Elinor Whitney reading. (I don't know either)
We rewatch TV shows on occasion. They make a good nightcap, entertainment while cooking or cleaning, even a dinner accompaniment when we've been together all day long for months.
We never watch a drama a second time. See it once and it's history in our house.
Why? We puzzled it out on a walk today.
Dramas are almost completely dependent on their ending. So if you know the ending, there are few pleasures along the way.
Comedies put greater effort into their dialog. I can remember almost no dialog from any TV drama I've ever seen. But comedies often have several good lines on each show. Lines you can repeat years later.
Comedies often have set pieces that are memorable. Think of Frasier with all the screwball episodes. Think of Seinfeld with all its routines. I can still remember episodes of Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, Cheers, Mash, Taxi? Wouldn't you watch the episode of Taxi where Jim takes his driving test if it were on right now?
What episode of a drama holds the same place in your heart?
When I watch a show for the first time, I am just as likely to choose a drama as a comedy. But it will never get rerun in this house. I remember it too well and only for its conclusion. Does this make sense? Do you watch any dramas for a second time? Is the writing less sharp? Is all pleasure dependent on its ending? What do you think? Maybe it's not you, it's me?
21 comments:
Yes, some dramas have that effect on me. If it's good then I'll get the DVD.
Good drama, to me, is like a good book. Sometimes you come across bits that are fresh and I think - I don't remember that bit or that scene makes sense now.
But then I'm not that good when it comes to comedy - it seems a lot of them rely on a catchphrase and the real anticipation comes with waiting for 'that line'.
Ray
Whether or not they qualify as "dramas," what had once been the perpetual reruns of Perry Mason were must watch TV (over and over again). Similarly, David Suchet at Hercule Poirot, and Jeremy Brett (if I have the name right) as Sherlock Holmes are also repeatable, rewatchable, and worth every minute. Those, however, may not measure up as what you are calling drama.
No, they're dramas but once you know the murderer don't they lose a lot. Isn't the ending the all important moment? Maybe not.
CORRECTED POSTING: To turn a phrase inside out, it is a case of the means justifying the ends. The ends (i.e., the surprise solution) is not as important as the means (i.e., the sleuth's investigation or Perry Mason's machinations and cross-examinations); the nuances and oddities of the means becomes part of the fascination (at least for me). Think of it this way: In Oedipus the King, for example, you know who killed the father and married the mother (because everyone in the audience also knew it in advance since it was a well known myth), but the interest comes with seeing how Oedipus negotiates his problems; likewise, in Hamlet, everyone in the audience (and Hamlet, too) knows very soon who killed Hamlet's father, so the rest of the drama is dedicated to watching Hamlet figure out what to do next. In some ways, dramas like Perry Mason, Poirot, and Holmes have the same kind of intricacies through their plots and characters, and--for some perverse reasons--I rather enjoy enjoying them more than several times.
Great acting can trump knowing how the drama is going to end. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN or DIRTY HARRY or DIE HARD can hold my attention even though I've seen them numerous times. People know how HAMLET and KING LEAR are going to end, but they still watch them, Patti. Ezra Pound said that Art is news that never gets old. Whether it's comedy or drama, if it's artistic enough, it's watchable.
I guess I'm not talking about movies here, but one-hour TV dramas. Where the ending is everything. Or at least in the crime dramas I watch. Also the insistence on a long arc makes reruns unpalatable.
There's only two shows that I will watch over and over despite having seen the episode recently. These are the original Star Trek and Frazier. One a drama, one a sitcom.
I watch more comedies over than dramas but this is fully and completely a product of living with Lana, who loves comedy. Except for Frazier, I'd probably never watch a comedy over again after seeing it. I do watch movies over again, but only dramatic movies, like spaghetti westerns or SF/fantasy stuff. But I know I'm quite different from most people where humor is concerned. In fact, I've used the same argument against comedies as you've used here against dramas. I know where the jokes are the second time.
Even with one hour drmas it's not about the final destination but in the getting there.
Like 'Columbo' we know who done it - but it's the way that he puts everything together.
But once you've seen it once, the dialogue, the characterizations are not strong enough to view a second time IMHO. Columbo is always Columbo; Monk is always Monk. The setup is usually formulaic and the Law & Order franchise has nothing but procedure to offer. Again, it's just personal preference. Once is enough for me. There is never snappy dialog to carry the day. Compare the writing to that on Frasier, for instance. Or the situations to those on THE OFFICE, which is always inventive and based on what people are really like.
Nope it's not just you Patti. i have to wait years before i can watch some entertaining dramas again.
I think that dramas that are about the reveal often are hard to watch a second time, but ones that are about the interactions and how situations are dealt with hold up. I've re watched a lot of Homicide, The Wire, St. Elsewhere, and a few others that hold up well on repeat viewings, mostly because the show runners were pushing the boundaries of drama on TV. I think often times those shows are like good books they hold up well to repeat viewings.
I'm generally with you, with one extra reason comedies can be re-watched: they're fun. The heavier the drama, the harder it is to watch again, in part because--as you noted--the resolution is so key, even when it's not a mystery story.
A few shows transcend this. I'm currently near the end of re-watching all of The Wire and enjoying it almost as much, but in different ways.
Yes, a whole series like THE WIRE can be watched again with great pleasure. But any single episode, to me, is unsatisfactory because of the arc.
Very strange, Patti. The best non-comedic dramatic hours on tv are indeed well-written, with good dialog and don't depend on their endings...hell, even the procedurals aren't so much dependent on their endings as upon how those endings are achieved (I can watch CSI episodes twice, albeit some of the fun is gone.) Meanwhile, something like COLUMBO is too fornulaic, but a good episode is fun to watch more than once just because of the details it provides, the little flourishes (certainly the second, 1990s series of COLUMBO failed on that account, for the most part). Dramatic hours with memorable dialog include ONCE AND AGAIN (and RELATIVITY), HOMICIDE (and THE CORNER and THE WIRE), SECRET AGENT/DANGER MAN (and THE PRISONER), the arguably mostly comic RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY and GILMORE GIRLS, the frequently comic BUFFY and DEXTER (and much of ANGEL), and so on. I think you might watch too much of THE CLOSER. The interplay of HOMICIDE's interrogation sequences, to cite an obvious example, is as well-worked out as the better high-farcical situations on FRASIER (much appreciated by me, as well, though FRASIER's setpieces, particularly in the middle of the series, could sag).
When I watch something a second time, I am usually doing something like scrubbing a floor so the plot has to be dependent on half-attention. I think that may be my problem. I would never sit down without a book or a scrub brush and just watch a TV show for the second time. Movie, yes. TV, no
I'm not sure that cinematic releases deserve the favored treatment (in fact am quite sure they don't). Though television is Usually more dialog-laden than cinema, if not quite as much as stage drama.
(Hence stage drama works better in radio/audiobook form than listening to tv shows and movies on Hulu does, at least usually. Certainly the magnificent stagings that Caedmon had of some of the major plays ((not all Caedmons were first rate, but many were)), Spoken Arts's handful of THE ZOO STORY and the like, and Argo's and others' Shakespeare recordings help make that case.)
(Also, Pacifica's occasional ACT 1 RADIO THEATERs tend to be stage rather than radio plays, and similarly usually work fine in a radio format...)
Word verfication: Comelic
While I haven't seen any episodes of Homicide Life on the Street for several years, I know I will be able to watch them whenever they return to my cable channels. Recently I've been watching reruns of Northern Exposure, which might be my favourite all-time show. Another drama that I watch when it's back on the air is the CBC series North of 60.
Northern Exposure falls between a drama and sitcom for me and it is the kind of show where every episode had its own storyline. Loved it.
I never cared for the TV sitcoms, but most dramas have a calling for me to watch over, sometimes often.
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