Film and Television
Some nitpickers specialize in finding mistakes in movies and television shows. These mistakes can range from very trivial mistakes that regular viewers don't notice, to very serious mistakes which disrupt the suspension of disbelief in the show's story for even casual viewers. The types of mistakes include inconsistencies or even contradictions between episodes in a series, to plot devices and oversights, to production problems.
Nitpickers will also be inclined to find trivia in a show, including possible "inside jokes" and "signature items" added by the writers or other members of the production team.
When a recurring signature item is found in a series (such as the occurrence of the number 47 in Star Trek), nitpickers will often pore over the episodes with great diligence to find all the occurrences.
Books have been published on the subject, such as The Nitpicker's Guide for X-Philes (for fans of The X-Files) by Phil Farrand. Farrand started with four books nitpicking Star Trek and two of its spinoff series, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Since the beginning, Farrand has emphasized that nitpicking should be done "with good cheer."
Read more about this topic: Nitpicking (pastime)
Famous quotes containing the words film and/or television:
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates—the inhabitants of marketing zones in the consumer goods society, television audiences and news magazine readerships... vote with money at the cash counter rather than with the ballot paper at the polling booth.”
—J.G. (James Graham)