Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Have you ever watched Columbo? Every episode started off showing us who did it and how. The show showed how Columbo solved the murder. It worked rather well.
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Because Hollywood and US TV networks think viewers are stupid.
Raymond Chandler has an essay that covers this. As does a chapter of "Plotting For Every Kind of Writing" by Jack Woodford.
However Columbo was one of my favourite US import shows. Better than the bad copy of Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple" for the US Market, Jessica Fletcher of Cabot Cove, "Murder She Wrote" (ironically played by Angela Lansbury a British-Irish woman that moved to USA in 1940 and would make a good Miss Marple). Though I enjoyed many "Murder She Wrote" episodes.
Generally I prefer books to TV and Cinema anyway and agree with Jack Woodford about his 1939 comments on Hollywood, which even more apply today.