Monday, January 13, 2014

What makes a good TV Show?

I recently finished watching the West Wing.  I loved that show!  I never got to watch it when it was on, in between mission and college and stuff, I just never got started.   So now that I have watched all seven seasons, I will say that it is one of my favorite series of all time.   Which has lead me to muse, what makes a TV show memorable?  What do writers need to do in order to get us to be invested in the show?  Warning, I try not to spoil things, but sometimes my explanations end up being spoilers.   Consider yourself warned.
1.  A show must be clever.  Not just funny, but clever.  Funny shows are great, but I don't get invested in them.  Clever shows are the ones I find interesting long term.
2.  Help me care about the characters.  Meaning work on character development.
3.  Make the characters real.  No perfection.  Flaws.  Martin Sheen played a perfectly flawed president of the United States.   Made me like him even more.
4.  Let people disagree.  That was one of my favorite parts of the West Wing.  The characters were not carbon copies.  They had serious political and personal differences.  Just like you and I do.
5.  Don't resolve every problem.  Sometimes it is exhausting to watch shows that always have a happy ending.  Life is not always happy, and endings are not always happy.  Moments are happy, and struggles continue on.  I really  appreciated how the show did not make it seem that things always turned out right.
6.  Handle pain with class.  One of the main actors in the show died unexpectedly.  We all knew he had died, so obviously the show would have to address that.   That was some of the best writing and acting I have ever seen.  Knowing full well that he would die, I still sobbed like a baby.   See #2 as well.  Good work helping me care about these people, and then handling the fact that all the other characters would have cared as well.
7.  Have some variety.  Don't recycle the same plot over and over.
8.  Don't talk down to your audience.  Trust us to have enough intelligence to follow along.
9.  Educate us.  Help us learn about how things work in areas we may not be aware of.
10.  Do what is best for your show, rather than follow the trend.  For instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a musical episode in season six.  Was one of the best episodes of television of all time.  It worked within that story.  Of course, Glee is a musical show.  Also works.  Grey's Anatomy did a musical number.  Although there was certainly talent involved, the show itself was a trainwreck.  A girl can dream that her doctors will burst into song, but really, they won't, and they shouldn't.
11.  Realize that it is okay to move on.  The finale of the West Wing was phenomenal, and one reason why is  that it allowed the characters to grow, mature, and move on with their lives.

What TV shows do you enjoy?  Why?  What shows should I watch next?  I am already well versed in all things Downton Abbey and Big Bang Theory :)

3 comments:

Tyson said...

Well I can't NOT weigh in on a blog about TV, can I? I guess what I like most about a good TV show is the opportunity to make a long term investment in characters- to grow with them, to laugh and cry with them, to learn from them. So I like shows that put the characters first - what I disliked about Lost, for example, is that it did exactly the opposite. So, some of my favorite shows:
Six Feet Under
The United States of Tara
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Happy Endings (best sitcom ever)
Will and Grace
Chicago Fire
Battlestar Gallactica
Charmed

There are probably a zillion others, but I think these really qualify as legitimate favorites.

Tyson said...

Sex and the City!! Can't leave that one out.

Maren said...

I knew I could get you to respond eventually!!! Ah Will and Grace...memories. I will have to sometime write about perhaps my favorites, but I feel I am still educating myself on all things television and movies so I can't even narrow down favorites yet. Broadway on the other hand....get me started on that and I would probably lose readers.