There’s a show I like that isn’t called “Nobody Wants This”. Instead, it’s called “Nobody Wants This.” — with that full stop at the end. Or it is on posters and on screen, it isn’t in any reviews I’ve read or even just descriptions of it. Which may mean it’s not remotely important and I should have better things to do with my time than wonder about punctuation.

And yet, you know where this is going. Punctuation. As crucial as the words it punctuates. A comma in one place makes a line funny, an exclamation mark at the end ruins everything.

Although there is “Oklahoma!” and before that was this big, famous musical which I have yet to see and so can’t describe it to you in case you’re wondering which big famous musical it is, it was not big and it was not famous. But it was named after the state and it did have an exclamation mark. I seem to remember reading someone wondering how that went down with people at the time: did it get the same looks that, perhaps, “Nevada!” would today? Or “Mar-a-Lago!”

I don’t know if “Oklahoma!” writers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II ever explained why they had an exclamation mark. So far I’ve not found sign of “Nobody Wants This.” writer Erin Foster explaining her choice, either.

And for once, I don’t need to know a justification. The titles just feel right with punctuation. Oklahoma’s shriek conveys an innocent exuberance to me – I really should find out what it’s about — and the full stop at the end of “Nobody Wants This.” feels so definitive. Somehow the full stop adds weight to the “Nobody” part.

I don’t know what the asterisks added to M*A*S*H mean, except that I think the original novel or novels had no such punctuation in the title and it was the film that added them.

Then there’s Magnum, p.i., which uses both full stops and lowercase letters for private investigator. And Quincy, M.E. which uses full stops and capital letters for Medical Examiner. Except everyone called those shows Magnum and Quincy, which does suddenly sound like a title by itself. Magnum and Quincy: together they fight crime.

Speaking of crime, NYPD Blue had no truck with punctuation, while Sledge Hammer! did. Police Squad! In Colour.

Again, there’s no reason for any of this, no practical reason you can point at for why shows do or don’t use punctuation, and yet I seem to like it when they do. Maybe because somewhere I have a draft script called “Ophelia!”, which right there used up my entire allowance of exclamation marks for the year. (Yes, it’s a retelling of Hamlet from Ophelia’s point of view. I just cannot accept that she goes mad because her boyfriend is in a wet tizzy. It’s years since I wrote it and it went nowhere, but I still like a key line where Hammy has been going on a bit and Ophelia gets to say: “Get thee to a summary.”)

Anyway. The original Star Trek films used to have colons in the title. The Star Trek films from 2009 onwards didn’t, but should. “Star Trek: Into Darkness” is practically legible compared to its actual title of “Star Trek Into Darkness”. Although the film was such an uncredited remake of an earlier film that its title should really have had “(Repeat)” in it.

Next, The Concord: Airport ’79 is an interesting mix of a colon and an omission apostrophe. But then I’m more interested in the film’s original title. Believe it or not, it was going to be called Airport ’79: The Concord. Someone probably ran a risk/reward spreadsheet on those two alternatives.

But a real surprise to me thinking about all this and checking what I thought I remembered, was When Harry Met Sally. It’s actually called “When Harry Met Sally…”, with the ellipses. An AI app just told me that Woody Allen made a film called “Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)” which is an interesting use of parentheses and asterisks, except AI hallucinated.

It’s actually “Everything”, not “Every Thing”. Good thing we’re not using AI for anything important.

AI also answered my question about TV shows with punctuation by noting that every episode of Seinfeld apparently has a title beginning with the word “The”. It’s not true, incidentally, as the entire first season breaks this rule, but the thing to note is that “The” is now punctuation. Good thing we’re not using AI for anything important.

I feel I could go on. I feel you feel I have done. But in lieu of a final thought ending with the brilliant words “full stop”, since I can’t think of any such thought, let me propose something. You having read this means that this is now in your past.

I would like to offer, then, that this makes what you’ve been reading be really a kind of period piece.