The Droodification of TV

This golden age of TV has crept up on us, but you are right John, the long form TV show is starting to eclipse much of the pap we see on our Cinema Screens. If only I could regularly go to the movie and see shows of the same Calibre of Arrested Development or Batalstar Galactica. All I get is the Bourne Utimatum, which is tired and worn out by the third episode.

Regarding Invasion, it was passable. Inspired maybe by Lost (disclosure: I don’t think Lost is very good), there is a lurking evil and many Clues.

The reason I don’t think Lost is very good is related to the points you make about the success and failure of the long form TV genre. Lost lack internal consistency, and in addition it does poorly on the “reveal”, the slow release of information over time.

Invasion has some of this as well. By episode 10 you had picked up a few more factoids, but are no closer to revealing an overall picture or even the left corner of an overall picture.

Please let’s not forget Buffy.

On the two or three hour experience:

A feature of this long-form TV drama, obviously, is that many people, like me, often wait for a season to come out on DVD and then watch the whole thing – sometimes, literally (pretty much) back to back. One weekend I watched the entire of seasons 3 and 4 of The Sopranos (with resultant nightmares, inability to speak except as if threatening to kill people’s loved ones, etc).

I simply cannot imagine watching a film that was 24 hours long. I mean, I wouldn’t even start to. I would only rarely watch a film I knew to be three hours long, unless I was very confident about it. But I think nothing of watching three hours of this kind of high quality TV drama.

Partly, that’s simply because it’s so good. It must also be partly something to do with the nature of TV drama, as opposed to film – that is, about the nature of the different forms of narrative as such. I have some half thoughts about that. But what do people think?

The big advantage I see to long story arcs is community building. When there’s an overarching plot and each episode tells you a little more about it, there’s a universe of fans who all have their own theories, who want to talk about those theories with other people, and who want to bounce ideas off other people about what the new information means. Add the internet and bam, instant obsession!

Talking of Dr Who, the most recent episode aired in Oz included the line “The end of the universe and you two are … blogging!”

Then there are shows that become too popular for their own good. I won’t even name names, because at this point I’m almost embarrassed to admit I used to watch such-and-such a show. So popularity isn’t always good.

I think Clive is right that some of these are really fun to watch back-to-back. That’s what I did with the first season of 24. I think I watched it in two days (so not literally in 24 hours). I never got hooked though, because the idea of waiting a week for the next episode seemed very unappealing.

The arc wasn’t quite so strong in Sex and The City until the end, but that show certainly went through a lot of transformations since its first season. (In fact, when I lend people the entire show, I feel like I have to tell them not to get turned off by the first few episodes since it changes considerably.) That’s another one of those that people will stay up until 4-5am to finish watching a season.

The first long-story-arc TV show I got into was Star Blazers(Space Battleship Yamato). It was pretty groundbreaking for the time, especially compared to the after school/Saturday morning cartoons and brothers Krofft shows prevalent in the late ’70s.

I imagine that serial-style storytelling is easier in genre shows — sci-fi/fantasy, romance, and now superhero and gangster — in part because the fan base, at least of the first 3, is already used to it from literature or comic media.

I also suspect that one of the reasons that cop, lawyer, and doctor shows are such prime time staples is that they lend themselves to episodic storytelling very easily.

“Mostly it has to do with improved story-telling, due to whole season or multi-season story arcs, made possible largely by the DVD market, I suppose.”

Blakes 7 had at least a two season arc back in 1978-79 and has, I believe, been cited as an influence on J. Michael Straczynski of Bablyon 5 fame. Likewise Dr Who was doing multi-serial stories with the ‘Key To Time’ sequence in the early 70s, and the Davison era was characterised by maintaining links between stories and character progression based on the adventures of previous serials.

Both examples relied more heavily on linkages between stand-alones than today’s arcs, perhaps, but there was certainly a long-term goal and a reward for tuning in week after week, if only to see Blake change from an idealist into a vengeful maniac.

It always surprises me how strongly arced many of the shows I watched in my childhood were. When people will argue that grown-up audiences have too short an attention span for multi-part shows, I have to wonder how ‘Mysterious Cities of Gold’, ‘Gargoyles’ and ‘Pirates of Darkwater’ ever got made.

(As a purchaser, I am indifferent – swayed neither in favor or against – by the consideration that it is written/produced by former teen idol Shaun Cassidy.)

It should be “in favor”, but Invasion is probably Shaun Cassidy’s worst show. Check out American Gothic and the lesser-known oddities Roar (Celtic/Christian legendry with Heath Ledger) and Cover Me, about an entire family of deep-cover FBI agents, kids and all.

I agree – I’ve certainly tended, with my favourite shows, to wait for the DVD, because otherwise it’s just so complicated organising your time, worrying about missing an episode, etc. Sky+/Virgn+ (is Netflix the same thing? You can record without all the farting about you used to need with video…) is maybe changing this. (I’ve got most of Dexter to watch without getting the DVD).

But it does seem to me that the HBO shows in particular are developing a new narrative style, distinct from old television drama. If you compare something like The Shield – it’s edgy and frenetic, but its story telling is really quite traditional (A stories, B stories, etc) – with a ‘through story’, for sure, but with a lot of episodic stuff. The Wire, on the other hand, seems to me entirely different – on one level more like a soap (lots of characters, story unfolding over a long time) – except of course there is a single story arc for each 12 ep season.

British television drama is still way behind, incidentally – partly, I think, because series tend to be much shorter, so there’s less room to play with.

Some of it (that is, the high quality of a lot of TV vs. the crappitude of films) is owing to the problems of accounting, isn’t it? One of the reasons that big-budget movies tend to so frequently be (I apologize in advance for this) the filmic equivalent of turds the size of the Ross Ice Shelf is because they’re so expensive, hence require selling 30 or 40 million tickets worth of viewing, hence appeal to the lowest common denominator, patati patata. Although I don’t know exactly why tv series seem to be so different– the costs can be distributed over a longer period of time perhaps? Or tv talent rates are less than movies, at least until you get several seasons in (didn’t the Friends clique get some preposterous amount of money per show near the end?)? Since we keep hearing that one of the other reasons that movies tend to be so much crappier than they need be is because so many people are allowed to have “creative” input, is one of the reasons for the greater quality of some TV shows much tighter control? I don’t know, just asking.

Joel–have you read Dorothy Dunnett? I love her series nearly as much as O’Brian’s.

Let us discuss the state of TV, the long story arc, the advantages and risks that accrue thereto.

And let us cast bile at JJ Abrams, a man who creates sprawling backstories and interconnections only to get bored after two seasons and bugger off. He’s like a musician who can only do intros and the first verse.

Oh goody, a TV thread. Now I can learn something useful.

1. Good point about the twin risks. The best case is when the writer knows in advance when the end is near so he can tie it all up in advance. Of course that can backfire, as in Babylon 5, which was a damn shame, both for the telescoped 4th season and the empty 5th one. BTW who could deny the flaws in that show? The acting was excruciating, for one thing (I mean, Walter Koenig??).

2. While I really like The Wire, it is indeed simply a long serial rather than a series. I actually prefer a happy medium, between that one the one hand, and just a succession of episodes with little or no arc, on the other. B5 was exemplary in this regard, and I think it helped a lot that the overall arc (like Rowlings’) was planned out completely in advance.

3. No, no show has ever sucked as much as the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Here’s a thought: what if Firefly had improved in its (hypothetical) subsequent seasons as much as ST:TNG did?

4. I enjoyed Master & Commander, but I can well believe that the books are better (and that a series would rock). But I’ve never read any. Does it matter where one begins (i.e. are they in order?). If not, where should one begin?

5. I also prefer, for the shows in question, to watch them on DVD. I can’t imagine watching 24 on the broadcast schedule – that would be maddening. Of course the decision is made for me for most shows, because I don’t have cable. This means I’m still waiting for season *3* of Battlestar Galactica.

6. I saw The Kingdom (the first one) on the big screen, all at once, and it was great. But there are only 4 eps of that one. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on DVD too. I understand Berlin Alexanderplatz, which some people swear by (i.e. as to be seen in the theater) is soon out on DVD as well.

7. Consider bile cast at JJ Abrams from this quarter as well. I gave up on Alias and never even started Lost, which looks ridiculous.

8. Joel mentioned (the book/series) Dune. This is not really a series, but a classic novel with a billion poorly thought out sequels. Stop after the first, it’s not worth it.

James Wimberley, for a The Wire-like French series, have a look at p.j. police judiciaire. Set in St. Martin, a run down district of Paris, it follows the fortunes of a quirky set of police officers. Unfortunately, the 100+ episodes DVD set price is a rip-off. You can watch clips at PJ France 2.

Dave–
Also, some people think that the books really hit their stride at about number 5. So if the first few aren’t the cat’s pajamas in your opinion, it’s probably worth continuing on a bit to make sure. But since it’s basically one big novel, you need the first few in any case (not to mention that you don’t want to miss the first instance of the dog-watch joke in Post Captain, which is retold all through the series).

Yes, start the Aubrey-Maturin series at the beginning. I actually bristled at the Jane Austen-like, all-land, all-domestic drama of the second book–but eventually came to enjoy O’Brien’s retreats back to the country. As the others have said: you get through the first couple (and they’re not long & the “nautical babble” complaint is way over-played–there’s just not that much of it and most of it is expertly done as dialogue between Aubrey and Maturin), and you’re hooked.

As for Rome… Russell: Yes, Ciarán Hinds is fantastic. They couldn’t have cast a better Caesar. Some of the other cast are good, too–even excellent. But the cast is the beginning and ending of what’s good about this show. I’ll keep it short, but my complaints are, essentially:

1) The most dynamic, drama-filled period in Roman history and you did what?! with it? Almost nothing. Why not write out a five-season series on the Civil War and pitch that? With an appropriate budget? Yes, I loved the sex and the violence and the intrigues… but compared to what was possible with this show–hell, was actual, Milius, et. al., just totally dropped the ball.

2) This is ROME, and you give me a set that looks like it’s built in, by, and housed at a local community college? Have you never heard of CGI? Isn’t there some still-standing old MGM set on a hill in Italy somewhere? How many times do I need to see the same three, and only three, plebians walking through deserted streets to hear the Herald?

3) A quick specific: Do you know the real story of Cleopatra’s presentation to Caesar? WAY better, more fantastic and dramatic and sexy, than the way she’s presented in the series. Why not just use that?

4) In general, they just didn’t give this series a big enough budget or enough narrative space to do it right. They cherry-picked some salacious scenes and wicked intrigues from the history, then crammed them into an overstuffed suitcase and mailed it parcel post to the world.

I’ve written quite a bit about novelistic television on my blog. I don’t agree with Joel’s assertion that television can’t approach the complexity of prose narratives. In fact, in terms of the medium’s capabilities I think television is inherently suited to novelistic storytelling in a way that film hardly ever approaches (although a closer parallel might be drawn between television and comics).

The problem isn’t with the medium, but with the economic system governing it. Up until a few years ago, television series sought to appeal to the widest possible audience, and therefore to the lowest common denominator. The notion that a series might take a while to grow an audience, or that it might survive with a small but loyal following, was almost unheard of. Even nowadays, with HBO and cable channels seeking to appeal to more sophisticated tastes, the breadth of an audience still matters – witness the (respectively, deserved and undeserved) early deaths of Carnivale and Deadwood. There’s no indie or fringe scene in television, which is one of the reasons that innovation within the medium comes almost exclusively from the outside – on the aesthetic front, from cinema, and on the narrative front, from novels and comics.

The economic issues aside, however, there are still serious issues plaguing the attempt to create true novelistic television. Entries in this field either hide an underlying formula beneath of veneer of novelistic storytelling (Alias, Lost, Battlestar Galactica) or have nothing to offer but a well-structured story (Babylon 5). In some of the recent entries in the sub-genre like Daybreak or the upcoming Journeyman, I’ve noticed an emphasis on story to the exclusion of all other elements, most particularly characters. This puts me in mind of a show like Farscape, which started out formulaic and, at the end of four seasons, was practically inscrutable to the casual viewer. The series was cancelled after the fourth season finale – which ends with the two leads apparently being killed by an unknown assailant – had been filmed, and for several years this stood as the story’s ending. The characters, and the story up until that point, were so strong, however, that fans didn’t really care. They kept plugging the show, buying the DVDs, and recruiting new fans – which is one of the reasons that a wrap-up miniseries was eventually commissioned.

I was very excited about the inherent possibilities of novelistic television a few years ago, but since then I’ve grown less enthusiastic – at best, I think novelistic shows don’t have the built-in longevity of formula series. Look at Veronica Mars, which delivered a pitch-perfect noir mystery novel in its first season and then struggled to repeat the accomplishment in its second and third before being cancelled. The future is probably in miniseries.

Long story-arcs are great because they allow for character development. You see character evolve (or devolve) in 22 40min. serials when they are done right (BtVS was a master of this).

That said, it is becoming harder to watch FX or SF network shows with all the promo material popping up at the bottom of the screen, often during climatic scenes.

Otherwise, I agree with the LOST critics and pretty much all of #35.

And no one has mentioned Edgar Reitz’s Heimat (if you haven’t seen it yet please seek it out) – a story arc with cinematic qualities spread over three widely spaced seasons/film series (now all available on DVD). The spacing was, at least in part, due to financial reasons – limited backing – but in some ways this remakably adds to the epic feel of the series.

The same cannot be said of Firefly; which was aborted mid-arc by the suits without proper consideration, only to been given new life as Serenity – which gave us the Edwin Drood conclusion we wanted in a whirlwind of a film.

Heroes, which brilliantly follows the american comic model of multi-arc story-telling, is a current favorite (and rightly so).

Episodic story telling by arcs, only works if the arc are well planed at the outset or given the space to develop. Like the serial (I’m thinking Dickens) it runs the risk of never quite telling the story it should have (Dickens did okay, and BSG hasn’t jumped the shark yet), or of being messed around (B5), or cancelled (Firefly), on a whim by backers. But when it works it captures the audience like no other medium.

Oh yes, Invasion – it was dreadful.

I’ve read that Joss Whedon was so disappointed by the critical and commercial failure of Serenity that no more Firefly stories will be forthcoming.

I only recall it vaguelly, but I understand the critic’s response to [i]Serenity[/i] was quite favorable, especially for a sci-fi film. (And doubly so for one that started on TV).

Commercially, I believe they broke even on the big screen and made money once it hit DVDs.

Joss DID do a comic series for Firefly, that bridged the series and the film, and I suspect his real problem is he wants to do Firefly on TV (where he has 16 or so hours a season to play with) rather than on the big screen (where he has 2), but can’t.