Obviously TV is not real life, but there are still some fake things I see on TV that always irritate me, and in fact interfere with my ability to forget that I'm watching fiction:
- Enhanced crime scene photos. How many times have you seen police investigating a crime, pulling footage from a grainy security camera. Just as you think the footage will be useless (as it often is in real life), someone asks, "Can you enhance that?", and the blurry face of the perpetrator becomes crystal clear. This is impossible! It bugs me because it's really lazy storytelling. Props to Futurama for making fun of this on one of their episodes, where Zap Branigan sees blurry footage from some dangerous thing in space, asks, "Can you enhance that?", his assistant Kif says, "No, that's the highest resolution we have", and Zap responds, "That doesn't matter. I always see them do it on CSI!"
- Fake city names. I understand when they change names of real people they are trying to lampoon because they want to avoid lawsuits. But why change city names? Often they take place in fictitious locations, which bugs me if I know the area. I don't want to see a show about crime in southern California, where a murder takes place in "Rancho Marina".
- Adult high school students. "90210" was most guilty of this, but I hate the general practice of casting actors in their late 20s to play high school students. Even 23 years out of high school, I know what 17-year-olds look like, and they don't resemble someone approaching 30.