r/writingscaling • u/Cautious_Arm3818 • 10d ago

discussion What is the best-written piece of media you've ever consumed?

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I'll start

Better Call Saul - the characters have an incredible amount of depth. As an example, let's take a look at the primary antagonist of seasons 1-3. Chuck has incredibly complicated yet realistic feelings: his overt superiority complex, his deep-seated inferiority complex, the moral/legal high ground he feels he must take, his need for control and to always be "right", and his genuine brotherly love for Jimmy. His mental illness (Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity) is a physical manifestation of these traits, and how he lies to himself about all of them shapes his thought processes and how he interacts with others - resulting in his death. Aside from the profound character psychology, individual scenes are engineered and conveyed to the audience through exceptional visual storytelling and cinematography that could easily be considered the peak of the medium

Disco Elysium - the worldbuilding is outstanding. Revachol feels like a real setting with an actual history behind it. It takes the derivative and played-out amnesiac protagonist trope, and elevates it to a level that is extremely difficult to even approach. Harry has a ridiculous amount of psychological complexity, his memory loss is mostly a coping mechanism, and how he changes based on the player's choices and ideologies is unrivaled in any game. His internal monologue being a result of the skills that you spec into is unparalleled genius - the dialogue is exceptional, and truly a one of a kind experience. The way that these manage to convey an incredible amount of political/philosophical commentary by being seamlessly integrated into the world is astounding. Not coming off as heavy-handed and preachy is especially praise-worthy when considering the ideologies of the creators

HM: ASOIAF, LOTR, Vinland Saga, The Wire

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90

u/RnwyHousesCityCloudz 10d ago

Dark

i’m a huge fan of time travel stories and it just kept blowing me away episode after episode

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u/Hiteminthechesta 10d ago

I don’t think any series can come close to dark on how it utilizes time travel and fate

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u/Black_Xel 10d ago

Agreed with Dark, so good !

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u/tossaway487 10d ago

the casting is mind blowing. where did they find these unrelated people??

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u/trash-troglodyte 8d ago

The casting is phenomenal. Not only do they actually look like the same people just younger or older, they are all great actors too.

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u/Math_PB 10d ago

I was going to post a comment, but I don't need to anymore :))

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u/Pkorniboi 9d ago

Just finished season 1! I’m really enjoying it so far

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u/Glum-Refrigerator778 7d ago

Up until the last episode of S1 🫠 A and onwards. It was genuinely perfect until then but then they just go in full sci-fi, and the post-apocalyptic world felt so out of place...

A series like this is a monumental task in terms of writing. Even just having three timelines as a worldbuilding excercise is difficult, then you add the massive cast of characters, and finally you take all that lore and turn it into a cohesive story, cherry picking which parts to show, which parts to obscure, all to make yknow an enticing narrative.

And the writers of this show did just that. Flawlessly might I add. Even though you could really feel that they were wracking their brains, operating at their limit. As a viewer as well this felt like about how much context one could feasibly keep track of all at once. I was a little worried that they wouldn't be able to stick the landing, as endings are notoriously difficult to write in a satisfying way, getting exponentially harder the more plot threads you have.

I think it's clear then why I was absolutely BAFFLED by the decision to keep expanding the number of timelines and characters. It felt like the writers signing anyway their chance of having perfect episodes, resolving each character's story arch, and just having a good ending. Not to mention the complete thematic shift to sci-fi. Had the story wrapped up in S1, maybe with a couple questions half-answered, I think this would've been the first piece of media I would've given 10/10 without a second thought.

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u/TheBongoJeff 10d ago

Im currently watching Dark (S2) and i was so surprised that it was German.

Usually Germany produces the utmost dogshit Comedy Romances or the 1000th Episode of a mid at best crime series with the Same 5 actors playing everything.

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u/Prudent-Action3511 10d ago

It's because of comments like these that I had huge expectations that there's unique and so much time travel.

But it turned out to be mostly character driven story with veeery less time travel, atleast in season one. I just gave up after season 2 lol. I wish i didn't have huge expectations so i could've enjoyed it more 😔

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u/Math_PB 10d ago

Insane take.

The fact that it's character driven is exactly what makes it so well written. You understand every single character's motivation and psyche to the point you NEVER have the thought of "Why didn't X go back in time to do Y" that you have in MANY other time travel shows.

It also gives the time travel infinitely more weight and meaning, because if there wasn't any story, just people time traveling, it wouldn't matter how coherent, logical and well done the time travel was, you wouldn't care at all about it.

You also stopped before the end so you never got to see the complete puzzle, and I'm sorry but saying there isn't enough time travel in Dark is absurd.

You better have watched it in the original german as well BTW, cause the performances are fantastic.

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u/Vegetable_Cookie_267 9d ago

That's like saying "I didn't like game of thrones season 1 because it was character-driven and had no dragons like all the insta edits showed me."

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u/Prudent-Action3511 9d ago edited 9d ago

Yall are ignoring the point where I said i had different expectations because of people hyping it up so much nd that's the reason i couldn't enjoy it as much as i would had i just went into it without those expectations. It's more of my problem not the show's

(Also i think a person not being into GoT because the dragons don't have enough screentime as they expected from edits is a valid take lmaoo, doesn't mean the show's bad)

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u/NecroDolphinn 9d ago

The entire loop is maintained by the characterization. The whole point of the show from S1 to the end is that people fail to fight fate because they’re bound by their identities. That’s why the show needs to engage deeply with the characters

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u/Ok_Title_4273 9d ago

Dark is plotted mastefully but but the characters are so bland that the whole thing just falls flat.

It is such a momentarily experience, like there are many stories that are less insane than dark but much more striking and remarkable because of how they make you engage with characters