How to
Kill a Serial Killer Series
A television
audience desires certain events in a television series, but sometimes they
shouldn’t get what they want. Take How I Met your Mother, as much as I want
Ted to find the love of his life, I watch because he keeps failing. Certain elephants must remain in the
room.
The
downfall of the series Dexter came
when Dexter was exposed to his sister. Although
an exciting moment, and a season-finally cliffhanger, Dexter being exposed to
Debra killed the elephant. The need for
Dexter’s secret to be kept from Debra was the driving force of the show. The threat of Dexter getting caught kept the
audience on edge. By the time Debra starts
to accept Dexter’s “urges,” the audience no longer fears exposure.
An
important part of a show with a bad guy mascaraing as a good guy, is the audience
having an internal battle of morality.
The audience must be tortured by the hope that Dexter is partially
good. I think for this to exist, at
least one character must truly believe he is.
If the audience is not reminded of what a good guy is, they won’t care.
Watching Dexter, the audience had to wrestle with
the blurry line between good and bad, and that separates good acts from bad
ones. The show used voice-overs,
flashbacks, and camera angels to build tension.
Dutch angles were frequently used to reflect confusion or danger, but
the most important part of the series was building that tension. Prior to Dexter’s exposure to his sister he
held his secrete as the priority, as did the audience, but not by the end of
the show.
Once
Dexter’s secrete was exposed to Debra the elephant was killed.
~Jackie
No comments:
Post a Comment