03-09-2019, 04:31 PM
I've been binge-watching a lot of GRIMM episodes lately, and I found a consistent pattern emerging from them. Not just the episodes penned by G&K, but the writing staff in general. (Keep in mind they're working under mandates dictated by G&K, the chief writers.) They don't particularly care whether a protagonist's actions are "right" or "wrong," as long as the character goes in the direction they want him/her to go.
I'll try to explain. There's a fine line between writing deliberately "immoral" entertainment (such as Rob Zombie's films), and simply being indifferent to how the behavior of recurring cast members might appear to audiences. The protagonists kidnap a baby from its Hexenbiest mother? Deal with it. Nick is copacetic using a forged illegal passport to travel? Deal with it. Juliette was brainwashed by an uncomfortably pragmatic organization into an emotionless war machine who constantly denied her guilt by projecting it onto another persona? Deal with it.
It's not just GRIMM I'm talking about. This is a recurring bad habit among many writers of different shows who seem to treat character consistency as some kind of inconvenience. If you were to watch a random episode of the classic version of TWILIGHT ZONE or even something from the '80's like KNIGHT RIDER, you'd notice greater care paid to how a character acts from episode to episode, as opposed to him/her getting someone decapitated and everybody gets over the whole thing in record time. Character inconsistency appears to be a part of the current zeitgeist. Is it sloppiness brought about by frantic production schedules? Or are the writers simply too lazy to bother?
I'll try to explain. There's a fine line between writing deliberately "immoral" entertainment (such as Rob Zombie's films), and simply being indifferent to how the behavior of recurring cast members might appear to audiences. The protagonists kidnap a baby from its Hexenbiest mother? Deal with it. Nick is copacetic using a forged illegal passport to travel? Deal with it. Juliette was brainwashed by an uncomfortably pragmatic organization into an emotionless war machine who constantly denied her guilt by projecting it onto another persona? Deal with it.
It's not just GRIMM I'm talking about. This is a recurring bad habit among many writers of different shows who seem to treat character consistency as some kind of inconvenience. If you were to watch a random episode of the classic version of TWILIGHT ZONE or even something from the '80's like KNIGHT RIDER, you'd notice greater care paid to how a character acts from episode to episode, as opposed to him/her getting someone decapitated and everybody gets over the whole thing in record time. Character inconsistency appears to be a part of the current zeitgeist. Is it sloppiness brought about by frantic production schedules? Or are the writers simply too lazy to bother?