One of the oddities of serialized fiction becoming the norm on television and much more common in print and at the movies is that people who know for damn well that a larger story is being told still react as if any temporary development or opening status quo is an immutable condition.
I first noticed this with GAME OF THRONES, as far back as the books, and to some extent it’s a natural result of an epic playing out at such tremendous length that characters doomed to die early on in the scheme of things still got the wordcount that would be due the central protagonist of almost any other book. Were GAME OF THRONES a single even if epic-length novel, Ned Stark would die around page 100, 200 at latest; it would be shocking, but we would not be so conditioned to think he would find some way to survive, and people would not have been so outraged that he doesn’t.
When I first started reading the books, I noticed a phenomenon that later played out with viewers of the series: at the onset, they all hated Sansa Stark. She was a simpering, romantic-headed little idiot! She was useless! Well, yes, she was. I picked up on this right away, perceived that she was also a very sheltered and dreamy little girl, and knew at once that she was undergoing a baptism of fire and that, eventually, she would be badass. So I knew that what I was watching was a process, and — in part because I live and breathe story and am not often fooled, in large things — I knew that she would change. And yet, when it became a TV show, I saw any number of fans say that the show was “all about” the torture of this character.
It would be as if the broad specifics of the BATMAN origin were told not in flashback after he was already running around in costume — as is indeed somewhat happening, wonkily, on the TV show, GOTHAM. People would snot that the show was just a sad little bereaved kid who exercised a lot. (Which is one reason why the first version of Batman’s origin, in the comics, was two breezy pages long.)
The introduction of Negan, on THE WALKING DEAD, both comic and TV series, involves one (1) episode where that villain cruelly executes people we presumably care about. I can understand that the brutal scene was too much for many, but I have seen fan rhetoric to the effect that the show as a whole was about “nothing but” despair, “nothing but” the torture of the characters at the hands of this villain. And I am not arguing with folks who found this the moment where they could not continue, but honestly, how many failed to recognize that what they were seeing was what it had always been, a movement in a longer story, the arrival of an antagonist with whom the characters would necessarily spend a long time in conflict, and would certainly ultimately defeat?
In serialized stories, you can have the characters happily return to status quo and a happy ending at the end of every episode, or you can play the long route and still structure the whole thing novelistically, in which case the lows, when they arrive, will last for as long as they would in a unified narrative. So Sansa will be in misery for a long time. So Negan will be on top for a long time. So Walter White will spend almost two seasons gradually getting deeper and deeper over his head, while in thrall to Gus Fring, and not every episode will have him do something amazingly cool. Sometimes he will just fret.
Sometimes, looking backward, you see that the route was always clearly marked. And sometimes, as with LOST or HEROES, looking backward, you see that they were always just making up whatever silly shit got them through the next hour.
Comment By: Robert Hood
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:19 am
I’d count three episodes for Negan (season 6 finale, 7 opener, and 7 finale because intent matters), but that’s a minor quibble. Agreed on the big point.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:19 am
One more. He drops by Alexandria for a “friendly visit” once, and kills two people while he’s there. (Plus, takes Eugene away with him.)
Comment By: Robert Hood
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:19 am
Adam-Troy Castro I didn’t count that one because it lacks the buildup of the other three. It’s bad, yes, but not quite the same level of deliberately, gut-wrenchingly sadistic as the other three.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:19 am
Yup.
I am just crossing my fingers that we get some version of the dialogue from the comics, where Rick defeats Negan in EVERY FUCKING POSSIBLE WAY, not just the physical.
Comment By: Marilyn Holt
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:18 am
Change is why we read and watch stories, I think. I am always disappointed in the long series when everyone stays the same. This is one of the reasons that I liked Person of Interest. All of the main characters, and some minor characters, changed in significant ways.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:18 am
(Agreed with all your points! Now for the tangent!)The sadism of Negan was fine for me. I think in a show like the Walking Dead, people had lost much sense of dread. Killing zombies was literally a walk in the park now. They needed something else that was beyond awful. Got it. What didn’t work for me broke down into two things: 1) Negan was SO AWFUL to his people, and didn’t do much to protect himself from them (walking into rooms alone with them, sleeping with them, etc.) that odds are one of them would have snapped a long time ago and icepicked him in the eye. You can be a sadist leader, but you have to let people off the hook most of the time so they don’t have a mental break, or they just decide that death looks a lot nicer. People are willing to suddenly kill each other in the real world over a voice in their head, lack of sleep, not getting a date, or frustrating job environments. In other words, people lose it and commit murder/suicide over a whole lot less. 2) people weren’t acting like themselves (aside from Daryl.) There was no more shadow of the hooded, ronin-samurai, zombie chaining force of nature in Meshonne. Her ability to sneak into a compound and wait to kill a man was gone (and she even said, “Oh, I’m no good at that” or something like that concerning Negan. WHAT???) Rick suddenly wasn’t the dude that would rip a man’s throat out with his teeth when he knew death was coming for him and his son. His son, Mr. Shoot First and Think Later, stood up and had to deliver a speech before -not- just spraying the badguys with a hail of lead while he was standing in front of them. For no reason given in the show whatsoever. People had all already lost a TON of people they loved, and sacrificed them in battles before, but suddenly this was something they didn’t know how to handle. Stuff like that maddens me, because it’s not story development. It’s TOTAL LACK OF CONTINUITY and lack of comprehension about human nature. /rant
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:18 am
Negan does employ the carrot as well as the stick.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:18 am
He does, but not enough. It becomes very clear in very short order that carrots are meaningless. It’s why one of his flunkies doesn’t even take the offering of sleeping with his wife. He knows it’s probably a trap. You can’t put people constantly in that position without someone snapping.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:18 am
I should say I love the personal story arc of Morgan Jones. His continuity and changes are solid. I understand why they happen and it’s interesting to see where it goes.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
And someone help me understand the stupid way the trash people talk. It’s only been a few years since normal civilization, for chrissakes. At least Ezekiel is playing a character and has theater background so we get what he’s doing.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
I dunno.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
I know, right? Just… wut.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
(Shrug) It’s a cult
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Maybe so! Just some indication would be nice, like they took time to explain Ezekiel and his tiger. The audience can buy an awful lot of weirdness if some explanation is given, even cursory.
Comment By: Rick Sullivan
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
BABYLON 5 always comes to mind for me in this regard. The first season did a lot of establishing the universe and how it worked while also unveiling some surprises toward the end, and then the next three seasons were an exercise in almost every episode presenting something that shook things up and made things worse and a few that gave our heroes a vital piece of data or other potential advantage. The show even had to adjust to the sudden and unplanned loss of its intended lead character after the first season, which creator and showrunner J. Michael Straczynski handled by asking “If this character suddenly vanished, what might the the likely in-universe reason be, and what would be the consequences of that?” and strengthened the show in the process.
Comment By: Rick Sullivan
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
And more on BABYLON 5: the putative protagonist of the series was Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, suddenly and unexpectedly replaced by Commander John Sheridan after Sinclair was reassigned under mysterious circumstances (a result of the original actor no longer being able to continue in the role). And while both of them were noticeably different by the end of their arcs, the two characters most profoundly and meaningfully changed were ones who initially appeared to be supporting characters – Ambassdaor Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic and Ambassador G’Kar of the Narn Regime.
I rewatched the series in a binge a few years ago, and I noticed something I hadn’t caught on the initial run of the series… the show is primarily about Londo and G’Kar above all else. It is their motives and strengths and failings and decisions and transformations that drive almost everything that is happening, and they are ones most changed by all that happens and all that they do. This also wasn’t the original plan, but the two actors were so amazing and had such magnificent chemistry as mutual antagonists that Straczynski found himself writing a lot more of the story around them, a decision which paid off handsomely for the show and its legacy.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
My favorite TV shows are ones where the writers pay close attention to how things film, not just how they wrote it, and they react to their actors in future writing and story arcs. Very cool!
Comment By: Robert Hood
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
See, that’s the first post I’ve read on B5 that actually sparks my curiosity about the show. I’ve been generally aware of it since it started, but it never really crossed my threshold of making an effort to see it… and Back Then, by the time someone did try to evangelize its virtues, part of their pitch was that it’s so interconnected and you need to see it from the beginning – something I was already unable to do.
Now that it’s out on disc, though… maybe after FARSCAPE.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
The first half of the first season is weak, but it is a slow build.
Comment By: Robert Hood
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Adam-Troy Castro That’s fine. As I’ve said before, I generally expect it to take a season or so for a new SFF show to find its footing and really hit its stride.
Comment By: Rick Sullivan
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
The series premiere episode is a good one and establishes the universe it inhabits pretty effectively. It’s really only a few episodes in the middle that stumble badly, and even those have a “B” story that further advances the overall series arc or further develops the characters.
Also, the series is available in its entirety on the free streaming service go90 –
https://www.go90.com/shows/babylon5
Comment By: L.J. Bothell
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Robert Hood It truly is worth it.
Comment By: Robert Hood
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:19 pm
L.J. Bothell My dilemma is not the binary is/not worthy, but the spectrum of “more worthy than the other stuff already in my stack.”
Comment By: Rick Sullivan
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:19 pm
Robert Hood And isn’t that a delightful problem to have? There are so many good quality genre shows over the last couple of decades, and far more recently, that one simply can’t get to them all. We have an embarrassment of riches in that regard.
Comment By: Russell Handelman
October 23rd, 2017 at 1:18 pm
I think the increasing move toward serialzed stories in all kinds of TV, even things like three-camera sitcoms, is also a matter of taking advantage of new technologies: what with DVRs, on-demand services and streaming services, it’s now much easier for viewers to pick up on missed episodes, or, for new viewers, to go back and catch up on earlier episodes or seasons. I feel that a lot of shows today are being scripted with the idea that viewers can and will either rewatch episodes or binge-watch entire seasons, and so story-arcs and character arcs can become more complex.
Comment By: Diana Peterson
October 23rd, 2017 at 1:18 pm
And I love this about modern TV! While it’s fun to rant about things I don’t like (or like) in this or that TV show, I’m happy that I have the chance to see them and the expectation of greatness that so many wonderful shows these days have generated.
Comment By: John Ordover
October 23rd, 2017 at 1:18 pm
The problem with serialized TV drama, as opposed to novels or even a novel series that you encounter in its later years so can binge-read the series, is that the pace they proceed is not in your control. When you hit a slower part in a novel, you can skim it, read it with less attention, or as some people who aren’t me seem able to do, just skip ahead. If you’re waiting each week for an installment and you find what’s in front of you dull, you’re disappointed and irritated and if there are three or four in a row that way, you’ll get annoyed enough to tune out.
Consider it like evolution: in evolution there are no ‘intermediate forms” although that’s part of the pop-sci consciousness about it. The only forms that make it are the ones that can survive better now, today. They can’t be prep for the future unless they are -also- the best today.
So serialized TV drama has the burden of being compelling both in the moment and in the long run.
Unless you’re going to release it all at once, in which case people will get from set-up to pay off at the rate they choose, just like reading a book.
Comment By: Eric Dietz
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:19 pm
OT, that’s mostly why I’m thunderstruck to find that Twin Peaks is back, and successful: isn’t making up silly shit why opinion turned against the old one?
Comment By: Barbara Kwasniewski
October 23rd, 2017 at 6:17 pm
Personally, I prefer character and story development in series, rather than a bunch of individual adventures tied together.
Comment By: Patricia Williams-King
October 24th, 2017 at 12:22 am
I would LOVE to see Jack Chalker’s WELLWORLD series on TV! WE can do the CGI now; and it would look GREAT!
Comment By: Barbara Kwasniewski
October 24th, 2017 at 1:19 am
I loved that series!