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Aug. 15th, 2016 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionTV ramblings spoiling a few shows in a fairly general way:
Master arc: Breaking Bad, Twin Peaks, Lost, Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot, Walking Dead (and Fear), Game of Thrones, The Fugitive, The Americans
Seasonal plus: The Wire, The Sopranos, Hannibal, Deadwood, Mad Men
Seasonal arc: The Killing, The Leftovers, 6 Feet Under, basically every miniseries
Episodic: Law and Order etc., many first season dramas, basically every comedy
You see what I'm going for here. Seasonal arc shows retain characters from season to season, often, and answer unanswered questions and whatnot, but there's no clear or major plot necessity for their continuing past each season finale. Seasonal plus shows have minor but clear necessity - a central, problematic character, relationship or situation remains vexingly unresolved. Master arc shows have telegraphed that there is a point at which their story will be resolved forever and that the end of the present season (excluding the last, obviously) won't be that end.
Sometimes there's a "buried" or thematic master arc, like with Deadwood civilizing itself despite itself, or (arguably) advertising going from invasive thought control to a naturalized mode of thinking in Mad Men. Suspense currents may serve under these, but they're not themselves suspenseful on a plot level. Whether Hannibal disposes of Will or vice versa is, even when there seems to be a temporary peace - we know they'll need to either fundamentally change or die or they'll keep becoming entangled. That's not the same as a master arc, though: Breaking Bad opens with a character diagnosed with fatal cancer whose brother-in-law is a DEA agent and who starts dabbling in meth production. Hannibal or Deadwood being canceled feels kind of wrong. Breaking Bad being canceled would have pretty much destroyed it. Compare this with The Sopranos - Tony kills people, gets away with it, feels ambivalent about it. Less of an itch, still an itch. Whoever is trying to kill him is a much bigger itch, is an arc rather than a tendril.
Master arc shows are taking remarkable risks, is what I'm saying. Some worse than others: The Walking Dead's giant itch is that these people can all be killed at any time, given their environment - we need it confirmed that they will or won't be, by death or by safety. You can sort of see why episodes 6.8 and 6.9 were handled so strangely, looked at thus - the show many not need cliffhangers, but temporary safety cannot end a season without killing the arc "feeling." The Sopranos route exists as an out, of course, but it isn't a very popular one, and is an unclarity that needs to be made clear, as it were. But TWD could hypothetically do it. The Americans? Not so much, because we know about '89-'91. Hell, we know about glasnost. They're going to be stopped a bit later if not now, so we need to see the stopping. Game of Thrones is in a weirder bind, since it has to both let us know the game will continue and that it's more or less been won. The very point of the "winter is coming" aspect is that endless schemings and betrayals on a political level would eventually prove narratively intolerable, however realistic in principle. I can't prove it but I'd bet you it's remarkably rare to watch one soap opera for five years, even.
So this is why we-who-hate-Lost now hate Lost, and why Lindelof and HBO are both doubtless entirely happy with his sticking to seasonal. Each season reincorporates plenty from the previous one, of course, and pulls strands out of innocuous-looking buds left here and there (braids snake's-hands back into the snake, in Crowley's terms) that were doubtless intended to be up-pickable later. But none of them itched, even in a "plus" way.
I never watched much of The Fugitive but have the impression thst it made things fairly easy for itself in its long middle by basically playing as episodes of a show whose premise was that someone on the run from pursuers would run into people and try to help them solve their problems or vice versa. Sort of like The Love Boat if the captain shot someone in the pilot, forgot all about it, and was then arrested in the series finale.
So in plot terms the shows that have it hardest are those that commit to master arcs that are high pressure (the arc could end at any point and there need to be good reasons why it hasn't), and that have only a tiny number of acceptable outcomes. Having Walt found a drug empire and retire peacefully is not acceptable, having Walt suddenly die is not acceptable, having Walt repent is not acceptable. That was a second layer to BB's suspense, frankly: how will this end in a way satisfying basic, contrary-seeming audience needs? The Walking Dead, I still say, has given itself the hardest job of any show ever, but interestingly has always had a pretty easy endgame, and little pressure to be thinking about its endgame at any given point. It doesn't ever need to explain why its arc hasn't ended yet, because the zombies are not a zero-sum adversary but a constant hazard. Adversaries are needed for season cohesion, though, and it seems that each adversary must also always be more formidable than the last (which is exactly why those not figuring out who the adversary now was had troubles with the sublimely-executed Breaking Bad 5A, btw). So The Walking Dead will eventually need to become a different type of show if it hasn't already, and then kill itself, or it will die.
Most other master arc shows have found ways to make things easier for themselves. The Game of Thrones has its ending written by its genre, frankly. Its main task is figuring out just how to delicately lower the volume knob on the not-so-genre Machiavellian ouroboros that's its big novelty sideshow. The Americans' end is in a sense prewritten, it just needs the characters to fall into relationship with it plausibly. Twin Peaks and Lost both included rule-breaking supernaturalism - and they failed despite it, not because of it. Lost ended all-supernatural because it had burnt all its other bridges, not because supernaturalism necessitates that. I'm convinced (despite knowing no behind-scenes details) that Lindelof's Lost vision was basically that of Prometheus and The Leftovers, that the fact that he had one held the show together, and that what really went wrong was that he knew ABC wouldn't like that it could be interpreted as anti-religious. So he had to buy time while dismantling or burying it, which proved crippling. Flinching does not work well, in a master arc.
Better Call Saul's job is hard, but nowhere near as hard as BB's was, though they've found other ways to keep things ridiculously challenging for themselves, and have hinted they'll make it harder still by having included scenes suggesting "Saul" is still with us.
That leaves Mr. Robot. Elliot, or something that blows through him, wants to save the world, others want to, at least in effect, destroy it, and when either stops the show will have to end. That's as master-arc as it gets, but no pronounced genre conventions really exist for a hacker show (or novel). We won't be satisfied if the world clearly ends, but otherwise there's a pretty broad range of audience-acceptable endgames. Since Elliot himself seems to be the site of both destructive and salvific forces, the plausible changing of his personality is as central to Mr. Robot as Walt's and Saul's are to the Gilligan shows. The only reason I'd put it third among the most ambitious series ever in terms of narrative arc is that plausible changes to Elliot's personality can be effected in a deus ex machina sort of way, given the near-literally mindfucking premise. I'm not saying that's easy to keep plausible, I'm just saying we won't know how to evaluate it as well as we do Walt's or Saul's evolution, so would likely be willing to forgive more. Walt's science knowledge may have verged on being a super power, but not to the degree that engineering hallucinations is (or even hacking of the sort depicted, really), and more importantly it wasn't an element of the show much affecting our need that his character plausibly travel from points A to Z.
In a "high difficulty" master arc series the whole show is essentially the endgame. An actual novel is promised, rather than a series of novels or short stories with some sort of frame. Walking Dead is high-difficulty only thematically - repetition wouldn't feel like a rip in its fabric, it would just be very boring. Non-advancement of any kind might feel like a rip, in fact - Fly is a brilliant episode in terms of magnifying a moment in Walt's character arc, but offended many simply by not being a necessary connecting point between the episode before and the episode after. Fifty minutes of non-endgame when you're expecting endgame can be painful. The Skylar hate probably had something to do with that too - not to defend that phenomenon, but her suspicions didn't just threaten to halt Walt's crime spree but the forward momentum of a show whose outcome the audience had become anxiously (gloriously anxiously) fixated on. Also, frankly, her role seemed like (was not, but seemed like) a by-then very boringly cliched one, the brakes-wife, like Sissy Spacek in JFK, where you could assume there would be an eventual cave-in after some gratingly cheap sentimentality. Even misogynists don't have the energy to actively hate all women - you need to wake them up to it. Given where it took the character, I think the show probably knew she'd annoy people, so that much was part of the design. Outing some of the assholes among us was probably unplanned.
While it became hijacked by my Breaking Bad adulation and Walking Dead preoccupation, all of this was really intended to explain why Mr. Robot is so interesting, as well as frustrating. It's clearly trying to be the best series ever, and directly vying with Gilligan in (at least) this area in order to do that.
Master arc: Breaking Bad, Twin Peaks, Lost, Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot, Walking Dead (and Fear), Game of Thrones, The Fugitive, The Americans
Seasonal plus: The Wire, The Sopranos, Hannibal, Deadwood, Mad Men
Seasonal arc: The Killing, The Leftovers, 6 Feet Under, basically every miniseries
Episodic: Law and Order etc., many first season dramas, basically every comedy
You see what I'm going for here. Seasonal arc shows retain characters from season to season, often, and answer unanswered questions and whatnot, but there's no clear or major plot necessity for their continuing past each season finale. Seasonal plus shows have minor but clear necessity - a central, problematic character, relationship or situation remains vexingly unresolved. Master arc shows have telegraphed that there is a point at which their story will be resolved forever and that the end of the present season (excluding the last, obviously) won't be that end.
Sometimes there's a "buried" or thematic master arc, like with Deadwood civilizing itself despite itself, or (arguably) advertising going from invasive thought control to a naturalized mode of thinking in Mad Men. Suspense currents may serve under these, but they're not themselves suspenseful on a plot level. Whether Hannibal disposes of Will or vice versa is, even when there seems to be a temporary peace - we know they'll need to either fundamentally change or die or they'll keep becoming entangled. That's not the same as a master arc, though: Breaking Bad opens with a character diagnosed with fatal cancer whose brother-in-law is a DEA agent and who starts dabbling in meth production. Hannibal or Deadwood being canceled feels kind of wrong. Breaking Bad being canceled would have pretty much destroyed it. Compare this with The Sopranos - Tony kills people, gets away with it, feels ambivalent about it. Less of an itch, still an itch. Whoever is trying to kill him is a much bigger itch, is an arc rather than a tendril.
Master arc shows are taking remarkable risks, is what I'm saying. Some worse than others: The Walking Dead's giant itch is that these people can all be killed at any time, given their environment - we need it confirmed that they will or won't be, by death or by safety. You can sort of see why episodes 6.8 and 6.9 were handled so strangely, looked at thus - the show many not need cliffhangers, but temporary safety cannot end a season without killing the arc "feeling." The Sopranos route exists as an out, of course, but it isn't a very popular one, and is an unclarity that needs to be made clear, as it were. But TWD could hypothetically do it. The Americans? Not so much, because we know about '89-'91. Hell, we know about glasnost. They're going to be stopped a bit later if not now, so we need to see the stopping. Game of Thrones is in a weirder bind, since it has to both let us know the game will continue and that it's more or less been won. The very point of the "winter is coming" aspect is that endless schemings and betrayals on a political level would eventually prove narratively intolerable, however realistic in principle. I can't prove it but I'd bet you it's remarkably rare to watch one soap opera for five years, even.
So this is why we-who-hate-Lost now hate Lost, and why Lindelof and HBO are both doubtless entirely happy with his sticking to seasonal. Each season reincorporates plenty from the previous one, of course, and pulls strands out of innocuous-looking buds left here and there (braids snake's-hands back into the snake, in Crowley's terms) that were doubtless intended to be up-pickable later. But none of them itched, even in a "plus" way.
I never watched much of The Fugitive but have the impression thst it made things fairly easy for itself in its long middle by basically playing as episodes of a show whose premise was that someone on the run from pursuers would run into people and try to help them solve their problems or vice versa. Sort of like The Love Boat if the captain shot someone in the pilot, forgot all about it, and was then arrested in the series finale.
So in plot terms the shows that have it hardest are those that commit to master arcs that are high pressure (the arc could end at any point and there need to be good reasons why it hasn't), and that have only a tiny number of acceptable outcomes. Having Walt found a drug empire and retire peacefully is not acceptable, having Walt suddenly die is not acceptable, having Walt repent is not acceptable. That was a second layer to BB's suspense, frankly: how will this end in a way satisfying basic, contrary-seeming audience needs? The Walking Dead, I still say, has given itself the hardest job of any show ever, but interestingly has always had a pretty easy endgame, and little pressure to be thinking about its endgame at any given point. It doesn't ever need to explain why its arc hasn't ended yet, because the zombies are not a zero-sum adversary but a constant hazard. Adversaries are needed for season cohesion, though, and it seems that each adversary must also always be more formidable than the last (which is exactly why those not figuring out who the adversary now was had troubles with the sublimely-executed Breaking Bad 5A, btw). So The Walking Dead will eventually need to become a different type of show if it hasn't already, and then kill itself, or it will die.
Most other master arc shows have found ways to make things easier for themselves. The Game of Thrones has its ending written by its genre, frankly. Its main task is figuring out just how to delicately lower the volume knob on the not-so-genre Machiavellian ouroboros that's its big novelty sideshow. The Americans' end is in a sense prewritten, it just needs the characters to fall into relationship with it plausibly. Twin Peaks and Lost both included rule-breaking supernaturalism - and they failed despite it, not because of it. Lost ended all-supernatural because it had burnt all its other bridges, not because supernaturalism necessitates that. I'm convinced (despite knowing no behind-scenes details) that Lindelof's Lost vision was basically that of Prometheus and The Leftovers, that the fact that he had one held the show together, and that what really went wrong was that he knew ABC wouldn't like that it could be interpreted as anti-religious. So he had to buy time while dismantling or burying it, which proved crippling. Flinching does not work well, in a master arc.
Better Call Saul's job is hard, but nowhere near as hard as BB's was, though they've found other ways to keep things ridiculously challenging for themselves, and have hinted they'll make it harder still by having included scenes suggesting "Saul" is still with us.
That leaves Mr. Robot. Elliot, or something that blows through him, wants to save the world, others want to, at least in effect, destroy it, and when either stops the show will have to end. That's as master-arc as it gets, but no pronounced genre conventions really exist for a hacker show (or novel). We won't be satisfied if the world clearly ends, but otherwise there's a pretty broad range of audience-acceptable endgames. Since Elliot himself seems to be the site of both destructive and salvific forces, the plausible changing of his personality is as central to Mr. Robot as Walt's and Saul's are to the Gilligan shows. The only reason I'd put it third among the most ambitious series ever in terms of narrative arc is that plausible changes to Elliot's personality can be effected in a deus ex machina sort of way, given the near-literally mindfucking premise. I'm not saying that's easy to keep plausible, I'm just saying we won't know how to evaluate it as well as we do Walt's or Saul's evolution, so would likely be willing to forgive more. Walt's science knowledge may have verged on being a super power, but not to the degree that engineering hallucinations is (or even hacking of the sort depicted, really), and more importantly it wasn't an element of the show much affecting our need that his character plausibly travel from points A to Z.
In a "high difficulty" master arc series the whole show is essentially the endgame. An actual novel is promised, rather than a series of novels or short stories with some sort of frame. Walking Dead is high-difficulty only thematically - repetition wouldn't feel like a rip in its fabric, it would just be very boring. Non-advancement of any kind might feel like a rip, in fact - Fly is a brilliant episode in terms of magnifying a moment in Walt's character arc, but offended many simply by not being a necessary connecting point between the episode before and the episode after. Fifty minutes of non-endgame when you're expecting endgame can be painful. The Skylar hate probably had something to do with that too - not to defend that phenomenon, but her suspicions didn't just threaten to halt Walt's crime spree but the forward momentum of a show whose outcome the audience had become anxiously (gloriously anxiously) fixated on. Also, frankly, her role seemed like (was not, but seemed like) a by-then very boringly cliched one, the brakes-wife, like Sissy Spacek in JFK, where you could assume there would be an eventual cave-in after some gratingly cheap sentimentality. Even misogynists don't have the energy to actively hate all women - you need to wake them up to it. Given where it took the character, I think the show probably knew she'd annoy people, so that much was part of the design. Outing some of the assholes among us was probably unplanned.
While it became hijacked by my Breaking Bad adulation and Walking Dead preoccupation, all of this was really intended to explain why Mr. Robot is so interesting, as well as frustrating. It's clearly trying to be the best series ever, and directly vying with Gilligan in (at least) this area in order to do that.
