Time + Emotion - Jekyll Part 2

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and am now back to tv. I have decided to wait for the final episode of Jekyll before watching ep 5. I'm looking forward to the mini-binge and dreading saying good-bye to the show.

Meanwhile, so much is building up that I may have to give up sleep to keep up (thanks for the tip, Bill). But before I comment on Mad Men (omg, Denis, I can't wait) and John from Cincinnati (Will is keeping the discussion warm), I have to finish with the pilot of Jekyll.

I wanted to discuss the rising tension in the pilot, but my first post on it got way too long. So here's what I found when I broke it down:

Time is an essential part of how tension is built in this show. Not surprisingly then, the first shot of the series is of a ticking clock. It doesn't create tension for us yet, but it will when we form an emotional connection with Tom Jackman, the series lead. In Jeckyll, time plus emotion equals tension.

The tease and first act are fairly flat in terms of jeopardy, but by the end of the first act, we've begun to feel something for Jackman. So Hyde's impending appearance (time) in front of Jackman's wife (emotion) creates an exciting act break.

Then the tension drops again for the top of act two.

Two sequences into the act, we learn that Hyde is due in twenty minutes. Still Jackman is determined to pursue a clue in the mystery of who is following him. This leads us into a long mid-act sequence of tension that keeps turning. Each turn seems to crank the stakes a little higher.

And when the knife is literally at Jackman's throat and we feel like things can't get any worse, Hyde appears. The heat keeps rising.

The sequence which follows is long, funny, tense and violent. The tension here is the product of a couple of marriages of opposites. Toward Hyde himself, I feel both a revulsion and fascination. He is funny and good-looking, but vicious and the nemesis of Jackman with whom I've finally bonded. And then there's the situation. We want this bullying kid dealt the blow he deserves but we know that wanting that is wrong. We sit at the edge of our seats anticipating that violence.

And after it comes, after this long long mid-second act sequence of high tension, Moffat brings us relief in the form of a drink at the local pub, a good-looking woman and some comedy.

Even though, he plays the rest of the act and most of the following one for comedy, the sense of danger boils beneath the surface. There have been too many surprises. We've felt contradictory emotions, rooted for evil (however quietly) and learned to like Jackman. So here we are on edge and still, the third act curtain is a surprise as it cranks the stakes way way up.

Now Jackman's worst fears are realized; Hyde's next target may not be some (semi-) deserving punk. This time it may be the innocents.

Most of the fourth act plays with time and toys with our emotions in order to achieve another long, agonizing sequence of tension.

But when we finally have the answers that relieve that tension, Moffat turns up the heat one last time. The dams break on Jackman's anger and we realize that the rest of the series will be a battle between the two men who inhabit the same body.

What we have is a long long section of tension in the middle of the long long second act. And then a sense of growing danger held at bay with comedy through the rest of act two right up to the third act curtain. The fourth act is one long agonizingly drawn out sequence of tension and fear until almost the end.

Thinking back, it's that long second act sequence of action and drama that bonded me to the series. The plot kept turning and the stakes kept getting higher. It was a powerful viewing experience and left me dying for the next installment.

Veronica Mars

Burn Notice (BN) made me want to go back and look at my notes on the Veronica Mars (VM) pilot written by series creator Rob Thomas. I think I've broken down the show at least twice and I've certainly watched many times. I've also read the script which is quite different that the produced episode and avaible on Rob Thomas's website.

The episode of Veronica Mars I'm referring to in this post is the extended pilot that comes on the DVD of the first season. Like the broadcast version of the first episode of BN, it runs longer than a normal hour.

Compared to Burn Notice
There's a lot of similarities between the shows these pilots set up. Most importantly, they are both shows that will feature a complete mystery every week and will tantalize you with some shocking detail about a larger season long mystery. Both shows a lot of narration and neither takes itself too seriously.

Both pilots are premise pilots.

But the screenwriters went about setting up their formats very differently. BN set up the series premise in the teaser and didn't get to the weekly mystery B-story till mid-way through the second act. VM gets to the weekly mystery right off the bat and gives us ever so teensy a clue about the premise.

Beats
Whereas I didn't dare give you the beat count for BN because my count was so ridiculously large that I decided it was better to ignore it. I'd like to stick with the theory that an hour has somewhere between 40 and 45 beats and ignore any sample that contradicts me. (You should know that in case you think I'm a reliable source on anything, because I'm not.)

I got 44 beats for VM. I broke it down into five story lines. Four of them are arcing lines that will play out over the season and one is the weekly mystery.

(Here's the convention I'm using for lettering the storylines in a premise plot. The A-story is always the larger arcing storyline (A for Arc, get it?). Chances are, when you're writing an episode of the series further on down the season, the weekly mystery will be the A-story and the arcing longer story will drop down in importance to a B- or a C-. But with a premise pilot, the arc is usually the most important story you're telling.

I will designate the weekly or episode story -- the one that's going to give this episode it's satisfying ending -- the B-story.

The tough thing for today's purposes is that VM had more than one arcing story. So for today, those other stories are going to be C, D and E. )

The five story lines:
A. Who killed Lily Kane? - 16 beats
B. Weevil's war on Wallace. - 16 beats
C. Who raped Veronica Mars? - 2 beats
D. Why did Duncan Kane dump Veronica? - beats
E. Where's Mom? - 2 beats
Char. Character moments - 6 beats

Whether C through E are really stories or mere runners or really part of the A-story is debatable, but that's how I did it.


The episode uses a fair amount of flashback. I have indicated in brackets (fb) where it occurs. (The whole first and half the second act are actually one long flashback from the teaser, but I am not including that in my FB designation.)


Here's my breakdown:

TEASER:
A, Char, B

(more after the video of the teaser)....

ACT ONE - 12 beats:
B, Char, Char, D (fb), B (fb), B, Char (fb), Char, A, B, A, A (fb)

ACT TWO - 9 beats
A, B, A (fb), A, A (fb), A, B, C (fb), B

ACT THREE - 12 beats
E, E (fb), B, B, A, Char, A, B, B, B, B, A

ACT FOUR
A, B, C (fb), B, B, B, Char, B, Char, B

Structure
There are lots of clustered story beats, particularly when it comes to the B-story.

Act One: Lots of character up front with a focus on the B-story and a burst of A at the end.

The nine beat second act is short and almost entirely devoted to the A-story, with just two little B beats to keep it alive.

Act Three is the same length as One and is mostly B-story with a little A sprinkled through. The two E beats at the beginning are very strong character moments that set up the story about Veronica's missing mother (Logan teases Veronica and Duncan stops him and a flashback to mom leaving).

Act Four has a lot of B with a couple of character beats interspersed and A beats book ending the act.

Curtains
Like BN, the act curtains aren't moments of extraordinarily high stakes:

The act break for the Teaser comes after Veronica's car is surrounded by a not-that-tough-looking motorcycle gang. Weevil (who we're just meeting, remember and could, possibly be evil) asks "trouble, miss?"

The first act curtains with Veronica's memory of her dad trying to send Celeste Kane's husband to jail.

The second act ends with Jake coming out of the Camelot Motel as Veronica snaps pictures.

The third act is the most dramatic of them all: Veronica discovers that the car from outside the Camelot Motel is registered to her mother.

And then the big moment of jeopardy at the end of the show that is designed to pull you back next week: Veronica arrives back at the motel room, but her mother isn't there.

Why It Works
Of course what happens between the curtains -- a missing mother, a dead cheerleader, a rape -- is so juicy, you don't need the high stakes curtains.

Plus Rob has taken the time to build a great cast of characters that are well drawn from word go, especially the title character and he devotes plenty of episode time to develop them and let you get to know them.

Reaper Pilot Script

I love Reaper. I love it. It's written by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. What I read is an unnumbered draft dated in December and is clearly not a production draft. No scene numbers. I had to count them: 45ish (accounting for my margin of error). A fast fun read with lots of laughs setting up what looks like a very fun series.

It's a premise pilot. And a terrific one at that.

And it has a measly little three page teaser (which I personally think they should lose, because why start on a fantasy sequence inside a computer game when the first act is so great and has such a great curtain that no viewer in his right mind would change the channel).

The story that the episode tells is funny and original. The characters are precise, their dialogue sharp. There are several action sequences which manage to be simultaneously comedic and cool. And what a great premise.

Here are some stats:
66 pages
Teaser plus five acts.

Teaser: 3 pages
Act 1: 16 ¾ pages
Act 2: 7 pages
Act 3: 11 ¼ pages
Act 4: 8 ¼ pages
Act 5: 18 pages

You'll note that the act lengths are very uneven. That's because they are situated where the best curtains are.

The script is written in a nice breezy way with a fair amount of action interspersed with the dialogue. In fact, quite rare is the page without 4, 5, 6 lines of action and frequently there is a lot more. There are at least 19 pages in which there is either more action than dialogue or there are approximately equal amounts of each.

I hope to write more about this one when I've had a chance to reread it and digest it.

Act One curtain.

The script is written in a nice breezy way with a fair amount of action interspersed with the dialogue. In fact, quite rare is the page without 4, 5, 6 lines of action and frequently there is a lot more. There are at least 19 pages in which there is either more action than dialogue or there are approximately equal amounts of each.

I hope to write more about this one when I've had a chance to reread it and digest it.