I read a book awhile back where they lampshaded the exploding consoles trope and said that the bridges of ships with embedded journalists had spare consoles set up and rigged specifically to explode in combat just to provide something to break up the monotony of "actual" combat, which in a "real" space battle is quite boring for anyone who isn't a math nerd. I laughed so hard I scared my dog and she had to come check on whether or not I was okay.
I just remembered which book it was - one of the books from the series Fourth Fleet Irregulars. Amazingly good books! Almost no action to them whatsoever but damn are they still amazing books.
