Buffy structure
Jun. 6th, 2005 04:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethTrying to figure the structure of a usual episode:
It starts with the Teaser bit before the credits, which builds up to something that should make people want to watch this week. And after the official opening titles there is usually a quiet bit so they can put the writing on the screen, with all the names and stuff. Then four acts, I think, with spaces for commercial breaks, each ending on a mini cliffhanger and having a complete chunk of action in it. The final chunk has the big confrontation, and then a wind down and wrap up bit at the end (like all sitting around in the sun at school joking about dating on the hellmouth) or possibly a thing that pretends to wind down but does a cliffhanger instead.
So in The Dark Age the teaser is the guy pounding on the door but getting killed not helped.
First act starts with the Giles nightmare and then everyone talking about how tweedy Giles has always been, so it is setting him up as this week's mystery. Then the shippy J/G bit (this is what is at stake this week) and then the cops bring the badness. Giles doesn't show up for a meeting (which is the action set piece for this act too) which alerts Buffy to there being something up with him.
Mostly the first act says there is a mystery, this is what the mystery is, this is who it involves, this is who might be harmed by it.
The mini cliffhanger in The Dark Age is Giles looking in the mirror to say 'you're back' and then the dead guy from the Teaser getting animate again.
Act Two, stuff set up starts to come together, new stuff gets added.
Bad thing from before the commercials proves it is a killer.
The regular cast get put in the right geography.
Now everyone knows there is a badness.
Then, Ethan arrives.
So from the structure we can see Ethan isn't who is involved or at stake, Ethan is the complication. Suits him.
Second act is about complication. First act sets out the threads, second act starts knotting them.
So then Giles arrives in the same geography, and there is grrr and tension of various sorts, and then the bad thing arrives. And gets splatted. Action set piece for act two.
cliffhanger is Jenny's eyes.
Act three - things are at their worst.
Threads, knots, choking.
So Giles takes Jenny home, but finds her not herself.
Act three action, Buffy vs Eyghon!Jenny. Brief because she's saving up for act 4.
Then once the mystery has done its worst it is cards on the table time, so Giles does his dramatic reveal and then his expositiony speech thing. We find out what was/is going on.
All now clear, Buffy goes to hunt the complication, who provides the cliffhanger - Ethan smacks her over the head.
Act Four, the final fight, all the bits coming together for the big action finale.
Threads, knots, choking, free self.
Starts with Buffy all tied to the table as Ethan adds a new twist - instead of just the mystery man and his girl being in danger, Buffy is put direct in the line of fire. It is, after all, her show, and she has already demonstrated she would altruistically care, so up the stakes for the last fight. Makes it different from the act 3 fight, because there killing Buffy would not fit the pattern, but now it would.
The tension mounts in the library too. It is kind of difficult making 'get books, look stuff up' into a dramatic moment every single week.
Eyghon!Jenny arrives, and pushes the complication out of the way. He ceases to be relevant to the plot around here. He was used both times to get Buffy more involved and Giles more exposed (because Buffy closer to what he wants hidden).
Big fight, Giles rushes in to try and sacrifice himself instead (which really wouldnt have worked, since demons aren't much into 'instead'). So we see the hero be heroic and the mystery man turn out to be a good guy in the present whatever he had been in the past. (Janus and the way Giles looks different now to the kids than then or to the grown ups are consistent Ethan episode things). That resolves the first act mystery, leaving only the annihilation of the Bad Thing.
Which is done not by the hero or the mystery, but by the research team and someone who hadn't been in the episode up until then. Using his dark side to bring about a good result. Pretty much what Angel (the man and the series) is all about. But not what Giles does? He tries to bury his dark side and keep people out of it. Angel wins by letting someone right into it.
Bad thing defeated J/G get their reunion moment (and *then* Ethan runs away. Which is interesting timing from a slash perspective, and I can't see how else it can be read... maybe the past banished by this new connection? *shrugs*). Climax of act four.
Wrap up.
What was at stake? J/G. How does that work out? Rather badly, actually.
But I forgot to mention the most obvious bit, of course it was also about B-G, how they see each other, how they rely on each other. And that worked out much better. Wrap up on a happy.
Compare the end of Halloween, which looked wrapped until Giles found that 'Be seeing you'.
I mean to write my 'Ripper' series as if it were actual episodes, so that was why I sat down to figure this out. But it put a new perspective on the episode too. Cool.
Teaser, Who are the players and what is at stake, Complications, Results and revelations, Big Fight, wind down.
TV show structure.
I could probably look that up somewhere if I thought of the right keywords.
Incidentally, Annotated Buffy is a really cool useful place I keep forgetting exists. Been reading through the ep on there and it has all sorts of linky reference goodness.
Crafty TV Writing is interesting to read too.
It starts with the Teaser bit before the credits, which builds up to something that should make people want to watch this week. And after the official opening titles there is usually a quiet bit so they can put the writing on the screen, with all the names and stuff. Then four acts, I think, with spaces for commercial breaks, each ending on a mini cliffhanger and having a complete chunk of action in it. The final chunk has the big confrontation, and then a wind down and wrap up bit at the end (like all sitting around in the sun at school joking about dating on the hellmouth) or possibly a thing that pretends to wind down but does a cliffhanger instead.
So in The Dark Age the teaser is the guy pounding on the door but getting killed not helped.
First act starts with the Giles nightmare and then everyone talking about how tweedy Giles has always been, so it is setting him up as this week's mystery. Then the shippy J/G bit (this is what is at stake this week) and then the cops bring the badness. Giles doesn't show up for a meeting (which is the action set piece for this act too) which alerts Buffy to there being something up with him.
Mostly the first act says there is a mystery, this is what the mystery is, this is who it involves, this is who might be harmed by it.
The mini cliffhanger in The Dark Age is Giles looking in the mirror to say 'you're back' and then the dead guy from the Teaser getting animate again.
Act Two, stuff set up starts to come together, new stuff gets added.
Bad thing from before the commercials proves it is a killer.
The regular cast get put in the right geography.
Now everyone knows there is a badness.
Then, Ethan arrives.
So from the structure we can see Ethan isn't who is involved or at stake, Ethan is the complication. Suits him.
Second act is about complication. First act sets out the threads, second act starts knotting them.
So then Giles arrives in the same geography, and there is grrr and tension of various sorts, and then the bad thing arrives. And gets splatted. Action set piece for act two.
cliffhanger is Jenny's eyes.
Act three - things are at their worst.
Threads, knots, choking.
So Giles takes Jenny home, but finds her not herself.
Act three action, Buffy vs Eyghon!Jenny. Brief because she's saving up for act 4.
Then once the mystery has done its worst it is cards on the table time, so Giles does his dramatic reveal and then his expositiony speech thing. We find out what was/is going on.
All now clear, Buffy goes to hunt the complication, who provides the cliffhanger - Ethan smacks her over the head.
Act Four, the final fight, all the bits coming together for the big action finale.
Threads, knots, choking, free self.
Starts with Buffy all tied to the table as Ethan adds a new twist - instead of just the mystery man and his girl being in danger, Buffy is put direct in the line of fire. It is, after all, her show, and she has already demonstrated she would altruistically care, so up the stakes for the last fight. Makes it different from the act 3 fight, because there killing Buffy would not fit the pattern, but now it would.
The tension mounts in the library too. It is kind of difficult making 'get books, look stuff up' into a dramatic moment every single week.
Eyghon!Jenny arrives, and pushes the complication out of the way. He ceases to be relevant to the plot around here. He was used both times to get Buffy more involved and Giles more exposed (because Buffy closer to what he wants hidden).
Big fight, Giles rushes in to try and sacrifice himself instead (which really wouldnt have worked, since demons aren't much into 'instead'). So we see the hero be heroic and the mystery man turn out to be a good guy in the present whatever he had been in the past. (Janus and the way Giles looks different now to the kids than then or to the grown ups are consistent Ethan episode things). That resolves the first act mystery, leaving only the annihilation of the Bad Thing.
Which is done not by the hero or the mystery, but by the research team and someone who hadn't been in the episode up until then. Using his dark side to bring about a good result. Pretty much what Angel (the man and the series) is all about. But not what Giles does? He tries to bury his dark side and keep people out of it. Angel wins by letting someone right into it.
Bad thing defeated J/G get their reunion moment (and *then* Ethan runs away. Which is interesting timing from a slash perspective, and I can't see how else it can be read... maybe the past banished by this new connection? *shrugs*). Climax of act four.
Wrap up.
What was at stake? J/G. How does that work out? Rather badly, actually.
But I forgot to mention the most obvious bit, of course it was also about B-G, how they see each other, how they rely on each other. And that worked out much better. Wrap up on a happy.
Compare the end of Halloween, which looked wrapped until Giles found that 'Be seeing you'.
I mean to write my 'Ripper' series as if it were actual episodes, so that was why I sat down to figure this out. But it put a new perspective on the episode too. Cool.
Teaser, Who are the players and what is at stake, Complications, Results and revelations, Big Fight, wind down.
TV show structure.
I could probably look that up somewhere if I thought of the right keywords.
Incidentally, Annotated Buffy is a really cool useful place I keep forgetting exists. Been reading through the ep on there and it has all sorts of linky reference goodness.
Crafty TV Writing is interesting to read too.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 05:30 am (UTC)I enjoyed reading this and regret I cannot usefully add to it.
agree
Date: 2005-06-06 01:03 pm (UTC)I have no help to offer, only wanted to thank you for linking this from the S3 main board so that I had a chance to read it.
Jan/Winter