Does going against a TV show's premise work?

Honestly, if the relationship in your story can't maintain interest unless its not yet a relationship, you probably need to go back to square one and revise it.

Truer words....

I don't get why so many writers think that there HAS to be a relationship in their show. And if they add one, it naturally has a complicated, dramatic one. Personally I prefer shows which put their focus elsewhere.

I for one don't mind a relationship in a show as long as #1. it's done well and #2. it isn't the entire focus of the show. In my experience making a show rely entirely on a relationship between two characters is where people will start to get tired of it and eventually quit watching it, and this in turn kills the show.

I use "writer" in giant scare quotes. To be a writer, you need to have a set plot in mind and characters who behave as they were established. Kripke is the epitome of the easily bored scriptwriter. Usually the writing team changes the formula after year 5 or so, because they're tired of churning out the same stories week after week, and they're going to lose their mind otherwise. I get that. Even if you hired new blood to replace them, the show's vision would still change dramatically.

Mr. Kripke goes bananas after a few episodes. He struck gold with Supernatural because the setting and mood always changes; he would thrive on a show like Doctor Who. But give him a task which involves world-building and story arcs, and the guy goes out to lunch.

I don't know much about Kripke or Supernatural but I do know that once a show gets past two or three seasons it often becomes indistinguishable from fan fiction. It latches on to a few things that work and tries to appeal to the audience rather than writing what is best for the actual show. For instance that is why it annoys me when some shows spend all their time teasing at inter-cast romance and creating a Love Dodecahedron instead of having the group actually find a love interest outside of their small little circle.

Well, Leverage lasted five seasons, and while the concept got a little bit stale towards the end (there are only so many methods to con someone after all), it had some really good episodes until the very end. It also featured realistic relationships (and in this case I didn't mind that they hooked up the main cast, even though Nate/Sophie became annoying at times, they handled this very well and it didn't really distract from the main focus of the show. I don't rue any seasons of it...personally I think that the second season finale and the third season was the best they did, and they ended with a bang with a season finale, which made me wish for a spin-off. There aren't many shows who managed to grab me until the very end.

I sometimes wonder if TV executives realize that the viewing audience was in diapers when Moonlighting was still on.

But in any case: sex is a big component of fiction, nothing special to TV. After all, imaginary romance is much more exciting than the real-life act sometimes.

Another factor is shipping. It's a free, easy way to draw in the young audience and sprout countless Tumblr gifsets. It's practically free advertising.

I think Leverage's main problem is actually connected to this main question. Leverage followed its formula of con religiously with the partial exception of the third season and its Myth Arc, which for me worked wonderfully (And briefly Rubenik in the fourth season), but the show was growing a bit stale (in my opinion) exactly because they refused to use Myth Arc and such with more frequency. The fifth season even built some unused story arcs that could serve such purpose (There was one episode that finished with the leader of a Freemason-esque organization promising Nate that they would see each other again, but nothing was made of it), but they never took advantage of it.

Y Eah, but because Leverage never betrayed it's premise, it went out on a high note, unlike other shows which change so much that the last seasons have barely any resemblance with the first ones - and usually become unwatchable. And really, if they wanted, they could do a new show with a slightly altered premise based on the finale. I would certainly watch "Leverage International". They wouldn't even have to stick with the same set of actors, they could use different actors for each episode, perhaps even creating stories in which the audience doesn't know who the actual con is until the very end.... ....maybe I should pitch the idea....

Having watched a few episodes of Leverage, it was a likable A-Team ripoff. Lightweight, old-fashioned wish fulfillment fantasy where you are expected to turn your brain off for a while.

Myth arc? About what? Nate's private war against some cigar-chomping insurance company exec? Eliot's old nemesis from Kosovo? That's just compounding cliches with even more cliches, in my opinion. The main cast were just pencil sketches. And I mean that with no disrespect. Leverage has no pretensions, or grand mission.

Burn Notice, which we were discussing earlier, is another A-Team ripoff. But the setting and the characters were earthy enough that, in this one case, you could pull off some moments of realism. Not too much though; because then you get Michael's brother being shot to pieces for the purpose of raising some imaginary 'stakes'.

It's definitely a hard balance to get. The motivating factor has to be telling a story. Logical extensions where the characters have to react to each situation, and then they slowly develop. If the main motivation is padding out the show/ratings stunts, I'll smell it from a mile away.

edited 24th Jul '13 2:52:45 PM by johnnyfog

A-Team? Not really ... more finesse, less explosions...more based on Oceans 11, just that they didn't steal for their own gain.

Personally I think that Parker is one of the best characters which hit the screen in the last years.

edited 24th Jul '13 3:05:40 PM by Swanpride

As the main page of Leverage points out, Leverage has more similarities with Mission Impossible than The A-Team. It's more like a fusion of both really.

And I'm more fond of Elliot Spencer than Parker, but I like her too (frankly the entire team is very fun). He's a very distinctive character.

As for myth arcs, the show was pretty camp and Troperrific with our without Myth Arc, they could frankly go anywhere if they wanted. A Omniscient Council of Vagueness of Corrupt Corporate Executive folks leaded by Ian Blackpoole? Sure. Elliot's old foes coming back to haunt him? Count me in. Marcus Starke and his Evil Counterpart team? Awesome. The show was a (well-written) 90's comic book with live actors, of course it could go anywhere it wanted.

I think a Leverage International tv show would be awesome, too.

Or that. Point is, that I prefer a show sticking to it's premise and going out on a high note over constantly rewriting the show and dragging it out to no end. There are only a few writers who can really pull that off. Even Buffy hit a point at which the storylines became too contrived and her constant survival more a joke than a dramatic moment.

You know I really hate when the writers go against their own premise but I also ahte all the retcons and plot holes that come with it.

Doctor Who manages it well enough.

Doctor Who is one of the very few exceptions...

Eh, even doctor who hits its klonkers.

I think writers tend to be scared of any change because audiences don't like change, technically. For some people, they honestly dislike the route it takes, and other people just dislike it because it clashes with their reality (like nostalgia). Thus writers stick to their premise heartily, and that's how sitcoms were born... wait where was I going with this.

Well, I think that writers should stick to their premise even if some fans don't like it but I do know that it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes the writers don't know what they are doing, fans don't know what the want and the executives don't know what the viewers want. I would the show stuck with their premise rather branching off into something different every season however I do acknowledge that isn't always a bad thing.

I think a really good show doesn't change the premise but builds up on it. And if that is done cleverly, without ignoring the original premise, meanwhile paying attention to continuity, than a show can slowly develop into something different. But just changing the premise doesn't really work. Take Buffy (again). The premise was "Sole Slayer fights demons". That's what went wrong in the last season, when it became suddenly "Slayers fight - something". But beforehand, the show changed, but the premise was largely the same, it just moved from the high-school setting to the adult world, from episodes which mostly stood alone, to a thought-out construct (until the construct started to crumble).

Auf Wiedersehen Pet suffered after the first series because it left it's original premise. Of course there were real life legal changes that forced that change.

I think it really depends on what people consider to be the premise. Believe it or not, I find a lot of people don't really understand what a premise IS and think it is just the reason why they watch a show.

For example, The Big Bang Theory was set up from the very beginning to be about the contrast between the extremely intelligent and awkward Leonard (and the others) trying to interact with the "average" but pretty and outgoing Penny is what the show is all about, all with a social/romantic bend to it. But a lot of people just love the isolated scenes of the guys playing video games and felt the show was just about nerdy friends doing nerdy activities. So there are complaints about the guys actually having genuine romantic relationships and believing it is going against the premise of the show. There is an argument there for Franchise Original Sin, but relationships were always a part of the premise.

Likewise, a lot of shows are not really that dependent on their Myth Arc to drive their story. In fact a lot of shows end up Growing the Beard BECAUSE they implement a Myth Arc into the show, "changing" the premise of a more standalone production.

I don't get the current obsession with Myth Arcs, to be honest. Only a few writers can pull it off. And really, what's wrong with a nice little show with episodes you can watch without a sheet to remember what lead up to this situation. No Myth Arc doesn't have to mean no character development, and I for my part would be glad if the writers would stop trying to "up the drama" with contrived storylines. Suits for example was a perfectly fun show during the first season. But in the second season it shifted away from the case of the week (which tended to be interesting) to a boring and predictable "everyone is a shark" dynamic in the firm. I'm not sure how long I'll stick around, I had hoped the third season would go back to the roots after the second was utterly unpleasant, but it doesn't look that way. Though it's not really the premise which changed in this case, more the approach to the premise.

True, but the argument could easily tweak the "premise" into something vague and all-encompassing.

Airwolf wasn't about Airwolf, for example; it was about Cold War politics as witnessed by small town pilots in northern California.

I think that a show that drifts away from its premise is alright, as long as it eventually comes back to it. House is an alright examples of that, with a sort of strict formula of this is the illness we have to solve this week, with the occasional off-track plot - like House ending up in the mental asylum or whatever for that 3-hour Season whatever-it-was opener that felt a lot like One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, but he eventually goes back to doing what he does best which is being a Doctor Jerk treating patients and manipulating everybody.

If a show steps away from its premise to focus in a bit more on its characters, rather than its concept and general plot, then it's probably excusable and could very well come out stronger than it went in.

Probably.

edited 2nd Aug '13 7:11:06 PM by TheSplendorman

I think in part the current obsession with Myth Arcs is that it gives you a good excuse to do something different from the norm, in part because when it works it can add to a series by giving a greater sense of depth and continuity, and in part because it helps with DVD sales as you need the whole series.

Personally, I prefer season arcs because they give greater flexibility and definite sense of closure at the end of each season.