Following up in my last post on dramatic conflict…
I’ve said this before; I’m saying it again. One of my frustration with older modes of visual storytelling was the constant amnesia.
Long ago, television series (and comic books) always told standalone stories. And that’s okay. Lost and Fringe told big long stories. The Sopranos and The Wire had a more novelistic approach. But a show like The Mentalist tells a new story each week. And that’s okay.
But when I think about the shows of my youth, in the late Sixties and early Seventies, it just seems strange.
Let’s say it’s a medical show. The doctor hero gets personally involved with his patient. They form a real relationship. He saves her life, but they realize they can’t be together and she has to leave. Tearful goodbye.
And then the next week, it’s like it never happened. The doctor never mentions her. Maybe next season, he falls in love with another patient.
This drives me crazy.
I understand that there’s more than one way to do it. I’ve read debates in recent months among some who argued whether standalone episodes are better than mythology-driven episodes (e.g., The X-Files). But it’s always seemed artificial to never acknowledge the past. We viewers remember what happened before, so why shouldn’t the characters?
(See this old post for similar comments along these lines.)