Stupid/small factual inaccuracies in tv shows that annoy you.

[An Gadaí]

I was watching ER Season 4 over the weekend and Dr. Corday says to Dr. Benton "When I was in Belfast I visited the Bogside." The Bogside is a Republican area in Derry City, not Belfast. A similar inaccuracy about a US city I would probably never have picked up on. It just took me out of the show, reminded me I was watching fiction. Similarly I watched Cities Of The Undeground: Viking Underground last week, where the show was about Dublin and environs. In it the narrator says the Vikings arrived on the scene in 800BC.

[aruvqan]

NCIS ..

Why is there a member of the Mossad in the US NCIS? And an apparent british civillian medical examiner? Anybody in Groton tat I came into contact with in NCIS was navy/marine/retired navy/marine/reservist doing their 2 weeks

Actually any CSI/criminalist procedural ... why are they going out on arrests and interrogating suspects?

House - why are the seriously uber doctors running labs, using the radiolgical equipment/doing general techie work?

[Scumpup]

TV shows and movies routinely get just about everything possible wrong when guns are involved. An especially egregious example was the porcelain Glock 7 in Die Hard 2; but it's hard to watch any movie where there are guns involved and not spot bunches of them.

[Snooooopy]

Originally Posted by aruvqan

NCIS ..

Why is there a member of the Mossad in the US NCIS?

It's all a part of the Hotness Exchange Program, designed to promote understanding between countries.

Originally Posted by aruvqan

And an apparent british civillian medical examiner?

I don't know.

[Markxxx]

I hate it when TV shows or movies that take place in the Central or Mountain Times Zones of the USA don't understand prime time is shifted to 7pm - 10pm. No one in those time zones has the 11 O'Clock news.

[Cheesesteak]

Originally Posted by aruvqan

Actually any CSI/criminalist procedural ... why are they going out on arrests and interrogating suspects?

This always bugs me a lot, especially since the lab nerds are always so smug, even when they're entirely wrong about the suspect being guilty. Bones does this too, mostly with Bones, who is almost pathologically bad at relating to people, being allowed to interact with grieving family and interrogate potential murderers.

House - why are the seriously uber doctors running labs, using the radiolgical equipment/doing general techie work?

I believe that House "doesn't trust" the regular tech staff, so he makes his team do all the lab work and tests. What's more unbelievable is the idea that House still has a job where's he's allowed to treat patients.

[Ludovic]

Originally Posted by An Gadaí

I was watching ER Season 4 over the weekend and Dr. Corday says to Dr. Benton "When I was in Belfast I visited the Bogside." The Bogside is a Republican area in Derry City, not Belfast.

In context, could it mean that Dr Corday visited there while he was staying in Belfast, but not implying that Bogside is in Belfast? After all it's not far away enough that you couldn't do a day trip. Sort of like if I were to say "While I was at Orlando I went to Busch Gardens."

[Sitnam]

Originally Posted by Cheesesteak

I believe that House "doesn't trust" the regular tech staff, so he makes his team do all the lab work and tests.

You can't blame him, if the plot calls for even mentioning a lab tech that's where the diagnostic error is eventually going to turn up.

I doubt Kirk let his Red Shirts take out life insurance policies either.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Hypnotism.

[Morbo]

Shows set in a specific city but obviously filmed in L.A. Monk and Charmed being the worst offenders for San Francisco.

The magical zooming software, where you can "clean up" a pixelated low resolution graphic from a security camera and reveal a license plate.

[Zsofia]

The GPS Evidence - Bones, I'm talking to you. It's not dirt that comes from, say, the Appalachians. It's dirt that comes from the police station parking lot of Buttfuck, West Virginia. The left side. Nowhere else on earth.

[tdn]

Originally Posted by Scumpup

TV shows and movies routinely get just about everything possible wrong when guns are involved. An especially egregious example was the porcelain Glock 7 in Die Hard 2; but it's hard to watch any movie where there are guns involved and not spot bunches of them.

I'm about as far from being a gun enthusiast as one can get. But there's one thing that bugs me every time.

Point a gun at someone and imply "I'm going to shoot you."

After the target says something smartass, cock the gun and imply "And I mean it."

It makes no difference what kind of gun is being used. They always do this. ALWAYS.

[brewha]

If you are going to have military in your show, learn how to do a proper fucking salute. It's not hard to do properly, and the mechanics of it are not secret. But a poorly performed salute, something that is just not done if you are in the military, bugs the shit out of me and takes me immediately out of the show.

Anything involving aviation. They never get it right.

[Intergalactic Gladiator]

Originally Posted by brewha

If you are going to have military in your show, learn how to do a proper fucking salute. It's not hard to do properly, and the mechanics of it are not secret. But a poorly performed salute, something that is just not done if you are in the military, bugs the shit out of me and takes me immediately out of the show.

Heck yeah.

No soluting indoors unless you're reporting to an officer.
No soluting if you're carrying a weapon.
No soluting if you are a prisoner -- I'm looking at you A Few Good Men.
Unless you're John Wayne, no sloppy salutes where you kind of casually flop the arm up with curled fingers.
Civilians soluting anything looks like a lame cliche to me, I can't think of any instances offhand where it doesn't. Writers, you can stop using this now, mmkay?

[lissener]

Originally Posted by Morbo

Shows set in a specific city but obviously filmed in L.A.

Yeah, I've mentioned this before. The Office does this a lot too.

[Scumpup]

Originally Posted by tdn

I'm about as far from being a gun enthusiast as one can get. But there's one thing that bugs me every time.

Point a gun at someone and imply "I'm going to shoot you."

After the target says something smartass, cock the gun and imply "And I mean it."

It makes no difference what kind of gun is being used. They always do this. ALWAYS.

Guns also don't make all those little clickey-clackey noises when you draw or aim them. I hate that one intensely.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by Scumpup

Guns also don't make all those little clickey-clackey noises when you draw or aim them. I hate that one intensely.

It's even more annoying when edged weapons do the same thing. It's amazing how I can cut up the whole chicken and the only thing that makes a noise is the chicken. (Or the knife might scrape the bone.) Surprisingly, the chicken does not say "Ksssssshing!"

[kelly5078]

I've become an NCIS addict, although now that I've apparently seen them all it's hard to get a fix.

Anyway, there was one episode where a hospital patient (Navy commander, I believe) was blown up. The writers were apparently under the impression that oxygen is flammable, rather than that pure oxygen would greatly accelerate combustion, which led to a string of errors.

But the thing that really drives me nuts is the occasional crimes in Shenandoah National Park. Sometimes they call it Shenandoah State Park. Sometimes they call it Shenandoah State Park and refer to a map of Shenandoah National Park. Except that the map cannot possibly be of SNP, as it's the wrong shape. And the vegetation and topography are all wrong (being in Southern California and all). And there's no Skyline Drive. I won't even get into the portrayal of the people.

I also really like how the team gets into the van for a quick drive to Norfolk (200 miles away).

[tdn]

Originally Posted by Scumpup

Guns also don't make all those little clickey-clackey noises when you draw or aim them. I hate that one intensely.

That and the "Ksssssshing!" chicken get to me. In the movie Elizabeth, when Norfolk takes the ring off of Mary's finger, it makes a squishy sound. And in a bunch of movies aimed at younger audiences, fat people are always making farty noises.

I respect the profession of sound design a lot, but some of these guys need to pull back a bit.

I love the movie Legally Blonde, but one scene really bugged me. When Elle first arrives on campus, she's talking to a bunch of social misfits who can't comb their hair, dress in any coordinated way, or say anything that doesn't smack of radical feminism. That's not Harvard! That's more like MIT.

[Dolores Reborn]

Originally Posted by Intergalactic Gladiator

Heck yeah.

No soluting indoors unless you're reporting to an officer.
No soluting if you're carrying a weapon.
No soluting if you are a prisoner -- I'm looking at you A Few Good Men.
Unless you're John Wayne, no sloppy salutes where you kind of casually flop the arm up with curled fingers.
Civilians soluting anything looks like a lame cliche to me, I can't think of any instances offhand where it doesn't. Writers, you can stop using this now, mmkay?

I'm sorry - three times is too many. I can't help myself! It's sAluting.



I hate that they get back DNA reports in hours, not weeks.

[ivylass]

Originally Posted by Intergalactic Gladiator

Heck yeah.

No soluting indoors unless you're reporting to an officer.
No soluting if you're carrying a weapon.
No soluting if you are a prisoner -- I'm looking at you A Few Good Men.
Unless you're John Wayne, no sloppy salutes where you kind of casually flop the arm up with curled fingers.
Civilians soluting anything looks like a lame cliche to me, I can't think of any instances offhand where it doesn't. Writers, you can stop using this now, mmkay?

The quintessential one for me is when Radar is leaving MASH. No one comes to his going away party because casualties come in. He says goodbye to Hawkeye through the glass in the OR door, and Hawkeye salutes him. Radar does some Walk Like an Egyptian thing with his hand over his eyebrow...damn, that bugged me.

[Malleus, Incus, Stapes!]

I have this thing about biology. When a New World plant is shown in an Old World setting, or when people think that tigers come from Africa... I just can't deal.

[Tanbarkie]

My grad student friends and I derive a lot of entertainment out of pointing out bad molecular biology and/or chemistry, something that happens a lot more often than you might think. They range from the inaccurate-but-forgivable (electrophoresis gels magically running in about five seconds in Ang Lee's "The Hulk") to the hilariously stupid ("It's the dopamines and tyrosines!" - thank you, Heroes).

We've learned to just ignore things like "mutations inevitably lead to superpowers" and "mixing DNA from two species leads to giant monsters that hunger for human flesh." They are the "sound in space" of biology - just accept it as a genre trope and move on.

[alphaboi867]

Originally Posted by lissener

Yeah, I've mentioned this before. The Office does this a lot too.

The Office does a suprisingly good job (even refering to actual local businesses). AFAIK they haven't even made the mistake of having someone buy wine or beet at the supermarket. That's an easy mistake for writers or set decorators in CA to make. Granted the it's usually way too warm and sunny to be Scranton.

[maplekiwi]

This is interesting, cause as a NZer (& non gun enthusiast) a lot of this stuff sales right past me.

But I'm watching Australian show Underbelly 2. Its about the Mr Asia drug ring, which was active in the 1970s & 80s. Now I can't find the quote but I remember an underworld figure of the time has been quoted as saying, "the only thing they have got right are the names!" so this may seem a small thing. But the actor playing New Zealander Terry Clark calls his father a freezer worker. Its freezing worker. Took me right out of the programme! & there are a lot of kiwi actors in the show, so I would have thought there would be plenty amongst the crew.

[cerberus]

Per ER, Elizabeth Corday-Greene, MB(Medicinae Baccalaureus), BCh(Baccalaureus Chirurgiae), FRCS(Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons) - Female. She visited Belfast, unless there was some sort of SRS subplot that I missed.

JAG also was ridiculous with its errors, especially the impossible career tracks of its leading characters.

[lissener]

Originally Posted by alphaboi867

The Office does a suprisingly good job (even refering to actual local businesses). AFAIK they haven't even made the mistake of having someone buy wine or beet at the supermarket. That's an easy mistake for writers or set decorators in CA to make. Granted the it's usually way too warm and sunny to be Scranton.

Right. Most externals, at least those that take place outside of the parking lot, show California flora pretty distinctly. And the streets are wider, and the light is definitely different. The Rabies Fun Run episode was definitely in LA.

[Intergalactic Gladiator]

Originally Posted by cerberus

Per ER, Elizabeth Corday-Greene, MB(Medicinae Baccalaureus), BCh(Baccalaureus Chirurgiae), FRCS(Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons) - Female. She visited Belfast, unless there was some sort of SRS subplot that I missed.

JAG also was ridiculous with its errors, especially the impossible career tracks of its leading characters.

Oh yeah, plus their action sequences often looked exactly like the action sequences of movies such as Top Gun and Clear and Present Danger.

[BrainGlutton]

Why is Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson on The Closer involved in plea negotiations with suspects, when that's the DAs' business?

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by lissener

Right. Most externals, at least those that take place outside of the parking lot, show California flora pretty distinctly. And the streets are wider, and the light is definitely different. The Rabies Fun Run episode was definitely in LA.

It's called California Doubling.

[sqweels]

Bullets fired from handguns usually don't make sparks, do they?

[InkBlot]

My wife's an echocardiographer. Regarding House, she tells me you'll never see that many doctors in a lab at one time. And, in fact, most techs (like herself) wouldn't let them near their equipment either.

Worse than this, though, is that my wife knows her ultrasound equipment. And I don't think there's been a single program yet to get things right. Really obscure errors for her are heart scans that don't show what they say they do, like a doctor pointing at a perfectly normal heart and saying there's a defect. Minor errors include screen images that don't match what someone is scanning for (like a heart when they're talking kidneys), or still pictures when the test they're doing would show a moving picture.

But the big ones? Probes. With your ultrasound machine are a variety of probes for pretty much every task you can think of. Depending on what you wish to scan for, probes come in all shapes and sizes. Most programs go for the big, easy to see on screen probes - which are usually the prenatal ones (large, rectangular heads).

My wife has spotted all kinds of probes on screen, which I've gotta say is pretty distracting for me as when we're watching ER or House, and the doctor's being all serious about, "there's very little chance that Bobby will survive this one," my wife is giggling to herself. When I shift my view askance she says, "they're looking at his heart with a liver probe!"

Don't get me started on medial people and dinner conversations.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Malleus, Incus, Stapes!

I have this thing about biology. When a New World plant is shown in an Old World setting, or when people think that tigers come from Africa... I just can't deal.

Comes under the general heading of You Fail Biology Forever, a subtrope of Hollywood Science.

[InkBlot]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

It's called California Doubling.

Oh, yes...that reminds me of my favorite: Mountains in Dallas!

It's not often, but I recall one episode of NCIS with characters supposedly visiting Dallas for some reason, and an outdoor shot revealed mountains off in the distance. Sorry, folks. It's pretty flat around here. Although, the scruby nature around LA isn't a bad match for bits of North Texas.

[kasuo]

Originally Posted by Dolores Reborn

I hate that they get back DNA reports in hours, not weeks.

Well if The Simpsons "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" two-parter ep taught me anything is that you can give the tech a carton of cigarettes to get DNA reports in a couple seconds rather than a couple weeks.

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

Originally Posted by Malleus, Incus, Stapes!

I have this thing about biology. When a New World plant is shown in an Old World setting, or when people think that tigers come from Africa... I just can't deal.

Any science fiction show in which altering the DNA of a grown man (or Vulcan, or whatever) results in magically changing his gross anatomy makes me want to throw a shoe at the screen. The Star Trek TNG episode that had everyone reverting to evolutionary ancestors compounded this idiocy by implying that humans are somehow descended from spiders.

Worst. Pseudoscience. Ever.

[KneadToKnow]

In the vein of the point-gun-then-cock-it-for-emphasis, the near-constant racking and re-racking of semi-automatic handgun slides. Unless I'm very much mistaken, doing this more than once should result in the ejection of a round.

The same ssssssssssching! sound every blade makes when being taken out to be used, regardless of what kind of blade it is* and what it's being taken out of. Broadsword from a scabbard? Ssssssssssching! Foil from a velvet case? Ssssssssssching! Wolverine claws from your forearms? Ssssssssssching! Scalpel from the tray? Ssssssssssching! Butterknife from a hot biscuit? Ssssssssssching!

* Universal exception: switchblades

[Lemur866]

Originally Posted by Biffy the Elephant Shrew

Any science fiction show in which altering the DNA of a grown man (or Vulcan, or whatever) results in magically changing his gross anatomy makes me want to throw a shoe at the screen. The Star Trek TNG episode that had everyone reverting to evolutionary ancestors compounded this idiocy by implying that humans are somehow descended from spiders.

Worst. Pseudoscience. Ever.

In their defense, that was Work that was turning into a spider. I loved the look on Picard's face when Data told him he was devolving into a lemur, or perhaps a pygmy marmoset. You could tell Patrick Stuart was thinking about kicking the writers in the nuts.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Originally Posted by alphaboi867

The Office does a suprisingly good job (even refering to actual local businesses). AFAIK they haven't even made the mistake of having someone buy wine or beet at the supermarket.

True. Very few people outside Scrantom know of the local ordinance that makes selling beets punishable by exorcism.

The real irony is that references to writing and publishing on tv are always wrong. A character writes something, sends it off, has it accepted, and holds it in his or her hand by the end of the episode. In real life it often takes years.

[Lemur866]

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

Wolverine claws from your forearms? Ssssssssssching!

Counter-nitpick! Wolverine's adamantium claws could be scraping against his adamantium knucklebones, thus making this potentially plausible.

[KneadToKnow]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

In their defense, that was Work that was turning into a spider. I loved the look on Picard's face when Data told him he was devolving into a lemur, or perhaps a pygmy marmoset. You could tell Patrick Stuart was thinking about kicking the writers in the nuts.

I think you mean Worf, but I think you really mean Barclay.

Worf was "devolving" into some Klingon dragon-monster-scare-me-sh!tless-thing.

Originally Posted by Lemur866

Counter-nitpick! Wolverine's adamantium claws could be scraping against his adamantium knucklebones, thus making this potentially plausible.

It's a fair cop. I'll substitute instead every freaking time any sharp object is seen in any Scream movie up to and including Laurie Metcalf's nose.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Why is Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson on The Closer involved in plea negotiations with suspects, when that's the DAs' business?

Um...I always assume Brenda is lying. My cite is Brenda's personality. I expect that, like Garak from Deep Space Nine, she occasionally makes up long, involved lies to strangers she meeets in coffeehouses just to keep in practice, and to see how large she can blow a given prevariction bubble before it pops.

[Sateryn76]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

In their defense, that was Work that was turning into a spider. I loved the look on Picard's face when Data told him he was devolving into a lemur, or perhaps a pygmy marmoset. You could tell Patrick Stuart was thinking about kicking the writers in the nuts.

More nitpicking....Barclay was turning into a spider - Worf was turning into some kind of freakish Klingon monster. In any case, I unapologetically love this episode, wonky science and all...

Carry on!

[Kiros]

Any time a TV show set in Boston, NYC, DC, etc talks about highways. You see, these shows are all written in L.A., where there's such a thing as "the 5". Except, in the cities that the shows are set in, no one would ever say "the 90" or "the 95" or "the 695". It's a stupid little thing but it's great at jarring me right out of a conversation. Half the time the writers can't even be bothered to research "the pike", "the Merritt", or "the beltway".

[cerberus]

And you wouldn't have a DC running a squad of detectives. An equally idiotic model was in play in The District, where the Craig T. Nelson person was DC police chief and had his own little squad.

[Sir T-Cups]

I don't watch the show, nor have I ever seen an episode but.....

In NCIS, how come if the show is taking place in the Navy they rarely (if ever) wear uniforms? If I remember one thing about previews and such for JAG they were always in uni, these guys never seem to be.

Also, regardless if she's a tech or not, the Navy would never let weird punk girl dress and look like that.

Am I wrong in any of this?

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by InkBlot

My wife has spotted all kinds of probes on screen, which I've gotta say is pretty distracting for me as when we're watching ER or House, and the doctor's being all serious about, "there's very little chance that Bobby will survive this one," my wife is giggling to herself. When I shift my view askance she says, "they're looking at his heart with a liver probe!"

Heh, my Dad does this for planes and helicopters - not only in movies but IRL too. All the goddamn time. And not only by sight - the bastard knows them by sound alone. So what happens is, you'll be talking to him, and there's a low key, far away droning sound at the edge of hearing, immediately he'll cut you off mid-sentence.
- "Bell 206 !".
- "Oh ? Cool, dad. If you say so. It's not like I have a way of proving you wrong, is it ? Now, as I was saying..."
- "Bell 206 !"
- "Yes, you already said that."
- "But I was right ! Look, you can see it now, over there !" *excitedly points at minuscule speck of white on the horizon*
- Oh. Right, are you listening to me ? I'm saying...
- It's got a SuperSchmancy eleventy piston engine, 42 kajillion horsepower, did you know that ? And at 6 000 feet, it can...
- I'll be in my room, Dad.

He's been doing this Amazing Jane's Man act for as long as I've known him. 28 years and counting. It's *still* annoying as hell . For obvious reasons, you do *not* want to watch Blue Thunder, or an episode of Airwolf, or any kind of show that is remotely linked to something that flies with him in the room.

But anyhoo, what I came to say was that there's actually a much more egregious medical error on House. And every medical show on Earth. And one movie out of two as well. Everyone does it, to the point that newbie EMTs start doing it too even if they should know better : YOU DON'T DEFIBRILLATE A FLATLINING HEART !

Originally Posted by Lemur866

Counter-nitpick! Wolverine's adamantium claws could be scraping against his adamantium knucklebones, thus making this potentially plausible.

Counter-counter-nitpick ! Everyone knows Wolverine's claws go "Snikt !" !

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Sir T-Cups

I don't watch the show, nor have I ever seen an episode but.....

In NCIS, how come if the show is taking place in the Navy they rarely (if ever) wear uniforms? If I remember one thing about previews and such for JAG they were always in uni, these guys never seem to be.

Not wearing uniforms is deliberate; Gibbs and his team work for a nebulously-defined agency that is part of the Department of the Navy (as in the executive department that is part ofthe Department of Defense), but they are not naval officers; they are civilians. (Gibbs comes closest, as he is a marine veteran.) I expect the original intent was to differentiate NCIS from JAG, of which the former show is a spin-off and whose characters always wore uniforms.

[stargazer]

Pregnancy-related stuff. The West Wing was especially bad about that when

SPOILER:

Andy was pregnant -- they found out they were having twins before the first ultrasound? How on earth would they have known it was twins?

And the labor sequence was pretty silly, too, with the doctor predicting the babies would be out in 15 minutes without even doing a manual exam. It makes me assume that they also got a lot of the MS stuff wrong, since they couldn't get something simple and universal like pregnancy right.

[Sampiro]

I love 30 Rock, it's one of the shows that consistently makes me laugh out loud at least once an episode. That said---

Kenneth, the page, is from Stone Mountain, Georgia (the character, not the actor who plays him). He's portrayed as the ultimate hillbilly hick.

In reality Stone Mountain- while a small town (pop 7,145)- is half an hour from downtown Atlanta (which looks like this rather than this) and part of the metro area. Stone Mountain Park , while admittedly most famous for the enormous carved Confederates* on its face (begun by Gutzon Borglum of Rushmore fame) is a super popular recreation destination that gets tens of thousands of visitors every weekend and where parts of the '96 Olympics were held. There's no way somebody who grew up in Stone Mountain would be as Deliverance as Kenneth. (Now if he'd grown up in North Georgia- there really are hillbillies and super isolated areas there (though there are also a lot of $350,000 vacation houses and gourmet restaurants and tourist towns).

Not to be a total spoil sport- I think Kenneth's hysterical- but I wish they'd made him from somewhere less specific.

*As with so many southern cities they venerate Lee and Jackson and Davis even though Davis was hated at the end of the war and Lee & Jackson had squat to do with the Civil War history of the area.