PeteLeo
02-21-2007, 02:33 AM
For this inaugural post, the topic will be TV crime dramas.
(A) If there is a male high school or college athlete, he did it. It doesn't matter how innocent or likeable the guy appears to be, all male members of any school athletic team are racist, homophobic, steroid-addled, conceited, sexually-insecure, rage-aholic murderers in training. I think this observation would prove true even if the particular team any of these characters belonged to was synchronized swimming.
(B) Any evangelical preacher is automatically a closeted homosexual who is using church funds to pay off his secret boy dates, and if he isn't the killer, he's at least the ultimate reason for the killing. Two of the "Law and Order" franchaises have reinforced this hard and fast rule with stories in the past couple of weeks.
(C) Anyone -- hero or villain -- can run in front of a speeding car, be thrown onto its hood with enough force to crash into and smash the windshield, roll off, and resume running at full speed without so much as a limp or a bloody nose. To be fair (and aren't I always fair?), this superhuman capacity first appeared and spread like a virus in the movies, but television hasn't been shy in adopting the trait.
(D) No matter how close a TV crime drama character is standing when a hellacious explosion occurs, he or she will never have the slightest difficulty in hearing even a whisper three seconds afterwards. Some eardrums these folks have.
(E) Anyone with a Southern accent is obviously a racist and, probably, a pedophile.
(F) Whatever hideous, awful, traumatic, soul-chilling tragedy befalls the primary victim in a crime drama, it has happened in the past to at least one member of the investgative team. Well . . . maybe not death, but you know what I mean.
(G) Any gun in a "civilian" (i.e., non-law enforcement-headed) household will wind up in the hands of a child before the end of the episode and, in 98% of the cases, kill someone innocent of any crime.
(H) If you were a hippy back in the Sixties, you murdered someone then and have kept it a secret since.
(I) Cell phones, which all police detectives carry at all times to inform them of lab discoveries which will greatly advance the plot, never go off and alert "perps" when the heroes are creeping up on them (and before someone points out that cell phones can be switched off or changed to vibrate, these same devices will often beep piercingly the split second after the villain has been placed in 'cuffs or shot).
(J) A serial killer with an I.Q. of 180 who has been murdering for decades and humiliating the detectives for equally as long will dissolve into a blubbering, confessing glob of insanity the moment a cop mentions anything about the childhood incident that caused him to become a serial killer. Some of the really, really, smart psychos can postpone this emotional meltdown until they're actually in court and on the witness stand, but eventually they all cave. Makes you wonder how the two Jacks (the Ripper and the Stripper), the Zodiac, and the Mad Butcher of Cleveland managed to keep their mouths shut, doesn't it?
(K) Male villains can be evil for evil's sake, but female villains have always been molested by dirty males at some point, which forces them to become "pseudo-evil." Exceptions to this rule are those high society dames who kill to keep their past indiscretions secret, which leads us to the next rule:
(L) All rich people are, at heart, criminal. Otherwise, they wouldn't have all of that money, would they?
(M) Big corporations are like male high school and college athletes: they're always the ones who did it.
(N) Television reporters assigned to the crime beat all have a single overriding desire that fuels their very lives, and that is to make the police look incompetent and reveal the details of on-going investigations that will alert the villains to the nets closing about them. Okay, maybe this one isn't so much of a stereotype.
(O) There are no Puerto Rican police officers outside of Puerto Rico. The last known member of this vanished tribe was portrayed by Gregory Sierra some thirty years ago on "Barney Miller," and he left early to go on to his . . . estimable movie career.
Aren't you glad I didn't go for the whole alphabet tonight? PeteLeo.
(A) If there is a male high school or college athlete, he did it. It doesn't matter how innocent or likeable the guy appears to be, all male members of any school athletic team are racist, homophobic, steroid-addled, conceited, sexually-insecure, rage-aholic murderers in training. I think this observation would prove true even if the particular team any of these characters belonged to was synchronized swimming.
(B) Any evangelical preacher is automatically a closeted homosexual who is using church funds to pay off his secret boy dates, and if he isn't the killer, he's at least the ultimate reason for the killing. Two of the "Law and Order" franchaises have reinforced this hard and fast rule with stories in the past couple of weeks.
(C) Anyone -- hero or villain -- can run in front of a speeding car, be thrown onto its hood with enough force to crash into and smash the windshield, roll off, and resume running at full speed without so much as a limp or a bloody nose. To be fair (and aren't I always fair?), this superhuman capacity first appeared and spread like a virus in the movies, but television hasn't been shy in adopting the trait.
(D) No matter how close a TV crime drama character is standing when a hellacious explosion occurs, he or she will never have the slightest difficulty in hearing even a whisper three seconds afterwards. Some eardrums these folks have.
(E) Anyone with a Southern accent is obviously a racist and, probably, a pedophile.
(F) Whatever hideous, awful, traumatic, soul-chilling tragedy befalls the primary victim in a crime drama, it has happened in the past to at least one member of the investgative team. Well . . . maybe not death, but you know what I mean.
(G) Any gun in a "civilian" (i.e., non-law enforcement-headed) household will wind up in the hands of a child before the end of the episode and, in 98% of the cases, kill someone innocent of any crime.
(H) If you were a hippy back in the Sixties, you murdered someone then and have kept it a secret since.
(I) Cell phones, which all police detectives carry at all times to inform them of lab discoveries which will greatly advance the plot, never go off and alert "perps" when the heroes are creeping up on them (and before someone points out that cell phones can be switched off or changed to vibrate, these same devices will often beep piercingly the split second after the villain has been placed in 'cuffs or shot).
(J) A serial killer with an I.Q. of 180 who has been murdering for decades and humiliating the detectives for equally as long will dissolve into a blubbering, confessing glob of insanity the moment a cop mentions anything about the childhood incident that caused him to become a serial killer. Some of the really, really, smart psychos can postpone this emotional meltdown until they're actually in court and on the witness stand, but eventually they all cave. Makes you wonder how the two Jacks (the Ripper and the Stripper), the Zodiac, and the Mad Butcher of Cleveland managed to keep their mouths shut, doesn't it?
(K) Male villains can be evil for evil's sake, but female villains have always been molested by dirty males at some point, which forces them to become "pseudo-evil." Exceptions to this rule are those high society dames who kill to keep their past indiscretions secret, which leads us to the next rule:
(L) All rich people are, at heart, criminal. Otherwise, they wouldn't have all of that money, would they?
(M) Big corporations are like male high school and college athletes: they're always the ones who did it.
(N) Television reporters assigned to the crime beat all have a single overriding desire that fuels their very lives, and that is to make the police look incompetent and reveal the details of on-going investigations that will alert the villains to the nets closing about them. Okay, maybe this one isn't so much of a stereotype.
(O) There are no Puerto Rican police officers outside of Puerto Rico. The last known member of this vanished tribe was portrayed by Gregory Sierra some thirty years ago on "Barney Miller," and he left early to go on to his . . . estimable movie career.
Aren't you glad I didn't go for the whole alphabet tonight? PeteLeo.