It is painful to see a writer previously at the top of his powers lose faith in his own material, falling back on mechanical plot tricks and committing basic errors of craft.
The mechanical plot includes the implausible and the inevitable, in equal doses.
One reason Netflix wanted to make more episodes was because executives found that fans repeatedly watched episodes of the original series, but the grinding gears of Season 4's mechanical plot are so obnoxious and obtrusive that they often get in the way of enjoying the Bluths' idiocy.
The two noted that the episode diluted the characters of Doggett and Scully in a "mechanical plot", writing "'Salvage' would never have made a great episode, but if it had only bothered to give a little more depth to Doggett and Scully, it might still have been an entertaining one".
This would be, Mr. Gilligan added, "a very mechanical plot development that would force Walt to be guilty and second-guess his decision to become a drug dealer".
It's also one of endless coming and going, as in the Roman comedy of Plautus where Shakespeare found his mechanical plot.
The 90s saw the rise of the celebrity novelist, and Hilary Winshaw, Michael's mournful editor tells him, has got in on the act with 'the usual sort of rubbish… Cheap tricks, mechanical plot, lousy dialogue, could have been written by a computer.
Prosaic is a word that often occurs in descriptions of "Merry Wives," not only because it has the highest ratio of prose to poetry of any play in the canon, but also because of its mechanical plot, which centers on the systematic humiliation of a fat old man.
"Sons of Anarchy," FX: I still watch, mainly for the fine cast, but as I wrote recently here, I wish the show would get out of its way more often and not let mechanical plots get in the way of clarity, character depth and emotional trajectories.
Even when the mechanical plotting turns chaotic, it's a very orderly mess.
