Synaptic Snaps, Crackles & Pops

Scaling Arlington Heights [Journalistic Intentions Rd. 9]

The Mountains of Illinois  

Scaling Arlington Heights1

This trope's description specifically mentioned British Columbia as stand-in for any number of places; I most heartily concur. For example, Stargate SG-1 may have cool establishing shots of the main entrance to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, but I'd bet Canadian dollars to beavertails that most of the "local" scenes are shot nearly nineteen hundred kilometers northwest of downtown Colorado Springs. Of course, there are mountains in Colorado Springs as well as in British Columbia —the Rocky Mountains connect the two, as a matter of fact—making my example not a true representative of the trope. So - moving on...

...but not abandoning the sci-fi way of things. This particular trope is a sub-trope of TV Geography, which is related to—but not to be confused with—Artistic License - Geography, from whence cometh my next example. Writers and screenwriters can make up whatever they want but, if they truly care about maintaining credibility with their audience, they should avoid errors that huge chunks of the viewing public would spot. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a case in point. When Gillian teases Kirk about his inability to get from Sausalito to San Francisco on his own, she is making reference to the scene where she gave Kirk and Spock a lift. From the Marina Green. In San Francisco. Oh, and that aquarium from which Kirk and Spock were supposedly walking on their way back to SF? It's not across the bay in Sausalito; it's 116 miles down the coast in Monterey.

Footnotes
1  A suburb of Chicago