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

[DittyDotDot]

Only on tv can someone with a spinal cord injury that has caused paralysis get up and start walking (and walking well!) as soon as they start getting movement in their legs again.

 

Or they can just make a deal with a demon.... ;)

[Demented Daisy]

Or they can just make a deal with a demon.... ;)

 

Or develop a nano-tech chip implant for their spine.  Wait, you may not have seen that episode yet.  ;-)

[DittyDotDot]

Or develop a nano-tech chip implant for their spine.  Wait, you may not have seen that episode yet.  ;-)

 

Heh, I have not, but--if we're talking about the show I think you're referring to--I suspected there would be some sort of nonsense like this. It's pretty much a given on most shows they will not follow through and keep one of their main characters in a wheel chair and given the show and the character, it would have to be some sort of sciency breakthrough. ;)

Edited April 9, 2016 by DittyDotDot

[MaryPatShelby]

And that great walk often happens after a montage of physical therapy (a short course, though)

With inspirational and/or Rocky music.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Or they can just make a deal with a demon.... ;)

 

Well, on TV you can make deals with demons for just about anything, up to and including traveling two hundred years into the future.

[zxy556575]

Thankfully, the constant kidnapping and prisoner-taking scenes only happen in TV/movies, but how exactly is this a gag?

[DittyDotDot]

Well, it did make me laugh. ;)

[shapeshifter]

Is it Only On TV that someone gets accidentally killed in a fight (often falling and hitting his/her head) but the other person involved in the fight--instead of calling the police and facing manslaughter--disposes of the body?

[potatoradio]

On TV, creative blocks are easily resolved. A supporter simply has to say to a stuck artist, "remember, it's about the music/art/fashion...." And artist sits for a minute, has brief flashback maybe, then says, "Doh! Of course!" and creative genius spurts in rainbows from their, ah, creative tract. Cheesy pep talk = creative Colon Blow. 

 

F*ck that. 

[Shannon L.]

I don't go around watching women take baths and since I'm not a water person, I'm in and out of the shower as quickly as possible, but I have a feeling that only on tv do women extend their leg straight up out of the water with their toes pointed. On tv, I've seen this happen while they wash it and I've also seen it done for no apparent reason.

[ganesh]

And they effortlessly shave. No one gets the smallest of nicks.

[zxy556575]

On the topic of bathing, there's sure a lot of shower sex in TV.  No problems whatsoever with slipperiness, bumping up against grab bars or other hardware, shivering because it's difficult for two people to stay under the warm spray, plus the intrinsic awkwardness of having sex standing up, particularly when there is a significant height difference.

[CoderLady]

3 minutes ago, lordonia said:

On the topic of bathing, there's sure a lot of shower sex in TV.  No problems whatsoever with slipperiness, bumping up against grab bars or other hardware, shivering because it's difficult for two people to stay under the warm spray, plus the intrinsic awkwardness of having sex standing up, particularly when there is a significant height difference.

With all that going on, the water is bound to get cold way too soon. But the worst is not being able to really get into it for fear that someone is going to go legless at the most inopportune time. Slippery, you know.

Those scenes bother me almost as much as TV drivers who absolutely have to carry on whole conversations looking directly at the passenger's face instead of the road.

[ganesh]

You don't have harnesses in your showers? 

[Shannon L.]

Quote

On the topic of bathing, there's sure a lot of shower sex in TV.  No problems whatsoever with slipperiness, bumping up against grab bars or other hardware, shivering because it's difficult for two people to stay under the warm spray, plus the intrinsic awkwardness of having sex standing up, particularly when there is a significant height difference.

Also, one person likes their water really hot and the other likes their water much cooler. 

Edited April 30, 2016 by Shannon L.
there, they're, their....I really do know the difference.

[shang yiet]

TV drivers never have to worry about turning left or right or using a roundabout while talking. And people who have their creative blocks resolved never want to tell anyone. It must be a surprise.' 'I have a fantastic idea but I can't tell you now. You must wait until the opening/launch/special event.'

And pep talks always work. The team will never lose after getting the standard 'Believe in yourself' speech. Of course the other team probably believe in themselves too - and had more time to practise because they didn't have to deal with any drama.

Also, if you know your friend/family member is already jittery/nervous about strange, sinister, and supernatural things going in in his house or life, don't, for goodness' sake, creep up quietly behind him,  put your hand on his shoulder and go 'Hey, what's up?'. Don't give your friend a nervous breakdown. It's not funny.

[ganesh]

Quote

And pep talks always work. The team will never lose after getting the standard 'Believe in yourself' speech. Of course the other team probably believe in themselves too - and had more time to practise because they didn't have to deal with any drama.

My HS soccer coach *always* was with the "you have to want it more," just "believe", "this is your moment." Uh, yeah, I'm getting my ass beat out there because that other team is wanting it too, and they probably practiced while we watched inspirational videos. 
 

[DeLurker]

On 4/29/2016 at 11:18 AM, ganesh said:

And they effortlessly shave. No one gets the smallest of nicks.

Or they practically sever their limb while shaving.

[ganesh]

Only on tv, when people get on a plane, *everyone* has enough space for their carry on, and everyone engages conversation with the person sitting next to them. No one just wants to be left alone so they can finally watch a movie that they haven't gotten around to seeing or book.

[shang yiet]

7 hours ago, ganesh said:

Only on tv, when people get on a plane, *everyone* has enough space for their carry on, and everyone engages conversation with the person sitting next to them

How else can you meet the love of your life?

[topanga]

Only on TV do people open their laptops and start typing. There's no delay for booting up or even waiting for the computer to wake up if it was in sleep mode. 

[Kromm]

5 minutes ago, topanga said:

Only on TV do people open their laptops and start typing. There's no delay for booting up or even waiting for the computer to wake up if it was in sleep mode. 

To be fair, that boot delay is a lot shorter on most PCs these days. That 20-30 seconds it might take on a well maintained modern computer would be dead air time of course. Waking from Sleep Mode might be 2-5 seconds, but even that probably is considered unwanted dead airtime.

We don't see many of them have to type in passwords to unlock their computers though. I mean at home that situation might not be that uncommon, but if TV were realistic, any person shown at work should theoretically have to do this.

And unless it's part of a joke, even people using tablets and smartphones should have usage delays we don't see on TV. Even if they have fast processors, the interfaces of tablets and smartphones aren't so magically efficient that in real life you're always one click/tap away from an answer. Except on TV they always are.  

The worst is typing (again, most especially as represented for Smartphones). If there's a joke about how teens are so much better at tech stuff, you might see a scene with one schooling an "old person" (anyone not a teen) in how to message something at blinding speed. But the rest of us usually hobble along with trying to fit our fat fingers on virtual keyboards that are too small, or having to hit the backspace key a TON to undo bad autocorrect/predictive typing engines, or worst yet have to consciously think each time which key leads to the exact special character, or Emoji, or capital letter, or number we want to type.  It's a slow annoying process for a lot of people, but on TV? It only is if it's fodder for that kind of "You so Old!" joke. Otherwise nobody ever is shown plugging away at smartphone virtual keyboards taking more time and effort than they'd like.

[ganesh]

No one on tv seems to use the swipe keyboard on their phones. I use it all the time. 

[Shannon L.]

Quote

No one on tv seems to use the swipe keyboard on their phones. I use it all the time. 

As someone who is not very technically savvy, I have to ask.....a "swipe" keyboard?

[Snipsa]

On 08/04/2016 at 10:19 PM, Shannon L. said:

Only on tv can someone with a spinal cord injury that has caused paralysis get up and start walking (and walking well!) as soon as they start getting movement in their legs again.

This pisses me off on so many levels. As a Physiotherapist I have worked very hard with recent paraplegics and quadriplegics (complete and incomplete), and seeing their faces fall when you let them know, that NO, in real life you will not be walking out of the rehab centre, and you will need a ton of adaptive equipment, is absolutely heartbreaking - and I blame modern media for this...

 

One of the many reasons I loved FNL was their depiction of Street's character. Sure he got out of rehab quite quickly and mastered transfers, etc very quickly, but they at least never went the miracle cure route... (Although they did dabble with the "miracle" a bit, in I think Season 2?)

[paulvdb]

Only on TV will a group of time travellers try to take out an immortal tyrant at the height of his power instead of travelling back to a time before he became immortal when he would be much easier to kill.

[DittyDotDot]

2 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Only on TV will a group of time travellers try to take out an immortal tyrant at the height of his power instead of travelling back to a time before he became immortal when he would be much easier to kill.

But....but....but, they might break the world by altering their own timeline...and they can't cross their own timeline....and they can't alter the big events, just little stuff and only they will know what can be altered and what can't...and...and...

Yeah, shouldn't get me started on stupid time travel tropes. 

[zxy556575]

7 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Only on TV will a group of time travellers try to take out an immortal tyrant at the height of his power instead of travelling back to a time before he became immortal when he would be much easier to kill.

As opposed to a group of time travelers in real life?  ;)

[merylinkid]

We don't know what time travelers in real life have prevented because we live in the world where they prevented it.   Or didn't maybe.   

[Kromm]

A small divergence for "Only On TV". Rather than focus on a pithy description of a cliche that applies to TV, here's a link to an article about places that could only exist on TV!

An Interior Designer Explains The Unlikely Apartments Of "Friends," "How I Met Your Mother," And More

The one I wish was covered here is the Full House... house. In the Fuller House series forum we certainly talked a lot about how totally impossible that house is.

[ganesh]

Isnt' the Full House house an actual house?

[methodwriter85]

The facade is real. The actual house though couldn't possibly match up with the Full House version, starting with the fact that there's no indication of a large attic that could be used to house a nice apartment.

[ChromaKelly]

On 5/11/2016 at 8:32 PM, Kromm said:

A small divergence for "Only On TV". Rather than focus on a pithy description of a cliche that applies to TV, here's a link to an article about places that could only exist on TV!

An Interior Designer Explains The Unlikely Apartments Of "Friends," "How I Met Your Mother," And More

The one I wish was covered here is the Full House... house. In the Fuller House series forum we certainly talked a lot about how totally impossible that house is.

The fact that Monica and Rachel's apartment was so different from Joey and Chandler's always bugged me. I think the most realistic NYC apartment on TV was Seinfeld's.

[Kromm]

On 5/11/2016 at 3:35 AM, methodwriter85 said:

The facade is real. The actual house though couldn't possibly match up with the Full House version, starting with the fact that there's no indication of a large attic that could be used to house a nice apartment.

Right. The match isn't even close.

You don't even have to start with the Attic. The first and biggest pill to swallow is shown right in the establishing shot where they show the width of the Tanner house's exterior and then we see sets inside that are easily 4 times as wide (including a staircase that takes even more width).

So Only On TV do our characters live inside Warped Space.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Kromm

[ganesh]

I never watched the show. I just know where the house is because I lived in the area.

Or, you could say only on tv does everyone live in a TARDIS.

[Popples]

Since we're talking about the way houses are designed on television, I've noticed (especially in a lot of sitcoms) that houses will not only have stairs in the living room, but also in the kitchen (Cosby Show, The Nanny, Full House, and Family Matters from just off the top of my head).

I've only seen this once in real life, and it was on a renovating show where the family knocked out a wall and changed it that way.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Popples
Spelling

[ganesh]

Only on tv someone will ask "when did you sleep last?" Because people routinely can still function 24+ hours awake.

[anna0852]

I get it, about the TV house interior thing. They need a certain amount of space to film and more entrances/exits (like stairs in the kitchen) allow for more movement. I just wish more care was take to match the exterior establishing shot to the practical interior needed.

[meep.meep]

The Dunphy's house on Modern Family is radically different inside than out.  As well as having a magically disappearing and appearing basement (no basement in early seasons, in later seasons, Hailey lives in the basement).

There's plenty of Warped Space in movies also - it's not just "only on TV."  For example:  any movie that uses a trailer as a residence, will use the one that's 40 x bigger on the inside than the outside.

[Moose135]

18 hours ago, ganesh said:

Only on tv someone will ask "when did you sleep last?" Because people routinely can still function 24+ hours awake.

I don't do it routinely, but I've been up and functioning for more than 24 hours at a time on a number of occasions.  A year or so ago, I was heading back to New York from Charlotte and stopped in Washington.  I was trying to do some night shooting, but even at 10pm, there were a million tourist around - it was the middle of May.  I ended up heading back out around 1am, and shot until 7am before heading back to the hotel, probably a 28 hour day. The Lincoln Memorial at 3am is an amazing place. And just this January, I went to the Rolex 24 Hour race in Daytona.  Left the hotel around 6am Saturday, spent all day, all night, and most of Sunday at the track, shooting pictures, and didn't head to bed until 6pm or so Sunday, 36 hours later.  It's coming up on my big Memorial Day weekend air show - I'll probably average 3 hours of sleep a night from Thursday to Monday.

I always say you can sleep when you're dead...

Edited May 13, 2016 by Moose135

[Kel Varnsen]

16 hours ago, anna0852 said:

I get it, about the TV house interior thing. They need a certain amount of space to film and more entrances/exits (like stairs in the kitchen) allow for more movement. I just wish more care was take to match the exterior establishing shot to the practical interior needed.

To this day i don't understand how the Huxtable house could have a window next to the living room staircase when it was a row house.

[Kromm]

3 minutes ago, Moose135 said:

I don't do it routinely, but I've been up and functioning for more than 24 hours at a time on a number of occasions.  A year or so ago, I was heading back to New York from Charlotte and stopped in Washington.  I was trying to do some night shooting, but even at 10pm, there were a million tourist around - it was the middle of May.  I ended up heading back out around 1am, and shot until 7am before heading back to the hotel, probably a 28 hour day. The Lincoln Memorial at 3am is an amazing place. And just this January, I went to the Rolex 24 Hour race in Daytona.  Left the hotel around 6am Saturday, spent all day, all night, and most of Sunday at the track, shooting pictures, and didn't head to bed until 6pm or so Sunday, 36 hours later.  It's coming up on my big Memorial Day weekend air show - I'll probably average 3 hours of sleep a night from Thursday to Monday.

I always say you can sleep when you're dead...

I did it often.

When I was in my 20s.

In years after that?  Not so much. Your body needs sleep a lot more urgently as you age. Not necessarily as soundly, as many hours in a row, but if you try to push things it affects you a lot more.

[Kromm]

5 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

To this day i don't understand how the Huxtable house could have a window next to the living room staircase when it was a row house.

Actually if you look carefully, it's usually a brick wall showing through the window. Implying that they aren't an attached house, but have an alleyway dividing the houses--at least on that side. 

Most of the time.

What do I mean?  Well, on some of the stills I just found it looks like vegetation outside, and in one there even seems to be another window facing them.

Bright daylight, but it looks like there MIGHT be a brick wall there.

It's dark outside, but not a good shot, but that sure looks green to me.

This one really does just look like a brick wall...

But this one looks like a lit window across the way.

And this one like the side of a single building, but like that would look from a height, not ground level... (you can see a roof, which means its not as close as an alleyway would have it)

 

Edited May 14, 2016 by Kromm

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

My coworkers and I once worked back to back double shifts due to staff shortages. We slept in between, but poorly and uncomfortably. Probably got six hours sleep to sustain 32 hours of work. In the evening of the second day, one of our patients dropped a styrofoam cup that he'd been using to carry his crayons. We all took one look at the crayons all over the floor and cracked. The. Hell. Up. Tears streaming down our faces, leaning against the counter for support, gasping for air. "When was the last time you slept?" was the first thing the third shifters asked when they came in. 

[ganesh]

Yeah, but people on tv aren't up long shifts for important reasons. It's all dumb stuff.

[shapeshifter]

I watch a variety of crime solving shows (but not Criminal Minds ilk!), and frequently some detective will be called in after hours to work a murder, and then the next morning or following evening, someone will ask, "Have you slept?" Is this realistic for law enforcement work? Even for detectives? 

[zxy556575]

34 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I watch a variety of crime solving shows (but not Criminal Minds ilk!), and frequently some detective will be called in after hours to work a murder, and then the next morning or following evening, someone will ask, "Have you slept?" Is this realistic for law enforcement work? Even for detectives? 

If we go by cop shows, nobody even goes home until an arrest has been made. They get the case, have nothing else to do and no other cases pending, and work on it exclusively around the clock.

Edited May 14, 2016 by lordonia

[shapeshifter]

3 minutes ago, lordonia said:

If we go by cop shows, nobody even goes home until an arrest has been made. They get the case, have nothing else to do and no other cases pending, and work on it exclusively around the clock.

Right. But is it Only On TV, or in real life too?

[zxy556575]

1 minute ago, shapeshifter said:

Right. But is it Only On TV, or in real life too?

I don't know? I used to work in the police department of a town of 75K and those detectives sure weren't killing themselves after 5 pm. But the city only averaged one homicide a year. The officers did get overtime if they worked more than 40 hours, thanks to the police union.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

3 hours ago, lordonia said:

If we go by cop shows, nobody even goes home until an arrest has been made. They get the case, have nothing else to do and no other cases pending, and work on it exclusively around the clock.

But that's because On TV, all cops Take!It!Personally!