The Wire

[mostlikely2]

I have this theory about television, specifically popular television drama. Shows that are wildly popular -- not cult programs, but seriously nationwide popular -- have a thing that they give us. You go back to the same restaurant twice a month because you expect a certain dish or a certain flavor, right, so what keeps people coming back? What is

Comments

[mostlikely2]

Well, it's probably a situation where your point of entry/contact colors where you go with it. I find the emotional high points of Lost to be really unengaging, because I approach the show as a paint-by-numbers exercise for the unused 90% of nerd brains, and BSG's complete disinterest in same doesn't bother me at all -- but I know plenty of people who find BSG unemotional, whereas it gets me in an extremely personal place. I mean, I totally know what you're saying -- part of my job involves reading page after page of those complaints and discussions, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't try to incorporate at least awareness of those other points of view.

Maybe it's a job or writer thing, actually -- I don't really watch from the perspective of a consumer anymore, because it's like watching a stage magician. At some point you have a choice:you can be sad because you know how they did the trick, or you can make watching them do the tricks the entertainment, rather than being surprised. It gets me into trouble with the readers sometimes.

Like, I know the story that Lost is telling, and I know that the characters are all expendable and have the emotional importance to the overall plots, or I know the story BSG is telling, so I don't care about the big "reveals" and "secrets" and huge plotlines and whatever, because they're still approaching the endpoint at a constant rate.

Making shit up, whether it's Lost or BSG, doesn't really bug me, because that's what storytelling is: making shit up. But I think any show -- to soothe the tension between the fact that it's a story with a beginning middle and end, but also a story that's being told sequentially, as it's being written -- has to at least give the appearance of knowing WTF it's doing, even if that runs counter to actual storytelling as a process.

[meegup]

"Maybe it's a job or writer thing, actually"
heh
and i do have a ridiculously detail oriented job thats sort of like bizarro writing
and while bsg is completely unemotional for me, i do actually...periodically when i need a certain something that it gives me, go back and read the last bit of your season 3 finale recap. (and god bless you but i never read any of your TWoP stuff otherwise at all...but THAT one...i come back to again and again)

[mostlikely2]

Sorry, that was not the best phrasing. "Writer" needs an adjective in front of it.

[meegup]

oh, no i dont think so.
i dont pretend that my job is writing by any stretch

[mostlikely2]

I just had this awful image of myself sort of wildly flinging a bit of hair out of my face and saying, over the top of my giant shades, "It must be a writer thing." And then you pull out a gun and shoot me in the head, and it stops mattering if I ever watch The Wire, because you're a hero for saving the world from that BS.