Episode Transcription.

I recently rewatched the 2018 Lost in Space series, and if you don't know, it's a reboot of the original 1965 sci fi classic. I was sitting there thinking, this is better, or at least something about this is better than the first time you watched the show. And I need to say this upfront, I'm not the biggest fan of this show. It's not The Expanse or Battlestar or Firefly, any of the truly great modern sci-fis. But 1 thing it does have, and I think this is what I was sensing, is high rewatch value.

And then I was sitting there on the couch getting distracted by the question, what is rewatch value? What is it that makes a show something you can watch over and over and over again and maybe move through that life cycle of you've seen it for the first time, it's awe and surprise. You watch the show again and there's more subtleties. You pick up more Easter eggs. And then it moves into another phase where it's comfortable background viewing where you can almost tune in and out and it becomes 1 of your staple shows that you watch on a regular basis.

And sometimes you watch it because you don't wanna make a decision about what new show to watch, so you fall back on Old Faithful and it pays off. It's worth it. So this is part 1 of a 3 part series called the 9 elements of TV shows with high rewatch value. Today, we're doing the first 3 elements as I see them, and I think rewatch value in the world of TV is 1 of the most subjective things, so I'd love to know what you guys think. All my contact details will be in the notes where you're listening today.

But you can find me pretty much everywhere on the Internet at joshua c liston at joshua c liston on all the grams and the tocs and the threads, all the things. So let's jump in with element number 1. And once again, I'm using Lost in Space, the 2018 version, as the example for today because it's not really a show that I would have thought had rewatch value until I rewatched it because, as I said, it's not The Expanse or Battlestar or a modern super show. It's just a good show. So honorable mentions, things that I care less about that some people might care more about.

The quality of the special effects, that doesn't really bother me. As long as they were good or passable for the time that they were created, that doesn't bother me so much. If it's a brand new show and the special effects are absolutely awful or low effort, I probably wouldn't wanna rewatch that show. But if it's from 1998, it's season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Special effects and the quality of the actual film, the fidelity of the picture, those things bother me less.

Beautiful people. Always love seeing some beautiful people in a show. Don't really care if they're not all beautiful and they're not all shippable. That doesn't really appeal to me. Take a show like Smallville.

I think that benefited a lot from having many, many, many, many, many beautiful people. And some of the episodes probably relied solely on the beautiful people factor. But overall, it's an honorable mention because someone like Sarah Carter, who is a stunning human being, she carried a couple of episodes of Smallville that would have been absolutely god awful otherwise. And number 3, great love stories. If the show's going to have a love story, it would be awesome if it was amazing.

But if there's no love story, that doesn't bother me so much. So we're gonna move on to now the elements that I believe are key, at least in my mind, to making a show rewatchable. So number 1, the show has to be good, obviously. It can't be a complete dumpster fire and have rewatch value unless the show itself is meant to be a dumpster fire. And then that in and of itself was a creative decision, and maybe it makes the show funnier because it's awful.

But for the most part, in sci fi and fantasy, which are the shows that I watch the most and I rewatch the most, the show has to be good. There has to be complexity to the story for me to want to rewatch a show, and the stakes have to consistently be raised. I would point to a show like The Expanse where the show was complex but not too complex and the stakes were continuously raised with each and every season. The world just got massively bigger at the end of each season. Lost in Space do a pretty good job of that, of raising the stakes.

The threat level that they're facing goes up and then goes up and then goes up. I think that's important for rewatch value. Stakes, being good, and being complex without being too complex that you need to hire 3 interns that can each write you a PhD dissertation on the show itself. Get it out of here. Not interested.

So element number 2 is the core characters have to be continuously developed across the entire series. So every core character needs to grow, change, delight the audience, frustrate the audience. Sometimes there's characters that are lovable because they're so dislikable, and there's a few in Lost in Space. There's actually an episode all about that earlier in the feed of this show you're listening to right now. But I think the most important consideration when it comes to the writing and to character development in terms of rewatch value is your core characters should not be forgotten about or sidelined for entire arcs or series or seasons.

Your core characters need to be in the mix pretty much all the time and not be forgotten about or sidelined by the writers for little mini arcs, for big arcs, or entire seasons. Lost in Space, pretty good at keeping the core the core. A show like, perhaps Star Trek Strange New Worlds, not so good at this. And it's frustrating for rewatch value because you notice more that x character hasn't had anything meaningful to contribute for half a season, or they're just not there. And they've been written out and then back in in a really lazy fashion.

All detrimental to rewatch value, in my opinion. Once again, all my opinion, guys. Let me know your opinion through the contact details in the show notes. I'd love to hear it. So our third element and our last element for part 1 of 3 today, the core group of characters need to be manageable and memorable for the audience.

Highly rewatchable shows, from what I can gather, keep the core group of characters tight. That's both protagonists and antagonists. They're limited at any 1 time, so the audience can work out who the character is, what their motivations are that they're carrying into each and every scene and story arc. Once again, if you have to go back to intern number 2, that's your character tracking intern to ask who's that person that we haven't seen for 5 episodes and why are they saying that and why do they care in that particular way about the outcome of this scene? That's not good.

That affects rewatch value. The core needs to be kept tight. And if it is expanded, say in Agents of S. L. D, they did a few expansions of the core, the characters need to be really, really great, and they have to earn their way in to that inner circle.

They can't just be landed in there, and then suddenly the show's all about them. They have to find their way into that inner circle. So once again, you can map who they are and why they care or why they don't care. That's that's fun too. So Lost in Space, I think, did this better than they probably did anything else.

They continued to focus just on the Robinsons, the robot, Doctor Smith, and Don West. And if you zoom out, you might think, well, this shows so much about them that it's just really unrealistic that the universe spins on the head of a pin. And in this case, the head of that pin is this 1 family that's in the middle of everything that causes most things to go wrong and then fixes nearly everything themselves. But it does make the scope of the show, even when the threat level and the scale is increasing. This show did a good job of world building and increasing the threat level without blowing the characters that we need to track out to 50 characters.

And it got me thinking once again, I go back to myself on that couch, when I wanna laugh, why do I rewatch Brooklyn 9 9 or Lucifer? Or if I want to disappear into a slightly different universe, there's Buffy and there's Firefly and there's Grimm. Why do I keep going back to those shows? I think it's because I know those people. I like the characters, whether they're meant to be likable or they're despicable.

I like each character and I can track each character without having to, once again, call in the interns on their day off to explain to me who that person is that we've only seen for 5 seconds before and why now they're suddenly important. So just to recap, the first 3 elements that we've covered today, the show has to be good. It has to be complex, not too complex, and the stakes need to be consistently raised. If a show's not nailing that first element, I'm not sure the rewatch value's ever gonna be there. Number 2, the core group of characters have to be continuously developed across the entire season and not forgotten about.

Not forgotten about. No sidelining characters. I'm a bit personally attached to that 1 because so many shows I feel do that now. They sideline characters for no apparent reason. And number 3, the core group of characters needs to be manageable and memorable for the audience, both when you're fully engaged and when you've watched the show 20, 30, 40 times like I have with, say, Firefly or a Buffy, where it'd be probably way more than that at this point.

I don't really wanna pop my head up from playing guitar and then have to work out who someone is and why they're there and what their motivations are, Because it's bad guy number 6,000 with only a slightly different haircut and slightly different personality. So the core group of characters needs to be manageable and memorable. Righto, guys. I'd love to know what you think. You guys are really smart.

I've figured that out over the last 10 years. So let me know what you think. Who knows? I might be able to just get you to record the next 2 episodes because you guys are, once again, very smart. Righto.

My name is Josh. It's been a pleasure talking to you today, and I'll speak to you again soon. Bye for now.

ON THE BUBBLE PODCAST

Episode Transcription.