Insider Television
In another thread, I attempted to formulate an argument as to why putting Battlestar Galactica on NBC as a mid-season replacement would be a bad idea. I’m going to explain it a little further here (and, no, it has nothing to do with ratings. I leave that stuff for Tim J.)
I argued that putting Battlestar Galactica on in mid-season would be a bad idea because it is one of the new breed of heavily serialized shows. These shows build plot and tension slowly, working out relationships over the course of long, season-spanning character and story arcs. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but it awfully hard to expect people dropped into the middle of a story arc to understand the significance of Loeben monkeying around with Starbuck’s mind or Lee and Adama arguing or reconciling.
I realize that this would be solved if we all went out, bought the DVDs, and watched all the past seasons first, but this is a time investment that many people are unwilling or unable to make. Take D. Fletcher, for example, who watched last week’s season opener for Lost. He was treated to a show about a bunch of psychological experiments gone wrong, an “evil” leader who seems pretty mild, people being sassy in cages, and a flashback portraying Jack as whiny Dr. McWhinikins. In the arc of the show, these things make some sense and long-time viewers understand why they ought to care but, having just stepped in for a moment, it appears to have struck D as pretentious, melodramatic and dull (the fact that it was many of those things for the people who have been faithfully watching is probably not germane to the topic at hand). I wonder if D has been inspired to go buy seasons 1 and 2 in order to figure out why the events in the season premiere were significant. I kind of doubt it.
Although I am a big fan of several serialized shows (Lost included), I miss the days of simple stand-alone tv-shows. Even Law and Order, which was long the standard of the stand-alone show, is beginning to succumb to serialization, bringing back characters from old shows. CSI:the franchise and Without a Trace are mostly stand-alone shows, but they like to have story arcs going in the background all the time (whatever happened to Gil going deaf, anyway?). Even the comedies assume that you have been watching all along. Why on earth are they making comedies where a “previously on” is necessary?
Of course, none of this is particularly new. All long running shows develop histories that have to be sorted out in order to keep on chugging. I think the Internet, with its tendency to catalog everything and divide everybody into cliques, has exacerbated the problem. With hundreds of sites devoted to television and individual television shows, actors, producers, and so forth, obsession and fandom are not far removed from each other. Serialization rewards fans in much the same way inside jokes bond friends together. If only you and your peers can really understand what is going on, it gives you a mild sense of superiority. I am one who is in the know, because I understand the significance Jack finally killing Nina in season 3 (or was it 4?).
The purpose of the A-team was never to find out if they would get their names cleared. Sure, that provided weekly tension sometimes, but the show never addressed it directly (that I saw) and I don’t need any closure on it. The A-team was ultimately about the characters, the funny things things they said, and blowing stuff up. That was good enough and still should be. Not every show should be a Dickensian experience.
Posted on October 11, 2006, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
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HP, you’ve articulated one of the chief tensions in network TV. I am not sure there’s a way around it (though Veronica Mars has done exceptionally well in balancing the two extremes). I believe an ongoing story arc to be the key to a thoughtful long-running show. The best sci-fi has arc pathways; witness BSG, DS9, etc. But yes, it raises the cost of viewership. Don’t know how you get around these issues.
I think the best show to tread this line in recent memory is Without a Trace during its first season, which kept the slow reveal of Jack’s affair in the background until the end of the season. However, since then, all the arcs are up front, as if we can’t deal with looking for the clues ourselves. It’s became so frustrating that I had to stop watching the show.
I agree that Veronica Mars does a good job with this. I also think that Farscape did a good job with it (in part because everything on Farscape was always up for grabs, so being a long-time character did nothing to protect you and death never really lasted long).
Lost, on the other hand, is horrible at it. I was not surprised that D dismissed it so easily. They are catering directly to the internet obsessives there. Why else show the door map so briefly and never return to it?
I should also say that I think House does a good job with this too. In fact, on House, apparent season long story arcs disappear from week to week rather frequently.
I think the X-Files was the first show to use long story arcs, right? But they didn’t use them all the time.
It’s interesting that basically it’s not worth it to me to watch BSG unless I rent the previous seasons on dvd first. Sort of limits your fanbase, doesn’t it. I did watch one of the condensed shows they made to try to generate new fans, recaps of previous seasons, and I thought it was pretty good. But I also thought if they could sum everything up so quickly, the show must be as slow as I remember it being when I tried to tune into it last year. And I haven’t watched any of the new episodes.
My favorite episodes of the X-files are stand-alones (like “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” or “Pusher”). The overall arc became too weighty (especially after the first couple of resolutions). Shows primarily about the arc became impregnable without sufficient background.
Soaps have been doing long story arcs since their inception. The difference between a soap and the rest of tv is getting thinner.
A related phenomenon is UST: Unresolved Sexual Tension.
One of my favorite serials is “lonelygirl15.” I’ll admit it. I actually really like it and think it’s well done. And I completely disagree with the folks who say that now they know it’s “fake” it’s not worth watching anymore. It’s really getting good lately.
And I jumped in in the middle.
re: UST -
It works so well in non-serialized TV. Once it’s, um, resolved things always go downhill and the series turns into a soap opera (see “Moonlighting”). Not that serials can’t be good, but there’s a constant danger of the writers playing too many cards that doesn’t exist if the characters don’t need to move a big plotline along throughout the season.
I agree. I think resolving sexual tension is the nuber one reason a show will “jump the shark.”
So are you guys saying that you like the UST between the Big Three on Lost? Because that irritates me to no end at this point.
HP,
I’m not a huge fan of it, but I don’t think I’d like it anymore if it were resolved.
What Tim said. It would be awwwwful to watch some gooey Kate-Jack or Kate-Sawyer love story. Yick. OTOH, if they did something truly daring to resolve it, like killing off one of the three, that would actually be interesting…
Trust me, Jack’s a goner.
Well, if he is, I hope Kate blames Sawyer so we won’t have to endure them together. I want to watch Crazed Kate and Frog-squishing Sawyer, not soft-and-furry-Kate&Sawyer.
A few points…
1. Is this Loeben the one that got put out the airlock?
2. NBC would be great for one thing: HD.
3. NBC would be terrible because they would have to tone down the show.
4. People would catch up. Everybody has a geek in the family and they could air a two hour (four??) summary.