Things that grind your gears about shows/movies

When characters act completely irrationally just to fit the plot lines the writers have come up with.

Bridge Burner_sl said:

Maybe you can say Watson on Sherlock.

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You mean Watson on Elementary right?

My big issue is too much exposition, especially in dialogue. Shows like CSI use it for upwards of 50% of the dialogue. A common example would be, two detectives get a case at the office, and then next scene, they're arriving at the destination by car. They just now begin to talk about the case for the benefit of the audience (exposition) as they travel to the suspect/witness's door. What were they doing during the car ride? Nothing apparently. All the bad shows are full of this stuff.

By contrast, in Pulp Fiction when Tarantino has his two thugs (Jackson and Travolta) go intimidate debtors to a crime boss, they talk about trivial shit in the car and then proceed to do their job. They don't mention the job. They just DO the job. We get to watch without having it summarized beforehand. Their skill at their job and quality of their partnership is implied by the fact that they don't have to go over their methods.

Comic book movies use origin stories to provide too much exposition, and it generally makes them dull. The Dark Knight has very little origin and is completely superior to every other comic book movie. These two facts are related.

Bridge Burner_sl said:

Right now I don't think there is a single non idiot woman on TV. They are terrible. Maybe you can say Watson on Sherlock. They are just all insufferable right now. I hate them all.

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Leslie Knope!

Or Beckett on Castle.

Previously, on this show...

We know what happened previously on the show because we obviously watch the fucking show.

Supposedly incredibly intelligent people doing the most stupid fucking shit imaginable. Example: Every single second of Prometheus.

Writers having not having the balls to really do anything with their show / movie.


Producers feeling like they need to change characters names / scenes / whatever to attract different audiences or dumb something down.
eg. America getting a show or movie from another country and all of the character's names have a vegetable theme now instead of their regular names!

clapping scenes.

Soygen_sl said:

TV: Laugh-tracks.

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Biggest complaint I agree with so far.

Biggest thing I dislike is when the movie/show treats the audience like an idiot; like they only remember what has happened in the past 10 minutes. Skyfall for example. What about the list of agents? What happened to that story arc? You know, the entire premise for the fucking film. It was never resolved or even mentioned after halfway through the film. Dexter is guilty of this a lot as well.

Flank_sl said:

Previously, on this show...

We know what happened previously on the show because we obviously watch the fucking show.

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i hate that shit. its basically a commercial inside the show. a commercial for their own condescension towards the audience.

Judge Dredd not doing well at the box office.

See, I don't mind the "previously on" stuff sometimes because I tend to watch in chunks, so it might be a month or two since I saw the previous episode. A quick reminder of what's been happening on Boardwalk Empire is useful sometimes.

My biggest pet peeve with TV and movies is the lack of onfull penetration.

"previously on...." serves two purposes: to help newcomers to
a show not feel 100% lost if they didn't see previous shows and to help refresh the memories of people with shitty memories. Considering how many nitpicks I see for shit that was previously addressed on the show, I'm guessing that is a prime reason (exhibit A: Chuk).

oh you mean that "previously on..."? i thought we were talking about the shit they pull every commercial break. something happens then cut to a long ass commercial break then we come back and they rewind the scene back like a minute so they can remind us dummies who have short term memory loss what happened 5 minutes ago. they do this every break and the commercials themselves last about 4 or 5 minutes so when you filter in all the breaks and rewinds you end up with around 35 minutes of show in an hour episode.

the "previously on.." at the beginning of a show is ok but they do sometimes tend to go on for too long before the show starts. Dexter is really bad for this. between the long ass opening intro and the long as fuck "previously on dexter" its sometimes like 5 minutes before the fucking show starts

One thing that kind of bugs me about most TV shows is how there's little to no overarching plot. Most episodes are pretty much self-contained with there only being the occasional reference or episode tying it to a larger plot. Then related to that, they rarely ever make a show with a defined end in mind. Most shows are structured so that they can continue indefinitely if the ratings warrant it. Trying to tell a compelling story seems to always be a secondary concern.

Yea, there was a wave of huge story arc type shows when Lost made it big, but many of them failed so they returned to the episode stands alone model which was common before. They do this because a lot of people don't follow a show week to week, and have trouble remembering the details of the prior week. But they more commonly weave in a vaguely dire story arc now than they did before because of the success of shows like Lost in providing a mystery that isn't resolved to keep certain people returning to the show.

At least that's the gist of an article I read a while back. Lost isn't really the genesis of any of this, it was just a milestone in market success that inspired copycats.

No proper car sounds, screeching tires and endless shifts. Or when they floor it... again and again. It's retarded.

Elurin_sl said:

When characters act completely irrationally just to fit the plot lines the writers have come up with.

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This is my biggest pet peeve by far. It's what has taken Sons of Anarchy from being a fun, goofy retelling of Shakespeare right into the shitter next to Dexter, Californication and Weeds.

Actually that's my other big annoyance: networks that refuse to kill shows until they've wrung every last bit of good will out of the audience and tarnished the earlier, better seasons. Basically, the Showtime business model.