispute is the idea that they are not making very good money doing what they do.  I think the show wanted to show the disparity between incomes in academia and the private sector, which is fair enough, but in doing so they went too far (IMO) in trying to make it seem like the guys were not earning incomes they, in real life, would have been making.

[Ohiopirate02]

2 minutes ago, Dimity said:

When there was occasion for them to be introduced by their titles in Leonard and Sheldon's case it was always "Senior theoretical physicist" and "Senior experimental physicist".  Howard was an aerospace engineer on loan to Caltech from Nasa who went to space so one has to assume (well I have to assume) he'd be at the top end of whatever the salary range would be.  Raj was an astrophysicist but also had family money (although how a gynecologist working in India could be as "Richie Rich rich" as his father apparently was is another financial mystery that the show doesn't explore).

Anyway all that to say I don't dispute that they could have been making more money if their careers had gone differently, what I dispute is the idea that they are not making very good money doing what they do.  I think the show wanted to show the disparity between incomes in academia and the private sector, which is fair enough, but in doing so they went too far (IMO) in trying to make it seem like the guys were not earning incomes they, in real life, would have been making.

I try not to think too hard about TV show finances because almost every show keeps them fluid for the plot of any given episode. But, I thought it was pretty obvious that the boys here spent all of their disposable income on their toys, gadgets, and takeout. Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard had a decent income but were all financially irresponsible. 

[Dimity]

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I try not to think too hard about TV show finances because almost every show keeps them fluid for the plot of any given episode.

Definitely!  I have finally stopped shouting at the TV during certain episodes of certain shows where the writers clearly assume that the viewers don't remember what happened LAST WEEK.  Sigh.  Well maybe it still bothers me a bit 😃

Edited August 13 by Dimity

[proserpina65]

26 minutes ago, Dimity said:

When there was occasion for them to be introduced by their titles in Leonard and Sheldon's case it was always "Senior theoretical physicist" and "Senior experimental physicist". 

Ah, I clearly missed that.  I just take it all with a grain of salt since clearly the writers don't know how academia works anyway.

22 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I try not to think too hard about TV show finances because almost every show keeps them fluid for the plot of any given episode. But, I thought it was pretty obvious that the boys here spent all of their disposable income on their toys, gadgets, and takeout. Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard had a decent income but were all financially irresponsible. 

Sheldon at least doesn't spend all his money because he had plenty to loan to Penny.  Although that was in season one, I believe, so everyone's financial state fluctuated depending on what was called for by the plot of any given episode as the show went on.

 

[Shrek]

4 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

 

Sheldon at least doesn't spend all his money because he had plenty to loan to Penny.  Although that was in season one, I believe, so everyone's financial state fluctuated depending on what was called for by the plot of any given episode as the show went on.

 

I always imagined that Sheldon himself had plenty of money squirrelled away in savings & lived like he did because he didn't want to live on his own or move & that was where he had been since arriving in L.A. & we know how much he hates change. 

[Shannon L.]

I never give much thought to tv incomes simply because their homes, wardrobes, vacations, etc rarely go with what they say about their finances or what they do for a living. 

[meep.meep]

2 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I try not to think too hard about TV show finances because almost every show keeps them fluid for the plot of any given episode. But, I thought it was pretty obvious that the boys here spent all of their disposable income on their toys, gadgets, and takeout. Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard had a decent income but were all financially irresponsible. 

I agree.  The show doesn't depict them as poor, they have plenty of money for spending on the things that they wanted.  Sheldon saved more than the rest of them.  They just didn't spend on the big ticket items (real estate, fancy cars, travel) that most of people in their neck of the woods do.  But if they wanted to go to Comic Con or buy a drone, they had the bucks.

I do know quite a bit about the kinds of salaries they would be pulling in, and CalTech researchers would make a lot less than researchers (Bernadette) or salespeople (Penny)  in pharmaceuticals.  That part was correct.

[Dimity]

2 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

never give much thought to tv incomes simply because their homes, wardrobes, vacations, etc rarely go with what they say about their finances or what they do for a living. 

On Married with Children it was always weird to me that a shoe salesman could afford a house right next door to two bankers.  I wasn't a dedicated fan so maybe that got explained at some point.

[magicdog]

1 hour ago, Dimity said:

On Married with Children it was always weird to me that a shoe salesman could afford a house right next door to two bankers.  I wasn't a dedicated fan so maybe that got explained at some point.

I used to wonder about that but the joke was always about how on the bubble Al was all the time.  Technically, a salesperson  on commission can make decent money.  Of course Al wasn't what you'd call a banner salesman.  In an early episode, one of his coworkers WAS a good one and lived a comfortable lifestyle in a plush bachelor pad.

Plus, Steve and Marcy were not too high on the totem pole at work and both of them worked, so they were better off than Al to a degree but probably spent more on stuff than he did.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Dimity said:

On Married with Children it was always weird to me that a shoe salesman could afford a house right next door to two bankers.  I wasn't a dedicated fan so maybe that got explained at some point.

Your basic story of gentrification. Al and Peggy just got in a generation earlier

[andromeda331]

23 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I try not to think too hard about TV show finances because almost every show keeps them fluid for the plot of any given episode.

So do I. None of it ever makes any sense. But sometimes it's hard. One thing that annoys me is shows where they clearly want their kids to go to college and have good jobs but somehow never save any money for it. They always end up surprised when it's time to send the kid to college and they don't have any money for it. Gilmore Girls, BlueBloods, Reba, Parenthood, etc.
 

 

Quote

 

But, I thought it was pretty obvious that the boys here spent all of their disposable income on their toys, gadgets, and takeout. Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard had a decent income but were all financially irresponsible. 

 

What bugged me is we were shown for years that Penny is also irresponsible with money. She's borrowed money from Sheldon and Leonard for years to pay her rent. Then suddenly in one of the later seaons episodes Penny suddenly has money, savings, 40K and etc. she's looking down at Leonard (who's shocked to hear it) for being irresponsible with his money. That has never been the case. While Leonard blows his money on toys and stuff.. He has never been shown not paying his bills. He clearly had savings because he was able to loan Penny money to pay hter rent. While she never was shown that. It would have been great to see Penny become more responsible or even have her admit in the episode that she has been. Instead of suddenly looking down at Leonard. 

[Dimity]

3 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Then suddenly in one of the later seaons episodes Penny suddenly has money, savings, 40K and etc. she's looking down at Leonard (who's shocked to hear it) for being irresponsible with his money.

And in reference to your comment about college, in this episode we're told Leonard is still paying off student loans.  Something that is never mentioned before or later.  And something I call nonsense on.  Both his parents were academics connected to universities and to top it off we're told he graduated with his doctorate at 24.  There is no way 30ish Leonard ever had student loans IMO but even if he did there is also no way they haven't long been paid off by this point.  Yes, a little thing, but in the spirit of this thread, it drives me crazy!

[Bastet]

TV shows love to have their characters crying poor - I guess the writers think the audience will relate to them better - when there's no way they wouldn't have plenty of money for whatever they're stressing about.  On Grace & Frankie, Robert spent $20k without telling Sol (he donated it to a community theatre), and even after the shenanigans with Sol finding out were over, that money was a recurring storyline for a ridiculously long time, where they couldn't do such-and-such because Robert spent that money.  Now, yes, for a great many people $20k is a huge chunk of change that seriously alters their savings balance.  Not two retired divorce lawyers who had their own firm, though.  It's one of my favorite shows, ever, but that bugged me every single time it was mentioned.

[Dimity]

Or they're poor for the purpose of one episode and then it's never mentioned again!  In Everybody Loves Raymond, in one episode they have Robert so poor he's reduced to eating baloney pie (whatever that actually is!)  but by the next episode it's all forgotten.  

[Ohiopirate02]

8 minutes ago, Dimity said:

Or they're poor for the purpose of one episode and then it's never mentioned again!  In Everybody Loves Raymond, in one episode they have Robert so poor he's reduced to eating baloney pie (whatever that actually is!)  but by the next episode it's all forgotten.  

Robert's financial situation never made any sense. He's a sergeant in the NYPD, and he begins the show living in his parents' home where Frank and Marie pay for everything, and yet he's somehow in debt from his divorce which I don't fully believe once we get that flashback episode about his marriage to Joanne. They are show to have lived modestly with hand me down furniture and Joanne is working fulltime. Robert should have had thousands saved up, and Ray should have been asking Robert for a loan. Ray's the one with three kids and a wife who is a SAHM. I know neither one of the Barone homes are mansions, but there is no way Ray could easily loan Robert $1000 with his financial situation. 

[Dimity]

6 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Ray's the one with three kids and a wife who is a SAHM.

Not to mention by the last few years of the series Robert has married Amy and she is working full-time.  Realistically (what am I saying?  it's a sitcom!) Robert and Amy should easily have had more take home pay than Ray and with far less day to day expenses to account for.