5 Cheap Tricks TV Shows Use To Keep You Watching

Dallas, determined to top this retarded publicity stunt, years later opened a season by declaring everything that happened in the season before it was a dream.

"Surprise!"

Why it Works:

Production schedules force most shows off the air for months, up to a year in some cases. The problem has always been that fans can wander off during the down time, so cliffhangers keep people talking through the dry months (in the case of "Who shot J.R.," the next episode got a then-record 83 million people to watch).

And, once the show comes back, who cares that we bailed out of the cliffhanger with an unsatisfying resolution? You should just be glad the show is back at all, you ungrateful fuckers!

Why it Shouldn't:

It's in these cop-outs that a cliffhanger is revealed to be purely a marketing gimmick, having no actual impact on the storyline. These cop-outs let the writers off too easy, since they get to put the character through some kind of life-changing trauma, then just have them get over it (Jack Bauer recovers from his lengthy Chinese imprisonment just a few hours into the new "day.")

Where's the crippling depression that leads to alcoholism, or the post traumatic stress and years of counseling? They turn our surviving heroes into heartless bastards who don't care about anyone or anything for longer than a 2-hour season premiere.

Then, tragedy strikes in the form of a breakup. The sitcom gets serious for a while, showcasing the tension between the ex-couple. The exes start dating new people and we get all sorts of jealousy and wacky misunderstandings, based on the fact that the couple is really still in love. Eventually then they get back together, only to do it all over again (if the series runs long enough).

Why it Works:

Romantic love is an emotion that supersedes all others--at least on television--and there's no better way to engage the viewers than by constantly giving it to them and taking it away again.

Also, the breakup stage allows shows to introduce guest stars to be the new love interests for a few weeks or months (Sarah Jessica Parker went through several in Sex and the City) which they believe will sustain the ratings until the next sweeps period, where they will reunite the beloved couple again.

Why it Shouldn't:

Repetition. This is the writers just going back to the same well for storylines again and again. Yes, we realize there is some realism to it, because we all know real couples that do the constant "get together and break up" cycle. You may recognize these couples as the ones who you constantly want to punch in the face.

But then there is a whole category of reality show that that just advertise the fact. These are the shows where a "boss" type decides the outcome, rather than by a vote from the audience or other contestants.

Behind that boss is, of course, a team of producers who keep or kick off whoever the hell they feel like keeping or kicking off. And that means that the nastiest, most arrogant character you're most desperate to see go, will almost certainly be kept to the end. The show needs a villain, and the producers' job is to keep the best cast of characters, not the best contestants.

So, on the first season of The Apprentice, millions of people were introduced to the queen bitch of the universe, Omarosa. With a resume that included being fired four times over two years for not being able to get along with anyone, and a part time job as a succubus, she was picked from thousands of people as a candidate to become a high paid employee of Donald Trump. Why? Because producer Mark Burnett knew that she would stir up some shit on camera.

Why it Works:

The cheapest way to get drama out of a show is with conflict. The hardest part about reality shows, where there is no script, is making sure the conflict still shows up right on schedule, to keep the audience from getting bored. That's the villain's job.

Why it Shouldn't:

Reality show producers seem to think that drama and conflict can only come in the form of petty screaming matches. But how much screeching can we be exposed to before we go from being entertained, to bored, to just depressed?

Of course the show is forced to undermine its own competition along the way, as the boss character is forced to fire more qualified contestants week after week, saving someone like Omarosa for as long as possible (in her case, 9 episodes into a 13 episode season, only to be brought back in an all-star edition). Weeks and weeks of a villain skating through each challenge without having to be accountable for anything tends to make us lose faith in the show, and humanity in general.

Viewers saw Jin get exploded on a boat in the finale of last season's Lost, but know that he could be back as a ghost, or through some kind of time travel. Or the healing powers of the island could fix him somehow--hell, it's Lost. There's like two dozen ways he can come back. At this point when somebody gets "killed" we just roll our eyes.

Sometimes you'll even spot a scene or a line in the episode itself that seems to have been filmed specifically to include in the preview, as it winds up being totally pointless and out of place in the episode (look for lines of dialog like, "Guys, this could change everything" followed by absolutely nothing changing).

Why it Works:

They know that we tune in for months at a time waiting for some massive shake-up in the plot, either a major character dying or the answer to a lingering secret. But, that important stuff has to be handed out sparingly, you can't have that shit happening in every episode. So, they keep us tuned in by promising next week will be the episode you can't miss.

There seems to be two ways the producers make it up to us when the actual show fails to live up to the promise of the teaser. Either they replace the fake important scene they teased with a real important scene ("OK, so they didn't reveal the whole secret of the island but Locke got shot so that was pretty cool") or, more likely, they give us an episode of filler that ends with another teaser that promises the next episode will be the one we can't miss. Even though we totally could have missed the one we just saw.

Why it Shouldn't:

What could be worse than the kind of "it could only happen during sweeps" ratings stunt that we've all grown to hate? Falsely promising one and not following through. Every week.

Lost and The Sopranos both saw the law of diminishing returns on this, as audiences basically gave up the idea that anything earth-shattering was ever going to happen. By the time it did, most of us had stopped watching.

You can see more of Jonathan Kimak's writing at his blog.