In dramaturgical terms I’d define what you say here as
For example, lawyers starts a new office and falls in love with secretary is just a premise, a starting point.
it’s a plot summary or precis.
And then to take a few of your points:
But it turns out that said lawyer has a strong imposter syndrome that makes him doubts everything he does despite his externally cocky attitude,
these are character attributes and are not necessarily writer-controlled and could vary wildly between the writers’ intent, the directorial notes and the actor portrayal.
while the secretary is actually a down on her luck law student who got emotionally abused by her previous boyfriend who is now the new hire on a high tier firm that is the main competitor of the protagonist’s firm.
debatable about whether this is plot. If we see (or hear about) this happening relative to a turn of a beat or a block of the objective to a character in a beat - then, that’s plot otherwise its exposition
Main guy shows interest on the secretary but they have a fallout due to her wariness and his insecurity.
If we see the main guy making a move, this is plot, the reason for her rejection is an attribute or expository, but is not specifically dramaturgical
Then the opposing firm starts a hostile takeover by stealing clients and lawyers.
Technically this wouldn’t actually be plot without us seeing the opposing firm (presumably by synecdoche of seeing a character from the firm). So if we meet people from the competition firm it’s plot, but if we don’t then the plot would be more accurately described as “characters X, Y and Z leave the firm” and less accurately that “the competitor steals the characters”
the reason for being this specific is a) artistic - that drama (including comedic drama) relies on character relationships and dialogue and b) the process of turning writing to performance to product is a large and refined one that requires adherence to these principles to function
While I can surely appreciate a technical breakdown, that was still a lot of hot air. That doesn’t change the fact that, whatever your want to technically call what happened in Fallout, it was not interesting. It was flashy, it was pretty, but it was not interesting. Thus bland, like rice without seasoning. It’s there, it fills a stomach, it has nutrients. But ultimately it is boring and inconsequential.
I think you and I watched different shows. It was very interesting to find out what’s going on with these vaults. With this ghoul. With this squire low level grunt in the brotherhood. They all had interssting stories and character traits that played out nicely together into the larger picture/story.
We definitely watched different shows. Matter of taste I suppose. But none of those things were actually interesting. They were set up as mysterious, but were actually telegraphed and predictable. The characters really displayed no depth at all, nothing that happened to them or that they did changed them in any significant way. And the whole thing has massive plot holes and ends in a event that only video game fans would care about but overall, instead of a resolution, leads to a cliffhanger.
To me the interesting part is blaming this on plotting, why I’m digging into it is that - as writers/creators/dramaturgs we often coalesce around how it’s never what is happening, but how the people dealing with it interact with each other.
What plot events do you feel were missing? We had nukes, monsters, gun fights, h2h combat, robots, all the main characters interact. What plot point, if added, would’ve saved it for you?
First of all, I don’t think it needs saving at all. It is what it is. Most people like it and I think that it barely qualifies for background noise. That is not a bad thing, nor do I think it’s a bad show. But everything that has happened in Fallout I have seen it better executed and in more interesting ways elsewhere. It’s cliche events, predictable story, characters have no agency and their arcs are flat, and it has a weird almost Disney like censorship over the whole plot. We almost never get to see the truly (few) eventful and important beats. But also even minor things that would be interesting or impactful to watch, they always cut or pan away the camera.
see my reply here for further explanation about what I meant: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/11015082
In dramaturgical terms I’d define what you say here as
it’s a plot summary or precis.
And then to take a few of your points:
these are character attributes and are not necessarily writer-controlled and could vary wildly between the writers’ intent, the directorial notes and the actor portrayal.
debatable about whether this is plot. If we see (or hear about) this happening relative to a turn of a beat or a block of the objective to a character in a beat - then, that’s plot otherwise its exposition
If we see the main guy making a move, this is plot, the reason for her rejection is an attribute or expository, but is not specifically dramaturgical
Technically this wouldn’t actually be plot without us seeing the opposing firm (presumably by synecdoche of seeing a character from the firm). So if we meet people from the competition firm it’s plot, but if we don’t then the plot would be more accurately described as “characters X, Y and Z leave the firm” and less accurately that “the competitor steals the characters”
the reason for being this specific is a) artistic - that drama (including comedic drama) relies on character relationships and dialogue and b) the process of turning writing to performance to product is a large and refined one that requires adherence to these principles to function
While I can surely appreciate a technical breakdown, that was still a lot of hot air. That doesn’t change the fact that, whatever your want to technically call what happened in Fallout, it was not interesting. It was flashy, it was pretty, but it was not interesting. Thus bland, like rice without seasoning. It’s there, it fills a stomach, it has nutrients. But ultimately it is boring and inconsequential.
I think you and I watched different shows. It was very interesting to find out what’s going on with these vaults. With this ghoul. With this squire low level grunt in the brotherhood. They all had interssting stories and character traits that played out nicely together into the larger picture/story.
We definitely watched different shows. Matter of taste I suppose. But none of those things were actually interesting. They were set up as mysterious, but were actually telegraphed and predictable. The characters really displayed no depth at all, nothing that happened to them or that they did changed them in any significant way. And the whole thing has massive plot holes and ends in a event that only video game fans would care about but overall, instead of a resolution, leads to a cliffhanger.
To me the interesting part is blaming this on plotting, why I’m digging into it is that - as writers/creators/dramaturgs we often coalesce around how it’s never what is happening, but how the people dealing with it interact with each other.
What plot events do you feel were missing? We had nukes, monsters, gun fights, h2h combat, robots, all the main characters interact. What plot point, if added, would’ve saved it for you?
First of all, I don’t think it needs saving at all. It is what it is. Most people like it and I think that it barely qualifies for background noise. That is not a bad thing, nor do I think it’s a bad show. But everything that has happened in Fallout I have seen it better executed and in more interesting ways elsewhere. It’s cliche events, predictable story, characters have no agency and their arcs are flat, and it has a weird almost Disney like censorship over the whole plot. We almost never get to see the truly (few) eventful and important beats. But also even minor things that would be interesting or impactful to watch, they always cut or pan away the camera.