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Audience-Alienating Premise cleanup

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Audience-Alienating Premise is "interesting" because it can be used to either complain about shows you don't like ("Work X is a failure because it's about X, which is stupid) or gush about shows you like ("Work Y is a great work, but unfortunately many people were scared away because it's about Y, leading people to miss out on its greatness"). This, naturally, leads to lots of shoehorning.

As far as I know, the major criteria for AAP are:

  • The work is a commercial failure, which requires the work to have been released for a sufficient amount of time and be for-profit.
  • The failure is because the work's premise scared the audience off or made them lose interest.

But "the premise scared people off" is highly subjective, and "is a commercial failure" is a relatively recent addition (if it even is an official criterion - it's not currently in the trope description, although it's been used as an edit reason for some example removals), leading to many non-examples being Grandfather Claused in. So I think it could use a cleanup.

Anddrix Since: Oct, 2014
#26: Jul 23rd 2020 at 1:21:14 PM

Found this on Braveheart:

  • Audience-Alienating Premise: Historical Fiction films are known for playing loosely with history, but Braveheart is infamous for taking it to an especially ludicrous level; from completely changing the personalities of several real people to a tremendous number of anachronisms to outright making up events for the film. This has resulted in a lot of people who have even a basic understanding of the events the film is based off of just skipping the movie.

ImperialMajestyXO Since: Nov, 2015
#27: Jul 23rd 2020 at 2:36:34 PM

[up] That just seems complain-y. Honestly, I think there's a bit of a Double Standard in that Gladiator doesn't seem to get these complaints as much despite taking arguably even more liberties.

Anddrix Since: Oct, 2014
#28: Jul 24th 2020 at 12:51:16 AM

Bringing up these examples from The Flash:

  • Audience-Alienating Premise:
    • In general, ever since Barry came back to life, a lot of subsequent material has gotten this for how it ultimately only exists at the detriment of Wally West. The Flash: Rebirth notably undersold expectations, quite likely because of this, and after huge sales bumps during the (unrelated) Rebirth run during storylines like the first annual, Perfect Storm and Flash War (stories that featured Wally prominently), the book's readership dropped dramatically after Wally left the book to go be in Heroes In Crisis.
      • Likewise, while the Flash Rebirth annual, Titans Rebirth, and other Wally-focused entries all sold extremely well, Flash Forward, a miniseries focusing on Wally that served as a continuation from Heroes in Crisis, has suffered this, largely as a result of following HIC, but also not helped by having Scott Lobdell and Brian Booth on writing and art duties; Lobdell is most familiar to modern audiences for his New 52 Teen Titans run and his handling of Red Hood, which were/are highly controversial. Booth meanwhile gets some respect for being a fan of Wally and a vocal proponent for bringing him back, but his art in general is highly divisive. As a result, it's not sold nearly as well as it might have with a creative team more well-regarded by fans.
    • Before all of this, The Flash first began to suffer sales problems during Geoff Johns' run after Blitz. Despite this being probably his most well-regarded story during his first tenure with the Flash franchise, his run began to bleed readers after the matter, likely due to the darker turn and the tie-ins with Identity Crisis that resulted in retconning the Rogues' Heel–Face Turn into being a case of mind control thanks to Barry having Zatanna Mind Rape the Top to turn him into an unwilling partner. The off-putting nature of the story likely contributed to the bleeding readership, and unfortunately lead to a series of Dork Age eras that attempted to solve this issue.

fragglelover Since: Jun, 2012
#29: Aug 4th 2020 at 8:34:10 AM

This was recently added to All Grown Up!:

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Angry babby
#30: Aug 4th 2020 at 10:12:43 AM

I don't think All Grown Up flopped, but it seems it got mediocre reception partly because of how it took away the core original theme of Rugrats and had a similar set-up to another show on the network by the same company. But since its problems mostly stem from being a spinoff, this might belong on a different trope.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
BoltDMC Since: May, 2020
#31: Aug 8th 2020 at 2:56:16 PM

I'm finding the concept of Audience Alienating Premise extremely confusing, as well as some of its examples. Isn't the work supposed to be considered a failure (or at best a "success d'estime") to qualify?

I'm especially concerned about the listing of two Classical Music works as examples, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, as this is a genre I'm especially familiar with. I can see the premises of both as potentially off-putting, but both works are considered cornerstones of the Classical Music repertoire, and have been now for over a century. They are performed and recorded regularly and nothing resembling unsuccessful. If these examples are considered acceptable, you'd have to include about one-third of the operatic repertoire such as Rigoletto, I Pagliacci, Carmen, Otello, Elektra, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Wozzeck, Salome, etc. They're all lurid, all successful, and all part of the standard literature.

And I'm not sold on the idea that a work with a disastrous first performance necessarily qualifies, either. This happened to Rite, but if anything, the riot drew attention to the work, and it became a major cornerstone of the standard repertoire shortly after. If this is the standard, we'd have to include Carmen, Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, Rossini's Barber of Seville, the Elgar Cello Concerto, the Sibelius Violin Concerto, and the Rachmaninoff First Symphony, among other works.

I'm thinking both examples should be deleted (my suspicion is that this is either a personal taste issue by the Troper or their misunderstanding of the concept more than anything else), but I don't want to do so without some feedback and blessing.

Thanks!

Edited by BoltDMC on Aug 8th 2020 at 6:59:26 AM

BoltDMC Since: May, 2020
#32: Aug 8th 2020 at 3:00:21 PM

Forgot to include the two entries referenced above. Here they are:

  • Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. That's right, "Songs on the Death of Children". Mahler based those songs on a series of over 400 poems written by Friedrich Rückert who wrote them as a way to cope with his grief after two of his children died. These poems were never intended for publication.

  • Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring: A dissonant, loud and threatening avant-garde ballet about the ritual sacrifice of a young virgin in prehistoric times to hail a new Spring? Sounds lovely! In fact, during the premiere performance, the audience rioted. It's telling that nowadays, the music is mostly associated with dinosaurs.

I also should note that Rite is also very much NOT "nowadays...mostly associated with dinosaurs." I think there's a musical taste agenda afoot here.

I plan to cut both entries unless there a really, really strong argument against it.

Edited by BoltDMC on Aug 8th 2020 at 6:00:52 AM

ccorb from A very hot place Since: May, 2020 Relationship Status: It's not my fault I'm not popular!
#33: Aug 8th 2020 at 3:14:30 PM

From YMMV.Top Wing:

  • Audience-Alienating Premise: The show is about four birds who are trying to earn their wings by helping people. When the show was revealed to be part of Nickelodeon's 2017-2018 lineup, the premise alone turned many people off, dismissing it as a generic Anvilicious cashgrab, which led to it being canceled in 2019.

Rock'n'roll never dies!
Twiddler (On A Trope Odyssey)
#34: Aug 8th 2020 at 4:41:37 PM

And I'm not sold on the idea that a work with a disastrous first performance necessarily qualifies, either. This happened to Rite, but if anything, the riot drew attention to the work, and it became a major cornerstone of the standard repertoire shortly after.

Sounds like an example of No Such Thing as Bad Publicity.

WoodKnapp94 Since: May, 2020
#35: Aug 8th 2020 at 5:03:45 PM

[up][up] And what exactly is wrong with that premise? I actually haven't heard many bad things about the show, and I don't see many people being turned off by it when we also have things like "a man figures out clues laid out by an animated blue dog" becoming successful.

I also don't know about it being a "commercial failure" since it got a second season note , and it has Too Good to Last on that same page, which implies that there are some people who liked it.

ccorb from A very hot place Since: May, 2020 Relationship Status: It's not my fault I'm not popular!
#36: Aug 8th 2020 at 5:39:18 PM

I'll cut it. It also has a Bile Fascination entry saying the GoAnimate community likes to make fun of it, so maybe that's where this comes from. This is a poorly-written YMMV page to begin with.

Edited by ccorb on Aug 8th 2020 at 8:44:50 AM

Rock'n'roll never dies!
ccorb from A very hot place Since: May, 2020 Relationship Status: It's not my fault I'm not popular!
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#38: Aug 8th 2020 at 6:15:25 PM

Don't think so, no.

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ImperialMajestyXO Since: Nov, 2015
Vilui Since: May, 2009
#40: Aug 8th 2020 at 7:01:18 PM

I'd agree with cutting The Rite of Spring. The audience rioted because the style of the music was completely at odds with what they expected; nothing to do with the premise.

WarJay77 Bonnie's Artistic Cousin from The Void (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
#41: Aug 8th 2020 at 7:32:16 PM

Honestly? Starting to wonder if AAP is even worthwhile to keep. It's done nothing but cause confusion and frustration for everyone as long as I've been paying attention to the discussion surrounding it; who else would be up for a wick check so we can take this to TRS and see about finally fixing it?

Current Project: The Team
ImperialMajestyXO Since: Nov, 2015
#42: Aug 8th 2020 at 7:44:18 PM

[up] I think it would probably be a better idea to clear out the backlog in TRS a little before we think about doing that.

WarJay77 Bonnie's Artistic Cousin from The Void (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
#43: Aug 8th 2020 at 7:44:50 PM

I mean, we can still do the wick check before going to TRS. Once the check is done, we can post the thread at any time.

Current Project: The Team
Anddrix Since: Oct, 2014
#44: Aug 9th 2020 at 5:54:48 AM

Bringing up this example from Ratched:

  • Audience-Alienating Premise: It's yet another villain origin story, this time being about a character who most people don't even want to know the backstory of, believing that it would take away from her mystique and appeal.
    • The trailer shows that this is very much a Ryan Murphy show, as it's completely over the top and filled with vibrant, flamboyant colors. So basically, if you're a fan of the original story, this looks and feels like the complete opposite of it.
    • The trailer shows Nurse Ratched not only acting like she did in the original story, but actually coming across as even worse. This puts the show's longevity into question, as how long will audiences want to put up with a character who's likely going to develop very little throughout the overall run.

Albert3105 Since: Jun, 2013
#45: Aug 9th 2020 at 8:59:49 AM

No wonder why I push for stricter objective criteria like commercial flopping, apologies or cancellations for examples.

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Kirby is shaped like a friend
#46: Aug 9th 2020 at 9:07:12 AM

[up][up] Sounds more like Tainted by the Preview.

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BoltDMC Since: May, 2020
#47: Aug 11th 2020 at 3:46:26 PM

Thanks for the feedback on the two Classical music examples. There didn't seem to be any complaints about cutting them, and further there was some support. Have removed them as of now.

Anddrix Since: Oct, 2014
#48: Aug 23rd 2020 at 1:26:04 PM

Bringing up this example:

  • House of Cards (US) was already teetering on the edge with its asking the audience to stay invested in an especially vile Villain Protagonist who remains a near-total Karma Houdini for years, but it slipped into this completely with the revelation that lead star Kevin Spacey was an especially prolific sexual predator, with some of the character's crimes even bearing an unsettling resemblance to his real ones. The show received one more season with Spacey written out, but it's pretty much understood by everyone that the only people who will ever watch said final season are the ones who'd already seen the rest of the show by the time the news broke, as asking anyone to now sit through five seasons of this guy doing evil acts, getting away with it, and even gloating directly to the audience all the while, just to get to a single season without him, is one of the most impossible sells ever. Even leaving aside the actor's proclivities, the final season has all the worst parts of a Post-Script Season without ever resolving the original arc, as the character vanishes offscreen without ever truly receiving his comeuppance.

Serac she/her Since: Mar, 2016 Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
she/her
#49: Aug 23rd 2020 at 1:37:57 PM

That feels more like it's trying to be a combination of Overshadowed by Controversy and Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, but it's probably not an example of those, either.

Anddrix Since: Oct, 2014
#50: Aug 30th 2020 at 1:03:12 PM

Bringing up these examples:

  • This was likely a major reason for Arrested Development becoming an Acclaimed Flop during its original run (though it was Vindicated by History, and eventually Un-Canceled by Netflix). It's a show about a dysfunctional family of egotistical, back-stabbing out-of-touch yuppies, where the only character who's anywhere near being upright is the Butt-Monkey Only Sane Man protagonist, with the rest of the main cast consisting of otherwise ordinary people who are driven mad by the family's chaos (his wimpy, incestuous son and rebellious teenage niece), highly eccentric and socially awkward weirdos (his Manchild younger brother and homoerotic thespian-wannabe brother-in-law), self-centered and lazy jerks (his Small Name, Big Ego older brother and Spoiled Brat liberal twin sister), or cold-hearted and corrupt misers (his abusive parents, one of whom is a wanted criminal), and roughly a quarter of the jokes involve Incest Subtext. Its rather dense plot — far more complicated than one would naturally expect of a sitcom — likely didn't help. The stock market, finances, and other similar topics also play a large role in the series, things which not a whole lot of people are familiar with. This was lampshaded by Michael Bluth in Season 3: "Maybe we're not that likable."

  • Community had an Audience Alienating Execution, as their ratings got steadily worse (with the biggest drop off occurring after the Pilot); it's probably because that the premise (Fraudulent Jerkass Lawyer has to go back to school, meets wacky misfits and learns the value of friendship) is prime Sitcom material, but the actual implementation of that premise (extensive esoteric shout outs, Continuity Lock-Out to the extreme, weird one-shot genre parody episodes such as  and a perverse interest in insulting NBC) killed its chances at being a major hit instead of a Cult Classic.

  • Not nearly as severe as other examples, but some viewers find themselves put off by the fact that Friday Night Lights is "about football". It kind of is, but interest in football isn't necessarily a requirement to enjoy the show at all, any more than an interest in ghosts is required to enjoy Ghostbusters. It's just a good and interesting small-town/family drama.
    • And the flipside was that NBC also targeted football fans, promoting it heavily during Sunday Night Football telecasts, only that those fans found too little football and passed, and everyone else who passed on it thought "too much football."
    • That the football in question is the American variety didn't help it overseas; in Britain, ITV4 only aired the first season (although Sky Atlantic did eventually... well... pick up the ball).
    • There's a sizable number of football fans who'd rather not see the game deconstructed or radically criticized. There's a sizable number of football detractors who resent the central role it plays in many American communities and finds the mere depiction of this role a fundamentally irritating reminder. That eliminates an awfully large chunk of the potential audience.

  • Each week in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, John Oliver discusses in depth some underexamined issue facing American society, and while they're occasionally very interesting on the face of it (for example, the piece deconstructing the claims people make in praise of Donald Trump; a review of season 2 says Last Week Tonight is "Probably the only show that can explore 'tax-exempt municipal bonds' and rack up 5 million YouTube views."), just as often the issue is... not exactly exciting. He's lampshaded this effect multiple times - for example, in the second episode when he realises they're about to do a piece on something as depressing as the death penalty, he promises the audience will get to see some really cute animals at the end if they stick around, and then there's this quote made as he announced the subject for the show the week after the very popular Donald Trump piece:
    That's right, we are talking tonight about special taxation districts. So, hello, people watching for the first time because of the Trump piece. And also, I presume: "Goodbye, goodbye!"

  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: In hindsight, it's almost a miracle that this show ever got made and managed to find an audience. Why would anyone want to watch a comedy show where half of the time the sketches go nowhere and punch lines are almost non-existent? In every episode, confusing things happen at random and without any sense of context or continuity. Sometimes the show appears to end but still goes on for several minutes. Other times it seems as if another show is playing. There's a lot of male crossdressing and homosexual innuendo (back in the 1960s and 1970s far more audience alienating than nowadays). Many intellectual references are made, often to very obscure stuff that would make an encyclopaedia come in handy. And several scenes are intercut with amateuristic cut-and-paste cartoons that border between the macabre and the grotesque. Indeed, the general public didn't know what to think of it. Most of the time the studio audience hardly snickers. Even the BBC tried to axe and boycott the show several times, even going so far to think of erasing all seasons in 1975. And how do you export this bizarre series to foreign countries? Apart from the sheer bizarreness mentioned earlier, a lot of jokes refer to things only British people would get (and only those who remember the late '60s and early '70s at that). But, despite all odds, a cult following came about and the show caught on outside the UK as well. Still, for many years they polarized a majority of the audience and the Pythons were amazed that several decades later public opinion has changed so drastically that suddenly they have become the darling boys of comedy. Though, arguably, most of their fanbase is composed of people only familiar with their more accessible films, especially Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The cast was fully aware of this, as well. In an interview, John Cleese said he was in makeup with Michael Palin and said: "Do you realize this could be the first comedy in the history of British television where no one laughs?" Palin reportedly responded, "I was just thinking the same thing."

  • The racially-mixed cast on Star Trek: The Original Series was one in the South. Some TV stations in the region refused to carry it outright.


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