The GoT Effect: Once Great Shows That Got So Bad They Sent You Into A Rage Spiral

[Luckylyn]

Some characters have an expiration date and become less compelling the longer they are forced into the narrative like Sylar in Heroes.  Better to have a character gone leaving the audience wanting more.  

[DoctorAtomic]

31 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I think Lost did know where it was going, it just didn't know how long it was going to take to get there.

No, they really didn't. There's an EW article with the two PTBs after the show ended where they basically said that. The 'anything at the wall' is I'm quoting them. iirc they said about having to have the filler episodes. 

I do agree in the era of streaming that the show could have been different. At the time, they wouldn't have thought to do a show in that way because that way literally didn't exist. To be fair, it was also at the time when 22 episode tv seasons were still kind of norm. It was interesting that closing the series out lead to shorter episode orders, which kind of pushed the paradigm shift into how tv is done now. 

42 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yeah my understanding is they always knew Walt would die. The details needed to be filled in, but they had a final destination in mind the whole time. 

While they didn't plan everything out, prior to each season, they did storyboard it out once they came up with what they were going to do for that season. Like, the plane crash. You can't run that on the fly. Similarly, I bet they didn't think they were going to kill Mike off until they went through how that particular season would be going, and realized that's the way the story went. 

I did think they knew up front it was only going 5 seasons which helped. 

[Zella]

18 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

While they didn't plan everything out, prior to each season, they did storyboard it out once they came up with what they were going to do for that season. Like, the plane crash. You can't run that on the fly. Similarly, I bet they didn't think they were going to kill Mike off until they went through how that particular season would be going, and realized that's the way the story went. 

I did think they knew up front it was only going 5 seasons which helped. 

I've increasingly come to believe that this sort of controlled chaos, if you will, might be the best recipe for TV writing, if it is in the right hands. It gives the story the necessary structure and framework of a planned ending, but it also allows for flexibility because, as is true of any writing, sometimes you don't think of the really good stuff until after you've started or you don't realize that something isn't working until you're in the trenches. 

[Irlandesa]

52 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yeah my understanding is they always knew Walt would die. The details needed to be filled in, but they had a final destination in mind the whole time. 

I don't think that proves it knew where it was going or that Breaking Bad didn't make things up as it went along.  It knew the very broadest of strokes in the same way a mystery show knows that it has to solve its mystery at the end or a legal show needs to end with a verdict...etc. 

But the writers didn't know how they'd get there.  They discovered things about the characters as they went along.  Even with Mr. Chips to Scarface, they figured out whether the character changed because of his circumstances or if his circumstances gave him permission to let the real him out. They didn't kill Jesse in the first season, even though that was the plan.  They had to introduce characters to cover for actors who had scheduling conflicts which led them to be major parts of the series. 

45 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Still, it didn't squander it's potential anywhere near as badly as The Sylar Show...I mean, Heroes. Another show ruined because it was such a huge hit. Heroes' great sin was not leaving Sylar dead.

I remember reading that Tim Kring wanted Heroes to originally be an anthology show with new characters every season.  For obvious reasons, NBC wasn't too keen on that idea given how popular the cast and characters was. 

The problem with Heroes went far beyond just Sylar being alive.  It had no idea to handle any of its characters in Season 2.  They brought them all together to rip them all apart.

8 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

While they didn't plan everything out, prior to each season, they did storyboard it out once they came up with what they were going to do for that season. Like, the plane crash. You can't run that on the fly.

That's the one season Gilligan has said he planned out but others were about writing his characters into a corner and seeing if they could get them out of it.

I didn't watch Lost so I don't have an opinion about where it went but filler episodes get a bad wrap. "Filler" episodes can be where a character is truly developed.

[Zella]

10 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I don't think that proves it knew where it was going or that Breaking Bad didn't make things up as it went along.  It knew the very broadest of strokes in the same way a mystery show knows that it has to solve its mystery at the end or a legal show needs to end with a verdict...etc. 

But the writers didn't know how they'd get there.  They discovered things about the characters as they went along.  Even with Mr. Chips to Scarface, they figured out whether the character changed because of his circumstances or if his circumstances gave him permission to let the real him out. They didn't kill Jesse in the first season, even though that was the plan.  They had to introduce characters to cover for actors who had scheduling conflicts which led them to be major parts of the series. 

Yes I talk about that in one of my later comments--it's to its benefit to be flexible. My point was not that everything was tightly plotted. It wasn't, though I think the way they integrated what they adlibbed was seamless and is a great example of a show that never seemed meandering.

I'm simply saying that starting with a specific ending in mind, even if it is as vague and open-ended as just that Walt dies, is still way better than introducing an elaborate mystery that you don't have an answer for, like Lost apparently did. I think you have a much better chance of landing the ending the way Breaking Bad approached it than Lost. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Zella

[Annber03]

9 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I didn't watch Lost so I don't have an opinion about where it went but filler episodes get a bad wrap. "Filler" episodes can be where a character is truly developed.

Agreed. They're also great ways to develop other, smaller side stories, and they can be a nice little breather of sorts from the overarching story. 

There's also the fact that so many shows want to go the serialized route nowadays, but there's some types of shows that aren't really meant to be serialized. Shows with standalone stories can be just as worthwhile in their own right. 

[magicdog]

11 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

 Heroes. Another show ruined because it was such a huge hit. Heroes' great sin was not leaving Sylar dead. His story up until his death was perfect. Then they brought him back because fans liked him. Show runners, don't do something just because the fans think they want it.

This!  I loved the first season but was seriously disappointed in subsequent ones.  They had the ending, Sylar was too dangerous to live anyway.  The character's race had been run.

I really got annoyed at later seasons of The Pretender (and the two TV movies that followed).  That show was like an onion, peeling back the layers and getting a bit more about the past of Jarrod, Miss Parker, et al, and it was fun getting to a conclusion.  Then it wasn't.  Suddenly "The Center" (the think tank that arranged for Jarrod's kidnapping and training to be a Pretender) is now created by documents written by Satan (!) and Miss Parker's ancestors helped build it (her father was the current head of the place but there seemed to be a hierarchy) and so many other questions were either never answered or contradicted.  What happened to Jarrod's dad and the clone after they escaped?  What about his mom and sister?   Why was Miss Parker's mom suddenly alive and pregnant (!!) when she was supposed to be dead - and little Miss Parker SAW HER DIE?  They peeled so much the onion vanished. 

[Ohiopirate02]

11 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

 

I didn't watch Lost so I don't have an opinion about where it went but filler episodes get a bad wrap. "Filler" episodes can be where a character is truly developed.

The problem with Lost's filler episodes is they had no character development.   I like supposed filler episodes in most shows, but Lost is not one of them.   In one of the most egregious filler episodes, the show introduced two new characters who somehow had always been on the island just to kill them off by the end.  This happened in like season 3.  The other famous Lost filler episode told the story of how Jack got his tattoos.   Neither one of these episodes added to the overall story or revealed new layers to the already established characters.   

[DoctorAtomic]

To be fair, those two new characters were actually on multiple episodes prior, but basically were useless so TPTBs just killed them off in that one. 

The tattoo though. Two words - Bai Ling. 

[Lugal]

Heroes and Lost both had their own problems, but I still think Heroes was slightly better, at least in the first season.  Full disclosure, I didn't make it through the second season of Heroes and bailed on Lost at the beginning of the third.

Lost, I think they had their ending in mind, but no story to get there.

15 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

No, they really didn't. There's an EW article with the two PTBs after the show ended where they basically said that. The 'anything at the wall' is I'm quoting them. iirc they said about having to have the filler episodes. 

I remember that.  They planned out the first 8 episodes because that was what the initial order was for (given the expense of the show, if it didn't succeed, it could have been cancelled really quick).  And you could tell after the first 8 episodes or so was when the plotting was not quite as tight.  I recall they also said they didn't want to establish too much because it could impact a story they want to tell later.  Which is just shoddy world-building (a problem that JJ Abrams, Lindelof et al have shown in the years since).

I thought I heard that if the audience guessed something right, they would change it, which was funny because the first guess everyone had was: They're dead aren't they? TPTB denied it, but the ending kind of implied everyone was right.

For Heroes the first season was more coherent and came together pretty good at the end, with everyone uniting to take down Syler.

15 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

I remember reading that Tim Kring wanted Heroes to originally be an anthology show with new characters every season.  For obvious reasons, NBC wasn't too keen on that idea given how popular the cast and characters was. 

The problem with Heroes went far beyond just Sylar being alive.  It had no idea to handle any of its characters in Season 2.  They brought them all together to rip them all apart.

I agree keeping Syler past his expiration date was a problem, but it was not the problem with season 2.  I remember hearing the anthology thing too, and when they started season 2 and Tim Kring saw how well we enjoyed seeing everyone come together, he thought we would enjoy seeing it again (as opposed to seeing what happened after they came together.  Origin stories are cool, but you have to develop more eventually)  And we ended up with the worst of both worlds with a bunch of new people we didn't care about and the first season cast split apart.

Compounding that was the writers' strike that prevented them from any kind of course correction, until it was way too late and a lot of fans bailed.

[JustHereForFood]

9 hours ago, magicdog said:

I really got annoyed at later seasons of The Pretender (and the two TV movies that followed).  That show was like an onion, peeling back the layers and getting a bit more about the past of Jarrod, Miss Parker, et al, and it was fun getting to a conclusion.  Then it wasn't.  Suddenly "The Center" (the think tank that arranged for Jarrod's kidnapping and training to be a Pretender) is now created by documents written by Satan (!) and Miss Parker's ancestors helped build it (her father was the current head of the place but there seemed to be a hierarchy) and so many other questions were either never answered or contradicted.  What happened to Jarrod's dad and the clone after they escaped?  What about his mom and sister?   Why was Miss Parker's mom suddenly alive and pregnant (!!) when she was supposed to be dead - and little Miss Parker SAW HER DIE?  They peeled so much the onion vanished. 

Oh, I really liked this series, but I agree that it got so confusing with time. I was like for every answer, they created two more mysteries. And with those follow up movies, I would have expected that they would give us a closure and answer everything, but if I remember correctly (it has been a long time), we were left with even more confusion.

[Mabinogia]

21 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

Some characters have an expiration date and become less compelling the longer they are forced into the narrative like Sylar in Heroes.  Better to have a character gone leaving the audience wanting more.  

Like the Weeping Angels on Doctor Who. One of the greatest adversaries in the Doctor Whoverse when they first appeared. They were chilling and creepy and made me look at statues differently. Then they came back and they were a bit less creepy and not that chilling. Then they came back again and were kind of a joke, and looked silly. 

 

20 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

I remember reading that Tim Kring wanted Heroes to originally be an anthology show with new characters every season.  For obvious reasons, NBC wasn't too keen on that idea given how popular the cast and characters was. 

I would have enjoyed it as an anthology. It could have been the forerunner to American Horror Story, use the same actors in different characters/situations. I honestly wish there were more shows like that. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Weeping Angels might be one of the best episodes of Doctor Who, and Ten wasn't even really in it!

Unfortunately, definitely overused. Though, I kind liked how they were used to send off Amy and Rory.  

[Trini]

On 9/17/2021 at 10:13 PM, Luckylyn said:

Some characters have an expiration date and become less compelling the longer they are forced into the narrative like Sylar in Heroes.  Better to have a character gone leaving the audience wanting more.  

So many shows do this, it's annoying. And 99% of the time, the longer the character is around, the less sense it makes that they're still around. And I find that when it's a villain, it makes the heroes look weak - because 'why can't they defeat this guy?'

Edited September 19, 2021 by Trini
durrr dropped word

[Danielg342]

I didn't watch Lost so those who watch it can correct me on this, but I feel it failed because the writers had no idea what kind of story they wanted to tell.

They had an endgame and a premise, but they had no idea what central narrative they were exploring, which lead to a whole lot of pointless interludes and feints simply because the writers needed things to happen but didn't seem concerned with whether or not any of it actually tied together or made sense.

I bring this up because Gotham was the same way. They had an endgame- Bruce Wayne becomes Batman- but they had no idea how to get there. They had a million different storylines- some of them even being very good- but they never settled on the one that would be the central storyline, i.e., "Bruce Wayne becomes Batman because X". They just meandered through 99 episodes or so before clumsily having Wayne don the Batsuit for the first time in the 100th episode, and he only does it because...reasons. The show never really established why Bruce felt the need to become Batman- heck, the show never even explained why Bruce decided to call himself "Batman" in the first place.

Which is why, ultimately, it failed. When the story goes everywhere but arrives nowhere, all you're left with is an audience that's confused and an ultimate storyline that's a complete mess. You're left risking audience alienation because the audience has invested all this time trying to piece things together and follow along when they don't have any chance of actually doing so.

It ties back to what I said earlier about treating "the mystery" like a character- you may not have to know every detail about said mystery, but, when you start, you should have at least a basic idea of what it is. Sure, there are those who may say the showrunner knowing the mystery from the beginning is "creatively limiting" but I argue it's actually the opposite.

To wit, if you want to have a storyline where you throw in all these feints, misdirects and red herrings, wouldn't it be better to know what you're misdirecting from? It goes beyond ensuring your clues actually check out- you also need to make sure your "non-clues" also check out too, because they too, in a roundabout way, are clues concerning "the mystery" themselves.

[Trini]

27 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

I didn't watch Lost so those who watch it can correct me on this, but I feel it failed because the writers had no idea what kind of story they wanted to tell.

They had an endgame and a premise, but they had no idea what central narrative they were exploring, which lead to a whole lot of pointless interludes and feints simply because the writers needed things to happen but didn't seem concerned with whether or not any of it actually tied together or made sense.

I bring this up because Gotham was the same way. They had an endgame- Bruce Wayne becomes Batman- but they had no idea how to get there. They had a million different storylines- some of them even being very good- but they never settled on the one that would be the central storyline, i.e., "Bruce Wayne becomes Batman because X". ...

I didn't watch much of Lost, and I bailed on Gotham about halfway through season 1; but I don't think their problems were quite the same. For me, one of the several problems with Gotham was that there were set endgames, but they weren't actually interested in telling a prequel story. They were more interested in their villains and doing shocking/crazy developments than the coherant growth of their heroes. And I think that because of the set endgames, the writers had the characters act more (or mostly) like their endgame selves way, way sooner than they should have been; because they liked the destination more than the journey.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 9/17/2021 at 4:59 PM, Danielg342 said:

I believe it's imperative to treat "the mystery" like a character, because the mystery affects the plot in the same ways that a character does. You don't necessarily have to have the mystery completely fleshed out and developed from the go, but you should have the basic framework from the get-go. That way you can at least keep the development of the mystery consistent.

 

I think having a framework makes more sense. My point was more that I question things when a show gets commended for having everything planned out from the very beginning. Because with their being so many variables in making a show that seems like a recipe for something not very good.

[DoctorAtomic]

Oh, I don't think Lost even had an endgame. 

[Blergh]

11 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Oh, I don't think Lost even had an endgame. 

Agree but the writers wanted the viewers to think they did- even when they were dumping side characters and offshoot storylines the viewers largely loathed. 

Still, considering its IMO awful end, I have ZERO regrets in having said 'never again' after dumping it shortly after Season Three got underway (and that's why I will NEVER trust J.J. Abrams   not to turn  any kind of television or movie enterprise  he's been given into a meanspirited, taunting and  complete bummer).

Edited September 19, 2021 by Blergh

[DoctorAtomic]

I actually never watched in its original run, week to week. People I knew were going on and on about the 'mystery' and I knew from the X Files that there was no way it was going to hold up. 

I had a subscription to EW when it was an actual magazine, and they had articles nearly weekly on the show. It was just so obvious they were just piling on whatever they could. 

 

[Zella]

Lost is one of the shows that was really hyped to me by friends, which made me not want to see it because I was exhausted by their hysteria, but by the time I was motivated to watch the show, those same friends had turned on it, so I never wasted my time on it. I've had similar experiences with Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, and Homeland. I'm not opposed to watching shows that have wonky, controversial final seasons. (I went into Deadwood knowing some folks took issue with the ending when I watched it for the first time a few years ago and still loved it.) But in all those cases I mentioned earlier, the people I knew who were fans felt so burned by it that I never had any regrets skipping. 

[ABay]

I did watch Lost in its original run* and I loathed the ending. It is the ending I measure all endings against. It sucked fetid donkey balls. But I don't regret for a minute watching the series and have never understood the freaking out over whether there was or was not a plan and people screaming they'd wasted 5 years of their lives or whatever. Come on, you didn't enjoy anything else? Your entire enjoyment of the show was pinned to the "mystery"? I wasn't in it for the plan or mystery or whatever. I'm not even sure what other people thought they needed answered. I was curious as to where it was going but no more than with any other show I've watched. And I think a lot of that "unanswered question" crap was actually media hype, encouraged or exploited by Darlton, and fundamentally dismissive of the fans.

*More or less. I tuned out at some point, came back when they announced an end date, and then got addicted to Ben.

Hmm. Maybe that second glass of riesling was a mistake.

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, ABay said:

But I don't regret for a minute watching the series and have never understood the freaking out over whether there was or was not a plan and people screaming they'd wasted 5 years of their lives or whatever. Come on, you didn't enjoy anything else? Your entire enjoyment of the show was pinned to the "mystery"?

That is the trouble with those mystery type shows. I think Lost was a step above most of that type of show despite it's meandering, and despite it's ending because amid all that, it had some great characters. Sure, I came to the show for the mystery, and I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't turn out to be a very good ending, but I don't feel like I wasted my time watching Locke or Sayid or Ben Linus or Hurley or Juliet or a lot of the others. There were some characters and story arcs I found horrible, tedious, ridiculous, but there were some I absolutely loved.

The mystery eventually became secondary for me. I'm glad of that, having seen how it ended up so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. 

I feel this way about most shows. Yes, the story should be there, and I would love a good mystery with an answer that makes sense, but if the characters don't pull me in I don't care how good the mystery is and if the mystery sucks, at least I got to spend time with some great characters. 

I didn't actually hate the ending of Lost. It was more just a "oh, was that it?" letdown. I think the storyline I hated most was probably Pablo and Nicky? Were those the names of the random two characters who showed up and were supposed to be important but I can't even remember what their purpose was. That and Penny. I hated Penny. I don't have any reason other than I can't stand the actress which is unfair to the writers, it was probably a great storyline but every time she was on screen I tuned out. 

[Kel Varnsen]

5 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Sure, I came to the show for the mystery, and I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't turn out to be a very good ending, but I don't feel like I wasted my time watching Locke or Sayid or Ben Linus or Hurley or Juliet or a lot of the others. There were some characters and story arcs I found horrible, tedious, ridiculous, but there were some I absolutely loved.

That is where I am most of the time with Lost. I don't think any logical explanation could have made all the crazy shit that happened on the island make sense and not sound ridiculous. So it was kind of a badass move to kind of say it didn't matter. Since it really was a character driven show and that is what kept me watching.

[Browncoat]

40 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I don't feel like I wasted my time watching Locke or Sayid or Ben Linus or Hurley or Juliet or a lot of the others.

Definitely did not waste time watching Sayid.  I would have watched an hour of just Sayid standing on the beach and not think it was a waste of time.

[DoctorAtomic]

I wouldn't say I 'wasted' my time, but when I started watching, it was clear that the 'mystery' wasn't going to pan out at all so I didn't bother with anything remotely related to it. I liked the scenery and the diverse cast. Some of the back stories were interesting. 

I think TPTBs were trying to have their cake in bed in that there was a strong element of viewers puzzling over screenshots, etc., and getting egged on over what TPTBs knew was nothing. It's just a jerk thing to do to people. I also think the ending was just a disservice to the characters themselves. After all that, they just all die, and the 'best part of their lives was on the island?' That's kind of stagnating to reveal that nothing they learned on the island they went on to better their and others' lives. 

What bothers me in general in life is the overlegislating and micromanaging nature of it. You could have just had the show with an island that had mysterious healing properties unknown on any map because it was some uber bermuda triangle. That's fine. Going in, you know that's all it is, and it's not about the island. You can still have your rich guy searching for it to somehow take advantage of the healing.

But no, you pile on a smoke monster, whatever Jacob was, the hatch, DARPA and all that and tell people it's going to add up, and then you drop some nonsense about 'it's the journey'. That's just disingenuous. 

That's like the subject of this thread. You're not going to have Game of Thrones ending with no one actually winning the throne and tell us it was always about the game. Well, yes, but no. 

 

[Mabinogia]

13 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

That's like the subject of this thread. You're not going to have Game of Thrones ending with no one actually winning the throne and tell us it was always about the game. Well, yes, but no. 

I actually would have preferred an ending where no one won the throne, which was what I kept hoping for, that in the end they either all killed each other and there was no kingdom left, which speaks to the human desire to conquer without thinking of what will be left to control, or that Dany did manage to actually break the wheel and descended on Westeros with ideas of democracy and ending the tyranny of kings and queens. Instead they just randomly handed it to the person we would expect the least, IMO. I think they were going for the whole idea that "the one person who doesn't want to rule is the best person to rule" but it fell very flat to me. 

[Zella]

I was also rooting for nobody else to end up on the throne. I'd actually told several people long before it ended that if the end game actually was Dany's ass upon the throne as a good thing, I was going to be pissed. There's also a dark side of me that sort of rooted for people like Varys, Littlefinger, Roose Bolton, or the Night King to win the Iron Throne. Lol this is also the side of me that rooted for Skeletor over He-Man as a child. 

[JustHereForFood]

20 hours ago, Trini said:

So many shows do this, it's annoying. And 99% of the time, the longer the character is around, the less sense it makes that they're still around. And I find that when it's a villain, it makes the heroes look weak - because 'why can't they defeat this guy?'

I have only gotten to finish fourth season of Arrow and can't bring myself to watch more yet, but Malcolm Merlyn overstayed his welcome like two seasons ago.

41 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I actually would have preferred an ending where no one won the throne, which was what I kept hoping for, that in the end they either all killed each other and there was no kingdom left, which speaks to the human desire to conquer without thinking of what will be left to control, or that Dany did manage to actually break the wheel and descended on Westeros with ideas of democracy and ending the tyranny of kings and queens. Instead they just randomly handed it to the person we would expect the least, IMO. I think they were going for the whole idea that "the one person who doesn't want to rule is the best person to rule" but it fell very flat to me. 

I wasn't really that disappointed by the ending, but I think I would have liked this more.

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, Mabinogia said:

I actually would have preferred an ending where no one won the throne, which was what I kept hoping for, that in the end they either all killed each other and there was no kingdom left, which speaks to the human desire to conquer without thinking of what will be left to control, or that Dany did manage to actually break the wheel and descended on Westeros with ideas of democracy and ending the tyranny of kings and queens.

Technically no one actually did because the dragon melted it. 

I actually could have rolled with that kind of show too, if the show set it up that it was a possibility from the jump. It was always set up that someone would win. I was saying it would be if we had the same exact show and then at the end they were like, 'oh no one wins.' When we spent 8 years strategizing who would win. I know there's fair criticisms of the show, but overall it was consistent. 

The common thread was the Island was a mystery to be solved; 'oh no, actually it's not'. It wasn't set up that way. They literally said that. So that's where I was going with it. 

 

[Haleth]

I loved, loved the first 3 years of Lost.  Trying to find the Easter eggs and piecing together the mysteries of the hatch were a fun interactive exercise.  Plus there were so many compelling characters (that were well acted).  I didn't even mind the 4th season so much but then the writers started throwing everything at the wall - time travel and the cast just wandering endlessly around the island, finding ancient temples and lighthouses and secret inhabitants that they never noticed before.  I didn't hate the ending, it had me bawling, but yeah, it kind of cheated the audience out of a long expected explanation.  They took the lazy way out.

Same with GoT.  The lazy writing was to kill off complicated characters.  Instead of taking the time to craft a well thought out solution, just burn it all down and bury the problem characters under the rubble.  Again cheating the audience out of a satisfying conclusion.  The final season should have prompted Martin to finish the damn books with a better ending.

[janie jones]

On 9/17/2021 at 10:14 AM, Kel Varnsen said:

I am not sure how much I agree with that. Ther is a documentary called The Showrunners I watched last year. I can't remember who the writer was but he basically said how it is super hard to come up with one great show idea, but to come up with an idea and the entire story arc before you have a writing team or a cast and expect it to be the best possible idea is basically impossible.

I'm not a writer (not of narratives, anyway), but this makes absolutely no sense to me. You need a writing team and a cast before you can even come up with a bare-bones idea? I just successfully wrote something for my job based on three bullet points, which were created by someone else for no writer in particular. I didn't write 100 episodes out of it, but I'm pretty sure my boss could have come up with a few more bullet points for me if it had needed to be that long.

[Mabinogia]

28 minutes ago, janie jones said:

I'm not a writer (not of narratives, anyway), but this makes absolutely no sense to me. You need a writing team and a cast before you can even come up with a bare-bones idea?

I'm with you on that one. Book authors do it all the time. It is really quite easy, if you're a good writer, to write an entire show without having the cast yet. Typically, you cast actors based on your precreated characters, not the other way around. 

Now, based on genre this can change. There is no way a soap opera can be planned from start to end. It's not supposed to be. It is a living thing, not a story with a beginning middle and end. Same for sitcoms. They can get away with making it up as they go for the most part. 

But shows like GoT or Lost or The Good Place (which is a rare sitcom that does have a beginning middle and end) need a roadmap. it doesn't have to be completely plotted out, there should be room for detours or side trips, but the destination should be known from the beginning. If a writer can't handle that they shouldn't be a writer. 

[Danielg342]

On 9/19/2021 at 12:13 AM, Trini said:

I didn't watch much of Lost, and I bailed on Gotham about halfway through season 1; but I don't think their problems were quite the same. For me, one of the several problems with Gotham was that there were set endgames, but they weren't actually interested in telling a prequel story. They were more interested in their villains and doing shocking/crazy developments than the coherant growth of their heroes. And I think that because of the set endgames, the writers had the characters act more (or mostly) like their endgame selves way, way sooner than they should have been; because they liked the destination more than the journey.

My point was more about how neither show had a central theme or narrative that the writers wanted to explore. Something that ties all the narratives together. From what I know about both shows, Lost could have been centred around the concept of redemption, while Gotham could have been a deconstruction of the old saying, "the path to Hell is paved with good intentions".

I do sometimes wonder how much executive meddling messed with Gotham. I'm sure FOX didn't green light the series unless they were assured a few Batman figures would be involved prominently in the show from the get-go, including some recognizable names like The Penguin. I think it's fair to say that Gotham cared more about showing off "their version" of various aspects of Batman lore that they never took the time to fit it all together. I don't know when you bailed on the show, @Trini, but the first season had that pointless side plot with Fish and the Dollmaker that captures your point. That would only be the beginning.

I've openly wondered if the show would have been better simply being a police procedural where the Case of the Week involves a specific character or group within the Batman lore. I get that, by 2014, networks were kind of getting tired of the "straight-up" procedural, but I do think a Batman-inspired one would have been fun. Plus it would have allowed the writers to indulge on what they wanted- to show off their takes on the millions of Batman stories and characters on offer- and it would still allow a greater role for Bruce Wayne, since his character arc could be growing into his role of helping out the GCPD. Which wouldn't conflict with the show's premise or deviate too much from the comics.

Sometimes I wish more shows would realize that if they kept things simple, it's not as limiting as they think it is.

9 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I'm with you on that one. Book authors do it all the time. It is really quite easy, if you're a good writer, to write an entire show without having the cast yet. Typically, you cast actors based on your precreated characters, not the other way around. 

Now, based on genre this can change. There is no way a soap opera can be planned from start to end. It's not supposed to be. It is a living thing, not a story with a beginning middle and end. Same for sitcoms. They can get away with making it up as they go for the most part. 

But shows like GoT or Lost or The Good Place (which is a rare sitcom that does have a beginning middle and end) need a roadmap. it doesn't have to be completely plotted out, there should be room for detours or side trips, but the destination should be known from the beginning. If a writer can't handle that they shouldn't be a writer. 

The upshot is that a novelist doesn't have to worry about the actor playing the lead character deciding, in between Season Two and Three, that he's tired of the show and now wants out (like Mandy Patinkin did with Criminal Minds), or impatient TV execs demanding a resolution to the central arc just to get ratings (Twin Peaks), or an intended one-time character suddenly emerging as not just the show's breakout star but it's most popular character (Steve Urkel on Family Matters, or The Mother on How I Met Your Mother).

The list could go on from here.

There are just so many variables to consider when writing a TV series that you don't have to worry about when writing a novel that I'm not sure the writing process is really exactly the same. Meaning writers on a TV show do need to be more flexible and adaptable as the series moves on.

[meep.meep]

On 9/19/2021 at 3:15 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

 

But no, you pile on a smoke monster, whatever Jacob was, the hatch, DARPA and all that and tell people it's going to add up, and then you drop some nonsense about 'it's the journey'. That's just disingenuous. 

 

DARMA

DARPA is something else altogether.

I think the reason a lot of people felt cheated by Lost is that during the first season the showrunners made two statements:  1) it's not science fiction and 2) they're not in Purgatory.

And it was, and they were.

[Danielg342]

46 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

DARMA

DARPA

Does someone more hip than me want to explain what these mean to my sorry uneducated soul?

[Ohiopirate02]

48 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

 

The upshot is that a novelist doesn't have to worry about the actor playing the lead character deciding, in between Season Two and Three, that he's tired of the show and now wants out (like Mandy Patinkin did with Criminal Minds), or impatient TV execs demanding a resolution to the central arc just to get ratings (Twin Peaks), or an intended one-time character suddenly emerging as not just the show's breakout star but it's most popular character (Steve Urkel on Family Matters, or The Mother on How I Met Your Mother).

 

The show was called How I Met Your Mother.   The Mother was a main character from the pilot.  The show may not have cast the character until the final season and Ted did not meet her until the finale, but she was always there.  

[meep.meep]

DARMA was from Lost.  It was some sort of scientific initiative.  Go watch to figure it out.

DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which developed the internet, or as us old timers used to call it, the ARPAnet.

[Guest]

Just now, meep.meep said:

DARMA was from Lost.  It was some sort of scientific initiative.  Go watch to figure it out.

DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which developed the internet, or as us old timers used to call it, the ARPAnet.

Its actually DHARMA on Lost.

[ABay]

Damn it, beaten to the punch.

WRT DARPA, check out Digital Disconnect on Kanopy for the infuriating history of the internet.

Edited September 20, 2021 by ABay

[Danielg342]

6 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The show was called How I Met Your Mother.   The Mother was a main character from the pilot.  The show may not have cast the character until the final season and Ted did not meet her until the finale, but she was always there.  

My point with The Mother is that the creators of How I Met Your Mother had a plan with her narrative and arguably should have changed it once they realized- once we finally got to see her onscreen- that audiences actually liked her and her fate (or at least her rushed ending) was way too cruel for the character.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Danielg342
Grammar

[Kel Varnsen]

2 hours ago, janie jones said:

I'm not a writer (not of narratives, anyway), but this makes absolutely no sense to me. You need a writing team and a cast before you can even come up with a bare-bones idea? I just successfully wrote something for my job based on three bullet points, which were created by someone else for no writer in particular. I didn't write 100 episodes out of it, but I'm pretty sure my boss could have come up with a few more bullet points for me if it had needed to be that long.

But if someone says they planned out a whole entire series when they wrote the pilot, it basically means they ignored contributions and suggestions from anyone who came on board after that point. I mean I guess that can lead to something good but it could also mean ignoring better ideas from other writers, or not recognizing that a secondary character is really good, or adapting your story based on the chemistry the leads do or do not have. 

[kathyk24]

33 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

My point with The Mother is that the creators of How I Met Your Mother had a plan with her narrative and arguably should have changed it once they realized that- once we finally got to see her onscreen- that audiences actually liked her and her fate (or at least her rushed ending) was way too cruel for the character.

I completely agree Tracy the mother was a lovely character who deserved better. I never wanted Barney and Robin to break up I thought they were a better match than Ted and Robin.

[methodwriter85]

On 9/17/2021 at 1:32 PM, ParadoxLost said:

How I Met Your Mother didn't actually paint themselves into a corner.  They went willingly into the corner because they couldn't let go of how cool they thought it would be to use that original footage of the kids in the finale.

If only deepfake technology was in existence when the were writing the final season  it could have gone in a totally different way.

I really wish the show had decided to just film the now adult actors wearing their clothes from season 1 and just went with it. The show constantly showed flashbacks of the aging main cast as their younger selves. It would have been perfectly fine to dress up David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca as their teenaged selves.

Does anyone else notice that no one seems to be battling over the right to stream How I Met Your Mother the way they are for the Office or Friends? I imagine the biffed ending has a lot to do with why.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Danielg342 said:

My point with The Mother is that the creators of How I Met Your Mother had a plan with her narrative and arguably should have changed it once they realized that- once we finally got to see her onscreen- that audiences actually liked her and her fate (or at least her rushed ending) was way too cruel for the character.

I think they should have changed the narrative for the simple reason that they went too far with Barney and Robin and were too persuasive that Ted and Robin weren't a good fit for each other.  Handwaving that Ted and Robin would just get back together once the obstacles of Ted wanting kids and Robin wanting a career were out of the way would have been unsatisfying if I didn't like the Mother.

48 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

But if someone says they planned out a whole entire series when they wrote the pilot, it basically means they ignored contributions and suggestions from anyone who came on board after that point. I mean I guess that can lead to something good but it could also mean ignoring better ideas from other writers, or not recognizing that a secondary character is really good, or adapting your story based on the chemistry the leads do or do not have. 

 That doesn't have to be true.  Babylon 5 had the whole story mapped out from the beginning.  Then more curve balls were thrown at it than any show in history, from the lead actor needing to leave after the first season to the network it was on lasting one less season than the show did.  And for all the changes they had to do, there are still episodes like War Without End where things come together in a way that is so coherent in weaving plots and characters together that it seems like it was planned exactly that way from the start because it is such a perfect fit.   And frankly the character growth and foreshadowing that came from having a road map of where they were generally going was pretty impressive.

 

[Danielg342]

5 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

I think they should have changed the narrative for the simple reason that they went too far with Barney and Robin and were too persuasive that Ted and Robin weren't a good fit for each other.  Handwaving that Ted and Robin would just get back together once the obstacles of Ted wanting kids and Robin wanting a career were out of the way would have been unsatisfying if I didn't like the Mother.

That too. It was a waste to devote an entire season to a wedding that would be undone with nothing but a line in the finale (though Barney becoming a dad was both hilarious and touching. I still hope to get a Daddy Barney sitcom one day).

5 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

That doesn't have to be true.  Babylon 5 had the whole story mapped out from the beginning.  Then more curve balls were thrown at it than any show in history, from the lead actor needing to leave after the first season to the network it was on lasting one less season than the show did.  And for all the changes they had to do, there are still episodes like War Without End where things come together in a way that is so coherent in weaving plots and characters together that it seems like it was planned exactly that way from the start because it is such a perfect fit.   And frankly the character growth and foreshadowing that came from having a road map of where they were generally going was pretty impressive.

J. Michael Straczynski planned Babylon 5 better than most writers would. He set up the story and the narratives so that it could have a lot of moving parts in case things happened like an actor leaves the show or the series gets cancelled before it could resolve. Arguably, Babylon 5 emphasizes the amount of work that's truly needed to make a long-term story successful on television and reinforces the need for adaptability in the writing. It would not have succeeded if Straczynski wrote it like a conventional novel, since TV does not allow for such rigidness.

[janie jones]

16 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

But if someone says they planned out a whole entire series when they wrote the pilot, it basically means they ignored contributions and suggestions from anyone who came on board after that point. I mean I guess that can lead to something good but it could also mean ignoring better ideas from other writers, or not recognizing that a secondary character is really good, or adapting your story based on the chemistry the leads do or do not have. 

 I think you might be talking about details, whereas I'm talking abut a skeleton. I don't think knowing what your show is about and having a basic idea of what the end result should be is a big ask.

[DoctorAtomic]

B5 is a way extreme example. I think we're mostly saying along the lines of a Breaking Bad. It was 'planned', but then they storyboarded out each season and assigned writers. They didn't know before hand they were going to do the plane crash until they worked out that particular season. Knowing generally how you're going to end is really the point I think we're getting at. 

They did the same for Sopranos and that was much more episodic. That process doesn't seem to be overly much to me. 

[Kel Varnsen]

38 minutes ago, janie jones said:

 I think you might be talking about details, whereas I'm talking abut a skeleton. I don't think knowing what your show is about and having a basic idea of what the end result should be is a big ask.

Of course which is why I said in a previous post that having a framework makes sense. But at the same time I know I have seen cases where people talk about how shows have everything planned out from the very start like it is a good thing, and I am thinking that more often than not it wouldn't be.

Quote

B5 is a way extreme example. I think we're mostly saying along the lines of a Breaking Bad. It was 'planned', but then they storyboarded out each season and assigned writers. They didn't know before hand they were going to do the plane crash until they worked out that particular season. Knowing generally how you're going to end is really the p

Exactly. Vince Gilligan might have known when he created Breaking Bad that Walt would die in the end (probably since the first episode when the doctor gives Walt his prognosis it is for the same number of years he actually lives). But I doubt he planned out each episode or even each season before the pilot was shot. Like I said in earlier when they showed the machine gun in episode 5.01 they didn't know how they were going to use it. Plus before Aaron Paul was cast the original plan was to kill off Jesse in season 1.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Kel Varnsen

[janie jones]

I'm not talking about having "everything planned out from the very start," is my point.