New experience for me: I got a rose. And not just any rose--an anonymous rose. With the message "I hope your day is as beautiful as you are" attached to it.
Don't get me wrong--it totally made my day! I'm still having trouble not smiling. I've never gotten a present on Valentine's Day before, and this is a welcome, welcome change. It's also a nice return-to-normalcy present because I spent all of Saturday working on my horror movie--got back to my room at about 3 am.
It's the anonymous thing. Blessing and a curse, kind of like the Internet. On one hand, I love that it's anonymous, because it could be anyone! On the other hand, I really, really hate that it's anonymous because...it could be anyone. Robert Downey Jr. or Steve Buscemi. Chocolate pudding or...banana pudding.
Banana pudding is gross.
I think it's that tension--the I-just-don't-know tension that fuels a lot of television shows (see? SEE?!? I can bring anything back around to TV). The classic will-they-won't-they dynamic is the same as that of the anonymous rose. There's a conflict there, especially on the part of the audience. They want desperately for those characters to be together, but at the same time, the moment that they do, the magic is gone and the show becomes crap. I want desperately to know who sent me that rose, but there's a chance that the moment I do, the magic of the flower will be gone. The last petal falls, the Beast remains a beast forever.
[Odd digression, did you know that the name of the prince from Beauty and the Beast is actually Adam? Charlotte maintains that he will always just be Prince Beast. I agree with her.]
Take, for example, The X-Files. This show set up that will-they-won't-they between Mulder and Scully so beautifully, mostly because through the first half of the show, the writers simply allowed the audience to draw their own conclusions about the relationships of the characters. For at least the first three seasons, the only scripted development in the bond between the two agents is that of a very close friendship--nothing more.
It was only when Chris Carter started giving in to the will of the fans and threw a little romance in there that the show began sucking. When Scully got knocked up--forget it. The show was over, and no amount of bringing Mulder back from the dead (oh, yes. They fucking did that.) was going to save it.
Example two: Booth and Brennan on Bones.
I love this couple. I think that they're perfect for one another, and the show has developed their relationship to the point where, if they went for one another, it would make absolute sense. No one in their right mind can question that Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth are made for one another.
But that
's the problem. There's nowhere to go but coupledom! Right from the outset, Booth and Brennan have had a Mulder-and-Scully-season-six vibe to them, and in the five seasons that the show has been on the air, that's only intensified! The fact that they're not together is even more implausible than resurrecting Fox Mulder (by the way, what is it with the FOX network and weird character names? Fox? Seeley? Food for thought.) To bring the characters together, though, would be the kiss of death for the show, and Hart Hanson and his minions understand that. They've just painted themselves into a corner. They didn't get enough of a running start to this thing, and now they're facing a hurdle that's a lot closer than they'd originally thought, and they're having to do a lot of awkward leaps to get over it. (In case you were wondering, yes, I am proud of that metaphor.)It's the anonymous rose of television conundrums. The mystery and the intrigue: is it good or is it bad? It's good in that it draws in viewers. It's bad in that, if handled incorrectly (and it's always handled incorrectly in the end), it drives them away. The last petal falls and the ratings drop and Prince Beast/Adam is stuck in the castle forever.
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