In the past, the majority of tv drama series
were episodic. Each week the main
characters were faced with a different problem and 50 or so minutes later,
things were wrapped up in a neat little package. Balance was restored in the world…until next
week. Essentially a show could tell the
same story every week with enough minor variations in guest characters,
setting, motive, disease etc. to give the show the appearance of greater variety.
Some shows excelled in this format and the writing was strong. In a cop show a crime would be committed at
the top of the hour and the detectives would be called in to investigate. Various twists and turns would occur leading
to the arrest of the wrong perp. This
was the red herring. New information was
received in the form of a minor thing that turned out to be a major clue and
the actual villain was uncovered. The
villain attempts to the turn the tables.
When that doesn’t work, he or she makes a run for it but is caught. Roll Credits.
In a medical show an innocent or incredibly courageous guest star is
stricken with a mysterious ailment. The
super physicians diagnose the problem while fighting with the bureaucratic
medical establishment. The first cure
proves to be wrong. The guest patient
might even become sicker or some other character with the ailment code
blues. Finally some minor clue in the
form of a hunch by the smart doctor leads to a radical treatment that saves the
patient. Roll Credits. This is a very broad view of the template but
the basics are what carried tv drama for years.
With the progression of decades some of the “nice” characters were
replaced with not-so-likeable people giving the main characters a professional
and moral dilemma. Even though he’s
innocent, do I work diligently to save this scumbag because of my high moral
standing or do I let him/her rot because the rest of the world will be better
off? That’s right, it’s the ‘70’s. And sometimes a continuing character would
have “issues” like being a recovering alcoholic/druggie/workaholic whose only
joy is the job. This was the ‘80’s. Also this was the time when elements of
serialization started to become popular in primetime television. Producers knew that daytime soaps thrived on
continuing storylines and audiences loved these shows. There has always been some form of night time
soap(PEYTON PLACE in the ‘60’s) but in the ‘80’s there seemed to be an
explosion with “DALLAS,” “DYNASTY,” “FALCON CREST,” and a few others. Melodramatic cliff-hangers and heightened
conflicts drove these shows. Cop and
lawyer shows started incorporating longer story arcs and shows like HILL STREET
BLUES and LA LAW were born with multiple lead characters who were flawed and
relateable to the audiences. Many of the
shows still had some storylines to wrap up in a single episode but others
played out over the course of many installments with the biggest cliff-hanger
coming in the season finale. This was
done to get viewers to demand another season so the show’s life could be
extended.
A
major difference between television and film used to be the rendering of the
character arc. In a film the character
seeks to fulfill a goal. This is the desire line and the character is fully
aware of this element. In good
storytelling the character also has a moral
need and this is a lesson the character needs to learn in order to become a
better person. The character is unaware
of this at first but the audience picks up on it. This lack of awareness of the moral need is
what drives the character to do things that hurt him or herself and those in
the immediate environment in some way.
The moment when the character realizes his goal and his moral need is
when he has a revelation and chooses
to act or not act and this determines his fate.
In a television show a character chases a goal but never fully realizes
his moral need. If he did, the show
would be over because the major problem would have been solved so the story is
done. Television has gotten good at
giving the character depth to keep the action going. Also
television has given us many regular characters to enlarge the storyline. The goal for primetime used to be to get at
least 100 shows out of a concept. That’s
roughly five years---enough episodes for syndication so all participating
parties can make a profit---at least the production entities. For animation the traditional episode goal
number was 65. (Of course the SIMPSONS are way beyond that.)
By
it’s very nature, soap opera is serialized.
In order to engage us, the drama must be heightened. If it’s too heightened, we drift into melodrama
that has become a convention of soaps. The aim of many serious writers is to
keep the drama heightened but grounded in order to avoid the un-believability
and cheesiness of melodrama.
Mini-series
starting in the ‘70’s,like RICH MAN, POOR MAN (a so called “novel for television)
popularized the nighttime serial. While
it had its moments of shameless melodrama, this ground-breaking show stirred
the emotions enough to garner huge ratings, inspire a sequel, and many
copy-cats. Some were good and some were
the pitts. But the genie was out of the bottle.
This form peeked in the ‘80’s only to re-surface as full-fledged night
time soaps which morphed into the many shows we have today. By marrying the episodic drama to the serial,
much of primetime television is able to tell longer stories and excavate more
interesting character details. I
personally prefer shows that have it both ways: there’s several story threads
that continue from week to week but there is also a close-end story that spans
only a single episode. But that’s just
me. Many shows that are total serials
rack up massive ratings ensuring the life of this trend until…next week.
