BWTV-AI Module 1 – Lesson 1: What is a Binge Worthy Show?

[Tom B.]

Example Show: Wednesday

Wednesday begins with the utterly unique antihero outcast Wednesday Addams delivering revenge on bullies at school only to be expelled once again and sent to Nevermore school, the haven for many other outcasts and specially talented students, and where her own parents met and declared their own mutual bond(age). Once there, she experiences immediate challenges and conflict with other classmates and learns of a recent murder nearby that intrigues her and firmly establishes her presence in the school and whether she can solve its mysteries.

What I learned doing this assignment is the need for a quick pace of the first pilot for setting up the characters, conflict and intrigue, the importance of originality in the main character, and the undeniable pull and pleasure of clever and humorous writing.

Big Picture Hooks
Ask this: What is the big hook of this show? Murder mystery around a school that is populated with all sorts of strange, interesting, mysterious characters, and punctuated by the main character, new enrollee, Wednesday, an outcast among outcasts, as she has been kicked out of numerous schools in the past.

Amazing and Intriguing Character
Ask this: What makes these main characters intriguing and interesting? Wednesday is incredibly intelligent, savvy, and original as a protagonist, unapologetically rebellious and stoic in moments that would evoke emotion and reaction in others. All other students possess unique talents and have mysterious pasts and motives.

Empathy / Distress
Ask this: What situations causes us to feel both empathy and distress for these characters? It’s a school of outcasts and adolescent monsters, that all have experienced rejection and alienation.

Layers / Open Loops
Ask this: What questions are created by this first episode that can only be answered by watching the entire season? The pilot introduces multiple layers to the main story of solving the murder mystery, such as addressing the romantic element, determining whether this school is interesting enough to capture Wednesday’s continued enrollment as a student, and the mystery of the other characters.

Inviting Obsession
Ask this: How does this pilot create the need to see every single episode? Humor, originality, mystery is established in the pilot to create an insatiable need to see every episode in the whole season.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Tom B..
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Tom B..
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Tom B..
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Tom B..
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Tom B..
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Tom B..

[Seth Kuhn]

THE NEW WORLDS 5 Star Model

LOST Beats
Jack wakes up in a jungle somewhere, dressed in a suit and bleeding. Looking around he discovers a beach and then a plane wreck that he was clearly part of.
Having crashed moments ago, there are still fires and spinning turbines. The passengers try to help each other, although some are unconscious or maybe dead. Jack is incredibly poised and competent. He organizes a group to lift a piece of the plane off of one guy, who he quickly puts a tourniquet on using his tie. He sees someone trying to do CPR and runs up an instructs them how to do it correctly. He helps a pregnant girl, asking about her contractions, and then proceeds to save her from a falling plane wing. Clearly we have our doctor hero.

As things calm down, Jack grabs a couple of vodka nips and a sewing kit and walks off to a private area. He opens his shirt to reveal a massive wound on his side that he clearly intends to mend. He struggles to stitch himself given the angle of operation. Kate enters from the trees and sees that he needs help. Unsure of what she’s doing, he talks her through it.
As night comes and things calm down a bit, Jack attends to an unconscious guy with a wound. Kate’s observes inquisitively but says she doesn’t know him but that he was sitting next to her. They hear some crazy noise, almost dinosaur-esque coming from the trees, which are moving like a creature is walking through them. Where are they?!

Flashback to Jack on the plane, pre-crash. He flirts with the stewardess but says his drink isn’t very strong. She gives him two more nips, one of which he immediately pours in his glass and slams back. We see the beginning of the plane crash.

Back to the present, Jack decides to go find the cockpit of the plane using the smoke that Kate had seen earlier as his compass. Charlie insists on going with them…for some reason.
Jack, Kate, and Charlie hike through the valley toward where the smoke was. They find the cockpit leaning on some trees. To get to the cockpit they have to climb up the seats. The cockpit’s locked but they break their way in and look for the transceiver. Charlie disappears. In the cockpit the pilot wakes up with a jolt and tells them that no one is going to find them because they lost communication before going 1000 miles off course. All of a sudden the mysterious animal/monster is right on top of them. As they look around to try to see it, the pilot peeks his head out of the broken windshield and gets snatched up by it. Blood splashes on the windows. In a panic, Jack, Kate, and Charlie take off running and get separated. Kate and Charlie find each other and Kate insists that they must go back for Jack. On their way, they find the pilot’s wing pin in a puddle but they don’t see him. Jack steps out of the woods. Kate’s so happy she could kiss him. They look up and the pilot is 50 feet in the air in a tree…bloody and dead.

Charlie’s on the plane, pre-crash. He’s going through something like withdrawals. He thinks the stewardess can tell and he runs toward the front of the plane, trying to find an open bathroom. He runs by Jack, which we saw earlier in Jack’s pre-crash narrative. Charlie gets to the bathroom where he pulls out some drugs and then just as he’s about to flush the rest, the plane crashes…and now we know what Charlie was doing in the bathroom, post-crash, when he went looking for the cockpit with Jack and Kate, and why he disappeared.
Back on the beach, two of the passengers are fighting, both of whom we’ve seen earlier: Sawyer and Sayid. Jack, Kate, and Charlie show up just in time to help break up the fight after which they share what they found with the group.

The receiver’s not working, but Sayid may be able to fix it. While Sayid works on the receiver, Hugo joins him and tries to befriend him, it works. Sayid finishes fixing the responder, but there’s no signal. If they go to higher elevation they may be able to get a signal. Kate checks in with Jack who’s still working on the guy with the shrapnel in his leg. Jack doesn’t want her to go on the hike, especially as he needs to stay, but he concedes and tells her to be careful. Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Charlie, Shannon, and Shannon’s brother all go on a hike to get a signal.
The mysterious creature of the island is after them and getting close. Most everyone starts to run away except for Sawyer who stands his ground. The creature gets closer and closer but Sawyer won’t budge. Right as the creature gets in striking distance of Sawyer, he shoots 5 shots from a gun (that we didn’t know he had). What did he shoot? A POLAR BEAR!

Jack operates on the leg guy, with Hugo’s “help” but Hugo passes out at the sight of blood.

Kate and Sayid press Sawyer about how he had a gun. It certainly seems like Sawyer had the handcuffs on.

Kate back on the plane, pre-crash, talks to the leg guy. As she reaches for her juice we see that SHE HAD THE HANDCUFFS ON. The plane crashes again.

Jack continues the surgery, when leg guy wakes up and asks “where is she?”

Sayid picks up a signal, one bar. As they dial it in, there some kind of French speaking and a series of numbers. As Sayid cracks the code, Shannon translates the French using her one semester abroad as best she can. Based on the signal they figure out that someone else is or was on the island seeking to be rescued, but then they also realize the signal’s been going for 16 years! Charlie finishes the episode by saying “where are we?”

Big Picture Hooks
Plane crash on a very mysterious island with a an interesting and varied collection of characters.
Amazing and Intriguing Character
All different ages and races, some with immediate vices, some with obvious physical challenges, some mysterious.
Empathy / Distress
Ask this: What situations causes us to feel both empathy and distress for these characters? Pregnant, wounded, addicted…there is obviously trouble ahead.
Layers / Open Loops
How will they get rescued? What is on the island with them? Why does the weather change so quickly? How will the alcoholism and addiction play out? Will the pregnant girl be okay? Will the wounded? Will the now grieving?
Inviting Obsession
The characters are very sympathetic and interesting, especially all together. We really want to know what’s going on with the island, if and how they might get rescued, and even how or why they might’ve crashed. There’s also clearly a possible love connection between Jack and Kate (and maybe a even a love triangle), which “we’re here for.” They give us just enough about the characters to want to know more about them.

What I learned doing this assignment is that there’s no limit to the number of seeds you can plant as far as plot (open loops) and character (intriguing and empathetic). I also learned that there should be some immediate, pressing problems to resolve, not just long term ones. Also that there should be some self-contained mysteries within the episode itself, like who did those handcuffs belong to? When we find out, it’s surprises us, while also connecting other things that were already in motion.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Seth Kuhn.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Seth Kuhn.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Seth Kuhn.

[dave korr]

Analysis of WEDNESDAY:
WHAT DID I LEARN: watching an intriguing character solve the season’s big mystery is what keeps us coming back.
BIG HOOK: teen sleuth solves murders at her school for misfits
INTRIGUING CHARS: Wednesday is sadistic, witty loner with clairvoyant and martial art abilities, who stands up for those being bullied
EMPATHY: Wednesday is a constant targe of bullies, narrowly avoids death twice, and has been saved by a homicidal monster
LAYERS/OPEN LOOPS: who is the human who shape-shifts into the homicidal monster? Why is her father considered a murderer? Will Wednesday finally fit in with the other misfits at school?
INVITING OBSESSION: we’ll watch to see if she finds love, acceptance, and if can stop the homicidal monster

[dave korr]

CIRCLE OF CHARACTERS FOR SHARK STANK, LESSON 2: MAIN CHAR CIRCLE:
SUE: cute, klutzy goodhearted heroine who turns vengeful to get even with the shark who ate her sis and his serial killer owner. ROB: Sue’s loving boyfriend broke up with her cuz Sue got obsessed with getting revenge on shark and serial killer
BAKEY: hitman serial killer who stabbed Sue’s sis by mistake and inadvertently fed sis to his drug enhanced hit shark
SNAPPY: a drug smartened shark that Bakey addicted to Gladderal so he can train shark to kill for hire
SATAN: devil who bets God he can get back into Heaven by tricking Sue into replacing him in Hell
CONNECTED CIRCLE: Ali, Chiquita, Olga, Cher, Andy, Kev, Marlon, Braydoh, Watchy, God.
ENVIRONMENT CIRCLE: failed rescuers, dangerous sea life, swim race crowd.

[dave korr]

Hi Laree, can you please send me the link for the free Chatgbt download that shows the leftside menu that allows you to delete chat history? Thanks!

[dave korr]

this is the version I’m looking for and can’t find. Hal would know where to download it:
https://openai.com/index/new-ways-to-manage-your-data-in-chatgpt/