# Resolved: Don't make a TV show with a premise if you can't do it "right" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2014, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572 "2014-10-17T06:39:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/61 "2014-10-20T07:49:37Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It’s called “dramatic license,” and every writer uses it in order to make the story work. If you object to it, you’re better off staying away from fiction. To a certain extent, I do. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The first rule of entertainment is that it be entertaining. > > There is no second rule. Ok, but fluff can feel… unsatisfying. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Realism is overrated. Only in abstract discussions. > [@Marley23](#): > > There’s nothing wrong with compressing time or the number of people you would really need to do a job. But that doesn’t mean a TV show about a profession has to distort that profession entirely. Yes. I like to be able to take away something from a show. If it’s a novel, I’d even like to be able to form a conclusion. If the creator jerks me around, I can’t do that. I find most novels disappointing honestly. Mine is a minority POV. That’s ok. Other preferences are also ok. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/62 "2014-10-20T09:56:49Z")
Someone already brought up Hot Fuzz (which I loved both for the paperwork bit but the ongoing theme of cop shows vs reality… before they went over the top unrealistic). It’s probably useful to remember that the people making these shows aren’t experts in the fields they are talking about. In some cases that make subject matter experts roll their eyes the writers/directors/actors may think they are relatively accurate. They might acknowledge they are glossing over the boring and occasionally have to make an unrealistic leap for the story and still think the little details are realistic. It doesn’t mean they have a clue. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/63 "2014-10-20T12:49:57Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Similarly, it’s very common for musicals (be they stage, film, or TV musicals) to be either _about_ the production of a musical or about the lives of working singers/musicians. These often include a musical number that’s supposed to be a rehearsal, or sometimes a song that one of the characters has just written. But even if there are singers/dancers/musicians present who have supposedly never heard this song before, everyone will know their parts perfectly. Everyone involved must know this is unrealistic, but it probably wouldn’t be very entertaining to watch (or hear!) a musical number that really seems unrehearsed. > > Even in a comedy like _This is Spinal Tap_ where the band isn’t supposed to be particularly good, they are still competent performers. When things go disastrously/comically wrong onstage, it’s generally due to problems with their equipment or sets. There was a post here once from somebody whose husband was in a rock band. And they were talking about how people don’t understand the reality of rehearsing. It’s not the band getting together and playing a normal performance. It’s the band getting together and practicing the same song - or the same section of a song - several dozen times in a row until they’ve got it down right. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/64 "2014-10-20T12:55:07Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Ok, but fluff can feel… unsatisfying. Then it failed because it didn’t entertain you. If you’re somebody who happens to enjoy watching people do paperwork then a scene would work for you if it included that. Even if it wasn’t appropriate to the reality of a scene - like a doctor character doing paperwork during a surgery scene or soldier characters doing paperwork during a combat scene. My point was that people want to watch what’s entertaining not what’s realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/65 "2014-10-20T13:54:33Z")
A [USA Today](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/10/19/hackers-on-tv/17432191/) story on the spate of hackers in recent TV stories admits this: > [@](#): > > On TV, “they can hack into anything in 10 seconds,” he says. “It’s kind of a cheat. We want to respect the hacker world. We understand when we’re showing it, it’s not entirely accurate.” > > Housh says that’s probably the biggest flaw. “You’ve got to do research. You can’t just see a system and five minutes later you’re in. A lot of what they do on these shows would take weeks.” So they are deliberately speeding things up to make them dramatic. They’re not idiots who don’t know they’re wrong. They’re experienced, professional entertainers who cater to the short attention spans of viewers. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/66 "2014-10-20T14:08:45Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Similarly, it’s very common for musicals (be they stage, film, or TV musicals) to be either _about_ the production of a musical or about the lives of working singers/musicians. These often include a musical number that’s supposed to be a rehearsal, or sometimes a song that one of the characters has just written. But even if there are singers/dancers/musicians present who have supposedly never heard this song before, everyone will know their parts perfectly. Everyone involved must know this is unrealistic, but it probably wouldn’t be very entertaining to watch (or hear!) a musical number that really seems unrehearsed. A notable exception: [Topsy-Turvy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD55Cj9iOhg). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/67 "2014-10-21T05:38:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Then it failed because it didn’t entertain you. If you’re somebody who happens to enjoy watching people do paperwork then a scene would work for you if it included that. Even if it wasn’t appropriate to the reality of a scene - like a doctor character doing paperwork during a surgery scene or soldier characters doing paperwork during a combat scene. My point was that people want to watch what’s entertaining not what’s realistic. Hm. Let me try again. I might rank a film on how entertaining it is, how enjoyable the ride was. I might also rank a film on the basis of what I took from it. I agree that Hollywood and fiction in general emphasizes the former. I personally may put a little more weight on the latter. I accept both aspects. There is a market for both aspects. Given market conditions and the expense of making TV shows or movies, I disagree with the proposal in the OP’s title, notwithstanding my personal preferences. And I’ll add that making a TV show that says anything helpful and valid is _hard_, even setting commercial considerations aside. Which you can’t and shouldn’t, at least not entirely. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/68 "2014-10-21T17:14:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The first rule of entertainment is that it be entertaining. > > There is no second rule. > [@TriPolar](#): > > Just this. Case closed. Case open, because there’s more to entertaining than images flickering in front of you. If I can’t get engrossed in a show because repeated factual clunkers like Spartacus wearing Nikes in the arena or Gabby shushing Xena while she talks on her cell phone keep taking me out of the action, that’s not entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/69 "2014-10-21T18:08:39Z")
Exapno has it right. We don’t want realism, we want the semblance of realism. For a show to work, it doesn’t have to show what cops do all day–drive around, write tickets, and fill out paperwork–but it has to seem real, otherwise the audience won’t believe in it. Procedural shows–shows that purport to show you how real cops, doctors, lawyers, software QA engineers, pirates, or birthday clowns operate–have a higher bar to clear. But the audience for a show where a bestselling mystery writer solves a murder mystery every week isn’t going to complain that it’s not realistic, that they don’t show the writer sitting at a keyboard tapping away for 53 minutes followed by a 2 minute bathroom break and a 5 minute call to their agent. The premise of the show doesn’t violate verisimilitude even though everyone knows that mystery writers don’t really solve crimes in their spare time, which is all day every day. But such a show could violate verisimilitude in other ways that would break willing suspension of disbelief, like if the writer wasn’t eccentric enough, or if there was no sexual tension between the writer and the gruff no-nonsense but incredibly hot police detective. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/70 "2014-10-21T19:17:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If I’m recalling the same article, the police officers rated _Barney Miller_ as the most accurate portrayal of the way a real police department operated. The Wire was the most accurate portrayal. Of course that doesn’t mean it even came close to being 50% right. I particularly like the scene in the 2nd season when all the agencies are together trying to figure out who has jurisdiction. In every other show you would have someone bitching about how the Feds were trying to take the case. In The Wire everyone was trying to pass the case off to anyone else so they wouldn’t be caught with a leaky bag of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/71 "2014-10-22T05:47:40Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Similarly, it’s very common for musicals (be they stage, film, or TV musicals) to be either _about_ the production of a musical or about the lives of working singers/musicians. These often include a musical number that’s supposed to be a rehearsal, or sometimes a song that one of the characters has just written. But even if there are singers/dancers/musicians present who have supposedly never heard this song before, everyone will know their parts perfectly. Everyone involved must know this is unrealistic, but it probably wouldn’t be very entertaining to watch (or hear!) a musical number that really seems unrehearsed. But the premise of musicals is that people just break into song to either convey their inner thoughts or express their immediate situation, and everyone around them magically chimes in on cue. So that’s kind of a built-in factor with musicals. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/72 "2014-10-24T03:50:33Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > But the premise of musicals is that people just break into song to either convey their inner thoughts or express their immediate situation, and everyone around them magically chimes in on cue. So that’s kind of a built-in factor with musicals. That’s part of the premise of _some_ musicals, but there are many where the only musical numbers depicted are part of an in-world rehearsal or public performance and others where there are both “inner thoughts” numbers and “real” numbers. As I said, there are a lot of musicals that are either about the staging of a musical or where the main characters are working singers/musicians. And even if we assume that all musicals are set in a world where everyone just magically knows how to perform each number perfectly, that raises the question of why there’s any need for rehearsals at all. But once you start to worry about these kinds of things, a lot of fiction breaks down – not just musicals. The real reason one doesn’t see more realistic rehearsal numbers in musicals is simply that a polished performance is more entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Paxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/50afbb/32.png) [@Paxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paxx)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572/73 "2014-10-24T22:34:53Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Sounds like a recipe for boredom to me. I’ve practiced law a long time. If you made a movie or TV series about what lawyers really do most of the time, it would cure insomnia if anybody ever watched it. Here’s Oak, sitting at his desk, frowning over some legal document. OH…here he is, still at his desk, typing something. Now he’s talking on the phone. Wait a minute…he’s…checking a citation on the internet. Typing again. Now talking to someone seated across a table. Now he’s writing a check for a filing fee! You’re describing an unedited continuous recording of a single character doing mundane activity in one setting. A typical TV episode consists of several characters doing various things in various locations over several days, but the episode lasts less than an hour. We don’t see what the characters are doing “most of the time”. The episode can be realistic without being boring. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > This is a pet peeve of mine: people who insist that “realism”\* is the be-all and end-all of drama. No, it’s not. That’s documentary (and documentaries edit out all the dull parts). You want to see “realism”? Watch news coverage of a hostage situation: The police standing around, the reporters trying to fill the time with no real information. The opposite of “unrealistic fiction” is not “documentary” nor “news coverage”. Something came be fictional and realistic, and enjoyable. TV dramas are fiction: Writers wrote the story, directors directed it, actors acted it. We all get that. The action is not taking place in real life as we watch the show. We get that, too. If, however, the overall tone of the show is one of realism, then I expect the action in the show to be realistic, which doesn’t mean that every single detail has to be exactly the way it is real life, but that the key plot points should correspond with reality. Anyway, I agree with [Exapno Mapcase’s comments on verisimilitude](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17825879&postcount=38). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-dont-make-a-tv-show-with-a-premise-if-you-cant-do-it-right/701572.md?page=3)