But I have to let it wash over me or I'd go mental.

Biggest bugbear: poor research of music. If it's May 1982, you won't be hearing Leave in Silence by Depeche Mode on the radio. These things MATTER.

You know, a character will say something like "we just need to guess his password" and then we'll see a shot of a computer screen, and instead of it running Windows or Mac it seems to be running some strange operating system with a black screen and white letters. Maybe it's an obscure version Linux or something.

I always laugh when someone like Jack Bauer is chasing a baddie and without pausing says to Chloe "I'm on the north side of x building" without spending ages looking at the sun and working it out, like I would (I'm still not entirely sure which way my house faces!). And whilst I can just about believe that super spies might know these things it all comes crashing down when Chloe, without skipping a beat, immediately has the plans to whatever building he is in and tells him where the nearest secret passage is.

The other thing is the one punch knockout that the likes of Jack Bauer can inflict on anyone who's not essential to the scene, when their real reaction would be more likely to stand there holding their chin saying 'ow!'. And yet when they are up against a more important henchman they can seemingly take beatings that Superman would struggle to get up from.

I actually swore that I'd never watch another action film after watching Mission Impossible 2, and particularly the fight scene where, amongst other kicks and punches, Tom Cruise, down on his knees, takes a full blooded kick in the face from Dougray Scott (or it may have been the other way round) only to have his full wits about him and be able to roll out of the way to avoid the next punch a second or two later, without even a shake of the head.

And why do bosses never trust the hero, when they are repeatedly saving their life/a bus full of school children/the world?

During my teens I briefly attended a rifle club. After a short lesson in how to hold the weapon and responsible behaviour we were allowed to fire at targets (Threepence a bullet I seem to remember). I consistently scored between 80 and 90 out of 100 but was considered a very very average marksman. The best ones always scored 95+.
Now in action films nobody (especially the baddies shooting at the hero) seems capable of hitting a barn door!
Threepence a bullet!!
No wonder these films are so bloody expensive to make.

Footnote - My time as a gun-toting teenager was very short-lived and I have never shot at or had the desire to shoot at anything living.

Set in 1966 - aimed at the "Heartbeat" market, so use of the popular music du jour is a key attraction to the demographic.

Guess which piece of period music Auntie was using to plug George Gently last week?

Secret Affair's Time for Action. Hmm. Do the Beeb still employ researchers?

edit - just seen above... D'oh...must read whole thread before barging in....

... but you didn't call. I'd laid biscuits out on a plate and everything.

There's plenty of sign writers here on Teesside who forget that second 's'. Then again when the name of the town Middlesbrough is spelt that way because of a mis-spelling on official documents in the 19th Century (or so I'm told) I guess we should embrace 'Teeside' as part of a local tradition of word-based ignorance.

Thanks for the tip on the Jolly Sailors - will try there very soon.

70s programme and the house is decked out in 70s furniture. Well I grew up in the 70s and our furniture included a radiogram. We didn't have anything identifiably 70s ( apart from the wallpaper ) til the 80s.

As a rather waif-like scrum half playing behind an inenpt pack I got knocked out 3 times in one month - I was clearly doing something wrong. After the 3rd one the A&E department told me I had to stop playing for a couple of months, and that I shouldn't have been playing after the first one at all.

Unfortunately our games teacher thought 'duty of care' was a tax on spirits.

.....the average Joe in Britain in 2011 knows absolutely didley squat about, say, The Beatles.
The BBC know this and I suspect that the average Joe at the BBC also knows diddley squat about, say, The Beatles.

I've used them as an example but you can replace that group with any other group or any musical genre of the last 55 years.
And it's everyone from 'The Only Way Is Essex' through to 'University Challenge'.

It's my own fault for watching Spooks, but I really have lost count of the number of times I've seen someone bust into an office to download data from a baddie's computer... we see the dialog box going "Downloading..." and the phoney tension as they JUST get it onto the stick before the naughty person gets back from having a fag/slash/meeting with someone from the FSB/CIA/NME.

And they had the brass neck to use it in the first episode of the new series - perhaps as it's the last and they're giving us a tour d'horizon of their greatest hits.

Harrrrrrumph!