History RealityIsUnrealistic / LiveActionTV

* The game show ''Series/{{QI}}'' (hosted by Creator/StephenFry) lives and ''breathes'' this trope. For example: Jesus probably wasn't born December 25; there are words that rhyme with "orange", "purple" and "silver"; goldfish have respectable memories; and [[Funny/{{QI}} they say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is]], that there are no straight lines... though they later admitted ''that'' wasn't actually true.

* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' took flak for a murder attempt in "The Sign of Three". Audiences saw it as too far-fetched in "The Sign of Three": an extremely sharp and narrow blade is used to stab through the very tight belt of a military dress uniform, which acts as a pressure bandage and prevents the victim from bleeding noticeably until the belt is removed hours later. Both attempted murders fail, as even once the belt is removed the bleeding is slow enough to be stopped by prompt medical attention. The method is very similar to the ''successful'' real-life [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria#Assassination assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria]]. The Empress' extremely tight corset impeded circulation so much that she survived for about half an hour after ''being stabbed through the heart'' because blood didn't enter the pericardial sac until the lacing was cut to allow her to breathe more freely.

-->'''Backer''': The bottom line is [[BorrowedCatchphrase I don't believe it]].
* On ''Series/PairOfKings'', the protagonists are a pair of twins, one black and one white, born to a mixed race couple. Though it is rare, this has been known to happen. The complex genetics of skin colour allow a wide range of skin and hair colours in siblings.
* The game show ''Series/{{QI}}'' (hosted by Creator/StephenFry) lives and ''breathes'' this trope. For example: Jesus probably wasn't born December 25th; there are words that rhyme with "orange", "purple" and "silver"; goldfish have respectable memories; and [[Funny/{{QI}} they say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is]], that there are no straight lines... though they later admitted ''that'' wasn't actually true.

-->'''Les''': Now, I know what you're thinking: "Ah, come on! That looks set up!"

* While police dramas or dramedies featuring police consultants like ''Series/{{Psych}}'', ''Series/{{Castle}}'', ''Series/TheMentalist'', and ''Series/WhiteCollar'' do play with the boundaries of reality, they're not quite as unrealistic as one would initially believe. Real police departments, military organizations and government agencies hire consultants all the time, prime real life example being [[Film/CatchMeIfYouCan Frank Abignale]], who after several years as one of the world's greatest conmen, was hired onto the FBI as a consultant and stayed for decades. Other examples include military embedded reporters, film crews who follow real police around, and laypeople with special skills hired or consulted by police in solving particularly difficult cases.

* Some people had some issues with Geraldine's theology throughout TheVicarOfDibley, and setting aside the fact that this is a comedy show, the Church of England is a very broad church (pun intended) when it comes to this kind of thing. Some churches are more evangelical and fundamentalist (in either the older or more contemporary meanings) whilst others are much more theologically liberal. Geraldine seems to be in the middle, being orthodox when it comes to the core beliefs but more liberal with some of the other bits.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' is often criticised for FashionDissonance concerning its [[SeventiesHair plethora of perms]]. No one on the show actually had permed hair besides Jan Chappell -- Gareth Thomas and Steven Pacey were just very naturally curly.

** "Force of Nature starts what appears to be a story-arc about Federation warp drives causing damage to the fabric of space when they travel at higher velocities. This leads to the imposition of a speed-limit on Federation vessels which is mentioned a few times and then never again. According to WordOfGod the cause of the problem was discovered and some in-place modifications were made to all warp drives to stop it from happening. Environmentally conscious fans screamed "cop out!" over this, but this is more or less what really happened with the issue of holes in the ozone layer.

* The television show ''Series/TheNanny'' featured Niles the British butler working for British Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield. The show would repeatedly get fan mail suggesting that Creator/DanielDavis, who plays Niles and [[FakeBrit is from Arkansas]], coach Creator/CharlesShaughnessy, who played Maxwell and who is (a) from London, and b) [[RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething an honest-to-god member of the British aristocracy]]) to make his accent more believable.

** This criticism was also aimed at Mira Furlan, who played Delenn using her native Croatian accent, leading detractors of the show to complain that the character's accent sounded "fake". Similarly with the new Earth Alliance president late in season 4; like Furlan, the actress used her real accent (Polish) and many viewers complained that it sounded fake. With the new president, though, viewers did at least have one point in their favor; the actress was supposed to be portraying a ''Russian'' character--and though both Polish and Russian are Slavic languages, the accents sound ''very'' different. So, real accent... just not a real ''Russian'' accent.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' is often criticised for FashionDissonance concerning its [[SeventiesHair plethora of perms]]. No one on the show actually had permed hair besides Jan Chappell - Gareth Thomas and Steven Pacey were just very naturally curly.

** Theodore Gray, a scientist who built a coffee table in the shape of the Periodic Table - and filled it with samples of all the elements he can feasibly get hold of - was pissed at this and has demonstrated all the stable alkali metals in water, as shown [[http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/AlkaliBangs/index.html here]]. He also says that if you want to have some REAL fun... try dropping a two-pound block of sodium into a lake and timing how long it takes to fall back down, and explode again... and again... it's on the same page, under 'Sodium Party'.

** Similarly, some fans complained about Glenn Quinn's Irish accent on ''Series/{{Angel}}''. Quinn was, of course, Irish - and doing his best to tone ''down'' his accent so American viewers would understand him.

** This is also a LampshadeHanging on the fact that Michael has his actor's Massachusetts accent, despite growing up in South Florida, which doesn't seem all that likely, either. However (believe it or not), it is far from unheard-of for born-and-bred Floridians to exhibit their parents' accents--for instance, Creator/DavidFosterWallace reported (in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again") a group of four unrelated native-born South Floridians with distinctive Noo Yawk accents despite never having lived there in their lives...but their ''parents'' had. Now, Madeleine Westen doesn't have that accent, but we've never heard from his father (him being dead and all)...

*** The wording on the "Pull To Open" sign during the late Classic Series and the entire pre-Thirteenth Doctor Modern Series is also incorrect - the correct wording is "Respond To Urgent Calls", but this hasn't stopped modern non-Who police boxes from using the "Respond To All Calls" versions due to how well known that version has become.

** During the making of the episode "The Watchers on the Wall", D.B. Weiss thought Jon Snow's movements as he entered the epic battle scene were sped up in editing and requested that he be slowed back down--only to be told that Kit Harington really ''was'' moving that fast.

** One scene that gets a lot of complaints is a part where an Iraqi AA gun ambushes the Marines' humvees as they're driving down the highway. The common complaint is that the AA gun should have ripped apart the Marines' column before they could have taken cover, let alone return fire or direct a helicopter after the gun. In reality, this event actually happened almost exactly like it did in the show - except that unlike in the show, they were being fired upon with ''explosive'' ammunition, and there were Iraqi mortars bombarding the column too. Not only was this mentioned in the ''Literature/GenerationKill'' book, but 1st Lieutenant Nathan Fick's own autobiography ''One Bullet Away'' verifies it further.

** There's a joke where Marshall talks about there being [[MonochromeCasting no minorities in Minnesota]] other than Music/{{Prince}}. While it may not seem like it, Minnesota does have sizable black populations in many areas, with there even being a section of Minneapolis dubbed "Little Mogadishu" due to its sizable Somalian immigrant community. That said, this was a joke about stereotypes, and in smaller towns in the state, it's closer to the truth- but incidentally ''not'' where Marshall is from (St. Cloud, which has a higher percentage of black residents than the Minneapolis- St. Paul metro area-about 7% vs. about 6%, although not as much as Minneapolis or St. Paul themselves- which hover around 60% white and 15% black).

* Any mention of the character of Spearchucker Jones on ''Series/{{MASH}}'' - including multiple pages on this very Wiki - inevitably includes the "fact" that he was written out when producers were told no black surgeons served in Korea. ''M*A*S*H'' is based on a real unit, the 8055th, which did indeed have an African-American surgeon on staff.

* Similarly parodied in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''. While filming "Scott of the Antarctic" on an English beach, the crew cover up the sand with white foamy mats, which supposedly, "on screen, look more like snow than snow!"
* At the end of the first season of ''Series/MrSelfridge'', Harry Selfridge’s wife tells him she has been diagnosed with a fatal heart condition; she is gone when the second season starts. In real life, she died in the flu epidemic of 1918. But if the character had disappeared between seasons, with a “she died of the flu” explanation, viewers would surely have assumed the actress left without warning and the writers had to scramble for an explanation.

* In the early days of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'', Jason Alexander complained to Creator/LarryDavid of the way George was written, saying that ''no'' person could possibly sink so low as to do some particular thing, that it was completely unrealistic for one person to be that selfish and stupid. Larry informed him that he himself HAD done that very same thing in real life. This changed how Jason saw the character when he realized it is possible for a person to sink that low. Also lampshaded in an episode of ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm''--playing himself, Jason complains to Larry that he always gets typecast as schmucks and assholes because of George. Larry asks what he meant, Jason says something like "Well come on, George was an asshole! He did [lists off various misdeeds of George]" to which Larry angrily replies "''I'' did those things!!!"

** A common source of snickering about the show is that [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent Picard is supposedly French, but speaks English with a British accent and not a French one]]. Creator/PatrickStewart is indeed British and not French, but it's common for French people who know English well enough to speak it in a British accent--Britain is, after all, the nearest English-speaking country to France. A French person speaking English with a British accent is no more unrealistic than is, say, a Mexican person who speaks English with an accent from the American south (and Picard only speaks French in ''one episode''). Even his visit home to France was everyone speaking English, since in the show's setting French had become regarded as a somewhat archaic language.

** Another version happens in season five's "The Real Ghostbusters": at a [[ItMakesSenseInContext haunted Supernatural convention]], a patron dressed as season one's Hookman ghost tells a group of real ghost-children, "You look nothing like real ghosts. Just telling you!" [[spoiler: Right before they kill him.]]

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E2DayOfTheMoon "Day of the Moon"]] were criticized by some fans because of the character of Carl Peterson, a black member of UsefulNotes/RichardNixon's security detail. While some people claimed this was an example of BlackVikings and PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad, it turns out that in real life Nixon ''did'' have at least one black agent.

* There were some viewers who complained about ''Series/SleepyHollow'' being "[[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad too PC]]" for having a black female cop as the lead character in such a small, largely-white town. In real life there ''is'' a black female cop in Sleepy Hollow, and she even ended up being interviewed over the controversy.

* ''Series/{{Bottom}}'' features a main character named Eddie Hitler, who proclaims himself a relative of [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler the infamous German Chancellor.]] Surely this must just be a piece of tasteless comedy! Actually... no. Adolf's older half-brother Alois Hitler Jr. actually emigrated to Liverpool, where he married a local woman named Bridget Dowling and had one child, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stuart-Houston William Patrick Hitler]]. William emigrated to the US, changed his last name and had no children, but the idea of a Hitler running around the UK is not outside the realm of probability.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''

* A common source of snickering about ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is that [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent Picard is supposedly French, but speaks English with a British accent and not a French one]]. Creator/PatrickStewart is indeed British and not French, but it's common for French people who know English well enough to speak it in a British accent--Britain is, after all, the nearest English-speaking country to France. A French person speaking English with a British accent is no more unrealistic than is, say, a Mexican person who speaks English with an accent from the American south (and Picard only speaks French in ''one episode''). Even his visit home to France was everyone speaking English, since in the show's setting French had become regarded as a somewhat archaic language.

* A common source of snickering about ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is that Picard is supposedly French, but speaks English with a British accent and not a French one. Patrick Stewart is indeed British and not French, but it's common for French people who know English well enough to speak it in a British accent--Britain is, after all, the nearest English-speaking country to France. A French person speaking English with a British accent is no more unrealistic than is, say, a Mexican person who speaks English with an accent from the American south (and Picard only speaks French in ''one episode''). Even his visit home to France was everyone speaking English, since in the show's setting French had become regarded as a somewhat archaic language.
** Of course if you get one to not speak in [[{{Pun}} lingua franca]].
** In recent years it's been increasingly common for British people to buy holiday or retirement homes in France. It's not impossible that Picard has an Anglo-French background.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':

** Melinda May's in-universe MemeticBadass status, and later Skye/Daisy Johnson's ActionGirl transformation is sometimes criticised for the lack of realism behind women who are, respectfully, 5'4 and 5'6, being capable of fighting men twice their size and against greater numbers. Putting aside that both women actually perform many of their own stunts (which have so far never suffered FightSceneFailure) so they ''are'' actually capable of the physical efforts they demonstrate, but also, it is ''entirely'' possible for a short-statured woman (or man; Creator/BruceLee himself was only 5'8) to be trained in combat to such an extent they're able to take on much heavier opponents; WeakButSkilled is generally the aim for martial arts training for lower weight class, focused on developing skills that can overcome shortcomings their physical stature may bring, especially against opponents who might not actually have any training when it comes to fighting smaller, faster opponents. Though it's still unrealistic that they can [[OneManArmy clear entire rooms of people on their own]], it's no more unrealistic than it would be for a 6'-something man to do, either.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' is often criticised for FashionDissonance concerning its [[SeventiesHair plethora of perms]]. No-one on the show actually had permed hair besides Jan Chappell - Gareth Thomas and Steven Pacey were just very naturally curly.

* The opening episode to the main series of the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' deals with how the fleet is just getting by with everyone being sleep-deprived from a relentless chase by the Cylons. During the table read, Edward James Olmos brought in a sleep-deprivation expert to consult with the cast to better inform how they would act for the episode. Olmos was convinced that people would be on the verge of suicide after five days of no sleep. The expert said everyone would just be really irritable after five days, much to Olmos's chagrin.

* The opening episode to the main series of the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' deals with how the fleet is just getting by with everyone being sleep-deprived from a relentless chase by the Cylons. During the table read, Edward James Olmos brought in a sleep-deprivation expert to consult with the cast to better inform how they would act for the episode. Olmos was convinced that people would be on the verge of suicide after five days of no sleep. The expert said everyone would just be really irritable after five days, much to Olmos' chagrin.

** Skye's character got a lot of criticism for several reasons in the pilot, among them being the fact that it was absurd a law enforcement agency like SHIELD would need a civilian hacker who had no formal training and had attacked their databases, or that someone who was homeless and living in her van would be [[MsFanservice so pretty]]. However, both are actually quite plausible; in real life, law enforcement agencies do tend to recruit criminal hackers, even if they've previously attacked said agency, due to the fact it's more practical to put them to good use than to lock them up and waste their skills. As for being pretty and homeless, Skye, being someone with a safe place to sleep (her van) and, as we learn later, a boyfriend who isn't homeless, Skye would be one of the 'invisible homeless', people who are technically homeless but live relatively comfortably thanks to owning a vehicle and having friends/family they're able to crash with when needed, giving them access to showers and personal hygiene.

** Skye's character got a lot of criticism for several reasons in the pilot, among them being the fact that it was absurd a law enforcement agency like SHIELD would need a civilian hacker who had no formal training and had attacked their databases, or that someone who was homeless and living in her van would be [[MsFanservice so pretty]]. However, both are actually quite plausible; in real life, law enforcement agencies do tend to recruit criminal hackers, even if they've previously attacked said agency, due to the fact its more practical to put them to good use than to lock them up and waste their skills. As for being pretty and homeless, Skye, being someone with a safe place to sleep (her van) and, as we learn later, a boyfriend who isn't homeless, Skye would be one of the 'invisible homeless', people who are technically homeless but live relatively comfortably thanks to owning a vehicle and having friends/family they're able to crash with when needed, giving them access to showers and personal hygiene.

* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' took flack for a murder attempt audiences saw as too far-fetched in "The Sign of Three": an extremely sharp and narrow blade is used to stab through the very tight belt of a military dress uniform, which acts as a pressure bandage and prevents the victim from bleeding noticeably until the belt is removed hours later. Both attempted murders fail, as even once the belt is removed the bleeding is slow enough to be stopped by prompt medical attention. The method is very similar to the ''successful'' real-life [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria#Assassination assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria]]. The Empress' extremely tight corset impeded circulation so much that she survived for about half an hour after ''being stabbed through the heart'' because blood didn't enter the pericardial sac until the lacing was cut to allow her to breathe more freely.

** Creator/JamesDoohan puts on an accent that supposedly sounds more Irish than Scottish (but not really much like either) in his role as Scotty. However, most Scots don't have a problem with his accent. Doohan ''was'' actually able to speak in a number of Scottish dialect accents accurately; he was asked not to by the producers, who were concerned that American audiences wouldn't be able to understand him.
* A common source of snickering about ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is that Picard is supposedly French, but speaks English with a British accent and not a French one. Patrick Stewart is indeed British and not French, but it's common for French people who know English well to speak it in a British accent--Britain is, after all, the nearest English-speaking country to France. A French person speaking English with a British accent is no more unrealistic than is, say, a Mexican person who speaks English with an accent from the American south (and Picard only speaks French in ''one episode.'' Even his visit home to France was everyone speaking English, since in the show's setting French had become a somewhat archaic language similar to Latin).

** Furthermore, Picard does not speak in what is Patrick Stewarts original Yorkshire accent ([[https://www.wimp.com/patrick-stewart-recites-a-poem-in-his-native-yorkshire-dialect/ seen here]]).

** "Force of Nature starts what appears to be a story-arc about Federation warp drives causing damage to the fabric of space when they travel at higher velocities. This leads to the imposition of a speed-limit on Federation vessels which is mentioned a few times and then never again. According to WordOfGod the cause of the problem was discovered and some in-place modifications were made to all warp drives to stop if from happening. Environmentally conscious fans screamed "cop out!" over this, but this is more or less what really happened with the issue of holes in the ozone layer.

** The character of [[MagnificentBastard Tywin Lannister]] was introduced skinning a stag. Viewers heartily criticised the silly fake stag and ridiculed the scene. It was a real freshly killed carcass and Creator/CharlesDance was actually skinning it on camera.
** During the making of the episode "The Watchers on the Wall," D.B. Weiss thought Jon Snow's movements as he entered the epic battle scene were sped up in editing and requested that he be slowed back down--only to be told that Kit Harington really ''was'' moving that fast.

** When they bust a Hollywood myth, like, say, BlownAcrossTheRoom, you can be almost certain that there will be a large portion of fans who clamor about having the myth re-tested because they're so used to seeing such myths on the media for so long that they have difficulty believing that real life won't live up to what they expect based on said myths.

* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/OneFootInTheGrave'', when a woman writes a play based on a typical day with the Meldrews... that is, a day when everything goes wrong and a few surreal things happen that [[RiddleForTheAges they never manage to figure out]]. Her backer protests that there isn't a proper story, and it's not convincing.

* On ''Series/PairOfKings'', the protagonists are a pair of twins born to a mixed race couple; one black and one white. Though it is rare, this has been known to happen.

** Creator/StevenMoffat mentioned during a panel at the summer edition of the 2014 London Film and Comic Con that back in Victorian times, the "221B" wouldn't have actually been on the door as shown in several older movies and TV series (the 2009 and 2011 movies actually [[AluminumChristmasTrees garnered criticism]] for not showing it on the door, amazingly), so with the show being modernized, this time he actually had a reason to do it.

** During filming of another episdoe, Richard Dean Anderson asked the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Micheal E. Ryan, if there were any Colonels who were as bad as his character Jack O'Neill. General Ryan responded: "Son, yes, we've got Colonels like you and worse." So yes, there are officers who do break the rules, and get away with it, and still become Generals because they're so damn effective at what they do.

** Creator/JamesDoohan puts on an accent that sounds more Irish than Scottish (but not really much like either) in his role as Scotty. However, Doohan ''was'' actually able to speak in a number of Scottish dialect accents accurately; he was asked not to by the producers, who were concerned that American audiences wouldn't be able to understand him.

* Creator/MarkSheppard — Badger in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' — has been criticized for his "atrocious accent". Although he's a Londoner, he's from a different social class to the character he was playing and therefore had to fake the Cockney accent; the debate is over how well (or badly) he pulled it off.
** With regards to other matters, some negative criticism of ''Firefly'' involved the fact the makers of the show do not allow sound to be heard in space (engines, explosions, etc). This is of course scientifically accurate, but ''Firefly'' was one of the first fiction TV series to actually depict it correctly, and viewers used to hearing sounds in space reacted negatively.

** Some viewers decried Jon Snow's sword as "obviously plastic" in "The Battle of the Bastards" because its blade visibly wobbles when drawn from its sheath. In reality, swords do tend to be flexible to varying degrees (the blades would snap too easily during combat if they were perfectly rigid), and the prop swords used on ''Game of Thrones'' tended to be made of accurate materials (but with blunted blades, obviously).

** Skye's character got a lot of criticism for several reasons in the pilot, among them being the fact that it was absurd a law enforcement agency like SHIELD would need a civilian hacker who had no formal training and had attacked their databases, or that someone who was homeless and living in her van would be [[MsFanservice so pretty]]. However, both are actually quite plausible; in real life, law enforcement agencies do tend to recruit criminal hackers, even if they've previously attacked said agency, due to the fact its more practical to put them to good use then lock them up and waste their skills. As for being pretty and homeless, Skye, being someone with a safe place to sleep (her van) and, as we learn later, a boyfriend who isn't homeless, Skye would be one of the 'invisible homeless', people who are technically homeless but live relatively comfortably thanks to owning a vehicle and having friends/family they're able to crash with when needed, giving them access to showers and personal hygiene.

* Arguably, every episode of every "ghost hunting" show ever — except for England's ''Series/MostHaunted'', which was revealed to be a fabrication. (Cast and crew members of shows such as ''Series/GhostHunters'', ''Series/ParanormalState'', and ''Series/GhostAdventures'' absolutely insist that no fakery is involved.)