I watch a lot of TV, and I can suspend my disbelief quite easily. I’ll watch MgGyver (the new one) build an energy-beam weapon out of a junked microwave oven and a car battery. But sometimes a TV show is written in a way that totally breaks the illusion it intends to create.
I’ve been watching High Potential, a show not about pot smokers but about a woman with a genius-level IQ who is an information vacuum. She seems to know about everything and claims to watch a lot of documentaries. She’s also a bit pedantic. When she used the phrase “Begging the question” incorrectly, I let it go because its traditional meaning is a bit obscure, and everyone gets it wrong (except Matt Dillahunty). But when she mentioned the “VIN Number” on a car, I almost spit up my milk (figuratively speaking). V.I.N. stands for Vehicle Identification Number, and there’s no way someone with her knowledge, intelligence, and pedantic nature would add an extra word “Number” to the end of that. It’s like saying “ATM Machine.” It totally broke my suspension of disbelief and reminded me that a smart fictional character is only as smart as the writer.
Now I’m watching Plurribus, a show about how humans are taken over by an alien virus-thing (a sort of RNA sequence used to create a spreadable mutation to human DNA) that turns everyone into a hive mind. The show is dramatic and stressful because the focus is on one of the dozen or so people immune. Carol, the protagonist, wants to save mankind, and mankind wants to assimilate her. It’s extra bad for Carol because the hive mind is kind and friendly and wants her to be happy. Here’s where things get a bit… off; the hive mind allows anyone to fly an airplane or do brain surgery because everyone knows everything everyone else knows. So why in the hell does the hive mind, I’ll call it “Unity” (thanks Rick and Morty), why in the hell does it act like it knows nothing about what would make Carol happy? Unity can do brain surgery, but never read a psychology book? Did it never occur to Unity that emptying the grocery stores and bringing Carol meals on wheels would make Carol unhappy? The writers gave Unity the knowledge from every person on earth, except those who knew anything about psychology. Oops – that’s a big mistake that totally breaks the show… for me for a short moment.
I like those shows. Pluraibus is exceptionally dramatic. But I wish someone were in the writers’ room when these “little” mistakes are made, so they can point out that intelligent people are not as dumb as the writers accidentally make them out to be.
The show Rick and Morty featured a hive mind that took over large populations; her name was Unity. If Carol had ever watched Rick and Morty, she would have instantly started calling the hive mind by that name in Pluribus.