So I really haven't seen too many movies in the past few weeks...make that months, but what I have done is watch a lot of television. A lot. One of my favorite shows recently has been New Girl, the Elizabeth Merriweather written, Zooey Deschanel produced, single cam sitcom I've become completely obsessed with. Now I know a lot of people have written it off based solely on the fact that they absolutely can't stand Zooey and honestly if that was your rationale then you're missing out on some quality television. I honestly can't think of another actress who is so closely associated with their persona that people actually believe that they are exactly the same in their day to day lives as they are on-screen.
New Girl follows Jess (Zooey Deschanel), a bubbly (oftentimes to an annoying extent) schoolteacher and her roommates Nick, Schmidt, Winston, Coach, and her best friend Cece. There are your normal cliche sitcom romances and "will they, won't they scenarios" but the thing I think is the most fascinating about the writer's approach to the project is that she doesn't drag out those kinds of situations just so she can play the audience and possibly get higher ratings. I watched an interview she participated in once with the cast and crew at the Paley Center for Media and Elizabeth said she believed in keeping character interactions organic and having relationships progress at a realistic pace. If she felt that a couple would have slept together by a certain point then she writes that in and doesn't try to extend the tension just for the sake of extending the tension. In our modern era of reality TV and multi-cam, major network sitcoms an idea like that is almost unheard of. The main example I can think of where writers overextended a "will they, won't they" scenario was with Ross and Rachel in Friends but that's just one of MANY television shows that have done the same exact thing. Elizabeth makes the show more believable by developing character stories at a fairly brisk pace and I think many writers should take a hint based on the success of the show and maybe try it out for themselves. We might have higher quality shows with higher ratings if they do.
I've always been interested in things like this.
ReplyDeleteI've always hated that shows can pull the "To Be Continued" card (or the "Will They, Wont They" thing) whenever they want to stretch ratings and viewership. I feel like it's masking the fact that they (the writers) don't have enough material to write full shows or hit their episode orders. It would be so much better if shows could be written more organically, like on Netflix (WAY LESS CHANNEL/STUDIO CONTROL). Good catch!
I recently just started watching this show and I quickly fell in love with it! I too am very critical of "comedies" everyone thinks is funny or "romance" everyone aws about because I tend to hate what everyone else likes and thinks is good television. However, after this show was recommended to me a few times I decided to cave in and watch it. I quickly became obsessed with the show because of how original and different it was with certain jokes but also because of Zoeeys character. I can definitely tell she is the same person outside of set and i truly believe that the producers who chose to hire her saw this factor as a positive.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting point about the 'will they won't they,' I questioned it in a blog as well. I think your point is valid and I have watched the show a few times and it does seem to move along well.
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