Several times now over the past few years, I've run across people asking me, or someone else, to clarify the "theme" of a TV show. Maybe this is a thing they teach in film school, I don't know. Thing is, I'm not really sure that successful television shows have "themes," in the sense of having an overall point that they're trying to make. Certainly television episodes can have themes. But a whole TV series?
I don't think people watch television shows in order to have someone make a point. This was a bone of contention on a show I worked on a ways back, where my producer kept insisting that every episode had to make a point, and every story line within it had to make the same point. It got in the way of telling fresh stories. I think people watch television shows in order to be told dramatic or comically compelling stories.
Does MODERN FAMILY have a theme, other than "hey, families are wacky"? Or 30 ROCK, other than, "hey, show people are wacky"? Does CSI have a theme, other than, "wow, there are a lot of bad people out there!"?
I think a show needs a territory. It needs a vein to mine. It needs a way to generate hundreds of stories. The problem with defining a theme for a show is that it limits your territory. Some stories may relate to your theme, but some other perfectly good, entertaining stories will have absolutely nothing to do with your theme.
Worse, if your show has a theme, you are more or less telling the audience how every episode is going to end, and how your main character is going to act. After four or five episodes, your audience is going to go, "Yeah, fine, I get it." And tune into another episode of THE SIMPSONS, whose endings are practically impossible to predict, because it has no theme at all.
(And at this point, you are probably trying to figure out a theme for THE SIMPSONS to prove me wrong. Yeah, they have endings where the family is back together again at the end. You could claim that there's a theme of "family is important." But I don't think that's what the episodes are about.)
Maybe talking about theme helps execs get a sense of a show. But I don't think in terms of theme. I think in terms of story engine. What's going to keep the show moving? Give me a show with a great story engine and no theme and I'll tune in every week.
0 comments