The Identity Crisis of Big-budget Television

With the much-discussed slew of remakes and resurrected film franchises, it is interesting to note how this commercially successful formula has arguably helped the financial case for funding TV. This is mainly due to the similarity in purpose; serialised storytelling. Although there are detractors that see remakes and adaptations as inferior to original projects - at least from the perspective of artistic integrity - the argument in favour of this approach could be that the episodic nature of these types of films/television shows is in itself a genre. This would make it easier to classify these projects as an artform in their own right. One reason for this view is that TV and remakes/franchise cinema seem primarily occupied with a constant re-assessment a constant cyclical reinterpretation of the same complex characters and situations, rather than with the closed classical narrative structure of conventional films.

This approach would explain the approach that 'Heroes' (2006-2010) and 'Lost' (2004-2010) tried to follow. Both shows frustrated viewers with the seemingly endless possibilities that they seemed obsessed with exploring, rather than following the more traditional route of a over-arching classical narrative that where an ending is inevitable. Personally, I feel viewers would have had more patience with the shows if the writers had respected their viewer’s intelligence more by not allowing for the gaping plot-holes and inconsiquential narrative tangents that effectively ruined their reputations and caused the observable decline in viewers. Having viewed all of ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’, it seems that ‘Heroes’ was less dogged with a concern of seeming to move towards a definitive ending as was ‘Lost’. ‘Heroes’ success for me was in providing strong endings to narrative arcs that usually panned an entire series, as well as some well-crafted character studies. Each new series almost felt like a reinterpretation of their core concept of a present-day world where people discover their abilities and have to deal with the difficulty of co-existing with normal humans. As such, despite a rather inconsequential finale, ‘Heroes’ almost feels as though it could continue being made. Most notable in the way it unashamedly recycles one of its lead actress Ali Larter to play an entirely different part for no explicable reason at all. This seemed the strongest indication of ‘Heroes’ as primarily conceptual, concerned with spectacle as well as exploring existential questions regarding human existance through an almost parable-style narrative.

Whilst I enjoyed ‘Lost’ probably more than ‘Heroes’, it seemed a victim of an over-ambitious concept that viewers clearly lost patience for. Despite some excellent episodes and characterisation, my main criticism of ‘Lost’ was for a large amount of inconsequential and unneccessary episodes that attempted to stretch out the narrative and build suspense. Rather than ‘Heroes’ blatant disregard for plot continuity, it attempted to parade inconsistencies and nonsensical events under the pretense of mystery that would eventually be explained but never was. For me this pretensiousness was the key to its failiure with audiences.

Seemingly very aware of these problems, ‘Flashforward’ (2009-2010) seemed to try to be ‘Lost’ without the long build-ups, however its lurch towards the opposite extreme of terse overplotting felt like a simular experience to the 60-mile-an-hour ‘Taken’ – a lot happening but very little story being told – hence its early cancellation. It would seem so far that ‘The Event’ (2010) shares this identity crisis, albeit to a lesser degree given its current success. Time will tell whether they’ve perfected this balance.

References:
IMDB (2011) The Event. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582459/ (Accessed: 7 March 2011)
IMDB (2011) Flashforward. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441135/ (Accessed 7 March 2010)
IMDB (2011) Hereos. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813715/ (Accessed: 7 March 2011)
IMDB (2011) Lost. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/ (Accessed 7 March 2011)