Space and Silence in Vince Gilligan's Television

Apple TV’s PLURIBUS was my first taste of Vince Gilligan, and the latest release in his filmography. The show models / captures a pre-dystopian earth, where a mind-virus has infected and taken control of all but thirteen survivors.

Wikipedia and other sources refer to the e show as post-apocalyptic, but I’d argue that it’s apocalyptic or pre-apocalyptic. The first apocalypse event was the mind virus taking over. The second, impending apocalypse is the food / hunger crisis resulting from the hive’s consumption ethics.

I write ‘pre-dystopian,’ because unlike the intuitive evil-virus-takes-over-earth tropes, the collective in question here are markedly non-violent, collaborative, subservient to each of the survivors, and even vegetarian. (Vegetarian might be an understatement – they’ll only eat an apple after its stems withers and it falls down from a tree.) pluck an apple from a tree.)

Each of the uninfected, originating from various parts of the world, take various liberties with these conditions, offering many lenses and angles for the audience to assess the circumstance.

Show-runner Gilligan says, in the introduction / prelude to the show with Rhea Seehorn, that they were going for ‘sit up television’ in an era of ‘lay-back television.’

There is a lot of space in Vince Gilligan’s shows. Noticeably no background music. You are just allowed lots of space to fill the time and scenes. Lots of wide-angled shots with the main-character or protagonist in the frame. Little happening in the background. Small movements and micro-adjustments that make you pay attention or notice your own breath. There’s something about this modality of making television that makes it difficult to do something else while watching. Without having watched or listened to any interviews from Gilligan myself, I suspect that this might be a reason or justification behind the approach he takes to films. I wonder if there’s something in this philosophy about this.

Interested in how shows manage to have multiple writers. Yes, each one watches the show. But I have always been fascinated by how they manage to retain consistency in the characterization and verbiage of the characters themselves. Are there abstracted character-types / comparisons / brand-guidelines / that are utilized or used to standardize the characters? Maybe a larger reference to some extraneous piece of art or literature that might be useful for the regular consumer…

In the premise to Pluribus, Gilligan claims that he wants to produce some kind of sit up television that you had to pay attention to watch and could not just tune out.. I am not quite sure what research or recent … things says but I suspect that there is a relationship between modern Netflix and Chill culture and the making of television that can be consumed with other things. Refer to essay or title about the adjustment or simplification of television plots and pacing to allow people consume it in the background.

Gilligan’s modality seems to directly challenge or address this trending phenomenon.

Questions I penned down while writing this essay.

• Who is Vince Gilligan?
• How did I find out about him?
• What is the premise of the show?
• What is distinctive about his style of television or the pacing? What does it mean for something to be dialogue-light.
• What does it feel like to watch these kinds of …. sit-up television?
• Points about the absence of music and background fills in Gilligan’s show (specifically Better Call Saul and Pluribus)

Have you seen PLURIBUS or any other Gilligan shows? Shoot me an email. Let’s talk.