The Netflix show, House of Cards, in the first few minutes of the first episode, Kevin Spacey stumbles on a hit-and-run and there’s a badly injured dog. He puts it out of its misery.
According to Netflix who wanted it removed, it led to a major drop off of people dropping off the show. But to the showrunner, that’s the point.
Now, people drop off that show when Kevin Spacey appears so whatever.
Its the idea that not every character should be likeable and not all media should be without friction.
I… generally think stuff like that in the first few episodes is really stupid. Mostly it just turns things into misery porn and is a great way to alienate your audience. I think a much better approach is to lure the audience in so that they don’t quite realize when Walter/Saul/Kim became truly irredeemable monsters… even if that tends to lead to people never realizing it.
And I think it is extra disingenuous to pretend that House of Cards was some daring show that bucked all the norms. It wasn’t HBO levels of sexposition but they definitely were playiing up the “you can’t watch this on network TV” from the first episode.
Print, not TV, but one of my favorite authors is Harry Connolly and his Twenty Palaces series had a pretty infamous chapter that was all one long run on sentence (I forget how many pages but I want to say 5-10?). You don’t necessarily realize it in the moment but it is a hard read that is mentally tiring and it perfectly suits the contents of the chapter. Apparently basically every single beta reader hated it and he has alluded to it being why his Agent and Publisher dropped him and… I probably would too. I loved it but it very much hurt the overall pacing of the book to a large degree.
But that was also 3 or 4 books in. Not the first chapter of the first book (which was a child burning to death horribly… Yup. Connolly definitely got a hold of some incriminating photos or something).
The Netflix show, House of Cards, in the first few minutes of the first episode, Kevin Spacey stumbles on a hit-and-run and there’s a badly injured dog. He puts it out of its misery.
According to Netflix who wanted it removed, it led to a major drop off of people dropping off the show. But to the showrunner, that’s the point.
Now, people drop off that show when Kevin Spacey appears so whatever.
Uhh… what? So more people kept watching?
Yeah. That first season was really good! And Kate Mara!
Why the point?
My guess is that if you didn’t like the dog scene, you wouldn’t like the rest of the show. The tone is the same.
Nailed it. Kevin Spacey, in the show, does whatever he needs to get what he wants. Just like in real life.
Its the idea that not every character should be likeable and not all media should be without friction.
I… generally think stuff like that in the first few episodes is really stupid. Mostly it just turns things into misery porn and is a great way to alienate your audience. I think a much better approach is to lure the audience in so that they don’t quite realize when Walter/Saul/Kim became truly irredeemable monsters… even if that tends to lead to people never realizing it.
And I think it is extra disingenuous to pretend that House of Cards was some daring show that bucked all the norms. It wasn’t HBO levels of sexposition but they definitely were playiing up the “you can’t watch this on network TV” from the first episode.
Print, not TV, but one of my favorite authors is Harry Connolly and his Twenty Palaces series had a pretty infamous chapter that was all one long run on sentence (I forget how many pages but I want to say 5-10?). You don’t necessarily realize it in the moment but it is a hard read that is mentally tiring and it perfectly suits the contents of the chapter. Apparently basically every single beta reader hated it and he has alluded to it being why his Agent and Publisher dropped him and… I probably would too. I loved it but it very much hurt the overall pacing of the book to a large degree.
But that was also 3 or 4 books in. Not the first chapter of the first book (which was a child burning to death horribly… Yup. Connolly definitely got a hold of some incriminating photos or something).
It’s amazing Black Mirror ever got off the ground then…