Thriller and Formula - Heroes, Heroines and Villains

Thriller was not intended to be a radical piece of television and like so many shows made use of certain standard formulae. The term "formula" is not intended in a negative sense - formula is more akin to the "rules of the game" or maybe a set of typical ingredients to a production. Following a formula (tightly or loosely) doesn't make something good or bad - what matters is the skill with which it is used.

Common oppositions found in Thriller were:

Hero / Heroine Vs Villain

Hero / Heroine Vs Victim

Villain Vs Victim

Not all episodes featured these kinds of oppositions or broad character-types. All featured villains and victims but in a few there is no obvious hero or heroine. A number of character types can be identified.

The hero

The hero uses his wit and skills (often physical) to overcome the villain. He risks his life to achieve justice. Although there is some risk of him being transformed into a victim he usually is more than able to look after himself. Often the Thriller heroes are not the central characters but are partners or friends of the heroine. For part of the story they have a tendency to overlook warning-signs spotted by the heroine but later on they become convinced and help her to track down the villain and save her from danger - Dr Bruce Nelson in A Place To Die (below) offers a good example of this, being much slower than his wife to spot the danger in the village but later on realising she is right and going out to save her. Some heroes though (often those who are police officers or detectives such as Matthew Earp in An Echo of Theresa) - perhaps because of their profession and training - are "on the ball" from the beginning as well as demonstrating physical bravery when confronted.

Dr Bruce Nelson (Bryan Marshall), at this point failing to spot the sinister behaviour of the villagers

The heroine

There are some similarities to the above but there is an important sex difference in Thriller and many other shows. The heroine is distinguished by her perceptiveness and courage. She is remarkably alive to danger signs and this both increases her chances of survival but also of bringing the villain to justice. For all her resourcefulness though she often relies on a man (usually the hero, sometimes the police) to save her from death at the hands of the villain. The heroine teeters on the brink of becoming a victim but her skills and the attentions of the hero save her. Remarkably often in the show the heroines were young, blonde American women - Donna Mills very much fitted these characteristics and played the heroine role in three episodes starting with Someone at the Top of the Stairs (below).

The villain

The common factor behind all the Thriller villains is their willingness to kill and / or inflict suffering. However there are crucial differences among villains in background and motivation. Some are psychopaths but many more are greedy or vindictive. Some clearly have disturbed backgrounds and profound mental illnesses which may mitigate their actions and in some instances have led to them being classed as insane and committed to secure mental institutions rather than prisons (Terry Spelling in Killer With Two Faces indeed escaped from such a place).

Arthur Page (played by Norman Eshley) in The Colour of Blood - one of the most memorable Thriller villains

American guest performers were not often cast as villains although remarkably Gary Collins came over to play villains on three occasions! However in the last of these he didn't play a traditional Thriller villain (i.e. a killer) but instead a con-man with the episode (Dial a Deadly Number) featuring another character who most definitely was prepared to kill. 

The victim

Victims are a varied bunch though united by their deaths at the hands of the villains. Some are utterly unfortunate, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others stray into danger by failing to read clear warning signs. The complacent victim is a common type. While the hero or heroine (usually the latter) is alive to danger, the victim frequently lacks such perceptiveness. Other victims are alert to danger but dispatched by the villain before they can raise the alarm. Unlike the hero or heroine they lack the skill or luck (or star billing!) to survive.

Formula in storylines

All Thriller episodes are, in some way, about villains prepared to kill. There are two basic storylines. In the "whodunit", the killer is not known until the climax of the story (e.g. File It Under Fear). In others the killer is clearly identified from the beginning and the story revolves around his or her murderous behaviour and ultimate comeuppance. As traditional and moral productions the killer always has to be caught in some way.

The "whodunits"

At least three suspects would be presented, with strong clues highlighting them as suspects. The actual killer would normally have faced limited suspicion until the climax of the episode. He or she may have seemed a pillar of goodness or been an apparently innocuous minor character. The killer is never though a previously unseen character, so the viewer does his or her deduction work among those who have appeared on screen. In no instance would the killer prove to be "the obvious suspect". This does mean that a fairly perceptive viewer can rule out some of the candidates although the ultimate culprit may still be a surprise.

It must be stressed that the use of such a formula is not necessarily a problem. Some viewers may not like it but many do, their satisfaction deriving from how the formula is used.

The known killer

Many of the episode (such as The Colour of Blood noted above) take this format. There are still many unknowns such as how many will fall victim, which characters will succumb, and in what fashion. As mentioned above victims will often be drawn from the ranks of the complacent or those who raise the alarm but don't have star billing!.

"Natural justice"

The central villains in Thriller always get their comeuppance and face some kind of justice. This rarely means an on-screen court appearance. Like most crime dramas Thriller is concerned with apprehending or neutralising the villain, not with the process of trial or imprisonment. In only two episodes is a court verdict delivered and in one of these it is at the start of the action rather than to round off the story. The viewer knows that the villain is guilty so apprehension is seen as ending the story, with the trial process a fait accompli. This is true of many crime dramas including police / detective series in which the capture or death of the villain ends the narrative with the courtroom / legal dramas tending to deal with trials or raising issues about whether a defendant might be guilty or not. 

On quite a number of occasions the villain is killed rather than captured. Usually this is by the hero, or rarely the heroine, in self-defence. Sometimes the villain's death occurs accidentally in a struggle. Occasionally it is rather more legally dubious, where self-defence might be hard to justify. The death of the villain, which occurs in many other productions and related genres, is seen as "natural justice" or "poetic justice"- the deserved fate of a killer - and therefore not likely to trouble the viewer. This may seem uncomfortable to some but this is fiction and entertainment and viewers who enjoy such "comeuppance" and "natural justice" on screen usually recognise the need for formal justice in reality.

Two episodes do break this pattern. In one the villain is seemingly left to die in a sealed room by the heroine. Although certainly not legally justifiable her actions might seem consistent with natural justice. The other is a more striking departure in which one killer kills their partner in crime before themselves being killed by a hitman. The hitman is certainly not motivated by any sense of justice or even trying to avenge a terrible crime but his action in a sense "square the circle": two killers are dead and the viewer may feel they have received their just deserts whatever the motives of those who killed them. For all that, the episode ends with the hitman free, quite probably to kill again. However what Thriller did not do was end an episode with the killer of an "innocent victim" on the loose and having apparently evaded justice. In this sense it was consistent with the vast majority of crime dramas and which therefore makes them seem very moral narratives in which wrongdoers do not escape justice - legal or "natural" - for their crime.

The last minute reprieve Thriller, like so many shows involves climaxes where the villain, about to kill a defenceless victim, is thwarted at the last minute. This may even be just as they are about to strike the decisive blow. Occasionally it is the hero or heroine who has to be saved by the police or others but normally heroes or heroines don't need others to save them and are, by definition, not helpless. That less applies to heroines who may need the hero or the police to save them. The final battle Another common climax is for the hero / heroine to defeat the villain in a final battle or confrontation. Sometimes the villain is subdued or captured after a struggle, on other occasions he or she is killed. Men supporting women This commonly happens in climaxes in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Most usually it occurs in a last-minute reprieve when the hero saves the heroine or female victim from death at the hands of the villain. The tearful or distressed  woman is then cradled by her saviour. Very rarely a woman supports a man. This generally reflects the convention, dominant in Thriller, that women, for all the wit they may show, ultimately need a man to support and save them. Other conclusions In one episode the heroine is saved from an attack by her husband - ironically - by a serial killer who despite his murderous behaviour targets other woman and has grown protective of her There are some more low-key conclusions where the villain is captured or made to surrender without a major confrontation - usually instances where the hero has cut-off any chance for them to escape or has the potential to use force to subdue them. In all these cases though there is still a final encounter and the villain is still caught and brought to book. These became very common in the final episodes, maybe in a deliberate attempt to break from more typical endings.