TV writers' clichés are making me go ballistic

Marla Jo Fisher Register Columnist

So there's this serial killer pedophile who runs a high-school glee club while working as a psychic who helps solve crimes. On the side, he's married to Jennifer Aniston but they keep breaking up and getting back together.

Doesn't that pretty much sum up every book, movie, TV show and other piece of so-called entertainment available today?

My teenagers are obsessed with the endless parade of crime dramas on TV.

I spend more time making them turn off “CSI: Antarctica,” “CSI: The Red Planet” and “CSI: Mayberry” (Opie takes over) than I do nagging them about homework.

I imagine I'm in the minority here, but I'd rather let them watch people having sex than torturing children in a shallow pit.

I was a cop reporter for years and let me tell you: Hunting down criminals is not that much fun. And the people who do it are seldom gorgeous with perfect lip gloss.

Call me stuffy and old-fashioned, but I don't want my kids to get the idea that there's a serial killer targeting children on every corner, which is the message of all those shows.

Are you a TV writer? Or a writer of mystery fiction?

I'm over you. I'm over serial killers and pedophiles and every other sordid human condition that you constantly haul out of your cheap bag of tricks ostensibly to entertain us.

Actually, I was never under you, but you get the idea. This is why reality shows have become so popular. At least they're not tired.

Did you write “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”? C'mon, really? How many serial killers need to be in one book to make it a hit? If you'd had only one villainous serial killer, were you thinking it wouldn't sell?

Please, I implore you. Come up with a fresh idea.

True story: Many years ago, before I became a journalist, I was considering writing for TV. I took a highly respected and famous UCLA class on how to become a TV screenwriter.

You know one of the tips that these soon-to-be-professional writers learn? Go through old issues of TV Guide when you're stumped, and steal old plots.

So next time you see a TV show that seems vaguely familiar, it might have been lifted whole from an old episode.

That's why in every long-running sitcom, the lead character always goes to jail, usually after a merry mix-up in which he accidentally solicits a prostitute.

Does this happen in real life? No.

I've been accompanying cops on “john details,” where female cops pretending to be hookers go out as decoys. They do this to deter prostitution in blighted areas. They don't arrest the men without a specific series of events having occurred that will make the charge stick in court.

But on TV, all you have to do is sit at a bar and think you're selling a pair of playoff tickets to the cute woman on the barstool next to you, when she will suddenly slap a pair of cuffs on you and haul you off to the clink.

And, speaking as a fat person, just once, could the chubby character not be mean, villainous or a buffoon? Could they be good guys?

Could an Arab character ever be positive? Or is he always the target of the attack because he's about to blow up the building?

Getting stuck in an elevator is another absurd cliché, along with the character who looks for laughs by crawling out on a ledge and threatening to jump. Really? Was that ever funny? Even the first time sitcom writers used it, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth?

I couldn't believe my eyes when I turned on an episode of the new sitcom “Happily Divorced” and they'd trotted out that old chestnut again.

I wouldn't be surprised to turn on my TV tomorrow and find a character stuck in an elevator with a fat Arab pedophile serial killer who's also a terrorist.

And maybe they're all on their way to jail.

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