MANIFEST – Great Premise vs. Sustainable Series
– Know the answer to the overarching question.
– Have a plan.
– Don’t answer questions with new rules that contradict rules that have already been established.
– Be aware of redundancies in dialogue because if the writers don’t know the answers, the characters spend a lot of time asking why or how and answering with only theories. Should those theories now be rules?
– When dealing with science fiction or supernatural/fantasy elements, adding more because they are cool effects convolutes the rules.
– Solve the problem quickly (within the first season. If the season is more than 12 episodes long, solve it by mid-season). Then how does the series continue? By complicating the answer with new information or problems. By the time the series ends, we shouldn’t still be solving/ convoluting the original problem. However, it should all be organically connected.
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MANIFEST sets up then breaks rules, sets up rules that don’t pay off, and becomes very formulaic in dialogue because it’s obvious no one, not the characters or writers – no one knows WTF happened with flight 828.
Written By: Shannan E. Johnson