Why can't statisticians do statistics (on tv)?

I remember when the tv show "Numbers" first premiered and all of us "math nerds" got excited to be seeing mathematics on tv. Technically, I am more of a "stat nerd", so I was always a little suspicious of that show. I know posting about the inaccuracies of "Numbers" is a little late. That show seethed with the ego of a mathematician who thinks that they can work at an expert level in every field that has some basis in mathematics - without years of work and good collaborators showing them sub-discplines ins and outs. Statisticians, physicists, computer scientists, architects, biologists beware, if a mathematician wants to do research in your area, it will only take them a few days to be at the cutting edge, have working computer software, and publishing a paper in your area. I laughed at how infrequently the show actually used pure or applied mathematics to solve their problems. It was neat to see many neat scientific methods being employed and being smart respected on tv (all too rare as well), but the lack of accurate context for many of the ideas, the professor dating his student, and other things that either wouldn't or shouldn't happen in academia made me tire of the show pretty quickly.

In a recent episode of "Castle", that I was watching while recovering from a recent cold, the same stereotype was propagated. A woman with a PhD in applied mathematics was killed. Unfortunately, she was fitting statistical models for climate change. I am not saying you couldn't do this with an applied math background, but why can't applied mathematicians do applied math on tv and statisticians do statistics? The people doing this modeling often aren't trained in either mathematics or statistics, but that is a different issue. Why couldn't she have had a statistics PhD?

Being in academia, I frequently struggle with the portrayal of academia on tv. First, faculty members do not have their own classrooms. Some have meeting rooms in their suite of labs/offices, but classrooms are too high a priority to have someone control it all day as their office. Second, the story line involving faculty members dating students is overused. This is unethical behavior and almost never happens - it certainly never happens without ramifications. Third, we are all very busy and do not have time for adventures during the semester - we are just trying to survive our classes and grading and get a little research done. Fourth, there is a very distinct process for moving through the hierarchy from student to faculty member and the tenure process. You can not just jump from a no-where position with no research or teaching experience into a full faculty position on a whim. Some adjuncts/ affiliated faculty do have more varied backgrounds but that is never the way it works for full tenure-track positions. And saying that someone was hired as an adjunct - say what had to happen on "How I Met Your Mother", it is a little bit of a push to give the instructor the title of Professor. And teaching one class would not pay the bills in Bozeman, MT let alone New York. Students in the universities are confused about how the process works, probably some of this is because of how inaccurately academia is portrayed on the average tv show. Maybe the writers should ask someone who knows about it next time they try to write an "episode" that steps into a realm they are unfamiliar with.