Timed Essays Q4

 I agree that Multiple narrative strands are the key convention of long form television dramas because they keep the audience entertained from episode to episode. In stranger things the first episode sets up multiple plot lines that the audience will want to continue to follow throughout the seasons. The plot lines set up are Eleven escaping the government, Will going missing and the Demogorgon appearing. 

We find out that will has gone missing but the characters recognise (classic Hollywood narrative structure) that later in a sperate scene causing the characters to be confused and wonder what has happened to the friend and they could be used as a ground point for the audience to relate to since we don’t know what really happened apart from he encountered the alien. Will’s character appears briefly in a later scene on the phone to his mum but we and her don’t understand still what’s happened, kids parents are the most likely secondary target audience because quite a few parents could relate to Joyce (identity theory) because everyone’s who has had kids will have a moment where they lose their kid and panic for a few moments to realise that they are next to them. The producers would try to implement this fear in the show to create an emotional connection from the secondary audience. The reason we don’t find out what happened is because the directors don’t want to tell us so that we continue to keep watching the show and if they had wrapped this up in the first episode, we wouldn’t want to watch the next one.

The second narrative strand set up is eleven, a young girl who has been experimented on, escaped the government and is no hiding from. The government has reached their recognition of the plot by realising that 11 has escaped but all our other main characters haven’t because they are unaware of who she is. The telekinesis Eleven has could be used as a form of escapism to the younger audiences that would love to experience power like what she has. Another form of escapism is the whole show is set in the 80s and this allows the parents (secondary target audience) of the teenagers to reminisce of their past life in the 80s.

Overall I agree that narrative strands help build everything else that is going on because we may also link Eleven’s powers to the alien we see in the episode. They also help develop character relationships such as Nancy and Steve or even Mike and Eleven was alluded to vaguely that will then be continued on in future episodes. This means that the audience are at least going to be interested in one of the narrative strands which will encourage them to keep watching.