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While watching a movie/series, all I really want is …
A straight story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Cut down on flashbacks and flashforwards - they’re annoying in excess.
Way fewer dark/semi dark interiors. Turn on the lights! Are the characters trying to save on their electric bills?!
No tints, please - blue, green, brown or any other color. Show us true color. If you must tint, make it subtle, like in The Godfather.
No shaky camera.
No sudden, short zooms or changes in focus. Are you listening, Succession?
TV series: I love series that tell one complete story per episode. I don’t like shows where they make you watch 10 episodes to find out who did it. Such shows invariably drag. If you must stretch the story out to multiple episodes, hold my attention by moving it along, like 24 did.
Keep music at the same audio level as dialogue.
Same with commercials. When the volume suddenly rises, most of us hit the mute button anyway.
What are your likes/dislikes?
All of the above, except I don't mind a story that takes 10 episodes, if otherwise entertaining. Just watched the first season of Harrow ( Australian ). One story per episode, plus an underlying story that takes 10 episodes to play out. And a great cliffhanger at the end of the season.
That said, I hate series that get cancelled before "resolution" and I hate it when a great show has an ending that is absurd ( like St. Elsewhere ).
More reasons I dislike shows others have already mentioned, like glorifying bad behavior. Not to mention graphical sex and/or violence. I do not need to be entertained in that way. Oh, and mindless drivel. Seems like so many shows are for adults with a mentality of a three-year-old.
Some may not like non-English language shows with sub-titles, but I don't mind them at all. I watch a lot of French, German, and Scandanavian shows with sub-titles. And I turn on the sub-titles for most British shows also, especially with Scottish or Welsh accents.
The thing I dislike the most about modern shows/networks/streaming platforms, is telling me what I should like or watch. They never get it right, not for me. I am not some mindless idiot who needs to be told what to do every step along the way. And my interests cannot be gleaned from what I watch, because shows that "they" think are similar are to me very different.
Terrible casting. I tried to get through a few episodes of this sci fi TV show for around 2016-17, The Crossing. They had Steve Zahn playing a county Sherrif. If it was a comedy you could do this but his role is awful.
I also won't watch anything that has the camera swirling around so fast that you can't focus on any one thing. That goes hand in hand with the shaky camera filming.
Oh Boy I second that! Hand held cameras make me nauseous.
I don't like when there is prolonged or constant background atmosphere music, at any volume. It takes my concentration away from the dialog.
Agree with the dark scenes, and mumbling - uh I can't see or hear what's going on.
I agree with all of this but especially the "background" music which is almost a character in itself! We watched Scoop a few nights ago and the "creepy" music (that's how closed captioning described it) was ridiculous.
We watch almost everything with cc on now even though our hearing is fine. The mumbling or music playing over dialogue almost makes it necessary
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) was ridiculous. 
