Hahahah, pathetic capitalist squares, you thought you had defeated me, but no, I am back, and have begun liberating TV land!
Or rather I have to write up a new blog for school. At any rate it's to do with the pwetty wittle pictures that come up on the idiot box. Of course, this doesn't bother me, because TV shows are right up my subterranean tunnel network.
And the lucky TV show that was chosen to be brutally probed, dissected and examined in the process known as 'analysis' was a plucky little dramady called Go Girls. For the uninformed, Go Girls is a comedy-drama about four best friends who make a new-year's resolution each, one vowing to get famous, one to get rich, and one to find love (and marry him). Oh and the other one just wants a car part (no he doesn't). It's made right here in the Land of The Long White Cloud too, so I feel patriotic about it.
Oh and we have to say something about a character, so we all obviously have to choose a character. I myself am going with a lovable rougeish scamp by the name of, Kevin. Kevin is the sole male in the group, the other characters in it being Amy, Britta and Cody (a girl).
This is important because it explains why I choose to dissect Kevin's character. You see comrades, Kevin is the odd one out here, and I often feel as though I am the odd one out many times. As such, I sympathize with ol' Kev. And, as will be discussed later, he has a bit of a heart problem (no, not literally), and I'm sure we can all relate there. As such, I feel for Kevin a lot more than the average viewer*. In another worldy where TV was real, we may have even been..........Friends................
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Meh, I still think I would get on better with Mal**.
Anyhoo, Kevin is also the story's protagonist. This means that the story is told from his perspective. Pay attention people, this will be important later.
So, we watched the first episode. The pilot. It was called 'Dream on' (not to be confused with the Glee episode of the same name). It was spiffing stuff indeed, full of weddings and drama, but with more that a sprinkling of comedy.
Now, it's not all fun and games unfortunately, and I have to analyse the poor soul. So here goes.
The features I have selected are conflict (internal and external), and Engagement.
The first feature this blog post will look at is internal conflict. In this episode, it is established just what Kevin's internal conflict is for the rest of the series: he is head over heals in love with Amy, the character trying to get rich, and one of his longest friends. Kevin is, as a result, confronted with the problem of winning her heart, and weather doing so will jeopardize his friendship. We as the audience know this because, as the protagonist, we can see into Kevin's head, so we hear his thoughts and see his dreams. Throughout the episode, there are a number of alternate events that occur within Kevin's imagination, and the all have something to do with Amy falling for him. This very clearly establishes his relationships with several other characters, such as Amy (duh), Brad (who we'll get onto in a minute), and a few others. This internal conflict is important for a number of reasons. First and foremost it provides the audience with a source of drama, and you can't have a drama show without, well, drama. Additionally, it gives our hero a flaw, and as an audience we like flawed realistic characters, not Marty Stues. Other shows that feature dramatic characters flawed with internal conflict include Firefly (Simon's love for Kaylee), Buffy's feelings for Angel in the first few episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and John Chriton being torn between returning home and his new friends in Farscape. And don't get me started on the Winchesters in Supernatural. All of these fine examples added new problems and challenges for the characters in their show, and challenge=drama=entertainment.
As well as internal conflict, Kevin also has conflict of the external variety. In this episode, a source of this came from Brad, Amy's former spouse. Brad is getting married (to Angelina, no less), but he still seems to have feelings for Amy. Naturally enough, this complicates things for Kev, who now has a rival for Amy's affections. There are several cues in the episode that show Brad's feelings, including a Freudian silence in one scene, but I digress. The humble audience knows just how Kev feels about all this when we see one of his dream sequences, in which he violently assaults Brad. I reckon these two will get on juust fine. This external conflict is important because it pressures Kevin into making a decision, and adds tension as the audience wonders, "will he ask her before it's too late?". Other examples of external conflict in TV land are Band of Brothers (World War two, 'nuff said), Farscape's oppressive Peacekeepers against Moya's crew, and of course The government clamping down on Serenity's perfectly legitimate business adventures in Firefly. The external conflicts in these shows all served to threaten the characters and make the audience wonder, "will they accomplish the goal in time?".
The third feature is engagement, not to other characters, but to the audience. As Kevin is the protagonist of the show, we as the audience are set up to sympathize with him. To achieve maximum approval rating with the target demographic, Kevin is portrayed as an 'everyman'. The common blue collar average-joe that us viewers can relate to. He doesn't have fancy medical jargon, he doesn't solve crimes, he just lives out his life with the rest of us. As such he frequently uses local mannerisms, most prominently the traditional "yeah, nah", common amongst the proliteriat-I mean, middle class, who hopefully form the largest slice of the viewer pie. Mmmmmmm, viewer pie. This is essential because, as the protagonist, Kevin must be sympathized with by the audience, as it is through him that we see the story. A similar thing is in effect with the peppy sarcastic youth that is the protagonist in Buffy. That show's target demographic related to Buffy, and so the target audience found the show much more entertaining.
In conclusion, Kevin is a character, the protagonist no less, in the drama series Go Girls, who has both internal and external conflict, and is established and set up strategically to get merit points from the audience by being like them, and not some detective that uses some sort of science to solve brutal murders. Or a vampire. He definitely isn't a vampire, Not yet at any rate....
Well that's all for now Comrades, until next time, peace out!
*This of course excludes female viewers who crush on him. I am neither female nor do think of him in that way.
**I am of course referring to Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the starship Serenity. If you have no idea what I am talking about, please cease reading any of my blogs immediately and resume only after gaining rudimentary knowledge of the awesomeness that is Firefly by at least researching it on Wikipedia.
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