I am not saying “No” to everything television, and there are some of the new programs I am watching, but by in large, I am skipping out on most of the new television series. Not because I am not interested, not because they are necessarily poor quality, and not because I am already watching too many shows as it is.
What turns me off from many of the new television shows is the premise which rather than setting up an ongoing situation, is much more suited to a movie which has a beginning, middle and end. I blame “Lost” for this. With the increased availability of DVRs, on demand and streaming it is easier then ever to keep up with shows as they are broadcast and not miss an episode. This means narratives can be carried from one episode to the next without worrying about losing the audience.
This is normally a good thing for the most part. But now networks are broadcasting shows that do not have any way to wrap up each episode, but instead have a premise. This means in order to continue with the program, the premise needs to be maintained for many episodes, and usually in a way that feels artificial.
One example from this new television season is “Blindspot” – a woman shows up covered in tattoos with no memory and teams up with the FBI to unlock the clues imbeded in the tattoos to solve crimes and figure out her past. So what happens when all the tattoos are solved? Sure, she is covered in in making for a large number of available episodes, but how many, really? Shouldn’t this have made a fantastic mini-series? If the show is popular I can see it lasting five seasons, and at 22 or so episodes a season, that’s over 100 tattoos to figure out. Won’t this get tedious? How is this going to sustain that sort of longevity without feeling as if it is artificially being extended past what it should have?
I am not saying every show shouldn’t go down this path, but it seems as inordinate number of them are doing this. “Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is a program I watch that follows the ongoing storyline format, but it works because many episodes have a resolution at the end that feeds into an ongoing story. “The Walking Dead” is another series which is meant to have an ongoing story.
“Castle” seems to have found a great balance between the episodic format and having character arcs that continue on from one episode to the next. Why aren’t more series like this? Not every series has to have an ongoing storyline as its premise.
It seems the biggest difference between some of these new shows featuring an ongoing storyline and the stereotypical night time soap opera is drama versus melodrama.
I’m not too interested in melodrama.