I've been meaning to write this post for about a week. It's still half-baked, but I want to get it down, so here we go.
My age-old criticism of television is that it's half-baked (do we see a theme of this post?). I hate it when I'm happily watching along, getting sucked in to a plot, and then something happens that feels like it comes out of left field, that feels random, that feels wrong. It often seems like television creators come up with a premise, throw some characters into it, and then make it up as they go. And that pisses me off. If I'm going to devote literally hours of my life to something, I'd like it to be thought-out. As a viewer, you bond with a television show the same way you bond with a movie or a book or any other narrative. Except traditional narratives are written as a whole, and therefore as a consumer you can safely bet that details you eagerly gobble up in the beginning will be salient later on, that those details are purposeful. Television is maddeningly different than this. Lots of times details get forgotten, or ignored, in favor of a new plot or character. And as a viewer, it can feel like you're wasting your time noticing things. It can feel like you're being taken advantage of. It can make a girl feel cheap.
And in the end it feels like, what's the point?
As an example, let's take Glee, a worst offender in my book. Characters will wildly change between seasons, even between episodes. Remember when Quinn's character decided she was a goth? What? Where did that come from? Remember when Jesse was totally in love with Rachel, and then they needed a plot point to fit the songs they'd licensed for the next episode, so he egged her? Characters changing on a whim I can almost deal with, but their relationships also change drastically, and that's too much for me. It's like the entire show is bipolar. And we all know (hopefully) that it's difficult to have a healthy relationship with an unmedicated bipolar person.
So after a couple seasons, I broke up with Glee. I just couldn't take the roller coaster anymore. I needed some stability in my life, and Glee was too selfish, melodramatic, and manic depressive. I looked elsewhere to get my (entertainment) needs met.
So why does this happen?
I think it's a symptom left over from the original television scripted genre: the sitcom. The sitcom doesn't need to be planned out, because plot is irrelevant. The format of a sitcom goes like this: characters are stable, something happens to disrupt this stability, the conflict is explored, the conflict is solved, characters return to stability. There is no lasting change in a sitcom. Characters are set at the beginning, and they remain the same throughout the zany situations thrown at them. Think of Seinfeld-do those characters ever grow up? Think of The Big Bang Theory-Sheldon might make tiny steps towards new situations, but in the end he'll always be Sheldon.
Since the sitcom is carried by characters, plots can be made up on the fly. In a sitcom, plots are simply an excuse to watch the characters perform. Most stories are introduced and wrapped up within a single episode. There is no greater message in this type of narrative.
The opposite of the sitcom is, of course, the soap opera. Long-running and always deadly dramatic, the soap opera is pushed by plot, and characters get swept up in the tide of complicated stories until their personalities hardly matter. Characters do whatever they must to push the plot. But in this plot-heavy format, the writers also make it up as they go.
And that's why we have the modern problem facing our "premium" television: half-bakedness. Most modern hour-long shows take the sitcom and the soap opera and encourage them to make out. They're comedy and drama humping: the dramady. They're a hybrid of character-heavy vs. plot-heavy. And it can be tricky chemistry. Not every show gets it right. Glee certainly didn't. (yup, past tense. That's our relationship now).
But some shows have moved more gracefully into the modern age of television. Mad Men is a particularly good example. Mad Men is built on a foundation of character; I would honestly watch Don Draper (and Peggy and Betty and Joan and Pete and hell, even Bobby) in almost any situation, because I just find them so damn interesting, as people. Especially when they talk to each other. And, you know, do things. On the surface Mad Men feels like a show that is all about character, but once you start paying attention you realize how intricately and expertly plotted it is; in its six seasons serious shit has gone down on this show (historically and personally in the lives of these people), and the way the characters react and grow in response to plot points is a huge strength of the narrative. Where Glee takes characters in uncharacteristic directions, Mad Men strategically uses plot to push characters to unexpected, surprising places. The show is constantly revealing new dynamics and layers of character that you didn't know were there, but feel completely natural and fitting and of course.
This show has a basic plan, and know their characters very well. When they know what they're trying to say with the show, they don't necessarily need to know exactly where they're going - but they know the points to hit along the way. And that makes for a very satisfying, very meaningful television-watching experience. I know everyone's already said it, but - I wish more television was written like (not in feeling, but in execution) Mad Men.
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