Do we really need mythologies anymore

[startrekwatcher]

With the glut of tv shows in recent years incorporating complex mythologies that viewers are expected to keep track of thanks to LOST it is my opinion that they simply are too unwieldy and really get in the way of good storytelling.

First of all writers are initially in love with the idea but then it seems by the end have no idea how to resolve it. Second writers rely on gimmicks--flashbacks, twists, non-linear story telling--rather than good writing. With an arc tied so centrally to the longevity of the series all the plotlines are interwoven and therefore writers have to drag things out otherwise it spoils what is to come for other threads. On the otherhand, a show that has a more general premise and that has season long arcs force the writers to not stretch things out. Plus when arcs aren't interconnected and run parallel there isn't the frustration of having to sit through other characters catching up on the information we already have in order to move everyone into position.

And probably most importantly LOST, Fringe, The X-Files, nBSG etc have all shown that writers really have no clue despite all the protestations otherwise on how to bring them to a satisfying close. I think if writers would just not waste their time trying to develop a behemoth of an epic mythology and concentrate on telling standalone season long arcs that wrap up at the end of each year and concentrate on writing for a small core group of characters so many tv shows would be much stronger. Hill Street Blues, DALLAS an, daytime soaps for instance never had to rely on mythologies or series-spanning arcs to sustain them--they would tell a few parallel stories all season and pay them off at the end then set up in the finale seeds for the next season. Plus character deaths more and more seem like plot points where they abruptly kill off a character--expect it be a big deal--but keep forging ahead making it seem like a footnote.

But instead all writers want to do these days is see how excessive they can be--whether with a large supercast, dozens and dozens of mysteries, cramming lots of abbreviated scenes into an hour rather than fewer longer ones, whirlwind pacing, the ridiculous amount of information they throw at you, the far too densely plotted episodes, the myriad plotlines they have in progress etc--you practically have to chart it all out which I think turns off many people.

 

[RoJoHen]

I haven't seen Fringe, but I have absolutely no problem with the way the mythology on LOST, The X-Files, or nuBSG turned out. In fact, all three of those remain some of my favorite shows of all time.

That said, mythologies should both a) be pre-set and b) be established over time. It's a tricky balance, and I agree it's hard to accomplish successfully. The hard part in this day and age is you never know how long a show is going to last. Do you develop a complex story arc that needs 5 seasons to tell, or do you just plan a story for your first season and then come up with something else later once you know the show is going to be picked up again?

 

[startrekwatcher]

The X-Files is still a favorite of mine but that is because at the end of the day 95% of the show was episodic and thankfully those episodes are infinitely rewatchable because they were fresh, well written and entertaining. In addition, that show lucked out with casting two really likeable actors in really well written characters. The Alien mythology wasn't woven fundamentally into the DNA of the show except in season premieres/finales/sweeps two parters--so you can easily discard the bad taste its mythology left in your mouth.

BSG falls somewhere in between--its mythology was more prominent and all the little mysteries and elements it introduced over the years either went nowhere or were duds in the payoff department. I still to this day really only regard S1 and the first half of S2 as good--the rest was just an aimless mess of filler and half-realized ideas--Its saving grace was Moore was able to pull off an emotionally satisfying finale but the mythology was badly botched.

LOST of the three I mentioned is the one hurt most by the poor handling of its mythology--The mythology was pretty much the lifeblood of every episode and every season--it was the most heavily serialized and interwoven. The writers set it up structurally to be appreciated as a Whole Work or Big Picture and since so much of how the series is viewed as a completed work depended on how everything came together Lindelof/Cuse failed big time.

I had expected to rewatch the series from the beginning in its entirety armed with the knowledge of how everything ultimately played out to better appreciate the series but that plan was destroyed after S6. Frankly if the writers didn't want to be burdened with a mythology they never should have introduced it. For me it swallowed up the characters especially in the later seasons to the point where I felt the mythology was a more important character on the show.

 

[RoJoHen]

For what it's worth, I disliked Season 6 the first time through as well. I didn't actually appreciate it until I re-watched it, and now it's one of my favorite seasons of the entire show, and the series finales is my favorite finale of all time.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Instead of the writers utilizing ever hour left wisely they basically twittled their thumbs with all the maneuvering of characters from one site to the next to the next--that time could have been spent on mysteries. Furthermore the flashsideways ultimately were contrived vignettes with no real rhyme or reason as to what was happening in them other than to misdirect the audience into believe they were alternate timelines rather than essentially holodecks that occupied the characters until the finale when the big secret could be revealed.

And along the character front except for Jack, Ben and Locke everyone else got ignored or treated to uninspired resolutions.

 

[RoJoHen]

And I thought that, too...until I re-watched it.

 

[Caliburn24]

I agree that NuBSG, Lost, and many other recent heavily serialized shows ultimately failed to tell cohesive series long-arcs. Hollywood doesn't seem able to write good endings in general.

But here is where we differ. All those beloved episodic shows from the 80s and 90s? They suck. I used to love shows like Magnum PI, MacGyver, JAG etc as I was growing up. But on rewatching them? They suck, everything is back to normal by the time an episode ends, there is no dramatic tension, no ambition to tell any sort of interesting story or character-arc. But guess what? In each of those series there are a handful of episodes that break out of the formulaic mold, Magnum's "Did You See the Sunrise?" for example, which is almost universally hailed as the best episodes of that series.

I would much rather watch spectacularly ambitious failures like NuBSG than pedestrian stuff like another version of CSI or L&O. And eventually Hollywood is going to learn how to write serialized mythology shows properly(Maybe they should take a look at JMS who did it successfully long before it was cool). They just have to learn to have a concrete ending in mind from the beginning, and that teasing the audience with coy bits and pieces of information needs to be done with much more care and thought to how it relates to the end.

 

[sojourner]

Holey crap, another thread that's just a veiled Lost rant? Dude, get a life.

 

[auntiehill]

^ Beat me to it.

I like shows to have a mythology. I appreciate having to actually pay attention; I like having to THINK about what I'm seeing, instead of just sitting there like a brain-dead couch potato.

Fringe, for example, really picked up for me when it starting delving into the larger story-arch. The monster-of-the-week (or criminal,crime, case, noun of your choice) got stale very quickly.

Magnum, PI (one of my all-time favorite shows) had only a few story arcs and stepped out of its normal boundaries only a few times. Most of the time, it was episodic---Thomas' client/case of the week, but it was at its absolute best when it went outside the box with multi-episode arcs.

And I LOVED LOST, and probably will for a long time. Was it perfect? No, but it was a hell of a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the ride. I like that not everything was answered because sometimes, there aren't any answers.Life is like that, sometimes. And to quote MST3K, "repeat to yourself, It's just a show, I should really just relax."

 

[Thestral]

I've been watching Grimm, and you know what it was for the first half of the season when it was just a "supernatural procedural of the week?" Bland and boring. You know when it started to become more interesting? That's right... when it started looking into the universe.

Mythologies have been around for as long as imagination, they're not gonna go away.

 

[Kelthaz]

I've never watched Lost, but this guy is seriously making me want to start just out of spite.

 

[Silent_Bob]

Any show with a consistent set of characters results in what could be termed a mythology. The Classical civilisations didn't sit down one day and churn out their entire mythology in one go, it developed over time, one story added to another.

Even if a show only ever focused on two singular characters who sit in an empty room doing nothing during each half hour episode, it would still result in a 'mythology', albeit a potentially dull one.

What the OP actually seems to have a problem with is the "mysteries" that every show these days seems intent to cram in to retain viewers, and usually in an absolutely terrible, heavy handed way. 'Terra Nova' for example seems to have been inspired by a bad episode of 'Scooby Doo'.

 

[startrekwatcher]

But here is where we differ. All those beloved episodic shows from the 80s and 90s? They suck.

Yes I enjoyed episodic shows in the 80s/90s--Murder She Wrote, Hunter, Simon and Simon, Magnum etc and yes sometimes it is hard to watch them but some do hold up. But really I'm not arguing for tv programs to return to episodic format--I think that style has run its course. I can't stand NCIS, CSIs, Criminal Minds etc because thanks to my tv viewing in my youth I've pretty much seen all the stories to be told--for me the tv shows from my childhood and young adulthood I enjoyed are moments you can't recapture. I enjoyed them for what they were and was thoroughly entertained by them at the time and some I still do.

My point was actually about the usefulness of byzantine-like mythologies, jumping around, the ADHD like pacing, the myriad of mysteries that they pile up--that LOST ushered in. Do serialized shows--sff or otherwise--really need to follow that formula? Or should they eschew that excessive storytelling format for a more down-to-earth manageable style harkening back to more traditional serialized storytelling where the cast wasn't nearly as expansive, the episodes not as densely packed, the storylines not so dependent on each other thereby requiring a lot of stalling to postpone revealing everything?

What's wrong with 7-9 characters featured every week for the most part, 3-4 independent arcs developed over 22 episodes. I think the reason why so many shows in the LOST mold fail is because they throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and don't make any effort to give a few quality plotlines the time and care to develop sufficently into something more involving. V, Flash Forward, The Event, Invasion, Surface, LOST, post S1 Heroes, the latter half of BSG, Alcatraz etc just seem to want to be a high concept big event mystery laden series without telling good coherent storylines--it is more about the WTF moments that exist solely as *teasers* and fooling the audience than crafting a good long term arc where the WTF moment or big twist is a launching pad for a more fully realized arc. Hill Street Blues, Dallas, ER etc did that without all the sleight of hand and playing games with the audience or feeling like the writers were sending a compressed stream of data to the viewer and then having to process and organize what you just saw. Even a small arc like DS9's Circle trilogy didn't play games--it told a straightforward story with some depth that held a few nice surprises--it wasn't all about 10000 confusing mysteries or jumping around in an episode showing various pieces and perspectives of the puzzle.

Ultimately for me it isn't satisfying because looking back it is just a blur of a bunch of random concepts, WTF moments done for pure shock value and no coherent through line as opposed to a more leisurely paced storyline that has been explored satisfactorily.

 

[JoeZhang]

I've never watched Lost, but this guy is seriously making me want to start just out of spite.

I'm the same, as soon as I saw the name I knew it would be another bitter LOST rank.

startrekwatcher - did Lost come to your house and have sex with your dog or something? Your constant threads about this aren't normal.

 

[startrekwatcher]

The only reason why I bring up LOST is that it is what started this trend in storytelling--if it had been contained to LOST that would be one thing--but now every Hollywood writer wants to tackle a LOST-influenced mystery drama for shits and giggles--and I think it is a bad trend. Even non genre stuff plays around in the same sand box from time to time like Damages or Revenge or Desperate Housewives

I've never watched Lost, but this guy is seriously making me want to start just out of spite.

I'm the same, as soon as I saw the name I knew it would be another bitter LOST rank.

startrekwatcher - did Lost come to your house and have sex with your dog or something? Your constant threads about this aren't normal.

Well this is a discussion board--I think discussing the increase in mythology/mystery dramas is a valid one given the explosion of that type of show in recent years and the failure rate of them. If you don't like it then avoid the thread but I see no reason to come into it like a few others have and contribute nothing except to complain about the poster and offer lowbrow efforts at "humor" rather than being on topic--that to me isn't normal.

Holey crap, another thread that's just a veiled Lost rant? Dude, get a life.

Do you ever contribute anything substantive to any thread besides bitching about my posts?

 

[RJDiogenes]

No, that style of storytelling has been around on TV since almost the beginning, mostly on Soap Operas. In the early 70s, an attempt was made to bring it to Sci Fi with The Starlost, but it sucked. What kicked off this modern obsession with arc-based storytelling was Babylon 5 and Buffy.

As has been mentioned, any continuing series, no matter how episodic, will develop its own mythology. This is true of everything from Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek to My Favorite Martian and Three's Company. Episodic storytelling has not run its course, it's just out of fashion for various reasons (not the least of which is the declining attention span of the audience). That would be like saying that novels have made short stories obsolete. They are different forms of storytelling and each has its own virtues-- and each can be done well or badly.

 

[Beagleman]

Short answer for the OP:
Yes.

 

[Skywalker]

Even most of the episodic procedurals that dominate broadcast TV still feature some sort of overarching "mythology" that makes an appearance several times per season. People like at least a little bit of serialization in their TV shows nowadays.

 

[MacLeod]

Someone already beat me to it about Shows from the 90's such as B5 and even DSN to a lesser extent.

I believe how some shows such as Lost, nuBSG etc.. ended has been mentioned. Well I've got news there is a saying "You can't please everyone all of the time" or to put it another way no matter how you end a show it is likely you will dissapoint a portion of the audiance.

 

[Kegg]

As has been mentioned, any continuing series, no matter how episodic, will develop its own mythology.

This really depends on the kind of series it is (or what we mean by 'mythology'.)

Mythology to me usually means some Big Hidden Secrets, usually related to some weird and opaque forces with unclear agendas. The Cylon 'Plan', the supernatural forces in Twin Peaks, and so on. Typically the mythology has a couple of burning questions the answers to which could define a series.

Plenty of series - even, indeed, densely arced series - have nothing resembling a mythology.

I think the biggest issue with most TV series with a mythology is simply a lack of planning. When it comes to regular, 'normal' TV arcs, no, you don't need to know where it's going several years in advance. Things happen then more things happen and as long as the latter things seem to grow organically from the former things you are fine.

Mythologies however pose questions, questions that need answers, and need internally consistent answers. When you write your series throwing these weird things at the screen and decide to make up answers later, your answers more often than not will feel like just what they are - shoehorned afterthoughts, attempts to rationalize and connect the disparate bits of plot mystery while forgetting or contradicting whole swathes of it.

It's like writing a murder mystery in stages, throwing a bunch of clues around and then only when you get to the last chapter do you decide who did it. The issue therefore isn't that mythologies by themselves suck and more that a lot of TV doesn't approach them in the right way.

Babylon 5 is an easy example of a series which knew exactly how to handle its myth arc, and this is the show's greatest strength: It posed questions that it had answesr to, and when those answers were given, they made sense in the context of what we had heard before.*

I think if writers would just not waste their time trying to develop a behemoth of an epic mythology and concentrate on telling standalone season long arcs that wrap up at the end of each year and concentrate on writing for a small core group of characters so many tv shows would be much stronger.

A lot of TV shows do this. Actually, just looking at the TV I've watched/am watching in first-UK run this year - Luck, Walking Dead, Homeland, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Dexter, Awake and Prisoners of War.

Game of Thrones is the one with the most obvious reliance on a mythology (chiefly the mysterious things past the Wall) and this largely feels like a footnote with its focus on human quasi-feudal politics. Walking Dead has basically one myth-arc question - what are Walkers anyway - and how the show's handled that question while it has some plotholes is largely to the program's credit. Awake probably has a myth arc of some sort, but two episodes in - and with the show cancelled anyway - it's academic.

Homeland and Dexter, on the other hand, are very much season-contained arcs - Dexter has practically defined itself as a series as one which does a fresh arc every year, and Homeland leaves the door open for season two without leaving us with any of the questions from season one. The closest thing Mad Men has to a myth arc is a question we know the answer to, but many of the characters don't. Prisoners of War so far feels like a straight up character drama with little extraneous bells or whistles.

Luck's somewhere in the middle - no myth arc, but its vague stumbling about as to a series story felt muddled, anticlimactic, and rather clearly that the show was kicking the main tensions down the road to be resolved in later seasons that never came.

Now obviously I do not watch All Television Ever, and I've never watched Lost, but there's not a significant glut of bad mythmaking in my current TV schedule - it's either not there, or not that big a deal, or actually being handled rather well, or it's Awake.

*Granted, even Babylon 5 is far from perfect here.

Spoiler: Babylon 5

Because JMS had to revise his arcs largely on the basis of actors leaving the show there were a few trip-ups. In "And the Sky Full of Stars", for example, a Grey Council member threatens Sheridan's life, which has something to do with how the arc would have evolved had O'Hare not been released from the show at the end of season one.