Good day, good day, my good and friendly readers! I apologize for having been gone for the better part of a month. My wife and I were traveling for vacation, going from San Antonio to Indiana to Florida and finally back again. It was very enjoyable, despite the sunburns. Speaking of which, here’s some good bit of advice: if you ever use the spray-on sunscreen, you still have to rub it in. My wife and I learned that the hard way. But even so, it was a very, very enjoyable time and I’m sad to see it over.
Now coming up soon, in approximately two weeks, is the debut of my brand-new, not-even-yet-written steampunk series, The Rift! The official premier date for it is July 11th. While I’m currently constructing an elaborate world and filling it with unique characters and mechanical/analog technology, I’m also brainstorming slight variants to the name. I’m thinking something to the effect of The Disparate Rift, or The Fantastic Rift, or something to give it a more sensationalistic title, The _______ Rift. If you have any ideas, feel free to shoot them at me, I’m open to suggestions. What adjective would help describe a story about the voyage of a steam-powered flying ship in a Victorian culture, which climaxes in the appearance of a horrific antagonist of Lovecraftian persuasion? Perhaps my brain needs more steam in order to think up a more advanced title.
Anyway, today I would like to share something I’ve noticed on the silver screen (that’s television, if you don’t know). Oftentimes, when a powerfully unique story hits the big screen, it only takes a year or two for the basic formula of that story to be incorporated into smaller television shows, with each show doing their own take on it. Other times, we see a trope start showing up across a variety of television shows. With these in mind, let’s explore four of these stories and see how they’ve been utilized in different ways on the small screen. I’ll begin with the least utilized and culminate in that which we see most often.
The Hazardous Challenges
Inspired by the 2004 film, Saw, this theme places the protagonist in some sort of temporary prison. He has no idea how he got there, but as his mysterious and almost never-seen captor begins presenting him with life-or-death challenges, he begins to understand that he’s being punished for past deeds. I enjoyed the first two Saw films (but none after that, as I feel that they lost their psychological component in favor of gratuitous amounts of gore), and so I was surprised when I saw an episode in the fifth season of Smallville entitled “Mercy.” In this episode, Lionel Luthor is held captive by a former employee whom he wronged, and he’s forced through various tasks which threaten his life but also force him to revisit his past decisions. Smallville, in this episode, essentially transferred the Saw formula in order to see what they could do with it, even going as far as having puzzles and clues in the challenges. But, as we’ll soon see, Smallville was notorious for stealing the formulas of films in order to flesh out some of their “filler episodes.” To their credit, though, they often used these episodes to advance the development of individual characters. In this case, it was Lionel.
What Happened Last Night?
Fans of the 2009 film, The Hangover, will recognize this next formula. What happens when a group of friends (usually between 3 and 5) wake up the morning after a grand party with no memories of the previous night? They retrace their steps, discover that they were drugged and find copious amounts of evidence and eyewitness testimony all pointing to a long night of drug-induced shenanigans. As one can imagine, this theme always veers on the side of comedy, whereas the previous theme stuck firmly to the horror genre. In Smallville‘s final season, we find this formula in the episode “Fortune,” chronicling the hijinks of Lois and Clark – accompanied by their friends – the night before their wedding. But lo and behold, just today I started rewatching an episode from the sixth season of the detective comedy-drama, Psych, in which the same formula was used. “Last Night Gus” covers four characters as they try to solve a murder to which their own prior-night’s hijinks were inextricably tied.
The Dreamscape
By far the most psychedelic of themes we’ve mentioned so far, this one may have its origin in the 2000 fantasy-detective film, The Cell. In this, Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughan use advanced technology to enter the comatose mind of a serial killer in order to locate his last victim before she dies. But during their ventures into the madman’s psyche, they explore the different facets of his personality and ultimately learn exactly what makes that killer what he is. This formula was used in yet another episode of Smallville, the 7th season episode, “Fracture.” After Lex Luthor is shot in the head, Clark elects to use experimental LuthorCorp technology to enter the comatose man’s mind and rescue him. Once there, Clark discovers a young boy (representing the good in Lex) dominated by a violent older man (representing Lex’s darker side). Sadly, this is an exact parallel to what Jennifer Lopez discovers in the mind of her serial killer: a young boy dominated by a violent grown man, a shriveled conscience overwhelmed by powerful evil. However, Smallville was not alone in exploring this theme: it also appeared in the sixth season of the animated comedy, American Dad, in the episode “Brains, Brains and Automobiles.” In this, Stan uses CIA technology to explore the bizarre mind of his comatose friend, a sociopathic alien named Roger. Again, we see a shriveled conscience, only in Roger’s case, it’s not dominated by violence but by wholesale insanity. Seriously, I could make very little sense of Roger’s mind. At least Lex and Jennifer’s serial killer were straightforward in their pathology.
The Musical
What TV show these days would be the same without a strong musical episode? We’ve seen it as far back as the 90s with an episode of The Drew Carey Show, and then later in the sixth season episode “My Musical,” of Scrubs. Then it appeared in the sixth season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Once More, with Feeling” (which was amazing, by the way). And then was the somewhat forgettable episode of Psych‘s seventh season, “Psych: The Musical.” Some shows choose to give reasons for the sudden musical outbursts. For instance, in Scrubs, it was because a patient had a specific kind of tumor which gave her the impression that everyone was singing around her, and in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was because someone had accidentally summoned a musically-inclined demon whose very presence caused all those around him to burst into song (this is the only case in which being in the presence of a demon has actually seemed enticing to me). But Psych and The Drew Carey Show (the latter of which was already known for its highly experimental episodes) give no reason for the singing, with the characters seeming not to even notice the the musical numbers. Musical episodes, it seems, are becoming quite popular (and yet, they oddly made no appearance in Smallville). So come on, The Big Bang Theory. You owe us a musical!
These are some of the more fun themes and formulas which television shows have adapted from the big screens, except for the last one, which seemed to be a new development of its own. There are, of course, other themes, like the flashback episodes that almost always come in a show’s final season, and which I loathe. If you can think of any other themes or formulas that often show up, leave it in the comments!
Until next time, friends…
Stay tuned for my next blog post, in which I explore the relationship between the Church and mental illness! It should be touchy, so I’ll ask you to please be brave.
The Outside View 