Stephen King TV
After nearly having a philosophical breakdown after this season’s premiere of Prison Break, in which a long-running character is politely asked to put down her phone by a government agent who momentarily shoots her through the heart and head, I was a little surprised to see a certain lack of similar shock. Without going into the backstory, it was a surprise end for a character who had been (at this point) singlehandedly orchestrating a whole subplot, into which much sacrifice had been invested. Add to that the soul-numbing morbidity of someone politely asking you to do something specifically so they can summarily kill you, and it was a scene for which I was simply not prepared, and have had a hard time overcoming (I swore off the show immediately after that episode, though I’m having mild second thoughts).
This seems to be a trend lately. UGO.com (and others) blames this trend on 24, saying: “No one’s safe on this show, either.” A brief TV Guide interview last spring with the producers of Break confirmed this, saying “We don’t want you to think anyone is safe”; though this was in reference to the John Abruzzi character, who in fact didn’t die at all (though we were led to think he did, just as we were for Dr. Tancredi at the end of the first season, who was blue as ice then, yet once again warm at the start of season 2).
But I think the trend predates the already venerable 24 — thinking back, killing off major characters was a popular trick of 1980s soap operas (for which we probably have Dallas to thank).
R is a fan of Stephen King, and as a result I’ve been exposed to a fair amount of filmwork based on his writings. If there’s one thing that ties King’s horror works together — aside from the peripheral elements of the mythos such as Derry, Maine, or King’s tendency to cameo in his movies — is the fact that no character, large or small, is safe from whatever terrible horrible force is going after people.
The difference is that King’s movies are honest about the fact that we are watching a horror movie, and the evil force after our heroes is usually fantastic and unreal (Cujo the only remotely feasible one that comes to mind). King’s movies aren’t sold as “This is a movie about an awkward young girl who finds her destiny at her senior prom” or “This is a movie about a failed writer who goes to a resort in the mountains to find himself.” You know what you’re getting into. But with Prison Break, you’re constantly told that “This is a show about a guy who breaks his brother out of prison”, not “This is a show about cold-blooded CIA agents, Secret Service agents, mobsters, and other psychos who indiscriminately kill people like cattle on a regular basis.”
It all came full circle (presciently) with the season premiere of The Dead Zone, in which an auxilliary character was killed on her wedding day by her weasely fiance’s puppet master. What was this show (albeit loosely) based on again? Oh yeah: a book by Stephen King.
