What Happens When the Mystery is a Mystery to the People Writing the Mystery

The Fox show REUNION was supposed to be murder mystery that spanned decades in a single season.  But the show was cancelled in November, leaving the show’s handful of fans wondering whodunit. The problem is, the writers of the show didn’t know whodunit either. Zap2it reports:

When FOX lowered the boom on
"Reunion" in late November, the show’s creator says there was no way to
resolve the show short of a full season because of how "intricately
plotted" it was.  It was so intricately plotted, in fact, that the question of who committed the murder at the show’s center was still up in the air.

That, at least, is the word from FOX Entertainment president Peter Ligouri, who on Tuesday (Jan. 17) addressed the show’s early demise with reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour.

"’Reunion’ was particularly cumbersome in terms of trying to provide an ending for
the audience," Ligouri says of the show, in which each episode represented a year in the life of six friends, one of whom ends up dead. "How [creator Jon Harmon Feldman] was laying out the show to gap those additional 14, 15, 16 years was an incredibly complex path. There were a number of options, and he didn’t make a definitive! decision on which option he was going to go with as to who the killer was, and there was just no way to accelerate that time."

Feldman himself hinted at that in a statement following the show’s cancellation, saying that solving
the mystery of who killed Samantha (Alexa Davalos) was "partially reliant on characters we haven’t yet met — and events we haven’t seen."

Ligouri says the network and the show’s team talked about several ways to go with the killer’s identity, but "the best guess was at that particular time that it was going to be Sam’s daughter," whom she gave up for adoption early in the series. The why of the murder remains a mystery.

Especially to the show’s writers, which may be why the series didn’t work. If the show’s writers didn’t even know whodunit or why, then what were they writing about? If the clues led nowhere, how did they expect the story to actually payoff in the end? Is it any surprise viewers didn’t get hooked by the mystery since it, um, actually didn’t exist?

(Thanks to Bill Rabkin for the heads-up!)

12 thoughts on “What Happens When the Mystery is a Mystery to the People Writing the Mystery”

  1. Does seem odd, especially in TV. I don’t outline my books, but I always know who the bad guys are. Might change by the end, but at least I know at the start. Good idea, generally speaking, to have a destination before you start the trip, even if you plan on taking a meandering path to get there.
    Then again, how long did Reunion last? I only vaguely remember it even being on the air at all?

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  2. I am a bit suspicious of that answer, though. The fact is, several of the episodes had such cool, gotcha twists, that I have to think the show’s creators knew what they were doing. I wonder if this isn’t just network spin to appease angry viewers by saying, “Oh, don’t worry that you won’t find out the ending, it wasn’t very good, anyway.”

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  3. Especially to the show’s writers, which may be why the series didn’t work. If the show’s writers didn’t even know whodunit or why, then what were they writing about? If the clues led nowhere, how did they expect the story to actually payoff in the end? Is it any surprise viewers didn’t get hooked by the mystery since it, um, actually didn’t exist?
    Twin Peaks and The X-Files didn’t seem to have any problem with a missing payoff.
    Those are two series I was addicted to. I felt so burned that I have intentionally avoided series since then that have the same feel (like Lost). If the show ends and it’s still good, then I’ll buy the DVD set.
    Just because something is weird does not make it meaningful.

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  4. Of course, Mark, with a good you can always revise the beginning to match the new ending. If something has already aired on TV, you’re kinda stuck with it.
    Then again, I wonder about half the stories like this that come out of Hollywood.

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  5. On the one hand, I’ll give Mr. Feldman a pass because, to me, this seems somewhat similar to the Lost/Fury/Javi dust up. cf. “we have a master story arc, but we realize that, over the course of the season, changes may have to be made to it.” and “we have several possibilities in mind, but are waiting to see how things play out over the course of the season before making a definitive decision.”
    On the other hand, I’m very disappointed that they didn’t incorporate a “trap door” into the plot that would get them out in 13. e.g. the first 13 episodes (in Season/Day 1) of 24; the current state of the story on Prison Break; Tim Minear’s statements that the first 13 eps of The Inside form a complete story line; etc.
    If for no other reason, it’d be a selling point for the DVD set – Mark
    P.S. I think FOX aired 9 eps before pulling the plug.
    P.P.S. They “retcon” stuff on TV all the time, especially when they change showrunners.

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  6. Didn’t they say at the beginning that one of the six main characters killed another one of the six main characters? If so, then it couldn’t be the daughter.
    After reading what you said Lee, it seems the writers tried pretty hard (once we knew it was Smanatha who was killed) to make it plausible that any of the remaining five could have killed her. Not that that was a bad thing, but perhaps a bit overdone. That’s the writer in me talking.
    Strictly as a viewer, I liked Reunion, and not just for the mystery aspect. I liked that we were seeing the characters in 2006 while watching flashbacks of the years that led up to who they became. It was a good concept, even if the identity of the killer was in doubt. I wish I could have seen it play out.

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  7. “If the show’s writers didn’t even know whodunit or why, then what were they writing about?”
    Thanks for clearing up that mystery Lee!!
    However it doesn’t always work like that. Season One of 24 is pretty infamous for the fact that the writers had no idea how it was going to end, up to an including the deliciously evil(quasi-Dominatrix) Nina Myers denouement!
    And let’s not forget (like Jack’s wife did for three episodes) the truly hokey Dallas-class amnesia sub-plot!
    And I (alongside millions others) still loved it.
    Maybe you can get away with it if your concept is so strong it covers the cracks. And you have a compelling lead.

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  8. Too bad. He should have been more cryptic — something along the lines “Well, all of the clues are ALREADY there…” It would have been the television equivalent of Fermat’s Last Theorem…

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  9. Lisa: I want the most intelligent hamster you’ve got.
    Clerk: Uh, this little guy writes mysteries under the name of J. D. McGregor.
    Lisa: How can a hamster write mysteries?
    Clerk: Well, he gets the ending first, then he writes backward.

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  10. Of course the twist with Nina turned off quite a few people who refused to watch the show any more after that point. I was almost one of them (fortunately I wasn’t) and an ex-roommate of mine is one of them.

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  11. I think we were told at the start that Detective Six Feet Under “suspected” that one of the friends killed the other, he didn’t know it for sure, so it still could have been the daughter, which even made poetic sense, considering the first episode was about Sam learning she was pregnant, the second was about her giving the baby up, then the one where they kidnapped her from her adoptive faterh. The baby played a key role, so the adult daughter doing it would have worked. I still think this is just FOX’s way of trying to make people forget about it.

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  12. We were definantly told at the beginging of the show or in the previews that it was one of the friends. Statements released after cancelation suggested that it was either Craig’s Dad or Amy (Sam’s Daughter). I read somewhere that one or more of the friends was in the room and witnessed the murder, my best guess is Will for the Amy ending and Craig for his Dad’s ending. Will then enlists his friends to cover it up.

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