LITTLE ROCK — Doesn’t TV just drive you nuts sometimes?
I mean all the annoying things that come across the screen. And I’m not including things named Kardashian.
It’s all those grating little (or maybe not so little) things over which you have no control and know that complaining about them to the network would be a futile exercise.
TV pet peeves can range from the merely annoying to so irritating that you may swear off certain programs as being too distracting to watch.
I’ve mentioned my personal pet peeves before. One example is when actors use cups of coffee as props.
Sure, the actors need to be doing something with their hands. Sometimes they go to the fridge and retrieve a bottle of water. They twist off the top, take only one swig and move on. That’s an expensive habit.
But the coffee thing is worse.
The scene calls for dialogue, so one actor will show up with a couple of venti caffe mochas, hand one to the other guy and they start talking.
Nine times out of 10 the actors will start gesturing with their coffee hands in such abroad fashion that it’s obvious there’s no coffee in the cup.
Drives me nuts. One of my most annoying peeves is how they film NCIS.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the show and rarely miss an episode, but the way they light the series is really distracting. I tried to find out why they do it, but got no response from the producers of the show.
It can’t just be me who is annoyed at the way the show shoots so many scenes with the actors strongly backlit with blinding white light from a window or other light source.
Notice how often that happens next time you watch. The lighting director is taking his reading off the bright light, allowing the actors’ faces in front of it to go almost dark.
Maybe they’re attemptinga certain “look” for the show. Or just maybe it’s a way to hide the wrinkles of the older stars.
Mark Harmon is a handsome man, but he’s also 60 years old. David McCallum, who plays medical examiner Donald “Ducky” Mallard, is 78.
Speaking of McCallum, I’ve gotten several e-mails from readers miffed that TV shows keep killing off their favorite characters. One cited the fact that the NCIS season finale had a car bomb go off outside headquarters and a number of folks are apparently dead.
But the news evidently was too much for Ducky out on the beach somewhere. He drops his cell phone and collapses, apparently dead of a massive heart attack.
One reader sent me such a distraught e-mail that I had to remind her that it’s called a cliffhanger. I mean, someone on Dallas shot J.R. Ewing on March 21, 1980, and CBS milked that for nine months until we found out it was Kristin.
Spoiler alert:
Stop here if you don’t want to know Ducky’s fate.
C’mon! Ducky’s not dead.How do I know? Because Mc-Callum just signed a two-year extension on his contract.
Are any of our other favorites dead? Abby? Surely not Abby!
The body count next fall depends on whether the show has contract holdouts. If an actor balks at the network’s final offer, he can always have been blown to bits in the season finale.
Finally, I’m getting an increasing number of complaints from viewers about the sound on some programs. Here’s a typical note from a septuagenarian from HotSprings Village.
“I am hoping you have some access to the folks who produce TV programs. Most programs lately are pathetic, to be kind, but we do have some favorites.
“Our biggest problem is that the background music and other background sound overwhelms the [dialogue] so the [dialogue] is extremely hard to hear. We are not deaf. We have discussed this with our friends and they agree. Can you possibly address this with someone who can solve the problem?”
Sadly, I have no more access than the average viewer.Well, maybe a bit more. I’ve asked network reps about this sound problem before and they express puzzlement and generally dismiss the complaint as an affliction of elderly ears. Each network has a “contact us” link on its website and you can file your grievance there.
Do you have a TV pet peeve? E-mail it to me and I’ll pass it along in a future column. Maybe the many, many TV moguls who peruse this column will take notice.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
Weekend, Pages 32 on 05/31/2012