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Written by Knight Ridder
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Wednesday, 10 May 2006 |
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Page 1 of 2 Is anyone safe on TV series anymore? Does the Grim Reaper have no regard for even regulars on hit shows?
Prime time, as you’ve probably noticed, has become an increasingly dangerous place lately. And not just on dark-alley dramas where you’d expect to encounter violence, like “The Sopranos.”
This past season has been an unusually bloody one. A number of main characters have met their maker — and the body count will no doubt rise again in the coming days, as May sweeps meets cliffhanger season finales. There will be, for example, shootouts on “ER” and “Conviction,” and several other dramas are issuing vaguely ominous warnings about the impending loss of “one of their own.”
Blame the trend on a number of factors — shortened attention spans, a reality-show mentality and the age of interactivity. What’s clear is that the old rules no longer apply.
Although no major character has died so far on “Sopranos” this sixth and final season — surely bound to change soon — the list of this season’s dead on network TV series is long.
Kiefer Sutherland’s thrill-a-minute drama takes the cake here. Never a show to spare an innocent life, “24” has killed off an amazing number of good guys this season. In the season opener, an assassin’s bullet felled President Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), and Michelle Dessler (Reiko Aylesworth) was mortally wounded when her car exploded. Her husband, Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), also injured, lingered for a while, bent on revenge, only to have a terrorist plunge a hypodermic needle in his heart.
Since then, presidential adviser Walt Cummings (John Allen Nelson) was found hanging (a staged suicide to cover his murder, possibly by President Logan himself). The beloved Edgar Stiles (Louis Lombardi) died when exposed to nerve gas at CTU headquarters. The following week, Lynn McGill (Sean Astin) met the same fate. And last week, Secretary of Defense James Heller (William Devane), about to be killed by terrorists in a helicopter, deliberately drove off a cliff and into a lake.
That’s not even counting the evildoers Jack Bauer has justly dispatched to hell. And as the show approaches the conclusion of its deadliest season, the plot line will surely claim more victims.
What gives?
One factor is television’s new interactivity.
Fans post reviews of series on countless Web sites, registering kudos, gripes and conspiracy theories. Producers often read these comments and sometimes even take valid criticisms to heart. “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof said that the fans’ reaction has affected the pace at which the show’s writers reveal answers to some mysteries.
Last season, NBC’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” experimented with giving viewers a say in a story’s outcome. The network aired two endings to an episode — one for the East Coast, another for the West Coast.
The recent resurgence of serialized prime-time dramas with sprawling casts may also be a factor. With large ensembles, you don’t get to know all the characters well. As a result, their passings don’t have the same impact.
When it comes to dramas dealing with life or death issues, series writers argue that it heightens realism if viewers think that at any moment anyone could die. That scenario is certainly more lifelike than credulity-stretching story lines where characters miraculously rebound from life-threatening injuries.
This we-know-not-the-hour approach keeps viewers on their toes.
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|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
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I am a recent college graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead. After recieving my B.A. in English and Mass Communications this past August I moved down to Colorado.
I enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and heavy metal. My hobbies include reading and writing, music, movies, and getting drunk. Some of my favorite contemporary authors include Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Kurt Vonnegut. My top movies are anything directed by Kubrick. I enjoy listening to anything that rocks.
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| | My name is Michelle Turley and I'm 28 years old. I live in Severance with my hubbie, Brandon. We have 2 dogs and a cat. We enjoy camping, four-wheeling, and just being in the mountains. I like to cook, clean (go figure), flea market, and play poker. I have so much to say about poker... | |
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