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| 6 | ->''The more I learn about Mister Lumis, the more he sounds like the figment of someone's imagination.'' |
| 7 | -->-- '''Bill Gannon''', ''[[Series/{{Dragnet}} Mister]]''. [[RomanAClef The story is true]]. |
| 8 | ---- |
| 9 | |
| 10 | * Arguably, every episode of every "ghost hunting" show ever — except for Britain'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.) |
| 11 | * While police dramas or dramedies featuring police consultants like ''Series/{{Psych}}'', ''Series/{{Castle|2009}}'', ''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. |
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| 14 | |
| 15 | * In the early years of ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperman'', when it was in black and white, Superman's costume was actually white and red, because blue would have looked wrong. (You can see it in the movie ''Hollywoodland''.) A normal version was created for later seasons that were shot in color. |
| 16 | ** This was an incredibly common practice in the black and white era. The drab-looking parlor on ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' was actually pink and turquoise. |
| 17 | * ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': |
| 18 | ** The actors portraying Fitz and Simmons were criticized early on for their British accents sounding "fake". Both actors are indeed British: Iain De Caestecker is from Glasgow and Elizabeth Henstridge is from Sheffield. But, since regional British accents are rare on American shows, a lot of viewers apparently assumed they were American actors trying for more familiar [[IAmVeryBritish Edinburgh- or London-based RP accents]] and getting them slightly wrong. |
| 19 | ** 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, 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. |
| 20 | ** 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, respectively, 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. |
| 21 | * In Creator/DerrenBrown's ''Series/{{Apocalypse}}'' (which stages an insanely elaborate fake ZombieApocalypse, with common archetypal characters of such films being played by actors), the "hero" of the story (who is an unsuspecting member of the public who doesn't realize it's fake) uses extremely stilted or cliched dialogue that would be laughed at in a B-movie, despite it being completely natural. [[JustifiedTrope It's unsurprising really]]; given that he's a [[UnfazedEveryman very-definitely-fazed everyman]] totally out of his depth he's not going to be thinking up witty or creative things to say, and will be drawing on the only things that will give him any familiarity with that scenario (ie zombie apocalypse movies). |
| 22 | * ''Series/BabylonFive'': |
| 23 | ** In an episode, Centauri women (a type of almost [[HumanAliens Human Alien]]) were depicted as being completely bald or bald except for a ponytail. They were played by actresses who wore latex caps, except for one extra who actually was bald. Supposedly, one of the production crew commented that her cap looked fake. |
| 24 | ** 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. |
| 25 | ** In yet another episode, many complained about a villain's "fake" scar. In fact, the actor had gotten that scar while trying to stop a mugging, and as a consequence he'd been out of work for years until B5. |
| 26 | * 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. |
| 27 | * ''Series/BlakesSeven'' is often criticised for FashionDissonance concerning its [[SeventiesHair plethora of perms]]. No one on the show actually had permed hair besides Creator/JanChappell -- Creator/GarethThomas and Creator/StevenPacey were just very naturally curly. |
| 28 | * Terence Winter, creator of ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'', discusses this trope in [[http://www.avclub.com/articles/boardwalk-empire-showrunner-terence-winter-dissect,84300/ this interview]] with the AV Club, using the example of a wire-mesh fence as something that existed in the 1920s but would appear incongruously modern. |
| 29 | * The producers of ''Series/TheBorgias'' knew enough about the real period that they could have portrayed things like the Cardinals ''openly'' living with mistresses and their bastard children accurately, but chose not to since they feared this reaction from the audience. Meanwhile, another series, ''Borgia: Faith and Fear'' played the DeliberateValuesDissonance for all its worth. As [[http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2176 one analysis]] put it: |
| 30 | -->I think [Showtime did it] because they were afraid of alienating their audience with the sheer implausibility of what the Renaissance was actually like. Rome in 1492 was so corrupt, and so violent, that I think they don’t believe the audience will believe them if they go full-on. ''Almost all'' the Cardinals are taking bribes? ''Lots, possibly the majority'' of influential clerics in Rome overtly live with mistresses? ''Every single one of these people'' has committed homicide, or had goons do it? Wait, they ''all'' have goons? ''Even the monks have goons?'' It feels exaggerated. Showtime toned it down to a level that matches what the typical modern imagination might expect. |
| 31 | * ''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 even served in the US Navy during World War II, but the idea of a Hitler running around the UK is not outside the realm of probability. |
| 32 | * ''Series/BrainiacScienceAbuse'' got in a spot of bother for pandering to this trope. The alkali metals (group one on your periodic table) get more reactive as their masses increase. The show demonstrated this by dropping them into water and watching the increasingly loud bangs as the metals liberated and ignited hydrogen gas. Unfortunately when they reached caesium, the large atomic mass meant, pound for pound, it was far ''less'' dramatic than the rest. Rather than show this interesting result to the audience, they repeated the experiment with numerous pyrotechnic charges in the tank. [[http://www.badscience.net/?p=271 "Science Abuse" indeed.]] Funnily enough on a small scale caesium is far more impressive. While the lower number metals fizz and occasionally burn in water, caesium will quite happily ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbwtND63tfo make the tank explode]]''. |
| 33 | ** 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'. |
| 34 | * ''Franchise/{{Buffyverse}}'': |
| 35 | ** Long after the end of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', James Marsters' real (American) accent is still rather jarring to fans of the show, as is Anthony Stewart Head's real English accent... which is closer to what Marsters adapted for the character of Spike than the one Head affected for Giles. |
| 36 | ** 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. |
| 37 | ** And another set. Alexis Denisof, who played Wesley, does a middle class English accent so well fans tend to find it more realistic than his natural American one. Similarly the accent Amy Acker initially gave Fred in season 3 of ''Angel'' was found to be unrealistic by fans. According to Joss Whedon, Acker originally spoke like that (she is a Texas native) and her accent has simply faded from years of doing Shakespeare. |
| 38 | * ''Series/BurnNotice'': |
| 39 | ** Invoked when Fiona's brother shows up to help Fiona survive an old foe come back to kill her. Long story short, the brother thinks Michael is Irish from an old operation and Fiona encourages him to maintain the illusion. At a certain point they need to do some recon work and are left to wonder how an Irishman will blend into an American crew. At that point Michael drops his accent and says he's done undercover work in America before. Fiona's brother remarks that Michael's American accent could use some work. |
| 40 | ** 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)... |
| 41 | ** This trope comes up a lot in the voice-over narrations that Michael gives, explaining how real spy-work differs from the common public perception ingrained by years of action flicks. |
| 42 | * British TV show ''Series/CardiacArrest'' was written by a practicing doctor in a hospital about his experiences as a junior doctor. It was slammed as an unrealistic portrayal of life in a hospital by critics who had never been in one. |
| 43 | * The writers for ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'' struggled to capture the nuances of Russian and Ukrainian naming conventions, which can be confusing for an English-speaking audience. When consultants suggested they get around this by having characters refer to each other as "comrade", the showrunners refused - since American audiences in particular associate the term with Cold War-era jokes and sitcoms, it would seem ridiculous and detract from the show's very serious tone, even though it was absolutely used all the time in the former USSR. |
| 44 | * ''Series/{{Community}}'' has the in-universe example of the phone number for Jeff's legal practice. It starts with FiveFiveFive, which bothers Abed because it sounds fake. |
| 45 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 46 | ** Police Boxes are not actually made out of wood. Police Boxes were going out of date by the time the series started, and so most viewers grew up much more familiar with the [[SpecialEffectFailure flimsy, clearly wooden look of the cheap TARDIS prop]] used in the show. TheCoconutEffect now means that any attempts to make a clearly cement or concrete TARDIS are usually roundly criticized — because, after all, it's supposed to look like a real Police Box.[[note]]Even though the majority of props used in the Classic Series attempted to look like concrete.[[/note]] |
| 47 | ** With the exception of the 1960s Peter Cushing movies, no TARDIS prop has ever been a direct replica of a real box, instead being recognisable variations on the template. |
| 48 | *** 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. |
| 49 | *** Additionally, the doors don't open inwards on a real Police Box, instead swinging outwards, so that it's much more difficult to force the doors open. |
| 50 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E5TheUnderwaterMenace "The Underwater Menace"]] is often criticized for the over-the-top, ridiculous and cheesy Eastern European accent used by the MadScientist Professor Zaroff. That was the actor's natural accent. |
| 51 | ** Kettlewell in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot "Robot"]] has astonishing EinsteinHair that looks like a bad wig. All of it was the actor's own hair and he didn't even put anything in it to stand up like that, though he preferred a more sedate style for everyday use. |
| 52 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice "The Vampires of Venice"]]: |
| 53 | *** Some criticized the inclusion of black father and daughter Guido and Isabella, despite the fact that, as a hub of trade, Venice was very diverse in those days, with African traders setting up shop in the 16[-[[superscript:th]]-] century not being unheard of. See also the moderately well-known play ''[[Theatre/{{Othello}} The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice]]''. |
| 54 | *** Rory fending off Francesco's sword with a broom isn't impossible either, if he'd managed to hit the flat of the blade. |
| 55 | ** [[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 PoliticalOvercorrectness, it turns out that in real life Nixon ''did'' have at least one black agent. |
| 56 | ** Similarly, Creator/MarkGatiss protested against the casting of a black actor as one of the Victorian soldiers in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E9EmpressOfMars "Empress of Mars"]]. He relented after learning that there actually was a black Victorian soldier named [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/06/11/exclusive-doctor-writer-protested-against-problematic-casting/ Jimmy Durham]]. |
| 57 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E4NikolaTeslasNightOfTerror "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror"]]: Some fans complained that [[Creator/GoranVisnjic Goran Višnjić's]] European accent as the [[UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla title character]] was too slight. However, the episode is set in 1903, by which time Tesla had lived in the US for decades, and both he and Višnjić came from the same area. It's likely that previous portrayals of Tesla in works like ''Film/ThePrestige'' and ''Film/TheCurrentWar'' influenced what people thought he should sound like. |
| 58 | * Tim Minear remarks in an audio comment for ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'' that they brought in a blind woman as an expert, so Creator/ElizaDushku could portray blindness realistically. But it turned out that when she behaved like a blind person actually would, then it looked fake on screen. So they went with more stereotypical "blind" behaviour. You can hear them talk about it starting around 38:00 of [[http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/5/4/25442b9c03c4be6f/sofadogs_dollhouse_1x05.mp3?c_id=2468103&expiration=1386874355&hwt=220fbf492561290e210c874f73dd58b8 this podcast.]] |
| 59 | * ''Series/DowntonAbbey'': The entire plot of Mary's seduction by a Turkish diplomat who later dies in her bed and must be moved across the house in secret seems like an excellent soap opera story... but series writer Julian Fellowes insists that it was lifted, word-for-word, from the diary of a friends' great-aunt. |
| 60 | * Creator/MarkSheppard — Badger in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' — has been criticized for his "atrocious accent". Although he's a Londoner, he's from a different area from the Cockney-type character he was playing and accents vary greatly throughout London. He therefore had to fake the accent; the debate is over how well (or badly) he pulled it off. (Whether or not such local or even national variations of accents will still be around in 500 years, especially in a different star system, is anyone's guess.) |
| 61 | ** 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 (although the expanding gases of an explosion will carry sound when they reach you), but ''Firefly'' was one of the first fiction TV series to depict it correctly, and viewers used to hearing sounds in space reacted negatively. |
| 62 | *** And then there's the endless back-and-forth between those who insist that Vera needed to be in that space suit to fire and those who know she didn't. |
| 63 | * ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'': Henry's excuse to his boss for being found naked in public is that he's a somnambulist. There really are cases of people who sleepwalk ending up naked in public, such as [[https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/naked-sleepwalker-approached-taxi-outside-11368880?_ga=2.30365119.1014696984.1659293326-589783653.1659293326 this case]] where police loaned a person their jackets to preserve "what remained of their dignity" to get them back to their hotel room. |
| 64 | --> Officers were satisfied that it was a case of somnambulism, and not a dare. The person involved was grateful to the officers for their help, saw a funny side to what had happened, and even asked for a selfie with the officers (when they were fully clothed) as a memento of their unusual encounter with GMP. |
| 65 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 66 | ** 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. |
| 67 | ** 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. |
| 68 | ** Several non-Brit fans of the show have complained about Peter Dinklage's "horrendously fake" British accent. While Dinklage is, in fact, an American, his accent has fooled some native Brits, and seems mostly to offend the ears of Americans, who believe all British accents are either Received Pronunciation or Cockney. |
| 69 | ** 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.) The prop swords used on ''Game of Thrones'' were mostly made of accurate materials (but with blunted blades). |
| 70 | * When NBC aired ''The Gangster Chronicles'' miniseries in 1981, the still living Meyer Lansky laughingly told his friends who were watching it with him that the real life Benny Siegel was far crazier than his screen version. |
| 71 | * ''Series/GenerationKill'': |
| 72 | ** Deliberately avoided by the producers in the HBO adaptation. No doubt the best example would be [[LeeroyJenkins Captain America]], who is ''toned down'' from Evan Wright's account of things as seen in the book, for fear that the audience wouldn't believe it. |
| 73 | ** The series still suffers from this trope played straight; it's not uncommon for viewers to think the show is completely unrealistic and an insult to military personnel when they don't know the characters, Wright included, are real people actually followed around by a reporter. The Marines being more vulgar and shameless than military characters portrayed in the Creator/JohnWayne-era or even newer UsefulNotes/WorldWarII films just seem unrealistic to civilians after decades of Hollywood painting the battlefield with an air of civility. Beyond this, some will still justify calling bullshit on it through the idea that Evan Wright is biased at best, and fabricating things at worst, the fact that the real Marines portrayed have no problem sitting down with him and talking about what goes on in the series seemingly irrelevant. The ''real'' Brad Colbert actually mentions this trope in one such discussion, he and the other Marines having what is essentially this entry as a conversation. |
| 74 | ** Never mind the fact that one of the actual marines was an actor in the series. "Fruity" Rudy (The marine who played himself in the show) would likely also qualify as reality is unrealistic. Nobody would find a fictional Marine like him believable. |
| 75 | ** 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. |
| 76 | * ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Much has been made by fans and critics alike that most of the cast members playing teenagers are [[DawsonCasting clearly in their 20's or even 30's]], particularly the male students. While this is true, it ignores the very real fact that different people age at different speeds, and it is completely possible for two teenage boys to be in the same grade despite one of them sporting a heavy beard and deep voice and the other unable to grow facial hair and squeaking like a 10-year-old (eg. Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, the only cast member who was still in his teens, albeit late teens, at the start of the show). It may look odd to see mid-30's Matthew Morrison playing a teacher the same age that he is while Cory Monteith and Mark Salling (both in their late 20's) played students in their late teens, despite them all three looking about the same age, but that's only due to how rare it is to see it on television. Many young-looking teachers in real life are mistaken for students, while many teens ages 15-18 are mistaken for adults (or, conversely, much younger children). |
| 77 | * Students and younger alumni from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee often believe the red and white UWM pennants and paraphernalia used on ''Series/HappyDays'' are a mistake, but during the period in which ''Series/HappyDays'' takes place (late 50s and early 60s), UWM's official colors actually were white and cardinal red. The university didn't adopt its current colors (black & gold) until 1964. |
| 78 | * Two incidents from ''Series/HellsKitchen'': |
| 79 | ** Season Six had Joseph, who claimed to be a Marine yet was combative, going so far as to try to challenge Chef Gordon Ramsay to a fight. Some fans believed that someone who was a Marine could never be that combative. However, not only did he truly have a Marine background, Season 4 competitor Bobby pointed out that 25% of those in the military do have a superiority complex around non-military civilians. |
| 80 | ** Season Eight had Raj, who, despite claiming to have been a chef, was an energetic mess with very poor work ethic. Many fans thought that Raj was an obvious plant for interest. However, there are articles about Raj before his appearance to show that he really was a cook and that he really was an energetic man. |
| 81 | * ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' fans routinely complain about [[HealingFactor Claire]] being MadeOfPlasticine, and there is generally a good deal of validity to that. But one of the examples frequently cited is the time she broke her neck after being accidentally tackled to the ground by a football player. In reality, people suffer horrific and crippling injuries from being tackled on a fairly regular basis (it's what makes football such a dangerous sport), and those people are often trained athletes wearing helmets and proper padding, which definitely does not describe Claire in that scene. |
| 82 | * ''Series/HorribleHistories'' loves pointing out how our perceptions of history are often misguided or influenced by anachronistic sources that came later, such as the works of Shakespeare influencing how Richard III is remembered. Their two greatest sources of sketches are commonly held misconceptions and things that sound so ridiculous that no one would believe they actually happened. For example, if someone named a Victorian era character "Never," or a 17th Century character "Silence," the vast majority of people probably would think it was something out of a bad fanfic as opposed to a completely real name used in England at the time. They've also pointed out plenty of weird things that would seem trite or like a contrived plot convenience in a story that have happened in real life, such as dying on stage or having Dick Turpin be caught by having a kind of mentor coincidentally deliver a letter from him and recognise his handwriting. |
| 83 | * ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': |
| 84 | ** 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). |
| 85 | ** Ted's former boss Hammond Druthers is mentioned to have designed a building that focused reflected sunlight so much that it ''melted a few cars and boiled the city aquarium, killing thousands of fish''. While it may sound absurd, it is in fact the ShoutOut to London's 20 Fenchurch Street Skyscraper, which in fact [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fenchurch_Street#Solar_glare_problem works as a concave mirror, and on a sunny day partially melted a car, set a carpet on fire in a nearby store,]] [[http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/04/london-skyscrapers-deathray-reflection-is-melting-cars-burning-businesses-but-also-cooking-eggs/ and apparently can be used to cook an egg]]. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vdara And it's not even the first building designed by this architect to have this "little problem"]]. |
| 86 | * Invoked in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' when Mac and Charlie get a hold of a hand grenade and use it to blow up Dee's car. There's a small explosion which blows out the windows but doesn't do much other visible damage. They start complaining that they were expecting a fireball that would lift the car in the air. |
| 87 | * Parodied in one ''Series/KeyAndPeele'' sketch where, while shooting a scene for a hood film, the (white) director repeatedly criticizes an actor's performance, in spite of said actor actually having grown up on the streets and delivers an increasingly intense performance for not being “real” enough, while simultaneously praising a posh British actor with no personal experience in the subject for his “realism”. The actor winds up getting fed up and beats the crap out of the director. |
| 88 | * The New York Supreme Court is actually the ''lowest'' state-level court in the New York judicial system (county and municipal courts being below it). It's a trial court where felonies, large civil lawsuits, and divorces are tried, whereas other Supreme Courts only hear appeals of issues of major national or statewide legal importance. This all means that to anyone who doesn't know how the New York courts are set up, works that get the name right (like ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'') sound wrong, while works that get the name wrong sound right. A few early episodes of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' erroneously referred to the "superior court". |
| 89 | ** The state's appellate courts are misleading too; the court of last resort for all state matters is the plainly named Court of Appeals. If you're familiar with the Federal court system, that's just like the mid-level appeals court above the trial court and below the Supreme Court of the United States. The NY version of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals? The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. Yeah, good luck with convincing people who aren't legal experts (or haven't been on trial/sued in New York lately) that's real. Oddly enough, originally the court system was like other states': supreme court at the top, a court of appeals below, then trial courts. However, due to its corruption in the 1800s, the New York state legislature ''demoted'' the supreme court to trial jurisdiction level, resulting in the current format. |
| 90 | * This is a common problem on ''Series/{{Leverage}}''. In interviews and episode commentary, the writers take great pains to point out how few of their villains' atrocities are ''not'' things that actual white-collar criminals have gotten away with. |
| 91 | ** In the first season episode "The Mile High Job" the audio commentary points out that the LA Convention Center (where they were shooting) looks much more like an airport than the actual LAX. |
| 92 | ** John Rogers frequently does write-ups and Q&A sessions for each episode on his blog. For episodes that feature a prominent character with an accent (e.g. the antagonist with an Irish accent in "The Bottle Job"), someone inevitably tells Rogers that the actor's accent sounds fake, only for Rogers to reveal that the actor is actually using their native accent. |
| 93 | * ''Series/{{Lost}}'': |
| 94 | ** This was picked up on when fans asked why the French woman trapped on the Island by herself for 16 years (played by Furlan, again with her native accent) is speaking with a Croatian accent. The producers regularly discuss this on their podcasts for Rousseau-heavy episodes, pondering if her traumatic experiences are responsible for the accent shift. |
| 95 | ** Some complained that Emilie de Ravin (an Australian), the actress who played Claire (also an Australian), was using a horrible accent. |
| 96 | * Season 5 of ''Series/MadMen'' opens with a rival agency throwing water bombs on protesters. The scene was criticized for being unrealistic and having bad dialogue, but it was actually lifted [[http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/on-mad-men-an-opening-scene-straight-from-page-1/ word for word]] from a contemporary New York Times article. |
| 97 | * 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. |
| 98 | * The [[LaughTrack laughter track]] on the pilot episode of ''Series/TheMightyBoosh'' is actually a quieter version of the laughter heard on the day. However, the audience who attended felt the laughter track was too much on the filmed episode, despite it being their laughter. |
| 99 | * ''Series/ModernFamily'': Sofia Vergara is in reality a natural blonde, who actually has to dye her hair in order to look like what American audiences expect of a Latina woman's appearance. |
| 100 | * Similarly parodied in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''. While filming "Scott of the Antarctic" on an English beach, the crew cover up the landscape with mats of "Wintrex" foam rubber, which supposedly, "on screen, look more like snow than snow!" (though the ''Python'' stage directions specify that it should actually look terrible) and paint the sand with "white paint with a special snow finish." |
| 101 | * 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. |
| 102 | * ''Series/MythBusters'': |
| 103 | ** When they bust a Hollywood myth, such as 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. |
| 104 | ** When testing the method of slowing the detonation of a bomb by cooling it with liquid nitrogen like in ''Film/LethalWeapon2'', it turned out that not only did it work, it actually worked a lot better than in the movie. In the movie, cooling the bomb gives Riggs and Murtaugh two or three seconds of time to dive into cover, but in the test they had to wait for the bomb's battery to completely thaw before it would explode 15 minutes later. To quote Adam: "The technique used by the bomb squad is far more effective in reality than it is in the movies. When does that ever happen?" |
| 105 | ** A similar conclusion came about regarding a freefalling skydiver impacting a seesaw, flinging a young girl on top of a seven-story building (unharmed). The impact of such a skydiver would likely break (or bend) most seesaws, and even if the seesaw managed to transfer all the energy to the young girl, the force of such a launch would be enough to kill her ''on launch''. In addition, the force was ''more'' than enough to launch her well ''above'' a seven-story building. The [=MythBusters=] were amazed; usually the more outlandish stories would grossly ''overestimate'' the forces involved; this one actually grossly ''underestimated'' the forces. |
| 106 | * 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. |
| 107 | * For ''Series/TheOfficeUK'', a common point of complaint from early critics was that the PointyHairedBoss David Brent was too obviously incompetent and self-deluding to make it as the manager of the branch. The retort from the series creators was that if these critics were to go into any large organization ([[BItingTheHandHumor such as]] Creator/TheBBC) and spend just five minutes looking around, they'd run out of fingers to count the people who were just as bad if not worse than Brent but who had yet managed to make it to senior management level. |
| 108 | * As mentioned in the DVD commentary of the U.S. series premiere, the creators of ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' run up against this problem quite a bit. It's a fictional show done in documentary style, which means it needs to look "realistic", but to achieve this, it often needs to look less professional than an actual documentary. WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief isn't necessary for a documentary filmmaker, because by its very nature a documentary is assumed to be true and uses no actors or sets. Therefore, they often strive to make their footage look as artistic and professionally staged as possible. But if ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'' did that it would probably look like a regular show, hence it has to be "behind the times". |
| 109 | * 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. |
| 110 | -->'''Backer:''' The bottom line is [[BorrowedCatchphrase I don't believe it]]. |
| 111 | * 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. |
| 112 | * 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" (mostly proper nouns such as the Welsh hill of Blorenge, but even so); 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. |
| 113 | * In one "Wayne's World" skit on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', Wayne and Garth mock CNN's coverage of the Gulf War because their reporter's phony name was obviously made up just for the war. The reporter? Creator/WolfBlitzer. |
| 114 | -->'''Wayne:''' It's like, "Hi, we now take you to our war correspondent, Howitzer Explosion Guy." |
| 115 | * When someone hears that every illness encountered on ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' is based on a real life illness, it's not uncommon to point at the episode "My Musical" as evidence that this is not the case. Surprisingly enough, the condition the patient experiences, hearing music around her due to an intracranial aneurysm, [[https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62391-4/fulltext has happened multiple times in real life]], which the writers took full advantage of to make the episode happen. |
| 116 | * 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!!!" |
| 117 | * In [[Recap/SharpeS1E1SharpesRifles the first episode]] of ''{{Series/Sharpe}}'', a Spanish partisan chief sets fire to a document using a strange item which looks like a barrel-less pistol. Very few people know that flintlock lighters of that type were very fashionable among wealthy [[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars Napoleonic wars]]-era smokers, and many call it a scriptwriter's cop-out. |
| 118 | * ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' took flak for a murder attempt in "The Sign of Three", which audiences saw it as too far-fetched: 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. |
| 119 | ** 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 house would just be "221" and the "A2 and "B" would be on the individual flats (apartments). (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. |
| 120 | *** In the original 19th century setting of Sherlock Holmes, there was, of course, no 221 Baker Street anyway. |
| 121 | * There were some viewers who complained about ''Series/SleepyHollow'' being "[[PoliticalOvercorrectness 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. |
| 122 | * ''Series/StargateSG1'': |
| 123 | ** An in-universe example on the set of ''[[ShowWithinAShow Wormhole X-treme]]'' where, due to low budget, the producer refuses to finance a spaceship prop. Then a real, awesome-looking, spaceship descends from the clouds. At first, everyone is agape. Then a couple of stagehands are discussing how fake it looks. The other one replies that they can make it look "less fake" in post-production. |
| 124 | *** The two stagehands were actually the executive producers of the show. |
| 125 | ** During filming of another episode, 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. |
| 126 | * ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': |
| 127 | ** The accent Creator/WalterKoenig adopted for Chekov is roundly mocked for sounding nothing like a real Russian speaking English. However, Koenig has stated in interviews that he based the accent on how he remembers his parents (who were Russian immigrants to the US) speaking when he was growing up. |
| 128 | ** 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 accents accurately; he was asked not to by the producers, who were concerned that American audiences wouldn't be able to understand him. |
| 129 | * ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': |
| 130 | ** 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. |
| 131 | *** Of course if you get one to not speak in [[{{Pun}} lingua franca]]. |
| 132 | *** 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. |
| 133 | *** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' eventually reveals that the Picard family fled to England during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. By the time they returned to France and reclaimed the family vineyard, they'd adopted the British accent. |
| 134 | ** Furthermore, Picard does not speak in what is Patrick Stewart's original Yorkshire accent ([[https://www.wimp.com/patrick-stewart-recites-a-poem-in-his-native-yorkshire-dialect/ seen here]]). |
| 135 | ** "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. |
| 136 | ** In "Night Terrors", the ''Enterprise'' personnel slowly but surely starts to lose their sanity due to a lack of sleep. As goofy as Dr. Crusher's line, "We have to dream in order to survive" sounds, the loss of REM sleep leading to SanitySlippage and eventual death is, in fact, 100% scientifically accurate. |
| 137 | * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': |
| 138 | ** Parodied in the self-referential episode "Hollywood Babylon". There's a real black-and-white ghost woman with rope burns on her neck and the producer just says "Not sure about those neck wounds, though. They need to be ''red''." |
| 139 | ** 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.]] |
| 140 | * A frequent knock on the TV show ''Series/{{Survivorman}}'' is that the number of times he stumbles onto a useful piece of trash or a food source seems set up. Les Stroud often states, on air, that human refuse is simply a fact of life, no matter where you go. He {{lampshade}}s this trope during an episode in Alaska, where he runs across half a salmon discarded by an eagle. |
| 141 | -->'''Les:''' Now, I know what you're thinking: "Ah, come on! That looks set up!" |
| 142 | * Lampshaded in an episode of ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' which involves a reality show, and uses stuff they shot to make it look like Tori and Beck were into each other, which then results in Jade getting violent towards Tori. When they go to the show's producers, they claim that nothing that ever happens on reality TV is actually real. |
| 143 | * Some people had some issues with Geraldine's theology throughout Series/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. |
| 144 | * While some elements of ''Series/VivaLaBam'' were scripted in advance, some fans have claimed that Vince "Don Vito" Margera was acting, and that his over-the-top, incomprehensible manner was a put on. This is untrue, though April Margera has stated that the show made Vito out to be a bigger jerk than he actually is. |
| 145 | * A group of Native American actors appearing as extras in the series ''Series/TheWildWildWest'' were asked to speak in their own language for a scene, only for the director to change the dialogue as it didn't sound 'Indian' enough. |
| 146 | * ''Series/TheWire'' |
| 147 | ** As badass as Omar Little is, there's no way he would really be able to survive a [[SuperWindowJump leap from a fourth-floor window]], right? Except for the fact that Donnie Andrews, one of the real-life Baltimorians Little is based off, pulled off a similar feat with a ''sixth''-floor drop, but David Simon scaled it back because of this trope. |
| 148 | ** Some fans got upset in the season five opener, when Bunk and Landsman dupe a murderer into confessing with a "lie detector test" that is actually just a photocopier with the words "TRUE" and "FALSE" on different sheets of paper. The only problem is, this method has actually been used to get a murder confession on multiple occasions.[[note]]Although judges have usually thrown those confessions out.[[/note]] As they say in the episode: "The bigger the lie, the more they believe." |
| 149 | ** Many, especially younger, fans think Brother Mouzone is out of place with his suit and bowtie, and laconic SophisticatedAsHell speaking style, or that it's unrealistic that hardened street criminals would be afraid of someone like that. He, and his operation to pacify Franklin Terrace is based on The Nation Of Islam and their anti-gang patrols, as well as their reputation as hitmen. |
| 150 | * The producers of ''Series/WouldILieToYou'' have admitted that team captain Creator/LeeMack is sometimes so quick on the ball that they sometimes edit pauses and {{beat}}s in where none existed, because some of his off-the-cuff remarks seem like they're scripted (because nobody could come up with a rejoinder like that on the spot) even though they're genuinely spontaneous. |
| 151 |
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