![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Person of Interest from a writing perspective
After posting about Person of Interest, I got to wondering why I'm reacting to it the way that I am (scenes that are supposed to be dramatically tense frequently just make me laugh) and I came to the following conclusions. This is obviously all "mileage may vary" of course, and I'm putting it under a cut for PoI spoilers (less spoilery than the last post, but more spoilery for long-plot-arc stuff) and also because this is quite critical of the show (but thinkishly critical, I hope!) and I know a lot of you like it. I certainly hope I don't upset anyone, and like I said, it's definitely a "mileage varies" kind of thing. It's okay to love the show uncritically! Most of the shows I'm currently watching can be dumb as hell, but I love them anyway, often in a quite uncritical kind of way.
What it comes down to with Person of Interest, I think, is that the stakes aren't high enough, at least not in the right ways. The writers are trying to do dark and gritty, but aren't able to break out of a "good guys right, bad guys wrong, happy ending at the end of the episode" holding pattern. Specifically, they aren't willing to give the characters actual bad outcomes for their decisions. Reese never uses his kneecapping vigilante tactics against an innocent person by accident. The episode in which Fusco shoots a dirty cop to save Reese is not followed by an episode dealing with the tragedy of that cop's family.
In order to achieve the levels of darkness that the show is trying to achieve, therefore, they have to aim for it by simply making the bad guys as evil as possible, partly to create ~maximum darkness~ and partly so that the designated villains can be killed and/or maimed without calling into question the methods that Reese, Carter, et al are using to deal with them. (Carter has certainly killed more than a few people in the line of duty on the show herself, consequence free!) The result, though, is that it simply feels over the top to the point of being silly. Elias, the first season's main recurring villain, is so evil that he's willing to torture and kill a BABY in order to get information out of Reese. But he does it by leaving the baby on the floor of a refrigerated truck and then leaving (supervillain style), therefore giving the characters ample time for rescue, and at the end the baby gets a happy ending with supportive adoptive parents. Reese's background throws one horribly gloomy scenario after another at him (it's not enough that his girlfriend dies; she has to do it in a preventable way most calculated to cause guilt, angst, and depression). But, while it's suggested at the beginning of the series that Reese has gone under (emotionally) because of things he's done and seen, in all of the flashbacks so far, his hands have stayed clean -- he's been around people who've done horrible things (torture, backstabbing, killing in cold blood) but the show doesn't appear willing to go the extra mile and show Reese torturing someone or killing an innocent person, because that would be too morally gray to deal with.
There is a lot of violence on PoI (a LOT of violence) but it's almost all cast with very clear "good guys" and "bad guys"; the dilemmas in the episode largely revolve around initially mistaking a good guy for a bad guy, or vice versa, but once that's resolved, everyone is either evil enough that they can be killed or imprisoned without trial, or good enough to get a happy ending.
Compare this to a show like Justified, in which the characters are often put in positions in which there is no right answer. They're tied to people they'd rather not be tied to, but can't get away from. (You can't kick your dad out of your life, at least not successfully, even if he's a low-down lying drug dealer, especially if he lives right down the road.) They manage to achieve a relatively happy ending in one episode, and then are stuck dealing with unexpected lousy outcomes a few episodes down the road.
Even Highlander, for all that I was mocking it earlier, is willing to do this every once in a while. The wrong person dies; the thing that looked like the right thing turns out to be the wrong thing; the situation is set up so that no matter what, someone loses. I keep feeling like PoI wants to be this kind of show, but is unwilling to go so far as to make any of the good guys do anything that isn't designated "good" by the narrative (the only exception is Fusco, sometimes, which I think is why I like him so much), and it ultimately cheapens the dramatic tension of the whole thing, because the main characters are always right, even when they're at odds.
And, in some narratives, this can totally work! There are plenty of shows that do the "happy ending", "good guys are mostly right" thing in a way that fits with the overall tone of the show. White Collar sometimes frustrates me with its tendency to fall along strict black/white, good/evil lines, but the show's overall bouncy cheerfulness is such that, for the most part, it doesn't end up with the tone/style mismatch that I keep sensing with PoI. And frankly, I'm not watching WC because it's dramatic and serious; I'm watching it because it's fun and goofy and bouncy and things end happily.
... but PoI isn't that kind of show. People almost never get killed or hurt on White Collar. Person of Interest is very dark and very violent, but ultimately, it stacks the narrative deck so that the violence is justified and consequence-free, the bad guys are unredeemably evil and the good guys always find the "right" side to be on by the end of the episode.
In one way, the end result of this, like I was saying in a comment to the earlier PoI post, is that the character's decisions are too easy for the overall tone of the show. The characters never really feel like underdogs in the way that I think the show wants them to, because the "system" they're going up against is corrupt and evil and filled with corrupt, evil people who can be killed or hurt with impunity. Innocent people never get hurt in the crossfire (at least, I can't think of a time that's happened); if someone innocent is placed in danger, it's resolved by the end of the episode (or else they turn out to be evil and are dealt with accordingly). "Evil" people don't get to walk away -- the only time that's happened so far is with the recurring bad guys like Elias or Snow, who keep coming back until they, too, are dealt with in some kind of permanent way. The show has yet to end with one of Reese's targets killing someone and then booking off to Tahiti to live the high life, or Reese shooting someone who turns out not to be guilty. In order to be the kind of show it clearly wants to be, the characters have to wrestle with difficult moral dilemmas or else you're left with simple, mustache-twirling melodrama. And in order for the stakes to feel properly high, the dilemmas properly questionable, there has to be some chance that they'll lose (which can only be achieved by actually having them lose occasionally). They have to make bad decisions, fail, and then wrestle their way back. And that's a place where the show doesn't seem to be willing to take them. It will go there a little bit, in certain ways, but usually just to set up the "better" outcome (for example, Carter agrees to help sadistic CIA agent Snow capture Reese, who is after all a wanted criminal, but then she flips on Snow and helps Reese escape, with no bad consequences to her).
Like I said earlier, that can totally work in a happier, more sunshine-and-roses type of show. But for me, at least, it really doesn't work here. It's not that I want the whole thing to be gloom and disaster all the time, except that I really feel as if the writers are going for a "gloom and disaster" vibe without being willing to throw actual disaster or even actual shades of moral gray into the characters' paths.
What it comes down to with Person of Interest, I think, is that the stakes aren't high enough, at least not in the right ways. The writers are trying to do dark and gritty, but aren't able to break out of a "good guys right, bad guys wrong, happy ending at the end of the episode" holding pattern. Specifically, they aren't willing to give the characters actual bad outcomes for their decisions. Reese never uses his kneecapping vigilante tactics against an innocent person by accident. The episode in which Fusco shoots a dirty cop to save Reese is not followed by an episode dealing with the tragedy of that cop's family.
In order to achieve the levels of darkness that the show is trying to achieve, therefore, they have to aim for it by simply making the bad guys as evil as possible, partly to create ~maximum darkness~ and partly so that the designated villains can be killed and/or maimed without calling into question the methods that Reese, Carter, et al are using to deal with them. (Carter has certainly killed more than a few people in the line of duty on the show herself, consequence free!) The result, though, is that it simply feels over the top to the point of being silly. Elias, the first season's main recurring villain, is so evil that he's willing to torture and kill a BABY in order to get information out of Reese. But he does it by leaving the baby on the floor of a refrigerated truck and then leaving (supervillain style), therefore giving the characters ample time for rescue, and at the end the baby gets a happy ending with supportive adoptive parents. Reese's background throws one horribly gloomy scenario after another at him (it's not enough that his girlfriend dies; she has to do it in a preventable way most calculated to cause guilt, angst, and depression). But, while it's suggested at the beginning of the series that Reese has gone under (emotionally) because of things he's done and seen, in all of the flashbacks so far, his hands have stayed clean -- he's been around people who've done horrible things (torture, backstabbing, killing in cold blood) but the show doesn't appear willing to go the extra mile and show Reese torturing someone or killing an innocent person, because that would be too morally gray to deal with.
There is a lot of violence on PoI (a LOT of violence) but it's almost all cast with very clear "good guys" and "bad guys"; the dilemmas in the episode largely revolve around initially mistaking a good guy for a bad guy, or vice versa, but once that's resolved, everyone is either evil enough that they can be killed or imprisoned without trial, or good enough to get a happy ending.
Compare this to a show like Justified, in which the characters are often put in positions in which there is no right answer. They're tied to people they'd rather not be tied to, but can't get away from. (You can't kick your dad out of your life, at least not successfully, even if he's a low-down lying drug dealer, especially if he lives right down the road.) They manage to achieve a relatively happy ending in one episode, and then are stuck dealing with unexpected lousy outcomes a few episodes down the road.
Even Highlander, for all that I was mocking it earlier, is willing to do this every once in a while. The wrong person dies; the thing that looked like the right thing turns out to be the wrong thing; the situation is set up so that no matter what, someone loses. I keep feeling like PoI wants to be this kind of show, but is unwilling to go so far as to make any of the good guys do anything that isn't designated "good" by the narrative (the only exception is Fusco, sometimes, which I think is why I like him so much), and it ultimately cheapens the dramatic tension of the whole thing, because the main characters are always right, even when they're at odds.
And, in some narratives, this can totally work! There are plenty of shows that do the "happy ending", "good guys are mostly right" thing in a way that fits with the overall tone of the show. White Collar sometimes frustrates me with its tendency to fall along strict black/white, good/evil lines, but the show's overall bouncy cheerfulness is such that, for the most part, it doesn't end up with the tone/style mismatch that I keep sensing with PoI. And frankly, I'm not watching WC because it's dramatic and serious; I'm watching it because it's fun and goofy and bouncy and things end happily.
... but PoI isn't that kind of show. People almost never get killed or hurt on White Collar. Person of Interest is very dark and very violent, but ultimately, it stacks the narrative deck so that the violence is justified and consequence-free, the bad guys are unredeemably evil and the good guys always find the "right" side to be on by the end of the episode.
In one way, the end result of this, like I was saying in a comment to the earlier PoI post, is that the character's decisions are too easy for the overall tone of the show. The characters never really feel like underdogs in the way that I think the show wants them to, because the "system" they're going up against is corrupt and evil and filled with corrupt, evil people who can be killed or hurt with impunity. Innocent people never get hurt in the crossfire (at least, I can't think of a time that's happened); if someone innocent is placed in danger, it's resolved by the end of the episode (or else they turn out to be evil and are dealt with accordingly). "Evil" people don't get to walk away -- the only time that's happened so far is with the recurring bad guys like Elias or Snow, who keep coming back until they, too, are dealt with in some kind of permanent way. The show has yet to end with one of Reese's targets killing someone and then booking off to Tahiti to live the high life, or Reese shooting someone who turns out not to be guilty. In order to be the kind of show it clearly wants to be, the characters have to wrestle with difficult moral dilemmas or else you're left with simple, mustache-twirling melodrama. And in order for the stakes to feel properly high, the dilemmas properly questionable, there has to be some chance that they'll lose (which can only be achieved by actually having them lose occasionally). They have to make bad decisions, fail, and then wrestle their way back. And that's a place where the show doesn't seem to be willing to take them. It will go there a little bit, in certain ways, but usually just to set up the "better" outcome (for example, Carter agrees to help sadistic CIA agent Snow capture Reese, who is after all a wanted criminal, but then she flips on Snow and helps Reese escape, with no bad consequences to her).
Like I said earlier, that can totally work in a happier, more sunshine-and-roses type of show. But for me, at least, it really doesn't work here. It's not that I want the whole thing to be gloom and disaster all the time, except that I really feel as if the writers are going for a "gloom and disaster" vibe without being willing to throw actual disaster or even actual shades of moral gray into the characters' paths.