Thursday, December 11, 2008
Labyrinthian Plotting Disease
Speaking of mazes, people assume I must be a rabid Heroes fan, it looks like a graphic novel come to life on TV with fantasy and science-fiction style struggles, historical romping, humor, and pop culture wars, all good stuff. But I can't stand the overly complex increasingly fractal plotting. This is what ruined Lost for me. In the end, the true villains become the show's writers, since they seem to flip a coin weekly to decide who looks good and who looks bad. Good, Bad, Goo, Bah. Seriously, most of the people doing evil in the real world think they are the good guys, and this show is able to mostly get that right, but the narrative itself is the victim. So those of you keeping score cards, maps, and other mnemonics to keep the plot from escaping you, have fun. I'll be rereading Dickens and tuning into Dr. Who.
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2 comments:
Totally agree. There's a contract with the viewer that's been violated, here, though it's not all that new. Twin Peaks was the first series that I felt let down by when I realized that the entire goal was to keep the audience off balance.
Well, not the first. I've always been annoyed by shows with an unending premise...will we find the one armed man, get off the island, back to our own time, space, or identity? Not unless it's the final episode...though it might turn out to be a dream anyway.
These days I migrate to shows without a story arc, because the arc has become to malleable.
Ern
Good points. I still enjoy Law and Order: bad things happen, detectives do their work, suspects brought to trial, lawyers do their work.
Some long running romantic tension in the subplot series also annoy me, jump in the sack already, I can't take 3 more seasons of missed cues and yearning. At least a romance book resolves the would be lovers in one read. Sigh. And there is the History channel. Can't make up stranger than true...
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