I've been watching a lot (and I mean a lot) of ER and I love the characters, but none of them have any defined goals. They just meander around the set. Occasionally, one or two will be more adamant about something, but for the most part, no one really does or say anything that expresses what they want.

Are likable characters good enough in a series? A series idea has been roaming around my head for the last few months, and I love the characters, but I have no idea what their ultimate goals are. A few months ago I wrote out a pilot, but looking back, it's horrible.

My idea isn't anything like ER.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?

I love tv.

I think, it depends on the series.

Take House, M.D.  This show is very formulaic.  Patient gets sick, House insults his employees, talks about his boss's breast, misses a few diagnosis, talks to Wilson, and finally solves the case.  Every episode is pretty much alike.

Pick a disease.  Make a few mistakes.  Throw in a few expected insults.  And then fill the remaining space with story arcs.  I think, the current story arc is the survivor one.

And the characters are extremely fleshed out.  I'm sure their script bible is filled with lotsa of goodies.

Take Battlestar.  

The show has an overall theme, lots of characters, and things the characters need to do.  The show isn't as formulaic as House, but the character's are more flawed.

I think, it depends what you are going for.

Check out this wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniv%C3%A0le

I'm just a Ronald D. Moore fan, so I found the above pretty encouraging.

tweak

I've heard about it, but sadly, we don't have HBO. We'll get it one day, probably a day before the world ends.

I don't think my idea's so formulaic. Right now, it's your average high school drama, set in a small Texas town.

Quoted from ABennettWriter I've been watching a lot (and I mean a lot) of ER and I love the characters, but none of them have any defined goals. They just meander around the set. Occasionally, one or two will be more adamant about something, but for the most part, no one really does or say anything that expresses what they want.

When dealing with drama, the characters don't have to have a goal.  ER is a day-to-day life of an ER team.  As Billy Joel would sing, "Surviving is a noble cause."

Quoted from tweak Take House, M.D.  This show is very formulaic.  Patient gets sick, House insults his employees, talks about his boss's breast, misses a few diagnosis, talks to Wilson, and finally solves the case.  Every episode is pretty much alike.

People don't watch out for the medical aspects of the show.  They watch it because House is a classic prick and he's funny.

Quoted from tweak Check out this wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniv%C3%A0le I'm just a Ronald D. Moore fan, so I found the above pretty encouraging. tweak

Carnivale was the best show on television in a very long time.  The concept was great and the characters were unbelievablly good.  None of them were perfect and they all knew it.  They were simply trying to survive in harsh time.  The supernatural feel to it is simply icing on the cake.

I miss that show, despite the lousy ending.



Phil

In the 1950's a psychologist named Abraham Maslow created the heirarchy of needs. In no order, they are:

1. Survival needs
2. Security needs
3. Social needs
4. Need to know and understand (my fav)
5. Aesthetic
6. Fulfillment

There are roughly from my memory. I have a book that relates these needs to television shows. It has an interview with a screenwriter who basically states that every show needs to address atleast one of these needs. The characters are representive of your show (theme, plot, conflict, morals, pov, etc...) therefore, if you know your story, then your characters should represent this and conflict against it.

Hope this makes sense. I can scrounge up the article if you like.

Quoted from ABennettWriter I've been watching a lot (and I mean a lot) of ER and I love the characters, but none of them have any defined goals.

Yeah, I agree. Most of the shows that are set in a specific place, like ER or the West Wing (one of my all time favs) tends to focus primarily on the character's professional goal as opposed to their personal goals. But if your characters (and storyline) are strong enough then you can certainly get away with that.

On the other hand, a show like The Sopranos deals equally with the professional and personal goals of the characters. Even the smallest characters here seems to have both.

So I guess it all comes down to what angle you decide to tackle this from.

Thanks for the comment, sniper. It's given me something to think about.

MacDuff: I'll do some research on Maslow. Thanks for the info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Thanks for the great article!

That would be the Maslow I was thinking about. If I find the article that relates directly to screenwriting and characters, I'll post it here.

Obviously, I think ambiguity is a good thing.  However, it should be planned ambiguity - you need to use it for a reason.

I don't think TV characters should be ambiguous. In fact, I think they should be more complex. Consider in a film, you have to develop a character over the course of an hour and a half or so. On TV, you can continue to develop them as long as the series is running and since every episode is different, you can show different sides of the characters all the time as opposed to film where their development usually goes hand and hand with the plot. That's not to say you can't (in fact, you should) have a character in a film with a lot of different sides but for the most part, you have to show parts of them that effect the way they deal with situations in the plot. Since a series has many plots, you have a lot more opportunites to expand on your characters.

Take Nip/Tuck for example. In my opinion, Nip/Tuck has the best character development in a TV series and is even better than a lot of films. Having seen the entire series, it's been quite easy to follow the progression of the characters and all of them are rediculously complex. When the two protagonists are introduced, they seem like pretty basic TV characters. One of them is a playboy who doesn't seem to care about anyone but himself while the other is a level-headed family man. However as the show progresses, they start to behave in ways you wouldn't expect from them and realize there's a lot more to them. These are more than just television characters. They seem like real people and aren't written like they have to move hand in hand with the plot.

So yeah, I'd say TV characters should be more complex.

Then again, most TV is garbage but people eat it up anyway. You could certainly get away with ambiguous characters.

One of the best written shows on TV right now is Grey's Anatomy. Like it or louthe it, it's fantastically written. Each character is so well fleshed out and has so many layers, it's a joy to watch. What makes the characters so interesting is that they manage to balance both their social lives and their professional lives and for the most part, they conflict within each character. They have fantastic flaws and it keeps the episodes interesting.

I really didn't mean ambiguous characters. I'm just talking about thier wants. I know who they are. I know how they're going to react. I know what they're going to do. I just don't know what they want. In the long run, I mean.

If your reason for the ambiguity is because you don't know, then find out.  You are the writer - you should know.

im with james where i think characters in TV dramas should be even more complex and fleshed out then in movies. thats my favorite part about good TV shows... is watching the characters unfold before your eyes... this is why i like Lost so much.

Quoted from MacDuff One of the best written shows on TV right now is Grey's Anatomy. Like it or louthe it, it's fantastically written. Each character is so well fleshed out and has so many layers, it's a joy to watch. What makes the characters so interesting is that they manage to balance both their social lives and their professional lives and for the most part, they conflict within each character. They have fantastic flaws and it keeps the episodes interesting.

i watched it for a while because i'm a fan of medical shows like ER and House MD but Grey's is just.... i dunno... too much of a "chick show" for me.