guessing game

As you can probably tell I watch a variety of different television shows.  I mostly like fiction shows, specifically comedies, but I do watch some reality shows. However, there is a new genre that two of my favorite shows have really taken on.  These shows are very different but they both put a high emphasis on the mystery of the endgame.  The endgame for a television show is how everything will end up at the end of the show.  The two shows have you constantly questioning every episode, every character, even every moment. Although they are two very different shows, they both keep audiences on the edge of their seat dying to have all their questions answered and to finally be in on the big secret.

First off, there is How I Met Your Mother. The title pretty much leads right into the question that viewers are dying to know, who is the mother?  How I Met Your Mother is currently in its seventh season and you find yourself wondering how much longer this can go on!  Although I find myself plagued with intrigue at who the mother is and when we will meet her or find out who she is, the show keeps audiences interested with hilarious plot lines and random yet strategic clues in many episodes.  In seven seasons we have come to learn a lot of this so called “mother” but we are still interested in all the other characters and the part they play in this long winded story.  The basis of the whole show is the story being told by the main character, Ted Mosby, to his kids about how he met their mother.  The writers and producers use this narrator technique to slip in clues  from time to time while telling the story of the current episode.  They introduce clips of future events yet use coy phrases like, “but more on that later” to keep audiences guessing.  As I’ve said before I believe that this sitcom's ensemble cast and outstanding comedy writing puts this show at the top of my list of favorites.  I don’t think I’ll be able to stop watching until I find out who the freaking mother is…. but more on that later.

The second show that keeps me coming back each week is a bit of shock because it’s an ABC family show.  ABC family was originally most well-known for the overly dramatic and slightly weird teen soap opera, Secret Life of an American Teenager. But once the show Pretty Little Liars began it was an instant hit among audiences.  For those of you who haven’t seen this past Monday’s season 2 finale I won’t be giving away any spoilers but you definitely should go watch now!  Pretty Little Liars is centered around 4 best friends whose other friend Alison went missing and eventually was found dead.  The girls are being constantly tortured by a character that goes by “A” who is seemingly all knowing and loves to threaten, blackmail, and mess with the girls.  This is where the mystery comes in.  Over the past two seasons, theories have been running rampant among viewers who are dying to know who the elusive “A” is.  Pretty Little Liars was originally a book series but as we’ve seen with Gossip Girl, television shows don’t allows stay on the same path as the books.  Pretty Little Liars ends each show with a short clip of A sneaking around and doing something that will likely come back to bite the 4 main characters.  Even in this week's finale, when audiences found out who “A” is, there are still so many questions to be answered that it still left viewers wondering.  Pretty Little Liars does an amazing job of keeping audiences interested in the plot and making us questions every move.

If you aren’t watching these shows you should be.  They both make TV show watching an engaging and interactive activity because you can create theories and answers to the questions that confuse you.  These shows keep audiences interested by making us think and guess and hang on to every last word because it might be a clue.


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