I suppose I have to say something about this.

One of the things that makes anime different from virtually all of American TV is the way that so much of it tells independent, encapsulated, complete stories. That's not invariant, of course, but it's certainly the majority. Anime is, for the most part, what in America is known as a "mini-series".

The most distinctive feature of Noir, was that the story being told was particularly well conceived and well paced. There are no filler episodes. Every single episode contributed to the overall series story, which came to its conclusion in the last episode. There are few series as well handled.

But if that kind of thing is the rule for anime, it's by far the exception for American TV, for a simple reason. I think the big nightmare for an American TV producer is to create a show, write it so that it comes to an identifiable end, and then have the damned thing be a big hit, with huge ratings. Because he's preemptively prevented the possibility of any sequels or additional seasons.

That's why conspiracy-theory shows don't work in America. X-files was the classic of that genre, and what ultimately happened was that they couldn't allow themselves to resolve the conspiracy because it would have ended the series. So there came a point where even the writers didn't know what was going on. They just kept stacking up mysterious things, because that was what the show was about, but there wasn't any rhyme or reason to it.

And then the ratings started failing, and the show was cancelled, and the audience never did find out what the truth was that was "out there" -- because not even the writers knew what it was.

That's what I expect to have happen here. Assuming it really does go into production -- and that's by no means certain; a lot of shows get this kind of nod without ever reaching production; this is definitely the preliminaary stage of it all. But if it does go into production, it will be written in such a way that if, luckily, it's a hit, they can come back and make more episodes of it.

They won't tell the story we saw, because the story we saw came to an end, and that would shut down the gravy train. The conspiracy will never be resolved. And it will gut the show, by cutting out the things that made Noir so good.

In the end the truth was revealed, and it all made sense. Everything that happened in the series made sense. That won't be the case for any American remake, which will end up being exactly the kind of incoherent mess that X-files became.

The only real question is whether it'll be a short-lived incoherent mess, or a long and popular one. Either way, include me out.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:43 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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