Storyforms of your favourite tv shows

[dietelco]

hi all,

has anyone tried to storyform a whole television series? season by season? I would love it if anyone could "do the dramatica breakdown" on my fav tv show - RDM's re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Better still if Chris could give some comments.

[dietelco]

why is this spammer talking about "Free tv" and "hong kong adult movies" ?

[BobHopeFan]

I know this thread is old, but I just wanted to say that I think Dramatica proves "Supernatural" went flying off the rails last season. I think that show has some of the best writing on TV and sadly the last three or so episodes of season four totally upset the wonderful story they were creating. I just think it's interesting that "Responsibility", "Obligation" and "Commitment" (all things you would say drive Dean) can be found under "Becoming". So, while the entire four seasons had us waiting for him to BECOME something, he decides in the last half hour that it's all a joke and decides to stay the same.

Frusterating...

I think the execs didn't want to alienate half their fan base by making Sammy evil - which was the way it should have gone. Oh well...

[dietelco]

I'm a huge fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt, and by extension, her Ghost Whisperer show.

i note there was potent online outrage when they killed off (somewhat) the character, Jim, who was Jennifer's on-screen husband in season 4. Things just got confusing and hokey (what? he's dead but possessing another dead guy's body?)

i was pleasantly surprised by season 5 which was obviously "re-tooled" (did they change writers or something?) - the show had new elements, like "the Watcher" character archtype (i wonder if they recycled them from Buffy? Charmed? the Highlander? heheh), the character Aidan, who's Jennifer's on-screen son (they fast forwarded 5 years and never looked back - in the same vein of Battlestar Galactica's "New Caprica" story arc in season 3), and Jennifer being a ghost-whispering mentor to (not one, but) TWO guys!

I understand the relationship throughline for the first few seasons were pretty dull - Jennifer & her on-screen, ever-supporting, ever-understanding husband was one of the most stable relationships on television. The husband character generally fulfilled the "support" archtype and was basically a passenger character until Jennifer's character needed a shoulder to cry on. Dramactica'lly (sic) this structure didn't fit the theory and it showed in how the story suffered for it.

Move forward to season 5, we now see a more complex dynamic between Jennifer & her son (who inherits her powers and is said to be more powerful than her). I think this time round the husband, Jim, reverts back to his "support" role full-time and lets the son, Aidan, fulfill more of the the relationship throughline, storywise.

PS I've been having some thoughts about adding some more character archtypes that have been a mainstay in popular entertainment, like:

- The Female action lead (think Lara Croft, Sidney Bristow, Kara Thrace, the Bionic Woman)

- The Watcher archtype (like i mentioned above, being featured in shows like Ghost Whisperer, Buffy & Charmed) which may or may not contains elements of the Guardian archtype. But they're definitely more of an exposition device.

[forty]

hi all,

has anyone tried to storyform a whole television series? season by season? I would love it if anyone could "do the dramatica breakdown" on my fav tv show - RDM's re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Better still if Chris could give some comments.

Each episode follows a pattern and the whole series follows the same pattern.

[Chris Huntley]

While I haven't seen much of Battlestar Gallactica (yet), I have seen the pilot and an occasional episode here and there. That said, I imagine there are SEVERAL stories threading their way through the series, with most of the major character being MC's in their own personal stories.

It is difficult NOT to do it that way without running thin on story material to explore.

There may be specific episodes that have their own storyforms. Those would tend to be the stand-alone stories, sort of like the "monster of the week" episodes in the "X-Files" series. Whether or not they use similar storyforms from episode to episode, or multi-epsode stories, is unknown to me. With a series that ran as long as Battlestar Gallactica, I think they tried to mix it up as much as made sense within the context of the series' themes. Not only would that keep the series more interesting, but it would lessen the sense of predictability that comes from overusing a storyform.