The key thing here is that the game works the way it does is because it’s exactly that, a game. With a videogame format, the creators are pretty much afforded the license and the mileage to do just about anything they want to because all of the story they want to tell can be done in a single, continuous, long-form narrative and the company making the game doesn’t have to worry as much about financial fallout from people not liking it because those people have already paid for the game, even if they return it. It’s a complete product.
However, TV is a different beast entirely. With TV, shows normally require multiple seasons to tell the story it wants to tell. And, in order to get more seasons, you need keep that investment going or else people will be disgusted or get bored and tune out, which leads to less engagement, which leads to lower ratings, which leads to chances of the show continuing of getting renewed less and less likely or not at all.
For the first season of TLOU, they didn’t have to worry about changing too much of the structure of the first game’s story in order to adapt it to television because it’s a much smaller story, would only need about a season’s worth of time, it’s more linear and can be experienced from beginning to end without having to worry about what on what’s going to happen next.
With this season, however, they are adapting only a portion of a story that’s three times the length of the first game over multiple, most likely three, seasons. And it’s not entirely linear. And it switches perspectives about halfway through. And it’s much more controversial due to certain decisions that it makes in its narrative and which direction it goes with certain characters. It’s, suffice to say, a very divisive game. You either love it, or at least like it, or absolutely loathe it. There is not much in between.
After a certain particular infamous scene, we don’t get Abby’s perspective until midway through the game. Until that point, we’re with Ellie and all we know about Abby is that she’s this terrible monster that just killed a beloved character and someone that she loved. For a game, that’s fine. For potentially 2 to 3 seasons worth of storytelling, that’s a problem, because you need that engagement in order for a show to continue. If the story had been adapted as is, I guarantee you that, after people sitting with that feeling for probably almost 2 years and thought, “I hate this Abby character! Why would I want to watch her?”, people would have been less and less likely to return, the show loses a large portion of it’s audience, and the chances of it getting renewed dwindle.
For this season, which needs to have its own beginning and end but is also telling only a fraction of the complete story, you need to hook your audience and get them on board early on. It’s why they made the controversial decision of showing Abby at the very beginning and moving the reveal of her motivation for going after Joel in episode 2. People need, if not get on board with her, at the very least be able to understand why she’s doing what she’s doing, even if we as an audience don’t like what she’s doing. You go from, “I’m going to murder this character!” to “ I absolutely hate what she did to Joel, but I can sort of understand why she did what she did.” Thus, you keep the investment and engagement going, you get high enough ratings for renewal and the show gets to keep on going to tell the rest of the story. You’d probably say that’s just chickening out. I say that’s just the nature of adaptation.
And, you’d probably say, “Why don’t they just adapt it into one long 14 to 16 episode season?” Because that’s not how the business works. There is a certain amount of money and time that goes into making these things. Certain people working on the show, like directors, writers, actors, crewmembers, etc., only have a certain amount of time to work on something and then have to move on to something else. And these seasons are not cheap. Also, you would have to cram and rush through so much story and the final product would suffer greatly for it. From a production, financial and logistical perspective, especially in this time that we’re living in, it’s just not realistically feasible.
Would I have wished things were different and they had just adapted and structured it the way it was originally? Of course. But that’s just not reality. In the transition from one medium with a set of rules and expectations to another medium with different sets of rules and expectations, certain concessions have to be made in order for an adaptation to succeed. All things considered, I’m pretty happy and satisfied with what we got.
That’s fine if you don’t like it. Not trying to force you to enjoy it. I’m just letting you know why the people involved making the show had to do what they did and why they did it the way they did.
people.com
