Note: This post does not include anything about medicine. Is that okay?
For whatever reason, I am completely caught up with all the shows I have chosen to follow. Which tells me I haven’t been writing enough recently.
(You know, I was completely TV-show-less for about five years. What happened? I blame med school; sometimes you just can’t write when you come home from the hospital. And you just can’t sleep either. I also blame the internet, for making TV shows accessible to me even though I don’t own a set. I also blame the fact that there’s some really neat writing going on in TV-land recently. Sometimes it’s hard to turn away.)
Anyway, I don’t like being caught up. When I come home, I want to turn my brain off and be told a story that re-energizes me in the way that the best stories can. But I have to wait until people start putting out new episodes again.
But this spate of TV-show famine got me thinking about what it is about a TV show that sucks me in. Because I’ve become hooked on a number of shows practically against my will, and I’ve also bounced off a number of shows that other people seem to really like.
Here are some shows that I’ve deeply enjoyed. (In no particular order.)
Firefly
The West Wing
Pushing Daisies
Warehouse 13
Leverage
Doctor Who
Stargate SG-1
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
The Big Bang Theory
Sliders
Scrubs
Here are a few shows that I’ve recently tried, but have been unable to get enthusiastic about.
Dollhouse
Battlestar Galactica
Stargate Universe
I realized that the first group of shows have something in common: They’re centered around a small group of people who genuinely like and respect each other (with some petty-but-affectionate sniping allowed, to flavor the interactions.)
The second group of shows have groups of characters who seem to be in constant, negative-vibes, uncomfortable conflict.
Now, conflict definitely drives a storyline. It’s important. But you’d be hard-pressed to deny that there’s a good amount of conflict in any of the shows in the first group. So what’s the difference?
I’m not much of a sports fan, and I certainly don’t have any loyalty to any sports team (much to the chagrin of my friends who want to bait me across state lines when there’s a classic rivalry). But I do enjoy the occasional game between evenly-matched teams. And I am always secretly rooting for the basketball teams that have the most complex passing patterns; the teams that look like they’re moving as a single organism.
It looks like I have a preference for conflict external to the central group rather than internal. I love watching people play as a team. And that seems to bleed over into my story preferences.
I’m definitely not saying that there can’t be any internal conflict; I was blown away by the genuine-ness of the fights that the crew of Serenity had with each other. But their fights were always driven by a deep streak of “I’m fighting because I give a damn about what happens to all of us.”
Contrast this with the shows in the second group, which also had a group of characters with problems to solve. . . but they work against each other as much as or more than they work against their various antagonizing forces. With very sparse exception, there’s no mutual affection anywhere to latch onto. I just don’t LIKE anyone enough to root for them.
I guess there’s only so much angst I can take. Give me a show with a bunch of people who have each other’s back. Give me a group to root for as they take on the world. Not because it’s their job. I mean, it can start there. But it really has to develop into true I-give-a-damn-itude in order to hold my fascination.
My favorite shows, therefore, seem to be the high-stakes hippie love-fests.
Note: Oh, man. It looks like I was talking about medicine after all. I’ll tell you why later on.
But how about you? What do your favorite shows/stories seem to have in common? And how does your work use (or fail to use) that commonality?
How To Kill Your Imaginary Friends 
It sounds like you’d love Burn Notice, a fantastic spy show whose three lead characters are the closest and most loyal of friends. ❤
My parents think I’d like it, too! Maybe I’ll pick it up…..in my copious spare time.
😀
It’s your blog, post whatever you like. I enjoyed this even though I don’t watch much TV. Jon Stewart and Mad Men are my choices. I started watching Mad Men, as research, because my WIP takes place in the early 1960’s. Then I got hooked.
I know what you mean about re-energizing at the end of the day, especially in a job like yours.
Huge Daily Show fan, too!
Although, Mad Men was another show I bounced off of. Interesting.
Did you ever watch Sports Night? It’s another Aaron Sorkin show, and it has that same sort of group relationship that I think you’d like. It’s set in a sports show studio, but it’s not about sports at all.
I did love Sports Night! I should have included it. 😀
I agree with you. Granted, I haven’t watched a lot of TV recently, having given it up in exchange for a life (I get addicted to shows I like – badly enough that TV takes precedence over everything I do), but I can use old TV shows for examples.
I much preferred the buddy shows, the cop shows, A-Team, Simon & Simon, Starsky and Hutch, and that sort, over the evening soaps: Dallas, etc. Now, I know, people might think, well, that’s because there’s action in the former and not in the latter.
Isn’t that sad? You have to have an action show to have people who like each other? But me, I didn’t want to get into the lives of people with petty disagreements that turn huge, or family members fighting against family members all the time.
Nope. I wanted a show where people worked together for a common cause. Yes, they may have different ways of getting there, they may argue or fight along the way, but you know that they’ll step in front of a bullet for each other, even if they’re mad at that person.
Maybe it’s because danger seems to give characters a chance to show they like each other. After all, it’s not always acceptable to show you like someone with anything more than a pat on the back or a snide remark. But it is acceptable to show it by risking your life to save theirs.
For our likes and dislikes, I think it comes down to what we want from our escapism. Do we want to see people who are worse off than we are? Who have a terrible, conflicted life so we can be happy about our relatively sane lives?
Or do we want to see teamwork? People who have a job to do, and a shared goal, to which each person contributes their skills? A definite good guy/bad guy balance, where the good guys almost always win – at least in some way?
I find the latter to be less stressful overall – you know what the goal is, you know who your friends are, and you know your friends will help you reach the goal. The shows where everyone is fighting everyone just make me paranoid, contributing to stress.
Anyway, I think you should really get to writing if you possibly can. It sounds like I might like to read what you write. 🙂
I should not write comments before I finish my morning coffee. Sorry for the length! But it’s an interesting topic.
How dare you care enough about something I’ve said to post an interesting and thoughtful response! I’m so angry! Grr! Snarl! I shake my fist! In your general direction, no less! 😀 😀 😀
Thanks for the vote of confidence in my fiction writing, too!
I just had a discussion about this with my husband, who writes plays. His stuff is very funny and original, but all the jokes in the world can’t make me like the play where everyone is constantly trying to stab the competition in the back and climb their way to the top. The most I can manage is pity for the one, decent character in the show, as he’s betrayed and trampled over and over again.
Whereas in another of his plays, the main characters aren’t very bright, and they are retelling a particularly bloody and dark tragedy from the Greeks, but they are all pulling together, and so full of honest love for each other, that I just adore them. I could watch that play a hundred times (Okay, I really have) and not get sick of it.
I think we care, because they care.
I’ll also say this relates to your writing (and mine) since I’ve thrown more than a handful of books against the wall for having dared to get published without having a single character capable of drawing me in to the story.
“I think we care, because they care.”
Yes, ma’am. Absolutely!
…given those criteria, I highly recommend CRIMINAL MINDS and FARSCAPE.
Sometimes there are tensions, even betrayals, but both shows are wonderfully written and feature groups of people who operate as families.
(Also, as a writer, thank you for your very cool blog.)
I’ll definitely keep those guys in mind for my copious-spare-time problem. My brother is watching Farscape at the moment, and he agrees with your assessment.
Thanks for the kind words about the blog! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it!
Goddamn hippies. Get off my interlawn!
Okay, my real response:
I tend to like both types of stories. Even among friends, some conflict gets overblown, after all. I haven’t actually watched SG-U, so no comment on that, but I did enjoy BSG. What I’ve seen of Dollhouse wasn’t bad either, although I didn’t like some of the stereotyped characters.
I think the secret to good inter-group conflict(IGC) is subtlety. You have to believe this could really happen. A lot of IGC on TV is clumsy and ham-fisted. And in other places, too. Which isn’t surprising, because it’s bloody hard to balance the action and reaction, especially among otherwise close friends. There’s also the fact that IGC is one of those things that make people uncomfortable. It’s not as easy to make black and white as conflict outside of the group.
Now that I’m done defending my interests, I’ll admit that there’s also normal differences in taste among viewers. That’s what gives us so much variety.
Anyway, interesting post.
::sneaks back onto interlawn and replaces it with drought-proof grass::
I’m right there with you on the subtlety idea. Sometimes as a writer, it’s hard to tread lightly with things that you think are really important; what if the audience doesn’t pick up on it?! So maybe we go the opposite direction. Sound the alarms! THIS IS AN IMPORTANT POINT!
And that could definitely get us into trouble, too.
Subtlety is key.
SUBTLETY IS KEY!!!!!!!!
I wait with great curiosity to find out what connection with medicine you saw there at the end! You’re still talking about writing, so it’s fine with me.
I’m not a big TV watcher, mostly because so much of it just annoys me. I’m not claiming terribly elevated tastes; they just don’t generally make the sort of trash I’d like to watch!
I do like Castle. It has a lot of the teamwork aspect that you mention, even though there’s always conflict between Castle and Detective Beckett. Mind you, I never saw a writer live the way this guy supposedly does!
It’s amusing enough that I can overlook its plot holes, and I like several of the characters. Given the limited time most of us have to sit and watch TV, why would I want to spend that time with a group of characters I don’t like?
That applies even more to writing. I’m a slow writer; the characters in a novel are going to live with me for a long time. I have to like at least some of them.
Jane
Castle is a great suggestion. Main characters Castle and Beckett aren’t the only ones to have a strong, affectionate relationship – they form a foursome of awesome with Ryan and Esposito, and then there’s Castle’s family.
Yeah, I’ve heard about Castle from other people too.
And as a die-hard Firefly fan, I’ve watched the Halloween scene from that one episode… It delighted me in the way that only the best of self-aware, self-referential meta-humor can. 😀
Wow, you sure nailed that. I hadn’t cast the difference in quite those terms, and it’s dead on.
I’ve been watching Stargate Universe and enjoying it — but from the POV of a novice writer: appreciating the risks the writers are taking, the envelopes they’re pushing, the amazingly wonderful skill they show.
But I don’t give a real damn about the characters, and I’m not likely to watch the reruns, buy the DVDs, or otherwise become part of the ‘long tail’ of fandom there. Stargate, on the other hand, is still getting my attention and love, not to mention money.
I’m not only a sucker for the high-stakes hippie lovefests, I’m proud of it. My discretionary time goes to things that make me feel good, after all, in one way or another. Even my writing had better give me a positive buzz . . . I had a great idea for a book a few years back, but writing it would have made me deeply angry and upset. I’m glad I figured that out before making a commitment to the thing.
I love your blog, BTW!