La Brea Creator Stands by Decision to Not Get Bogged Down by Minutia
If NBC‘s La Brea has ever left you wondering when and how Eve managed her first wardrobe change upon landing in 10,000 B.C…. who finally got the Jeep started (and how)… or from where Scott and Veronica got that very handy cow harness… know that that is a feature, and not a bug, of the freshman NBC drama.
Glossing over such small details in the service of a greater good is “certainly” by design, La Brea creator and co-showrunner David Appelbaum told TVLine ahead of the Season 1 finale (airing Tuesday at 9/8c). Over a compact, 10-episode season, “We don’t want to waste too much time in the minutia of how did this happen and how did that happen.”
“A lot of the fun of the show is moving story forward and having momentum,” he continued. And while puzzling over, say, how all the items in a wardrobe trailer stayed on their racks after tumbling down a massive Los Angeles sinkhole can be “fun,” “getting into the nitty gritty details can get a little boring,” he said.
“We do always think about questions like that,” Appelbaum noted, “but we don’t get hung up on them and make the story rest on them. We’re more into pushing the story forward.”
And yes, Appelbaum is seeing and greatly enjoying viewer reaction to the fall’s top-rated (and already-renewed) freshman drama — nitpicks and all.
“I do” check in on the discourse, he said. “Also, other writers and friends will send me fun tweets that are happening during the show, so I’m definitely aware of what people are saying online. One of the pleasures of doing this is you work on something so long, it’s fun to see how the audience is reacting to certain things.”
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B.C.E. and C.E. are the proper terms now
Thank you for pointing that out. I learned that many years ago in college. It bugs me when I see people still using B.C. and A.D. Especially in a professional or semi-professional setting.
Certainly the obnoxiously politically correct new terminology.
LOL, not even close. Nice try though.
The new terms are still referenced to the same time point that caused the change, they now simply ignore that date’s cultural/historical/religious significance.
So yeah, even if you’re not of that faith, and I’m not, it’s just politically correct nomenclature used to eliminate the origin of what caused the differentiation of those eras.
Except B.C. and A.D. are not the original way of numbering the years. It was changed by a bitter Christian monk in 525 because the previous numbering system was named after a pre-Christian pagan emperor who was responsible for purging Christians from his lands. Which ironically messed up a ton of Christian doctrine. But that’s a whole other story. Also, B.C.E. and C.E. are not new. They’ve been around since the late 1600s and gained popularity around the 19th century. So far from modern political correctness.
“Politically correct” and “rankles me” are not synonymous.
The story was advancing at a decent pace but the season feels like it is ending too abruptly for a big payoff, but we will soon see.
It’s like Lost, but without the charm or eye-candy.
It doesn’t take itself as seriously as Lost did. Such a crazy, fun show with dramatic moments that doesn’t get lost in the details or mysteries.
There’s a big difference between not getting hung up on all the minutiae of a story and flat out ignoring it for the “sake of the advancing the plot”. I get that “La Brea” isn’t one of those deep, philosophical kind of shows but that doesn’t mean they can just break the laws of physics without *some* explanation.
This show’s plot literally is about a group of people who fall through a sinkhole and survive and find out that they’re in 10,000 B.C. If you accept that plot, then, yes, I think this show can just ignore and break the laws of physics without explanation.
Touche lol
I think a real weakness of the fandom of “genre” shows, and I am a proud member of that fandom, is that we all too often get bogged down in the minutiae. If it isn’t integral to the plot, what does it matter? Lost’s continuity was spot on, but the plot had lost all cohesion by the end of S2.
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We do it to sci fi show all the time, and are just about as bad with fantasy projects. Then we end up arguing about these unimportant details to the point where some viewers are turned off. Then the show dies.
I disagree. The SciFi and Fantasy genres rely heavily on world building in order to ground the more fantastical elements of their stories. Suspension of disbelief is greater with this kind of stuff but that isn’t an excuse for bad writing. If your film, TV show, novel, or comic book is going to break with the physics of the natural world then some time needs to be spent informing the audience on how *that* world works. Some storytellers do a better job of it than others. As I said, not every single detail needs to be explained but enough should exist that it doesn’t take a viewer or reader out of the story.
This characteristic is what I loved so much about Fringe; there were so many bizarre story elements in the series, but the writers somehow made them all seem so plausible.
Yes, Fringe did it very well. They technically did it twice. Not only with the “original” world but with the alternative one.
I have no dog in this fight, but this style of rebuttal is flawed.
See, there’s this thing called the “unicorn in the garden” trope/storytelling style: you ask the audience to suspend disbelief about *one* big thing. You say, “It isn’t a fantasy world, it’s our world, just a normal neighborhood and a normal family…only there’s a unicorn in their garden.” And that WORKS, unless you add a freakin alien invasion and then you lose all your readers.
These little “nitpicks” aren’t a full on ship of greys, but they’re pushing it, esp when this sinkhole is a far bigger than average unicorn.
And this whole “you accepted THIS weird thing the plot rests on, so why not accept all these little things that are being handwaved” snark is deeply silly.
Yup. And all subsequent derivations have to flow from that one big thing. They don’t have to be specifically connected at the start but at some point they have to circle back and connect to the original Unicorn. So to speak.
There’s avoiding Minutiae and then there’s La Brea. It’s basically a Saturday morning cartoon. Goofily enjoyable but so lightweight I can’t take it even remotely seriously.
Nah, that’s just lazy writing and it makes your show look stupid.
How does Liam have memories of Diana being shot and dying? How could Isaiah have been lurking in the woods for all of that, especially since they drove her all the way back from the plane after the shooting?
Instead we’ll concentrate on love triangles (insert facepalm emoticon) and soap opera twists ;) I honesty thinking find all the problems with the show is more enjoyable than the show itself. LOL!
WRITER 1: “I can’t figure out a rational explanation for this plot point.”
WRITER 2: “Don’t bother. If anyone complains, we’ll just tell them explanations are ‘boring’.”
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I can’t tell if it’s lazy writing or untalented writers… but it’s certainly one of the two.
I am not caught up, but what the showrunner calls “minutia” to me ruins my suspension of disbelief and pulls me out of the story. I am still bothered by finding and carbon dating the wedding ring (what are the odds it would be found? And you can’t carbon date gold and diamond, only organic stuff). And what are the odds the people in the pit would see camels that would be excavated in the present? They were there at the very moment they got stuck when it could have happened any time in a thousand year period! And I am still waiting for what happened to the rest of the debris that fell in the pit. It was several skyscrapers! And an explanation for why the people that fell in didn’t die.
Sorry, even though I enjoy the show and will likely keep watching, this is sloppy and amateurish writing, and I am very disappointed that the showrunner has no interest in doing better. (I am not asking for fancy explanations that will slow down the action, just get rid of the inconsistencies!)
“Veronica got that very handy cow harness”
HALTER. Geeze, I’d mock this site apparently being staffed entirely by city folk but I have literally never not lived in the city, and I know the difference between a halter, a harness, and a bridle. So I’m not sure what excuse???
My mother raised cows in Italy but she never informed us of these differences. it’s very possible. Know all her cows’ names and different personalities, though.
Those were all good “issues” but one that I kept thinking about, especially during last weeks episode was how that keep still had gas. Even if it had a full tank during the fall, surely it couldn’t have lasted as long as it did. But I agree, they are all little details that don’t really matter in the end because they don’t effect them story.
They could be siphoning fuel from the nonfunctioning vehicles
They’ve just offered an all-purpose out for any and all plot holes. That’s probably their cleverest writing of all.
“We knew there lots of mistakes, but we chose to ignore thrm to keep the plot moving. We could have answered it all if we wanted to.”
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Rriiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhtttttt!
How does Gavin have brown eyes but Isaiah has blue eyes? Hair color can change as you grow, but not eyes!!
But I do love the show!
Not sure where you got the idea that eye color cannot change. It happens. Mine was blue as a baby. They are now hazel.
Babies generally are born with blue eyes. Kids who are 6, 8, 10 years old have changed to their adult eye color.
Not always the case with eyes. My eyes alternated between blue and green until I was 18 years old. At 18 they finally remained green, so I just ignore Gavin/Isaiah eye color
Yeah the bright, beautiful, intense, blue eyes on Isaiah and brown eyes on Gavin drive me insane!!! Isaiah’s eyes are captivating, especially when he’s with his gramps, who also has striking blue eyes! I enjoy the show, but that’s one thing that I just can’t get over. And why did Isaiah change his name to Gavin??? I do like the show, but the stupid stuff is piling up in season 2, but I’m a sucker for time travel shows!
I like the premise of the show, but the script for every episode focuses on everyone having hissy fits with everyone else. That get tiresome.
The show is terrible. My 3 year old son could do better
The absolute worst character development for a TV show in a very very long time.
“We don’t want to waste too much time in the minutia” But we will have every character explain every moment as if speaking to a toddler, then follow it up with another character asking what? or saying I don’t get it, so we can dumb it down even more and repeat it the explanation. Whoever is writing the dialogue for this show needs a new career path.