You know what frustrates me? When an otherwise great TV show suddenly has a shitty season finale.
It's like the writers have a good season started and they're having the characters deal with problems that come up in their lives, and some good character conflict is getting set up -- and then all of a sudden one of the writers screams, "We're on episode nine and we haven't set up the season cliffhanger! What are we going to do?!"
Then in the quest for a good season ending, they fall back on the standard writing cliche: whatever bad things can happen to the most likeable character, should happen.
So there we are, four episodes from the finale and convenient coincidences start piling on each other: the main character's wife is brutally murdered, the likeable friend gets a blowjob from a stripper, the medical examiner goes through a crisis when his girlfriend's daughter is abducted... As a viewer, I follow along, swept up in the melodrama like a sucker until the illusion breaks and I can see it for what it is: the fucking over of a good storyline for a temporary boost in ratings.
Coincidences are the plot tool of the lame.
* * *
November is a long way away, but you all should start thinking about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writers Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It doesn't have to be good, in fact, by all likelihood, it won't be. But at least you can say, "I wrote a shitty novel!"
Last year I wrote, And That's Why I Built My Submarine, and it was fucking magical. At the end when the main character hijacks a boat full of high gangster rappers, and thinks about how much he loves his girlfriend as he's climbing back into the sub under the stars -- that was great. I couldn't believe it came out of me.
It's like the writers have a good season started and they're having the characters deal with problems that come up in their lives, and some good character conflict is getting set up -- and then all of a sudden one of the writers screams, "We're on episode nine and we haven't set up the season cliffhanger! What are we going to do?!"
Then in the quest for a good season ending, they fall back on the standard writing cliche: whatever bad things can happen to the most likeable character, should happen.
So there we are, four episodes from the finale and convenient coincidences start piling on each other: the main character's wife is brutally murdered, the likeable friend gets a blowjob from a stripper, the medical examiner goes through a crisis when his girlfriend's daughter is abducted... As a viewer, I follow along, swept up in the melodrama like a sucker until the illusion breaks and I can see it for what it is: the fucking over of a good storyline for a temporary boost in ratings.
Coincidences are the plot tool of the lame.
* * *
November is a long way away, but you all should start thinking about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writers Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It doesn't have to be good, in fact, by all likelihood, it won't be. But at least you can say, "I wrote a shitty novel!"
Last year I wrote, And That's Why I Built My Submarine, and it was fucking magical. At the end when the main character hijacks a boat full of high gangster rappers, and thinks about how much he loves his girlfriend as he's climbing back into the sub under the stars -- that was great. I couldn't believe it came out of me.
i'm not saying they should all go a million seasons, and churn out crappy shows once the spark is gone, but... at least wait for some sign of the series heading south. i'm thinking of six feet under (which i just heard was ending) and sex in the city (which i'm still bitter about).
Hey guess what -- and I'm not fucking joking here -- my boss hired HOTTEST FASHIONS as a supervisor.