Red balls
I'd like to get a new meme out there. It may never reach the popularity of "Jumping the shark", but I believe it's an idea whose time has come.
I call it the red ball. Here's the mini faq:
What's a red ball?
It's a concept or idea introduced into a television show which seems cool at first glance, and which may even seem to open up new plot possibilities, which which ultimately turns out to be meaningless. Just something thrown in for the sole reason of catching the audiences attention, and which the writers were never able to resolve satisfactorily. Basically it's a plot device.
Can you give me an example?
Well, the phrase "red ball" springs from the The television series Alias. The pilot episode of the spy series sent undercover agent Sidney Bristow, played by Jennifer Garner, on a quest to retrieve a mysterious artifact. When the artifact was revealed on screen, it turned out to be consist of two curved metal prongs above which was hovering a spinning ball of what appeared to be a red metallic liquid. When the power source was disconnected, the red ball reverted back into what appeared to be ordinary water. Over the next 4 years, the red ball device made several more appearances, culminating in a massive iteration found hovering over a Russian city. Entwined with it in the series was a complex plot about Milo Rambaldi, a 16th Century Da Vinci-esque genius whose discoveries exceeded and confounded modern science.
The red ball sounds cool! So what did it do?
Well, that's just the point - it didn't really matter. By the time the ball appeared over the city, it was revealed as nothing more than plot device in it's purest essence, which the writers were struggling to deal with. In the end, it happened to turn the residents of the city (who'd just happened to ingested a compound derived from a rare orchid - naturally) into mindless zombies. I guess someone wanted to do a zombie episode - it really had nothing to do with anything that had happened in the series previously. And that episode was intended to draw a line under the whole red ball and Rambaldi affair. It didn't end with a bang so much as the howls of an audience spread across the world realising they'd been conned. It was never explained why 16th century genius would want to turn the world into a zombie infested hell hole, or how anything else that had happened over the last four years factored into his plan. All we got was one of the intelligence insulting hours of television I can recall.
Gee, you sound bitter?
You think? That's why I'm writing this. The problem with red balls is that they're nothing more than empty calories. They're shiny and glittery, seductive and enticing, but ultimately meaningless. It's candyfloss television, devoid of any real nutrients. And unfortunately, they're all but indistinguishable from real plot developments until it's too late. What's more, I'm concerned that they're on the increase.
Why now?
Red balls have been with us for a long time. Alias has a particularly high concentration, but I believe that current king of the red ball is, and shall remain for some time, The X-Files. However, it's the success of Lost that concerns me the most. Make no mistake, I've enjoyed Lost tremendously, but it's even in it's first season it was beginning to show worrying signs of red ball-itis. The mysterious creature, the mysterious polar bears, the mysterious numbers...
Whoa, hang on a moment - that's a lot of mysteries!
Now you're getting it. Red balls are inherently mysterious. Who doesn't love a mystery after all, especially in a serialised drama. What's the secret behind the mysterious creature? Tune in next week! And the week after that! And the week after that! Just don't expect an answer, because that would spoil all the fun.
Now comes the kicker. Both Alias and Lost share the same heritage, namely their creator, one J.J. Abrams. I'm beginning to see that same familiar pattern of "all set up, no resolution" repeat itself on Lost. Now, it's not the same case entirely. The writing team on Lost includes many other writers whose talents I respect - Paul Dini and Drew Goddard, for example have both proven themselves as storytellers of high calibre. But the trend is there: polar bears, numbers, creature - and more, much more. Mystery upon mystery with no resolution or explanation in sight. Will any of them have any meaning? Who can say? My concern is that the success of Lost means that we're likely to see future series' attempt to repeat the same formula. I wouldn't go so far as to say that nothing good can come of it, but I'm pretty sure that a great deal of dross will spring up as a result.
So why not just call a plot device a plot device?
Red balls sounds catchier. Leave me alone.
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Somebody told me the 'great revelation' at the end of season 1 of Lost. I should point out that (a.) I asked them to do so, and (b.) I'd already given up on it, in part because I thought it overcommercial and dull, but mostly because I realised there was a series 2 and, therefore, no end to the story in sight.
Well, let's just say that it's a Red Ball, anyway.
Personally, I think a Red Ball is the earliest point to which you can trace a show having jumped the shark, but only retrospectively.
Oh, and incidentally - one of the causes of this is that one has to promise commissioners something whizz-bang and amazing in order to get them to sign off on the series. Only afterwards do you have to worry about whether you can really deliver that.
...which often, of course, means that the series that's been sold is a ringer, and whatever you make in its place has to be liberally disguised with Red Balls to make it look at least vaguely like the show you'd promised in the first place.
Cynical? Me?
Mark--not having seen an episode of Alias, I never would have guessed what it was you were talking about. I think you explained it perfectly, and I second the motion to make "red ball" a new meme.
Jonathan--I fear that you may be right about Lost. They had the perfect setup in the pilot episode with the mysterious "creature," but it went absolutely nowhere and hasn't even been referenced once in the second season (to my knowledge). It's almost as if the idea is being stored as a vaccine for the next outbreak of writer's block.
I think the problem with serialised drama, particularly successful serialised drama is that it's often good until it's not. By which I mean that successful series aren't allowed to fade gracefully but are instead dragged out until the audience fades and the end comes with a whimper. Under such circumstances I can only imagine how difficult it is to tell a story.
It's the nature of the beast I suppose. It's all very well for my to stand here and demand a satisfying story with a beginning a middle and an ending, but that's not the end goal of the producers - such television is primarily intended to generate revenue. If it can tell a good story along the way so much the better (especially for the dvd sales), but it will forever be a secondary purpose.
There's no impetus to produce a single season of a drama telling a single story. Would 24 have produced as many successful seasons had Jack Bauer died at the end of the first season? Possibly not. Might it have been a better tale? Possibly. Certainly it would have avoided the later cliche of Jack Bauer turning into an unstoppable one man army - even death can't stop the man for goodness sake! Instead he'll keep on going, an indestructible energiser bunny of modern day drama, until the low rating lead to his ignominious demise.
"... successful series aren't allowed to fade gracefully but are instead dragged out until the audience fades and the end comes with a whimper."
The X-Files was the perfect example of that. You know a series is in trouble when they try to drag it out even after the main character has left the show.
As for 24, I can appreciate gimmicks like the "real time" format, but I kind of lost interest at the beginning of the second season when the daughter was kidnapped for the umpteenth time.
Perhaps American producers can learn from the U.K. I mean, what's wrong with shorter seasons? Seems to me it would be better to leave people wanting more of a good thing than to make them sick of it.