Why don't they just talk with each other?

When I was a kid, I remember watching a soap opera after school one day and remarking to my mother, “why don’t they just talk with each other?  All of this would work out so much better if they would just talk with each other.”  (Just another one of those childhood moments when I tormented my mother with obvious insights.  Now I have a blog.  I can torment the whole world with them.)  My mother agreed, and we chatted about it.  Of course, it was obvious to us that if the characters just talked to each other at the start of the problem, there wouldn’t be an episode.  So in the most practical sense, we knew exactly why the characters didn’t just talk to each other.  But we also agreed that it seemed awfully artificial to manufacture drama via poor communication, and that it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to watch.

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that poor communication is not the same thing as drama, and that the conflating of the two has been bothering me for literally decades. 

I understand that in life, sometimes things go unsaid that should be said.  People get trapped in fibs that start innocently and end in disaster.  People let simple disagreements fester into feuds and harbor secret loves for years.  So I don’t mean to say that poor communication can’t lead to drama in real live.  But all too often, on TV, it’s manufactured.   In real life, how often does the phone ring with bad news just after a cheating spouse says “I need to tell you something”?  How often does one friend counsel another, “don’t ever let them know.  They’d never forgive you.”  Or how often do you get the advice:  “Let me talk to the person you like.  Don’t do it yourself.”  I’m not going to say it never happens …but hardly ever.  And yet, that’s the sort of thing that happens all the time on TV.  And it's yet another common TV situation that we'd all be happier not to emulate.

These shows all depend, to some degree, on poor communication for their drama.  Sometimes it works well.  Sometimes, not so much.

Allegiance (NBC, New.  Spy drama.)

Watched: pilot

Premise:  A family of modern day Russian spies spy on their CIA-analyst son. 

Promise:  The CIA analyst is uncannily good (in fact, chalk one up for the problematic “genius”=neuroatypical roster) and a really interesting guy.  In fact, I think I’d quite enjoy watching a show about him—he’s basically the hyperanalytical counterpart to Covert Affairs’ wonderfully hunch-based operator.  But instead, the show is about the machinations of his family of ex-Russian spies who are pulled back into the spy game when he gets assigned an important case.  What unfolds is a tableau of lying and sneaking about in the guise of self-preservation.  It’s reminiscent of The Americans, but these spies lack the courage of their convictions—they’re really just doing it to save themselves from having to come clean to their son, who we’re told would never forgive them.  Perhaps he wouldn’t, but it takes a lot of work to get there.  The show expended most of its energy trying to convince us that these people, who really love each other, couldn’t just level with each other and tell the truth.  It came up with reason after reason, and although I sort of believed the reasons, I kept finding myself baffled by the lengths the characters would go to to avoid having a difficult conversation with each other. 

Meanwhile, if I had watched Allegiance prior to posting the Craaazy Lady Things post, I surely would have included it there.  The men in the show are logical (to a fault) and cool under pressure.  The women are motivated to illogic and self-destruction by love and lust and misplaced notions of “protecting the family.” 

Verdict:  Doesn’t work for me.

Secrets and Lies (ABC, new.  Long-form mystery.)

Watched: 2-hour pilot

Premise:  Like The Killing or Broadchurch, but from the perspective of the prime suspect rather than law enforcement or the victim’s family.

Promise:  This show is on the “slow-moving” bandwagon that seems all the rage right now, and while I sometimes love that (e.g., The Killing, Broadchurch), it’s very hard to do in a way that holds the viewer’s attention.  One can’t maintain a constant high level of intensity—that gets boring.  Instead, it needs an ebb and flow where high drama moments give way to small, personal, character developments.   (Or, in Dar Williams’ words, you need “the rise and gradual fall of a daily victory.”)  Instead, this show tries to be at high drama alert all the time, and—at least in the first 2 hours—doesn’t try to give us a chance to get to know who the people are.  And yet, getting to know the people is the whole appeal of a long-form mystery.  This show is also the worst “why don’t they just talk to each other” offender in recent memory—the “secrets and lies” of the show’s title are largely the product of the show’s enormous effort to place roadblocks in the way of earnest conversation among the characters. 

Given the premise, I assumed it would have much the same appeal as NPR's fantastic Serial – and I think it could, but it would require (a) some effort to let us get to know the characters and (b) some idea of where it’s all going (for example, showing us an eventual conviction or acquittal and then making the rest of the show a flashback).  As it is, we’re either stuck watching the man with the worst luck in the world get railroaded by a wholly unsympathetic cop, or watching a deeply unsympathetic cop identify and try to build a case against the right culprit.  Neither feels satisfying.

Verdict:  Doesn’t work for me.

Grantchester (Masterpiece Mystery) (PBS, new.  Law enforcement procedural.)

Watched: whole season

Premise:  A vicar investigates crime in rural 1950s England.

Promise:  There are two things going on at once in this series:  the first is a series of comfortingly interesting-yet-solvable mystery procedurals, happening on a one-per-episode basis.  The other is the personal story of the main character, a vicar in a small community whose apparent soulmate (to whom he could never quite admit his love) announces early in the first episode that she’s marrying someone else.  Over the course of the season, we get to know him and his friends, including the police detective inspector he consults with.  So while the episodic mysteries have the flavor of Father Brown or any number of other basic rural British procedurals, the larger arc is much more fulfilling than its more-formulaic counterparts.  The main character is both non-threatening and edgy—like a puppy dog with a studded collar—and despite being largely the fault of his poor communication, his personal struggles feel both realistic and sympathetic.  It’s no wonder that solving the case seems almost to fall incidentally into his lap:  people just hand the clues to him without realizing it.  I would too.  Robson Green is wonderful as the skeptical policeman who he convinces to work with him, and their friendship is compelling (and, if the world is just, will someday be the subject of some fantastic slash fic).  

Verdict:  Just Delightful.

On the DVR/Unreviewed:  still some from 2014, which I am losing hope of ever reviewing, plus Agent Carter , Empire, 12 Monkeys , Better Call Saul, CSI: Cyber, Dig, American Crime, The Royals, and iZombie.