On Consequences
Being a bit frazzled from a long day I just wanted to chill for a bit so I turned to the streaming services to catch up on some shows. Starting with Andor, season 2.
Right from the outset it is clear from our recall of the previous season and the quality of the story-telling what is going on and what is at stake. If Cassian can’t get that stolen fighter out of the hangar then bad things will happen. Over the episode we follow four separate story lines but we understand the motivations and purposes of everyone involved.
Even though we are in a Science Fiction setting (in a galaxy a long way away and a long time ago remember) we clearly understand how everything works and what the limitations are. Especially since we don’t have any of that silly Jedi stuff here, what we have is ordinary people with all their strengths and faults. They are ambitious, motivated, selfish, worried, scared, heroic or sometimes just a bit stupid.
And the technology is understood, it might be advanced but we still know that if you want to travel somewhere then you have to get in a vehicle or spaceship to do it. If you want to hurt someone you punch them in the face or point a blaster at them.
Because of this depth of context and understanding all of those interleaved story lines are quite stressful! We know, and care about everyone and fully appreciate the consequences of every action and decision, what might happen and why.
In fact it was so stressful (and I was a tired to be fair) that about half way through S2e2 it all became too much for me and I switched to something else!
By coincidence I also had the second season of “Outer Range” on my watch list so gave that a go. If you read my review of season 1 you will see that by the final episode I had literally “lost the plot” and had no idea why anyone was doing what they were doing. True, there had been some reveals, more of Royal’s backstory and the story was advancing at least a bit so I was prepared to give the new season a go.
So yes, it was well acted - Josh Brolin going head-to-head with Kevin Costner as the rancher with the weight of the world on their shoulders and things did move further forward but the whole feel of the show was very different, there was no tension or stress, and I wondered why?
My conclusion is that in the world of Outer Range we don’t know the rules so we don’t know the consequences of any action. We know that time travel is involved and wierd shit is going down but that’s all. Literally anything can happen - characters can be in a near fatal coma one minute, up and about the next. Anyone can get hit by a stampeding buffalo at any time, people disappear and re-appear all over the place to very little impact.
To be fair to the writers I assume that they are indeed working within a set of “rules” - that the world does have a coherent mechanic that will eventually be revealed to us (at least as long as they aren’t doing a “Lost” and painting themselves so far into a corner they disappeared into the woodwork).
But until we, the viewer can understand those rules then nothing we watch actually matters, whatever happens what might be undone in the next episode and people could well be doing things are “rational” within their world view but means nothing to us.
And I think that is the key difference between these shows - I may be a bit unfair comparing them as they have different narrative structures and aims; and one takes place against a vast backcloth of story and lore (although the other takes place against a backcloth of our own world, and so we assume the 99.9% of that world works as we understand it!). But my emotional reaction to both shows was completely different - heightened tension for Andor, indifference to Outer Range.
Does it matter? I’m not sure, but I think it does highlight that if you want viewers to get really invested in your show then you are much better making the “rules” clear from the outset rather than building your tension through the gradual reveal of those rules.
In Andor the story is driven by characters making decsions (not necessarily the “right” ones but we can see where they are coming from and those decisions make sense in their own terms). In Outer Range the story is driven by the slow reveal of the underlying premise, characters act in ways that might not make sense to us until we have that final reveal.
Which is better? Not for me to say, but I would say that an Andor-type story is harder to write - if all the story mechanics are known upfront then you must rely on character to provide motivation; if you keep your story mechanic hidden then characters can do whatever you want them to and you can adjust that mechanic to “explain” anything.
I’m going to carry on with both shows but just wanted to get my thoughts on them down now.
Does this resonate with anyone? Can we analyse other shows on this basis? What do you think?