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Whatever happened to subtle forshadowing?
16 years ago
General
I have a confession to make -- most of you who know me already know this, but I'm a huge fan of the original Law & Order series. There's a lot of things I can rave about in the show, but there's something I just noticed today going over an old episode I'd seen before -- the use of subtle foreshadowing. So subtle, that you'd never notice it unless you'd already watched the episode before. It made me think about some other popular crime drama shows, and the more I notice it, the more I feel like L&O is too oldschool cut-and-dry for today's TV show culture, perhaps.
I mean seriously, though, what's the deal with the foreshadowing in shows like CSI? I've always said that the plot meanders in such a way that either give you the most obvious foreshadowing imaginable (you know, pandering to the "stupid" demographic), or they hold your hand all the way through because the solution to the crime is so obtuse that it would be impossible for the viewer to make any reasonable assumptions. It's either "here's your evil badguy" or "here's who we want you to think is the evil badguy". The show is thinking for you. WTF, TV producers, do you really think we're all that stupid?
I'm concerned that pretty much all other TV crime dramas these days pander to the lowest common denominator. For a good fill you gotta turn to books, the internet, or pseudo-documentary stuff like "American Justice". Please feed my brain.
“I've never understood the obsession with younger writers and dramas. Comedies I understand, but how do you write drama at 23, you haven't experienced anything. You know about 23-year-olds. It's kind of hard to write about 60 year old EADAs [Executive Assistant District Attorneys]. Only a couple of us are 60 years old so far, but there are not many 23-year-olds who can write about life-changing situations unless it's medical. That sounds weird, but there's not the mileage on the odometer to get under the surface. There are exceptions that prove the rule—Dickens wasn't bad at 23.” -Dick Wolf
I mean seriously, though, what's the deal with the foreshadowing in shows like CSI? I've always said that the plot meanders in such a way that either give you the most obvious foreshadowing imaginable (you know, pandering to the "stupid" demographic), or they hold your hand all the way through because the solution to the crime is so obtuse that it would be impossible for the viewer to make any reasonable assumptions. It's either "here's your evil badguy" or "here's who we want you to think is the evil badguy". The show is thinking for you. WTF, TV producers, do you really think we're all that stupid?
I'm concerned that pretty much all other TV crime dramas these days pander to the lowest common denominator. For a good fill you gotta turn to books, the internet, or pseudo-documentary stuff like "American Justice". Please feed my brain.
“I've never understood the obsession with younger writers and dramas. Comedies I understand, but how do you write drama at 23, you haven't experienced anything. You know about 23-year-olds. It's kind of hard to write about 60 year old EADAs [Executive Assistant District Attorneys]. Only a couple of us are 60 years old so far, but there are not many 23-year-olds who can write about life-changing situations unless it's medical. That sounds weird, but there's not the mileage on the odometer to get under the surface. There are exceptions that prove the rule—Dickens wasn't bad at 23.” -Dick Wolf
It was here all along.
In other words. They are cheap and lazy
Believe me, they do :V
America will not understand a silent narrative scene, thus it must be filled with narration. Poor viewers can't think.[/sarcasm]
this isn't to the singular person it's to the whole of society. we have become a nation of idiots. and it's been the majority for a long time.
Also, yes, you're exactly right about the original L&O. SVU and CI both do this as well to an albeit lesser extent.
They give out the damn clue in such a way its painfully obivious and then no more need to guess.
For me I just love crime books or Horror novels with neat Twist H.P Lovecraft is god <3
but then i stopped watching TV for an obscenely lonnnnng time.
tv rots people's brains.
braiiiiiiinnnsss.............
Ugh.
"WTF, TV producers, do you really think we're all that stupid?"
Oh you can believe me on that one! =P
Not only that, they also tend to force their morals down your throut, wether you'd like that or not.
That's one of the many reasons why I stopped watching american detectives. -_-;
And they will not change it either because if there's a fanbase, they have to follow it to the ends of the earth! =3
It's a shame.
Ya. cSI always struck me as trying to be younger and hipper. ... I really laughed at that one episode, where they found the bouncer in the Vegas cathouse dead. The man was Rasputin, basically. I don't wanna spoil it, though. That was, indeed, one episode where foreshadowing was reduced to shit.
That's the result of having instant access to all information.
There's just no reason to wonder.
I noticed the other day, when watching L&O Criminal Intent (which is the bastard offspring of a more 'modern' show and the old school L&O which has made for a really ... weird show. I mean for me personally, it's completely unwatchable without Jeff Goldblum or Chris Noth.) on USA, and they were raving about the series finale. It was the same night as the season finale for a couple other shows which had huge twists, death and explosions. Criminal Intent did manage to have a sniper shoot someone in a standoff, but to me it felt really forced I guess? I mean, this is Law&Order, not say... Flashpoint.
Either way, the original show is in the interesting position of being the "last honest cop show" even if it's become a little modernized, too.
Wow, way off subject for me. XD
Thank you for commenting. I've been watching some of the new episodes lately, and I think you're right, because I noticed that all my fav. characters were getting fleshed out as they slowly started to incorporate story arc elements into what's normally an episodic series. This might make it a little more difficult (as if it weren't hard already to beat the "boring" stereotype!) for new fans to get into the L&O series. I just hope this doesn't spell signs of bad things to come! It might just be their way of changing up the cast a little bit, by giving them a nice story arc to leave the show on.
I mean with SVU (which is AWESOME!!! but a TON different from original Law and Order) they've been doing the overarching character thing for a while (How many times has Stabler been (re)married?) , and it seems to work out well for that particular franchise, as the ratings are pretty good on it as far as I'd heard. It's the only one I can think of that's held onto the same cast since day one. (Although they added Wong and the M.E. lady, and they change lawyers more than I change shirts.)
The one thing I still love about the original, though, is that no matter what, at about 30 minutes into the show, it switches from Law to Order. SVU does it about 20 minutes later (usually), and CI forgot there's an "Order" in the show. I mean, they had the baddest ass lawyer of them all (other than Jack) and like.. zing! He's gone. XD
I really hope they aren't getting rid of anyone though. All the shows have great casts right now. Shit, even trial by Jury had a great cast! (ahhh Lenny :( )
Plus, I feel like all the subtleties of the show somehow add to its authenticity, even though the writing is of course heavily dramatized and time-condensed compared to real life...
In SVU , they had the latest lawyer lady actually hanging out in the precinct for an entire day. I thought she might like... have some lawyer-ing to do.
We'll know we're really in trouble when one of the cops falls in love with one of the lawyers, though! I'm hoping that if it does go in that direction, it stops in SVU territory, as that series rides the line between "character drama" and "cop drama" pretty well at least to me.
The show's run for 18+ years with the formula it's using now... I'm not sure changing is what they should do with it, you know? But maybe it's 'cause I watched from way back when.
Heading up the legal side, Jack is now the DA (which he does a really great job at being, actually) and working under him are the savvy wiz-kid lawyer Linus Roache and his more level thinking partner lana De La Garza who like the lady lawyers before her , sure does like to give people the death penalty. The cast is actually really good at least as far as I'm concerned (and the other L&O watchers I live with love it too)
And yeah, it certainly isn't real life, but when you compare it to CSI:Miami (the only cop show capable of making me physically ill) this is as real as it gets!
like, you know, the episode starts like every other episode but 40 minutes into it you realize it's going to turn into something completely different -- they forshadowed it maybe 20 minutes into the episode where the analyst makes a bit of a face after van buren leaves the forensics lab. It was very quick but I'd seen that episode before some years back and I realized that they did that on purpose in a subliminal way to indicate to the viewer that she was offended or worried that her test results were being questioned.
ever see that movie Idiocracy? if you havnt you should, its a pin point accurate documentary on what the future will hold for mankind
its more frightening than any horror movie /game ive seen or played
because its all true, oh god its all so true ;-;
*WHOOSHING CAMERA ZOOM OF EYELASH STUCK ON A DEAD BODY*
More than the unsubtleness of CSI, what bothers me most about it is the Superman effect crime shows have now. In LnO, you had the cops investigating the scene, the real CSI types gathering evidence, the detectives who did the questioning, the medical examiner, then McCoy would ramble in and they'd talk to the DA and so on and so forth. A realistic progression of a crime from start to finish, I mean obviously there's theatrical flourish for the sake of entertainment, but they at least attempt to depict the process in a believable fashion. In CSI, apparently the entire criminal justice system boils down to the UBERCOPS that are the Las Vegas/Miami/New York CSI's, who question suspects, gather evidence, do detective work, interrogate and question witnesses and suspects, get in car chases and gun battles, etc, in between going back to the Batcave where they have free access to what seems like ten billion dollars worth of high tech shit, despite every police outfit in the world seemingly being strapped for cash.
Law and Order is entertaining but intelligent. CSI is just... dumb. And having your protagonist constantly quoting Shakespeare and shit doesn't make him seem intelligent, just pretentious.