Tag Archives: TV

TV Characters Part 2

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I was talking about TV characters and how they have to be relatable for the audience.  I mentioned Seinfeld.  I think a much better 80s show was Friends.  All the characters had their own quirks, but they all had redeeming features that we could fall in love with.  Ross was a nerd, but his (mostly unrequited) devotion to Rachel made him somebody that we could root for.  Chandlers snideness, Monica’s obsessiveness, Joey’s obliviousness, Phoebe’s weirdness, and Rachel’s self-centeredness could all be looked over because we like the characters.

I also said you could take characters to the extreme, if you have at least one character the audience can view the others through.  Think back to the 60s, and the Andy Griffith show.  Most of those characters were completely wacko, but we could always enjoy them by looking through Andy’s exasperated eyes.  That’s why The Andy Griffith Show is timeless and hardly anyone remembers Mayberry RFD (the same show without Andy).  A similar methodology is the show Two and a Half Men.  Originally the audience could enjoy Charlie by viewing him through Allen’s relatively normal eyes.  Unfortunately, Allen has become such a caricature himself, that it is no longer possible.  I think the show’s producers were lucky that Charlie Sheen left when they did, so that they could bring the character of Walden in to be the “new normal.”

TV Characters

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I saw an ad for Seinfeld reruns the other day that referred to the series as “the greatest show of all time.”  It got me thinking about the importance of characters.  I stopped watching Seinfeld several years before it went off the air.  For me, the characters became uninteresting.  They became so caricatured that I couldn’t identify with them anymore.  No matter how abnormal that a character becomes, the audience should be able to see the world through their eyes.

Now this doesn’t necessarily hold true for all the characters, but there has to be one central character that holds onto some self-awareness.  In the beginning of the show, that was Jerry.  But eventually he became as goofy as the others.  There was nobody to view the other characters through and they stopped being endearing.

Let me give you a current example– my favorite show Big Bang Theory.  Sheldon is so out there that he is a constant comedy foil, but if we didn’t have Leonard to view Sheldon through, he would be far less enjoyable.  Leonard has his own foibles, but he has self-awareness.  He’s a nerd, but he knows he is, and he knows what makes him one.  Sometimes he doesn’t want to be one, but he knows he always will be.  We can laugh at Sheldon, but we need Leonard to appreciate them both.