The Movie/TV Universe

I love to watch movies and TV shows, and I have a preference for hard-hitting crime dramas and political thrillers. But I’ve noticed that the universe on the screen is filled with quirks that I don’t often see in real life. Here (in no particular order) are a few things that are typical in movies and TV shows that I don’t see all that often (if at all) off the screen:

A clerk bags a customer’s purchase, and the customer leaves without paying.

People routinely leave a restaurant without eating or paying for their meals.

Someone calls the star and tells them to turn on the television. The star grabs a conveniently located remote, presses a button, and the screen instantly shows a news program running a story on the very thing the star needs to see at that moment. No one ever has to spend any time waiting for a Roku or Hulu home screen and then navigating through all the hurdles to get to the channel you want.

People routinely disconnect their phone calls without waiting for a response and without saying goodbye.

People in movies and TV shows can carry on whispered conversations from ten feet apart, and they can converse in a normal tone of voice in crowded, noisy bars.

A man can walk into a bar and say, “Give me a beer,” and the bartender will pour him one without asking what kind he wants.

Whole teams of cops are able to devote all their working time to a single case until it’s solved, even if it takes weeks. They apparently have no other cases in their inboxes.

No one who is captured and thrown into the trunk of a car, or stashed in a storage shed, or placed in some other similar holding space ever needs to use the toilet. Related: victims whose mouths have been taped shut never suffocate. [Anyone with respiratory problems knows what I’m talking about.]

Someone is pulled out of the water. They aren’t breathing, and they have no heartbeat. The hero starts CPR. Five or six heart massages will cause water to shoot out of the victim’s mouth. The victim will gasp, cough a couple of times, and be fine. [IMPORTANT NOTE: CPR will not pump water out of a person’s lungs. It won’t re-start a heart, either. Its purpose is to keep the blood circulating and carrying oxygen to vital organs until someone comes along with a defribrillator.]

Bad guys can’t hit a moving target with an automatic weapon. If a good guy is running, the stream of bullets will trail along behind them but never quite catch up.

A cell phone that has been broken in half, run over by a car, or smashed with a hammer is rendered inoperable and cannot be traced, even if the SIM card is undamaged.

Car doors and kitchen tables turned on their side will stop bullets, even from high-powered firearms. So will couches and chairs. Not doors, however. Bullets shred doors.

Sex in movies and TV shows is usually frantic and breathless, and most often performed while standing against walls, especially if the partners are having at it with each other for the first time.

After having had sex the night before, a woman almost always wakes up with unmussed (or lightly disheveled) hair and wearing most of her clothes.

Lip readers can “read” conversations word-for-word verbatim without a mistake from up to fifty yards away, sometimes even when the speaker has their back to the reader.

Bombs almost always have timers. [In real life, the most common way of detonating a bomb is with a signal from a remote device, such as a cell phone.]

All too often, computer hackers can break into secure corporate computer systems and manipulate data in seconds by rapidly punching a few keys. [I’m seeing less of this lately.]

Folders containing sensitive computer files are prominently displayed on the homepages of personal and office computers, often with obvious labels, such as a victim’s name.

Digital search engines instantly direct you to the exact page you need to find the specific information you want.

The lock on a door of a typical residential home can be picked in less than ten seconds by anyone with a lock pick. Car locks take even less time. A safety pin will unlock handcuffs faster than a key.

Most people can be knocked cold with one punch to the jaw. Often just a light tap will do it. They will wake up later (in seconds, minutes, hours, or the next day, whichever is most convenient) with no lasting damage.

A car can be slammed into a roadside barrier, tossed into the air, and hit the ground rolling, and the occupants will suffer only a little temporary grogginess, along with some minor cuts and scratches that fade or disappear a few scenes later.

People instantly recognize each other and remember each other’s names even when they only met briefly several years, or even decades, prior. Related: witnesses to crimes can describe the perpetrators in almost photographic detail, especially if prodded by a police sketch artist. [Personal note: the only thing I remembered about the man who robbed the pizza parlor I was working in was the color and shape of his gun barrel.]

Every male cop over the age of thirty is either divorced and wants to reunite with his ex and estranged child, or he’s in a marriage that is falling apart.

Landlords tend to be incredibly lenient. You can be several months behind in your rent without getting evicted, even in New York City.

Working mothers routinely wake up early and prepare elaborate breakfasts for their families that none of them eat.

Every teenager is sullen and disrespectful to their parents, who fret and complain about it but never impose any boundaries or punishments.

And my personal favorite: Regardless of the time of day, no one ever has any trouble finding a convenient parking spot, even on a crowded downtown street in a large city.