One of the things you start to notice when you work through a variety of different shows of the same genre in quick succession is their different emphases and preoccupations. As I was saying yesterday, INSPECTOR MORSE is always going to be about Morse himself in some way, whereas GEORGE GENTLY's main character is rather emphatic in his refusal to disclose much of himself for quite a few seasons. His show is rather focused on the case itself and on his screw-up detective sergeant John Bacchus.
But GENTLY does have its own particular twist on the genre that's interesting: the crime being investigated is often indicative of some sort of broader theme or social issue, like race relations, family or homophobia. And if you watch closely, most of the people that Gently and Bacchus meet in their investigation end up playing out their own story related to that theme or issue. So in 501, the episode on race relations, as the two investigate the death of a young black woman, we meet a white politician condemning black people and saying there's a race war coming; black young people who mostly just want to enjoy time together; an angry black man who is disappointed in his father for the ways he's lived his life; and others. And we have Bacchus himself, who starts out thinking the murdered woman was a whore in large part due to her race, and ends up having his prejudices revealed and challenged repeatedly over the course of the episode.
(The show loves to throw Bacchus smack into the middle of whatever issue it's dealing with. Even as he is often kind of an ass, he's very much a POV character through which we enter into the landscape of diverse characters and perspectives that populate a given topic.)
FOYLE'S WAR will often do something similar; most episodes are dealing with some aspect of the ongoing struggle, like the sacrifices demanded of the people living in the UK during the war, and once again whatever issue it chooses ends up playing out in different ways in all the characters.
In both cases, it very much seems like the writers literally start with whatever the theme or issue is going to be, then brainstorm as many different related stories and characters as they can and choose the most interesting ones to fill out the story.
That's a really useful technique to remember when you're developing an episode. In part it's a helpful way to get you to get as clear as you can about what the is episode about. What is the big question or issue that the main character and this ep is dealing with? And then it gives you a means of thinking about what kinds of stories you want to give the other characters. What might be their takes on the same questions or issues?
Not every show works like this, obviously. Some might even say really you need to be working on a procedural for this to really be useful. But to my mind some of the best serialized shows ever written work very similarly. THE WIRE, for instance, often builds its episodes around given themes, and has those themes rippling out in different ways amongst different characters. MAD MEN was much the same.
So it's possible to apply to a much broader range of shows than just detective shows or procedurals. And personally I think it's useful even if you think it doesn't apply to your show, insofar as it gives you the chance to use some different muscles for generating ideas. It's important to try switching things up from time to time, see what else you might discover.
What's the crux of your story, and how can that ripple out into stories for others? Questions worth asking.
