Quote:
Originally Posted by frivolity
I agree with the view that excellent execution can make up for a common premise but is usually insufficient to take a show from good to great. The analogy that I brought up in another thread was that of Olympic Diving, in which a diver gets points for both execution and difficulty. A simple jacknife dive, when done well, will obviously be worth more than a botched difficult dive, but simply being a master of the jacknife will never be enough to win gold if the opponents can pull off decent 3.5 somersaults.
If we're talking about "great" in reference to the shows that are the cream of the crop, then these shows will generally need both execution and premise. If we're simply referring to shows that are above average, then execution alone might suffice.
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I think maybe it's worth clarifying what is meant by "premise" a bit. If you watch the first episode of a show and you ask someone "What is the premise of this story?", I'm sure you'd get an answer. But if someone watches an entire show from start to finish and then you ask them "What is the premise of this story?", the answer could be entirely different (or at least
significantly refined).
I'm not exactly sure where people are drawing the line between "premise" and "execution" for the sake of this discussion. But I will say that a lot of my favourite shows have had what I might call an "evolving premise". The show starts and you think it's about one thing, but as the story goes on you realize that it's really about something broader, and then that it's really about something broader still, until eventually you realize that everything you saw previously was only there to lead to the conclusion. And then you look back at the show and say "ahh... this show was really about <x>" -- which may be entirely different than the "premise" you thought it had to start with.
I would say that it's perhaps a bit less like a diving competition, and more like an ice skating routine. There are still points for both presentation and technical merit, but it's a composite of a lot of different aspects (both simple and complex) coming together over time.
Some of my other favourite shows have in fact revealed their central premise right from the start, but it's the way that the premise was developed in multiple unique and interesting ways over the course of the narrative that make it memorable and remarkable to me. Perhaps it's because there are certain premise concepts that are more "timeless" than others. For example, a really simple premise is "a love story between two people", or perhaps (along the same lines) "a love triangle". These sorts of stories have been told since time immemorial, but still have a lot of power to move people. So in these cases, perhaps it does depend a little bit more on the setting, the characterization, and the "execution" to go from good to great, even though the central premise may be "common".
And the other thing I might add, regarding the value of a "unique premise", is that I think it depends a bit on the audience. One of the things that some anime fans often lament is that there are certain plot premises that seem rather "evergreen", and keep coming up endlessly. But it's also important to remember that new fans are entering the fandom all the time. The uniqueness of the premise matters most to those who've "already seen it all", which doesn't describe everyone. While all shows aim for a certain level of excellence (as much as they are able within their constraints), there is still a market for shows with tried-and-true premises that aren't necessarily going to redefine the genre or set a new standard, even long past the point when some fans have "outgrown" or "gotten bored" of those sorts of shows. Viewers aren't necessarily born as Olympic judges, after all, and not all aspire to be; at the end of the day, the main goal is to be entertained.