Why do people think no fighting/action in an episode makes an ep pointless?

[ABED]

I'm unsure of how your point relates to mine.

[Kunzait_83]

The point is that the dialogue has nothing to do with what makes the episode good. The episode isn't great because of its story, it's great because of storytelling. The same creativity and energy can be applied to any scenario, regardless of story ideas on paper.

I disagree. You can have the greatest shots in the world, but if the characters and the story fall flat, then the camera movements are irrelevant, it's style over substance. And that still doesn't answer the question about dialog.

As much as I vehemently disagree with Jacob on a LOT of other things, on this specific point he's spot on: storytelling and subject matter are distinctly separate things, and oftentimes there's TONS of value to be had in well utilized storytelling technique even if the subject matter its being used on is otherwise something that's not to your liking. Its possible to take the most boring subject in the world and make it something truly engrossing if you're good enough at interesting storytelling. This can get to become a more abstract view to take on these things, but that's certainly not a bad thing: sometimes (sometimes being the operative word here mind you) the style IS also the substance rather than the two being mutually exclusive.

Evil Dead for example has, on paper, a pretty rote, cliched story premise (college kids go to vacation in a cabin, accidentally summon demons, get killed): but its the WAY in which that otherwise by-the-numbers seeming story was told that has (rightly) elevated it to "timeless classic" status. In other, less experimental hands, that movie would've almost certainly been a totally forgotten obscurity because the raw story on its own, while still fun, certainly isn't near enough to bolster it to the level on which it has sat for decades now. Put a storytelling virtuoso on it (like Sam Raimi was at that point) though, and you can still end up with something immensely special out of something that was hardly all that special as a concept purely via raw execution.

As much as I agree with this view though, I also agree that it can certainly have its limits and breaking points too: ideally you DO want to have both the storytelling technique and the subject matter BOTH be something that's worthwhile. That's not always how things end up though, but that doesn't mean that good storytelling technique in and of itself is something to be dismissed out of hand.

[ABED]

Evil Dead for example has, on paper, a pretty rote, cliched story premise

Sure, ideas can sound good or bad, it's about execution of the story and characters that matter. Raimi had some innovative shots, but it was Ash and ultimately the humor that made that series what it was. How they told helped make the story more effective. Evil Dead is a great example. Cliched premise, but memorable movies and what I assume is a fun TV show. There is a hack version of Breaking Bad that could have been made (chemistry teacher becomes a drug kingpin), but it's because of the storytelling and acting that we got such an amazing series. To bring it back to Dragon Ball, a story that combined Wuxia, toilet humor, and sci-fi could've gone very wrong, but it wasn't because Toriyama gave us fun action, interesting characters, and made us laugh. The story and the storytelling go hand in hand. They are certainly different, but they ideally work together the same way plot and story structure should work together.