forgetting movies and tv shows quickly?

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i seem to forget most movies or tv shows almost immediately it seems.
i don't forget everything. . .but a great deal of it.

for example i use to go to a friend's house to go watch a tv show called "heroes" (back before they ruined it! lol) and i use to get so frustrated. it'd goto a commercial break, and my friend always wanted to go into detailed discussions about what just happened, how it relates to other parts of the story, and what he thinks will happen as the story progresses.
and i'm left completely blank. no idea what the hell he's talking about.
all i can do is just pretend i know what's going on as best as i can.

it's like i'm watching the show/movie, and i really am enjoying it. . .but it just doesn't seem to sink in for me most of the time.

i refuse to go see movies with people anymore. . .they ALWAYS want to talk about the movie after finishing it. i can watch a movie, and just 5 minutes later not remember most of the major parts of the story and the plot.
just really frustrates me, and leaves me feeling so stupid.

it's got my therapist baffled too.

anyone here have anything similar?

I'm somewhat similar to this. My primary special interest involves movies (scary ones mostly), filmmaking, cameras, etc... I watch a lot of movies and I've always been known as the "movie geek" amongst my friends and associates. However, coworkers/friends will quote a movie or be talking about a plot, etc, and I'm usually in the dark about what film they're referring to even though I've seen it. They always are surprised and taken aback when I have to ask what movie they're talking about. But once they've named it, I can usually go on and on about other facts about the movie such as the year it was made, the names of the cast and crew, what production company released it, etc etc ad nauseum. For some strange reason, the stats of a movie stay with me much more than the storylines. Oftentimes, when I watch a movie again, I won't remember a good deal of it except for certain memorable images/scenes and the overall tone or mood the movie invokes so it's kinda cool and like watching it for the first time. I've never externalized these thoughts before but I've always found it curious.

Something wrong with memory formation? Well, one upside is that you can enjoy the same things over and over without getting bored with them.

This is an interesting topic. For myself I can read/watch something and not be conscious of remembering anything. But If I re watch/read, everything comes back perfectly. It also comes back if I need the info for something.

I tend to remember abstract media which requires thought and interpretation much more than media where everything is given.

I have this problem. I usually recall the majority of the information once adequate description or a picture or two are shown to me. Until then all I get is vague recollections like "I didn't like that one guy in the overalls" kind of thing. I would have trouble saying why I didn't like him.

I have been having this trouble in my business classes when we are studying court cases. I get the name and sometimes basic facts, but I can't recall any of the main points or final findings until I scan a paragraph or so and then it all starts to pop back into my head.

Mixed results here.

I watched the 5th season of Supernatural pretty quickly as soon as it arrived, and now I'm watching it again with my son, a couple of weeks later, at the rate of one episode every 3 or 4 days. My memory of it seems fairly normal - I recognise it as "seen before" and as the drama plays out, I recognise a lot of the details - bits of the plot, images, jokes - and can often remember the ending before it happens. It'll be a couple of months before we get to the end, and I expect my memory will gradually decay, but I think I'll still recognise a fair amount of the content.

I don't think I've ever totally forgotten a show, though I've seen some things for a second time and barely recognised it, even after just a week or two.

But when I saw the first series of Steptoe and Son for the first time in about 48 years, I was amazed how I recognised practically every line. I used to love that show as a child, and it was one of the few things the whole family shared and appreciated. A few years later I noticed I had a huge problem focussing on TV, and I still have that problem now, but back in those days I felt no such difficulty. Of course the show was a very easy ride, with just 2 characters and a simple plot which always centred around the well-defined relationship between the trapped son failing to escape from living with his possessive, backward-looking father....also comedy is often easy because it's mainly a string of gags where you don't have to invest a lot of attention time before you get the reward of the punchline...it's really very lightweight stuff, though the relationship has plenty of implicit depth.

So I guess my answer has to be no.....I don't usually forget the stuff easily, and when I do, I think it's mostly down to attention defecit or just not understanding the stuff in the first place.