#showrunning

[alchemisoul]

“A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words...The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.”

“I don’t ever explain it. Because it’s not a word thing. It would reduce it, make it smaller."

- David Lynch, Interview with The Guardian

[that-left-turn]

"Zabel isn't an imaginative writer and the ship is low-hanging fruit, so if he isn't using it, someone told him to steer clear."

They (AMC and co) obviously thought that S2 would be a big hit (their confidence makes me laugh) but given how badly S2 was received and how they've lost a huge portion of their audience...would the studio override whoever told Zabel to steer clear of it and tell him to lean into it more? Or let it go canon? They have to know that unless they change S3, there's no way in hell it's gonna do better than S2. No one's watching besties Carol and Daryl muddle through more man pain and "experiments". Well...mostly Daryl. Who knows what they're gonna do with Carol.

And who do you think told Zabel to steer clear of it?

I don't know about "big hit" because AMC had 201 revised so many times and the promotional campaign was everywhere all at once. The studio acted extremely skittish about the quality of the season, so I think it's fair to say that they hoped for S2 to be well-received. Zabel and Norman, on the other hand, did expect it to be a big hit, yes. The former doesn't know his audience (which is unprofessional) and he doesn't understand the expectations of Carol fans. The latter seems to have thought that as long as Melissa got to have action scenes and there was a Caryl reunion, the spinoff could continue the MO of Daryl's emotional ambiguity in the flagship show prior to S10.

Just like with S2, the course correction for S3 is form rather than content. Viewers have complained about losing the original concept of a monster-of-the-week roadshow in the American Southwest, so the solution is to make a Western anthology set in Spain. That's not dealing with the core of the show's issues. The characters won't grow and change dealing with a weekly external problem; Caryl needs to be the engine that drives the plot.

The studio could tell Zabel to lean into Caryl or have them go canon. The question is, if they do, can he deliver? Based on how misogynist his writing is, a Caryl romance would turn into an underwhelming mess. He doesn't know these characters' backstories and he really doesn't care about either of them. Caryl canon under Zabel might ruin the ship rather than give the fans what they'd expect out of the relationship.

[W]ho do you think told Zabel to steer clear of it?

Reedus (and Nicotero). I don't know what kind of rider Norman might have as part of his deal, but based on AMC's behavior, I think there are content stipulations.

[myfandomrealitea]

Actually there should be a website like Yelp but you get to review writers and showrunners and the people who either make TV really, really well or the people who fuck it without lube.

[thefirsthogokage]

(link in post didn't seem to work for me, but here)

(link to 11 Laws Nice Version)

(link in the post)

(link in the post)

(link to the book)

(link to audible)

(link to Children of Tendu)

(link to OKBJGM.com)

As someone who would love to make some of their show ideas a reality, this might be helpful for me and people like me. And I trust John Rogers with things like this.

[fernsehn]

I would love to read/watch a roundtable sort of discussion with showrunners about their experiences writing endings to their shows. 

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil! I had to look up what a show runner actually does, and it’s basically... well, Everything. Doing Everything is a huge responsibility and I’m mentally exhausted just thinking about it. This is your first time doing this, yes? Had you watched someone do Everything for a show? Do you have a mentor? You can do Everything and Anything in writing, obviously, but how on earth do you know how to do Everything for a tv show? Very VERY excited to watch the product of your having done Everything!

Thank you. 

I am profoundly looking forward to not Doing Everything and going back to being Just a Writer.

I’ve had some really helpful people along the way, especially Douglas MacKinnon, the director, who really understood what I was meant to be doing, and who made sure to keep me in the loop and briefed on things. I don’t think I could have survived without him.

[takadasaiko]

You have to really look at characters like that or they just become... stereotypical or one-dimensional  or cliched, and they're not interesting. Nobody wants to watch that. It's fascinating how often something that could be really, really interesting gets ruined by someone's inability to have compassion for their own character.

Shonda Rhimes talking about characters 

I’m watching Shonda Rhimes’ masterclass on Writing for Television and I loved this point. She was talking about controversial characters in her shows and how people will come up to her and grumble about them and how she reacts. 

We see it in fandom all the time and I imagine show runners see it even more than we do: this flattening of characters when a viewer is made uncomfortable by them. They focus on the character traits that they don’t like and write them off instead of looking at the layers that the writers and actors have provided for that character. Even if the action may not be right, there’s a reason behind it rather than just flattening them out to be some caricature villain. 

Fascinating listen. 

[thedogsled]

14x01 et tu, Beyonce?

No immediate ep review from me, because honestly there were things I liked but it’s going to take another viewing or two to get over my general disappointment and pull them out of the text. Nevermind, this turned into an ep review.

Follow the read more for the whole minirant.

The way I see it is this: they want to take the episode in an unexpected way (and possibly mirror season 6, like @naruhearts was saying the other day), so we are back to souped up supermonsters as a plotline, and, look, between the Leviathan and the whole Jefferson Starships thing I don’t know how I feel about that yet. 

But most of all I feel like in order to accomplish some of the things they laid out in this episode, they just threw a whole lot of preexisting canon out, and when shows do that, they’re conceiving that the finished product outweighs the need to stick to canon. i.e. Wouldn’t it be SO COOL if we brought Gabriel back, we’ve never brought him back before. Well okay, how will we come up with a way to bring him back without altering canon too much. Well okay, the fans had this awesome theory, we could do something with that. FINE.

The issue comes here I think in that they wanted to do these things specifically: set up the vampire thing, get Jo working with TFW somehow, show how deep in a hole Cas is (fail btw), have Sam do his sparkly moment with the ‘There will be no King of Hell’, that sort of stuff. Oh. And give Mark P something to do because FANS LOVE HIM. Or something.

But none of those things were worth it. (Maybe Sam.)

None of those things were worth destroying established canon to achieve. None of those things were worth making characters look stupid to achieve.

Angel theories broken: Angels can see demons true faces The vessel once destroyed allows the dead soul inside to go to its final destination. Lucifer’s vessel isn’t a real vessel it’s a mock up (already contrived). Archangels (and angels) burn out the people they possess. Angel blades kill the host as well as the angel. (And don’t even get me started on the archangel blade existing in the first place). Cas just don’t got the juice any more. Ever. He talks the talk, but then he what the fucks the rest of it. Oh and everyone has a pair of angel restraining cuffs, because WHEN DID THOSE HAPPEN? Like, I literally can’t remember when angel restraining cuffs became a thing. They just started happening nbd. But demons have them.

So just. If one of those things had happened to move the plot along, fine. But all of them? ALL of them? And Michael’s WEIRD motivational alignment? Like. I am giving it a break because I KNOW it has to pick up from where season 13 left off and that was an unenviable starting point, but I just.

Other things that were frustrating: why were there odd sound effects and directing choices in the fight scene? Why was Cas such a wet blanket?Kip the demon--he was rubbish. Sam already knew he didn’t have to fight him, that his demon followers would chicken out, it was just set up that way. Why did we see an angel from an angel’s POV for the first time ever? Why was Cas such a wet blanket? Why can’t people use their words, like seriously Cas, anyone with half a brain knows Jack is going to do something stupid since you had to get out the door before you ran out of time on screen. What the fuck, Cas? What the fuck?

No but. I’m sure I’m going to like bits of it when I watch again. The finale wasn’t so bad watching it again before the new ep showed. (sound of glass breaking) and I will let this one settle down a little. I just wish there wasn’t so much I’m mad at. Castiel’s issues and Nick would be HUGE all on their own, they’ve bad, and contrived just because they a) don’t know how to keep Cas from being OP without literally tying him down and b) have to keep Mark around because of audience feedback (how about the sound of me grinding my fucking teeth, CW?) But it’s the lore problems, ultimately, that really have me down.

The destruction of canon for the sake of a contrived plot is BAD SHOWWRITING especially with a series like this where the whole universe relies on the established lore. Lore IS the show, and to forget that in order to take the plot in an “unexpected” direction does a huge disservice to fans, and makes you look like an awful writer. I would rather move in a predictable direction and stay true to canon than change everything and take you somewhere you don’t want to know.

It’s like that game that Joey is going to be the host of in Friends, Bamboozled, except that the nonsensical rules of the game do actually make sense when you get to the bottom of it. There’s no sense to be made here. It just gets more and more tossed around like an old chew toy until the original lore is pointless and sticking to it makes no sense so why bother, right?

But lore is the show. Lore is why ghosts hate iron and demons get burned by holy water and angels need to be killed with angel blades. Lore is the rules by which everything else makes sense, and a good writer can tell a good story within those rules. It’s not like it’s a mystery or a challenge, that’s precisely what a lot of us as fanfiction writers DO. All the time! So is it so much to ask from the people who actually make the show? I don’t think so. And I resent someone changing the rules on me constantly just so they can stroke Mark P’s ego, or bring back a character who they’re only going to kill again in two episodes anyway. It’s tiring. I’m tired of it. And shame on you, Dabb, for playing the Bucklemming game here. You’re the one who should be holding the ship together, not conspiring to help it spin further apart!

Most of all, though, starting out on this footing is an issue, because it implies that all bets are off, and the writers (and showrunner, remember), will do whatever they want to tell the story they want to tell, and rules of the universe be damned. We’re already likely to get 1/4 of the eps this season written by BL, isn’t that enough destructive power? It doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope that things will shape up, and overall, it was a bad start for me.

Maybe I’ll feel different about it tomorrow. This is usually a positive blog (unless Bob Singer wrote it), so... Don’t give up on me just yet. I’m feeling a bit bruised and battered for now, though.