Star Trek recipe for soaps?

[Sylph]

FOX ordered a second season.

P.S. You read the complexity article?

[MarkH]

I did read the article. While the idea was indeed interesting ("mystery of the week"), the enveloping structure ("The Pattern") is what got -- eventually -- to be too much for me. That and, really, the "freak of the week" structure just isn't my thing.

But, in addition, by having part of its structure in a procedural, it also didn't work for me...because I do not enjoy or watch any of the procedurals/self-contained episodics. None. They just don't grab me or compell me to watch from week to week.

So, in the end, speaking just for me, Fringe was a hybrid of things that each, individually, didn't grab me. I really tried, too. I still DVR the show actually, and I start each episode with renewed optimism...and then delete.

I looked at the ratings (see below), using Toups' archive through February, and then TVBytheNumbers since then. The chart below tells the tale (Live+SD total viewers). It's holding on quite nicely, and rebounded well after the hiatus.... Which only confirms that I am not a generalizable viewer, and this show has legs.

[Sylph]

Thank you, Mark. I don't like procedurals and story-of-the-week structure too, but I was just interested to see how he will manage to lessen the complexity and keep it serialised and entertaining. But do not forget: he is not running this show. Just like with Lost, he gave the reins to another person. This time to Jeff Pinkner.

So far, I watch.

[Vee]

I'm totally wrong - I thought I recognized a different press article which Sylph had linked to - there's another one out there that indicates that Fringe is a more commercial, less intellectual counterpart to Dollhouse, which I agree with. I feel all Abrams' shows, even when he is barely involved with them, only toy with the illusion of complexity, when in fact they are fairly standard character pieces a la his Felicity with sci-fi trappings and fairly arbitrary twists made up as they go along. I know when everything will happen; Ben will say "Jaaaack," Jack or Kate or Sawyer will stare at each other soulfully, Giacchino's music will be overbearing. Both Alias and Lost collapsed under their own weight eventually; Lost only regained bearing when forced to set an end-date, and even then it has not lived up to its original promise.

That said, Abrams is very good at single ideas, which is why a motion picture, like Trek, works. His series and showrunning are a different story. I won't deny they are successful or easy to enjoy, but I don't think Lost will stand up anymore than Alias has. I could say more about what I feel Lost does for people versus something like Twin Peaks, but I'd end up sounding like Sylph and I don't want to do that.

In any event, it's not the topic.

ETA: Correcting my mistake on linked article.

[Sylph]

I want to hear it, Vee. I honestly do.

Speak.

[Sylph]

Could you find that other article?

[Vee]

Okay. I think Lost or Fringe is what an audience gets when someone at the network decides we are unable to handle something like Twin Peaks, and need a show more conducive to "shipping," young hot stars, emo manpain (Jack), and cutesy callbacks. I think Abrams' greatest asset in TV (and film, such as when his proteges promoted Cloverfield, which was also ultimately lacking) has always been his ancillary media and Internet tie-ins, which give his work the illusion of far more complexity than there is. And naming half the characters after philosophers doesn't make the show deep. I don't think he's a very good storyteller on TV when it comes to follow-through or depth (and his Superman reboot script was a dreadful mishmash of Star Wars and Men In Black). But he is certainly a great showman and PR whiz.

Unlike you, I don't think we are all stupid, so I don't think that's why we watch Lost. I think it's the closest thing to something deeper that is promoted by a major network, whereas I think the superior Dollhouse has had a lot of stops and starts, came out of the gate with a series of lackluster episodes, and may or may not be renewed. I watch Lost too, so I don't hold myself above the fray. I watch it out of boredom and mild amusement for the most part. At first it was to see how deep they could keep digging themselves into the holes of their own unrealized subplots and mysteries (see: Cynthia Watros); now it's to see them sort of limp off the stage as the show becomes mired in time travel, villain's lairs, and Freighter People who we know little about yet are supposed to weep over when they die. As is custom with a JJ Abrams TV show, once the plot becomes clear, things get fairly "business as usual." The time travel was fun though. I just think there are far, far better shows out there. To me Lost is like a junky little romance novel you know is silly but watch out of habit. Yet I do watch, so who wins there? JJ Abrams' people. But I don't think Lost is the future of TV. At least, I hope not. I think we have smarter shows.

By contrast, when working with an existing template and a set timeframe, Abrams can often do some really good work. Case in point, Star Trek, not his franchise, not his original idea. But his sensibility made it fresh and made it work again. All soaps need is a new sensibility, and rebooting them would destroy the core of what they are.

[Sylph]

Hm... Nice. I like Lost, I'll say it again. Do I think it's the greatest show on Earth ever? No. Do I think it has loopholes, non sequiturs, silly subplots and devices? I do. There is something else that attracted me to it, far away from bizarre twists and labyrinthine plots, and, say, the hilarious Heroes. It's a kind of atmosphere, something ominous in the air, a search of lost time, a catastrophe (not in terms of explosions, stunts... rather emotional, human ones) waiting to happen, a pensive, sorrowful, melancholic mood... I might be wrong, others might not see it... But I do. Furthermore, yeah, I agree that naming characters after philosophers is lame, but I never thought of it as "deep" because of that.

I also agree that “what has been most dispiriting about the current season is the show’s willingness to abandon many of the larger and more compelling themes that grounded the elaborate plot: the struggles between faith and reason; the indictments of extreme capitalism, the futility of recovery. All that remains is the reductively limned battle between fate and free will largely playing out, now, in Jack Shephard’s belief that returning to the island is his Destiny.” All commonplace, beaten-to-death themes, present in a plethora of other shows, and no matter how often shallowly explored on Lost they were, they kept me as a viewer...

Anyway... I have more questions: 1. What exactly do you mean by "shipping"? 2. I want to know which shows you find exceptional.

And finally on-topic: 3. Since I hate abstract nouns, kind of, what do you mean by sensibility? And by rebooting (i.e. you would keep the tape look vs. shot on film)?

[Vee]

By shipping I mean the romantic subplot crap like Jack and Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, etc. I am so sick of watching Kate moon over two men when all three characters have become thoroughly uninteresting to me. Nothing can ever be taken at face value, nothing ever changes from the original paradigm of that lame love triangle.

As for shows I find exceptional, in terms of current ones there's very few. I really like Dollhouse for its difficult, cold take on various issues of gender, sex and identity, but it's far from perfect. I love Damages and I am devouring The Wire and Deadwood on DVD. I love Doctor Who old and new and think the way it was revived despite decades of dizzying continuity was masterful, despite RTD's occasional duff episode. And I was a huge fan of Twin Peaks, always will be. I don't think it has been matched in terms of sheer poetry of dialogue and ideas on network TV since. It is still ahead of the times.

When I say 'sensibility,' I mean the vibe of the film, something more current, streamlined, and in touch with emotions, people, humanity. The Berman/Braga Trek franchise had lost all connection to contemporary humanity; the people were almost all very bland, neutral. Abrams' Trek brought some social realism back to the characters, and reinvigorated the entire concept with the adventure, excitement and optimism which had long since become very, very rote and mechanical on Voyager, Enterprise, the TNG movies, etc.

In terms of soaps, I don't think they have lost touch with humanity and social issues in quite the way Trek did. And I think "rebooting" them from start, erasing the history and leaving only the names or concepts would destroy daytime. People watch soaps for a sense of family and community, for a world that lives with or without them that they can visit, or sometimes they watch it because their parents did and they remember Luke and Laura, Robert and Holly, etc. Someone on another board suggested an ad campaign fixing on these adult viewers, be they in their 20s or 30s, with the tagline of "This Is Your Mother's Soap" and having brief history quizzes interspersed in the commercials (such as "what animal is Robin Scorpio afraid of, and why? Answer after the break" - this same trivia approach was done to the Star Trek TV marathon the week ST hit theatres) and I don't think it's a bad idea; give people a glimpse of what they remember as good, and then show them how those old elements are being woven into the new, current fabric of today's show, how romance, adventure, family still exists, even if the way it is delivered is updated.

Soaps could stand to push the envelope in terms of ideas, social issues, all sorts of things. I don't need to repeat the same old lines about how we need more gay characters, more honesty in terms of how soaps express intimacy, sex, family and marriage issues, more of a minority canvas - we all know cable dramas beat the pants off soaps in those areas, and soaps could do much more. But what cable dramas don't have is the daily serialized format where character and family can be established with a relentless kind of depth and exploration that seasonal TV does not. Its format is daytime's greatest hook; you can do so much more with a character than Lost or House if you are on five days a week, every week of the year.

New ideas about the production are also important; the way OLTL delivered its "experimental" live montage with Rachael Yamagata a couple months ago was probably some of their best work I've seen on that front in a long time, but it's old hat for primetime or film, which often approaches music the same way (key actions happen simultaneously with musical performances). We should be doing that all the time, or finding new and innovative ways to incorporate new ideas or live work or performances into a show. There was no reason to spend the entire summer on a set a couple years ago when Live 8 or Live Earth was streaming across the Internet; if we needed a musical act, why not send the kids the audience cares about out to one such concert, snag a deal with the promoters, and make it a multimedia event: "Follow Starr and Langston online and on TV as they go to Live Earth and watch the following performers," take a small unit and shoot story scenes to weave into the concert footage. Isn't that a lot more dynamic and entertaining than another round of people awkwardly bobbing their heads on a tiny set to music most of the audience may not care about?

The formula of soap is old but it is powerful. It does not to be altered. The only thing that needs to change is the delivery system, and how people tell a story. But people still want families and a long-standing world outside themselves. The answer was never going to be "cut the veterans" or "dump the history." Then you're just another low-rated CW drama.

[MarkH]

Don't you think Sawyer-Juliet changed the game? I now see both Jack and Kate as "odd ones out"...which freshened that for me. Now, to go forward with a grieving James...I think that actually has heightened my interest.

The Wire and Deadwood. I own every season on DVD....and that is not usual for me. I also loved John From Cincinnati...as brief as it was. I have no connection to "old" Doctor Who, so I cannot get into it. But since Eccleston joined...what fun that show is. I will miss Tennant, but I really love the constant re-invention.

Did you like Night Shift II? I enjoyed it very much. I thought it was a novel way to accomplish some what you describe above.

That feels...like a quote I need to keep.

[Vee]

Sawyer and Juliet didn't change anything. I knew they were going to do that before they did. But in the end, it doesn't amount to anything, anymore than IMO Juliet's character did despite wonderful work by Elizabeth Mitchell. So many characters on Lost are barely thought-out (Juliet, Charlotte, Shannon, Libby, etc), but non-linear storytelling and twists attempt to disguise that.

I do think NS2 worked very well, and I think that's the reason Frons has tried to bury it and move on. It required effort and innovation that builds on daytime instead of trying to turn it inside out.

Even Doctor Who understands this. It has something like 40 years of intense, staggering history and continuity that would make Star Trek or Lost disintegrate under the weight, but it cherishes every moment of it while always powering forward. History is constantly woven and rewoven into the current stories, the past is celebrated with constant specials, the DVD features on old Who eps are always chock-full of interviews and behind the scenes info and stories. The continuum from past to present is something to rejoice in and see how it informs what you are watching today, and young people love to go back after and watch Tom Baker or Peter Davison or even Jon Pertwee or Pat Troughton to see what they missed and how it ties into what's here now. Daytime could learn from Doctor Who.

[MarkH]

I will miss Elizabeth Mitchell. Although, on this show, who knows if she is gone. Interesting insight into NS2. Regardless, I shall miss what it accomplished.

A friend of mine had _most_ of the old Doctor Who on DVD. And because I have a 14-year old around here who loves the new Who, in an incredible act of generosity, he sent us his collection. I do admit, when "classic" villains appear on new Who, we bring out the old DVDs to understand the origin stories better. So, yes, at the risk of being accused of a propensity for "historgasms", I love the way the past is referenced to drive the story today. And this is EXACTLY what soaps can and should be doing.

[Sylph]

That is a beautiful idea and in a normal world, I would agree. I mean, I agree, it's just that I don't see it can be done anymore. Not after the past decade or so of daytime. History also has a darker side, it constantly pressures the writers to honour it, to write about it, to talk about it, to write for the veterans and so on... I am all for that except that it should be balanced with new people, new stories and also with letting go... Sometimes some stuff needs to be let go forever, sometimes just for a decade.

As much of a gift, in equal measure history is the doom of soaps.

P. S. I love The Wire. One of my favourite shows ever. A rare example of how a stellar team of excellent screenwriters and novelists can make something work (usually star studded crew produces subpar, mediocre shows).

[MarkH]

We all agree about The Wire? Now I'm afraid the portal to hell is going to open or something....

[Sylph]

Except that I think each of us likes a different thing about it!