What is extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life?

[nearwildheaven]

One of the later episodes of “Madam Secretary” involved a man who was doing research in Siberia, and caught smallpox from a thawed peat bog. I have no idea if smallpox could even be transmitted that way, but in any case, he was “quarantined” in a plain old ICU room right down the street from her office, and she just walked right up to his window and visited him. IRL, if there was a known case of smallpox anywhere on earth, if you think we’re in lockdown now…

The man died, but AFAIK did not transmit the disease to anyone else.

I once heard an interview with a trauma surgeon who was consulted by a TV or movie producer because they wanted to know how a person with a lacerated liver would act. He replied that they would lie as still as possible, because the injury is very painful and movement exacerbates it, so what happened in the show? Mm-hmm, you guessed it - the person is thrashing around and screaming.

[Morgyn]

Most of the time (but not all of it), the brass in B5 stayed in the C and C.

Ivanova led one of the fighter wings when the station was attacked by Earth Forces after withdrawing, but that was mostly to encourage the other pilots and let them know that they weren’t being hung out to dry. Ivanova and Sheridan were commanding White Stars on occasion (especially when they only had the one) but were, again, mostly not in combat until the final showdowns with the Shadows and with the Clark Earth gov. (IIRC, it’s been a while since I watched, and I really need to again now that it’s on HBO Max.)

When they did leave B5, it was more often on diplomatic missions where you had to have someone high ranking, such as Ivanova going out out to recruit one of the Elder Races, or when it was something special, like Sheridan going to Z’ha’dum, or the trip down to the Great Machine, or the trip(s) out to B4.

[MrDibble]

@epbrown

A new one I think we’ll see more of. In “Avengers: Endgame” Tony Stark comes roaring up the drive of the Avengers compound after the gang fails at making time travel work. Except Stark is driving an all-electric Audi E-tron, so the Ferrari engine noises don’t work…
But I can see directors not wanting dramatic entrances and car chases ruined by silent-running electrics.

That’s not just directors, though…

[wolfpup]

Doctors whose practice seems to have only one patient, or perhaps two, to whom they are completely devoted and seem to spend all their time with them, even their personal time – e.g.- Marcus Welby, MD. I often wondered how ol’ Marcus ever made any money. I assumed he was independently wealthy and was just doctorin’ as a sort of fun hobby.

[PatrickLondon]

An angry/thwarted/disappointed person (usually male) sweeping everything off any available horizontal surface (usually after an interlocutor has left the room).

[icon]

Someones parent/sibling/friend arrives just in time to see them perform. Maybe just seconds before, or just as they walk onto the stage. And of course in such a way as to be seen by the performer.

In real life, if you are late, you usually get seated way in the back (if they let you in) and with the minimum amount of noise so as not to disrupt anything. And you can’t really poke your head through the curtain to look anyway. You often can only see half the audience when you are backstage until you get on stage, and then if there is a spotlight, good look noticing anyone in the audience unless it is lit (which it usually isn’t).

//i\\

[Little_Nemo]

@Mangetout

@RivkahChaya

I don’t remember what the show was, but the plot was that someone needed an antidote within an hour of ingesting a poison, and they played it out in real time, with a clock in the corner of the TV screen-- got the antidote with something like 3 minutes to spare, and the victim was fine within seconds of taking it. That’s some alimentary system he’s got. Maybe it was absorbed from his stomach right into his bloodstream. I guess it didn’t occur to anyone on the writing staff that it would have been slightly more believable if someone had injected it, or hurriedly jammed an IV into the guy, but oh well.

Yeah, I think I might have seen exactly that one.
There was an episode of some series (again, I forget the details) where the protagonists were trying to protect some ex-criminal so he could testify, except the guy got shot in the abdomen. A handy nearby doctor said the guy would bleed to death in an hour, but it was OK, because they managed to get him to the door of the hospital in about 58 minutes.

Part of the humor is that whenever these doctors are able to set an exact amount of time that a patient has, it’s always a conventional amount of time like sixty minutes or forty-eight hours. You never see a tv/movie doctor saying “This patient will die in exactly two hundred and fourteen minutes unless we get him to a hospital!”

[blabbermeister]

In my school, only a few kids ever ran for class president. In TV sitcoms every single child runs for class president at some point during their school years. (or class treasurer sometimes, for a clever plot twist).

[bump]

Sure, but part of that was because 90% of the action on B5 actually took place ON B5. They did have Keffer being a sort of squadron commander type character in (I think) S2, but otherwise most of the action took place on the station itself, or if it was elsewhere the characters from there were in the thick of it- Londo and Vir in most Centauri Prime scenes, and so on.

I’ve just always thought that it would be more interesting to have less focus on the large-scale decision makers, and more on the doers of the work in an action-type show. Cop shows do it all the time actually, by focusing less on the police chief and mayor, and a lot more on the beat cops, detectives and lower-level leadership (sergeants & lieutenants). Something similar in a sci-fi show would be interesting I think- it would set up for multiple sources of conflict- generally short-term sci-fi conflict, and longer-term interpersonal/interorganizational conflict.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@Dallas_Jones

You are suspended for several days, or weeks, some times with pay, sometimes not. Every time a police officer even draws his weapon is a big deal. If he/she actually fires it, it is a much bigger deal. Draw that weapon, fire that weapon, and die under the paper work.

But still, even if you outright murder an unarmed, prone man on camera, you still get to keep your job, then get a medical retirement (because of PTSD! talk about chutzpah!) and a pension.

Shooting of Daniel Shaver

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@bump

while Picard and Riker eat lunch and follow up with department heads would be totally dull.

Paperwork! (Electron-work?)

Riker, as XO, has to do the performance reviews of everyone on ship, doesn’t he? That’s over 1000 people. That means he must, on average, do nearly three reviews a day, every day.

I guess the days he just spends slogging through 30 reviews at a time (to catch up) aren’t as visually exciting as boffing space babes.

[RivkahChaya]

@Little_Nemo

Part of the humor is that whenever these doctors are able to set an exact amount of time that a patient has, it’s always a conventional amount of time like sixty minutes or forty-eight hours.

I think doctors do talk like that-- the same way bottles of medication say to take a pill every four hours, or 12 hours, but “four” means more like 3 to 6, and 12 really means “twice a day, and more or less that same time.”

Yes, I know there are a few medications that really do need to be taken at exact times, but those are not MOST medications.

At any rate, when the doctor says “You have 24 hours to get the antidote,” they don’t mean “You’ll be perfectly fine if you get it in 23 hours and 59 minutes, at which point it will work instantaneously, but in 24 hours and one minute, you will be stone cold dead.”

Also, I’ve seen so many shows where a poisoning victim is along for the search for the person who poisoned him, helping the police track the person down, or else helping track down the antidote, which is somehow a police matter, either because it’s hidden somewhere, in in possession of the poisoner.

IRL, personnel at the hospital would be trying to track down an antidote, while you would be an in patient, getting fluids, dialysis, general antidotes to things that would hopefully either buy more time, or reduce that damage to you to possible residua, like kidney damage, nerve damage, whatever, but saving your life.

I doubt there are very many poisons, other than very quick-acting ones, where doctors throw up their hands. Even when there’s a very specific and good antidote that is unfortunately difficult to get, there are always going to be other things to try for a poison that is not very fast-acting.

[Dewey_Finn]

@Just_Asking_Questions

Riker, as XO, has to do the performance reviews of everyone on ship, doesn’t he? That’s over 1000 people. That means he must, on average, do nearly three reviews a day, every day.

That seems unlikely. Does the executive officer on board a US Navy ship of a thousand do everyone’s performance review? Or is that why there is a hierarchy? On board the Enterprise, I expect the department heads to do the performance reviews of those under their command, so Chief Red Shirt does the performance reviews of the disposable flunkies. (Not Red Shirt Number 5, of course. We lost him in the last away mission.)

[Ashtura]

Probably talking fondly about your wife and kids and then getting immediately killed? Eh, maybe that does happen quite a bit.

[Author_Balk]

I’ve been re-watching Cheers. They will have random people walking around, including moving in front of the main characters talking to each other. This made me realize that in most shows people in bars and restaurants stay in their seats. Nobody comes in or leaves.

[Mangetout]

@RivkahChaya

I doubt there are very many poisons, other than very quick-acting ones, where doctors throw up their hands. Even when there’s a very specific and good antidote that is unfortunately difficult to get, there are always going to be other things to try for a poison that is not very fast-acting.

As I understand it, whilst there are such things as antodotes for certain specific poisons, the list is pretty short. Most poisons probably don’t just have something that will simply cancel them out.

[GreaterZamboni]

I apologize if this has been mentioned already (I didn’t see it, but I could have missed it).

Weekly murder sprees that are not alarming but are instead taken as par for the course at various locations (US Navy bases on NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans & NCIS: Los Angeles, San Francisco {Monk & Nash Bridges}, Sparta MS {In the Heat of the Night}, Las Vegas {CSI}, Cabot Cove ME {Murder She Wrote}, Washington DC {Scandal}), etc etc etc.

[Loach]

@GreaterZamboni

I apologize if this has been mentioned already (I didn’t see it, but I could have missed it).

Weekly murder sprees that are not alarming but are instead taken as par for the course at various locations (US Navy bases on NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans & NCIS: Los Angeles, San Francisco {Monk & Nash Bridges}, Sparta MS {In the Heat of the Night}, Las Vegas {CSI}, Cabot Cove ME {Murder She Wrote}, Washington DC {Scandal}), etc etc etc.

Or every town in the UK if you go by British crime shows. Sleepy little Oxfordshire is awash with blood every week.

[not_what_you_d_expect]

I just watched a movie last night and the main character was shot with an arrow so he went home and pulled it out and stitched himself up. No anesthesia or antibiotics in sight.

I’ve never known anyone in real life who has done this, but I see it a lot in movies.

[Lumpy]

Regarding away teams, I thought the premise of the hands-on Captain was supposed to harken back to the age of sail when the Captain (or at least the first Lieutenant) would be the leader of shore parties.

Regarding police shootings, I remember that one episode of Miami Vice had someone from Internal Affairs criticizing Det. Sonny Crockett for how many shootings he’d racked up. Crockett responded by pointing out that an undercover detective working to take down Columbian drug cartels isn’t exactly in the same position as a uniform doing patrol for twenty years.