Things in entertainment you'd like to see stop

[Zontar]

Title says it all, what are things in entertainment you'd like to see stop? Could be anything, tropes, ideas, formats, cinematography, anything.

For me, it's the season ending cliffhanger or series non-endings.

You all know what I'm talking about, because these days series more often then not end with a season ending cliffhanger even though over 2/3rds of television series will not be picked up for a second season, and most of those which do don't get a third. Writers and showrunners, you don't get the luxury of assuming you'll get another season, don't write a cliffhanger unless you have a 100% guarantee, on paper, signed, form saying you'll get a new season. The last part is needed because a verbal one means nothing (Stargate Universe was promised 3 seasons, ended after only 2 on a cliffhanger. F*ck you SyFy)

The second, the non-ending, is more of an anime thing. This stems from the fact that a lot of anime is an adaptation of a manga or light novel which is still running at the time it was made, and unfortunately many studios elect to have their shows end without any real ending in the unlikely hopes that maybe another season will be made adapting more of the work in question (something which very rarely happens) instead of just doing what Full Metal Alchemist did and having the story diverge from the source material so it can have its own ending, and if it's still popular enough when the story proper ends then just remake the story again in the medium but as a full adaptation.

Well, those are my two biggest beefs with entertainment (I won't name all of them since that would be a novel onto itself), so what are some of yours?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Having to watch the entire series to see if it was worth starting the series.

Sure, have an arc story if you like (and you aren't NuWho), but have stories you can watch by themselves.

 

[Queen Michael]

The comical misunderstanding. I hate that trope for several reasons. One is that it's so frustrating to see a conflict that could be solved if people'd just talk to each other. The other is that it's such a cop-out. I keep feeling that it's only used by writers who don't want to ruin the chemistry between the main romantic couple of the movie, so instead they have a misunderstanding. That way, there won't be any actual disagreements, which would have implied that the couple is--le gasp!--not perfect.

 

[DefunctTheory]

For me, it's the season ending cliffhanger or series non-endings.

You all know what I'm talking about, because these days series more often then not end with a season ending cliffhanger even though over 2/3rds of television series will not be picked up for a second season, and most of those which do don't get a third. Writers and showrunners, you don't get the luxury of assuming you'll get another season, don't write a cliffhanger unless you have a 100% guarantee, on paper, signed, form saying you'll get a new season. The last part is needed because a verbal one means nothing (Stargate Universe was promised 3 seasons, ended after only 2 on a cliffhanger. F*ck you SyFy)

I'm really torn on this. Certainly, modern TV shows are bad at this - Really, really bad. Even when shows aren't getting cancelled left and right, they still manage to mangle it most of the time.

On the other hand...

I suppose that is a high bar though... Next Generation was really good with their cliff hanging season enders (Redemption, the one where Picard and Worf pick the next Klingon leader, is also a favorite of mine)

Personally, I think Arrow does it right - They finish up whatever they were dealing with that season, then drop the bombshell for the next season. It cleans up the mess it already made, then teases you on the next mess, which is just fine with me.

The second, the non-ending, is more of an anime thing. This stems from the fact that a lot of anime is an adaptation of a manga or light novel which is still running at the time it was made, and unfortunately many studios elect to have their shows end without any real ending in the unlikely hopes that maybe another season will be made adapting more of the work in question (something which very rarely happens) instead of just doing what Full Metal Alchemist did and having the story diverge from the source material so it can have its own ending, and if it's still popular enough when the story proper ends then just remake the story again in the medium but as a full adaptation.

As someone who doesn't watch much Anime, and only when my friend has watched it from beginning to end and has endorsed it, I've never had this problem. I imagine it would be infuriating, though.

To be honest, I can't think of any entertainment practices I'd like to see ended (Beyond the one everyone hates, intentionally changing time slots to kill shows). I do have quite a few tropes I dislike, but that's a whole other can of worms.

 

[Zontar]

Snip

Best of Both Worlds doesn't really have the problem though, since it did have a guaranteed ending due to the show having ratings too good to cancel the show at that point. The real question, the real uncertainty, was how things would go with the characters, as Sir Patrick Stewart was no longer on contract and thus could possibly leave, and with Riker's character growth it was possible that he would become the new captain and his temporary commander become the new XO.

I have no problem with a season ending cliffhanger in and of itself, it's just that more often then not it ends up badly because of the fact that they get cancelled. I have no problem with it if there's resolution.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Absolute adherence to the Status-Quo.
It's fine for incidental shows like sit-coms where the gags are self-contained, but if you want to keep me invested, you're going to have to do more than introduce dilemmas and then have them all neatly resolved by the show's end.

I don't want every tiny detail to persist, but when someone undergoes life-altering trauma in one episode, only for it to be utterly reversed and never brought up again...kinda makes me not want to bother.

(Voyager was maddening to watch because of this; I dropped that show so quickly when it was still on TV)

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Canned. Fucking. Laughter. If you're going to do a sitcom, fine. But for fucks sake please don't treat the audience like idiots that need to be told a joke is funny or not. Sure there might be live tapings still but honestly I can tell the difference between canned laughter and a live audience. Good night its irritating in modern TV, older shows I'll grandfather in but 21st century TV comedies need to let the audience think a little.
Personally I think the very face of television is morphing by way of streaming capability and a lot of the old ways are going to die out right quick. Its too bad we didn't have Netflix Instant Queue when Firefly was cancelled.

 

[Queen Michael]

Canned. Fucking. Laughter. If you're going to do a sitcom, fine. But for fucks sake please don't treat the audience like idiots that need to be told a joke is funny or not. Sure there might be live tapings still but honestly I can tell the difference between canned laughter and a live audience. Good night its irritating in modern TV, older shows I'll grandfather in but 21st century TV comedies need to let the audience think a little.
Personally I think the very face of television is morphing by way of streaming capability and a lot of the old ways are going to die out right quick. Its too bad we didn't have Netflix Instant Queue when Firefly was cancelled.

Sometimes, and by "sometimes" I mean "surprisingly often," the live audience is laughing at some guy who's doing funny stuff off-camera, and not at the brilliant and innovative comedy writing of The Big Bang Theory. Surprising, I know.

 

[Wary Wolf]

Absolute adherence to the Status-Quo.

The creative effort is generally stifled in various forms of entertainment over money making. Understandable, and I don't mind spending money on quality entertainment. But the entertainment industry as a whole doesn't like to take risks. Again, understandable, but damn is it depressing.

On one hand the consumer is part of the problem. But I think its more to do with the very intelligent people who make the big decisions who know exactly what we all like: Meagan Fox sucking a lolly pop if male. And if female... Sexy vampires?

Show some courage and creativity please entertainment industry.

 

[renegade7]

Slow pacing and jumping between character perspectives. I was trying to watch Heroes on Netflix and I stopped after about 7 episodes because they just would not get to the fucking point.

Token love interests aren't something I particularly enjoy either. They're usually awkward and boring and add nothing to the plot and leave me thinking about how the movie, show, or game could otherwise have been improved if time and money wasn't spent writing in the cringey sexual tension.

Flagrant abuse of technical language, usually in science fiction shows. Every time I hear the word "quantum", and we're not talking about what quantum mechanics actually is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_algebra], a little piece of me dies inside. It's gotten so bad in popular culture that in physics we've had to start calling it things like "modern physics" (where previously this was a term reserved for anything after 1905), "wave mechanics", and "discrete-energy physics" just to because we've been so conditioned to cringe at abuse of the term. Obviously it's not limited to physics, computer science is a frequent target of abuse as well. Just look at this:


Which brings us to "hacking". There is no organized internet subculture of cyberpunk computer wizards, if there was, they've either long since been arrested or gone off and used their "mad l337 skilz" to go get computer jobs. If Agents of Shield was remotely realistic in this regard, then Skye's efforts to use her "Rising Tide" contacts as a deus ex machina to move the plot forward would invariably result in her being doxxed, followed by a torrent of dickpics, and then a half-dozen forum threads with titles to the effect of "SHIELD IS JEWS", and the only hacking that would be done would be by a 14-year-old channer trying to break into her phone to look for nudes. When hacking actually does occur in the real world, it looks less like groups of teenaged computer prodigies typing into terminals at a million WPM and more like groups of people spending hours poring over datasheets and cryptography textbooks.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

Resurrecting old franchises. Seriously, the last thing we need is another round of Terminator or Jurassic Park movies. And yet...

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Pandering to the lowest-common denominator. And not just in reality TV (I actually like some reality TV shows), in certain current shows, there seems to be a lot of random and/or stupid humor, annoying characters, and strict adherence to the status quo.

 

[Queen Michael]

Just look at this:

I did, and now I wish I hadn't. Sheesh. None of them ever touch the mouse. "I'm being hacked" seems to simply mean "There are many popup windows." And "I've never seen code like this" is such a thing that my mom would think computer-people say.

 

[FPLOON]

Too little/too much advertising: As subjective as this is, there are just some things that either get too much advertising or too little advertising in general... Sure, "everyone" will know about the new Transformers movie whether they like to or not, but barely "anyone" would know about the latest Transformers series that's, for some reason, only being shown once a week during the mourning hours of Saturday...

Other than that, overcensorship... It's like censorship, only it extends to making sure than "everyone" can watch it without hearing a single cuss come out of any character's mouth... That's right, Disney XD! I see you censoring Doctor Who over there! Stop it!! You're making things sound much worse than what they actually are!!

 

[Casual Shinji]

The typical family dynamic.

The dad is a bumbling man-child, the mother is always shaking her head at the dad's antics, the daughter is self absorbed, and the son is a loser with a hopeless crush. Knock this shit off, I'm tired of seeing this routine. It's the one real slight against Rick and Morty.

 

[The Purple Grape]

All 'adult' and 'mature' being an overabundance of swearing, aimed at people with the maturity of an 8 year old, or overuse of violence and sex aimed at people with the maturity level of an 'edgey' 13 year old. If the story is trying to be silly then its fine but a serious one ha yeah, call me when you grow up. Learn variation of tone through carefully weaving of a story and characters then maybe i will take you seriously.

Butchering of pre-established characters to fit 'new and progressive' views (Maleficent, Tomb Raider) being wronged by men just so the hack writing can jack off to the wrist-slitting blogging crowd. In the case of Tomb Raider having no personality flaws, an English Lady wouldn't be slightly arrogant oh no she must be all nice and everything so everyone else can die for their sins.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I would like to see this sort of thing stop:


But I think that's just a matter of taste.

...I'm lying. Taste has nothing to do with it. This is just horrible.

"Chain" and "Ring" do NOT rhyme, you bastard!

The comical misunderstanding. I hate that trope for several reasons. One is that it's so frustrating to see a conflict that could be solved if people'd just talk to each other. The other is that it's such a cop-out. I keep feeling that it's only used by writers who don't want to ruin the chemistry between the main romantic couple of the movie, so instead they have a misunderstanding. That way, there won't be any actual disagreements, which would have implied that the couple is--le gasp!--not perfect.

This right here makes me rage pretty hard.

I don't care what format it's in. Anime, manga, comics, TV, movies, books, whatever. In any romantic comedy this is happening and I hate it.

Just. Speak. To. One. Another. Use. Your. Words. I don't need 50 chapters/episodes/hours of will-they-won't-they bullshit because the characters don't know how to string together a sentence as simple as, "Hey, it's not what you're thinking, and here's why."

 

[Twintix]

Token love interests aren't something I particularly enjoy either. They're usually awkward and boring and add nothing to the plot and leave me thinking about how the movie, show, or game could otherwise have been improved if time and money wasn't spent writing in the cringey sexual tension.

YES. God, do I hate this one. The second Hobbit movie was absolutely ruined for me because of this shit. That fucking female elf that was only created just for the sake of having an infuriatingly stupid, flat and pointless romance subplot...
Fuck her.
Fuck everything about her.
Fuck the writers for coming up with her.
Fuck her so hard and let her go die in a fire.

Listen, up-and coming writers; Don't insert romance just for the sake of having romance in a story that doesn't need it. It rarely feels genuine, it adds absolutely nothing and the token love interest is never interesting. Never. Ever.