Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[proserpina65]

4 hours ago, AgathaC said:

My degree is in history and I took a really great upper-level history course in which we read a book about an event/person/time period and then watched a movie about the same thing. Fascinating, really, from a historical and storytelling perspective. I will say — we pretty much laughed our way through Pocahontas, which got almost nothing at all right. (I ruined the movie for my baby sister who refused to ever watch it again after I gave her a history lesson.😉)

But I agree. Some adjustments have to be made, just like when adapting a novel. Where I get annoyed is when something seems like a really unnecessary or egregious change. Like changing the murderer or motive in a murder mystery.

Yep, that's why I said "closer to historical accuracy" because I realize 100% accuracy is a problem on so many levels.

1 hour ago, kariyaki said:

I put on a tshirt and pj bottoms. I absolutely cannot fall asleep if I’m naked.

Yeah, I can do topless, but I like some kind of bottoms.  But not immediately after sex.  Unless I'm leaving, of course.

13 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I'm sure it happens in real life too but find it hard to believe it's this often. And not without lawsuits all over the place.

It does happen in real life more often than you'd think, but you're right about the ensuing lawsuits.

[andromeda331]

I'm a huge history buff. I don't need 100% accuracy I love Bridgerton even though it's not at all accurate. But Anthony's family reaction to him not wanting to marry for love is odd considering how common that was for the time. Same with the shock of Lady P wanting to marry her daughter off to her cousin. That was still pretty normal then too.  Or in The Spanish Princess Catherine shocked when TBTB want to marry Henry off to someone more advantage to England even though she loves him so much. Ah, yes Catherine, that's normal. That's why you were originally married to Arthur. If your father and King Henry 7 wasn't such a dick he would have called you back and married you off to someone else. It's just a few examples that take me out of a story. One of my favorites is the Band of Brothers when their informed that Roosevelt is dead. The reaction from the men was the same as if you told anyone today that FDR is dead. Whether they liked the president or not they all should have had reactions. He was president for over a decade of their lives. Through the depression and the war.  

But shows should also take the opportunities to show some thing's accurate. Like in Bridgertons is when they show how none of the girls know where babies come from. Daphne who's debuting and later marries is never told anything about how exactly that works. Even when Daphne's mother talks to her about the wedding night she doesn't tell her anything. Penelope and Eloise discuss Marina's pregnancy but neither know how she got pregnant. Eloise asks her family only for her mother to nip that in the bud.  She tries to get her brothers to tell her but they don't either. That is very accurate. So many went to the marriage bed with no clue what was going to happen. It's accurate but showing how dumb that is. We do have Daphne calling her mother out for telling her nothing about marriage. 

The Murdoch Mysteries is very good at doing flying machines, TVs and stuff but also doing stories about how things were at the time racism, prejudice, etc.  Shows should really try and do both. 

 

[Haleth]

13 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

But Anthony's family reaction to him not wanting to marry for love is odd considering how common that was for the time.

And Edwina's head being filled with unrealistic romantic notions instead of knowing the burden is on her to marry well to provide for her mother.  Grow up, girl.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 5/5/2022 at 10:33 AM, Trini said:

Y'all will be pleased to know that I just saw a show reverse the 'L-shaped sheet' trope(?) by having the man covered to the neck and the woman uncovered to her waist. She was wearing a shirt and he was not; so that actually made sense!

The other weird thing about TV beds is of course that no matter how rich you are, no couple ever gets a queen or king sized bed. So when it is two people they are always lying right next to each other after sex with very little space between them.

[Anduin]

20 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The other weird thing about TV beds is of course that no matter how rich you are, no couple ever gets a queen or king sized bed. So when it is two people they are always lying right next to each other after sex with very little space between them.

I just moved house, and beds. Going from queen to double, even for one person, was a bit of a surprise. I'm not saying it's cramped, but I can really feel the difference. Two people would find it a bit cozy.

Weird thing. At least around my way, doubles are apparently going out of fashion, in favor of bigger. Possibly because people are bigger these days, and put a nice big screen down the far end.

Funny how in this case, TV is so far different from reality.

[Bastet]

5 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The other weird thing about TV beds is of course that no matter how rich you are, no couple ever gets a queen or king sized bed.

I've seen plenty of queen size beds on TV, but the lack of king size beds even in large TV bedrooms has long puzzled me.

Also the fact guest rooms apparently don't exist on TV, since every time a TV couple has a fight that leads one partner to sleep elsewhere, they wind up on the couch.

[Kel Varnsen]

32 minutes ago, Bastet said:

I've seen plenty of queen size beds on TV, but the lack of king size beds even in large TV bedrooms has long puzzled me.

Maybe it is the shows I watch because usually I find when 2 people are in a bed together they are shoulder to shoulder. My wife and I have a queen bed and there is a decent amount of space where we don't have to do that. I imagine it is just a camera framing thing so that there isn't a bunch of wasted space when two people lying in bed and shot from above.

[Shannon L.]

If you work on a law enforcement team, at some point you and every one of your team members will be either:

• stalked and tormented
• shot
• stabbed
• kidnapped and tortured
• held hostage in a building or on some form of public transportation

[Mabinogia]

58 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

If you work on a law enforcement team, at some point you and every one of your team members will be either:

• stalked and tormented
• shot
• stabbed
• kidnapped and tortured
• held hostage in a building or on some form of public transportation

This is why I refuse to marry a cop. I don't want to get fridged so he can drown himself in booze until he almost loses his job but is luckily so good at crime solving that they let him work despite being haunted by my murder. Though, at least I know he'd solve my murder unless his show gets cancelled without warning. 

[DoctorAtomic]

But he will solve the murder, by his own rules, even if they take the gun and his badge. 

 

Because now - 

 

It's personal. 

[DrSpaceman73]

Do people actually chain themselves to trees to keep them from being cut down?

[Raja]

4 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Do people actually chain themselves to trees to keep them from being cut down?

Normally they have organized support groups and set up in a tree house. Not a first timer with the protestor's cut resistant chains and locks.

[Hiyo]

Quote

Though, at least I know he'd solve my murder unless his show gets cancelled without warning. 

Or at least until he meets a new True Love and needs to solve your murder so he can put your ghost to rest and be able to finally move on with someone else.

[Danielg342]

10 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

If you work on a law enforcement team, at some point you and every one of your team members will be either:

• stalked and tormented
• shot
• stabbed
• kidnapped and tortured
• held hostage in a building or on some form of public transportation

To be fair, even though it's really a far more rare occurrence than what happens on TV, people who become police officers, firefighters, soldiers or any job that requires putting themselves in actual physical danger have to understand that, every day, the risk of getting involved in a serious situation is very real. Same thing with those who are a part of the officer's family, as unsettling as it may be. It's not something that the officer can just "brush off", because it could happen on any call.

Which is something that, on a level, I can least appreciate about shows of this type- they don't gloss over the very real risks officers face every day. The frequency of those risks are grossly exaggerated, but I'd rather have my TV shows put those risks front and centre instead of ignore them as if they're not there. I know real police officers have a lot of issues with police dramas but I bet they can at least appreciate that police dramas don't gloss over how dangerous the job can actually be. You don't want potential rookies coming in thinking it's an easy and glamourous gig- there's a whole other, scarier side that they need to realize is there.

[merylinkid]

33 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

Which is something that, on a level, I can least appreciate about shows of this type- they don't gloss over the very real risks officers face every day. The frequency of those risks are grossly exaggerated,

Law Enforcement do have to be careful because vengeful criminals are really a thing.   What is NOT a thing is a serial killer with a really elaborate plan all focused on tormenting the cop and destroying everything and everyone he loves.   Sometimes with an inexplicably huge amount of followers all willing to carry out his bidding.

[Hiyo]

Plus, on average how many LEO are kidnapped, tortured, and held hostage?

[Danielg342]

First of all, I never said "the risks of the job" as Hollywood describes them are realistic. I said they were exaggerated. However, I do appreciate the fact Hollywood admits that the job is risky and dangerous and doesn't hide this aspect in their shows.

Secondly, many of those extreme stories- officers getting kidnapped or having their lives destroyed, a serial killer with followers, etc.- they do happen and I don't find the concept, at least, to be entirely unrealistic. What tends to be at issue is the fact that a Hollywood writer comes up with a storyline about, say, a criminal with a cult because that writer simply thought "wouldn't it be cool if...?" and, because of that, didn't put in the work to make that storyline believable. Often the mistakes are very simple, like neglecting to figure out how the criminal gets their followers or why the followers choose to follow the criminal in the first place. Elaborate schemes and characters require elaborate mechanics, and oftentimes Hollywood writers don't think of those mechanics. Which is why the story fails.

Which brings me to a wider point I want to make about Hollywood and realism in general. I tend to think about breaks from reality in two separate camps. The first camp would be those breaks that I can accept, because they're necessary for either the entertainment value of the show or simple logistics. Yeah, a FBI investigator who investigates murders and kidnappings, whose aim is pinpoint accurate and always find the best parking spot whenever they need it isn't very realistic- but, would the show work if the setting had thousands of investigators to follow who simply write mountains of paperwork, spend many hours in traffic and are unable to find a parking spot in time? I'm not really sure it would, even if it is realistic.

The second camp would be those breaks from reality that detract from the show, which are the ones that really bother me. What qualifies in this camp versus the first one are subjective, and many cases of what would qualify for the first camp (and vice versa) on one show qualifies for the second on another show. The reason- as it always is- goes down to the quality of the writing and the execution. Any premise can work- even ones that are seemingly incredibly ridiculous- as long as you've got a writer that will put in the work to make sure it's as clear and understandable as possible.

Which is something I find that is common with the tropes that tend to get a beating- the love triangle, the "super criminal" and their counterpart, the "super agent", the "cowboy cop", etc.- are the ones that are generally badly written and overused. I already mentioned examples before, but I'll also mention love stories are a pretty egregious example, since there's never a Hollywood show that doesn't have a love story of some kind. Even on shows like cop shows where they don't make sense. In truth, love stories in unexpected places are not unheard of and some shows pull off these stories well...but, since Hollywood execs tend to insert them into all of their shows, many times the love story you do get are half-hearted efforts that fall flat.

Meaning that, fairly or unfairly, the standard for what qualifies as a good love story in an unexpected place is incredibly high. All because we've seen them fail far too often.

[Shannon L.]

@Danielg342 your posts make me think that I've offended you by making an amusing post about law enforcement.  I'm very sorry if that's the case--I understand how dangerous the job is and appreciate the fact that there are many people willing to take that on.  It was not the danger of the job that I was commenting on, just the frequency with which it happens on tv. 

[Hiyo]

Quote

Secondly, many of those extreme stories- officers getting kidnapped or having their lives destroyed, a serial killer with followers, etc.- they do happen and I don't find the concept, at least, to be entirely unrealistic.

 

Quote

It was not the danger of the job that I was commenting on, just the frequency with which it happens on tv.

Yeah, the original post wasn't that this does or doesn't happen, but rather the frequency that it does happen and that not only will it happen to our protagonist but also everyone else on their "team".

[proserpina65]

6 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

econdly, many of those extreme stories- officers getting kidnapped or having their lives destroyed, a serial killer with followers, etc.- they do happen and I don't find the concept, at least, to be entirely unrealistic.

They don't happen all that in real life whereas it seems they happen on tv at least once a season.  More often if it's SVU.  So I actually find the concept to be pretty unrealistic in general.  Police officers are much more likely to be killed or seriously injured in traffic-related incidents than by serial killers.

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by proserpina65

[Madding crowd]

My husband has been a cop for over 20 years and luckily we haven’t had any serial killers after us. He has had co-workers shot and injured in car accidents. The thing that bugs him the most on TV is when patrol cops like Nolan on the Rookie are investigating drug cartels and setting up sting operations. 

[Ohiopirate02]

I love when the detectives and officers of whatever police show can easily go undercover and gain the trust of the big bad.  They don't have to toil away for years or months or weeks working inside the organization.  No, they can prove their "worth" to the boss in the matter of hours.  

Rinse and repeat in the next episode, and somehow no one's cover is ever blown.  I quasi-watch Chicago PD and every week Atwater and/or Ruzek go undercover to make a buy.  

[Mabinogia]

17 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Or at least until he meets a new True Love and needs to solve your murder so he can put your ghost to rest and be able to finally move on with someone else.

And even though, up till now, it's not been a supernatural show, my ghost will appear to him to let him know that I am now at peace and he can move on. 

Odds are I was having an affair anyway and that's really why I was killed. Once he finds that out he doesn't have to feel guilt anymore. yay him!

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Police officers are much more likely to be killed or seriously injured in traffic-related incidents than by serial killers.

Cops are also more likely to die via suicide than homicide - not to mention the fact they're far more likely to kill than be killed.  But on TV, cops get gunned down (or harassed, stalked, kidnapped, tormented via a family member's harm, etc.) at a rate totally disproportionate to reality.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Bastet

[Danielg342]

9 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

@Danielg342 your posts make me think that I've offended you by making an amusing post about law enforcement.  I'm very sorry if that's the case--I understand how dangerous the job is and appreciate the fact that there are many people willing to take that on.  It was not the danger of the job that I was commenting on, just the frequency with which it happens on tv. 

You didn't offend me. I'm sorry it came across that way. I didn't mean to attack you or anyone else.

I guess I got defensive and that got the better of me. Cop shows are kind of my thing (I want to write one in the future) and I usually try to understand "why" before getting too critical of something, having been burned too many times in those cases.

Plus I do think, as a rule, there's no such thing as a bad trope- just ones that tend to be written so badly that, when a show uses them, we get apprehensive about it because we're 99% sure there's a trainwreck coming.

I should have mentioned this in my previous post (done before I went to bed for the night) but I feel that the "cop in peril" trope (and a lot of other police procedural tropes in general, like "the main characters do everything") are a mixture of "necessary" and "poorly done".

I mean, on one hand, given the way TV seasons are structured as well as the fact that we want the heroes we watch to be more than just "crime solving robots", episodes where the case is especially elaborate or one of our heroes finds themselves in trouble are kind of necessary. You can't have a season finale or a fall finale where it's simply a "case of the week"...you need to up the ante a little. Plus you're not paying your stars all that money to simply read lines of exposition all day. They need to actually do things and be involved, and a "cop in peril" story is one way to rectify that issue.

On the other hand, I do agree a lot of those tropes are overdone and poorly executed, so much that the mere invocation of those tropes on a show I love reviles me. I mean, if the plot your midseason episode has one of the heroes getting kidnapped by drug dealers, would the writers really think that the audience will believe the hero is actually in any danger? I wouldn't- I've seen enough TV to know that, unless it's the season finale (and even then), an episode like that always concludes with the rescue of the hero who bounces back the following week none the worse for wear. Takes a lot of the sting out of the episode, making it a slog...but, sadly, too few writers seem to understand this folly.

So, yeah, I'm of two minds when it comes to a lot of cop show tropes, which is really what I wanted to say. I'm conflicted with the fact that many are necessary just to make the show work against the fact that, many times, those tropes tend to be executed poorly. Perhaps it's really a sign that the cop drama needs a bit of a revolution- since we've seen almost all the tropes associated with the cop show almost literally a thousand times we need someone who "rethinks the standard" and literally turns the cop drama concept on its head, so we actually get something that's new and not just a tired retread of what we have already seen.

One last thing- talking about unrealistic things that happen on cop shows, here's one that you almost never see even though it actually should happen more often than it does: a rescued kidnap victim in one episode coming back as a villain in another. I get that Hollywood wants to have their "happy endings" but in doing so the writers seem to forget that the abuse the victim took in their captivity would likely leave them mentally and emotionally scarred as well as physically. No doubt they'll be messed up for quite some time after their rescue, meaning some of them will, sadly, likely turn to crime to deal with their issues.

Now, I'm not saying that I want that type of criminal every week or even every month, but I can only think of one time that kind of story was told- the Criminal Minds episode "Restoration". I'd like to see more shows use that plotline.

[Zella]

I really appreciated how on The Wire only one cop character in the course of five seasons ever fires his service weapon. And . . . his reasons for doing so are kind of weird and inept. LOL There are a couple of instances of cops being shot, but none of the ridiculous stalker, archnemesis, kidnapping plots. 

[Kel Varnsen]

11 hours ago, Zella said:

I really appreciated how on The Wire only one cop character in the course of five seasons ever fires his service weapon. And . . . his reasons for doing so are kind of weird and inept. LOL There are a couple of instances of cops being shot, but none of the ridiculous stalker, archnemesis, kidnapping plots. 

The Canadian cop show Flashpoint (which was also on CBS for awhile) was probably the best at balancing the excitement of a shootout with a bit of realism. It was about a SWAT style tactical team in Toronto, and more often than not, episodes didn't end with someone getting shot by the cops. And when it happened it was a big deal, there was official investigations, mandatory time off/psych sessions (with little of the typical "I don't need no shrink" stuff) and when cops did shoot someone it actually affected them mentally. Meanwhile, I don't watch Chicago PD anymore but after 9 seasons Voight's body count must be in triple digits.

[DearEvette]

11 hours ago, Zella said:

I really appreciated how on The Wire only one cop character in the course of five seasons ever fires his service weapon. And . . . his reasons for doing so are kind of weird and inept. LOL There are a couple of instances of cops being shot, but none of the ridiculous stalker, archnemesis, kidnapping plots. 

And bringing this particular conversation full circle... that is largely because The Wire is based on David Simon's real life one-year ride-along with the B'more police and HBO gave him a lot of creative control of the show and he kept it very real to his experience.

[possibilities]

On 5/9/2022 at 9:40 PM, DrSpaceman73 said:

Do people actually chain themselves to trees to keep them from being cut down?

Yes. There's a woman who LIVED IN a tree for a LONG TIME to protect it from being logged. She wrote a book about it. I think it was a bestseller (she became a bit of a celebrity). I can't remember her name, but she named the tree Luna. Does anyone remember the name of the woman or the book?

On 5/10/2022 at 7:10 AM, Hiyo said:

Plus, on average how many LEO are kidnapped, tortured, and held hostage?

It's more dangerous to be a trucker than a cop, as it turns out.

Quote

Policing doesn't even make it into the top 10 most dangerous American professions. Logging has a fatality rate 11 times higher, at 127.8 per 100,000. Fishing: 117 per 100,000. Pilot/flight engineer: 53.4 per 100,000. It's twice as dangerous to be a truck driver as a cop—at 22.1 per 100,000.

https://fee.org/articles/by-the-numbers-how-dangerous-is-it-to-be-a-cop/

That said, I have enjoyed shows that work on adrenaline and crisis, like 9-1-1 and Station 19... which are not so much about cops as about first responders, and cop shows like Barney Miller, which are mostly about the everyday routine cop stuff, and less about the adrenaline (thought that show did have some crisis episodes with bombers and hostage takers, most of the actual violence took place off screen and not every episode). I also really liked the short-lived Prime Suspect reboot from a few years ago, and the also short lived one about the police chief played by Edie Falco (Tommy). 

My peeve is that so many shows focus on vigilantes as heroes. Even though I do watch them, too, sometimes. I like The Equalizer, for example. But I feel bad about it....

Oh, and doctors have a lot more time to spend fucking in supply closets and actually talking to patients, on tv shows vs in real life....

And... on TV, crime show investigators, whether legit cops or vigilantes, often fail to wear gloves. They leave their fingerprints all over the scene!

Edited May 11, 2022 by possibilities

[Moose135]

46 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The Canadian cop show Flashpoint (which was also on CBS for awhile) 

I really liked that show, sorry it didn't stick around longer.

 

18 minutes ago, possibilities said:

My peeve is that so many shows focus on vigilantes as heroes. Even though I do watch them, too, sometimes. I like The Equalizer, for example. But I feel bad about it....

I haven't seen the current remake, or the recent movies, but I loved the original with Edward Woodward.

[proserpina65]

15 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

You can't have a season finale or a fall finale where it's simply a "case of the week"...you need to up the ante a little.

Actually you can.  Law & Order did it all the time, almost every season.

47 minutes ago, possibilities said:

cop shows like Barney Miller, which are mostly about the everyday routine cop stuff, and less about the adrenaline (thought that show did have some crisis episodes with bombers and hostage takers, most of the actual violence took place off screen and not every episode).

I've been watching re-runs of Barney Miller lately, and I just love that it's so routine and would've even been boring in lesser hands.  The inherent humor in the various characters' personalities and in the workaday procedure makes it a fascinating show.

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The Canadian cop show Flashpoint (which was also on CBS for awhile) was probably the best at balancing the excitement of a shootout with a bit of realism.

I saw it in syndication. I didn't think anyone watched it. I think that's the only cop show I watched. I usually paired it with Regenesis which no one else watched. 

 

[possibilities]

I just remembered the name of the famous "tree sitter"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Butterfly_Hill

[Zella]

2 hours ago, DearEvette said:

And bringing this particular conversation full circle... that is largely because The Wire is based on David Simon's real life one-year ride-along with the B'more police and HBO gave him a lot of creative control of the show and he kept it very real to his experience.

Yeah definitely. I recently read both of his books about his year-long stints observing local cops and corners, and quite a bit of the material reappears word for word in the show. 

50 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I've been watching re-runs of Barney Miller lately, and I just love that it's so routine and would've even been boring in lesser hands.  The inherent humor in the various characters' personalities and in the workaday procedure makes it a fascinating show.

I love Barney Miller. It actually reminds me of the library where I work. LOL

[JustHereForFood]

7 hours ago, possibilities said:

And... on TV, crime show investigators, whether legit cops or vigilantes, often fail to wear gloves. They leave their fingerprints all over the scene!

What about all those cops and lab workers who have long, loose hair? There's nothing like hair getting in your face during important work.

[Danielg342]

7 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Actually you can.  Law & Order did it all the time, almost every season.

Law & Order was also the same series that pulled the "is it because I'm a lesbian?" stunt and its first season finale had a main character under investigation. Plus a lot of season finales saw characters leave. Further, SVU had a finale/opener episode pairing with Benson in peril. Maybe they didn't go to the extremes that many shows (ones inspired by L&O) do now but they didn't always have a rudimentary slate of episodes.

8 hours ago, possibilities said:

On TV, crime show investigators, whether legit cops or vigilantes, often fail to wear gloves. They leave their fingerprints all over the scene!

Criminal Minds was usually good with its characters wearing gloves, though at times they would have characters pick something up by simply putting the glove in between the object and their bare fingertips.

[Danielg342]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

What about all those cops and lab workers who have long, loose hair? There's nothing like hair getting in your face during important work.

I remember one of the things my mother said she always appreciated about British crime dramas was how, because they weren't always stocked with "bimbos", their casts were more "real".

I mean, I get why Hollywood loves to cast incredibly beautiful people in their roles- I've seen it enough on these forums to know that eye candy is a great selling point for a TV show- but some producers go too far with it.

[Cinnabon]

19 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

I remember one of the things my mother said she always appreciated about British crime dramas was how, because they weren't always stocked with "bimbos", their casts were more "real".

I mean, I get why Hollywood loves to cast incredibly beautiful people in their roles- I've seen it enough on these forums to know that eye candy is a great selling point for a TV show- but some producers go too far with it.

I love the British (and other international) shows for that same reason. Their actors generally look more natural and “average,” like most of us. 

[andromeda331]

15 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The Canadian cop show Flashpoint (which was also on CBS for awhile) was probably the best at balancing the excitement of a shootout with a bit of realism. It was about a SWAT style tactical team in Toronto, and more often than not, episodes didn't end with someone getting shot by the cops. And when it happened it was a big deal, there was official investigations, mandatory time off/psych sessions (with little of the typical "I don't need no shrink" stuff) and when cops did shoot someone it actually affected them mentally. Meanwhile, I don't watch Chicago PD anymore but after 9 seasons Voight's body count must be in triple digits.

I love that show. I finally bought the series when Ion channel stopped showing repeats. I love all the characters and how surprisingly realistic it was. It was rare for a character to be shot. When it does happen it makes sense. The person was someone they couldn't reach no matter how hard they try. Like the woman at the gala who was hunting down people she felt was responsible for her husband's death. They don't brush off what they do.

The last season Ed went through rough time and had hard time opening up to his therapist. It was really good. I also liked the person he shot in the first episode of the season that started all was actually a good person. They track a man who kidnapped his ex-wife to the top of the hotel she worked at and their daughter comes along to try and talk him down. Well, it turned out daughter had a gun. She was tired of everything her father put her and her mother through, especially her mother. And all the things they were told to do to protect themselves from him failed. None of it worked. So she decides to try and kill her father. The whole team is yelling at her to stop because no one wants to kill her. But she pulls the trigger. She gets a couple shots off before Ed takes the shot. Afterwards the team was upset, blaming themselves for it and even wondering if they should have not shot her. Ed disagrees. They all did their jobs and she was an active shooter and she was endangering the life of someone else. Raf disagrees a quits. The following episodes Ed had guilt over her death andknow so many people even on his team thinks he shouldn't have pulled the trigger. Including his own son. That's something that would mess you up for awhile. He finally works it out with the help of his therapist. 

I liked that while his therapist wasn't a cop, her father was and he had many of the same issues Ed has and finally took off. So many cops when their forced to see a therapist on TV always give them crap for not being a cop.  

Edited May 12, 2022 by andromeda331

[DoctorAtomic]

I must have seen it on Ion. 

[proserpina65]

16 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Maybe they didn't go to the extremes that many shows (ones inspired by L&O) do now but they didn't always have a rudimentary slate of episodes.

Not always, but given how many seasons there were, they tended to have fewer of those extra dramatic very special season finales than most cop shows.

16 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Further, SVU had a finale/opener episode pairing with Benson in peril.

I was talking about the mothership.  SVU has something super dramatic every single f-ing season, and they always Take Everything Personally on that damned show.  I stopped watching it fairly early on because it was just so ridiculous.

[Madding crowd]

On 5/11/2022 at 9:10 AM, possibilities said:

Yes. There's a woman who LIVED IN a tree for a LONG TIME to protect it from being logged. She wrote a book about it. I think it was a bestseller (she became a bit of a celebrity). I can't remember her name, but she named the tree Luna. Does anyone remember the name of the woman or the book?

It's more dangerous to be a trucker than a cop, as it turns out.

https://fee.org/articles/by-the-numbers-how-dangerous-is-it-to-be-a-cop/

That said, I have enjoyed shows that work on adrenaline and crisis, like 9-1-1 and Station 19... which are not so much about cops as about first responders, and cop shows like Barney Miller, which are mostly about the everyday routine cop stuff, and less about the adrenaline (thought that show did have some crisis episodes with bombers and hostage takers, most of the actual violence took place off screen and not every episode). I also really liked the short-lived Prime Suspect reboot from a few years ago, and the also short lived one about the police chief played by Edie Falco (Tommy). 

My peeve is that so many shows focus on vigilantes as heroes. Even though I do watch them, too, sometimes. I like The Equalizer, for example. But I feel bad about it....

Oh, and doctors have a lot more time to spend fucking in supply closets and actually talking to patients, on tv shows vs in real life....

And... on TV, crime show investigators, whether legit cops or vigilantes, often fail to wear gloves. They leave their fingerprints all over the scene!

These statistics don’t take into account the tremendous amount of stress police officers face which causes health issues both physical and mental as well as substance abuse and relationship problems. As I mentioned before my husband has been a cop for over 20 years and has dealt with cases involving domestic abuse, child abuse, suicide, foot and car chases and much more. Some places are quieter than where we are but it is not an easy job.

[Zella]

3 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

 

I was talking about the mothership.  SVU has something super dramatic every single f-ing season, and they always Take Everything Personally on that damned show.  I stopped watching it fairly early on because it was just so ridiculous.

Yeah the difference in tone between Law and Order 1.0 and SVU is striking. The mothership is about as no-frills as procedural network TV gets. SVU has always been a bonkers trainwreck. 

[Raja]

5 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I must have seen it on Ion. 

CBS also showed a few seasons of Flashpoint as a mid season filler show before ION changed their format and picked it up

[Cloud9Shopper]

22 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

What about all those cops and lab workers who have long, loose hair? There's nothing like hair getting in your face during important work.

I just had a throwback to old TWOP recaps of ER where Sars (and probably a few others) would complain about how often female characters had their hair down in trauma scenes and such. By the late end of the series the ladies were in full faces of makeup for hospital work and had blowouts and they had an intern who wore three-inch heels to shifts.

Speaking of medical shows, I noticed just how liberal they are with acting like medical specialties don’t exist. Recent episodes of New Amsterdam had an OBGYN removing a blood clot from a character’s lung and an oncologist and a cardiothoracic surgeon doing risky surgery on infants who were still in utero. The Resident had a main character, an internal medicine resident, attempt a neurosurgery procedure in the hallway. On ER, the ER docs also knew everything about OB cases and delivered babies on the regular. Then the actual OB was painted as a villain when she would call them out or insist on her department (that she ran) being involved. It was so strange.

I feel like medical show writers and other PTB don’t get that you can have a guest star come in to be a specialist to work on the main patient and still have drama. 

[Danielg342]

7 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Not always, but given how many seasons there were, they tended to have fewer of those extra dramatic very special season finales than most cop shows.

I was talking about the mothership.  SVU has something super dramatic every single f-ing season, and they always Take Everything Personally on that damned show.  I stopped watching it fairly early on because it was just so ridiculous.

A few things:

• I acknowledge there are exceptions to every rule. I merely stated I understood why Hollywood shows do what they do. That said, Law & Order still did "mix things up" every now and then and I wonder how many other shows can get away with what L&O did.
• L&O, as a concept was (kind of) a unique concept when it debuted. They weren't simply relying on "new" twists to old stories or trying to pass off their lead detective as a unique character- L&O was, by itself, unique.
• L&O's "ripped from the headlines" storytelling format gives it cases a bit of freshness and topicality that a more rudimentary case would not have.
• Though I know not all of its characters were just "few-seasons wonders", the Mothership did have quite a bit of cast turnover, with some old cast members getting tired of their roles. I mean, say what you want about Saint Benson and her stories, but I bet one reason why Mariska Hargitay has stuck around for so long on Special Victims Unit is the fact Olivia Benson actually gets some meaty storylines to dig in to.

[DoctorAtomic]

I had a reasonably pedestrian high school. No one wore their cheerleader outfits anywhere NEAR on tv and movies. Like once a year maybe. 

[Mabinogia]

29 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I had a reasonably pedestrian high school. No one wore their cheerleader outfits anywhere NEAR on tv and movies. Like once a year maybe. 

I always wondered about that. I went to a school too small to have teams or cheerleaders or any of that but I always found it odd how they would walk around in their uniforms in tv school hallways. Did the jocks go around in their varsity jackets tossing their balls down the hallway?

[juno]

7 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I always wondered about that. I went to a school too small to have teams or cheerleaders or any of that but I always found it odd how they would walk around in their uniforms in tv school hallways. Did the jocks go around in their varsity jackets tossing their balls down the hallway?

Growing up in Canada, the jocks wore their hockey team jackets around the school.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I had a reasonably pedestrian high school. No one wore their cheerleader outfits anywhere NEAR on tv and movies. Like once a year maybe. 

At my high school,  the football players and cheerleaders wore their jerseys and cheerleading uniform tops on game day.  The skirts they wore for the games did not pass the dress code for students.  During basketball season, the players dressed up on game day like shirt and tie dressed up.  And, the cheerleaders again wore their uniform tops.