A friend told me his rule of thumb for noting when an action or police show on tv should no longer be watched. It's when the characters start falling in love with each other. Some people prefer a story in which the police search for clues and then try to track down the bad guy (or girl! - it can happen these days and let's be open). But when the very beautiful female detective starts getting long, lustful looks from the very beautiful male detective, he says the show has gone downhill.
You know what is going to happen next. Feelings! Jealousy! Doubts! A good writer or team of them can run on emotions for decades. In fact, the early soap operas did exactly that. Plenty of shows do so today, too.
Given our wiring bias toward bad news, we are going to notice when the very beautiful female detective has tears in her eyes because the very beautiful male detective is rumored to have spent the weekend with his former girlfriend. WE know that the rumor is not true and that it was launched by that less beautiful other male detective who is hoping to have a close relationship with the very beautiful female detective, despite the fact that HIS daughter is planning to undermine his plans because of the way he treated her mother.
Our antennas are alert for threats and a threat to you or your area might become a threat to me and my area. Besides, we are basically good-hearted people and we hate to see such a beautiful female detective, played by an actress who got the role because of her large expressive eyes, in tears. Since feelings can change easily and actually do, spicing up the tales of pursuit of bad guys (or girls) with the goings-on in the police station extends the possibilities for the writers. If we do keep watching, we will probably develop a feeling of closeness with the story characters. We will experience an extra level of delight when the usually gruff and possibly insensitive policeman manages to be quite poetic when he gives the best man's toast at the wedding.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
