Ammo For Your Shipper Arsenal
Okay, so this is only tangentially related at best, but it deals with a question that seems to get a lot of mileage out there on the internet, including sites/discussion boards about this show - the question of television ships/couples, how long the writers should drag out the UST and the "Will They or Won't They" and how their refusal to resolve said tension may just be some lazy writing. And most importantly, why the next time an anti-shipper starts yelling, "You can't get the couple together! It will ruin everything! Moonlighting!1!!1!!!" (which is SERIOUSLY one of my biggest pet peeves) you can tell them to put a sock in it because the Moonlighting Myth is just that -- a myth.
Television writers/critics Alan Sepinwall, Maureen Ryan, and Linda Holmes were Tweeting each other about how they hate it when shows drag out the "Will They or Won't They?" question to ridiculous lengths, and why they Moonlighting thing is a bunch of bunk, then decided to write about it. While Mary and Marshall aren't exactly in the "Will They or Won't They?" phase (yet), I thought they did bring up some interesting points about 'ships on television in general. Maybe you'll see something you can carry to another fandom.
So if you're bored and desperate for something to do, take a peek behind the cut for some links and excerpts from these articles - plus another fun piece from the AV Club on this subject - and maybe some discussion:
What would you like to see? Do you like angst and want to see the prospect of M/M teased and stretched out for a long time? Or do you want them to just do it already? And if they take that route, do you think they can pull it off?
That's all assuming that most folks here want to see them get together at some point - is there anyone out there who likes the idea, likes to read it in fics, but really doesn't want to see it on the TV screen?
Up first is Maureen Ryan, who started the whole thing with a rant on Bones. You can read the whole thing here: featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/09/rant-alert-oh-just-stop-already-with-the-will-they-or-wont-they.html
Some snippets from the article:
Have fun, "Bones" fans. I'm out.
I was never a big "Bones" fan, though I can see the appeal. It's a slight slice of fun. But it appears set on working that "will they or won't they" thing forever.
In my opinion, that "will they or won't they" thing is overused on TV. Showrunners and networks way too afraid to put couples together. It's tiresome.
Do I think all couples with tension should get together? No. But it's lazy or fear-based thinking to constantly avoid putting a couple together, especially if that couple's sexual tension has been constantly exploited on the show.
Yes, I'm still bitter that we saw very little of Luke and Lorelai together on "Gilmore Girls." How many great stories could have come from that? What so many shows miss out on is this: Once the "will they or won't they" couple is together, there are so many cool stories that can arise!
I should note, at times, networks executives are probably pressuring writers not to get "will they or won't they" couples together. Network fear, blergh! A curse upon it!
Next up is Alan Sepinwall, who thinks that Jim and Pam from The Office are a good example of who TV relationships should progress, and how so many other shows have screwed it up. You can read the whole thing here: www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/10/the_office_why_jim_and_pams_we.html
Snippets:
In retrospect, I really wish I had written about how happy I am that Jim and Pam's wedding is happening tonight on "The Office," and what I hope that wedding will do for other TV shows, but fear it won't. Fortunately, the blog has more flexible time and space restrictions, so I can write that now.
There has been a school of thought in TV for a few decades now that any show built around Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST for brevity's sake in the rest of this post) will be ruined the second the UST gets resolved and the couple gets together.
This school of thought is misguided at best, idiotic and self-destructive at worst.
But because of The "Moonlighting" Fallacy, far too many TV writers and executives have come to believe that resolution=doom. "NewsRadio" creator Paul Simms more or less destroyed his relationship with NBC by having Dave and Lisa sleep together in the show's second episode - they wanted him to tease it out forever, so they'd have an angle to promote - even though he wound up getting several seasons of material out of their affair.
"Ed" was a show more or less destroyed by its belief in The Moonlighting Fallacy. Its creators were so terrified of having Ed and Carol Vessey hook up long-term that they kept throwing one increasingly stupid obstacle after another in front of them. That show betrayed two separate misunderstandings of "Moonlighting." Beyond the obvious one, it ignored the fact that Dave and Maddie, like Sam and Diane, were interesting as a UST couple because they were so seemingly incompatible, yet had an irresistible attraction for each other. Chemistry aside, they made each other miserable and probably shouldn't have been together (and Sam and Diane ultimately weren't), so the constant delaying made sense on some level, even if the show dragged it out too long. Ed and Carol, on the other hand, were two perfectly nice people who got along well and had common interests and temperaments. There were no sparks when they fought, and no logical reason for them to not be together once they were both unattached, and the increasingly-contrived reasons to keep them apart made that show's middle seasons more or less unwatchable. In the final season, they were together, and the show just treated their relationship as a fact of life while telling other, more amusing stories, but by then too many viewers had left out of impatience.
Now Linda Holmes explains why the whole Moonlighting thing is a bunch of hooey. You can read the whole thing here: www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/09/what_really_happened_to_moonli_1.html
Snippets:
That leaves Moonlighting, where David Addison (Bruce Willis) and Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) coupled up near the end of the third season. The show limped through a fourth and a fifth season, but creatively, there was very little that was worth watching thereafter. That made it popular to take the position that they killed the show by putting them together, which some shows seem to interpret as evidence that your sexual tension storyline must be dragged out FOREVER with no resolution.
Here's the problem: As The A.V. Club recently noted, there are plenty of shows that have survived sending their characters into relationships -- not the least of which is The Office, as we were talking about just today.
Furthermore, it is abundantly clear that what happened with Moonlighting didn't happen because they were together. It happened because for most of that fourth season, they weren't together. Literally, not together. Not fighting, sleeping together, or anything else. They were in different cities -- she fled to Chicago, and he hung around and went to prison and some other stupid stuff, and in the end, they were separated in an episode that aired on September 9, 1987 and weren't reunited until an episode that aired on February 2, 1988.
Seriously: They slept together. They then spent eight episodes apart. There were five more episodes that season in which she was married to someone else, and that was the ball game, creatively. If you're looking for the string of episodes where they were a couple and it was boring and their couplehood caused people to lose interest, you will not find them, because they don't exist.
So the next time you hear anyone -- about Bones or about any other show -- tell you that you can't put a couple together because the show instantly becomes boring, by all means, don't let them bring up Moonlighting. Because it just doesn't work.
Finally, the AV Club has a list of 22 TV couples who got together and managed not to kill their shows: www.avclub.com/articles/gettin-horizontal-with-maddie-22-tv-series-not-rui,32549/
Sooooo, anyway, I just thought they had some interesting points. And the Moonlighting thing just bugs the crap out of me and I can't believe that people still bring it up 20 years later, and it's really isn't the reason the show went down the tubes in the first place.
Fortunately, this show hasn't gone down the "Will They or Won't They" path, and haven't had to dream up a bunch of ridiculous obstacles. Well, I think the engagement was ridiculous for a number of reasons, and I do think it happened in part to provide Marshall with some angst, but it didn't feel like a romantic obstacle because it was so nonsensical and was mostly written to add more stress to Mary's life.
But I do wonder where they will go next, or if they'll even keep heading in that direction or if the new showrunner has a completely different plan up his sleeve (or if the network will allow anything to happen). A part of me thinks they should save it until the end, but another part thinks it might be more challenging/interesting if we get to see Mary and Marshall figure out how they are going to make things work (and would they let Stan know).
Anyone else have any thoughts/ideas they wanna share?
Television writers/critics Alan Sepinwall, Maureen Ryan, and Linda Holmes were Tweeting each other about how they hate it when shows drag out the "Will They or Won't They?" question to ridiculous lengths, and why they Moonlighting thing is a bunch of bunk, then decided to write about it. While Mary and Marshall aren't exactly in the "Will They or Won't They?" phase (yet), I thought they did bring up some interesting points about 'ships on television in general. Maybe you'll see something you can carry to another fandom.
So if you're bored and desperate for something to do, take a peek behind the cut for some links and excerpts from these articles - plus another fun piece from the AV Club on this subject - and maybe some discussion:
What would you like to see? Do you like angst and want to see the prospect of M/M teased and stretched out for a long time? Or do you want them to just do it already? And if they take that route, do you think they can pull it off?
That's all assuming that most folks here want to see them get together at some point - is there anyone out there who likes the idea, likes to read it in fics, but really doesn't want to see it on the TV screen?
Up first is Maureen Ryan, who started the whole thing with a rant on Bones. You can read the whole thing here: featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/09/rant-alert-oh-just-stop-already-with-the-will-they-or-wont-they.html
Some snippets from the article:
Have fun, "Bones" fans. I'm out.
I was never a big "Bones" fan, though I can see the appeal. It's a slight slice of fun. But it appears set on working that "will they or won't they" thing forever.
In my opinion, that "will they or won't they" thing is overused on TV. Showrunners and networks way too afraid to put couples together. It's tiresome.
Do I think all couples with tension should get together? No. But it's lazy or fear-based thinking to constantly avoid putting a couple together, especially if that couple's sexual tension has been constantly exploited on the show.
Yes, I'm still bitter that we saw very little of Luke and Lorelai together on "Gilmore Girls." How many great stories could have come from that? What so many shows miss out on is this: Once the "will they or won't they" couple is together, there are so many cool stories that can arise!
I should note, at times, networks executives are probably pressuring writers not to get "will they or won't they" couples together. Network fear, blergh! A curse upon it!
Next up is Alan Sepinwall, who thinks that Jim and Pam from The Office are a good example of who TV relationships should progress, and how so many other shows have screwed it up. You can read the whole thing here: www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/10/the_office_why_jim_and_pams_we.html
Snippets:
In retrospect, I really wish I had written about how happy I am that Jim and Pam's wedding is happening tonight on "The Office," and what I hope that wedding will do for other TV shows, but fear it won't. Fortunately, the blog has more flexible time and space restrictions, so I can write that now.
There has been a school of thought in TV for a few decades now that any show built around Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST for brevity's sake in the rest of this post) will be ruined the second the UST gets resolved and the couple gets together.
This school of thought is misguided at best, idiotic and self-destructive at worst.
But because of The "Moonlighting" Fallacy, far too many TV writers and executives have come to believe that resolution=doom. "NewsRadio" creator Paul Simms more or less destroyed his relationship with NBC by having Dave and Lisa sleep together in the show's second episode - they wanted him to tease it out forever, so they'd have an angle to promote - even though he wound up getting several seasons of material out of their affair.
"Ed" was a show more or less destroyed by its belief in The Moonlighting Fallacy. Its creators were so terrified of having Ed and Carol Vessey hook up long-term that they kept throwing one increasingly stupid obstacle after another in front of them. That show betrayed two separate misunderstandings of "Moonlighting." Beyond the obvious one, it ignored the fact that Dave and Maddie, like Sam and Diane, were interesting as a UST couple because they were so seemingly incompatible, yet had an irresistible attraction for each other. Chemistry aside, they made each other miserable and probably shouldn't have been together (and Sam and Diane ultimately weren't), so the constant delaying made sense on some level, even if the show dragged it out too long. Ed and Carol, on the other hand, were two perfectly nice people who got along well and had common interests and temperaments. There were no sparks when they fought, and no logical reason for them to not be together once they were both unattached, and the increasingly-contrived reasons to keep them apart made that show's middle seasons more or less unwatchable. In the final season, they were together, and the show just treated their relationship as a fact of life while telling other, more amusing stories, but by then too many viewers had left out of impatience.
Now Linda Holmes explains why the whole Moonlighting thing is a bunch of hooey. You can read the whole thing here: www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/09/what_really_happened_to_moonli_1.html
Snippets:
That leaves Moonlighting, where David Addison (Bruce Willis) and Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) coupled up near the end of the third season. The show limped through a fourth and a fifth season, but creatively, there was very little that was worth watching thereafter. That made it popular to take the position that they killed the show by putting them together, which some shows seem to interpret as evidence that your sexual tension storyline must be dragged out FOREVER with no resolution.
Here's the problem: As The A.V. Club recently noted, there are plenty of shows that have survived sending their characters into relationships -- not the least of which is The Office, as we were talking about just today.
Furthermore, it is abundantly clear that what happened with Moonlighting didn't happen because they were together. It happened because for most of that fourth season, they weren't together. Literally, not together. Not fighting, sleeping together, or anything else. They were in different cities -- she fled to Chicago, and he hung around and went to prison and some other stupid stuff, and in the end, they were separated in an episode that aired on September 9, 1987 and weren't reunited until an episode that aired on February 2, 1988.
Seriously: They slept together. They then spent eight episodes apart. There were five more episodes that season in which she was married to someone else, and that was the ball game, creatively. If you're looking for the string of episodes where they were a couple and it was boring and their couplehood caused people to lose interest, you will not find them, because they don't exist.
So the next time you hear anyone -- about Bones or about any other show -- tell you that you can't put a couple together because the show instantly becomes boring, by all means, don't let them bring up Moonlighting. Because it just doesn't work.
Finally, the AV Club has a list of 22 TV couples who got together and managed not to kill their shows: www.avclub.com/articles/gettin-horizontal-with-maddie-22-tv-series-not-rui,32549/
Sooooo, anyway, I just thought they had some interesting points. And the Moonlighting thing just bugs the crap out of me and I can't believe that people still bring it up 20 years later, and it's really isn't the reason the show went down the tubes in the first place.
Fortunately, this show hasn't gone down the "Will They or Won't They" path, and haven't had to dream up a bunch of ridiculous obstacles. Well, I think the engagement was ridiculous for a number of reasons, and I do think it happened in part to provide Marshall with some angst, but it didn't feel like a romantic obstacle because it was so nonsensical and was mostly written to add more stress to Mary's life.
But I do wonder where they will go next, or if they'll even keep heading in that direction or if the new showrunner has a completely different plan up his sleeve (or if the network will allow anything to happen). A part of me thinks they should save it until the end, but another part thinks it might be more challenging/interesting if we get to see Mary and Marshall figure out how they are going to make things work (and would they let Stan know).
Anyone else have any thoughts/ideas they wanna share?