Film and television conventions

What are your most loved/hated conventions in film and television?

For example, it really bugs me when someone is rewinding a video and it plays the audio backwards and at a high speed. I don't know about you, but I've never had a VCR that played audio while rewinding.

Also, in The Gilmore Girls, they never fill a coffee cup more than a quarter full or so.

And noise in space (yay Firefly!)

I love laugh tracks because they tell me when a joke was attempted.

i've also just remembered the most cliche moment i've seen is when they have a dog whimper and then cock his head to the side to indicate confusion.

How bullets work:

An important character is struck in the leg, shoulder, or stomach

An unimportant character is struck directly in the aorta

The antagonist can be shot in the head, but only by the protagonist, or another character if s/he has been shot and assumed dead.

Men can't possibly cook, clean anything, or change a diaper without screwing it up in some hilarious fashion.

"Don't help our friend who is in mortal danger! This is something he/she has to do on his own."

I loved it so much when Firefly mocked that convention.

Also, a plan's ability to work is directly tied to its craziness.

[Edited on Oct 22, 2005 by Kid_Dangerbot]

I love the second episode of Firefly, when that Alliance agent is holding a gun to River's head. It looks as if there's gonna be that typical tense scene where there's a gun to someone's head and everyone is yelling...then Mal comes into the ship and just shoots the guy because they're trying to get away from the Reavers.

Crew members you've never seen before in Star Trek that go on a mission with the regular crew. You just know their life expectancy is looking shifty.

I'm partial to the cars that will explode whenever they hit anything. Overturned? BOOM. Bumps into a streetlight? BOOM.

Why does getting shot make people go flying?