If there’s one good thing that can be said about this past year, it’s allowed us to consume an incredible amount of guilt-free TV content. When you’re stuck in lockdown, what else is there?
And since I’ve been able to devote so much more of my free time to my TV addiction, I want to help make the experience better. Take a look at these 10+ things that happen in TV shows that have definitely run their course.
Cracking the introvert’s shell.
Why is it that every single introverted silent type seems to secretly possess incredible musical or athletic ability? And why does it only present itself in plot-dependent circumstances?
I don’t think I that ever heard Stevie so much as whistle a tune before she became Sally Bowles in the Schitt’s Creek production of “Cabaret.”
Whenever somebody chews aspirin instead of swallowing it with water like a normal human being.
Why did this ever become a thing? Have you ever tried to chew pills or to swallow them without water? It’s disgusting.
What are they trying to prove by doing this?
When someone pretends to deliver bad news.
When Leslie was running for sitting council on Parks and Rec , we all knew that she was going to get the seat.
Stop trying to fake us out. It doesn’t work and it just comes off as insulting.
Slowly sliding down a wall while crying.
Who hasn’t been so overcome with emotion that they collapse upright against a wall and then slowly and dramatically start to fall to the floor?
That’s totally something that people do in real life, right?
Every female character waking up with perfect hair and makeup
What’s wrong with a little bedhead in the morning?
How come TV dads are allowed to look like total slobs, yet if a woman has so much as a single strand of hair out of place she’s labeled as disheveled?
The constant will they/won’t they dynamic between platonic friends.
Rest assured that if a male or female protagonist has a best friend of the opposite sex, they will inevitably end up hooking up with one another.
I like to call this ‘The Ross and Rachel Effect.’
Young girls cutting their hair out of defiance.
My real gripe isn’t even so much that they all cut their hair, it’s that it somehow manages to look so perfect afterward.
I had to cut my own hair three times during lockdown and let me tell you — it wasn’t pretty.
Showing up at the airport.
Who does this in real life? Really, I want to know.
And why does the person flying in always manage to pick someone else up abroad, thus throwing a wrench into their true love’s plan?
Why doesn’t anyone ever lock their front door?
The majority of sitcoms that we watch tend to take place in either Los Angeles or New York.
Wouldn’t these people have enough sense and know-how to not leave their front doors unlocked at all hours of the day?
Coma patients.
Enough with people falling into comas! Every single time that I see this redundant trope play out, I conjure images of the cheesiest soap operas.
It absolutely shatters the entire character reality built up until that point.
Hanging up the phone without saying goodbye.
It’s just plain rude, isn’t it?
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If I ever hung up the phone on my mother without saying goodbye, I’d immediately get an angry callback chastising me for even thinking of doing such a thing.
When someone rips an IV out of their arm.
It’s just so unnecessary and painful. If you really don’t want the needle in your arm, then just gently take off the tape and slowly remove it.
There’s no need to make a bloody mess of yourself and cause undue pain.
Smashing piggy-banks.
I understand that the act of smashing the piggy-bank is often meant to be symbolic, but there has to be a better way.
It’s just so counterintuitive to use a hammer to smash a porcelain pig. And such a huge mess to clean up.
A ghost suddenly appearing in the mirror.
Someone finishes washing their face and as they close the medicine cabinet mirror, a ghost suddenly appears in the background! Whoa — scary.
This is without a doubt one of the most predictable jump-scare moments in the history of television.
Characters leaving drunken admissions of love via answering machine.
I think most people have felt the after-effects of drunk dialing, but this is just too much.
And why do they always seem to forget until the absolute last minute? That’s a pretty important detail to black out.
