Do we watch so many TV series and movies that standard plots are passe and yet odd plots also don't work easily?

[repoman]

This OP is not fully formed in my mind, but even with more thought I probably can't make it more clear.

Anyway, I have been watching a fair amount of media over time as we all have been. It seems that for the sake of twists or even for the sake of variety that many plot and character elements seem to have been put through a choose your own adventure randomizer. These elements are different just to be different.

Are we running out of effective ways to cleanly tell stories? Is all that is left overly complex stories filled with characters making idiotic decisions? Because if it was simpler and characters made smart decisions, well those movies and shows have already been made.

Let me make a brief aside. While this is happening in general, there is also an introduction of a lot of previously less featured people and topics - in US productions. More blacks, asians, latinos, gay, bi, trans as well as other political topics than in past media.

So, wanting to be different from past media that used quick, solid and effective plotting already leads to writing challenges and more ridiculous storylines. So, it is likely this rather than pandering to identity politics that makes these shows a pain to watch.

 

[Opoponax]

Good storytelling will never be boring, and good writing can make a doorknob seem interesting.

Mixing in stuff just to be different--for the sake of attempting to be different, is unimaginative and lazy, and it shows. Also, the idea of being e.g. extreme in terms of violence or horror or whatever doesn't work without good writing/storytelling. IOW, when a show relies on its success through means other than good writing, then nothing else is going to work. This includes social/political features as well. Even if we 100% agree with the views espoused in a given show, that doesn't make the show worth watching unless the underlying characters, plot, etc. are good.

Patton Oswalt has a bit about how he was offered a role as a gay man in a movie, but he would only do it if he could play it opposite of stereotype. Rather than be the super witty, super stylish prop that film and TV has used for so long now, he wanted to be a slovenly, stupid gay guy. Of course, he wasn't hired for the part. And I think that's probably typical of why so many shows and movies are so bad. I mean, yeah, stereotypes are lame and all that, but it's the overall general laziness of relying on X rather than doing the hard work to create something that's good in the first place.

Granted, a lot of productions get screwed over and end up looking nothing like what they were originally envisioned as. But that's always been a feature of the industry.

 

[WAB]

Here's an example of good television.

It's a show from the BBC that has believable, human characters, a classy and unique female lead, plus, get this: even a cop who isn't a total bad-ass and who doesn't kill people or beat people into a bloody pulp every episode:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coroner

Unfortunately, it was cancelled in 2017, after only two series. Naturally. Not enough shooting and bloody death or face-beating carnage. But you can still see it in a few places.

 

[ruby sparks]

Great OP topic.

I don't have time to say everything I'd like to, but I'll say a few things.

At some point in my life I gradually stopped watching very much of what I might call 'mainstream/commercial' offerings. I started to think that too much of the time I was seeing the same basic plots regurgitated inside a different wrapper. This became boring and I became jaded, although I think part of the reason was that I had spent so many (too many?) years watching stuff, so I think there's an age/overexposure factor. I guess that I am not the main target audience for most mainstream/commercial media anyway.

I nowadays tend to enjoy mostly what is called alternative, independent or indeed foreign material, and imo we are a long, long way from running out of ways to tell great stories.

Against that, there is the idea that there are only so many underlying plots. Some say 36, some say 6. There a wiki page called 'The 7 Basic plots'. I've heard it said that there are supposedly only 3. I've even heard it said that there is only 1, for stories involving humans at least, namely that, 'someone, somewhere, is trying to do something or get somewhere, and they are having trouble doing it'. Which I think is potentially a very profound reflection on the human condition, even if I accept that it being the only underlying plot, without exception, might be open to debate.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Good writing is good writing. It stands the test of time.

There are shows that come out now that really work, so clearly there are more stories that can be told. I think some people forget that they are aging and their experience watching television does come into play when working out what will happen.

But in the end, good story telling is about how the story is told. We often know how things will end, it is the ride that matters.

 

[Underseer]

This OP is not fully formed in my mind, but even with more thought I probably can't make it more clear.

Anyway, I have been watching a fair amount of media over time as we all have been. It seems that for the sake of twists or even for the sake of variety that many plot and character elements seem to have been put through a choose your own adventure randomizer. These elements are different just to be different.

Are we running out of effective ways to cleanly tell stories? Is all that is left overly complex stories filled with characters making idiotic decisions? Because if it was simpler and characters made smart decisions, well those movies and shows have already been made.

Let me make a brief aside. While this is happening in general, there is also an introduction of a lot of previously less featured people and topics - in US productions. More blacks, asians, latinos, gay, bi, trans as well as other political topics than in past media.

So, wanting to be different from past media that used quick, solid and effective plotting already leads to writing challenges and more ridiculous storylines. So, it is likely this rather than pandering to identity politics that makes these shows a pain to watch.

Your whole way of looking at this is wrong.

If there is anything to be learned from the concept of the monomyth, it's that there aren't very many stories that we tell. It's mostly just the same few plots with different dressing every single time. Heck, even the monomyth itself can be thought of as a particular type of coming-of-age story.

You can't raise concern about running out of new stories to tell because that ship already done sailed. We more or less ran out of stories thousands of years ago and have been retelling the same few stories over and over ever since.

What matters are the characters, character development, themes, how the plot beats are communicated, etc. The human experience is vast, so even if we're endlessly recycling the same few plots, there's no end to the possible varieties, especially for people who aren't delicate fascist snowflakes who get their panties in a wad anytime there's a protagonist who isn't a white male.

If you have to have a white male protagonist, you're probably better off watching old Nazi propaganda films. I hear Triumph of the Will is considered by critics to be the most technically proficient Nazi film.

Then there's always the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The protagonists are all white males, and thus all 3 movies are inherently superior movies.