a good plot

"ooops my ass", lol.

This is an appendix to my last post:
The question at hand is: what is a "good" plot?

For me, it is something like this:
And I need to elaborate a bit here, for you to understand why I think the plot is good for a following domestic discipline scene. It`s a short clip from the VERY vanilla show 7th heaven.Unfortunately the dd potential might not be too obvious for people that are not familiar with the tv show.

BTW: I have been addicted to this show for years. Watched it excessively while being in law school.

Annie and Eric, the main characters, are married for more than 20 years. They have a house, kids, a dog... and they still love each other very much.While to the outside it looks as if Eric is the head of household, the tv junkies like me know, that his wife Annie is pretty much in charge of him and the family.

Here is where we are: Eric is having a heart condition. He is scared as hell, thinks he might gonna die. But he is refusing to go and see his cardiologist. Because he thinks the doctor might tell him some very unpleasant things.

His wife knows that things are not ok with him. She is worried about him. Wants to talk with him about it. But he just laughs it off. Sort of: "Not a big deal. I am ok".Which he is not.

So he pretends to go and see a doctor, but in "reality" he did not even go there. Instead he is making himself crazy with fears. When Annie asks him about the doctors appointment, he blatantly lies in her face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJypDgCUyNo

She asks him explicitely:
what happend?
are you having problems?
And he is all: "I am fine..." and he goes on with the fake story about the doctor being busy


"You know the difference". I so like the tone of her voice. It looks as if she would not let him off the hook.

But then, Eric, who is a real alpha- man, in an effort to distract her from the subject, makes a pretty unexpected move in saying:  "You are not yourself lately either." See, I like how smooth he switches from being the center of unwanted attention to being the "attacker" himself. And in a brilliant way.

The end, when he even starts asking her: "you don`t have a boyfriend, do you?" Just priceless.
So the clip ends with Annie being speechless. But in my mind, the plot is perfect for a little domestic discipline. Because Annie of course learns a few scenes later that her husband lied to her. And Eric himself, he knows that he lied to her, he knows that he is in troubles. Because the both of them, they don`t believe in lies. They have been scolding their poor kids many times for lying. There is no doubt that the parents are expected to stick to the truth.

If any filmmaker could come up with a domestic discipline video with a slowly but surely built up plot like that, with actors that are as good as Catherine Hicks and Stephen Collins, it would be a dream come true for one german laywer :-)