The Complexity of Simplicity

KNN grew up on a steady diet of The Brady Bunch.  First-runs and re-runs both.  There.  It's out.

In our defense, it was harmless enough.  Except for the eye-searing wardrobe.  And Alice.  Never got Alice.  And the singing jumped the shark long before Happy Days.  Hey, it was the 70's.  Silly was the norm.

But, as it turned out, we had better taste than we thought, as described in this article from the Boston Globe.  Even when their lives were at their most mundane, it just flat out mattered what was going on.  Mattered to us.

Why?  That's where the complexity comes in.  You have to have a sound story, as lived by sympathetic characters, who say and do things that are in keeping with both the point of the story and the revealed traits of those characters.  Stakes with personally high investment from the focus character.  A few yuks to make the medicine go down well.  Complementary subplots that reveal other points of view or considerations, but come together with the main line of storytelling.    A beginning.  A middle.  An end.  A surprise or two.  A point.  And here's the greatest complexity of all:  it's not life, but everyone expects it to be just like it, whether you're talking about hobbits or rabbits or revolutionaries.  Or a blended family.

"That's the way they became the Brady Bunch."  (We hear the music, don't you?)