TV show cliches

Cafe Society
1

OK, we’ve all read Ebert’s “glossary” of movie cliches. But what about TV show cliches?

I’ll start.

What’s the biggest cliche? Answer: cop shows. Statistics show that there are more cop shows in the world than anything else. Except insects. So I’ll start with cop show cliches.

[ol]
[li]If a detective is interviewing a witness and his/her cell phone rings, the phone call will be relevant to that interview.[/li][li]If a message is brought into the “Lieutenant” 's office while he/she is discussing a case with the detectives, the message will be relevant to that conversation.[/li][li]The biggest-name cameo star that appears in the episode will be the killer.[/li][li]If we’re looking over someone’s shoulder as they look in the medicine cabinet mirror, they will open it to take something out. When they close it, their attacker will have appeared suddenly behind them. The scene will cut with the vicitm’s startled expression, but we won’t see the actual attack.[/li][li]When a character gets into a parked car and starts up the engine in order to move the car, if the camera cuts to a closeup the driver is going to hit something. If the driver looks over their shoulder to back out, they will accidentally move forward instead of backward.[/li][li]If, in trying to locate a suspect the cops interview his boss, the boss will shout after the cops as they leave, “If you find him, tell him he’s fired.”[/li][li]If a suspect gives the cops a fake address, it will be “in the middle of the Hudson River.”[/li][/ol]

2

On leaving a room a character must always hesitate on opening the door and make one more passing remark.

If someone does just walk out without doing the one last thing thing, then that is significant in itself.

3

In sitcoms, a confusion arises where 2 people are seeing or hearing the same event, but one believes it is something else. Three’s Company pretty much wrote the book on this one.

4

Addtional cop-show cliché: any time federal law enforcement is involved, there will be friction.

5

Buffy in pain, show good. Buffy not in pain, show not so good.

Death can never stop interesting characters.
These both come from Joss Whedon.

6

[QUOTE=lissener]
[li]If a suspect gives the cops a fake address, it will be “in the middle of the Hudson River.”[/li][/QUOTE]

As a longtime fan of Law & Order, I’m used to the fake addresses being in the middle of the East River.

7

A lonely saxophone plays in the background as our hero walks the dimly-lit, rainy city streets.
This one is growing increasingly common (I blame Joss Whedon): the ironic segue. You know, one character says, “From here on out, it’s smooth sailing!” and then we immediately cut to some sort of ominous catastrophe happening somewhere else in town.

8

If two people have a secret at the beginning of the episode, it won’t be a secret by the end.

9

How about the song playing over the action at the end of the show? Happens regularly on “Lost”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, “House” and a lot of other shows I can’t think of right now. It saves the writers from having to write dialogue, the actors from learning it and cross promotes a new artist that the parent company is trying to sell.

10

In any show, chances are high that the main character will have a very poor relationship with a parent.

11

I’ve been ranting against the end-of-show music montage in the current Lost thread…

Perhaps the king of cop-show cliches: Old cop to young partner: “Well, I’m only two days from retirement…” SFX: gunshot, old cop dies. Young cop: “I swear vengeance on you, criminal person!”

thwartme

12

Almost everyone with an accent is a criminal mastermind. The dumb, bumbling fool is actually a criminal mastermind (see NCSI Tuesday?)

13

Every husband has a burning hatred of his mother-in-law; even if she looks and acts like Margaret Anderson, he sees her as Medusa and Leona Helmsley combined.

14

All children are smarter than their parents; Dad in particular is an idiot who is lucky to be able to hold a job.

Speaking of jobs…no one has a real world job (except cops). Everyone works in an “advertising agency”, or such ilk, where incompetence is seen as a personality quirk.

When one character wants to reveal his/her true feelings to another, they will be interrupted at the most inopportune moment; and the object of the affection will be whisked away by a new rival. (The Ross & Rachel Gambit)

15

Having a baby in the elevator.

I can name at least three shows, right off the top of my head, that did this. All in the Family, Benson, and Night Court. There are bound to be many more.

16

The teacher is late to class, so the class clown goes to the front of the class and mocks the mannerisms of the teacher. The teacher walks in behind the clown and glares at the clown until he notices.

17
  • Tires squeal while taking corners on gravel roads.
  • Thunder and lightening are always simultaneous.
  • Bumbling inspector is actually a genius.
  • All bombs have count-down timers and a black wire and a red wire. But which one will abort the explosion and which one will blow everyone to smithereens?
  • Sound propagates in space.
  • Space ships have gravity.
  • All groceries are brought home in paper bags, and have a baguette sticking out the top.
  • All sitcoms have to include one screwball neighbour. I think I’ll call this the Howard Borden syndrome.
    And why the heck do all channels have to have commercials on at exactly the same time? It’s a conspiracy!
18
  1. All television characters live in rent-controlled apartments.
  2. On TV, you can get away with doing things at your job that you couldn’t in real life. That’s not a firing offense, that’s a quirk!
  3. TV apartments are never messy, and if they are, it’s just like, there’s some pillows on the floor and some carefully laid-out underwear and potato chips. No real messes.
  4. Characters can take a more in-depth approach to their work. Like cops will take a special interest in one case, or teachers will focus in on one struggling student. In real life, their attention would be divided between many different things all clamoring for their attention. House is one of the biggest offenders of this rule.
  5. The view outside your window is always of the most archetypal landmark in your city–Golden Gate Bridge, Seattle Space Needle, etc. Actually those are the only two I can think of right now, but they’re big ones. I read that to have a picture-perfect view of the GGB outside your window, you would have to live right in the middle of the SF bay. Not realistic!
  6. Just for once, I would like to see an episode set around a holiday that does not involve the holiday. In my parents’ house, the tree is set up for most of December, certainly there could be a wacky adventure in the month of December that does NOT involve Christmas. Yet I’ve never seen it, just like I’ve seen very few non-Xmas/Thanksgiving episodes where it’s snowing.
  7. Nobody has accents except foreigners and stupid characters, and use of regionalisms is scarce.
19

TV show emergency rooms have far more interesting and dramatic cases in one night than most real-world ones see in a week.

The sitcom cliche of the fat or otherwise unattractive guy with the hottie wife.

TV characters seem to spend a lot of time socializing with co-workers outside the office, to the point that they even spend family holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving with co-workers instead of real families. And when a TV character is seriously ill or injured, only co-workers are in the hospital with them. (For example, on the ABC legal drama The Practice, when the character of Lindsay Dole had been shot and was in the ICU, only her co-workers were seen in her room, rather than her parents or siblings. Usually only one or two people are allowed in the room of an ICU patient, and these are typically the closest relatives.)

20

On older sitcoms, families often had a holiday tradition where a Christmas tree was put up and decorated on Christmas Eve. This old-school cliche tradition – which I’ve never encountered in real life – might explain the lack of holiday decorations through December.

A few more to add:

Everyone in law enforcement in Southern states is corrupt or inept, except the wise sheriffs of the smallest, most rural counties.

Every murder has an unusual, interesting backstory that makes the Scott/Laci Peterson case seem mundane by comparison. Murders also never have any witnesses, and the perp is apprehended only after several other suspects have been arrested and questioned.

When you call someone on the telephone, it’s considered proper phone etiquette for the person on the receiving end of the call to stay silent when they pick up. The caller must start the conversation by asking “Hello, [name of party they’re trying to call]?” (“Hello, Police Department?”, “Hello, Agent Mulder?”, “Hello, Enterprise Car Rental?”, to confirm that they indeed have the correct number. To end a call, just hang up; time is money, and there’s no need for pleasantries like “Goodbye” or “Take care.”

Most restaurants only have a seating capacity of 20 or less.

There’s never a traffic jam, even on Manhattan or in Los Angeles, unless the driver is late for some event like a date or wedding.

When people use public transit, it’s always the subway or commuter train, never a bus.

When sitting down with others at a table, whether for dinner, a poker game or something else, everyone may sit around only one half of the table.

Intelligence is actually rooted in race and gender. In order of most intelligent to least intelligent:

  • Native American men and women
  • Black women
  • White women
  • Black men
  • White men

All dogs are Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers or scruffy terrier mixes.