Episode 536: Cliffhanger!

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Dave

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Zombie Cliche Lookout: Binary Choice

It’s very popular in media, and especially games, to force characters into very difficult A/B choices. I’m going to go with a non-zombie, non-horror example here, simply because it’s the first thing to pop into my head. In Spiderman, the Green Goblin tries to force this on the titular hero. He could save his girlfriend, or a whole bunch of innocent people. He could save more people, but doom someone he loved to death, or allow many to die to save one person with a personal link to the hero. Of course, it doesn’t quite work out like Green Goblin planned, but I still think it’s a pretty good example.

For one reason or another, these choices are generally confined to two options. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps adding more choices over complicates things too much for the character, the audience, or both. I guess it does keep things pretty simple, putting the focus more on the difficulty of the choice itself, rather than its various options.

About this Episode:

Obviously, I was inspired by Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead here. They’ve put together some incredible games, with fantastic stories and deep character development, but it leans far too heavily on the “which one will you save” non-choice. Why is it a non-choice? Well, because SPOILERS usually both people end up dying anyway, just to keep the story easier to link together by the writers.

Discussion Question: Does This Sort of Thing Work?

TV shows absolutely love to pull out this trope, especially during times where pulling in high ratings are really important, like sweeps week. If you can get all your fans excited and nervous with a dramatic cliffhanger, you can bet they’ll all tune in for the exciting conclusion. But in the age of DVRs, torrents, and binge watching shows on DVD and Netflix is this really still a thing?

12 thoughts on “Episode 536: Cliffhanger!”

  1. Well, it depends on who you can choose between and how bad the situation is for each, in this choice, Cheryl can either choose between an idiot who’s wrestling one zombie for his weapon, or another idiot who’s surrounded by a fair amount of zombies without a weapon. I’d go for the second choice.

    … I thought I was commenting on the discussion question.

    • I love how you define Brent and Stewart as little more than two idiots. Truer words.

  2. Cheryl has the rather difficult problem of figuring out how Dave’s continuity error got her into this mess. So far this has been a series of errors, most especially since the original error wasn’t even corrected. That being said, it looks like Russel and Inez will have quickly dispatched their zombies and will be able to help both parties shortly. So if she wants to make a decision she should take into account that she’s getting help in the very near future. 😀

    • I decided to just embrace the continuity error and roll with it. Might not be the best choice, but I’m going for it.

      As far as Russell and Inez go, well, we can’t really see what they’re up to.

  3. Two zombies on one side, just one on the other… Looks like the odds are against Brent on this one. At least he gets to be eaten and die still wearing his sunglasses and look cool 😉

    • I know I want to leave this world looking cool.

  4. Us old people remember the days when a main character’s 2nd Cousin showed up out of nowhere, had never been mentioned before and was then tragically killed off so the main character could go on a tearful vengence streak.

    Nowadays shows like to have secondary characters around for a few episodes or kill off characters which have been around for 3 or 4 seasons. They want the audience to have an emotional connection to the main characters choice of who dies and who lives probably since so many shows are out there they need to hook the audience deeply.

    Walking dead has done this pretty well and with the possible exceptions of Rick and Daryll no one on that show is safe.

    • Excellent point, Rattraveller. My wife and I often joke about that. Our big example is Rambo III, where they gave him a love interest only to kill her off to give Rambo even more reason to kick ass.

  5. I’d have to die in a freezer…

    • Well that’s rather grim.

  6. Ehhh she should really save Stewart A) They’ve known each other way longer, and might even have feelings for each other. B) Brent kind of messed up earlier . . . . and is probably much older than Stewart as well!

  7. Haha, yes it does sounds grim as an isolated remark… it was meant as a reply on your comment: “I know I want to leave this world looking cool.”

    There is still something wrong with the reply-buton (but you probably know that 🙂 )