I've just been to a media festival

So, I'm halfway through a the Belfast Media Festival and I'm listening to Producers and television executives talk about what they are looking for and breaking down the bones of the business into workshops designed to inspire and motivate.

It's clear that a series, on any format, is what broadcasters want. Dangerous Days was always envisaged as a series. A series works best if it has a simple and clever premise that delivers strong interesting drama over and over again. That's if it is a series that has a stand alone episode every week. Thesedays most people (sorry I'm telling myself this, I know some of this is obvious) are used to hooking into a series with a running story for months, even years.

When I started DD I thought it would work best if it was a stand alone every week episode, but the more I think about it, I wonder if it would be better to have an episodic story line instead?

This goes to the heart of another question, which is, is it drama or comedy?

If drama, is it stricly noir, and therefore tradegy? (could the lead die every week? And then be resurrected to have another go at his life? Quirky concept, quite animation inspired, but...)

If comedy, it would suit itself better to be a stand alone, but I never imagined the series as a strictly comedic series.

Or, and I think this is the road, we go for a TRAGI-COMEDY. Something Shakespeare was fond off. A dramatically satisfying story, with an ending that is bittersweet. Unlike tradegy, everyone doesn't have to die, however, people are shown in a darker light and do suffer somewhat for the consequences of their actions without having to go the whole hog and end up headless in a dumpster.

It's dramatically written but with comedic moments and a lighter ending.

Still, to continue running round in circles, do we have an episodic storyline that runs through all thirteen episodes? The real question being, and please let me know your thoughts, would an audience actually watch ANIMATION that has a running story line in the same way they do say, Game of Thrones?

To the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been done before.

One very good tragicomedies on TV was Moonlighting. It blended a bit of drama with a lighter touch. Not hard nosed at all,  but inspired writing and the whole chemistry thing between the two leads kept the thing skiping along.

Saying all this though. I am more tempted by the idea of much harder nosed tradegy. I don't mean grimness by this. Game of Thrones for example is in many ways a tradegy and it's utterly compelling because of it.

Nothing funnier and more moving that watching someone go down gracefully but with a fight.