Would work best as a single season anthology series. It needs to set audience expectations and let everyone get comfortable with the formula. When the audience has been trained to accept the rules, it can start bending the rules, then break them in the last episode or two. By the end he’s moving between episodes we’ve already seen and maybe even running into “future” episodes which will never actually exist.
This also let’s you hint at an actual character and motivation for our narrator. Who would expect the narrator to get an arc?
I think it would be freaking creepy if it started normal and then everything got insane in season 2 and everything went back to normal with like another 2 seasons just with a different narrator but the base show has to be good for this. Also the viewer has to notice how the actions in season 2 influenced the rest of the show.
Sure, if you wanted to carry on the show afterwards you could do it this way…
But if the whole point of the show was to set up this reveal, then a single anthology series like above would be better, as this kind of surprise would only work once.
Yeah, if I was pitching this show, and they were only interested in it if there could be additional seasons, I’d tell them that subsequent seasons would each have a different premise, much like American Horror Story.
Maybe season 2 is a Star Trek style sci fi show, which slowly turns into lovecraftian horror, with madness causing weird 4th wall bending.
Season 3 might have high school kids become power ranger knock offs, only to have things escalate until we’re in a dark story about the horrors of war.
Season 4 is a documentary about the making of season 4, with every episode advancing a meta-narrative that slowly shifts from behind the scenes promo, to reality show, to true crime, to unsolved mysteries, to ancient aliens, to breaking news coverage, and finally a historical documentary.
Season 5 is the story of Old Man Henderson, with perspective switching between the game and the players, and with strange things happening whenever anyone reads from the backstory of doom.
Exactly. The best surprises are the ones set up from the get-go…
You could also pepper in a couple of out of place narrations mid-season as well, things that would only make sense once you’ve made the reveal. People would eat that shit up.
Would work best as a single season anthology series. It needs to set audience expectations and let everyone get comfortable with the formula. When the audience has been trained to accept the rules, it can start bending the rules, then break them in the last episode or two. By the end he’s moving between episodes we’ve already seen and maybe even running into “future” episodes which will never actually exist.
This also let’s you hint at an actual character and motivation for our narrator. Who would expect the narrator to get an arc?
I think it would be freaking creepy if it started normal and then everything got insane in season 2 and everything went back to normal with like another 2 seasons just with a different narrator but the base show has to be good for this. Also the viewer has to notice how the actions in season 2 influenced the rest of the show.
Sure, if you wanted to carry on the show afterwards you could do it this way…
But if the whole point of the show was to set up this reveal, then a single anthology series like above would be better, as this kind of surprise would only work once.
Yeah, if I was pitching this show, and they were only interested in it if there could be additional seasons, I’d tell them that subsequent seasons would each have a different premise, much like American Horror Story.
Maybe season 2 is a Star Trek style sci fi show, which slowly turns into lovecraftian horror, with madness causing weird 4th wall bending.
Season 3 might have high school kids become power ranger knock offs, only to have things escalate until we’re in a dark story about the horrors of war.
Season 4 is a documentary about the making of season 4, with every episode advancing a meta-narrative that slowly shifts from behind the scenes promo, to reality show, to true crime, to unsolved mysteries, to ancient aliens, to breaking news coverage, and finally a historical documentary.
Season 5 is the story of Old Man Henderson, with perspective switching between the game and the players, and with strange things happening whenever anyone reads from the backstory of doom.
Exactly. The best surprises are the ones set up from the get-go…
You could also pepper in a couple of out of place narrations mid-season as well, things that would only make sense once you’ve made the reveal. People would eat that shit up.