Tension and Paw Patrol

Lately, my son has been watching a whole bunch of Paw Patrol.  For those not in the know, Paw Patrol is an animated show from Nickelodeon with two fifteen-minute episodes, or the occasional half hour episode.  In it, there is a team of dogs, called the Paw Patrol, and each dog is a kind of community helper (police officer, firefighter, bulldozer driver, recycling truck driver, etc.)  Each episode, doofy townspeople have an issue and call up Ryder, the little boy who coordinates the Paw Patrol, and he sends the dogs that would be helpful out to fix the problem.  It teaches about community helpers and problem solving and teamwork.  It's also very formulaic, which kids like, and the theme song plays a lot and is super catchy. 

If you still have "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" stuck in your head, I know how you could fix that.

There are a couple things that absolutely fascinate me about Paw Patrol.  The first is how quickly the stakes escalate. 

There's one episode (we tend to watch the same episodes over and over) where this kid, Alex, has a big-wheel that he's McGuivered together out of duct tape and spare parts.  He hits a curb and the big-wheel falls apart.  Pieces of his big-wheel are in the street, and it wouldn't be safe for him to get them, so he calls the Paw Patrol for help.  Ryder calls the dogs together and sorts out that the Police Pup will stop traffic around the scattered parts and Recycle Pup will help put the scattered parts back on the big-wheel.  They explain this plan, then follow through on the plan, and huzzah!  Fixed big-wheel!  But then, Alex takes off on his newly fixed big-wheel and careens down a hill straight toward a busy intersection.  What will the Paw Patrol do about this?  Well, Police Pup can block off traffic in the intersection and Helicopter Pup can help bring Alex to a stop.  Okay, that's a good plan!  Which they execute and it succeeds, and Alex learns a lesson about going slow on his big-wheel so he's not hit by a car.

There's another episode where there's been a bunch of snow, and the Mayor's car swerves off the icy road into a snowbank and gets stuck.  She calls the Paw Patrol to help tow her out.  Ryder calls the dogs together and decides that Bulldozer Pup will clear the roads like a snowplow and Police Pup will use the winch on his Police Pup Car to haul the mayor's car out of the snow.  This plan is successful, and everyone feels good about themselves.  Or at least they do until Ryder gets a call from a train engineer.  There's a bunch of debris on the track and the train is going to hit it and derail, and he can't slow down because the tracks are too icy.  Oh no!  Well, what should the Paw Patrol do about this imminent emergency?  They can have Police Pup clear some of the little debris and Snow Rescue Pup remove the big debris and Bulldozer Pup scrape the snow off the tracks with his bulldozer.  Does that sound like a good plan?  Good!  Yay!  They execute this plan and the day is saved and there's no train derailment.

Sometimes Paw Patrol makes me anxious.  There is a boy on a big-wheel hurtling towards traffic, and you're going to call a dog in a helicopter in from across town and talk about your plan before running after him?  Ahhhhhhhh!  But the other thing that's fascinating about Paw Patrol is how much it doesn't freak out my easily freaked-out kid.  By stopping the ticking clock, which is essentially what happens in this time dilation moment when they have time to make a plan--as my kid sees it--that means the ticking clock must not exist.  They have all the time in the world to decide on a step-by-step plan about what they're going to do.  And that step-by-step plan is comforting even in the face of a train derailment or an erupting volcano or a sinking boat.  The Paw Patrol's calm is comforting.  While taking their time makes me (an adult) anxious that they're not going to get to that kid in time, it actually lowers the stakes as my son understands them.

The episodes are also set up to mimic the way kids play.  You can think of it like there's a group of kids and they each have a different pup toy, and one of them comes up with a problem.  "Oh no!  There's a tree on the tracks and the train can't stop!" and the other kids jump in and say, "Police Pup can use his wench to move the tree!"  "Let's call in Snow Rescue Pup!  She can shove the rest of the trees off the track!"

It's the opposite of what you would do in a story written for adults, where you want the tension to be high and you want the reader/viewer to feel the danger.  For instance, I would have Police Pup tear after Alex the second he started going too fast down the hill, and Police Pup would rolling tackle him off the street right before he drove into the intersection.  So in a way, this show is demonstrating things not to do when storytelling: Don't stop and talk about your plan in the middle of an action scene.

But also, maybe I have such problems watching this show--maybe the reason it makes me so much more anxious than it should, is that it doesn't follow traditional story telling structures that appear in adult stories.  The beats are off, and I find that jarring and stressful.  So maybe that's a lesson too: do something jarringly to disrupt story beats to create a different kind of tension.  Get back to the story!  Oh my God!  Ahhhhh!