I watched about fifteen minutes of "The Closer" once and had to turn off the tv. That accent is awful. (Also, I hated the character.)

Romania is supposed to look kinda like the US looked then.

In Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," he goes to the local history museum in Dartmouth (where he lives) and sees photos from the mid- to late-19th century that showed the area around Dartmouth was all farmland. Most of these farms were abandoned soon after those photos were taken and the farmers moved west to easier-to-plow lands. The land is now mostly forest; he says how you can go for a walk and stumble across a crumbling barn in the middle of the woods, and also get lost for weeks.

So some areas might be less cultivated now than they were 150 years ago.

I am rtwitchy about things set in theatre-- and it makes me extra mad because aren't these people in the entertainment industry? I am sure that at least some of the people involved in, say, High School Musical were IN a high school musical, but they still have people working on and building sets and costumes, on-stage, after school BEFORE the show is cast and people trying out for leads only in pairs-- WTF? And last night on Cold Case the whole solving of the murder depended on the music director/rehearsal pianist running the sound board, which seems very unusual to me, as I would think he would be conducting the orchestra/pit band/whatever-- and haveing these really extensive sound checks with him alone in the booth, with no stage manager or light board op, able to overhear, accidently, everything being said on the microphones when they weren't being broadcast over the stage.

Grrr.

I am rtwitchy about things set in theatre

Eh. I always just presume they're going for whatever shorthand will say "theatre" to a general TV audience.

Alaska stuff definitely makes me twitchy. Unfortunately, movies actually shot in Alaska tend to be either a) ancient and hard to find or b) crap. I fully allow that it is expensive here, though. And frankly, for movies or shows set in Alaska but shot elsewhere, it's the lack of research that bugs me more than the incorrect scenery. I mean, a bus to the Alaskan riviera.* Puh-lease.

• From Northern Exposure.

Eh. I always just presume they're going for whatever shorthand will say "theatre" to a general TV audience.

I know, I know. I guess I am glad I am not a police officer or health care professional, as they are more often portrayed on TV.

I'm a molecular biologist, so the way a number of science fiction shows deal with evolution(usually from a completely wrong basis) makes me mutter under my breath.(and occasionally swear at the tv)

I am sure that at least some of the people involved in, say, High School Musical were IN a high school musical, but they still have people working on and building sets and costumes, on-stage, after school BEFORE the show is cast

I seem to recall in highschool we started working on the new set before the show was cast. Between constructing and striking the sets, (we did 3 plays a year, generally one comedy, one drama and one musical)the tech crew had a lot less downtime than the actors did.

I figure that someone, somewhere, is being irritated every moment. For example, Matlock was theoretically set in Atlanta, and one of the few I saw had the plot revolve around the time of a brownout. Uh, no. Georgia's never had a brownout, and many utilities have policies against them. In Georgia, the emergency plan is taking selected large industries out of service and then rolling blackouts. The latter has only been done once, in an underserved part of northwest Georgia, and that was long after Matlock. Probably 80% of the people who worked at electric utilities sprained their eyes from rolling.

Also, the layout of downtown and the courts was All Wrong.

I seem to recall in highschool we started working on the new set before the show was cast.

That doesn't work so well with costumes, though.