At number 8 on my count down of pet hates on Fame is Doomed Love!
Doomed Love was often used as a storyline for many of the episodes particularly in seasons 2 and 3. The standard type of thing would be that one of the characters would meet someone and instantly be head over heals in love with them. Then there would be a problem and the relationship ended by the end of the episodes.
Now I have nothing against the writers having the characters fall in and out of love because that's all part of life and gives the show realism. However I found these episodes a little too predictable and the relationships boring. None of these stories made for really great episodes because we knew pretty much what would happen. We wouldn't know how the couple would split but we knew it wouldn't last and that the person who our characters had fallen in love with would never be seen or heard of again!
This meant I never saw any point in having much of an emotional attachment with these guest characters because they'd soon be gone. In fact it was not always clear what our cast saw in some of these guest characters because there wasn't enough time to build the relationships properly before it was time to end them.
To be honest I don't see why some of the relationships couldn't have continued. I realise the show wouldn't want to be paying guest stars to only make brief appearances in episodes just so our characters can have proper relationships but we don't need to see the characters all the time we could just hear that they are still part of our casts lives.
Some of them could have made a reappearance in a later episode to break the relationships up or to test them, which would have made things more realistic. For instance Doris falls in love with hunky cowboy guy in season 2 (Mmmm very nice!).
However, Instead of killing him off why not bring him back in season 3 to have the drink problem that Doris next boyfriend had. That way we already have an emotional attachment to him and we wouldn't be able to predict what would happen. I think that would feel less forced that the way those 2 episodes actually felt. If need be they could have then killed him off in a later episode which would have had an even greater impact on Doris and been far more emotional for the audience because we've seen her have a proper relationship.
Bruno falls for Lisa, a student teacher in season 3, and they have to break up because of the problems it has on his friends school work and the schools discipline. However we never see Lisa again so she obviously doesn't stay at the school very long. At the end of that episode it's like "call me in 5 years when the rest of the World goes up" but why wait so long if we never see her at school again. it's obvious she was only a temporary student teacher and what was wrong with Bruno having a permanent girlfriend?
They could have used Bruno's relationship with Lisa as a reason why we don't see him after season 3. He gets back together with Lisa and they move to a different area because she gets a job in another school. It really doesn't take much thought to add realism, develop relationships and give and explanation for a characters departure. (I don't want to get a head of myself here because Bruno's exit is coming up in one of my future pet hates!)
To me things were so much more interesting from season 4 when Nicole and Jesse started having a relationship because it was an on going relationship and we never knew what would happen. We saw a proper connection and not something that seemed forced like in many of the doomed love stories. When Jesse and Nicole finally break up it was worthy of a whole episode and to me far more intersting and emotional than the break ups we'd seen before.
I just feel that better continuity with the characters storylines would have made these love episodes far more rewarding. Not all of the doomed relationships need to continue just a couple of them and that way we wouldn't be able to predict the episode ending. Which to me makes them instantly more interesting to the audience.
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2 comments:
Love this "hate" topic, Mark! I'm most familiar with seasons 4-6, but I was wondering how many women Chris went through, anyway? Such a chick magnet! We've got Czech girl, Anthony Newley's wife, drug-addict girl, Nicole's doppleganger from Vatonia, the age-inappropriate agent in "Contacts"... I'm sure I'm missing somebody. Plus, we find out in "Go Softly" that he had a secret crush on Nicole.
And what does poor Danny get? Bronco Bob and a pie in the face from Mr. Wacky. Unfair!!
Glad you're enjoying my pet hates.
Chris also was seeing Kate in "Contacts" as well as the older woman.
He dated Holly briefly in seasons 3's "Appearances" and then was there like a knight in shinning armour when Holly hated got a date for the prom in "Reflections" after she'd had anorexia.
Then there was the deaf girl in "signs" when Chris went deaf for an episode! I think that pretty much covers it.
Danny did date Doris and also Gillian. I think he may have had a date with Reggie in season 5 when he though she was funny but I'd have to check that. He had the big love in season 3 with Marya who was using him to try and get into the school. Then there was the dancer in season 6 that accused Leroy of favouring the black dancers. Then there was the girl Diana in season 2 where Doris writes Dannys lines to attract her. I think that's all but would need to check, so he didn't do too badly.
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