Things that bother you in TV Shows

People walk into houses, apartments, etc, and never close the door.

When people drink out of a cup and you can tell it's empty.

When something important happens at an event and the two characters wait until they get home to talk about it. So they just sat in the car together on their way home just to wait until they opened the door into their house to talk about what just happened

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On the flip side, characters constantly running into each other in public. How often do you run into ANYBODY you know when you're running errands, much less the same two or three people every time you leave the house?

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When you live in a NYC neighborhood it can happen

Has anybody ever run into anybody on the street in LA?

One of the walls in their house is missing, which is why we can see everything.

TV scales things down

If you've seen photographs of old western towns, the streets are often shockingly wide, especially when you consider there were no automobiles.

But that doesn't photograph well, particularly for the old standard ration frame. So silent movie westerns narrowed the width of town streets, a convention kept w/talkies, TV, and spaghetti westerns.

If you've seen Stalag 17 you'll know how crowded POW camps could be. But all those extras cost money. On Hogan's Heroes they'll have the regulars in a roll call or barracks scene, then maybe 4 or 5 extras behind them. Even worse are the long shots of the Stalag grounds -- with so few people milling about it looks like the camp is deserted.

One aspect of TV that is fascinating sociologically is the sitcom convention of characters having 5 or 6 friends -- all of whom happen to be characters on the show. They don't have a dozen or more, as some people do -- or none at all, as some unfortunate people do.

Then there's the next door neighbor, who is invariably a loveable eccentric. He's never a psycho from hell, or even worse from a programmer's perspective, a boring nonentity the regulars never interact with.

Watch a documentary if it’s reality you seek
Ps - it’s called artistic license

Everybody keeps their doors unlock and bitch about people coming into their house

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They live in a small town yet you never see the same townies twice....

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A reason I liked Gilmore Girls was you saw a lot of the same people, and the characters also wore clothes more than once. That’s one for me. I hate when poor people in shows have an endless wardrobe.

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no one has mentioned just-graduated 20somethings living in huge NY apts?

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It isn't just that demographic. It is amazing how many people in TV and movies live well above their means in terms of housing even ones that are supposed to be fairly poor.

The other thing is how spotless and uncluttered most houses/apartments are. Unless clutter is a plot point rarely does a home look lived in.