execution and ambition -watching, and the "right" way to tell a story

[pocochina]

Art is hard to grade.

The types competitive artistic sport that I know of use this bifurcated scoring system, with execution being one aspect of the scoring process and difficulty being the other. And this makes sense, right? If you do two minutes of bland kiddie-pool shit but do it perfectly, or if you try a lot of really hard stuff but fall all

Comments

[duckondebut]

This was a great read, although I'm not (yet) familiar with a lot of the shows you talk about. I definitely value conceptual ambition over execution--the raw power of the Idea over the finished product. Even something as derivative at first glance as Supernatural reveals interesting ways to tell the same story: everything is Sam and Dean, but in different layers, different strengths and intensities and shades. The world, endlessly diffracted through the prism of these two characters.

I am tempted to go on, but I would be talking about examples from my local pop culture, and that is something best suited for my own blog. :p But yes: somewhere in all the "continuity-policing" and a cynical breakdown of our viewing experience (I hear, "god what were they smoking when they wrote that?!" all the time, and it pisses me off to no end), the great joy of watching a great idea and whimsy just--splattered across the screen is lost.

[pocochina]

The Wire and The Sopranos are...seriously, they're not overrated, for all the ~critical acclaim they get. I didn't so much talk about it here, because I go on about this a lot, but IMO Dollhouse is something completely different. (As great as AtS is, it's probably the least imaginative of Whedon's shows. Dollhouse is his best. If you ever want a little more that goes deep into the themes of the Gadreel arc, I'd think about giving it a try, and not just because of Penikett.)

everything is Sam and Dean, but in different layers, different strengths and intensities and shades. The world, endlessly diffracted through the prism of these two characters.

It really is an introspective show, or at least, a show that invites the viewer to be introspective, and it's done so with this piecemeal construction - since I highly doubt The Great Kripke (pfffft) set out to do so - ie, what's great about the show is what even people who claim to be on THE PLAN!!! love about it and keep coming back for.

I hear, "god what were they smoking when they

[pocochina]

WATCH THE SOPRANOS! I'm tempted to say "watch everything else first because it will ruin your experience of everything else except maybe The Wire" but that is so much of your life without The Sopranos, okay. I should probably not oversell it but tbh I'm not sure I could!

I think something is "well-executed" when I feel like it's done a good job of conveying concept stuff. I mean, retcons are, almost by definition, "failures of execution" because they're disrupting forward continuity, and yet often help the narrative to remain true to its conceptual side, IMO

ITA, and I think this is at least part of my frustration with supposed "execution"-picking. Something that does an excellent job communicating a concept the viewer doesn't like ends up getting tsk-tsked for execution failures, because it wasn't being executed toward a concept that the viewer found palatable.

And there are some things where I feel like…you can stretch concept boundaries by innovating execution. Like the rapidfire format of S4 of AtS, which is fairly widespread