posted
Since the first era of the first radio shows, one main plot point has been hammered into the listening/viewing audiences head. Whether it was the early radio shows or comic books, or today's TV, the prime rule is Change Nothing.
At the end of the story, everything should be back where it was at the begining.
Every sit com, every police drama, every medical show, all of them and a dozen other genre's all have the same main premise--the end must equal the begining.
This is not a sinister plot, but simple practicality. If too much changes in each episode, you will eventually run out of episodes.
However if nothing changes, then the same cast can come back and do 100 or 200 or more episodes.
All of which go nowhere.
Gilligan does not get off the Island.
Voyager does not get home.
Superman survives, as does that fool Jimmy Olsen, and the villian Lex Luthor.
Dianne does not marry Sam.
When something does happen, then all the bells must be wrung and the fates themselves must be called into account.
When Captain Marvell died, the Universe itself attended the funeral.
When Tara died, the world almost died as well.
When Voyager did get home, it took time travel and a two hour special.
The message we are recieving is Change is Special. It is either good Special or Bad. However, most likely, it is death.
The other answer to change has been to ignore it. Darren is replaced by a non-look-alike clone. We ignore it.
The eldest Huxtable runs off to College, and then to Africa? We ignore it.
Has all of this lap running, this circular adventures that lead nowhere effected the thinking process of the American public?
One of the major themes behind Lord of the Rings was that you can not go home again. The jouney there and back again changes you.
Ender discovered this by the end of the first book, if not sooner.
Yet we've had 60 years plus of stories fed to us every half an hour that state you can't make the journey, because the Status Quo won't let you leave.
I am not saying this is some devious plot by the mind police in California. This is just an unpredicted consequence of the way we currently do media. Just as black smoke pouring out of the smokestacks of a powerplant is not the goal of the plant, but unintended air pollution.
The big question is, has this made us a more entrenched people? Do we fear change because we've been unintentionally programed that change is bad?
I don't know where I'm going with this, but it is something worth considering.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I've actually been thinking about something similar recently. Along the lines of this:
quote: Superman survives, as does that fool Jimmy Olsen, and the villain Lex Luthor.
Actually, they killed off Luthor at least twice in Lois&Clark. Not surprisingly, L&C fanfics often feature Lex going SPLAT one way or another. Jimmy gets torched (at least once literally) on occasion as well.
However, fics that kill off either of the main characters are referred to as "deathfics," and people expected to be warned in advance. Many won't read 'em at all. IMO, this is idiotic -- I don't WANT a promise from the author that they will "put all the toys back" (as we put it). Maybe they will -- and maybe they won't! Not knowing is a big part of the fun.
In defense of Buffy, Yes, Tara died and the world almost died with it. But in general, Buffy is a show where change came regularly without much fanfare. Every character grew and changed.
But the best example of change in TV is Babylon 5. No one ended where they started. Every character had a life changing event or epiphany.
I never really liked the "End of show, push the reset button" mentality of most shows. That's why shows where people DO grow are so special.
posted
It's pretty irratating too, like those episodes when they are about to win the lottery and they don't. They must instead stay poor because if they become rich we might not love them as much. Only Rosseane was an acception, but that was a fantasy, I think. Shows seem to lack character development, something I love.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I don't know if TV is the cause, but it certainly would reinforce the notion that change is bad (and dangerous). It's hard to justify the risk of breaking with what you're already doing or using if you're currently getting along okay. Even when the reward might be great.
Posts: 54 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I think it plays into one of the fantasies, delusions, we all want to desperately hold onto. Everything Will Be All Right In The End. We want to believe the status quo will be maintained. That's why we see Frodo is a hero...he is willing to face that we can't go home again, to risk not just his life but his ability to see the world as he used to. That takes courage.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Dan, I think this may have been the most insightful thing I've ever heard you say. I've never considered the possibility that series -- particularly TV series -- reinforce our desire for the maintenance of the status quo, but it makes perfect sense once you consider it. Thank you for the observation.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
On The Simpsons, I've lost track of how many times Bart and Lisa have gotten out of second and fourth grades for the summer...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
OK, just figured out that the title was not about the TV thinking that pollution was not important. Carry on.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:On The Simpsons, I've lost track of how many times Bart and Lisa have gotten out of second and fourth grades for the summer...
But the Simpsons are very up front about it. Every time they do a flashback show, they state the year very matter of factly based on subtraction from the year the episode is shot. So the B-Sharps were in the mid-80s, and Bart is still 10 years old.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
this is probably why my favorite shows are arc-based serials, shows where events of almost every episode really has an ongoing impact on the characters.
Six Feet Under, Sopranos, Carnivale, Nip/Tuck, Joan of Arcadia, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks, 24, etc.
I could never write for a show where the characters didn't change.
Posts: 2689 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I can think of many shows where people change over time.
Repetition is comforting. I don't think it makes humans stupid to want their tv shows not to mirror the way life really is. It is part of why I am not big on pushing educational shows for my kids, I just limit their time on tube. They go to school all day. They read. They exercise and eat(mostly)healty. TV is just fun. So what if Spongebob always ends up going back to work at the Krusty Krab, and Plankton never gets the secret recipe.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
My guess is that this is all a result of the human need to have familiarity. Sure, the can get old but if they changed the show around, you wouldn't watch it.
It could also be a result of the creators of these shows not wanting to date the show. When you flip on an old episode of Seinfeld or Friends (with the poofy-early-ninties hair) you'll more than likely change the channel unless you've seen it before and want to relive it. Whereas, shows like The Simpsons always seem new because you can't immediately decifer how old the episode is, and so, it may be new to you.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:This is not a sinister plot, but simple practicality. If too much changes in each episode, you will eventually run out of episodes.
I don't think this is the reason for making plot lines episodic (contained entirely in one episode). It's more about not alienating the people who skip a few shows and want to come back to it without feeling like rejoining it is impossible. Also, it makes it very easy to include episodes from multiple writers who do not have to reference each other's work, but merely work off an actor's character.
As far as TV causing this "maintaining the status quo" mentality, there have been multiple instances of conservatives throughout time who have wanted to maintain the status quo and most of them have been before TV was invented. I'm pretty certain Dan wasn't implying that TV caused this, though. Proliferated it, maybe? Perhaps TV is just reflecting that attitude. Or it's similar to the very American attitude about fast food chains. We want things to be the same in every branch of that store because it's comforting and we know what to expect. We want a certain portion of our TV shows to always be the same - a comfortable, reliable escape from reality. (Even the reality TV shows are unreal, although definitely not episodic)
posted
To me television is creating weak, cliche-filled lame stories. I can't stand these sitcoms, and everytime one becomes popular you can be sure there will be dozens of cookie-cutter family sitcoms, sitcoms about single people looking for love and talking about sex in cafes, sitcoms about newlyweds with troublesome inlaws, shows about very immature husbands in which you wonder, why the hell doesn't she just divorce him? He's so stupid! It's the same formulas, repeated. How many times can they do the parents leave the kids at home alone and they have a huge party and trash the house episode? Or the one of two platonic people saw the other naked and now both are embarassed? Or even the they don't know they are in love with each other shows so you have to watch them fumble and stagger around until one day... they date some random person who is even stupider than the one they are destined for! And if a show is unique and doesn't follow a formula like add a cute kid when all of the original kids grow up, or if they have a baby, suddenly the baby grows up but everyone else doesn't, then it gets cancelled. I hate about 90% of television.
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posted
When I watch Arrested Development, it comforts me to know that, at the end of the show, they will all still be nuts.
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Not surprisingly, L&C fanfics often feature Lex going SPLAT one way or another. Jimmy gets torched (at least once literally) on occasion as well.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Many won't read 'em at all. IMO, this is idiotic -- I don't WANT a promise from the author that they will "put all the toys back" (as we put it). Maybe they will -- and maybe they won't! Not knowing is a big part of the fun.![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
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I've never considered the possibility that series -- particularly TV series -- reinforce our desire for the maintenance of the status quo, but it makes perfect sense once you consider it. Thank you for the observation.
