Do you agree with Alan Ball's belief on TV relationships?

[Joe Washington]

As he mentioned more than once, happy, functional relationships are boring on TV. The best relationships on TV shows are the ones filled with drama, difficulty, and conflict with temporary moments of happiness and that the only time everyone should get happy is the end of the series.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

People want to watch TV shows where interesting things happen. A relationship where everything is rainbows and sunshine and everyone gets along is just boring. It might be awesome in real life to have that kind of relationship, but it makes for poor drama.

 

[Caliburn24]

Absolutely agree with it.

Happy people are boring entertainment.

 

[Checkmate]

Disagree completely. The only thing is that you have to put the dramatic focus on other things. It doesn't have to be one's relationship any more than it has to be dramatic eating a sandwich or driving a car.

 

[Thestral]

Very much disagree. Just put the dramatic focus on something else and let the happy, functional relationship just be an element of the show. And who says happy, functional people having to deal with sudden life situations has to be boring?

I give you Eric and Tami Taylor as Exhibit A.

I think unneccessary "drama" can be eye-rollingly boring and predictable.

 

[darthraidr]

Very much disagree. Just put the dramatic focus on something else and let the happy, functional relationship just be an element of the show. And who says happy, functional people having to deal with sudden life situations has to be boring?

I give you Eric and Tami Taylor as Exhibit A.

I think unneccessary "drama" can be eye-rollingly boring and predictable.

exactly. Friday Night Lights wonderfully disproves the horrid theory that happy couples are boring.

Parenthood is another show that has a few happy couples struggling with life.

 

[Beagleman]

Depends, I wouldn't mind happy, functioning relationships, let's say, for secondary characters but if there is a "main couple" and the focus of the show is partly on their relationship, then yes, there should be some drama from time to time.

 

[RandyS]

Disagree completely. The only thing is that you have to put the dramatic focus on other things. It doesn't have to be one's relationship any more than it has to be dramatic eating a sandwich or driving a car.

Huh. I thought you LIKED Battlestar Galactica.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Yes, I agree. The core of drama is conflict.

It doesn't have to be one's relationship any more than it has to be dramatic eating a sandwich or driving a car.

If there was a way to bring conflict to those things, then they can be drama. Someone almost chokes to death eating a sandwich. Driving a car is often used in drama - the car chase. Or it could be a car race. Stealing a car. Driving a DeLorean that's also a time machine. The possibilities abound.

The topic doesn't matter. Invest it with conflict, and it's drama.

Just put the dramatic focus on something else and let the happy, functional relationship just be an element of the show.

Then the relationship isn't what the story is about. That's okay if you'd rather the story be about almost choking to death on a sandwich or the DeLorean time machine, but then it's misleading to say that the relationship is the point of the story at all. If there's no conflict in the relationship, it will be shoved to the background. It might as well not exist in the story at all.

I'm sure what Ball means is, if you are writing a story about relationships, there damn well better be conflict in those relationships. If you are not writing a story about relationships, why are you bothering to put a relationship into the story? Maybe it's so that when the guy almost chokes to death on the sandwich, he thinks about how much he'll miss his wife and kids.

There's no conflict between him and his family, but the family exists because it amps the conflict with the sandwich. If the family has no role in the drama at all, the family should end up on the cutting room floor.

And who says happy, functional people having to deal with sudden life situations has to be boring?

Then the point of the story is not their relationship. It is whatever external element is bedeviling them - not being able to make the mortgage for instance. Bad kids, bad job, whatever.

Elements in stories - relationships, sandwiches, cars - earn their place in the story by helping to amp the conflict and therefore the drama. If they don't contribute, they should be edited out.

 

[RJDiogenes]

It's complete nonsense. A good writer can write about many kinds of interesting relationships. Unfortunately, good writers are rare, and cheap and lurid melodrama is the bread and butter of Hollywood writing, at least in the current phase.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

And who says happy, functional people having to deal with sudden life situations has to be boring?

Sure. But either the focus of the story is the relationship, which means the conflict comes from the relationship, or the focus of the story is something else - not being able to make the mortgage, sudden alien attack or whatever - in which case, it's not a story about the relationship at all.

Alan Ball writes stories about relationships, so that's where he puts the conflict. In a Michael Bay movie, the focus might be on the alien attack, so the relationship doesn't need to carry the conflict. I wouldn't expect Alan Ball to write a story where the relationship is not central to the story - if that's not what he likes to do, so be it. We have plenty of other people to write aliens-attack stories.

This discussion is just dancing around the issue of what is the story about? It's about the conflict. It's always about the conflict. "Happily ever after" is the end of the story. If you want to extend the story beyond that, Cinderella and Prince Charming get a divorce or the aliens attack.

 

[stj]

As he mentioned more than once, happy, functional relationships are boring on TV. The best relationships on TV shows are the ones filled with drama, difficulty, and conflict with temporary moments of happiness and that the only time everyone should get happy is the end of the series.

There are no conflicts in happy, functional relationships?
That's so wacky you have to think the man has personally dealt with too many poetic/flambuoyant drug dealers. The next thing you know, he'll be telling us true love is a permanent orgasm.

This is all messed up. I think the symptom that helps us diagnose the disease is that part about how happy comes at the end of the series. Ball is thinking about a low grade form of drama where the viewers identify with one or more characters, then root for them to win, in whatever pointless conflicts are inflicted on the characters. When they get happy, they've won, then the story is over.

Drama is not conflict. Conflict is about winning. Every horse race and every boxing match is about winning and none of them are drama.

Nor is drama about huge emo scenes with people acting out in a way forbidden to the readers and audience. The more sedate version, where characters implausibly discuss their emotions and relationships and magically achieve some sort of catharsis, may not be quite as nasty but its still very high school. (And, in a serialized show, they end up doing the same scene again, anyhow!)

Drama is about choice. Relationships usually entail making choices, hence are good fodder for real drama. The so-called dramas where people are basically trying to change their feelings by talking themselves into an epiphany, instead of doing something, are second rate works, barring the occasional freakish examples where there is something actually novel in the writing. (Much rarer than inexperienced readers and viewers realize, which is why a lot of stuff is aimed at them.)

Other dramas might involve other kinds of choices, but people are not disembodied spirits but part of a web of relationships. Showing who a character is often means showing what they do in their relationships. Omitting to show these relationships in TV series because they don't have sturm und drang is bad writing. This is appalling because in a TV series it doesn't take much time to establish the basics.

 

[bigdaddy]

Well Six Feet Under is probably the best drama on TV and all it dealt with was life and relationships. Most relationships aren't happy most of the time, things happen and things change and that makes life fun and TV entertaining.

 

[RJDiogenes]

This discussion is just dancing around the issue of what is the story about? It's about the conflict. It's always about the conflict.

Again, nonsense. A story can focus on the relationship between two friends when one is dying of cancer, or the relationship between a father and daughter after the mother dies, or the bonding between an old hobo and a young runaway, or a henpecked husband and his regular prostitute-- or any of the near-infinite number of other relationships that Human Beings can find themselves in. I have no idea who Alan Ball is, but he must be just the typical lazy TV writer to voice an opinion like this. That type of forced, artificial conflict is what makes so much contemporary entertainment so boring.

 

[DarthPipes]

Very much disagree. Just put the dramatic focus on something else and let the happy, functional relationship just be an element of the show. And who says happy, functional people having to deal with sudden life situations has to be boring?

I give you Eric and Tami Taylor as Exhibit A.

I think unneccessary "drama" can be eye-rollingly boring and predictable.

Eric and Tami Taylor have the most chemistry of any television married couple. The relationship thrives without any artificial drama. They fight like married couples fight but it's not a life or death thing. They have to deal with the circumstances around them. Eric and Tami are a great example of a happy, well-functioning couple that doesn't have to be miserable to be compelling.

24 felt that constant killing characters, particularly ones that Jack Bauer loved, was the only way to create any drama. To me, that is a lazy kind of writing.

I don't mind conflict. Conflict does make some compelling television. But I don't need to watch a show that isn't about miserable people have a couple that spends five years constantly fighthing and facing challenges to their marriage. Hell, on The Simpsons they do eight shows a season on Homer trying to save his marriage and it's fucking annoying as hell every time.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I kinda separate TV relationships into 2 major categories:
A. The ones where the interesting part is the build up to the 2 characters getting together.
B. The ones where the interesting part is what happens after they get together.

Take the show Roswell for example. (I've been watching that one a lot lately, so it's been on my mind.) I think Max/Liz is a good example of Type A. While the 2 of them make a very cute couple, they're so thoroughly in love while they're together that nothing interesting ever happens. The only way to inject drama into their relationship is to add rival love interests to drive them apart, like Kyle, Tess, & Maria's cousin.

Spoiler: Roswell season 3

This is part of why Season 3 didn't work for me. By that point, Maria's cousin & Tess were no longer on the show and Kyle had moved onto pining over Isabel. With them out of the picture, the only remaining source of drama in their relationship was the outside constraints of Liz's parents forbidding them to see each other. This wasn't particularly compelling drama because it came from outside Max's & Liz's own personalities and because there seemed to be no plausible way for anyone to change Mr. Parker's opinion of Max.

A Type B romance on Roswell was, IMO, Isabel/Alex. It's standard beauty & the geek fare, but played by 2 very charismatic actors.

Spoiler: Roswell season 2

And considering nearly every teen movie with this kind of romantic pairing ends 5 minutes after they get together, I really wish this series had given us a better chance to see how these 2 together might have played out over the long term, rather than pulling the cheap shot of killing Alex 1 episode after they finally got together. (Granted, this was somewhat driven by production considerations, since Colin Hanks left the show to pursue his movie career. But still...)

Another Type B romance, and this one felt like a truly wasted opportunity by the writers, was Dr. McKay/Dr. Keller on Stargate Atlantis. What made this pairing so interesting was that Dr. McKay is usually such an arrogant prick. Most of the audience can't see what the hell it is that Dr. Keller could possibly see in this guy, but it's clear in the actress' performance that she sees it. It was an interesting pairing with interesting chemistry and I really wanted to see more of that. Unfortunately, the show got cancelled shortly after the 2 officially got together.

Spoiler: Stargate Atlantis season 5 and a little of late season 4

Still, I think that was the writers' fault. After the McKay/Keller alternate-future tease in "The Last Man," I think that they should have accelerated the development of their real timeline romance in Season 5. Instead, by the time they exchanged "I love yous" in "Brain Storm," there were only 3 episodes left before the series finale.

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[Snaploud]

Whedon has expressed the same belief. I disagree with both writers. Without the occasional strong relationship, your show comes across as depressing and unrealistic. I hate when writers destroy seemingly strong relationships just to create some meaningless drama. Writers should make an effort to balance out strong and weak relationships.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Yeah. Joss Whedon's writing & plot twists, while previously surprising & subversive, have now become his own personal cliche. For gods' sake, there's even a t-shirt that says, "Don't fall in love or Joss Whedon will kill you." Once that happens, I think it's seriously time to reevaluate your writing techniques. Perhaps, to subvert the new expectations, his next TV series should be about perpetually doomed characters who miraculously survive each episode.

 

[sidious618]

Absolutely disagree. I usually have zero patience for relationship conflicts on TV as they're so shittily done.

 

[shivkala]

Here's the thing, drama/conflict/whatever you want to call it is not necessarily a bad thing when portraying relationships, but it is often poorly done on television. Most TV couples end at the drop of the hat because the writers think it will make the show more interesting.

Take two of my favorite shows, The Big Bang Theory and The Office as examples of what not to do and what to do, respectively.

On The Big Bang Theory the "main couple," Leonard and Penny just broke up, because, well, I'm still trying to figure that out (might be because I think I share a lot in common with Leonard, but that's besides the point). Throughout the season, before this happened, I thought they did a good job covering the ups and downs of the relationship. One of my favorite episodes of the season was when Penny wanted to learn physics from Sheldon to appear smarter to Leonard. That's conflict/drama right there, but it worked well, and showed how the couple could work, after seeing her struggle to address a perceived problem in the relationship. Then there was the Christmas episode with Leonard's mother, which also dealt with conflict in the relationship (namely his mother and Leonard's feelings that she wouldn't approve of Penny). All of this development is thrown away so we can get back to the "Will They/Won't They" cliche, which they played upon in the finale. And it's usually a forgone conclusion that they will again, until the writers find a way for them to break up again...

Contrast that with Jim and Pam on The Office, where, after three years, they finally got together at the start of season four. And they've faced conflict since, especially near the beginning of this season, when Pam's mother was sleeping with Michael. The conflict was played well and was more interesting to me because they moved past it. Several times this season there have been small differences of opinion between Pam and Jim, but the writers clearly are intent on keeping them together. The drama here comes from seeing two characters in love deal with problems and stay committed to each other.

While the "Will They/Won't They" cliche is pretty old, I do wonder what it says about our society. At somepoint the writers started looking around and realized that with the high divorce rate, there are probably fewer June and Ward Cleaver's than there are Al and Peggy Bundy's or, for the single set, Ross and Rachel's.

Personally, I enjoy watching a couple that deals with problems, but stays together, than one that is constantly going through the cycle of love/hate/friendship/love/hate/friendship, ad nauseum.