Monday, November 29, 2004

TRAIN WRECKS

/* MILD SPOILERS */

On Everwood tonight, Ephraim lies to Amy that he's sick, because he wants to go see his ex-girlfriend's band playing.

I hate plotlines like this because you can see the train wreck coming. The writers are taking the rails apart right in front of you, and you're just waiting for the 8:47 to come round the bend. And even if by some miracle Ephraim does not get busted for lying to Amy, throughout the ep I'm dreading the moment when Ephraim gets busted, so I can't really enjoy the story line.

I wonder if this is just because I'm a writer, and I see it coming? Or is the audience as sick of this kind of lazy plotting as I am?

Watched Boston Legal. With David E. Kelley you have a slightly different problem. You know the writers are not going to be allowed the easy way out. So you're wondering what the twist is. So when, for example, there's a plotline about a client who talks about murdering his wife, the one thing you know won't happen is for the lawyers to come to her house and find he's murdered her. You can probably guess what the twist is -- I did.

In the Everwood story, Ephraim busts himself in the end, and gets no credit for it with Amy. At least that had emotional coherence: he busts himself because he feels guilty about lying to her in the first place. What I can't stand is when characters get busted because they're on TV and we have to wrap it all up inside an hour. I guess one reason I like Gilmore Girls so much is you don't know where the story's going until the story's already got there. Then you go, wow, yeah. That's a hell of a story. Until then you're wondering where Amy Sherman Palladino is headed with it. Nice work, Amy.

9:51 PM

1 Comments:

I definitely saw the Boston Legal plot twist coming a mile away. In several respects the plot reminded me of something that would have happened on The Practice....but I definitely knew who was going to be killed, and I knew who the killer would be. It was interesting, but not surprising, and consequently I wasn't surprised when the show lost about half its lead-in's numbers in the ratings.

And we're eight episodes into the series, and I am already tired that all the women are lusting after Alan. Alan's great, but no one's that great.

--Jeff

By  Anonymous, at 4:17 AM  

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