Mood line

To me the simple view that entertainment is a way to safely control mood--or try to control it--is very effective, and has helped me figure out when something meant to be entertainment works for me, or not.

And it is SUCH a simple idea, where that safety aspect of controlling mood also helps contrast with things that can not be safe, like alcohol. People drink alcohol to help control mood too, and if drink too much, is definitely very NOT safe.

More importantly as a fan have realized can now easily explain a sad thing when writers or others with some creative endeavor, like a television show comes to mind, break what I call the mood line.

So it's like, you have your favorite television show, and it helps your mood, where can be a complex constellation of feelings. And I've talked the mood of a completed television reboot in a prior post for reference, where show was successful but I was unsatisfied with the ending. So you enjoy watching some television show and then inexplicably there is some episode that just seems to ruin everything. What happened?

I say the people who create the show, broke the mood line. And now can say that means that suddenly the mood the show evoked for you, was ruined.

Why is that done?

In my opinion it's always an error. Which is why as a fan I like mood focus, as writers can think it's being creative, or producers can say it's needed to advance the show, or expand the audience when is WRONG. When I say is a sign of ignorance. They just don't quite know what they're doing.

Modern audiences are being more brutal in addressing screw-ups too. Which I think is good.

It's not creative to disappoint your audience. It's bad performance.

Besides, if you understand the mood line you can do just about anything with the plot. Which is why you can see entertainment where the plot is shaky but it gives audiences the mood they want.

Mood is more important, because I'm saying that's the point of the entertainment. People are entertained when proper mood is evoked. If it isn't then they aren't entertained. Kind of like when at a dinner party and things are great and someone spits food on you laughing too hard at something. Ruins the mood.

Plot is important though too. And I think especially over time bad plot or plot holes can fail to get people to the proper mood. But in our times I think things have been so bad for so long with mood that people are kind of desperate.

So yeah as a fan who has been infuriated at what I see as bad writer or stupid executive decisions or whatever the dumb is that messes up entertainment I like, as well as someone who feels entertainment is a great thing for so many people to safely control mood, lots of reasons to push better.

Oh, yeah, if you want to help me, if someone talks entertainment? Just casually say something like, well entertainment really is just a way people use to safely control mood.

And play it cool too. You know like, everybody knows that kind of thing.

But of course I just made that up a bit over a year ago.


James Harris