Unique Properties of Television Worlds

[Shawnster]

Characters in their early 20s in entry level jobs live in apartments they could never afford on their salary. Especially common with main characters.

Friends and Big Bang Theory are two that come to mind.

Courtesy of Google, the apartment Sheldon and Leonard share would go for around $2k per month. Penny's would be cheaper as it's one bedroom but unlikley some-one on minimum wage could afford it.

In Big Bang Theory, only Penny has an entry-level position. The rest have been at their jobs for years. In Season 6 an episode stated all of the guys (well, except Howard) were on the short list for tenure.

Jessica Fletcher comes from the largest family in America.

Cabot Cove, Maine, the fictional setting of Murder She Wrote, has 50% more murders than Honduras, which is the murder capitol of the world. http://twentytwowords.com/an-amusin...each-state-ok-maybe-theyre-not-all-amusing/4/

In the NCIS universe, any location in Europe, especially the Middle East, is only a few short hours flight from DC. The main characters are able to leave DC and arrive at their destination, or vice versa, the same day. Also, it is usually the same daylight/dark time of day in both DC and the foreign location.

In House all diagnoses will require a lumbar puncture.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^And that itself is creepy -- the idea that the civilian leader of the society would need the military's "permission." They were supposed to work for her, not the other way around. And Adama claimed to believe in that principle, then threw it out the window the moment it inconvenienced him.

I think this is getting very off-topic, but the agreement that Adama and Roslin had going back to the mini was that Adama had absolute authority over military matters. Adama only arrested Roslin when she crossed that line.

 

[doubleohfive]

Characters in their early 20s in entry level jobs live in apartments they could never afford on their salary. Especially common with main characters.

Friends and Big Bang Theory are two that come to mind.

Courtesy of Google, the apartment Sheldon and Leonard share would go for around $2k per month. Penny's would be cheaper as it's one bedroom but unlikley some-one on minimum wage could afford it.

In Big Bang Theory, only Penny has an entry-level position. The rest have been at their jobs for years. In Season 6 an episode stated all of the guys (well, except Howard) were on the short list for tenure.

Re: The Big Bang Theory:
The characters also live in downtown Pasadena (City Hall is clearly visible from the window adjacent to Sheldon and Leonard's kitchen. As they're all scientists and doctors (sorry, Miiiiiiister Wolowitz!) at CalTech, they likely bring home respectable salaries. I don't have any trouble believing Sheldon and Leonard would be able to handle a $2,000/month rent with their combined incomes.

Penny's a different story obviously, but she also spends most of the series waiting tables at The Cheesecake Factory and acting on the side, so I'm sure she was able to squirrel away enough money each month to afford her much smaller one-bedroom apartment before she went into pharmaceutical sales this season.

Re: Friends:
Having re-watched the series since it came to Netflix a few weeks ago, it's important to remember that Ross is also a doctor/PhD at a museum and then later a university and likely earned a generous income.

It's made clear in the first season that Monica and Rachel's gigantic apartment was actually owned by Monica and Ross' deceased grandmother. Chandler and Joey lived across the hall in a much smaller, less impressive space comparatively.

Chandler works his way up the corporate ladder at his job before switching careers to work in advertising. Monica becomes head chef at a restaurant.

Joey finds success as an actor first when Days of Our Lives brings him back to life as well as various major movie roles (the World War II film he does with Gary Oldman, et al) and his own hour-long (if short lived) action TV series ("Mac & Cheese"). The residuals alone from these would be great for his income.

Rachel also works her way up from waitressing at Central Perk to working for Bloomingdales, then Ralph Lauren, to being high value enough for Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton to start a bidding war over her employment by the time the series reached its final episodes.

About the only character who doesn't seem to make much progress in her career is Phoebe, who is still a masseuse and musician performing at Central Perk by the end of the series but has also married Mike Hannigan and is largely unconcerned with the progress of her own career anyway.

So, despite the usual trope of young 20somethings living in extravagant residences despite the low income they might be making, I don't really see how that can be applied to these two specific shows.

 

[HIjol]

Seems a rarity that anyone goes to the bathroom, showers without sex, or shaves - without sex. Not ever, but a rarity.

 

[Christopher]

I think this is getting very off-topic, but the agreement that Adama and Roslin had going back to the mini was that Adama had absolute authority over military matters. Adama only arrested Roslin when she crossed that line.

Which is still taking it for granted that military authority supersedes civilian authority, that civilians can only rule with the indulgence of the military. And that is exactly the philosophy I find so corrupt and horrifically wrong. The military must exist to serve civilians, not the other way around. If Adama had been sincere in his beliefs, he would've turned to the rightful civil authorities to impeach Roslin for her alleged crimes, rather than just throwing out all the principles he'd paid lip service to a couple of weeks before.

 

[The Old Mixer]

You might disagree with the conditions under which Adama agreed to protect the civilian fleet rather than leave it behind to fight the Cylons, but that's the agreement that was made. And humanity had been brought down to a number that wouldn't fill some baseball stadiums, so they were surviving under less-than-ideal circumstances.

 

[doubleohfive]

Wasn't it Colonel Tigh who declared martial law? While Adama was unconcsious after having been shot by Boomer?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

nuAdama was a warrior, and he was fighting for the survival of humanity. He wasn't going to surrender his power on that front, any more than real people in power would.

That was one of the points of nuBSG, that in times of crisis there is a distance between idealism and pragmatism, between theory and practice, that is difficult to bridge. The stakes were amplified beyond real-world stakes to the extreme degree, since final extinction of humanity was at stake. If the people in nuBSG behaved no worse than real people have in the past, say, century, then the people in nuBSG were probably collectively more moral than real people. But still, the heroes in nuBSG were not ideal, which was also one of the points, as this was more of a comment on the actual human condition than the original.

In that singular sense of being unwilling to cede power in the fight against extinction, Adama was not unlike Admiral Cain. However, Adama had many more redeeming features than Cain, including greater compassion and a larger conscience. Plus, Adama's character changed over the course of the show, and in the end he freely cast aside that power once it was no longer needed.

 

[Enterprise1701]

In the NCIS universe, any location in Europe, especially the Middle East, is only a few short hours flight from DC. The main characters are able to leave DC and arrive at their destination, or vice versa, the same day. Also, it is usually the same daylight/dark time of day in both DC and the foreign location.

And if an NCIS show's main team stumbles upon another agency's investigation, then 90% of the time the NCIS team's methods are better, they always solve the case better, and the other agency's agents are incompetent. Oh yeah, and the NCIS team doesn't get prosecuted for breaking any criminal interference laws.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Wasn't it Colonel Tigh who declared martial law? While Adama was unconcsious after having been shot by Boomer?

Colonel Tigh declared martial law, but Commander Adama gave the order to arrest Roslin.

Adama was just as pragmatic as Cain. The difference is, Adama's goal was to protect the future and the culture of the human race, and Cain's was just to win the war without regard to losses.

Adama was Paragon Shephard, and Cain was Renegade Shephard.

@Enterprise

It's true for almost all shows that whichever division of the military or whichever bureau the show focuses on is always right about everything. Stargate? Air Force is always right, everyone else is always wrong. CSI? Police are always right, FBI is always wrong.

 

[WillsBabe]

Generally people can park where they want - right outside the building they need to visit, for example, and there is plenty of space and no restrictions on parking there. Folks make arrangements for dinner, for example, but never say where they are going or what time. "I'll pick you up for dinner?" "Sure, great, see you later." Drives me mad!! On sitcoms people talk about other characters, usually disparagingly, who are standing two feet away as if they aren't even in the same building.

 

[Nerys Myk]

My favorite is people on TV shows (especially soaps) having secret conversations in public places where anyone can eavesdrop (and usually do).

 

[Timewalker]

My favorite is people on TV shows (especially soaps) having secret conversations in public places where anyone can eavesdrop (and usually do).

For the past two weeks this very thing happened on General Hospital, when several characters who are in prison openly discussed a planned jailbreak - in the visitation room, within earshot of a guard. The guards had no clue a breakout was planned until the male prisoners (one was a woman) showed up in guards' uniforms and hijacked the police truck that was supposed to take two female prisoners to the courthouse.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Generally people can park where they want - right outside the building they need to visit, for example, and there is plenty of space and no restrictions on parking there.

This reminds me of something that I just caught in last night's Batman on MeTV. When Batman's leaving the commissioner's office, Chief O'Hara gets on a phone and dramatically announces, "Clear all exits for the Batmobile!" I'm like, "What exits? He's parked in front of the building, it's the same stock shot every episode!"

(Not only does Batman have his spot reserved, but he never even seems to need to parallel park.)

 

[{ Emilia }]

In CSI there's a database for everything. I remember one episode where they quickly checked the DNA of a suspect in a database that apparently held the DNA of all American high school teachers.

And then you get the flashing "Match found" image. I honestly can't watch CSI.

 

[Christopher]

This reminds me of something that I just caught in last night's Batman on MeTV. When Batman's leaving the commissioner's office, Chief O'Hara gets on a phone and dramatically announces, "Clear all exits for the Batmobile!" I'm like, "What exits? He's parked in front of the building, it's the same stock shot every episode!"

I've always taken that line to mean "Keep all departure routes clear of traffic." But since it was an early episode, I suppose it could've been written before they'd decided how they'd depict the Batmobile's arrival. There was that one episode where they showed it pulling into the back lot of the police station, because it was a nighttime scene and they couldn't use the usual daytime stock footage.

(Not only does Batman have his spot reserved, but he never even seems to need to parallel park.)

Except that in that parking-lot scene, he left the Batmobile blocking two parked police cars in their spaces -- just as a couple of cops were heading for one of them!

I suppose one could assume that the space out front of Police Headquarters is a "Batmobile Parking Only" space, or that O'Hara has his men clear it when Batman is en route, sort of the reverse of the call you were referring to.

 

[the G-man]

For some reason I think it was established that the space in front of the Gotham PD HQ had a 'reserved for Batman' sign

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Although, after the New Caprica arc, Adama forcefully installed his preferred president over the legally elected vice president.

It is kind of disturbing the way the military related to the civilian government in Battlestar Galactica, but in the extreme context of the vast majority of the human race being exterminated and closing in on all sides, you run the risk of personal politics interfering with the survival of the species (As they did in the New Caprica arc).

 

[Nerys Myk]

My favorite is people on TV shows (especially soaps) having secret conversations in public places where anyone can eavesdrop (and usually do).

For the past two weeks this very thing happened on General Hospital, when several characters who are in prison openly discussed a planned jailbreak - in the visitation room, within earshot of a guard. The guards had no clue a breakout was planned until the male prisoners (one was a woman) showed up in guards' uniforms and hijacked the police truck that was supposed to take two female prisoners to the courthouse.

If it had happened on the docks (GH's favorite secret meeting spot) someone would have heard.

 

[Push The Button]

A unique property of the (remake of) Battlestar Galactica is how its human civilization is such an absolutely accurate carbon copy of our own - in defiance of all laws of logic and probability. Hell, they even came up with "All Along The Watchtower" 150,000 years before we did!

That just proves that true classics are ageless.

It seems like there are a lot of Detective/Investigator TV shows with two names:

Dempsey and Makepeace
MacGruder and Loud
Rizzoli and Isles
Hardcastle and McCormick
Tenspeed and Brownshoe
Simon and Simon
Jake and the Fatman
Starsky and Hutch
McMillan and Wife
Cagney and Lacey
Heart to Heart

Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E.



Or else the video software can magically give resolution where it didn't exist.

Next we have Dr Tom who first appears as a stranger on the street. He's a bit of a walnut. I mean, literally.

Literally?

Courtesy of Google, the apartment Sheldon and Leonard share would go for around $2k per month. Penny's would be cheaper as it's one bedroom but unlikley some-one on minimum wage could afford it.

I've always wondered why some of the characters don't make more money. I mean, yeah, they're geeks and losers, but they're also super-geniuses.

Howard is probably the most overqualified and underemployed of the main characters, despite Sheldon's constant berating that he is the "dumbest" of the group, next to Penny. He is an aerospace engineer that has a good solid SE and EE background, and is an MIT graduate and former astronaut. In the real world he would be working for SpaceX or Google and earning a lot more than his annoying wife does at her pharmaceutical company, or maybe even have his own successful startup by now.