There’s really no reason why the typical portrayal of technology by television shows should be any more accurate than portrayals of, say, relationships, house renovation, or wilderness survival. Still, I always get a kick out of the funny things I see.
Like last night. Thanks to our HDTV set and its internal ClearQAM tuner, we sometimes get (free) unencrypted television signals from HBO, Starz, Showtime, and some channel that broadcasts lots and lots of hard core porn. So we’re sitting in front of the set, taking in an episode of Tell Me You Love Me, when one of the wives in the show goes to the family computer and tries to look up her husband’s browsing history. To her relief, she doesn’t find the midget porn URLs she was dreading she’d find.
The idea in the lead-in to this scene is that the woman had no idea she could check up on her husband this way. So of course it’s even further beyond her understanding that her husband could simply be dumping his browser cache after every surfing session. A narrative quibble, perhaps, but the scene did make me look at this character in a different light.
I pointed out to Leah that the couple should simply make different user accounts. I could tell she wasn’t keen on hearing my suggestions for technical continuity, but I felt I had to comment. Don’t even get me started on Law & Order: SVU….