I’ve noticed that TV shows fall on a spectrum of redemption. At the start of each series, the show runners seem to establish a clear point of “redeemability” for the characters. And that quality remains fairly consistent throughout the run.<\/p>\n
For example, the characters on Seinfeld<\/i> are completely incapable of self-improvement. Nobody ever seems to learn from their mistakes. The comedy comes from the endless loop of self-absorbed narcissism that the four main characters share.<\/p>\n
At quite a different point in the spectrum is The Big Bang Theory<\/i>. The characters are very flawed, it is true, but they are, for the most part, quite capable of growth and redemption. Even Sheldon.<\/p>\n
Compare, for example, the final episodes of those two shows. Each is, in a sense, a summing up of everything that came before.<\/p>\n
The punchline at the very last episode of Seinfeld<\/i> is that these characters are completely hopeless, and utterly incapable of doing better. The message at the very last episode of The Big Bang Theory<\/i> is precisely the opposite.<\/p>\n
In both cases, we are not surprised. We have been prepared for years for those respective endings from the very beginning.<\/p>\n
Of course this spectrum forms a continuum. Frasier<\/i>, for example, seems to fall exactly in the middle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve noticed that TV shows fall on a spectrum of redemption. At the start of each series, the show runners seem to establish a clear point of “redeemability” for the characters. And that quality remains fairly consistent throughout the run. For example, the characters on Seinfeld are completely incapable of self-improvement. Nobody ever seems to … Continue reading “Redemption spectrum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25303"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25305,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25303\/revisions\/25305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}