Things that grind your gears about shows/movies

Maester Chuk_sl said:

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.

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That really irritates me. It's especially bad after the show has aired and you're watching a torrent or on streaming. You basically get to rewatch scenes immediately.

One that I noticed the other day is random singing. This seems to happen in more serious drama type shows (mostly on the premium channels, since I don't watch network TV dramas). I don't watch your show for some random actor to start singing some shit song, and it makes it awkward; especially if it's a long one. Walking Dead did this at the beginning of the season. It was like a 3 minute song too. Fuck.

Cybsled_sl said:

"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).

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Yeah, previously on doesn't bother me. "Coming up" is the one that drives me nuts. Do we really need spoilers just a few minutes before the event happens? We're already watching the fucking show, you don't need to keep convincing us.

Heylel_sl said:

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.

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Amen to this one. I consider a lot of the other stuff mentioned to be minor annoyances. This one though has completely ruined countless shows. I really wish networks would look beyond the $$$ and show some integrity when it comes to their shows. Naive thinking on my end, but a man can dream. There is nothing wrong with shows only running 3-4 seasons tops. End them early, and on a high note.

Laugh tracks, shows that create arcs or include plots and drop/forget about them because they have no idea how to write or higher ups make them remove it, and the fact there isnt one show out there that doesnt have plot holes everywhere. Even shows like dexter ect that were great in the beginning still had plot holes everywhere

Every fucking show or movie that is filmed in Chicago makes it seem like there are El tracks running almost everywhere. Knock this shit off.

The thing that irks me about some "previously on" is it sometimes will spoil an episode. If they "previously on" a character or storyline you haven't seen for a season and a half, well gee guess who's going to be popping up on today's episode!

Bullets flying through the air in bullet time with no rifling marks on them.

I don't notice laugh tracks at all, unless someone points it out.
I don't mind coming soon, gives a break to get a drink.
I do hate the "next on..." in the middle of a show (Top Chef), are you so afraid of someone changing the channel (torrent so fuckit anyways)

The 555- number stuff is annoying, I wish they'd put real numbers in that had cool recordings or fuck it, even have studio interns answering. It would be awesome once in a while if the TV star answers!

Hate when they go from one side of big towns (I know) to another in 5 mins, but oh well 24 wouldn't be interesting if they really showed LA traffic.

Hate how the entire rating systems is setup, seems all kinds of fucked up that a bunch of bozos with written journals decide the fate of so many TV shows. Its fucking 2013, you should be able to tell exactly how many people are watching your shit and what kind of people they are. Fuck, ads don't even make much sense anymore with DVRs and torrents and Hulu and iTunes and all that stuff. Bring back the "Laramie Cigarettes presents... The Flintstones!" and Jed Clampett enjoying a cool refreshing Budweiser.

Oh yeah. Those coming ups are equally bad. The one at the beginning of a show is kinda alright because if you never watched a show its a good way to tell you what to expect. The "coming ups" they do before every break is an abomination. It also blatantly eats up the runtime of actual show. Another is when its a deceptive "coming up". Pawn stars is terrible for this. Often inserting dialogue and sound effects to make it more dramatic yet never occurs in the episode.

A new thing these shows are doing is having a commercial break then coming back for 30seconds then going right back into anothet 4 minute commercial breal.

Dial tones when people are hung up on, on fucking cell phones

Also phone related: The ESP every character always has about when a phone conversation is ended. They just hang up randomly with no closing dialog to or from the other person as if both sides just know when one of them will hang up.

Scenes that are needlessly hectic or just overdo it all the time. Shameless and The Newsroom did this all the time and it instantly turns me off 100% to the show. In Shameless, it happened every time every morning in the kitchen. 8-10 people packed in there, friends or random strangers strolling into the house at the same time, camera work like Cloverfield to try to make it seem more hectic. I get that the family is fucked up, but god damn that just makes me roll my eyes at the constant yet seamless chaos. For The Newsroom, and other movies and TV shows do this too- a big news story happens, and instantly the director tries to make everything fucking happen all at once; people run around aimlessly in the office to random stations, other people running around on their phones saying "Get me soandso get me soandso," one person running past another passing off a postit note or something, camera rolling past someone spinning in their chair toward the camera talking on the phone, etc. Its just so cheesy. I don't know how things work in a real newsroom, but I highly doubt it's anything like that. That sort of orchestrated chaos where a director tries to make an action scene out of an office or similar environment will instantly take me out of the movie or show.

Agraza_sl said:

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.

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I understand all this. I just find it kind of interesting how DVRs and DVDs never even enter the equation since that's how those shows are most often viewed. Lost may have been successful but there were plenty of other story driven shows that did just fine but that was never reflected in their ratings, so they were canceled prematurely.

Say what you will about anime but one strength I think it has over American television is storytelling. Most series have a set length and the creators have to fit a coherent story in that number of episodes. When it's over, the staff move onto other projects. There's none of that dragging a show on just because it has good ratings.

Pretty much all gun use outside of Archer.

TV/Movies would have you believe there's no debilitating sound or recoil from any gun. Or the insane accuracy of people who have the worst mechanics known to man.

Adam Sandler.

Forced sentimentality. Fuck you, Hollywood. Make something explode.

I want a 40 round pistol magazine as seen in most movies/tv shows. Also, bad guys who can't shoot. This shit wouldn't bother me if movies/tv show were aiming for fight scenes as art/wwe, but it's when they try to be pseudo-realistic about combat that it bugs me.

The funny thing is, the bad guys not being able to shoot is probably more accurate. The only exception might be when there are 30 of them laying down fine and they can't hit anything.

It's a lot harder to hit a moving target than entertainment makes it seem. Even harder still with something with a short barrel like a handgun.

Just to give you an example, we were at a range and had 3 240B's set up. Some deer decided to run across the range about 200-250 meters out. 3 guys with fucking machine guns couldn't hit a fucking moving deer. Although, we did have another range where we ended up killing like a dozen in one morning. But still, that's in a unit that did a fuckton of shooting.

As far as the handgun thing, despite the huge amount of rounds I've shot, I would still have a hard time with something like a headshot at 50+ meters. When the target is an entire body, sure, but hitting something that small? Good luck. That's also why snipers don't aim for the head (not that I've ever been a sniper), the target is tiny.