16 January 2016

How do you get along sir?

Favourite scene from Skins, although it's probably 10 x more hilarious when you're in the middle of the season - it's an incredibly dark episode, and then this happens:



Or maybe it's just a sentiment that resonates with me: yeah, life is a piece of shit. But then there's music. And dance. And cheese.

I re-watched the entire first season of Skins last year because I wanted to analyse the story structure. When I watched the show, I really loved how they gave each character an episode, and room to explore the depths of each character. I was determined to do that same thing with a series I'm putting together. But then the new Arrested Development happened, and it just proved how terrible that formula can be too, imho.

So what's the solution then? A big ensemble cast or something more character focused? I really like how Aziz Ansari created something in between in his 'Master of None'. There's a central group of characters, but they didn't appear in every show - because the didn't need to. Aziz talks about it more here on The New Yorker Radio.