You know the worst thing about TV science?
It's not that they set up unrealistic expectations of the time it takes to an experient/analysis, or how much information you can get out if it. (I'm looking at you, Flash, with your ten minute PCR... becuase I'm pretty sure that unless you've got Flash polymerase it's still going to take 3 hours to cycle and then another hour to do electrophoresis.)
It's not that they sometimes pass along reckless infromation. (I saw a CSI epsoide once where they treated HCl exposure with aqueous amonnia. I think it had Grant Gustin in it, for some reason... I'm pretty sure no one thought through the thermal chemistry on that one. PSA: Use lots of cold, running water if you acid on yourself!)
I will admit some frustration with Swiss Army Scientists (Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, you're guilty). You know, this is the scientist who trained as a molecular biologist, but has no problem doing astrophysics. I'm not saying that's impossible, but if you're off doing astrophysics, you're probably not actively doing as much molecular biology. Modern science is more like a good knife set, where each person brings a slightly different skill to the table and they work in concert to solve the problem. An astrophysicist might discover something on an astroid and go find a molecular biologist to help them do PCR and look for DNA, a laser jock to work with them on spectroscopy, a geologist to look at the rock...
...All that ranting done, my biggest issue at hte moment with science on television is the fact that no one depicts what happens when things go wrong. I'm hitting my head against an analysis that sort of looks like what you'd see on TV.
No one talks about spending ten hours trying to analyze data they doubt can be analyzed, only to spend five hours in the sequencing center trying to solve the file problem.
TV shows don't depict the error rate for command-line programing. I swear to God, Felicity Smoak might be a genius, but she keeps the sound on her terminal off becuase of the frequency with which she'd get the autofill chirp and error messages.
And, I dont think Ive ever seen a "sane" scientist on a TV show ever looked haggered. (You know, a scientist who hasn't managed to some how create some form of Deux-ex-machina that will magically destroy the world if they're not stopped.) As I think through the characters on TV, most of the scientists you see are well groomed, well couifed, and generally look like they've been sleeping. They're also never hung over. I know so many scientists who can carry their luggage onto planes using the bags under their eyes, who stumble in a little bit hung over and turn off all the lights for "computer ambiance", and quite a few who have been caught unshowered.
