Plots that Go Askew

[Lord Seth]

But the season 2 finale and the season 3 opener were the best episodes of the show.

I don't think those episodes come close to episodes like "Duet" or "In the Pale Moonlight."

Another difficulty with planning out full show archs from the very beginning is that you have no way of knowing how long your show will last. Let's say you have a 4 season arch, the show is largely ruined if it's canceled any time before the end of the 4th season or if it's pushed longer than those 4 seasons.

This is why you should be flexible. By all means have your full show arc planned out, but make sure you can adjust it if necessary if your series doesn't last that long. And for the love of all things, don't end your season on a cliffhanger if there's a reasonable chance you won't be getting another one.

[hamishspence]

I kinda liked DS9's "Trials & Tribble-ations"

[nyarlathotep]

And that's why big budget art is bad. If you have something to say or a story to tell, chose a medium that doesn't require hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On the other hand small budget productions that are working in a big budget environment are just as bad.

"Why is this anime using shot-reverse-shot in inverse more than Lucas uses it normally?"

"So they don't have to animate the mouths."

[Yora]

I don't think those episodes come close to episodes like "Duet" or "In the Pale Moonlight."

Those are also extremely well. I think my love for The Jem'Hadar is because it comes completely unexpected. But these ones you mentioned are also very important parts of the main story line.

Something I noticed recently, that shows and games really get me invested when they build up a complex world with a variety of details that allow for episodes and moments in which just a few sentences can make everything in your mind fall into place and you realize all the complex implications just from drawing from your knowledge of the world. Which you only get when you have a solid main storyline. In the Pale Moonlight is a stand alone episode, but it only really works because you already have a huge amount of background information about the involved parties. Just knowing "the Romulans are important for the war" and "Garak lies" doesn't work as it does when you have all the backstory on them. Star Trek has the advantage of being able to look back at 15 seasons of Lore when that episode was made. If you only have 4 like Babylon 5, you need to put a lot more work into it.

[Avilan the Grey]

Speaking of Plot Arcs. First of all, if you are going to have a serious overarching plot, please make a Mini Series instead of a "X seasons" where "X" is dependent on rating.
You can still have a semi-overarching plot, but you will have to have it run in the background AND you will have to be prepared to REPLACE it with a new one after it has properly run it's course. Do not do a Prison Break.

Also, for the love of Glod, if you have planned a 3 season plot and you get cancelled early season 2, just run full speed into the wall. A sharp cut off mid plot is far better than trying to rewrite 1.8 seasons (what is that? About 40 episodes?) of plot into 2 episodes.

[Lord Seth]

Also, for the love of Glod, if you have planned a 3 season plot and you get cancelled early season 2, just run full speed into the wall. A sharp cut off mid plot is far better than trying to rewrite 1.8 seasons (what is that? About 40 episodes?) of plot into 2 episodes.

I disagree. A rushed ending is still going to be preferable to not having any real ending at all. I can make a bit of an exception for anime strongly based on manga as you can just read the manga to see how it continued, but in other cases an actual conclusion is better than just...stopping.

[Gamer Girl]

Have any other sci-fi series tried out the Babylon 5 "plan out the story from the start" model? If not, I wonder why . . .

One of the big problems is how TV shows are made. Someone comes up with the basic show idea: the pilot episode. But then, when the show gets picked up as a regular series, they go to the grab bad of random writers. You can see this on every show. Some episodes just 'don't make sense' or a just 'odd' or it's just down right 'silly'.

Some shows, like B5 and DS9 have people on and part of the show that are doing the writing. However, most shows do the grab bag. There are hundreds of writers out there, and they just pick a couple to write the episodes. but, of course, with picking at random, you get random quality. Not ever writer is equal. It's easy to find this type of episode for a sci-fi show, as the writer won't understand the plot or tech of the show, or worse won't care. And they often have 'that one odd event' in the whole history of the show.

And just to make things worse, much of TV Production land hates sci-fi. Even today, sci-fi is seen as 'the dumb stuff and weirdos and kids like'. So when a writer is 'forced' to do a sci-fi episode, you can tell by the horrible episode. The writer just tossed some things together with that attitude: "Whatever! Sure! You want a dumb sci-fi episode? Sure! Waste my time! scribble..scribble..There aliens and ray guns and crap! "

Though some of the grab bag writers are good, of course.

[Velaryon]

I disagree. A rushed ending is still going to be preferable to not having any real ending at all. I can make a bit of an exception for anime strongly based on manga as you can just read the manga to see how it continued, but in other cases an actual conclusion is better than just...stopping.

I don't agree, and I will point to Dollhouse as an example of why. Joss Whedon said he had five seasons' worth of plot arcs planned out (which he really should have known better since he was working with Fox), and when he found out midway through season 2 that he wasn't getting a season 3, he tried to cram all of it into the last half dozen episodes. The result was a train wreck of nonsensical plot twists that came out of nowhere because there was no time to properly set them up. It would have been better to just finish out the season and leave all of that for comics or hope for a movie or something.

[TheFallenOne]

If they had simply said something like, “I like it despite it’s flaws.” It wouldn’t bother me so much. But apparently I'm insulting them personally for not liking their favorite show, or noticing the (gaping) plot holes.

Perhaps they wouldn't have felt insulted if you didn't go with 'criticism' like this.

I started to think I was the the only one in the world to see through all their crap at the core of both of these TV shows and see just how poor the show actually are.

I liked BSG and Lost, the characters, plot, mystery... Sadly they didn't have a plan from the start and wrote themselves in a corner unable to answer all questions, but it was still a fun ride.
We can discuss plot holes and flaws. But you're not doing that. You're saying "This show is crap and you just fail to see it"(and when you say it like that people will see it to imply the reason for the supposed blindness is lacking intelligence).

Perhaps people felt insulted because you did insult them.

[Lord Seth]

One of the big problems is how TV shows are made. Someone comes up with the basic show idea: the pilot episode. But then, when the show gets picked up as a regular series, they go to the grab bad of random writers. You can see this on every show. Some episodes just 'don't make sense' or a just 'odd' or it's just down right 'silly'.

Which can be just as common, if not more common, with the showrunners. Seriously, some of the goofiest episodes of Voyager and Enterprise were penned by their creator(s) (see: Threshold or A Night in Sickbay), and the two episodes usually considered the worst of DS9--"Let He Who Is Without Sin..." and "Profit and Lace"--were both written by the showrunners.

Some shows, like B5 and DS9 have people on and part of the show that are doing the writing. However, most shows do the grab bag. There are hundreds of writers out there, and they just pick a couple to write the episodes. but, of course, with picking at random, you get random quality.

Not from what I see. From what I can tell, most shows do have a regular team of staff writers who meet, think up ideas, and then go and write them. Now, it is my understanding that the Writers Guild requires shows to have like three episodes per season written by an outside author (main reason, presumably, is to give people an opportunity to break in), but it's not really that "random": People pitch ideas and/or send in sample scripts and then the ones that look the best get picked. Of course, it also bears mentioning that the scripts can be rewritten afterwards by the regular staff writers if they don't turn out that good...

I don't agree, and I will point to Dollhouse as an example of why. Joss Whedon said he had five seasons' worth of plot arcs planned out (which he really should have known better since he was working with Fox),

I'm tired of this "should have known better since he was working with Fox" kind of comments. The situation would've been the same with any of the other networks. Quite frankly, Fox may have been more generous to the series than other networks would have been.

and when he found out midway through season 2 that he wasn't getting a season 3, he tried to cram all of it into the last half dozen episodes. The result was a train wreck of nonsensical plot twists that came out of nowhere because there was no time to properly set them up. It would have been better to just finish out the season and leave all of that for comics or hope for a movie or something.

Still better to get a real conclusion if you ask me. Though I've heard from a number of people that the fact they sped up so much in the final episodes made the show a heck of a lot better.

[Avilan the Grey]

I disagree. A rushed ending is still going to be preferable to not having any real ending at all

It's a matter of degree. If you lose 3 seasons? Just stop it. If you are cut short 5 episodes from the end? Try to write it out.

Edit: As for Wedon and Fox... It has more to do with the fact that he isn't as popular as he, or his fans, thinks he is. Buffy was the exception. Most people just didn't think Dollhouse or Firefly all that interesting.

[Mordar]

I disagree. A rushed ending is still going to be preferable to not having any real ending at all. I can make a bit of an exception for anime strongly based on manga as you can just read the manga to see how it continued, but in other cases an actual conclusion is better than just...stopping.

I don't agree, and I will point to Dollhouse as an example of why. Joss Whedon said he had five seasons' worth of plot arcs planned out (which he really should have known better since he was working with Fox), and when he found out midway through season 2 that he wasn't getting a season 3, he tried to cram all of it into the last half dozen episodes. The result was a train wreck of nonsensical plot twists that came out of nowhere because there was no time to properly set them up. It would have been better to just finish out the season and leave all of that for comics or hope for a movie or something.

Still better to get a real conclusion if you ask me. Though I've heard from a number of people that the fact they sped up so much in the final episodes made the show a heck of a lot better.

For what it's worth, I believe that in this era of multi-multi-media, Mr. Wheadon should certainly have known better than to cram the closure into an abridged second season. Though I generally am opposed to related materials marketing (buy the comic to go along with the TV series spawned from a movie that was based on a book...all of which are contemporaneously available), I do think that a series of books ala Star Trek would be a nice fit, and he's got the resources/clout to make at least a few happen. Not big "novels" of the 450+ page variety, but the nice episodic neo-pulp that you can consume in a quiet weekend.

The final episodes could have provided a cliffhanger with a little immediate closure while setting up the alternative media run, leaving the opportunity for a re-launch on TV later instead of scuttling the whole shebang by rushing to the finish.

- M

[Gamer Girl]

Which can be just as common, if not more common, with the showrunners. Seriously, some of the goofiest episodes of Voyager and Enterprise were penned by their creator(s) (see: Threshold or A Night in Sickbay), and the two episodes usually considered the worst of DS9--"Let He Who Is Without Sin..." and "Profit and Lace"--were both written by the showrunners.

I'm not saying that showrunners or staff writers are always better or anything. Brandon Braaga has written more bad Star Trek episodes then anyone else and he is part of the in crowd.

Not from what I see. From what I can tell, most shows do have a regular team of staff writers who meet, think up ideas, and then go and write them. Now, it is my understanding that the Writers Guild requires shows to have like three episodes per season written by an outside author (main reason, presumably, is to give people an opportunity to break in), but it's not really that "random": People pitch ideas and/or send in sample scripts and then the ones that look the best get picked. Of course, it also bears mentioning that the scripts can be rewritten afterwards by the regular staff writers if they don't turn out that good...

Every network and show does it a bit differently, of course. And wrting and Tv shows is a lot of politics. And it's not that an ''outsider'' writer can't write a good show. And think of how 'sounds good' and 'reality' are....I'm sure most of the horrible episodes 'sounded great' in the writing room, but when they were written out: Yikes!


I guess my point might be that a good show as a good, strong production team that cares about the show. And most important is the Top Dog that can over see everything and step in to change things. So if writer Joe put something down they can say, nope, wait, change that. You can tell when this does not happen, just look at half of the Star Trek shows.

[Gnoman]

Also keep in mind that shows that aren't Star Trek have a much bigger problem with outside writers. Some of the best Star Trek episodes were written by authors who are prolific in the licensed novels and other EU material. Though non-canon, that means that they are much more "in tune" with the universe than a "cold" writer would be. Shows like Dollhouse or Lost don't have a large-scale expanded universe, so they lack this advantage.

[bloodtide]

Which can be just as common, if not more common, with the showrunners. Seriously, some of the goofiest episodes of Voyager and Enterprise were penned by their creator(s) (see: Threshold or A Night in Sickbay), and the two episodes usually considered the worst of DS9--"Let He Who Is Without Sin..." and "Profit and Lace"--were both written by the showrunners.

This is so true. Almost all of the worst Star Trek episodes were written by people that were part of the show. Take ''Threshold'':Paris and Janeway go past warp 10 and turn into lizards and mate? How in the world did that ever gt made? You'd think someone could say ''oh my god that is the worst idea ever!''.

Not from what I see. From what I can tell, most shows do have a regular team of staff writers who meet, think up ideas, and then go and write them. Now, it is my understanding that the Writers Guild requires shows to have like three episodes per season written by an outside author (main reason, presumably, is to give people an opportunity to break in), but it's not really that "random": People pitch ideas and/or send in sample scripts and then the ones that look the best get picked.

It can get more complex. For example, the shows writers meet and agree on a bunch of story arcs, plots and such. The basic problem is though that the staff writers only have enough time to do about half of the shows season. So the other half of the shows need to be done by the guest writers, right out of that grab bag. And if the person is a bad writer, it does not even matter if you give them a perfect, golden idea, as they will ruin it.

It's easy to spot 'outside' episodes. And Star Trek gives some very bad examples. Remember the 'warp 5 speed limit' from force of nature: outside writer. When the Enterprise gets transformed into a old temple by a probe: outside writer.

But as said even the staff writers put out some bad stuff: Most of the Next Generation from season five and up is full of bad episodes. As is most of Voyager. Voyager is the odd one as the outside writers are far, far better then the staff writers.