ESSAY: TV Romance - The Way, if Writers Will

[evelynvaughn01]

Part Three of a 3-part series.

(Previously….
Part one of this three-part series, "TV Romance," looked at the how romance on television changed with the introduction of serial elements, as well as the myth! myth! it's a myth! of the Moonlighting Curse. Myths in television-especially the symbolic underpinnings powering the One True Pairing-are great.

Comments

[evelynvaughn01]

Thank you, sajina! Did you ever post your paper on Friends? I'd love to read it. I've started rewatching repeats of it lately, and am again awed by how in-character everyone is, and how deliberate so much of the series seems to be. Important secondary characters never just vanish, do they--we see the break-up. It... plays fair. If only they'd gone the Joey/Phoebe route, though. I always thought there was something there (even if their children wouldn't have been especially smart....)

[spaceanjl]

The 'characters first' - oh, yes.

The point being that the characters we liked to start with are who the other character liked, too. Bend them too far out of shape to fit some 'insert tab A into slot B' generic plot, and it's just... puppetfic. They aren't the people we care about.

An utterly random observation - a good pairing, you feel they could have a low level bicker about things, and it wouldn't be the end of the world. Not a big dramatic fight, but secure enough with each other to express issues. (Haaken to Zoe 'And your husband?' Zoe: 'Fight with him sometimes, too.') A level of comfort and security that goes back to the 'friendship first' point.

[evelynvaughn01]

Thank you FIRST, spaceanjl, for nudging me to finish this! It would've stayed hanging over my head for even further without your encouragement. And thank you SECOND for the great comment (with one of my favorite Firefly quotes, even!) Exactly. Tab A/Slot B writing is so... disrespectful. Disrespectful of the characters. Disrespectful of the audience. If we keep shouting about that, maybe one or two people, at least, will hear us.

[arabian]

I loved David/Maddie, they were my first TV couple, but they screwed them up and NOT BECAUSE THEY SLEPT TOGETHER! It was how they handled everything (plus all the behind the scenes drama) after they slept together. Still, as much as I loved them, I kinda wished they never had simply because that damn Moonlighting curse has been used to destroy, delay, etc. practically every other couple despite the fact that ML did NOT fall apart because they slept together.

Grrrr.

With that said, I agree with everything else you wrote here. :) (I just always have to get that ML curse bollocks out of the way when it comes up, LOL!)

[evelynvaughn01]

Oh, you're definitely preaching to the choir about Moonlighting, arabian. I have to scream about it most times it comes up, too. The show tanked b/c of the actors not working together, the characters being separated for over half a season, Maddie not even solving mysteries, and a writer's strike, NOT because they slept together. And other shows, like say Bones? Suffer.

Maybe if we keep putting that out there, the right people in charge will finally notice?

[rumpled_tulip]

*applause* I was looking forward to this last installment and you did not disappoint. Bravo!

Funny how your rules for TV characters work so well for real life people, too! At least, they have for my DH and me.

[evelynvaughn01]

Thank you, rumpled tulip, for the comment. I'm glad you caught the "works in real life" angle as well (though my personal belief in RL is to not sleep with a person who's "getting a divorce" or "separated" until the divorce papers go through, while on TV it's less a problem if they don't wait... that could be a time issue as much as anything else). I'm glad your DH and you are an illustration on how the HEA should work! (Congratulations)

[misskoum]

I always enjoy your essays. And yet I end up reading them RIGHT before I have to go to work! So I can't go on and on about how much I agree with you or I'll be late. =(

In short: YES! Thank you so much for typing this. I think a few writers need to take a step back and reevaluate the basics. =)

[evelynvaughn01]

I'm trying to wean myself off telling people what the should do (stop laughing! Really!) Outside of universal basics ("Don't hurt people," etc.), I'd rather pull back from imperatives to declaratives, and leave the final choice in the individual's hands. But you're sooo right, I'll simply add an "if" as I agree wholeheartedly -- damn right! IF writers want to write successful TV romances that don't leave fans saying, "That's it, I'm outta here" (the way this week's Bones did for some of us), then reevaluating the basics is how they might well procede :-)

Thank you, as ever, for the comment, misskoum--even a rushed-before-work comment!

[misskoum]

But evelyn! Surely, you know what's best! ^^

Wait. What happened with Bones?! *doesn't get to watch much tv* I need to do some investigating.

You're more than welcome. Thank you for writing the essay.

[evelynvaughn01]

As for Bones, it was nothing too dramatic, like character death--just another romantic "dodge" like we discussed earlier, this one where the characters finally admit their love--and then one of them says, but I just can't risk my heart, and the other says okay, but I can't wait for you, so I'm going to start looking elsewhere.

I've always been a big "better alone than with the wrong person" gal, so it always feels cheap to me when the character settles--Niles with Mel, on Frasier, or Ross with Emily, on Friends, or Luke with Whatsernose, on Gilmore Girls. Also, the producer of Bones tends to get 'shippers hopes up--last season he said "Boothe & Bonees are going to end up in bed!" and then it turns out it was all a fantasy while Boothe was suffering from a head injury. This season, it was "On the 100th episode, we're going to see them on their first case, AND there's going to be kissing!" Well, there was kissing on their first case, in the flashback, but in present-day they pretty much broke up... or as much as you can break up if you