Our TV Pet Peeves: 10 Things That Really Make Us Nuts
Have you ever been watching your favorite show, and then something just pops out at you as completely annoying and nonsensical, and now you’ve totally lost your focus and missed some important piece of dialogue? Well, we’re right there with you. After weeks and weeks of our discussions where someone noticed an irritating trend and wound up standing on their soapbox for a few minutes about it, we thought it was high time we air our grievances and share the outrage.
Listen up, Hollywood executives and show runners!
1. Reporters Who Don’t Record Their Interviews
Yes, yes, we see your notepad in your back pocket, and it does give you more of a badass detective vibe than pulling out your phone or a microcassette recorder would. The problem with using a notepad on TV is that a director will never show you frantically scribbling because the audience at home would only ever see the top of your head. That’s not exactly engaging (which is the other reason why writers record interviews — so they can better interact with their subjects in the moment). You may look cool, but you also look bad at your job. Case in point: Investigative reporter Jamie Campbell (Kristen Connolly), a character in CBS’s summer drama Zoo (premiering June 30). She both uses a notepad and starts interviewing her subject before pulling out her notepad. Presumably, Jamie, you need to quote people accurately — so use a recording device! — Mandi Bierly
2. The Coffee Is Never Hot (or There)
As someone who regularly burns his hands and spills coffee on his shirt while carrying to-go coffee cups, it irks me to see the way coffee is transported on TV: In containers that are so obviously empty. Don’t actors take any mime classes, so they could at least try and suggest that the empty venti they’re toting has some weight and might splash hot liquid? — Ken Tucker
3. Commercials for Next Weeks Episode… Airing in the Middle of the One You’re Watching
This problem mostly exists on cable channels, where they’ll do a second airing of a new episode shortly after the first. Admittedly, this problem often exists for me because I record too many things and have to watch a show like Finding Carter in the second go-round. Yes, if I hate this I should’ve watched the first time, but it’s still beyond annoying when the network (ahem, MTV) airs a promo for the following week smack in the middle of that second showing… and that teaser focuses on the big cliffhanger at the end of the episode I’m IN THE MIDDLE OF WATCHING! Um, spoilers! Not cool. Not cool, at all. — Breanne L. Heldman
4. Wrapped Gifts With Lids
When you wrap a gift for someone, do you take the top off the box and carefully wrap it separately from the rest of the package, so that it can be more easily removed? Of course you don’t! But this is how presents are bestowed by TV characters all the time. Even the laziest characters give impeccably-wrapped gifts with a handy, pre-wrapped top — not believable for a second. — K.T.
5. Nobody Has House Keys
TV-land (as opposed to TV Land) seems to have an open door policy. As in, everyone’s door is always open, allowing characters to just waltz in at opportune and inopportune moments. The loft that Jess and her buddies on New Girl call home, for example, might not as well even have a door the way folks come and go without ever having to look for their keys. Considering the semi-sketchy neighborhood they live in, you’d think a lock or two would be a good investment. — Ethan Alter
6. Bad Location Doubling
It may be one of the most acclaimed television shows on the air, but FX’s ‘80s spy serial is a chief offender of poorly substituting one location for another. Ostensibly set in Washington, D.C., and its surrounding suburbs (where I once lived), but mostly — and blatantly — filmed in and around New York City, specifically Brooklyn (where I live now), The Americans consistently jolts me out of its reality whenever I spot a familiar landmark that I know for a fact belongs in a 11218 location as opposed to 22046. Back in Season 1, for example, the show embarrassingly tried to pass off Brooklyn’s Prospect Park as a northern Virginia park. It’s gotten slightly better since then, but not enough for me to give the show a passing grade in the location department. — E.A.
7. Inappropriate Fruit Bowls
My frustration with fruit bowls on nearly every single TV show has many layers. For starters, I didn’t grow up with a bowl of fresh produce sitting in the middle of the kitchen table — ours was papier-maché — so a bowl full of bruiseless produce is decidedly foreign to me. It’s additionally ridiculous if said fruit sits in the kitchen of a 20-something in a major city. I don’t care how into health and wellness the character is, they’re not buying tons of apples and oranges that are just going to go bad in a few days when they can pick them up for 50 cents (or less!) across the street. It’s not going to happen. And don’t even get me started on all the fruit that’s somehow managed to stay ripe and perfect even when the homeowner has been gone for weeks. This was especially egregious on The Following when Ryan Hardy and crew visited the home of evil Daisy and Kyle Locke, and the green apples in their kitchen looked downright mouthwatering. Just, no. — B.L.H.
8. People Wearing Shoes Inside Their Home
Like most normal people, the first thing I do when I walk into my apartment is take off my shoes. The outside world is full of germs, dirt, and other hideous forms of contamination — and the soles of our shoes are ground zero. So why is it, then, that characters on TV always keep their filthy footwear on once they get inside? In the kitchen, on the couch, or — shudder — reclining on their beds, these characters don’t seem to mind spreading sole-borne contagion to all corners of their home. Yes, I understand that networks don’t want their shows filled with barefoot stars — but couldn’t the wardrobe department find a stylish pair of slippers? — Kristen Baldwin
9. The Only Thing People Cook Is Spaghetti
It was pointed out to me some time ago that the only dish film and TV characters seem capable of making is spaghetti, and ever since learning that, I’ve had a hard time unseeing just how many television dinner tables are a sea of carb-friendly pasta. It was the go-to dish for Megan Draper, who also occasionally used it to decorate the walls when Don annoys her. Whatever happened to a nice meatloaf? — E.A.
10. This Pachinko Machine!
I know I’m getting into the weeds here, but the pachinko machine in Caleb’s apartment on Pretty Little Liars makes me batty. Putting aside for a moment that the kid is barely out of high school and has his own apartment, why does he have this Japanese arcade game? And, while they vary in price on eBay (the best place to acquire one) from $75 to well over $1,500 depending on the year it was made, it seems odd and out of character, seeing as Caleb probably shouldn’t be spending that kind of money on décor and certainly has never been to Japan. I actually took this question straight to executive producer I. Marlene King, who wasn’t even sure what a pachinko machine was and certainly didn’t have much of an answer. “I think it’s just a cool thing that he has,” she said. “I don’t think it’s any part of the story.” — B.L.H.
