Narrative Complexity

Television story lines leaping into a new age.

Jason Mittell’s essay Narrative Complexity in contemporary American television argues that ‘narrative strategies have changed and to consider the broader cultural implications of this shift.’ It’s not hard to agree with this if you look at television in the last twenty years. America has come out with some remarkable television shows that steer away from the conventional form of shows. While we still have the over populated screenings of cops and robbers, medical and amusing reality TV there is in fact an increasing amount of television shows that jump out from the rest. Mittell noted that this era (1990s-present) of television as a time of narrative experimentation, challenging the norms of what the medium can do.

Joss Whedon was a standout writer/director of that calibration. His shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly made that bold move of placing everyday/current/global issues into fictitious worlds where reality is only a glimmer. Buffy for example set the scene for teenagers to relate to being a teen and all that goes with it….along with dealing with vampires and a hellmouth under your school. It made watching typical teenage drama much more exciting and kept me watching. I now in fact own all seven seasons to watch over and over at my leisure. Unlike Neighbours, The OC or 90210, which had the same old drama every week, Buffy had kept that spark of imagination and revealed unique ways of storytelling.

This era of experimentation that we are in has opened us to amazing possibilities in the form of narration. The complex narrative story that is Lost demonstrated the talent of completely bullshiting your way to six seasons of success. The writers of the show didn’t expect to get further than a first season in the beginning.  After seeing the popularity that came with the first season they were approved to continue. I don’t think they completely had a footing on where the story was actually going but with talented, ‘on their toes’ writers they came out with what I would have to say is one of the most complicated narratives ever seen; and let’s face it, when trying to write with the theme of time travel it’s going to become one confusing, mind boggle path which I doubt many writers would have the stomachs for. While I couldn’t keep up with the show when it was on air I’ve actually come back to it and am slowly getting the story….very slowly. It is nice to not have to deal with ads, especially with so much back story for each character per episode.

Now with the ever growing success of HBO, narrative complexity has been deemed the favoured of television.  Game of Thrones, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, and my especially favourite True Blood allow viewers to watch things that are not your usual soap operas or medical shows. They have in depth narrations that make you feel as though you’re not actually watching TV but something entirely different. As an audience, we are getting to see shows that illustrate a variety of perspectives of American culture. The Wire explores the other side of the crime world from different racial points of view. True Blood situates itself in The South where accents are extremely thick. In both The Wire and True Blood we are looking right into racial tension. We are able to see the real essence of these worlds that not everyone has seen, through the scenes and dialogue between characters. I know I’ve watched True Blood with my sister and gone away from it listening to her fall right into the southern accent without her even realising.

Like Mittell expresses, we find a strong pleasure in complex narratives, their richer and more multifaceted than conventional programming. However we should look at each individual program on its own rather than judging it in an entire genre or form of narration. There will always be a fondness for the general television we see on a daily basis that is a natural form of comfort and amusement like The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory.

Popularity or Just Good Taste

HBO has a knack for broadcasting award winning television shows. It is the place to be for any writer, producer or actor. Shows like True Blood and Game of Thrones have demonstrated the potential a book series can have on a television audience. With the right people they can be developed into captivating 12 part seasons and engross a wide audience across many areas of the world.

Ginia Bellafante’s review in the New York Times claims …the network ventures away from its instincts for real-world sociology, as it has with the vampire saga “True Blood,” things start to feel cheap, and we feel as though we have been placed in the hands of cheaters. What Bellafante does not understand is that HBO has shown that it is a channel of diversity and unique shows that you just don’t see in everyday television. It’s where creativity thrives and enables people to really expand their imaginations and turn away from the usual reality based television that people are far too used to.  There will however always be those who just like plain old drama, romantic comedy or the unusual sci-fi fantasy genres.

Popularity of a show comes and goes. While the initial viewers of a show may not be increasingly high in time the show can boost in numbers. Take for example True Blood. It hardly had a booming popularity until the first season came out on DVD and slowly to other countries. I personally had never heard of the show until the posters started popping up at sanity etc. after its release in Australia.  Once the word spread around that this was a new sort of television show and it had the HBO name tagged to it people became progressively more attuned to the true blood world. Now in its fifth season the show has become one of the most popular television shows in the last few years.

The thing with different, unique shows is that the corporate side have a nasty way of cancelling them due to the complicated narratives and just out of this world places. Take Joss Whedon’s Firefly television show. After the successful Buffy and Angel series it was a shock to see that the world was not completely taking off with the Whedon universe. While it indeed had a big fan base the viewer ratings were not that good in FOX’s eyes. So the show was cancelled before the first season was even finished. The retaliation from fans showed that once again fox has no idea what is good and what is bad. Whedon gave FOX the middle finger and brought the show to the big screen with the $ 40, 000, 000 budgeted film Serenity. It did reasonably well. After Dollhouse, another television show that didn’t quite make it Whedon actually got a big time roll of writing and directing the big blockbuster movie The Avengers which has been claimed as the best super hero movie of all time. So popularity vs. Taste can be a very foggy topic, just because someone watches it does not always mean it’s good.

Television and All its Splendour

What is television? Well that’s easy. Television is where people go to escape their daily drama’s and watch other people’s drama. We watch television when we are bored, sad, or   have been convinced by friends to ‘totally watch this program….it’s awesome’. The only problem these days with actually watching television is that it’s filled with adds that stick in your mind and ruin your anticipation for the program you are trying to watch.

Add’s are annoying unless you see ones like this 

Today it’s hard to sit in front of the television for too long especially when you haven’t watched TV with those torturous adds in a while. It’s become the common way of simply waiting for a season of your favourite show to just come out on DVD or if your being really naughty, just downloading it…..not that anyone downloads TV shows or movies *cough* *cough*

The only time you would really ever watch TV is for those soap opera’s that go on and on and on and on and on and on…………..you know the one’s I’m talking about. Those shows who tell the same story every time, Boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, girl makes boy jealous, boy gets all depressed, evil sister tries to destroy the happy couple, evil mother is presumed dead….oh wait she’s still alive, and of course at the end of every season there’s a natural or man made disaster that has the so loveable characters faced with hard decisions. Clearly you can tell that I don’t see any worth in those shows. And then there’s the reality TV shows that we watch just see them suffer and humiliate themselves on national or even world wide television. The only downside on these shows is that networks think that because it was so successful the first time they think that twenty more seasons of it will still be fascinating *evil cackle*

The documentary ‘Hollywood: The Rise of TV’ shows just how sucked into TV we are these days. People watch TV to see real life in there living rooms. They can press a magical remote and see USA police catch ridiculous criminals, or flick to see who’s going to be voted off the island next, or if that’s not getting their attention there’s usually a singing or dancing competition going on. However if you are like me you want something that is far from every day life. That’s where ‘Hollywood: The Rise of TV’ has got it spot on; HBO is where it’s at and its booming. HBO is the reason why television is all the rage. Films, while still going strong just don’t have the complicated stories that could go on for ever if they wanted to, that television like HBO has. HBO has successfully created what can only be described as a never ending film. The story arches are gripping and don’t need to be neatly fitted into a single episode with a clear conclusion.

Watch your reality shows that have you saying ‘Oh my god, that chick is an idiot!’ but when you’ve had enough of those damn Kardashians, jump into some more serious and worth the hours sitting on your couch like HBO’s ‘True Blood (2008-Present)’ or ‘Game of Thrones (2011-present)’. However if you’re not ready for the fully exposed HBO style, why not watch some fascinating zombie or alien gripping shows like, ‘The Walking Dead (2010-present)’ or ‘Falling Skies (2011-Present)’