Excessive Opinions

There are a couple things which are found on TV which just annoy me. It happens a lot, notably more in American television; writers start slipping into the same annoying patterns from program to program. This specific issue is about character development, or more importantly the lack of thought when developing the character. It’s the character with an incomplete or impossible background.

Those “interesting yet mysterious past” characters appear a lot in TV shows: off the top of my head I can think of Eliot from Leverage, Digger from John Doe (A show which premise is actually trying to find the background of it’s main character John.), to an extent Peter Bishop from Fringe, and The Doctor from Dr.Who: I could go on but it’s not my point.

My point is when peoples pasts are completely unknown, their experiences thrown together in any way which helps the storyline and who just so happen to have the exact obscure skill they need to help them out: it’s cheap writing. It can be fun, if done right it can build an interesting and likeable character but in the end if the audience isn’t going to know the full picture than it’s just annoying. Some characters do well if you don’t know their past, some stories in fact excel if you don’t know much about them. The problem is when they go into it slightly, be it flashbacks, obscure offhand references, unbelievable knowledge or extensive skills; with each one the character slowly becomes less and less realistic.

Quite simply, the mysterious background is the perfect way to set yourself up with a fail safe. This is the ultimate tool for lazy writers, it explains every talent, skill or knowledge your need your character to have. As you never fully tell the complete background you also don’t need any foresight. Why tie all the string together when you can leave them all loose?

It’s not that I discourage it, quite often these characters are my favourite and if only people wrote it so that the story COULD make sense I would actively encourage it. As it is, given any close examination these characters would just fall apart and it’s a pity.

I really wanted an image or two for this post but there just isn’t anything appropriate.