"Writing for The DVD"

[captain_slinky]

Is it just me, or does it seem like this season's new shows have taken a tip from The Comic Book Industry as of late?

See, many writers today (Brian Michael Bendis most frequently) have somewhat recently been accused of "Writing For The Trade-Paperback". Whereas a comic book used to have sub-plots and storyklines that could linger on for YEARS with no resolution and several asterisk-boxes asking readers to refer to an issue of the book from several years ago, it's not uncommon for a modern comic book to be published in tidy little 4-to-6-issue story arcs with a definitive beginning, middle and end. Just PERFECT for an $11 Trade Paperback collection! Love it or hate it, this has been a great boon fore The Industry and gets them their own shelf at Barnes & Noble.

So bringing that back to the new season of Television. The majority of hour-long Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi up to date has followed a very easy formula:

• Choose your gimmick (Talking car, Vietnam vets in a van, Space-ships looking for that shining green orb known as Earth, etc)
• Use your gimmick to tell a self-contained one-hour story that can be viewed all by itself without the viewer having seen any other episodes
• Major changes may only be made during the Season Finale or the Season Premiere (Fight with an EVIL talking car, Vietnam vets add a new member to the team, Space-ship finds that shining green orb, etc).

It's my understanding that this was so that (a) The Show could be tossed in to any night's line-up at any given time to fill the dead air and anyone could watch it with little or no confusion and (b) The Show could be put in to syndication packages of varying amounts of episodes.

But this season we've got a whole slew of shows that are being written as an ongoing story with twists and changes at every episode. "Journey Man", "Pushing Daisies" and "Chuck" are the ones that I watch personally where I have noticed this so far, and I've heard similar reports of "Bionic Woman", "Flash Gordon" and "Reaper". They're not writing 24 hour-long pieces of entertainment; they're writing a 20-hour long MOVIE.

And why?

i think it's because there's more money to be made in DVD sales than there is to be made from live advertisers. "Firefly", "Wonder Falls" and "Family Guy" all made TONS more money on DVD than they ever did on Network television!

Comments

[the-4th-doctor.livejournal.com]

I think that has an effect, but there's more to it than that. For one, TV has matured somewhat, with producers realizing that their viewers can and want to stay engaged in a show from week to week and follow all the twists and turns. And from a financial perspective, keeping viewers coming back every week because they want to know what unmissable plot point is going to happen next means the ratings stay higher, which means advertising revenue goes up. That is, at least, the theory.

[lynna12000.livejournal.com]

I think that writing an ongoing storyline encourages better writing. Especially on the 'Big 4' networks, if the writers can't deliver that, they won't have a job. People have learned that poor writing doesn't have to be tolerated.

This is the age of dvr's and cable networks. If dvrs had been widely used, and Nielsen had counted them, Firefly would still be on the air.