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

[shapeshifter]

Obviously, I'm saying that someone is always honking at you if you pass them, even if it's on a highway and you're passing normally.

I didn't mean to discount your main point. I'm typing while on chemotherapy.

[zxy556575]

Maybe people say this a lot in real life, just not to me.

 

Invariably when a character is in a dire situation -- serial killer after them, hellmouth demon on the loose, brought low with a lethal illness or sucking chest wound, in the path of a raging tornado -- someone (lover, parent, police) will tell them, "Don't worry. It'll be all right. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

 

Dude, YOU CAN'T PROMISE THAT! Don't patronize me with your meaningless reassurances.

 

Since it's TV, the person in peril will in fact be kept safe the majority of the time. Still irksome, though.

Edited February 5, 2016 by lordonia

[andromeda331]

You are seriously in debt, your broke, and your current paycheck doesn't even scratch a dent or maybe

you got a divorce and are broke from it. On TV, the only solutions for those problems are become a drug

dealer, become a hooker, or become a pimp. Its never changing jobs or getting a second job.   

[kili]

Invariably when a character is in a dire situation -- serial killer after them, hellmouth demon on the loose, brought low with a lethal illness or sucking chest wound, in the path of a raging tornado -- someone (lover, parent, police) will tell them, "Don't worry. It'll be all right. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

 

I don't know about the serial killer or raging tornado's, but when I took a first aid course for work (Industrial level so we were taught how to deal with sucking chest wounds, missing body parts, lots of serious injuries), they did tell us to encourage our patients. They were mum on the subject of making promises you can't keep, but they were adamant that you re-assured them and tell them that you were there to take care of things - even if they were circling the drain.

 

Apparently, being overly blunt with badly injured people does not help the situation. You have to try to get them to calm down so that they don't go into shock, start panicking, spike their blood pressure or give up. I remember they told us never to say the words "heart attack" even when relaying information to other health-care professions. MI's or Myocardial Infarctions if we must say it out loud. Saying the word "heart attack" is a good way of increasing their heart rate.

[proserpina65]

You are seriously in debt, your broke, and your current paycheck doesn't even scratch a dent or maybe

you got a divorce and are broke from it. On TV, the only solutions for those problems are become a drug

dealer, become a hooker, or become a pimp. Its never changing jobs or getting a second job.   

Or even filing bankruptcy.  Nope, just drugs or prostitution.  Although sometimes burglary and/or theft are options.  But definitely a life of crime.

[shapeshifter]

Only On TV will you get a terminal diagnosis with one year to live and be perfectly healthy and energetic enough during that year to climb any mountain or swim any sea, and be able to keep up with the newly found love of your life while you do it.

[zxy556575]

Only on TV will a group of people be stranded somewhere food is scarce -- Ancient spaceship, post-apocalyptic planet, desert island, etc -- and never lose any weight. Even the fat ones.

[Moose135]

Only on TV will a group of people be stranded somewhere food is scarce -- Ancient spaceship, post-apocalyptic planet, desert island, etc -- and never lose any weight. Even the fat ones.

Assuming none of the group end up missing...

[ganesh]

Only on tv do people visit loved ones when they're terminally ill with *days* to live and don't show signs of any failing health and then die peacefully in the guest room. To which I said on a show thread and then like 5 people chimed in about how relatives died in their house and I puked so much I looked like someone actually stranded on a desert island with no food. 

[DittyDotDot]

Heh, my grandfather died at home after being diagnosed with cancer two months prior... ;)

[Demented Daisy]

My best friend died at home -- in the guest room, no less -- peacefully, in his sleep, after a not-quite-two-year battle with cancer.

 

So, yeah, maybe not only on tv.  ;-)

[ganesh]

I know. That's my point. I mentioned it once, and seemingly 50 million people have died in houses.

[shapeshifter]

I know. That's my point. I mentioned it once, and seemingly 50 million people have died in houses.

My elderly father died in a medical facility 1 month after he was admitted. Throughout that month he just wanted to go home. I'm sorry he didn't get to do that with the right hospice care.

[merylinkid]

I think the point is they go home looking hail and hearty and not dying at all -- then after a couple of days in bed, just peacefully close their eyes.   No being worn out from treatment.   No drugged out on meds.   Just all good, then a nap, then dead.  Only on tv.

[ganesh]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And the soon to be departed doesn't tell anyone either. They just show up and die.

[shapeshifter]

I think the point is they go home looking hail and hearty and not dying at all -- then after a couple of days in bed, just peacefully close their eyes.   No being worn out from treatment.   No drugged out on meds.   Just all good, then a nap, then dead.  Only on tv.

I think the death of Brenda's mother on The Closer was one instance in which On TV they managed to skip over the deterioration of health without glossing over the reality of death. When Brenda found her just-deceased mother, her mother's eyes were open and there was a look of pain on her mother's still face. The episode did have the harbinger of death be Brenda's mother's trying to get Brenda alone for a minute for an important talk, instead of having her clasp her left arm and comment on pain, but again, it worked for me.

[DittyDotDot]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And the soon to be departed doesn't tell anyone either. They just show up and die.

 

Sorry, I understood your point. Although my grandfather did die at home, I was just being silly and contrary.

 

And no. I will not turn off my car radio!

[Demented Daisy]

Sorry, I understood your point. Although my grandfather did die at home, I was just being silly and contrary.

 

And no. I will not turn off my car radio!

 

Ditto, Ditty!  (Anyone who knows us will not be surprised by this.  Like, AT.  ALL.  ;-) )

[ganesh]

Well, don't call me for a jump start because you left the radio on.

[DeLurker]

But your battery will only die if you are on a desolate stretch of highway by yourself (at night.  Bonus points if it is a dark and stormy night).

 

The kindly driver who stops and offer to help will either be a gorgeous and charming person destined to become the love of your life or an escaped psychotic serial killer.

[roseha]

 

The kindly driver who stops and offer to help will either be a gorgeous and charming person destined to become the love of your life or an escaped psychotic serial killer.

 

Or, if you're a young woman who's about to become Perry Mason's client, he will be the real killer.

[Moose135]

But your battery will only die if you are on a desolate stretch of highway by yourself (at night.  Bonus points if it is a dark and stormy night).

 

The kindly driver who stops and offer to help will either be a gorgeous and charming person destined to become the love of your life or an escaped psychotic serial killer.

 

Last year, when I hit a deer on a dark, desolate stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a car following me, with a young couple and their dog, stopped to help.  While we waited for the police to arrive, we poked around with a flashlight, trying to determine the extent of the damage.  At one point the guy joked to me "Isn't this how every horror movie starts?"

[shapeshifter]

This may or may not be Only On TV. Someone else will have to enlighten:

When detectives, cops, or others need to cut through a ginormous padlock with ginormous cutters, they get it in one snip.

I get the principles of leverage, but I'm a wimp, and it seems you have to have enough physicality to make that happen. Come to think of it, they never show a woman doing it, do they?

[merylinkid]

Nah, on tv women kick in solid doors with the high heeled stiletto boots they were just running in.

[DeLurker]

And someone clearly carries around those giant cutters because no one ever has to wait while someone gets it from the patrol car.

[Shannon L.]

There's always two people (either two kids or a kid and an adult) racing around the hospital floors in a wheelchair when one of the two has an extended hospital stay.   There's never a nurse saying "Slow down", or "you can't do that here", or "You're not a patient here--where did you get that wheelchair?".

[topanga]

Well, don't call me for a jump start because you left the radio on.

I do turn my radio off now, thanks to you. And my family thinks I'm crazy. I just hope it's worth it. LOL. 

[shapeshifter]

I do turn my radio off now, thanks to you. And my family thinks I'm crazy. I just hope it's worth it. LOL.

Just a little. If your battery is low or the air temp is really low, you don't want anything else draining the battery when it's trying to turn over the engine to start the car. I wonder if folks in the Yukon disable their dash lights for that reason.

[topanga]

Nah, on tv women kick in solid doors with the high heeled stiletto boots they were just running in.

And their shoes or boots are never scuffed!

 

Only on TV do police officers who are injured on the job return to their usual jobs--even if they're still hurt. I've watched so many cops with neck braces, canes, and arm casts working active duty as homicide detectives and patrol cops, still chasing down bad guys. IRL, if an officer can't safely handle a firearm or run after a suspect, he or she can't work on the streets. 

 

One of the only exceptions is if they're hospitalized after being shot. But even then, as soon as they're discharged from the hospital, they come back to the precinct and start working on the case again. No one would allow them to do this. No one.

[shapeshifter]

Home sick trying to do a little work didn't notice Numb3rs was over and Criminal Minds had started...

Only On TV will 2 teen girls, drinking beers, drive to a meet-up to purchase drugs on a gravely, deserted street in a warehouse district, and when the girl gets out of the car (why??) to meet the guy in the other car, she is sober enough for 30 seconds to turn and run back to the car in terror, only to then try to drive off but the car is stuck in the "mud" which is on one wheel, below the midpoint of the sidewall....and, she didn't lock the doors, so she and her friend get kidnapped.

[meep.meep]

Just a little. If your battery is low or the air temp is really low, you don't want anything else draining the battery when it's trying to turn over the engine to start the car. I wonder if folks in the Yukon disable their dash lights for that reason.

 

Folks in the Yukon plug their cars in overnight.  I don't know if they leave their radios on....

 

My mother died at home after a long illness.  The closest I've seen to it on TV, was Clark Peters death on Treme.

[kili]

Folks in the Yukon plug their cars in overnight.  I don't know if they leave their radios on....

I don't live in the Yukon, but I did grow up in a place where you have to plug in your car 6 months of the year and I always leave the car radio on...

 

But in deference to ganesh's views on the matter, if I did have to park my car outside for more than an hour in -40 weather (colder if you included the windchill) and I couldn't plug it in, I would make sure the radio, lights, heater and fan were all turned off before trying to start the thing. You turned the key and hoped. And you learned to always carry jumper cables.

 

Of course, in TVland, I don't think I've ever seen a person on TV plug in their car even when they live in a climate where they should need to do so.  And their car always starts, unless they are being chased by a serial killer or need to get somebody to the hospital. 

 

TV car batteries come from the same factory as cellphone batteries. Infinite charge until your life depends on them.

[shapeshifter]

I totally freaked out when my daughter--who has never lived outside of California--started my car in Chicagoland in subfreezing temps, pulled it out of the garage, and then turned. it. off. while she got out to close the garage door. Forgettabout Ganesh's radio rule.

[proserpina65]

Of course, in TVland, I don't think I've ever seen a person on TV plug in their car even when they live in a climate where they should need to do so.  And their car always starts, unless they are being chased by a serial killer or need to get somebody to the hospital.

 

I've never seen anyone plug their car in - what are they plugging in?

[zxy556575]

I've never seen anyone plug their car in - what are they plugging in?

 

An engine block heater. Comes standard with every car I bought in North Dakota.  :)

[Moose135]

I've never seen anyone plug their car in - what are they plugging in?

Usually it's a heater to keep the oil/engine warm or a charger on the battery.  Not unusual in cold climates.

[proserpina65]

Thank you, lordonia and Moose135.  Obviously I don't live in a cold enough climate for that.  Even though we do whine about it when it gets cold.  (But not like North Dakota.  The cold, I mean, not the whining.)

Edited February 10, 2016 by proserpina65

[ganesh]

I know it's not only on tv, but we always reminded that criminals are prosecuted to "the fullest extent of the law." I always thought it was like 65%. So it's good they told me.  

[zxy556575]

When a random person who is destined to be killed has a gun pointed at them, they don't do anything about it.

 

Examples are:

- Someone awakened in their bed by an intruder. They raise their arms in front of their faces, but otherwise lie there and accept their fate.

- Someone running from the shooter who of course trips and falls. They stay on the ground, body twisted to look back in horror while the shooter catches up to them, but otherwise don't move.

 

Often the soon-to-be-dead will scream something worthwhile like, "No!" or "Please no!" if they're polite, but come on. That never works.

 

The person doing the chasing never shoots from a distance but waits until he/she is close to victim and able to assume the murderer's stance -- legs apart and gun arm outstretched. (The protagonist/good guy shooting posture of the secondary arm bracing the arm with the gun is never used.)

 

The moment of death is always drawn out so as to give viewers sufficient time to take in the victims' fear, so it's not like they don't have any time to react. The plot requires them to die, but I always think a normal person would at least do something, however futile, to try to escape -- roll out of bed, get up after falling, etc.

 

Same goes for random passers-by or customers in a store during a hold-up. If I'm in 7-11 and someone points a gun at the clerk, I gotta believe my reaction would be to duck and hide behind some shelves, if not run. But I suppose if production has gone to the trouble of hiring extras, they want them to remain in the actual shot.

[topanga]

 

The moment of death is always drawn out so as to give viewers sufficient time to take in the victims' fear, so it's not like they don't have any time to react. The plot requires them to die, but I always think a normal person would at least do something, however futile, to try to escape -- roll out of bed, get up after falling, etc.

You would make one bad-ass victim, lordonia. I'd probably freeze up and just stand there peeing on myself (which hardly ever happens on TV!) if I were facing the barrel of a gun and almost certain death. 

 

Only on TV are British male characters almost always intelligent, fluent in five languages, including Middle English or ancient Sanskrit, and they're able to see clues and solve crimes that baffle even the smartest police detectives. And these happen to be some of my favorite shows. (Luther, Elementary, Sleepy Hollow, and Forever [RIP]). Okay, Benny Hill is an exception. But he was his own kind of genius. 

[ganesh]

To be fair, on both Sleepy Hollow and Forever, the guys have the benefit of an enormous amount of hindsight that a really good cop just doesn't have. 

 

I tend to like that because it's kind of a commentary on how human nature hasn't changed much.

[zxy556575]

Only on TV are British male characters almost always intelligent, fluent in five languages, including Middle English or ancient Sanskrit, and they're able to see clues and solve crimes that baffle even the smartest police detectives.

 

But only if they have a posh accent, right? The working class of East End, Cheapside or Liverpool are allowed to be shrewd and street smart, but not well read or intelligent in the same way.

[CoderLady]

But only if they have a posh accent, right? The working class of East End, Cheapside or Liverpool are allowed to be shrewd and street smart, but not well read or intelligent in the same way.

 

But the working class coppers can be quick learners, though. An example is the successor to Inspector Morse, Robbie Lewis. Morse, a flaming asshole if there ever was one, was always quick to rub his superior education in Sargent Lewis' face when a literary reference went over his head. Now that Lewis is an Inspector and has an Oxford-educated sargent who isn't a jerk but who naturally shares what he knows, Lewis picks easily up new knowledge. He knows what he likes but he's a lot more open-minded than Morse ever was.

[topanga]

But only if they have a posh accent, right? The working class of East End, Cheapside or Liverpool are allowed to be shrewd and street smart, but not well read or intelligent in the same way.

Funny you should mention this. Idris Elba (the actor who plays Luther) said in an interview that he has to use a somewhat-refined London accent even for British TV and movies. His real British accent is a cockney, "commoner" accent.

[andromeda331]

Ah, you guys are reminding me now of the Leverage's Rashomon episode where their recalling

their pass attempt in stealing a dagger where Eliot, Hardison and Parker all recall Sophie's

British accent as something...different. Eliot thought it was cockney, Hardison thought she

sounded like dwarf in Lord of the Rings and Parker thought it was complete gibberish.

[CoderLady]

Only on TV (well, sometimes in the movies) do people step into a dry shower/bathtub and when they turn the water on it's instantly the perfect temperature. That is the second most unreal thing that happens to people on TV next to finding a perfect, legal, generously sized parking space right in front of where they're going.

Edited February 16, 2016 by CoderLady

[zxy556575]

Only on TV (well, sometimes in the movies) do people step into a dry shower/bathtub and when they turn the water on it's instantly the perfect temperature.

 

So true! Mine currently takes around 30 seconds to warm up, which is actually not interminable but which seems so while standing there naked and waiting.

 

What I've never understood is what's supposed to happen when people in sitcoms prank someone by flushing the toilet when Person B is in the shower. Does the water pressure decrease and why would that be funny? Does the water temperature change, and if so, does it get hotter or colder? I've never lived in a house or apartment where toilet flushing made any difference to the shower. Is it only the plumbing in older houses? (Although if my husband was minding his own business and particularly lost in thought while showering, I'd sometimes throw a big glass of ice water onto him over the shower curtain. Now, that yelp was funny.)

[shapeshifter]

When a random person who is destined to be killed - Someone running from the shooter who of course trips and falls. They stay on the ground, body twisted to look back in horror while the shooter catches up to them, but otherwise don't move.

At such moments I invariably think: If this was a book, we would know that the victim would at least be thinking something like: I knew I should've kept going to Pilates!

[GreekGeek]

So true! Mine currently takes around 30 seconds to warm up, which is actually not interminable but which seems so while standing there naked and waiting.

 

What I've never understood is what's supposed to happen when people in sitcoms prank someone by flushing the toilet when Person B is in the shower. Does the water pressure decrease and why would that be funny? Does the water temperature change, and if so, does it get hotter or colder? I've never lived in a house or apartment where toilet flushing made any difference to the shower. Is it only the plumbing in older houses? (Although if my husband was minding his own business and particularly lost in thought while showering, I'd sometimes throw a big glass of ice water onto him over the shower curtain. Now, that yelp was funny.)

The shower can become noticeably hotter or colder. Explanation here: http://lifehacker.com/why-the-shower-gets-hot-or-cold-when-you-flush-and-how-508252782

[DittyDotDot]

What I've never understood is what's supposed to happen when people in sitcoms prank someone by flushing the toilet when Person B is in the shower. Does the water pressure decrease and why would that be funny? Does the water temperature change, and if so, does it get hotter or colder? I've never lived in a house or apartment where toilet flushing made any difference to the shower. Is it only the plumbing in older houses? (Although if my husband was minding his own business and particularly lost in thought while showering, I'd sometimes throw a big glass of ice water onto him over the shower curtain. Now, that yelp was funny.)

 

Yes, older houses. Sometimes the plumbing is linked in those older houses, so if you flush the toilet or run water in another facet it can both change the water pressure and/or make the water hotter or colder depending on whether your run hot or cold water (the toilet would be cold, so the shower would most likely get hotter). I grew up in an old farmhouse and this happens even to this day.