Pen-Elayne on the Web

Seldom is Heard a Discouraging Word

I've been thinking about attrition lately. As our lives become more hectic and our time expenditures more unpredictable, we often find ourselves shuffling about the schedules we used to take for granted. I've written before about what the thankfully-gone-now upstairs neighbors did to my TV watching habits, which have also been affected by my boss often keeping me till late hours and me not having the time or inclination to watch videotaped programs like I used to. This in turn has led to me becoming an occasional viewer rather than a regular one. And I've found that much serial TV, like comics, doesn't lend itself well to casual viewing (or reading).

It's understandable to want to cultivate a loyal core audience who will buy your products repeatedly, but the downside is usually the far greater number of people you tend to shut out in the process. Oftimes this is a logical byproduct of your entertainment format; the Firesign Theatre will likely never be more than a footnote in comedic history even though they've been making records longer than any other troupe with the possible exception of the Goons, because by and large they're not likely to tailor their satire too much toward commercial acceptance by mass audiences who probably couldn't imagine such a thing as a stream-of-consciousness concept album. But sometimes a venture starts out by cutting a wide swath then deliberately narrows its focus as time goes on, relying on self-cannibalization and referential in-jokes to please fewer and fewer viewers or readers or listeners who "get it."

Of course, this can be done well or badly. I think it's probably easier with a comedy format - Uncle Floyd used to delight in its cult status (there's a reason my self-published zine in the '80s was called Inside Joke, it originated as a Floyd zine), but it was the kind of show where you'd pretty much glom onto all the running gags after watching a few episodes, as is the nature of vaudeville, and that gave it a very inclusive feel. But serial drama is trickier, as its self-contained universe seems to demand greater depth and build-ups and the like in order to retain viewer (or reader) interest in the characters.

Therefore, I maintain that it's incumbent on dramatic shows (or comics, very few of which are comedic) to work even harder to attract new viewers (readers), the lifeblood of their continued success. And this means more accessibility and inclusivity, fewer self-references and cross-media in-jokes, and less catering to the fanatic core leading occasional viewers (readers) to feel like they're being shut out of something they were willing to take a chance on (so why bother if it's clear they're not wanted?). The problem arises when many writers of serial dramas decide, due to flattery or ego or affection or whatever, that pleasing their fanatic core should take precedence over considerations of story accessibility. This may or may not result in good stories being told, but if you're shutting out your casual viewers/readers, your story will be communicated to fewer and fewer core fanatics as time passes, and your commercial success becomes less and less assured as you lose former core viewers/readers to the natural attrition that happens to people with hectic lives.

I'm not going to name the parties I feel are guilty of this, because the minute I do I'm liable to receive responses from, well, core fanatics exclaiming that I obviously hate so-and-so and don't like anything they've ever written and I'm only out to bash them. If anything, I actually appreciate more (in an abstract way) what these folks have tried to do in terms of maintaining cohesion in their universes, and therefore find it more disappointing when I perceive that their efforts fail because they've made me care about these fictional constructs so much in the first place. I don't like being made to feel as though it's somehow my fault for not being able to follow a chapter in an ongoing story just because I haven't checked in with the characters for a few weeks (or issues). It's even worse if the story references another story the viewer/reader would have had to watch or buy completely separately. (Case in point: I felt last night's Bill-and-Liliana-Mumy Twilight Zone episode was so dependent on the viewer having seen the original on which it was based - which I never have, and of which the current program excerpted about five seconds - that it became little more than a novelty "she's cute as a button and looks and acts just like he used to and isn't that neat!" factor. Aside from that, it had an extremely dramatically-unsatisfying ending; the child's personality was built up throughout to understand that what her Dad did was wrong, she hated him for hurting her and her friends, and suddenly she does a 180 and becomes a supervillain just like him? That's not a twist ending, it's just unfortunate writing. But I digress.) And as long as these folks choose to work commercially in the mass market, casual consumers are going to resent the clubhouse-members-only mentality. And they won't come back. And the core fanatics will dwindle. And the show (or comic) will inevitably fail.

One that does it right, in my estimation: The West Wing. Never watched it until this season, and much of the writing is over my head intellectually, but there aren't any media cross-references and few in-jokes and you get the hang of who everyone is by about the third viewing. I'm just sorry I missed the first half this past week; fortunately, it was easy enough to get caught up in the second half.