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Hello,

I am new to Dramatica and I am looking at Southland. Would the audience be the main character? The show is kind of "cinema verite" style --audience has a private view of all of the action.

thanks alot,
K

Would the other characters be talking to the audience?

Actually, no the other characters don't speak to the camera. It's an ensemble piece with 9 regulars, but so far there are 3 actors who have "held" the main storyline. There is a lot of focus on the new recruit, Ben Sherman, he seems to be somewhat of the protagonist.

That's an interesting question. I have been enjoying that show and was actually wondering the same thing. It's almost like several short stories cut together (since none of the characters really interact on a regular basis). I love how Dramatica defines "main character" as the character the audience sees through. So you could actually assign the archetypes to each of the characters of "Southland" and then spin the "main character" wheel each week. One week we watch the two male detectives (sidekick and skeptic?), the next we watch the grizzled Officer and his green recruit (Reason and Emotion?), and so on... I would have to put Regina King at Protagonist. She is definitely the one pushing the limits and driving her own action instead of simply reacting to what comes her way. Although, I could also see her at Guardian, her faith in the goodness she can do. You could definitely put her partner at Contagonist since he is so lackadaisical about the job (the complete opposite of her!). Anyway, those are my thoughts. It's a very interesting show. I hope it comes back next season.

I haven't seen the show, so I cannot speak intelligently about it specifically. However, it sounds like the type of show that has several stories running concurrently through the season, sort of like a prime time soap opera. If that is the case, it may take a few episodes to identify what the stories are and who is intended to be the main character (and impact characters) in each. There may also be an overarching story that binds them all together, but on large scale episodic stories it sometimes takes a while to figure out what is really going on -- an essential step to identifying the underlying storyform.

My understanding is that there can be several main characters -- they are main characters in their own stories. I've never seen Southland, but since most TV shows have A, B, and C storylines, I'm assuming there can be three main characters confined to their own threads.

Going back to ER (a show from the same producers), I would say that -- in the beginning -- George Clooney/Julianna Margulies, Noah Wiley, Eriq LaSalle, and Anthony Edwards all had their own stories that ran their courses over the seasons. Of course, they were braided together in individual episodes around smaller themes.

Am I mistaken?