# Things you would \*like\* to see in a movie or TV show **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2006, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756 "2006-10-24T21:16:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/21 "2006-10-25T01:43:23Z")
Robert Redford with a slightly matronly, slightly _overweight_ wife or lover of retirement age. (He came close once, but she was on the thin side.) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/22 "2006-10-25T01:51:13Z")
I too would like to see labs represented more realistically in hospital dramas. “House” is particularly bad for this - not only do doctors not run their own lab tests, they wouldn’t be _allowed_ to run their own lab tests. Every hospital has a laboratory and laboratory technologists - these are the specialists at running lab tests. The doctors order tests, the lab techs take the specimens in the manner in which the specific test must be collected (and it is _specific_, down to how to swab the arm and which anti-coagulant to use), they run the tests, and they report the results to the doctors. But maybe they have a special lab just for their special team of doctors. Yeah, that’s it - that’s the ticket. A lab where they can see blood chemistries by looking at a sample under the microscope. Hee. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/23 "2006-10-25T02:01:31Z")
I’d like to see the typical cop show scene where the cool young cop goes into a strip joint and sits down to talk with an informant. Onstage nearby a scantily dressed stripper is doing her thing. The camera focuses on the cop at first, but gradually its attention is drawn to the stripper, until it is doing nothing but watching the stripper. The cop and the informant try to get the camera’s attention, but it’s only got lenses for the stripper. Finally we “see” the cop leaving the strip club, but we don’t really see him because the camera’s lens is focussed longingly on the strip club as it and the cop move away. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/24 "2006-10-25T02:05:05Z")
I would love to see people actually wear seatbelts! It boggles my mind the extraordinary lack of seatbelt wearing on TV and in movies. I’m so used to putting on my seatbelt when I get in a car that I’m sure I would reflexivly do so even if I was just acting out a scene. You would think the production companies would do so as a public service, and also for their own insurance policies. But more importantly, the lack of seatbelt comes across to me as a glaring non-reality that immediatly takes me out of the show. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/25 "2006-10-25T02:29:13Z")
[QUOTE=Aesiron] What character went through extensive changes in the half-season \*Firefly \*was on the air? And ignoring _Serenity_, who besides Mal was ever really given the spotlight? [/QUOTE] Actually those were Babylon 5. Firefly was the rest of that request. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/26 "2006-10-25T02:37:09Z")
[QUOTE=jackdavinci] I’d like to see a time travel series planned out in advance, with times revisited over the course of the series, such that each season brings new twists on what happened in certain scenes as they are revisted by the time traveller again. [/QUOTE] They did this to some degree in **Futurama** with Nibbler’s shadow. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/27 "2006-10-25T02:56:51Z")
[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou] The characters of Wesley and Cordelia evolved in radical ways. [/QUOTE] Yeah I actually thought of them after I started writing that, and considered adding “you know, besides Joss Whedon stuff and B5”. That said, I’d still like to see it done in more conventional (non fantasy) dramas. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/28 "2006-10-25T03:03:55Z")
[QUOTE=Scarlett67] **Quantum Leap** did this to some extent. [/QUOTE] I was actually specifically thinking of QL as the counter-example! lol I was thinking of something more a long the lines of Back To The Future 2 where Marty relives the same time period from another perspective, and we get to see that he has caused some of the occurances that we didn’t know the reason for the first time around. Granted there were a couple of episodes where Sam goes back in time and affects his own future (even after making a big stink to Al about not being able to save his marriage because that would be personal gain). ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/29 "2006-10-25T03:46:20Z")
Here’s a question that this thread brought to mind: most of what’s been described here is relatively easy to do without sacrificing much to dramatic necessity. But how much are you willing to sacrifice for realism? How far do you want a show to go in that regard? (And as an aside, I’ve seen some folks argue that turning away from “the moment of cliche,” as someone else put it, is in ITSELF a cliche, as the “cheap plot twist” or whatever. What to do, what to do…) ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/30 "2006-10-25T03:55:28Z")
Sam and Dean on _Supernatural_, and… well… CW Network, you _do_ maintain a full-frontal nudity policy, don’t you? That aside, a complete and utter moratorium on the laugh track, an episode of _Lost_ where everybody actually sits down (around a campfire, or whatever) and tallies up what they know, and a _Good Omens_ movie. In no particular order. ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/31 "2006-10-25T04:06:51Z")
[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou] Arrested Development did this in Season 3. They were turning on the news to look for a particularly breaking story, but just like in real life, it didn’t come on right as they turned the TV on. A caption read “20 minutes later…” and the news story finally came on, much to everyone’s relief. [/QUOTE] I can’t remember what this was, I just remember a guy counting down, looking at his watch, then resetting it after it was a few seconds early. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/32 "2006-10-25T04:32:30Z")
I’d like to see people cough and have stuff in their teeth. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/33 "2006-10-25T05:36:10Z")
I want someone to lose their faith…and have it stay lost. I want to see a someone mowing down robot minions/foot soldiers…until one throws down it’s weapon and tries to beg for it’s life. I want to see the good guys shooting down some supervillain’s fighter squadron…Character on the ground: “One…two, no three…four…four chutes. Four parachutes.” “So?” “Pilot…co-pilot…” ::crash explosion in distance:: “gunner…” Something like that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/34 "2006-10-25T06:42:04Z")
I _don’t_ want lessons. I’m tired of treacly little messages like “stop working so hard and spend more time with the wife 'n kids” or “you must have some sort of faith\* to be a whole person” or “you need to understand that people are different” or “drugs are bad, m’kay?” any hundreds of other messages that are pounded in, even by the best of them, in a misguided attempt at character development. A particularly egregious example is the slate of NBC comedies in the early-mid 1980’s: _Different Strokes_, _Facts of Life_, etc. I can’t believe that shows like that are gone, they’re just on channels and times that I don’t watch anymore. \*And I don’t mean religious, I mean anything in which the lesson is “a person who doesn’t believe in something is incomplete or flawed” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/35 "2006-10-25T07:50:58Z")
I’d like to see people order something in a restaurant/cafe, then _stay to consume it_. Why don’t the staff run after them screaming when they order coffee and breakfast, chat amongst themselves for a bit, then walk off? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/36 "2006-10-25T08:56:40Z")
[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou] Arrested Development did this in Season 3. They were turning on the news to look for a particularly breaking story, but just like in real life, it didn’t come on right as they turned the TV on. A caption read “20 minutes later…” and the news story finally came on, much to everyone’s relief. [/QUOTE] “Now just imagine how shocking that would’ve been if it had come on right away!” ---
**Author:** ![Lobelia\_Overhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/37 "2006-10-25T13:46:21Z")
I’d like for people on TV/in the movies to not be able to find a parking space when they drive to somewhere… For them to make a phone call and _gasp_ dial a wrong number… For women not to have a half a dozen friends whom they phone and visit every five minutes ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/38 "2006-10-25T14:59:23Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Well, for a lot of that you just have to seek out Joss Whedon and J. Michael Straczynski. I want to see weaponry that actually works and impacts like real weaponry. /QUOTE] So, which is it? Cause you don’t get both realistic weaponry and Whedon- note especially the whole “guns won’t fire in a vacuum” scene. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/39 "2006-10-25T15:19:44Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] So, which is it? Cause you don’t get both realistic weaponry and Whedon- note especially the whole “guns won’t fire in a vacuum” scene. [/QUOTE] For what it’s worth, as has been discussed before, they actually consulted a supposed expert on this one, and it was the expert that said that. So, they at least tried for authenticity. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Bongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Winston\_Bongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Bongo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756/40 "2006-10-25T15:39:52Z")
[QUOTE=Lobelia Overhill] For them to make a phone call and _gasp_ dial a wrong number… [/QUOTE] Yeah, but then for the rest of the show you’d be wondering, “What was the significance of the mistaken phone call?” If it was only there for realism, and had no effect on the story or characters, it would just call attention to itself and be distracting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-would-like-to-see-in-a-movie-or-tv-show/377756.md?page=3)