I hope Discovery places "plot" first, avoids melodrama
- Thread starter INACTIVEUSS Einstein
- Start date
I guess that to me, the main difference is that the term "melodrama" very strongly implies "tearjerker." I don't get that sense a lot from Trek.
Kor
I gave examples from TOS upthread. The interrupted wedding in "Balance of Terror," Edith in "The City on the Edge of Forever." TOS is chock-full of this sort of melodrama, actually. More examples:
"The Paradise Syndrome"
Ruth in "Shore Leave"
"Who Mourns for Adonais?"
what happens to Charlie in "Charlie X"
"Court Martial"
"Metamorphosis"
"All Our Yesterdays"
That's just some low-hanging fruit.
After "is," the next problem is what "Star Trek" is?
There's a spectrum of melodrama as I've indicated earlier. The examples you list are all on the light side of melodrama. Look at a soap opera for examples of heavier melodrama. TOS is nothing like that.
The main problem I've seen with what little soap opera television I've watched is that the dialogue is almost entirely expository. Ironically, the problem with that is that it's actually plot-driven. "You did this to me" "Remember when this happened?" Most of what the characters referenced were events that happened in the past, that the viewer needs to know to understand the plot of the current episode.
Good character-based drama, whether there's plot or not, is about how characters react to that information, and how it drives them to act in the present, not what happens in the past, the future, or in a different location. That's why actors often talk about being "present" when performing.
That said, the form could be used well, as in the Norman Lear dark satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
Good character-based drama, whether there's plot or not, is about how characters react to that information, and how it drives them to act in the present, not what happens in the past, the future, or in a different location. That's why actors often talk about being "present" when performing.
That said, the form could be used well, as in the Norman Lear dark satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
Eh? One of the best episodes of TOS is also one of the soapiest: "Journey to Babel." Two major subplots are constructed straight out of standard soap opera building blocks: the heart operation and the father-son rift. The way they mesh with each other is also pure soap opera. Now, I'll admit that it's been several decades since I've seen any soaps, but the infiltration intrigue subplot isn't exactly that different from the soap playbook either, as I recall what General Hospital was like in the 1980s. It's all melodramatic. TOS was nothing like the heavier melodrama of soap operas? Literally nothing? I have to disagree, there.
TOS might have melodramatic elements at points. But, soaps are melodramas. Big difference. Journey to Babel has very little in common with a soap opera! Yeah, it's got some family drama, but that doesn't make it a soap.
Nice goal post shift. You went from "TOS is nothing like [a soap]" to "that doesn't make [TOS] a soap." I never said that TOS was equivalent to a soap opera. What I said was that it had soapy episodes at least one of which was constructed from building blocks in common with soap operas and that it therefore had something in common with soap operas. But little?
No, in the case of JtB a lot. But that doesn't reduce the episode to one equivalent to a soap opera. I never asserted such an absurd claim. The list of differences between TOS and soaps is quite long, of course.No shift. I've always said it's a matter of degree in this very thread. But, nice red herring there!Nice goal post shift. You went from "TOS is nothing like [a soap]" to "that doesn't make [TOS] a soap." I never said that TOS was equivalent to a soap opera. What I said was that it had soapy episodes at least one of which was constructed from building blocks in common with soap operas and that it therefore had something in common with soap operas. But little?
TOS isn't soapy. It has melodramatic elements but isn't a melodrama. It's a matter of degree.
Then, let's define terms. What are the elements that make a show a soap opera-style melodrama? When does a show cross that line?
If it's based on some subjective judgment, then the goalposts don't even exist to be moved.
If it's based on some subjective judgment, then the goalposts don't even exist to be moved.
Ditto.