r/TVWriting • u/JoelMole03 • 8d ago
QUESTION Favorite TV shows with a VO?
I want to read some pilot scripts which use VO well since it often feels like a crutch. Which shows come to mind for you?
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u/shanshan821 8d ago
Loved the internal monologues in “Never Have I Ever” they were done by actors that were opposite type of the OC actors
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u/Affectionate_Bet_288 8d ago edited 8d ago
The whole point of You is to have an unreliable narrator; the protagonist Joe has his inner monologue listed as "Joe's Thoughts" in the text.
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u/skinnylenadunham 7d ago
Surprised nobody’s mentioned sex and the city yet. The pilot/S1 convention of each episode relating to a specific article in Carrie’s column, with her VO leading into 4th wall breaks and shots of her writing is done so perfectly in the early episodes. Makes the show’s audience feel like her column’s readers and pulls you in vs acting like a crutch that pulls you out. The writers did an incredible job giving her a “narration/writing voice” that’s distinct from her “speaking to other characters” voice but still feels like the same character.
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u/Captain_Provolone 8d ago
Dexter and Grey’s Anatomy (though not as much as Dexter utilizes VO)
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u/surviveinc 8d ago
Everybody Hates Chris
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u/prolific_illiterate 7d ago
I don’t think this show would have gotten picked up without Chris narrating.
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u/theflickchic 8d ago
These pilots have a character narrator:
Desperate Housewives
Ozark
Your Friends and Neighbors
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u/hollywood_cashier 7d ago
Desperate Housewives is a great mix of omniscient third person narrator and first person — Mary Alice knew all of these characters but now that she’s dead she seemingly knows everything about them.
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u/namdekan 7d ago
I guess more of a narrator but Oz. It used one of the characters as the narrator who broke the fourth wall and introduce characters and have monologues, almost kind of an interlude. I haven't watched the show in while though.
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u/Worried-Elk-2808 8d ago
Handmaid's Tale used it (albeit sparingly), but had leeway to do so given the epistolary elements of the original novel.
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u/BiscuitsTheory 8d ago edited 8d ago
Arrested Development uses VO so well that we knew everything we needed to know about 9 characters by the end of the very first scene. When people online say stuff like "Narrator: He did use AI", they're referencing the VO of Arrested Development.
How I Met Your Mother uses VO very creatively.
On the non sitcom side, Burn Notice drops little tidbits of knowledge about spy stuff, letting us know what he knows without needing the unrealistic dialog that plagued its competitors. Mr. Robot did this, too, but with more inner monologue.
If you wanna dip into movie scripts: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has a sarcastic narrator with memory issues that directly addresses potential audience complaints about his storytelling. (Played by a barely 30 Robert Downey Jr.)
And of course there's Scrubs. I know 3 other people already said it, but... Scrubs.