- Talking animals (especially gold fish) - Too many product names (for the sake of cool) - Flip dialogue which is too clever - Being asked to participate in the serial (eg: juror) - Voice-over narrations (especially which talk to me) - Writers who think they know what I'm thinking - Reminders I'm watching a t.v. serial (like cameras filming cameras filming the characters) - Genre jambalaya - Cheap shots like fantasy sequences which pretend to be real - Etc. Etc.
Oh, and the whole depressed and molested wife thing? I've been there, done that too and never once fantasized about killing her step-father. She did. I just wished he'd die.