I seem to remember a quote from Joss Whedon about the structure of Buffy. Paraphrasing here, but the jist was that Buffy was a show which required the full attention of its audience. Almost everything about the show (from narrative developments within and across seasons to character interplay and even the throwaway one-liners) practically demands a thorough knowledge of the Buffyverse. You basically have to live with these people everyday as if they were your best friends in order to take full advantage of what the program offers.
Contrast this with your example of TNG. There is character development of a sort, but the Star Trek crew are more archetypes than they are people. There's not a whole lot going on under the surface. Primarily they are there as setup to "incident of the week". You can tune in, immediately know where you stand and get taken on a sci-fi ride for forty-five minutes or so without having to worry about where you are chronologically and what has happened between and around everybody to get you there. Buffy won't let you do that.
I've been thinking about this very topic recently because I'm watching Lost, which is a program that makes even the audience investment required by Buffy look small. Lost is a very complex show that demands a lot of investment in both character and plotting. Whereas TNG is primarily about incident (with fairly static character archetypes) and Buffy is a show primarliy about character (with plot almost totally in its service), Lost is primarily about both.
(No plot spoilers here, but I'll be discussing its structure)
It has a huge cast of characters that are not only interacting with one another, but also come with their own drip-fed histories. Sometimes you're not getting the payoff to character beats until weeks, months or even a season after they're set up. Buffy did this too, but the cast of Buffy was small and self-contained enough to be easily trackable. With Lost, the sheer amount of ground to be covered means that some characters won't even make an appearence for a couple of weeks, requiring the viewer to constantly juggle with who is where and who's side of the story we may not have seen yet.
Then there's the actual plot, where the viewer is expected to play detective from week to week. Trawling memory of not only character but incident in order to make sense of whatever tantalising new titbits the writers have thrown in. A Buffy season has a pretty traditional Setup/Development/Payoff structure. From what I can tell, Lost doesn't have that. It just keeps piling up the layers of complexity. It doesn't give a lot of answers, but its questions working together build up a credible continuity that is equal parts satisfying and tantalising. In this show, plot and character often feel like very seperate (yet symbiotic) things.
I think that the box-set trend is a knock-on effect of shows being structured into extended narratives. I think the reason they are built like this is thanks in no small part to the effect the internet has had, providing a constant "water-cooler" environment for viewers.
It is a whole lot easier to keep track of and dissect these shows nowadays. Lost knows this. From messageboards run by Lost staff to several dummy websites, it's not just a TV show, it's a multimedia one. It can be appreciated solely on the box, but to get the full effect you have to go online, which throws up an intriguing problem about the way the show is broadcast.
If you're watching Lost in the UK, the internet is a no-go. The very structure of the show becomes a double-edged sword. On one hand, it begs to be inspected and discussed. But because of this, it's also very easily spoilered. To get the full experience, you have to be catching it at the same time everybody else is. So unless you're in America, bittorrent is the only way to fully appreciate it. If future TV drama follows the example set by Lost (and judging by its popularity, that's a likelihood) then somebody is going to have to come up with a new distribution model or they risk losing quite a bit of money.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned this increased complexity is only a good thing so far. The power of character is in emotional empathy and these longer, deeper, more convoluted narratives (as long as they are well-written) make that empathic link more likely. It just makes adverts about ten times as irritating is all. |
