Wendall Thomas Talks Scripts: TV & CHARACTER: UNFORGETTABLE SMALL SCREEN RELATIONSHIPS - From I Love Lucy to The Good Wife
Relationships are central to TV writing: think I Love Lucy's best friends, Kath & Kim's sparring mother and daughter, Breaking Bad's mismatched drug dealers or The Good Wife's competitive lawyers. It's the interplay and evolution of the characters' reactions to each other, and the tensions in the ensemble, that keep audiences returning week after week - or binging for 13 hours in one day.
Although film and TV characters have much in common, a TV relationship, be it central or secondary, may have to last for seven seasons or more, so the pace of the arcs and the necessity for creating a host of flaws and inherent recurring conflicts in the character relationships is much more crucial in TV.
This workshop breaks-down a series of enduring TV relationships, from both drama and comedy, and offers practical advice on creating and managing these projects on the page.