I am a sucker for story. I can overlook poor acting, even rough writing, if the overall plot and characters are worthwhile entities. Do it right, build both plot and character out in a serial fashion, and television can be just as fulfilling medium as literature and easily trumps film. Do it wrong, and you’re simply couching commercials and wasting everyone’s time. Do it really wrong, and you’re most of Bravo’s reality television programming.

I’ve been writing a great deal about television lately, not so much here, but rather in Richmond’s “alternative for news, arts, culture and opinion.” So far I’ve provided a preview of the new fall shows and a review of the first three episodes of Fox’s “The Cleveland Show.”

But I really want to talk about one term which only true TV and movie nerds know: Ensign Ricky. It’s a fun little term used to denote a character who is quickly thrust amongst the major players in any story only to setup an emotional shock when said character is killed off. The term references the original “Star Trek” though I first encountered it in Fox’s “Family Guy.”

Tonight, I used the term in reference to AMC’s “Mad Men.” After weeks of half-assed episodes where the characters became their flaws rather simply being guided by them, AMC finally gave us a plot episode. And the Ensign Ricky moment (if you’ve seen the episode, you know what I’m talking about) actually got me to swear out loud and on Skype simultaneously.

Truthfully, the use of Ensign Ricky as a plot device can a bad thing. Over do it, and the audience will become immune. Like any other device, once it becomes a clutch, it becomes cliché. Used sparingly, and in a wholly unexpected way, and the audience is suddenly much more aware. Other characters become more important. A sense of mortality is bestowed. More so, the writers look like they know what the hell they are doing.

So, congratulations go out to the writers’ room at “Mad Men” for pulling themselves out of their funk and finally delivering an episode where the plot shapes the characters and for tossing an Ensign Ricky in to put the cherry on the top.