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My husband is watching Criminal Minds. I haven’t watched in in a few years. I had to laugh because the episode was mostly about Reid. And it wasn’t just one episode, it’s on the third episode following Reid’s storyline of mom with Alzheimer’s, Reid in jail, now Reid has bail denied and might be sentenced to 25 years.
Can we just get back to solving crimes without the main characters being the customs of the crime?
It used to be that the main characters of a show weren't the main focus of the plots, it was the murder of the week or whatever the story was that week. For example, we never saw anything about the private lives of the characters on Perry Mason except when one of Mason's clients hid out at Della apartment, and then we just saw that she had an apartment.
Each episode used to be self contained. Each episode of Bonanza began with four men living together with a Chinese cook and ended with four men living together with a Chinese cook. Their situation only changed if one of them left the show. If one of them got engaged, they had to kill off the girl so they could start off the next episode with four single men living together again.
The OP talks about Hawaii Five-0, a perfect example. In the series with Jack Lord, the show was about the murder of the week. The main characters were there just to solve the murder. But in the current series with Alex O'Loughlin, everybody has a back story and we learn all about their private lives.
The problem is that you have to watch every episode of the series like it's a soap opera. Otherwise you don't know what's going on. Characters show up that were introduced several episodes back. If you didn't watch that episode, you have a hard time following the plot. This may not be big a deal with first run broadcasts when you can keep up with the stories, but when you're catching random episodes on TNT or TVLand or whatever, shows can be confusing.
Right.. even x-files. I loved the stand alone episodes. When they started with all the alien stuff, cancer man, is she pregnant with an aliens baby or Muldar's... etc.. they lost me then. Too much bore, too much convolution.
One of the reasons that I, as a female really enjoyed Tom Clancy's books (His...not the co-written ones). He didn't have to pull in the extraneous love affair, etc. Stick to the plot!
Bluebloods lost me for the same reason...mostly. Loved the show but then too many family dynamics came into it and Wahlberg's character became waaaaaay too annoying to watch anymore.
Since the shut down we’ve been rewatching some of our favorite shows. I realized a lot of the shows I loved at the beginning have become almost unwatchable in the later seasons. They stopped focusing on the topic of the show and instead made the personal lives of the characters the center of the show. Usually the characters personal lives are involved but aren’t the central focus for every episode.
The biggest current culprit for me is Hawaii 5-0. The first few seasons I loved, but by the time the 4th season rolled around I find myself forcing g myself to watch it. Episode after episode is just too focused on things I don’t care about like Adams family, Chin’s brother in law, Danny’s brother, Danny’s trip to the Colombian jail, and God did we ever get enough of Steve’s mother.
NCIS New Orleans is another show that’s going through the same problem for me. Instead of the main characters being outsiders who solve the crimes, they’re now the ones who are constantly targets of criminals. Usually it’s this one horrific evil henchmen who comes up on every episode.
Maybe it’s not that they got too personal for my tastes, maybe they got too dark? Too gory, too focused on the villain? That’s what happened for me with the walking dead.
Can we just go back to solving crimes as an excuse to show me the beautiful scenery or architecture of the filming location?
I wanted to love Hawaii 50-0. But I just couldn't with the banter between Steve and Dan-o. Dan-o was supposed to respect Steve but he just make fun of him all the time. I lasted about 1.5 seasons.
Danielle Brisebois also played Greg Sumner's daughter, Mary-Frances on Knots Landing.
I thought Avery's birth was not the death-knell of Murphy Brown. The decision to give Murphy breast cancer, and to make it a season-long plotline, was what made the show sad and depressing. I felt bad for her, of course, but having the show focus on a cancer diagnosis kind of kills the 'comedy'. It makes you feel guilty to be laughing if your lead might be dying. Avery as an adult was the (one) bright spot of the reboot two years ago.
I totally agree. I don't want to see cancer plot lines pretty much ever. I was diagnosed in 2015 and for a while there, I swear EVERY thing I watched had a cancer story line. Didn't want to see it before I was diagnosed, during or after. It ruined Sex and The City when Samantha got it. And to have her completely the same in the movie after (a horny women) is so totally unrealistic.
It used to be that the main characters of a show weren't the main focus of the plots, it was the murder of the week or whatever the story was that week. For example, we never saw anything about the private lives of the characters on Perry Mason except when one of Mason's clients hid out at Della apartment, and then we just saw that she had an apartment.
Each episode used to be self contained. Each episode of Bonanza began with four men living together with a Chinese cook and ended with four men living together with a Chinese cook. Their situation only changed if one of them left the show. If one of them got engaged, they had to kill off the girl so they could start off the next episode with four single men living together again.
The OP talks about Hawaii Five-0, a perfect example. In the series with Jack Lord, the show was about the murder of the week. The main characters were there just to solve the murder. But in the current series with Alex O'Loughlin, everybody has a back story and we learn all about their private lives.
The problem is that you have to watch every episode of the series like it's a soap opera. Otherwise you don't know what's going on. Characters show up that were introduced several episodes back. If you didn't watch that episode, you have a hard time following the plot. This may not be big a deal with first run broadcasts when you can keep up with the stories, but when you're catching random episodes on TNT or TVLand or whatever, shows can be confusing.
Same thing happened on Mad Men. When Don would give his speeches about the ad campaign, it was beautiful. They started having much more personal stuff outside the office and often it made no sense. It just seemed like they were filling time.
Same thing happened on Mad Men. When Don would give his speeches about the ad campaign, it was beautiful. They started having much more personal stuff outside the office and often it made no sense. It just seemed like they were filling time.
I forgot about Mad Men. That’s another one I loved at the beginning. It was great when they focused on the office and the work they did and the office dynamics of the 60s. I watched the whole series but stopped enjoying it near the end.
It used to be that the main characters of a show weren't the main focus of the plots, it was the murder of the week or whatever the story was that week. For example, we never saw anything about the private lives of the characters on Perry Mason except when one of Mason's clients hid out at Della apartment, and then we just saw that she had an apartment.
Each episode used to be self contained. Each episode of Bonanza began with four men living together with a Chinese cook and ended with four men living together with a Chinese cook. Their situation only changed if one of them left the show. If one of them got engaged, they had to kill off the girl so they could start off the next episode with four single men living together again.
The OP talks about Hawaii Five-0, a perfect example. In the series with Jack Lord, the show was about the murder of the week. The main characters were there just to solve the murder. But in the current series with Alex O'Loughlin, everybody has a back story and we learn all about their private lives.
The problem is that you have to watch every episode of the series like it's a soap opera. Otherwise you don't know what's going on. Characters show up that were introduced several episodes back. If you didn't watch that episode, you have a hard time following the plot. This may not be big a deal with first run broadcasts when you can keep up with the stories, but when you're catching random episodes on TNT or TVLand or whatever, shows can be confusing.
Story-arcs are a good thing.
The occasional bottle episode is fine, but having to shoehorn a complete (and resolved) narrative into every single episode heavily constrains the storytelling. It makes a series like reading a book where every last chapter lasts exactly 22 pages and has nothing to do with any preceding or following chapters.
The occasional bottle episode is fine, but having to shoehorn a complete (and resolved) narrative into every single episode heavily constrains the storytelling. It makes a series like reading a book where every last chapter lasts exactly 22 pages and has nothing to do with any preceding or following chapters.
No thanks.
What you've just described would be like a book of Short Stories, which have their own validity and which many people enjoy more than novels. They actually require a slightly different skill set, and not every writer can write a short story.
The push/pull between Miles and Murphy was definitely one of the more interesting aspects of the show. Though Lily Tomlin's character Kay Carter-Shepley (sp?) brought a very different dynamic that was worth exploring, I thought she would have worked better as a network honcho who would have been over both Murphy and Miles. Kay was a TV veteran who already had a good grasp of her job, whereas Miles was the youngest member of staff having to learn the business while also being their boss. He and Murphy also had similar work-obsessed personalities who let their jobs take the place of a social life, even as they were at very different places in their careers.
Though I would not say the relationship dramas of Miles and Corky took away from my enjoyment of the original run, it is worthy of note that when they did the one-season revival, no one mentioned the fact that Miles and Corky were ex-spouses. They behaved only as ex-co-workers who were once again working together. I assume the producers didn't want to weigh the revival down with 'relationship dramas' that would take away from the stories they wanted to tell.
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