It's
been a few months since Game of Thrones ended,
I think it's time to point out who was the true winner in the end. We all
speculated on who would win at the end of the series, and now we know who it
was...
Books.
This series I think proved more than any other the superiority
of storytelling in books to movies and television. It's evident through the way
the story thrived while following the text, but then faltered and finally
failed while on its own.
One might argue that the problem is not with film/television but
with the specific writers, but the fact that D & D were the ones who got
the job to do this series IS the problem. David Benioff had been the writer of
Wolverine: Origins, a spectacular failure. Like so many in Hollywood, he failed
upward. Hollywood is based more on who is well-liked and popular rather than
who is the right fit. Book writers more often write to their passions.
So, if you want a good story, rather than just going on and on
about how much you hate Game of Thrones or Star Wars (of which the GoT writers
will now be taking charge,) go read a book. You'll have a better time.
You
know you've got nothing left to say in your show when all you can do is tease
the audience with "who's going to die next?" Or at least, you should know this. Unfortunately, the producers of The Walking
Dead didn't realize this when they put together season seven; and the audience
didn't help when they enabled them with a record-breaking first episode.
Audiences
turned on the show later in the season as the show went through a
record-breaking drop in viewership.
However, the audiences that turned on the show should have seen it
coming long before that, during the end of season six. First, the pacing slowed way down as the
stretched out the story so it could end on its "cliffhanger," and the
final episode saw the characters wandering through the woods for eternity, only
to be captured yet again, and then we were all forced to listen to a drawn out
speech by Neagan. It was dull,
uninteresting, and clearly intended to waste time. But hey, he had a bat with barbed wire which
had a name! That made it all better,
right?
And
finally he beat someone unseen by the camera, and the season stopped
there. The intent was to make the
audience wonder all summer who he had killed, and they played into that with
all of their marketing. It was the same
sort of marketing that's worked ever since "Who shot JR?" in the
'70s. The difference is, with "Who
shot JR?" and other more interesting cliffhangers, there was a mystery one
could intellectually try to solve. With
Walking Dead, it was just a gimmick.
Like
many shows today, The Walking Dead has thrived off the suspense gained through
major characters being killed. It's a
tactic that started with the show V in the 1980s, and has caught on with
audiences for making the story unpredictable.
However, this is a tool, and it should be used as such. Placing this element front and center
cheapens it, and cheapens the show by making it all about "who's going to
die" rather than "what's going to happen in the story?" Deaths of characters should support the
storyline, not the other way around. But
the writers and producers of The Walking Dead seem to have forgotten that, even
into the first episode of season seven, which did nothing but continue to tease
the audience with "who's it going to be?"
By
the time Neagan quit yapping, I didn't care who it was going to be. I just wanted him to shut the hell up and get
on with it already. And when he did, it
seems as though the show expected us to be impressed with their willingness to
kill off beloved characters. But that's
what they've gotten wrong.
The
death of a beloved character can work when used correctly. The Red Wedding in Game of Thrones worked
because it took the story from being about a straight revenge war into being
one of a family who's scattered throughout the kingdom rising up against a
tyrant who's in charge. The deaths
served the story.
What
purpose did killing Glenn or Abraham serve?
It just means we don't get to take the journey with those characters
anymore. Shows like this have forgotten
that the concept of a story is to take a journey with some characters, and at a
certain point, when you take that away, audiences simply lose interest. Which they did. The show lost more than seven million viewers
throughout the season. It took them a
little longer than it should have for them to come around, but at last they
did.
The
lesson they should learn is, it takes more than a named bat to make an
interesting story. Unfortunately,
though, it seems they haven't learned that lesson, as they've continued the
Neagan story onto season eight.
I had to admit to something last night. When Star Trek and Orville were premiering their initial trailers, I was on board with Orville and was unimpressed with Star Trek. Orville gave us characters and Star Trek gave us... its name. That seemed all they cared about was riding off of the label and CBS seemed uninterested in earning its audience. Plus they were going to make us pay for the pleasure of watching a show whose initial producers, people who were big Star Trek fans, had been fired. It seemed so cynical and Orville seemed so fresh.
I still defended Orville after a lot of people didn't like the initial episode. It was wrestling with itself over its identity, but I believed that was temporary, and these characters would be ones I'd want to follow. However, their second episode showed that Seth McFarlane just can't get past his pop culture references and frat boy vision. (Pop culture references of today, that is, which 300 years from now would be like us making references during colonial days.)
Star Trek, meanwhile, was decent. I wouldn't say great, but it was okay. Someone needs to get them a tripod that has all three legs working apparently, and the director needs to stop going, "Look Ma, I'm directing!" But the characters turned out to be more interesting than I thought they would be. However, it wasn't good enough to get me to pay $5 a month to watch it. They're also apparently not allowing the first episode to be seen anywhere online, so if you missed it Sunday night when they wanted you to watch it, you missed it. (I missed the first half because I don't schedule my life around TV. Either I can see it on my time, or I don't watch it.)
It's a pity because we had two chances at a great Star Trek franchise here. I'm still sort of pulling for both of them. I especially want to see McFarlane get his act together as he's been very helpful to cat rescues; so anything he does I want to be profitable. But they both need to start listening to their audiences, who are VERY vocal, so they have no excuse not to hear them.
