What Makes Great TV/Movies?
You ever wonder what makes a show great?
I watch TV/Movies and one of the motivations to keep watching more is to find great shows.
At the same time, I did not know what made one show better than another. Why did one hit me and another flop for me?
Examples of shows I swear by:
- Six Feet Under
- Silicon Valley (HBO)
- The Good Place
- Breaking Bad
- Better Caul Saul
- Mad Men
- The LEGO Movie
- Terminator 2
- AKIRA
- The Matrix
- Aliens
- Oblivion
- Community
- Severance
- True Detectives (Season one)
- Game of Thrones (First half)
- Westworld (Season one)
The common element? I had no idea, until now.
The key is understanding Dan Karmon’s Story Circle. which is basically:
- You A character in their zone of comfort
- Need wants something
- Go! so they enter an unfamiliar situation
- Struggle to which they have to adapt
- Find in order to get what they want
- Suffer yet they have to make a sacrifice
- Return before they return to their familiar situation
- Change having changed fundamentally source
The motivation for characters are because they are uncomfortable with their current situation and want to change it.
Because of that, the story exists. It’s a journey of the characters finding comfort.
Sounds like real life, right?!
On the contrary, when a show doesn’t have character discomfort, I find it less engaging, less relatable.
Why?
Because the characters of the story are just decorations and some bigger force is driving the story. When good things just “happen” to the main characters, that just bores me to tears - there’s no journey!
Now when I watch a show, I’m more analytical - I dig into what the characters’ discomforts are, how are they resolved, what did the character do to get that resolution?!
This saves me so much time from watching bad TV/movies, makes me appreciate the great TV/movies out there, and at the same time, scared of new TV/movies not as good as the great stuff.