Respecting Your Audience

There's a rule in TV writing that is often broken: Don't end an act (ie. cut to a commercial break) with your main character in a life or death situation. In this day and age, it's just not a plausible cliffhanger. If a main character were going to die, you'd hear about it in ads and on blogs, so you can safely expect that the character will be fine. Obviously, shows do this all the time, but it almost always feels a little bit condescending. How dumb does the writer think the audience is?

I was thinking about this rule while working on the outline for my new pilot project. It's a sci-fi show, and I was considering ending the first act by revealing the sci-fi element. For example, if it were a vampire show (it's not), ending the first act by showing vampires for the first time. Surprise!

I hope it's clear why I think this is a writing mistake. It shows a lack of respect for the audience. They've seen the ads for the show (or, if you're an aspiring writer, they've heard what the script's about from you or whoever they got the script from) so it's not shocking that vampires show up. It's a show about vampires! The real question is, why didn't the vampires show up sooner?

When it comes to respecting its audience, there's no show better than Battlestar Galactica. (VAGUE REFERENCES TO MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!) Towards the end of last season, they killed off a main character. In interviews, the cast and crew insisted she was really dead, but the fans didn't believe it. Her name was removed from the opening credits. Everyone finally accepted that fact that holy shit, they'd actually killed off one of their biggest stars. AND THEN SHE CAME BACK IN THE FINALE. And it was great, because the people behind the show knew that everyone would expect her to come back and they went out of their way to make it convincing. The credits aren't part of the script, but they're definitely part of the show. So is the title. So are the ad campaigns, your logline, etc. If you expect that people are aware of your show, you're bound to write a better script, even if the audience isn't aware of it. After all, you'll be forced to find stronger act outs and get to the point of the show faster. If you accept the fact that people already know your show has vampires, then you are free to spend less time explaining the vampires and more time having them do all the cool things that makes the show worth watching every week.

Obviously, this is all my opinion, and I'm sure some writers (and many execs) will disagree with me. But I'll definitely be restructuring my script and you can bet the vampires will show up on page one.

(But seriously. I'm not writing a show about vampires. Although I do have this really cool idea for feature...)