TV Writing Masterclass #1
Is your plot lacking suitable dramatic tension? Do you need to involve your characters emotionally with the story line du jour? Then what you need is the Backstory Injection. To fully utilise the technique ensure there is no possibility that the careful viewer could have guessed any of the new plot information – ideally it will actually contradict existing backstory. Then either dwell on the backstory interminably, or use it to bring new, and flimsy, weight to an event that eerily mirrors it.
The canonical backstory injection is HoCaine’s in CSI Miami season 5. Horatio, the big mahoff in Miami CSI, had been revealed previously (in an acceptable use of backstory) to have been in the bomb squad before joining CSI. In the first few episodes of the fifth series it is revealed that he was previous an NYPD detective, had a dirty cop partner, and is significantly Catholic. Bizarrely, this was far harder to grasp than the fact he had a Lear jet available for evacuating relatives and colleagues on at a moments notice – as revealed the previous season. Horatio’s shiny new backstory lead to a hunt for a season killer he had faced off against, though never mentioned, in New York, a remarkable number of biblical poses and visits to churches.
A more recent example can be found in Saturday’s CSI New York, where former ME Sheldon “Stringfellow” Hawkes investigates what is otherwise a fairly pedestrian murder case. The catch is that the murder occured in the hospital where Sheldon was formerly a surgeon, before leaving to work at the MEs office after offing a few patients. He clashes with the chief of surgery, his old boss, with a complete lack of soapy-medical-dramedy Grey’s Anatomy style romantic entanglements OR discussion of golf, rendering the scenes completely unrealistic.
The backstory injection here is used to strike a dramatic tension between the hospital and the police. Of course, it turns out that The Mother Did It, so the hospital guy was right and Sheldon was just being an arse, which is the outcome of most backstory injection fuelled story lines anyway. However, had we not had the conflict of the Sheldon’s past, we’d have just been left with the CSI NY crew ignoring the bloody obvious all episode and finally getting it by “going back to the evidence”, which is the outcome of most NY episodes. This is why you must always watch Law and Order afterwards, it cleanses the palette with Lenny Briscoe.
My dear fellow, whilst your comments are poignant and hit to the snake bitten hide of the thing itself, you have forgotten one point.
Everything has to contradict itself in the end. It’s the law of stuff. When a TV program or speaker is broadcast in the public eye for long enough they will eventually contradict something they earlier did or said. The idea that produers, actors, camera crew or even writers and directors have the TIME to keep up with characters back story is ludicrous. Ther aren’t fans of art, they ARE art.
I for one am simply glad that CSI: Miami hasn’t outed any of it’s cast as gay cylons living in exile on earth because of a love that dare not speak it’s name.
Give it time…
Listen dude, I dont know who you are but you better BACK OFF MY FRIENDS WEBSITE OR I WILL EAT YOU.
I’m serious, homes, I’ve even had Red Dragon style denture sets made.
But good point on the Cylons thing, although gay backstory (Pardon the inuendo) is so last season it’s positively historic.