The best advice I’ve ever heard about developing a premise for a tv series is this:
“A movie is a question with an answer, a tv series is a question with no answer.”
Quick housekeeping interruption: the subscription tier will be coming back in 2025. I’ve spent the last year thinking long and hard about what I want this space to be, and what I don’t want it to be. What already exists out there and what we can do differently here. I’ll share more details soon, but I have plans to turn this into more of a community space for group projects like writing a feature together, or easier weekly prompts and downloadable worksheets to help all of us build better habits and get more done. More soon, but just a heads up that this will be *beyond the paywall*, which will kick back in on Jan 1st.
Okay, back today’s post:
“A movie is a question with an answer, a tv series is a question with no answer.”
Unfortunately I don’t remember where I heard this. It was around 2013, and I was a development assistant at a small production company, rolling calls and scheduling travel by day and writing by night. (If you know where this originated, let me know because I need to thank them)
This concept has continued to help me over and over and over in my career, because in such simple terms it lays out the core of what makes great TV work.
A question with no answer is engaging. A mystery in itself. It sends us on a path, gives us a clear direction, but the end isn’t in sight and we’re forced to ask more and more questions along the way.
This can be extremely high stakes, like “how do you escape an island that seems to be lost in space and time” - Answer: A cascading series of physical and interpersonal trials that can be summed up as “anything”. Or “If you knew you were going to die, what would you be willing to do to leave your family with the life you couldn’t provide for them?” - Answer: A cascading series of physical and interpersonal trials that can be summed us a “anything”. LOST and BREAKING BAD clearly had very different characters with different arcs and situations, but at their core they asked a question without a finite answer.
This can also be extremely low stakes, like “Are the people we work with our family?” - Answer: No. But also kinda yes? The Office asked this and let each character have a different opinion. A flip on this is “Are our family members the people we should work with?” - Answer: No. But also kinda yes? Bob’s Burgers is still mining stories out of this one.
Because there’s no one answer to any of these. Will Frodo get the ring to Mordor and destroy it? The answer is yes or no. At a certain point, we need to toss that ring into Mt. Doom or people are gonna get tired of the side quests. But in great TV premises, we ask a more philosophical question. A question that resonates not just with your characters, but with what it means to be human. That doesn’t always mean life and death, the complexity of being human also includes dating and finding love, finding balance in your work, wrestling with tough conversations with your family, jealousy, joy, competition, all the things that make life interesting and challenging.
“A movie is a question with an answer, a tv series is a question with no answer.”
What this simple statement gets so right is that the most compelling questions are the ones that different people have different answers to. There is no right and wrong to the question “Should friends date each other?” Everyone has a different opinion based on experience, and everyone’s experiences have the ability to change their opinion.
So if you’re thinking of joining my TV Series Development Class in January (currently with a Cyber Monday deal for $100 off at ProjectCity.tv for today only, wink wink), but are struggling to come up with a premise to develop, think about this statement. What is a compelling question that has no easy answer? A simple question, don’t overthink it, that evokes just one aspect of how complicated it is to live in our society right now.
I sold a pitch a few months ago based on the question: “Is family a blessing or a curse?” The answer is YES. That’s why we can build episodes forever and ever.
About Chris Amick
Chris is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He and his writing partner recently served as Head Writers and Co-Executive Producers on Kung Fu Panda: the Dragon Knight. Previous work includes Final Space, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Die Hart 2, Adult Swim specials, and a TBA action comedy feature for Universal.
Chris also teaches various screenwriting courses online, which you can check out here:
TV Pitch Development: Live Class (Registration open for January 2025)
Thank you for sharing this insight!