Suspension of disbelief
Don’t buy it, but love it.
Yesterday afternoon, while watching the second season premiere of The Riches I began to think about the general improbability of the action on the show — how the set-up is so inherently ridiculous I’m astonished that they’ve already gotten an entire season under their belts and can hardly fathom the creators putting out at least another half-dozen this spring. I mean, how have these characters not been caught yet? But the thing is, the show works. I mean really works, like way better than a lot of those series that actually have believable plot lines. I started to think about which method makes for a better television experience. The short answer is its all about execution. The longer answer is after the jump…
Since The Riches started just over a year ago and every step along the way felt like it was on the brink of total collapse. It never did and I think many would argue that the more outlandish the series was the better it became. A lot of this has to do with Izzard’s portrayal of Wayne Malloy. On screen we can see the character thinking things through. He’s as impressed they’re getting away with all of this as we are.
Lost should certainly also be filed under the category of series whose plot is beyond belief but that we don’t seem to mind. Well, kinda. Over the past two seasons the audience has certainly raised its fair share of hell in regard to the sometimes asinine plotting and are-you-kidding-me twists executed by the creative team clearly trying to figure things out for themselves at a slightly more accelerated clip than the rest of us. This season everything is coming together brilliantly, and obviously, that helps with the whole suspension of disbelief angle. Just take the time travel episode from a few weeks back. When it was over I remember actually saying to myself, “Yes. Of course.”
Perhaps what is most interesting is that the difficulty in getting an audience to buy what you’re selling goes not only for those stories of a fantastical “no-way-man” nature, but perhaps even more for series rooted in unmitigated fact. I think on the globe of television productions The Wire would inhabit a space at the opposite pole from Lost and yet the creators of that show clearly had as much of an obstacle getting audiences to accept what they were watching wasn’t just your typical cop-show. That’s why it takes a good four episodes during that first season before you even start to get a sense of what’s going on and what they’re attempting to do on television. The audience numbers seemed to reflected that. So what would we call this? Is it still suspension of disbelief? Suspension of belief? Not really, we aren’t trying to believe it’s fiction. I suppose either way the viewer is trying to believe something clearly not real actually is taking place and that whatever said fiction happens to be doesn’t really matter. The American city, a family of con-artists, or people stranded on a magical island, they’re all presented as possible, but require the audience to watch with a certain mindset and require the creators to meticulously create a world with its own physics (even if that world is the real on). It’s funny how the crappiest television doesn’t have this problem. No one watches Two and a Half Men thinking “No, I don’t buy it” or even the opposite, thinking “Yeah, I could see this happening.” Instead their average viewer, after wiping Cheetos powder on their t-shirt likely just scratches their crotch and yells, “A kid with two dads? Now I’ve heard everything!”
The Riches airs Tuesdays at 10pm on FX. It’s well worth your time.
Tags: ABC, FX, HBO, Lost, suspension of disbelief, The Riches, The Wire
