Right on. I'm the same way. I never got into buffy and I was one of the ten people who watched Firefly when it was actually on TV because I saw a commercial and thought the setting looked interesting. And that's just it. I love character-driven stuff also, but characters aren't the hook for me. The setting and the world is, especially when it comes to visual medium. Because characters, I can read in books. When I go to a movie, I want eye candy!

Perhaps it's also a need for the Big Picture: even a character you reeaally love still tends to look a bit like an idiot when placed in front of an obviously cardboard setting?

Or, suspension of disbelief is all well and good when being reading a story (say) set in a fantasy universe with orcs, but it can't also accept that said orcs live in a scorched-earth kingdom with absolutely no sources of food?

Best line:

"That's the other positive, Kim. The [Firefly] fanbase here is fanatical to a degree that makes even old-timey Star Trek fans take a step back and say 'Whoa!'"

Enjoying character-driven books or movies and character-driven TV series are two different things, I think, because of the difference of telling a single story about a character (or set of characters) and creating an ongoing set of storylines. The episodic nature of TV means that nearly all of its stories are told in ways where the characters are the engine keep people coming back.

The "character-drivenness" of a TV series is, in my experience, something that generally doesn't work to hook a person into a series. Rather, it's what sustains the audience -- they learn about the characters and begin to care about what happens to them (no matter how seemingly trivial). As you gradually learn more about a character through the course of the series, you can rewatch old episodes and see new things because the character's actions have a greater context: you get the inside jokes, you can see the hidden meanings.

There have been cases where I've avoided a show but end up watching a couple of episodes because it's something my wife is interested in. Then -- even if it's a show that I don't really want to watch, like the Gilmore Girls -- I find myself hesitating over it while flipping through the channels. After you get to know the character and understand them a bit (assuming the show is competently written), then you're willing to keep investing time and energy.

I think people often make the mistake of confusing their established emotional connections to these characters as something that is an emergent quality of the show rather than something that builds over time (granted, for some, it is immediate).

It's like asking someone who isn't an NFL fan to watch Monday Night Football because the Steelers (or whoever) are so "fun to watch." The enjoyment can't just be transferred onto a game, it's something that develops. Gradually what was once nonsensical makes sense, you develop loyalties to teams or players you find compelling.... I believe it's the same with the love of character in these shows.

The thing is, all successful TV shows have characters that are compelling after their own fashion -- people don't really tune into Everybody Loves Raymond because they wonder what's going to happen, but because they care about that family, and no matter what inane, unfunny crap is shown, they keep tuning in. Having "compelling characters" isn't enough to bring an audience, because much of what creates the compulsion is the love of the audience.

The defining mark seems to be that initial excuse to move into the world inhabited by those characters and learn to care about them. For me, with Firefly, Buffy, and many others, I just can't be bothered to undergo that initial journey. Maybe if I was less stubborn or was surrounded by more passionate evangelists, that might change.

The exception that proves the rule (in my case anyway) here would be something like Smallville. I don't like teen dramas, but because I already have an emotional connection with the character (Superman) that was established in adolescence and is now deeply ingrained, I can occasionally watch and enjoy the show.

Caveat: I watch too much TV.

Well, I watch essentially no TV and I agree with your basic premise (“the episodic nature of TV means that nearly all of its stories are told in ways where the characters are the engine keep people coming back”), so maybe you’re on to something.

Though it seems as though the idea of a series actually having a plot arc has been catching on, the last few years.

Though it seems as though the idea of a series actually having a plot arc has been catching on, the last few years.

I suspect that this is a result of the rapid proliferation of cable channels and the subsequent feeling that if you need to have some kind of "must see" arc in order to keeping getting the eyes on the screen. (Despite the fact that they're pretty screwed when it comes to syndication, which relies on being able to watch the shows out of order.)

It's actually a plot-driven narrative. The characters are all unique and well-characterized, but that's a far cry from being character-driven.

I talk about it a little:

s1ngularity.blogspot.com

I first started liking Firefly because of all the cursing in Chinese. And also the fact that on the TV show there were no sounds in the outer-space scenes.

Whedon also understands really well the whole "landscape as character" (and "spacecraft as character") tropes of SF. The characters are interesting to me in how they intersect with these things.

I basically agree with CA McGee; there's often a significant barrier to entry to becoming a fan of a serial. If someone recommending a series of novels says, "It really gets good by the second volume," a lot of people will think, "So I have to read an entire novel before I can get to the good stuff?" I've encountered the same thing when recommending Buffy. There's a lot of good stuff in first season (13 episodes) of the show, but by itself it probably wouldn't have generated an enormous following; it's not until the second season that the series's greatest strengths become apparent. But 13 episodes is a lot of TV to watch if you're thinking of it as a warm-up to the main event.

Now that CA has said it, it seems obvious that touting the character stuff is the backwards approach. I watched the first episode of Buffy when it premiered, and I wasn't hooked at all. At the time it felt too self-consciously clever, and the conflict wasn't grabbing me. It wasn't until I flipped across it in the middle of the second season that I got interested, and that had more to do with the wordplay of the dialogue and the rule-breaking story stuff than with the characters at first. (I mean, the second season finale is just . . . I didn't think you could do shit like that on TV.) The character stuff came later. Even so, I never did like Buffy herself all that much.

By the time Firefly came along, I wasn't not going to watch, so I didn't need to be convinced. But it has a lot to recommend it. It has a Han Solo/Starjammers/Brisco County Jr. feel that I love. It has mysteries that it doesn't feel obliged to explain--how did humanity get to this point, what is the Alliance, why does everyone know Chinese (particularly since we never see any Chinese-dominated planets)? And yeah, the characters are pretty great, but there's a lot more going on besides.

On the other hand, TV is a huge timesuck, and sometimes I wish I didn't watch as much as I do. So I wouldn't blame anyone for using their evenings in other ways.

I too pretty much agree with CA McGee.

Anyway, for me, the primary appeal of Buffy and Firefly isn't the characters; it's the writing. I like the characters well enough (quite a lot in some cases, not so much in others), but it's basically Joss Whedon that drew me in and kept me watching.

And in both cases, I had a fair bit of initial skepticism (in different ways). During the first five seasons of Buffy, I watched a total of about three episodes, usually with a friend pausing the recording every couple of minutes to explain backstory to me. It never really worked for me. But then some friends convinced me to watch the musical episode with them when it first aired, and I was astonished. Even so, I didn't start watching regularly 'til season 7. And there was a lot I didn't like about season 7, notably the (imo) horrible pacing of the season-long story arc. But there was enough good stuff to keep me watching -- and then after a while I did start to care about the characters.

With Firefly, I was dubious 'cause I thought the first episode aired had some pretty serious flaws. But once I understood some basic stuff -- like the fact that it was meant to be a Western in space, so the Western-genre stuff was genre conventions rather than implausible -- it started to work better for me.

I have this theory that there's actually no such thing as a character hook.

You can hook somebody with voice or with situation or with all kinds of other things. But character takes a little time to establish, and there's gotta be something else that makes the reader (or viewer?) stick around long enough to get attached to the character(s).

Brother, you are not alone. You know, it could be that it's not the character-driven aspect of it, but the mode. I love a lot of character-driven shows. I love the Sopranos. Hill Street Blues was one of my deepest childhood passions. I love Lost.

I think what I can't get over with Whedon is the lack of realism. I realized that the reason I love science fiction so much more than fantasy is that I have always been convinced, deep down, that science fiction was simply telling how the future was really going to be.

So my problem with Whedon is simply that no matter how sharp the dialogue or gripping the conflict (although alas, I don't really get either of them, probably because of the linguistic barrier - I still can't really follow rapid-fire banter on TV), the idea of a high-school vampire killer just breaks my suspension of disbelief. (So did Armani-clothed policemen in NYP Blue, btw).

I can sustain my suspension of disbelief when it's stretched in various directions, for example over-the-top iperrealism or surrealism (Sergio Leone, Tarantino), stylized minimalism (Kurosawa, and of course clinical glacial perfectionist future (Star Trek, Kubrick). (Well, come to think of it, I'd have loved Kubrick if he filmed a Zombie Gospel Musical). And I can forgive a lot if it a) doesn't take itself too seriously (Riddick) or b) it blows things up really, really spectacularly and on a large and awesome scale (Star Wars, Indipendence Day).

But there's something in Whedon (as in the late Spielberg) that just awakes the "Wait, that's just *silly*" response in me.

I hear you. I’ll forgive quite a lot if it’s done with style, and lack of style makes everything else harder to take. I mean, just to be kinda shallow (from a writer’s point of view), and visual — now that I’ve seen Serenity, I realize that one of the things that bugs me about television (and TV-esque cinema) is just the way it’s shot — static cameras, studio lighting, low contrast. If it had looked as good as Black Hawk Down or Road to Perdition, maybe the things that bugged me wouldn’t have bugged me as much — just as I know that the look of those films made me forgive plenty of other flaws. (I’m hoping cheap digital video will raise the bar, since people seem to be able to do a lot of good things with it.)

And, yeah, big explosions. :)