Media Research Failure/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[
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* CNN Money (or Fortune Magazine, it's hard to tell) did a review for the 3DS, to which there were glaring issues. Those involved specifically to this trope were complaining about the 3DS using cartridges, "which weren't used on since the last [[Game Boy]]" and "to add insult to injury, it comes with a stylus, which we've last seen on [[
** Otherwise the reviewer's credibility for reviewing the device was he was a "hardcore gamer that grew up on Halo".
** And Apple's iPod, iPad, and iPhone were seen as direct competition (although technically they are capable of playing video games, they aren't marketed as portable gaming consoles).
* At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, Tim Allen announced that Alec Baldwin had won the "Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series -- Musical or Comedy" for his role in ''[[3rd Rock
** This one sounds like a teleprompter-reading error: "30 Rock" read as "Third Rock".
* Even some online episode guides get mixed up about ''[[
* When ''[[Babylon
** During the first re-run airing of ''[[Babylon
* The ''Sun'' accused [[The BBC]] of anti-Conservative bias (they support the Conservative Party) in a children's show, specifically ''The Basil Brush Show''. An episode involved a character named Dave cheating in an attempt to win a school election and using a blue rosette (traditionally worn by Conservatives at elections). This was viewed as an attack on the Conservative leader, David Cameron. They would have had a good argument - if not for the fact that the episode was a repeat (a fact mentioned by the paper's own TV guide) and their screenshot proves its age by showing the character in question as a child. Whether they were saying it was originally filmed as a [[Take That]] at Mr. Cameron or just that the Beeb took advantage of the coincidence isn't certain.
* Something somewhere on the net said that Richard Hatch played Lee Adama in the
* Whoever wrote the Dutch and French episode descriptions featured in the collector's edition DVD boxes of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' probably only glanced at the English ones. "The Prom" is supposedly about hellhounds that have escape from Oz's chemistry laboratory. In reality it's about hellhounds who are released by a guy Oz has chemistry class with. Big difference.
* Several morning news shows took a segment of ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' where Stephen Colbert asked Democratic Congressional candidate Robert Wexler (running unopposed in his district) campaign-killing questions ("Fill in the blank: I enjoy cocaine because...") seriously, comparing it to an earlier segment where Colbert exposed a candidate who decried the separation of church and state and yet couldn't name all of the Ten Commandments and asking, "Why do politicians keep going on ''The Colbert Report'' when it makes them look foolish?" [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/182106/july-25-2006/morning-shows Needless to say, Colbert took them down a notch].
** Wonderfully deconstructed in one episode where Stephen quoted a scientist working on the Large Hadron Collider as saying: "What did they say in ''[[Star Wars]]''? We’re going where no man has ever been? Well, that’s where we’re going." Stephen Colbert protests that it's fairly obvious that it came from ''[[Star Trek]]'', and that the quote is "boldly go where no man has gone before". [[One of Us|He then says that we need more nerds as scientists]].
** Let's not leave out [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/181944/june-07-2006/balrog the nerdiest call-out of all time]. Some CNN reporters needed a stock image of Satan as the backdrop for their <s>encouragement</s> coverage of the 06/06/06 "hysteria." They used an illustration of the Balrog from a 1977 [[The Lord of the Rings]] calendar, prompting Stephen to explain, "Devils and Balrogs are totally different. Devils are angels who refused to serve God and instead followed Satan into hell. ''Balrogs'' are ''Maiar'' who refused to serve ''Eru'' and instead followed ''Morgoth'' into ''Thangorodrim''. Get your facts straight, CNN!" The best part? Stephen noticed it himself. He just happened to recognize the illustration because ''[[One of Us|he has the calendar]]'' (It's a [http://www.amazon.com/1977-J-R-R-TOLKIEN-CALENDAR-Hildebrandt/dp/0345251350 highly collectible calendar]).
* TV Guide seems to enjoy mixing up actors' names and characters' names. One example- calling Joe Mantegna's ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' character David Rossi "Joe Rossi" in a spoiler article.
* ''[[British Newspapers|The Guardian]]'' published a [http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/feb/14/beginners-guide-to-csi "beginner's guide"] to the ''[[CSI]]'' franchise, starting with the main characters: Dr Raymond Langston, Detective Mac Taylor... and Lieutenant Horatio Nelson.
** Ray Langston got this as well from time to time, with people mistaking him for Gil Grissom's replacement. Lawerence Fishburne replaced William Petersen as the star, but Langston came in as a CSI 1, with Catherine replacing Grissom as supervisor until Ted Danson's character took over the position.
* Hilariously subverted in an episode of ''[[The Daily Show]]''. Jon Stewart talks about how reporters claim that Hillary Clinton has bones of steel. Jon then remarks that this is like comic book character, [[Wolverine]]. Suddenly, a nerd comes out of the studio and informs Jon that Wolverine's bones are made of adamantium, not steel. (Actually they're bone coated in adamantium. The adamantium was added later)
** Something similar happened on the MTV Movie Awards a few years back. Hugh Jackman and Famke Janssen were about to announce an award when a 'nerd' in the audience stands up to yell at them about turning the adult male character Banshee into a little girl in ''[[X-Men (
** Somewhat similar to [https://web.archive.org/web/20110417140020/http://www.hulu.com/watch/1502/saturday-night-live-natalie-portman-monologue Natalie Portman's SNL monologue.]
*** Jon Stewart got this done to him as well -- Tucker Carlson was complaining about the host of the Daily Show, whom he referred to as "Jon Daily." Maybe he was thinking of the host of ''[[What's My Line
** Unfortunately played straight when Wyatt Cenac used [[Professional Wrestling]] as an analogy for Congressional filibustering, and referred to [[Shawn Michaels]] as being the good guy, and [[The Undertaker]] as the bad guy, as they were midway through an epic Wrestlemania feud at the time. In fact, they were both "good guys". Michaels was technically the [[Heel]] (bad guy) of the two, though.
*** Considering Wyatt's [[Cloudcuckoolander|usual persona on the show]], this may have been [[Unreliable Narrator|deliberate]].
* ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'' gets a lot of flak from fundamentalist Christians, because its main character, Marco del Rossi, is gay. Or now its main character, Riley Stavros, is gay. The show has [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], but for the whole time Marco was on the show, Emma was the main character, to almost [[Mary Sue]] proportions.
* Back in 2005, just after the new series of ''[[
** There was an interview with Eccleston of the "pre-recorded then bits shown from it over someone else talking" kind, and after he answered a question about the Moxx makeup/effects, it cut back to the live anchor who said something to the effect of "Christopher Eccleston there, the new Doctor Who talking about one of the fantastic new villains in the show." He then went on to imply the Moxx was a very important character and would appear in several episodes. In reality, he is not only, as stated above, a friendly party guest, but he has about three lines, in one episode.
** This used to be even worse. Most DVDs of ''[[
*** There was a Scottish BBC continuity announcer who during the end credits for the new series' first season pronounced the show's name as "Doctor Woo" repeatedly.
** The Daleks are ''not'' robots, they're basically small tanks operated by the mutated Kaled creatures. Thankfully the frequent appearance of Kaled mutants in new series seems to have stopped this. No less a source than the Oxford English Dictionary gets this one wrong, or at least one edition of it did.
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*** There's been at least one BBC quiz programme where the question was about the main character of the show and the answer was 'Doctor Who'.
*** The November 2010 issue of ''[[The Atlantic]]'' makes itself a statistic by referring to "the character known as Doctor Who."
** Tabloid newspapers such as The Sun have regularly credited [[Russell T. Davies]] as the 'creator' of ''Doctor Who'', which would be an incredible feat when one realises that the series premiered ''seven months after Davies was born'' (He did revive the series, but that's neither here nor there).
*** Tabloids have a habit of giving out plot details months before broadcast, only to have the facts completely wrong. This means it's guesswork at best. One paper claimed that the Master would kill {{spoiler|the Doctor}} in the 2009 Christmas special, ''[[Doctor Who
**** Which is actually the name of a novel.
*** And they did it again. Months before Series 6 aired and just when it was claimed that the series would be in two sections, at least one paper proudly announced their discovery that {{spoiler|Amy would die halfway through the series}}, implying that this was the massive mid-series plot twist. {{spoiler|While a fake Amy does die, the real one doesn't, and that's not the plot twist.}}
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** A documentary about science fiction credited the creation of the series to Terry Nation. Nation created the Daleks, not the series.
*** ''[[The BBC]]'' made that mistake. In Nation's obituary, no less. It's also listed in at least one edition of Trivial Pursuit. ''Doctor Who'' is actually one of a few shows that was created by a committee of people, and not one sole person. If you want to be really technical, the single person that could be best described as the "creator" of the show out of that committee is [[Sydney Newman]].
** Picking up the false description of the Face of Boe as a villain, [https://web.archive.org/web/20071010083607/http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article25126.ece here] is an actual article, for the 2007 series, describing the "evil Boe" as the Doctor's "arch-enemy." Not only was the character never a villain, but by this appearance, the character is a friend of the Doctor's and they've met amicably several times.
*** Pretty much every returning alien tends to be described as a bad guy by tabloids, irrespective of whether they were good, bad or neutral in their original appearance. Ood Sigma was another example from the same newspaper, who described him as "The Doctor's old enemy, Ood Sigma" when reporting on ''The End of Time''. It should go without saying, but Ood Sigma was ''not'' a villain in his original appearance, and in fact the only non-hostile Ood in the episode.
*** Tabloids also forget that a returning alien is actually returning. In the run-up to ''A Good Man Goes To War'', Dorium (a character with only a few minutes on screen who was part of the Doctor's 'army') was made out to be [[Doctor Who
** While discussing a rumored ''Doctor Who'' Hollywood reboot, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHlUCL5e69g this reporter] mispronounces [[Steven Moffat]]'s name.
** The descriptive text on the VHS boxes often seemed like they were written by someone who hadn't watched that serial (or ''Doctor Who'' in general). Some examples: The box for ''Terminus'' calls Terminus a planet when it's actually a space station. The box for ''The Robots of Death'' says it's about robot trying to enslave the Universe when it's actually about a murderer using the robot servants of his intended victims to kill them. The box for ''The Rescue'' ends with "...a rescue ship is on its way from Earth intent on revenge and time is running out for the planet." There's not a single part of that that's right.
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** And now the comic book synopses are talking about a "mind-altering virus". Er, no. It was mind-altering technology that '''went viral!''' There is a world of difference!
* One commercial for a Brazillian cable TV channel showed clips of Nickelodeon's ''[[Drake and Josh]]'' saying it was a Disney Channel show.
* In a review for ''[[
** On the back cover for the Farscape Peacekeeper Wars DVD (at least one version of it) almost every detail is wrong.
*** It claims the evil Scarran Empire has engaged a full scale war against the Peacekeeper Alliance. There is no Peacekeeper Alliance (they're just called the Peacekeepers) and the war was started by a preemptive attack by Scorpius (a member of the Peacekeepers, who are by the way frequent antagonists).
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** Speaking of ''Glee'', a fluff piece on Dianna Agron mentioned that she plays "ditzy cheerleader Quinn" on the show. Anyone who watches ''Glee'' knows that Quinn is a straight-A student and one of the most cunning, manipulative characters on the show. The writer might have mistaken her for fellow Cheerio and actual [[Dumb Blonde]] Brittany, though you'd think someone writing an article about an actress would know what she looks like. Or they only saw stills of the show and assumed she was [[The Ditz]] just because she's blonde and a cheerleader.
* There is a biography of [[Robin Williams]] by Andy Dougan. In the chapter about Mork's first appearance on ''[[Happy Days]]'', Dougan describes the episode... or so he thinks. What he actually describes is the fake flashback created for the first ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' episode to [[Required Spinoff Crossover|tie it to its parent series]]. Mind you, this was long before the actual episode could be seen by anyone by simply searching [[YouTube]]... but you'd think a biographer would [[Did Not Do the Research|do the research]].
* ''[[
** [[Jennette McCurdy]] has also had the same thing happen to her.
* Just goes to show that even a show's own materials can do this: when ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' got picked up by USA, the USA website wrote full-on episode guides... sometimes with stuff that never happened in the episode. For instance, the recap for the episode "Taken" (where Olivia's mom dies in a fall down the stairs) had a description based on an unwritten plotline -- namely, Olivia finds out her mom never ''was'' raped and told the story to cover up a fling with her college professor, who Olivia meets. There's a reason the folks at [[Television Without Pity]] called them "the Crack Monkeys."
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** Most ''Lost'' news articles sound like they were written in 2005. Outdated phrases like "deserted island" (which is outdated as soon as Rousseau and the Others are revealed in ''season 1'') and "rescue" (see above) are common, but more irritating is the habit of mentioning "unsolved mysteries" that were answered years ago (as of the conclusion, some aren't, but they aren't the ones that are always brought up) to try and paint the show as needlessly complicated.
*** A baffling one is people still complaining about the polar bears, whose origin was ''answered early in season 3'' and referenced ''again'' in season 6.
**** ''YMMV'', most complainers were probably interested not in the HOW the polar bears got to the island, obviously it required some outside force, but the WHY the polar bears were on the island.
** JJ Abrams stopped working on the show around the ninth episode. He came back to co-write the third season premiere, but has done nothing on the show since and only has a producer credit because he created the show. He's nowhere to be seen in production meetings and ''may not even have watched Lost''. And yet every other article attributes everything on the show to him, despite how visible the people really in charge of the show are.
*** One comic basically said that the fifth season provided no answers until Abrams (busy with Fringe and movie projects) called up '''Jeffrey Lieber''' (the writer of the original script-which only has the setting of a island in common, and who has never done any work on the show despite a inexplicable 60% creator credit that even ''he'' doesn't believe he deserves) to tell him to explain DHARMA.
*** At least the folks at Cracked realized this when they included Abrams on their list of [http://www.cracked.com/article_19576_6-pop-culture-visionaries-who-get-too-much-credit.html pop culture visionaries who get too much credit].
* When [[
** A description that also ignores the fact that [[Angel Coulby]] is adorable.
** Another article stated that [[Anthony Head]] was the voice of the Dragon. In reality, Head played King Uther (until season 4) and the Dragon is voiced by [[John Hurt]].
* So, a certain FOX game show ([[Million Dollar Money Drop]]) goofed up a "which came first?" question and said Post-it Notes were introduced in 1980 (after the Sony Walkman in '79), despite being test marketed under a different name in 1977. Due to the mechanics of the show, the affected contestants lost an $800,000 ''wager'' that Post-its were the right answer. But then, everyone else, even the ''contestants themselves'' said that the network should give them the $800,000, despite the fact that it was only ''a bet'', and even if this hadn't happened, the last question still [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|killed them anyway]]!
* A question on [[
* To those who are not [[Toku]] fans but know ''[[Power Rangers]]'', they will immediately point out that any non-''[[Super Sentai]]'' tokusatsu hero is a "Power Ranger".
** During the murder trial of Skylar Deleon, much was made in the news of him having been a "star" of ''[[Power Rangers]]'', thus leading many to believe he actually played one of the Rangers. He was a guest star. In '''one''' episode.
** Taken to ridiculous levels with [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-b22sqPZrA Engine-Oh G12]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090501002103/http://i.gizmodo.com/5147344/the-japanese-giant-robot-show-to-end-all-giant-robot-shows#c10548197 A] [https://web.archive.org/web/20120928062528/http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2009/02/new-robot-anime-features-ultimate-12man-transformer.html couple] [https://web.archive.org/web/20130510151003/http://theawesomer.com/video-engine-oh-g12/9503/ sites] saw this clip, and this clip alone, and thought it was a Transformers-ripoff series named "Engine-Oh G12". It took a ''lot'' of fan correction to get them to finally change their coverage. Not to mention the amount of comments talking about a Power Rangers ripoff -- one commenter says it wouldn't ever fly in America. {{[[[Power Rangers RPM]] cough}}]
*** For those who don't know, Engine-Oh G12 is one formation of the mecha in ''[[Engine Sentai Go-onger]]'', whose footage is used in ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]''.
** And even crazier is when the entire series is mentioned in an encyclopedia of TV shows. Needless to say, there are a ton of mistakes: ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue]]'' were both omitted, the names of the characters, actors, and even ''an entire season'' were changed, plots were wrong, and ''Time Force'' was treated as something based on ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' (when, in fact, it wasn't). [http://www.rangerboard.com/showthread.php?t=135020 You can see the entire laundry list of mistakes here.]
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* The Netflix summary for season one of [[Stargate Atlantis]] says that the characters are "on an alien-formed base located in Antarctica, wherein lies the lost civilization of Atlantis. What's more, they've also discovered a parallel world of sorts in a galaxy known as Pegasus." Which is very untrue, as demonstrated by the ''first episode.'' Antarctica only contains an Ancient outpost (which probably shows up more in SG-1 anyway) with a Stargate that the characters go through to get to the lost city of Atlantis. Furthermore, Atlantis is in the Pegasus galaxy, which isn't any sort of parallel world, and not one episode in the first season deals with parallel universes at all.
** The original TV Guide news when the show was in development said they discovered "a new universe".
*** Those who think [[Sci
* ''[[Stargate SG
** The summaries in french also constantly refer to "the crew of the SG-1", and a summary for the original movie describes the Stargate as sending people ''to other dimensions'' (it's actually other ''planets'').
** All 10 seasons were sold together in a box featuring a picture of the stargate... with only eight chevrons.
** Another described SG-1 as exclusively a "rescue team", and refer to it as the longest running sic-fi show ever. Though at the time the box set was produced, it was the longest running American sic-fi show, others have run much longer.
* Our TV guide had the habit of describing ''every'' episode of the original ''[[Star Trek]]'' as "The Enterprise is in danger while Kirk, Spock and McCoy are on an away mission." Granted, this isn't actually all that inaccurate for most of the episodes.
** And TOS sent "landing parties," not "away missions."
* A paper treated the two-hour pilot of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' as the ninth Star Trek ''movie''. Therefore, it was described like that: ''"Star Trek 9: Deep Space"''. There's also a matter of many papers thinking that "Star Trek" is the name of the "titular" ship(s)...
** At the time said pilot was first aired in 1993, only six [[Star Trek]] movies existed.
** "Sisko" means "sister" in Finnish, and this being a bilingual country, many episode descriptions of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' in Swedish language spoke of "the sister" needing to do this or that.
* A local news anchor giving a review of one of the ''Next Generation'' movies described the crew with the phrase "...and the alien Data", even giving the alternate, but inaccurate pronunciation of "Data".
{{quote|
'''Data:''' Data. ''(pronounced "Day-Tuh")''
'''Dr. Pulaski:''' What's the difference?
'''Data:''' One is my name. The other is not. }}
** The mispronunciation (and maybe the inaccurate adjective) might be the result of the news anchor reading from a teleprompter. In any case, the person clearly wasn't familiar with the series.
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/nyregion/24theatct.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesTheater This] review of a production of ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'' starring Kate Mulgrew improperly gives Mulgrew's ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' character, Captain Janeway, the first name of Elizabeth. [[Egregious]] for three reasons: 1) this is ''the New York Friggin' Times'', 2) ''[[Star Trek]]'' is incredibly well documented by fanboys and putting "Janeway" in the search box would have instantly brought up the correct answer, and 3) Mulgrew is a prime example of [[The Danza]], and Janeway's first name is also Kathryn.
** Mitigated somewhat in that Captain Janeway's first name ''was'' Elizabeth at one point in pre-production; they could simply have been using an old source. But as mentioned, it's a flimsy excuse; a single Google would've provided the right answer.
* It's not uncommon for a ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode description in the news to refer to the [[Monster of the Week]] as a "demon". Demons are only one specific type of creature in ''Supernatural'': they appear as black smoke when bodiless and they possess people, manifesting black eyes (occasionally red or white) when provoked. Monsters in general =/= demons, unlike in, say, ''Buffy'' and ''Angel''.
** The ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20160415030205/http://supernatural.wikia.com/wiki/Supernatural_Wiki Supernatural Wiki]'' had episode 8 of Season Seven listed as "Time for a Wedding", under an editor's pet theory that the title "Season 7, Time for a Wedding!" was a typo in the CW press release. This is despite the fact that the title "Season 7, Time for a Wedding!" appears onscreen in the episode itself after the funny wedding cake animation is over, confirming it as the correct title. Attempts to point out the mistake were actually met with hostility.
* In-universe example in ''[[That '70s Show]]'' when Jackie wanted to go to a Led Zeppelin concert, saying that she thinks "Led is hot."
* Whenever Michael Brea (the guy who infamously killed his mother with a sword) is mentioned in news articles, it mentions that he was an actor on [[Ugly Betty]]. In reality he was an extra in a single scene
* Robin Leach, of ''Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'', wrote [https://web.archive.org/web/20110816135609/http://www.vegasdeluxe.com/blogs/luxe-life/2010/jul/14/photos-pat-sajak-and-vanna-white-spin-emwheelem-28/ an article] in 2010 celebrating ''[[
* One newspaper called Colin Mochrie the host of the British version of [[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]. In one of the episodes of the US series, host Drew Carey brought in a copy of the newspaper and read the section of the article that made the glaring mistake.
* In the March 24-30, 1973 issue of TV Guide, the synopsis for the debut of [[Pyramid|The $10,000 Pyramid]] on CBS read that contestants were to identify ten subjects in sixty seconds. That's how creator Bob Stewart first intended till he found out two nights before taping the pilot that it was not possible to get ten subjects in sixty seconds. The board was reduced to six subjects with a 2x4 plank covering the bottom four windows. This was obviously not passed on to TV Guide.
* A minor example occasionally still pops up up in the synopsis of the season 1 ''[[Highlander (TV series)|Highlander]]'' episode "Bad Day in Building A". The synopsis usually says the characters went to the courthouse to take care of Richie's parking tickets, but they were all Tessa's tickets. A gag was even made of her getting one or two more on her car due to where it was parked outside the courthouse during the episode.
* After [[Top Gear]] gave a horrible beating to a Italian car, the CEO of the company that made it demanded that the company pull all advertisement on the "channel that Top Gear is on," in retaliation. Top Gear airs on the advertisement free BBC.
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