Presenting the 24 biggest TV pet peeves and tired tropes

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https://tvline.com/gallery/tv-pet-pe...y-coffee-cups/

"We love TV, but even the best lovers have terribly bad habits," says TVLine's Matt Webb Mitovich, who has rounded up "ongoing pet peeves and overtired tropes, including ripped-out IVs, endless ammunition, empty coffee cups, the overuse of 'Babe' and more."

1. OBVIOUSLY EMPTY COFFEE CUPS

In case you couldn’t tell from them being whipped around as if filled to the rim with air… tilted at 45-degree angles… or by the hollow “plock!” sound made when set down on a counter/desk. But we could go on, and once did.



2. THE DOORBELL FAKE-OUT

That thing where your doorbell rings shortly after a roommate has left — and it’s very late at night, and there is the threat of danger — but you assume, “Oh, silly Suzie, did you forget your keys…?” But no, Suzie never forgets her keys. Instead, it’s the evil person, and he is here to kill you.



3. RIPPING OUT IVs

Hey, at least CBS’ Evil (see photo) got things right when David sought to usurp his nasty nurse and wound up bleeding badly. But in almost every other as-seen-on-TV instance, the untrained, brisk removal of a catheter inserted through the skin into a vein is depicted as being as simple and consequence-free as the ripping off of a store-brand Band-Aid!



4. OH, IT’S JUST A SCRATCH!

When wounds that in real life would definitely take you out of commission for at least a short while — like, getting shot in the shoulder — are treated like mere irritations.



5. TALK NERDY TO ME

Asking the jargon-spewing tech whiz to “put in English” — because s/he simply hasn’t learned to speak more plainly, even after years of working with you/fielding your inevitable, glazed-eye follow-up question. (As noted here, Arrow once did it three times in a single episode.)



6. SUPER-SHARP SURVEILLANCE VIDEO

Pretty much every single security camera — be it on a lamp post, a traffic cam or in the crummiest of bodegas — record their video in the highest-quality HD, allowing for seemingly improbable, crystal-clear zoom-in on license plates that are 30 yards away.



7. THERE’S AMMO WHERE THAT CAME FROM!

Dystopian/post-apocalyptic dramas where there is little regard for expended ammo, even though some poor chump somewhere would have to be saddled with making new bullets from scratch. (See: Falling Skies, Revolution, Walking Dead….)



8. THE IMPOSSIBLE EAVESDROP

A character walks into a scene curiously commenting on something they couldn’t realistically have overheard. (“Oh, and what secret would that be, Daphne…?”)



9. ‘A WORD, PLEASE?’

Please, please, please let us know in Comments if in your own life you have ever asked to speak to someone by saying to them, “A word…?”



10. COMMS ARTISTS

Yes, TV has scores of cops, spies and crimefighters, but at this rate we’re half-expecting an Outlander character to tap their ear to speak through a hidden earwig comms device.  



Related: In the Lost in Space sequence above, Judy was on earpiece comms with her father, who was trapped in an underground cavern miles away, on a strange planet with no known infrastructure. Clear signal, though! Ditto MacGyver easily staying in touch with the team while scaling a deep stone well, far, far away.



11. THE SAD SACK

When someone in a family of more than two people goes grocery shopping and comes home with a singular bag (or just maybe a whopping three, if you are Mike “Household of 9 Plus Tiger” Brady). Related: Said rigid paper bag always has some green leafy thing dangling out of the top, or a baguette. 



12. THE WELL-HEELED COP

Otherwise known as the FBI agent/cop who can give chase, leap across buildings and manage close-quarters combat whilst in admittedly impractical footwear. And hey, we’re not just talking about Beckett here. Also see: Hawaii Five-0‘s McGarett, clambering across rooftops and leaping across alleyways onto narrow downspouts in… flat-soled Chuck Taylors?



13. BACKUP? I DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BACKUP!

A person is in imminent peril, so the lead cop/detective ventures out alone — no matter the distance, no matter how remote the location — to facilitate a rescue, always finding a reason to not call for backup. It… seldom ends well.



14. BIG, FAT COMPUTER ALERTS

Was the villain able to delete the compromising email in time, before the feds barged in? You know he was! (And so, too, does the person in the skyscraper office across the street, because the confirmation message is huge.)



15. THE LONG(-ABSENT) GOODBYE

TV characters almost never, ever say goodbye before hanging up the phone.



16. BIG, FAT CELL PHONE ALERTS

While the rest of us are squinting to see if we have that one sliver of a cell signal bar, TV characters get alerts they can easily read from three arm lengths away! (Heavens, Five-0 sleuth Danny Williams’ phone here says “No Service,” has a giant icon, and then for good measure also says “Signal Strength: NONE.”)



17. DUMB HEADLINES

Newspaper headlines are written in such a way as to speak to you, the person watching this TV show, as opposed to how they’d ever be crafted by an actual headline editor. (And don’t get us started on the actual lead paragraphs — the rare times the show attempts to write one.)



18. AY-AY-AY! TUNES

When the pop soundtrack is so aggressive, it drowns out the dialogue — and oftentimes important squad room exposition!



19. ‘BABE’ ALERT!

Is it just us, or is is suddenly both halves of every single couple, on every TV show, using “Babe” as the chosen term of endearment? Multiple times in a single, brief conversation? (Legends of Tomorrow‘s Ava and Sara regularly set per-episode records with this one. And now that we’ve pointed it out, you will notice nothing else.)



20. INFO-TEASE-MENT

When infotainment shows (e.g. Extra, Entertainmenrt Tonight) seem to spend two minutes ¸— complete with video/interview snippets — simply previewing “What’s Coming Up After the Break!” Just go to commercial and come back already!



21. THE TELEGRAPHED T-BONE

Perhaps made most famous by the Alias Season 4 finale — which here at TVLine, at least, coined the term “Vaughn’d” — too often a director will conspicuously change the framing of a car scene just ahead of a T-bone car crash, so that we can see the approaching vehicle.



22. LIGHTEN UP, TV SHOWS!

As addressed in this TVLine op-ed — and only exacerbated during pandemic-era filming, where crew members couldn’t spent as much time on set with the cast, fiddling with lighting — some shows mistake “dark and moody” with “dark and… wait, where is everybody?” We see you, Blue Bloods and Ozark. (Though technically, we almost don’t!) 



23. THE NON-EXISTENT TEXT HISTORY

How is it that when two characters who clearly have texted before start up a new conversation/topic, it often appears as if this is their first exchange ever?



24. THE INSTANT WEDDING OFFICIANT

Hey, don’t get us wrong — sometimes it is rather sweet/meaningful when a couple gets to be wed by a close friend. But more and more it seems as if “I got ordained online during the commercial break!” is a go-to gimmick to insert a major or recurring character into a wedding ceremony.