Thursday, December 14, 2017

Make sure that your story has a good ending.

Even though I have had problems watching tv lately, last week I managed to watch a new episode of The Big Bang Theory. I watched the episode, because I wanted to give the show a chance and see if it was even remotely watchable nowadays.

After all, over the last few seasons, this popular sitcom about our four nerds hasn't really been that watchable. It hasn't been well written and its storylines and characters have been mostly hopelessly stale and uninspired.   

So based on these things, I didn't exactly have my hopes up when I started watching episode S11E09, 'The Bitcoin Entanglement'. I didn't think that the show could work anymore and that it could even produce random quality episodes.

Nevertheless, as I started watching the episode, it didn't look that bad right away. It seemed as if the episode might actually work and that it would remind us of the good old days when the show was still funny and fresh.

After all, this episode - that dealt with our guys mining some Bitcoins - was about these characters going back in time. The characters were back to their 'normal' selves and were even back to wearing their old clothes.

In the episode, the main storyline was about our nerds trying to remember what they had done with their precious bitcoins. They tried to figure out where they had hidden their laptop that had the keys to their bitcoin wallet.

The only one who could more or less remember what had happened was of course Sheldon with his eidetic memory. He was the one who was able to remember important details about the case and how things actually were.

The main storyline, at least the premise for it, for once felt plausible and revolved around the nerd stuff. It was refreshing to see a storyline that was something else than the usual tired relationship nonsense that had zero energy or creativity.

The episode also felt fairly watchable, because the jokes in most cases were character driven and felt like they were organic and natural. It felt like the writers were inspired and were actually doing their jobs this time.

However, there was one thing that didn't work in the 'Bitcoin Entanglement' at all. The ending for the episode didn't work because the resolution for it - rather predictably -  was so disappointing and that it did not make sense.

After all, there was no way that our nerds would actually end up becoming bitcoin millionaires. It was obvious that there had to be some kind of a resolution that would lead to our guys losing their precious 'treasure'.

So not surprisingly, when Sheldon told that he had hidden the bitcoin key to Leonard's USB-stick, and that Leonard revealed that he had lost the Batman stick years ago, we got our weak ending. It was just a weak climax that didn't have a point at all.

Of all the resolutions that the writers could have come up with, the one that they chose was probably the worst. It did not match with the rest of the episode and how much energy and excitement the rest of the story had.   

In that sense, when I think of the resolution for the 'Bitcoin Entanglement', it's clear that even though the episode did have quite a few solid and funny moments, those moments weren't able to make up for the fact that the ending was just incredibly weak.

As a whole, the episode didn't work because it's not possible to write a weak ending to your storyline and expect that your story is going to work. You can't write a quality screenplay unless you make sure that your 'climax' works too.

In that sense, you really need to pay enough attention to how your story concludes itself. You need to make sure that your ending makes sense and that it can be derived from the rest of the episode and how the characters have behaved.

It simply can't be something that comes out of nowhere and that gets resolved in less than a heartbeat. It can't be something that makes little or no sense and is something that is going to underestimate the intelligence of your audience.

In that sense, it's just too bad that in the case of this TBBT episode, the writers weren't able to come up with a solid ending. It's too bad, because had they done their jobs well, 'The Bitcoin Entanglement' could actually have been a really good episode.

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