Lessons from Some Recent TV and OTT Series

We are all well aware of a powerful trend in recent years: the large increase in scripted original programming and series television that is making it to our streaming devices and set top boxes. If we picked a jumping off point, then it was in 2013 When Netflix launched House of Cards. The tipping point was a couple years back when the volume of original content being produced around the world peaked.   

While we no longer regularly have those good old water cooler moments anymore where we all kibitz en masse (partly due to the fact that Game of Thrones has been on hiatus in 2018), it’s really common for a friend to ask “have you heard of…” or “have you seen”? If not, “you gotta see this”…

So we are all enjoying the fruits of the Golden Age of scripted television. Of course, along the way there have been a load of misses that come with the outstanding hits. We all have our favorites, but I wanted to mention a few that I’ve especially enjoyed recently, and not only recommend them, but try to deconstruct them briefly, and identify some of the features (common and uncommon) that have made them outstanding and noteworthy (even unique). 

Yes, the scripts and stories must conform to certain norms and conventions, most of these principles primarily laid out for us by Aristotle in POETICS*, but if you are a writer that doesn’t keep up with what’s happening around the world now, then even a well written, recently created show and fresh concept can fail to attract a buyer (and ultimately an audience). We all want to stay ahead of the curve, or at least be at the front of the wave, so I’ve briefly examined a clutch of outstanding series which I’ve spent some time with recently, and tried to analyze why they worked so well for me. With the exception of Better Call Saul (which is now into Season 4), they are all in the first season.

Here’s a few recurring elements to recognize in these series:

·     Flaws in the Heroes or Anti heroes

·     Break the Trope

·     Don’t overthink it – complex stories/story lines doesn’t necessarily make for great story lines.

·     Where’s the Mystery? A Central Mystery can help drive the momentum of a series throughout its season.

Cobra Kai – YouTube Premium

A sequel of a different stripe.

Despite what are medium production values, this series really kicks ass – in fact, the modest budget makes Cobra Kai even more impressive. Perhaps it’s buoyed by feelings of nostalgia experienced by those of us who loved The Karate Kid (and especially those of us who were around when it released back in the 80’s), but clearly there is something exceptionally clever at work here. Cobra Kai is not a “remake”, but then neither is it a sequel as you might conventionally expect. Yes, it revives familiar and both beloved and loathed characters - but rather than simply picking up where they left off, or even just jumping in a few years later and picking up the threads again, we are almost puzzled at first when we are presented with William Zabka as Johnny Lawrence - the original bad guy to Ralph Macchio’s “karate kid” - and he’s the protagonist this time around! A clever rearrangement of the story, and we are instead rooting for Johnny, now a boozed up loser in his fifties, whose life went downhill from the moment that we left him at the end of The Karate Kid. That’s not only a bold direction for the creators to take, but a hard one to tackle well. I guess fortune favors the bold, because not only did the series turn out very well (read: highly binge-worthy and exceptionally entertaining), but the reversals and surprises don’t stop there: while Johnny is the character we start rooting for to successfully change his life, we are less enthused by Daniel LaRussa (Ralph Macchio’s character) who is now an over inflated, slightly out of touch wealthy business man. Johnny Lawrence takes under his wing a group of outcasts, losers and nerds, becomes their sensei (ala Mr. Miyagi) when he revives the original Cobra Kai karate school. Meanwhile, his estranged son becomes an employee, foster son and then a disciple of Ralph Macchio, in direct opposition to Johnny, his estranged real father You can see where this is headed. The series deftly uses a few clips from the original film (even unused takes from the original film) to give glimpses into the past which we now see from a different perspective (e.g. in the original film, we see Larusso as the spunky underdog, but now from Johnny POV, we see Lawrence as the victim whose actions were driven more in self-defense.

So what worked:  

• Familiar characters but a different kind of sequel
• Reversal of POV and mirrors/ parallels; Complexity is welcome here (defined as POVs of different characters, antagonist and protagonist included)
•  Just the right amount of nostalgia

Works despite:

• Modest production values
• Alternating Tone

Killing Eve – Sid Gentle Films for BBC America

Strong female protagonist and antagonist in this series about a quirky sociopathic female assassin who is pursued by, and is pursuing her MI6 counterpart (played by Sandra Oh). The series is based on a novel, Codename Villanelle and successfully mixes the episodic with the lengthwise series running story (deftly developed and written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge)

So what worked:  

•  Strong female leads who circle and play off each other through the whole series
• Ambiguous relationships
• Just the right amount of action with a pretty simple story
• A Central Mystery: who is this woman?

Works despite

• Sociopathic anti-heroine and storylines that are a bit twisted
• Alternating Tone, episodic stories making it a hard series to place in a single category

The Good Fight - CBS All Access

Even though it plays ball in a broader field and subject matter (legal and political drama), the series breaks most of the tried and true tropes of lawyer based dramas that we have all come to expect. It trades very well with its strong female characters and protagonists, and utilizes storylines based on current events. SS

So what worked:  

• Principally following three strong female lead characters
• Deft use of political themes

Works despite

• Spinning off from another well-established series, The Good Wife
• Being a legal drama…again!
• Being a CBS drama, which could have pushed it towards being a little too sappy and broad – well, it isn’t!

Better Call Saul – AMC , Sony Pictures Television (distributed as a Netflix original outside the US)

My commitment to a new series primarily springs from an attraction to its characters. It’s like wanting to be around people that you like, or care about. Sure, a premise can set the table and result in an initial curiosity, but to build the audience, and not churn them out in the first few episodes, you gotta at least fall in “like” with the folks you’re gonna be living with over the next few hours. Vince Gilligan’s successful revival of characters that were secondary players in his iconic series Breaking Bad proves what a truly impressive ability he has to tell compelling stories with pace and intent. Gilligan flexes his muscles in every episode, making us care deeply for Jimmy McGill, a con man turned small time lawyer, and the other characters within his orbit.

Yes, it’s another legal setting, but each episode that Captain Gilligan navigates for us provides many a lesson in character and plot development, while never allowing the principal characters a cheap or cliché way in and out of the various dilemmas they face.

So what worked:  

• Familiar characters but a different kind of prequel/sequel ; flawed characters
• Family drama at the heart
• Doesn’t overly rely on its Breaking Bad legacy; nice references premonition to the legacy
• Set in the early 2000s, the right amount of nostalgia
• Great Score – can’t forget how much music contributes to the tone
• Writers consistently place their characters into difficult situations, challenging them at every turn, and then make the characters smart enough to figure out clever, unique solutions
• Plenty of mystery!

Works despite

• Legal drama, and tapping into the minutiae of its legal storylines!
• Mixing Crime Drama with Black Comedy
• Mundane setting

Here’s a list of a few other recent series and limited series that you should check out:

·     Patrick Melrose

·     Sacred Games

·     Sharp Objects

·     Catastrophe

·     Ray Donovan

·     Letterkenny

*Aristotle -  a lot of show runners and writers deep dive into Aristotle’s Poetics for their profession. It's not common for media execs or the viewing public to reference the work.  Just in case you’re interested, here are some of my favorite resources that I’d recommend along with POETICS:

THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING (Egri)

STORY (McKee)

THE ANATOMY OF STORY, (Truby)

THE WRITERS JOURNEY (Vogler)