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Literary television
I finished watching the first season of Deadwood last week. On the last DVD, there's an interview with the show's creator, producer, and (almost) sole writer, David Milch. In it he talks about the role of language in defining order in a lawless society, the nature of language and profanity in the Old West, how the Hayes code led to the erroneous cliche of the laconic cowboy (if he's prohibited from cursing, well, best to have him not speak at all), the difficulty of integrating fictional and historical figures, etc. etc.
This interview gelled for me the problem that I have watching TV shows like Deadwood. On the one hand, I am in awe of the attention to detail and the amount of thought that went into the writing. Deadwood is filled with complicated, multi-layered, detailed, "rigorously specific" (as Milch said) characters. The women, in particular, are fantastically done, especially given that the show is set in a time and place where men outnumbered women twenty to one and 95% of women were prostitutes. It is worth it, to me, just to watch for the concious way he uses language--different characters speak differently, and that difference says everything about their social status and their background.
However. The show has no plot. Milch says he never plans things out in advance; he just lets the characters speak to him. Which is how I think he can portray such complexities. But there is no plot, no forward momentum at all. I've noticed this same malady in a number of other critically acclaimed shows recently, Mad Men in particular, but also to some extent Rome. And call me a stickler, but I like my well-drawn characters to exist within a plot.
In Deadwood, you have this tension between Swearengen, who is always trying to manipulate things to his advantage, and Bullock, who would rather not get involved but has this darn moral compass he can't shake. If the show had a plot, they would wrestle over some specific issue and tension would build until we saw which way it went. Given the opposition of these characters, it's almost amazing for there not to be a plot. But there isn't.
Another example from Deadwood--toward the end of the season, the minister dies of a brain tumor. This takes a number of episodes. But even though this is a story with an inevitable conclusion, it still isn't a plot. It's just something that happens.
The first season of Mad Men has an ongoing plot to some extent, in the mystery of who Don Draper is and the building tension over whether his secrets will be revealed. However, the bulk of the show is not concerned with this. Most scenes are things like Betty Draper feels malaise and drives her car into a ditch and her children laugh. NO PLOT.
Rome has a plot insofar as it follows historical events. The last few episodes are definitely plotted. But still, for the most part, it is just stuff happening.
Compare this to something like Back to the Future which manages to have vivid characters without a single extraneous scene. I rewatched it recently, and every single scene serves the plot, as well as the characters.
I guess my annoyance with this is two-fold. One, these shows are heaped with accolades, and I wish as much critical attention was spent on good plotting, because I think that's just as difficult to pull off. The second is that I really enjoy historically accurate television, so I want to like these shows. But not a one compels me to marathon a season the way I just did Fringe, because not a one has an inexorable mounting tension that I must see through.
The shows are essentially literary television, which, like literary novels, often let themselves off the hook for having a story that goes anywhere. But unlike literary novels that exist between two covers and have a beginning and an ending by virtue of the format, literary television just goes on and on until its canceled.
I will probably continue to check out these shows from time to time, but I doubt I'll become a fan of any of them.
This interview gelled for me the problem that I have watching TV shows like Deadwood. On the one hand, I am in awe of the attention to detail and the amount of thought that went into the writing. Deadwood is filled with complicated, multi-layered, detailed, "rigorously specific" (as Milch said) characters. The women, in particular, are fantastically done, especially given that the show is set in a time and place where men outnumbered women twenty to one and 95% of women were prostitutes. It is worth it, to me, just to watch for the concious way he uses language--different characters speak differently, and that difference says everything about their social status and their background.
However. The show has no plot. Milch says he never plans things out in advance; he just lets the characters speak to him. Which is how I think he can portray such complexities. But there is no plot, no forward momentum at all. I've noticed this same malady in a number of other critically acclaimed shows recently, Mad Men in particular, but also to some extent Rome. And call me a stickler, but I like my well-drawn characters to exist within a plot.
In Deadwood, you have this tension between Swearengen, who is always trying to manipulate things to his advantage, and Bullock, who would rather not get involved but has this darn moral compass he can't shake. If the show had a plot, they would wrestle over some specific issue and tension would build until we saw which way it went. Given the opposition of these characters, it's almost amazing for there not to be a plot. But there isn't.
Another example from Deadwood--toward the end of the season, the minister dies of a brain tumor. This takes a number of episodes. But even though this is a story with an inevitable conclusion, it still isn't a plot. It's just something that happens.
The first season of Mad Men has an ongoing plot to some extent, in the mystery of who Don Draper is and the building tension over whether his secrets will be revealed. However, the bulk of the show is not concerned with this. Most scenes are things like Betty Draper feels malaise and drives her car into a ditch and her children laugh. NO PLOT.
Rome has a plot insofar as it follows historical events. The last few episodes are definitely plotted. But still, for the most part, it is just stuff happening.
Compare this to something like Back to the Future which manages to have vivid characters without a single extraneous scene. I rewatched it recently, and every single scene serves the plot, as well as the characters.
I guess my annoyance with this is two-fold. One, these shows are heaped with accolades, and I wish as much critical attention was spent on good plotting, because I think that's just as difficult to pull off. The second is that I really enjoy historically accurate television, so I want to like these shows. But not a one compels me to marathon a season the way I just did Fringe, because not a one has an inexorable mounting tension that I must see through.
The shows are essentially literary television, which, like literary novels, often let themselves off the hook for having a story that goes anywhere. But unlike literary novels that exist between two covers and have a beginning and an ending by virtue of the format, literary television just goes on and on until its canceled.
I will probably continue to check out these shows from time to time, but I doubt I'll become a fan of any of them.
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BUT. I had watched it the first time and given up because of sheer boredom and then went back to it and began enjoying it the second time. So it might be down to my mood, or whatever, but it wasn't easy to get into it in that dedicated way, at first.
Also I think you've stated why I liked but didn't watch all of Rome and Mad Men.
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Funny that I can find a murderer like Swearingen more likable than Don Draper, but I do. I think because everyone in Deadwood is clearly wrestling to survive in a very particular context, which quite often means killing. Whereas Draper (and everyone else on Mad Men) is stuck in an apathetic malaise that leads them to do despiccable things merely for temporary self-gratification. That's a lot less entertaining for me to watch.
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Maybe you haven't seen as much Deadwood as I have and therefore haven't seem things go somewhere, which I kind of think they do, and there are interesting developments in S2 that I rather liked.
But wow, you are very right about Don vs. Al. I mean, I LOVED Al Swearingen and Trixie and so many of them, despite their being rather bad at times. And I think the reason I don't love Mad Men is because I only love Joan, and everyone else annoys me with their choices, and I don't really care about why Don is such an asshole.
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I really like Al's enforcer and I can't justify that at all. How can he be sweet and still gut people in a bar?
I was moderately interested in why Don was an asshole in the first season, but then they answered that, and then...he's still an asshole. PLOT REQUIRES CHANGE, YO. And Joan was my favorite character and then they did horrible things to her and I just did not care enough to watch anymore.