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Friday, 23 November 2012

Rules of the Television

Fortnightly round-up:
- Gaza and Israel have serious shit to sort out
- Newsnight have a complete balls-up
- Lord McAlpine plans to sue the world
- George Entwistle loses it and still gets away with £450,000
- Abu Qatada sticks two fingers up at Britain, yet again

This time, I shall talk about rules of the television. Things that shall happen, no question.
Trust me on this.

-- Before the Credits rule (Or the "first-60-seconds" rule)
With the exception of pilots, any new character introduced either before the credits or in the first 60 seconds of a tv show will be murdered.
Sometimes they're already dead, proving that writers know that we're not stupid.

-- Anybody Can Handle a Firearm rule
Unless convenient to the plot, anybody (from small children to near-death elderly) can shoot any kind of gun at anyone and not miss. Ever.

-- No Inter-gender Friendships rule
If a male and female appear with one another on screen, they will fall in love. And sleep together. And then have a big argument. And then it's awkward until they die.

-- Death is Never Permanent rule
Found in sci-fi and fantasy shows, anyone who dies too easily (or are in the named cast) will never stay dead. A thousand and one things, varying from vaguely sane to seriously out there will bring them back to life. See: Supernatural

-- Cast are Never in Danger rule
Mostly relating to LOST, in which "48" people survive, although for some reason only about twelve seem to be around. This does mean, of course, when the health of the survivors is threatened, no-one interesting will die. Until 36 of the uninteresting characters die, then we're in trouble.

-- Home Alone rule
If a person is alone in the house, a strange noise will happen at night. The person will go investigate it. They will probably end up dead.

-- Let's Split Up! rule
A noise sounds late at night in a forest/haunted house/large establishment. An initially large group decide to split up. The least interesting of the group will die. They will generally be a woman. (more common in films)

2 comments:

Christwriter said...

There are many reasons why I cannot sit through a single episode of Supernatural without contracting the violent urge to start burning all DVDs that start with S. What you mentioned is one of them.

Lucy said...

I know what you mean. I think it got old after the second time Sam/Deam were resurrected.

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