The Sword and Laser discussion

Do you ever wish that a series that has been doing the same thing for a long time took a fresh tack?

I was watching Castle S6E5 and it had the perfect setup for becoming a time travel/alteration show along the lines of Continuum (if anyone else watches that…). I kinda wish it would.
Castle also teased us with the possibility of moving the two main characters to Washington DC to work on national security cases. Set it up over the course of a bunch of episodes. I was kinda disappointed (but totally unsurprised) when they didn't.

I noticed a while back that Covert Affairs, which started out as pretty carefree, even more lighthearted than White Collar (one of USA's other shows which is largely feel good/clever moments) has moved towards a much more serious tone.

Harry potter did it to some degree, changing from largely lucky go happy to v. dark (even if there were clear indicators from the start).

So how about you guys, have you noticed this, or have any series you wish would try it?

I'm a big fan of Castle myself - I mostly like it for the characters - not too worried about the crime plots, but I do wonder sometimes when the stories get a little too weird or silly. Even if some of us are there thanks to Nathan Fillion and Firefly, I doubt most of it's viewers would like it to suddenly change to a scifi type of show. It did get kind of dark season 3 (?) and I didn't like it as much. I also worried it would change too much once they became a real couple. Shows with large audiences can't risk big changes, or they alienate the fans, and a big change can also throw off the writers and mess up the character interactions, so I'm pretty content to just let them be what they are.

I gave up on Castle. They ruined the tension between Castle and Beckett like 2 seasons ago changing the dynamic of the show.

I found instead of watching the episodes right away like I did early on, it was piling up on my DVR.

Personally I hope it gets cancelled so Nathan Fillion moves onto to something else, but that doesn't look to happen anytime soon.

While switching genres might be interesting, if a show changed mid-stream you'd lose the established fanbase who use it as comfort food without attracting new viewers looking for the oddball content.

Castle is at its heart a police procedural, and any deviation from that format would, as Trike said, alienate the fanbase without attracting a new one. Television, especially network tv, is so weighted towards the business side of show business that this will never happen. The tone of a show may change over time as writers and show runners come and go, but the fundamental structure of a show almost never changes.

Alex, basically you seem to be saying that you're tired of the show and wish you were watching something else. I think the answer to that problem is obvious. (I personally like Castle but think it's running out of steam. It's had a good run.)

I liked how on Fringe they had one episode toward the end of the season where they did something different. Like the musical episode and "Letters of Transit" which set up season 5.

I think 90's cult tv show "Millenium" did it best. It started as a dark crime drama and slowly made the perfect transition to even darker supernatural thriller, then evolved further into a "Twin Peaks-like" surreal, psychedelic horror show with a plot that revolves around occult conspiracy theories about the end of the world.

And the best part is show's creator Chris Carter never even planned tomove the show into this supernatural direction. He just wanted to make a "Se7en-like" dark police show. Story arches just evolved organically in to occult.

I know it makes business sense to keep the show the same, maintain a fan base, etc. And Castle is certainly healthy enough to do it, and I do enjoy Castle enough as is. Also I recognize that changing a show mid-run is unlikely to attract much in the way of new viewership.

But somewhere in the back of my head I have a nagging criticism of laziness on part of writers and studios who want to reuse existing sets. It got really bad with Dexter, which I quit around season 4 when it felt like not only each episode was formulaic, but each season was just a rewrite of the previous season. The characters barely seem to evolve or change at all.

I suppose this is just one more reason I should stop putting off Breaking Bad, it would be nice to see at least one character change/evolve over the course of a show.

Alex wrote: "II suppose this is just one more reason I should stop putting off Breaking Bad, it would be nice to see at least one character change/evolve over the course of a show."

I didn't watch Breaking Bad until season 4 was already over because it seemed like a show not intended for me, and whenever people tout a series as "super best EVER!!!" it never lives up to the hype. Then I watched the first couple episodes just to see for myself what the fuss was about.

I watched all four seasons in one go.

Breaking Bad really is one of the best series ever made. The acting is as good as you've heard, the writing is as good as you've heard, and the characters do evolve and change over time. One of the best parts is that all of the main characters are really smart. None of them are stupid just to drive the plot forward. If they DO something stupid, it's because of a real character flaw, but they aren't ever unintelligent.

Trike wrote: "Breaking Bad really is one of the best series ever made. The acting is as good as you've heard, the writing is as good as you've heard, and the characters do evolve and change over time. One of the best parts is that all of the main characters are really smart. None of them are stupid just to drive the plot forward. If they DO something stupid, it's because of a real character flaw, but they aren't ever unintelligent. "

This.