From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #166 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, July 30 2000 Volume 02 : Number 166 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: The Prisoner [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/comments7/16 [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/comments7/16 [meredith ] Re: b/comments7/16 ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/comments7/16 ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/comments7/16 [meredith ] o/ectofest 2000 [meredith ] Re: b/comments7/16 [meredith ] Re: b/comments7/16 ["David S. Bratman" ] b/dream ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/comments7/16 [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/comments7/16 [Robert Stacy ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 12:03:45 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: The Prisoner In a message dated 7/28/00 11:35:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time, dbratman@genie.idt.net writes: << > (Your pegging the year makes it possible for me to peg my age at the > time.) Depending on what the tv stations where you lived did, you might have been able to see it in 1968 only. (Or maybe even 1967 only.) >> It was the first US run. It got some significant press coverage at the time. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 12:04:27 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 In a message dated 7/28/00 11:59:35 PM Pacific Daylight Time, dbratman@genie.idt.net writes: << > Well, =necessary=.... necessary for what, I wonder. Of course it's not > necessary to get the specific piece of info you mention -- wonder why you > single out that particular point? Because you did. >> I mentioned it for clarification, in a completely different context. Not because it has anything to do with "Innocence." (It wasn't mentioned in "Innocence.") Seeing the entire story =is= necessary to get the full impact. << > I'm curious. In this discussion, are you attempting to change others' > views or to understand why others' reactions are so different from yours? Getting other people to understand mine is not an option? >> But I think we do understand yours. It's not hard. We know that you are handicapped by multiple factors -- by when you saw it (post-spoilers and blunted by the anti-climaxes that followed), by the fact that you thought you knew things you didn't and thus ignored much of what was going on, and most of all, by the fact that you didn't watch the whole story. So just what are we not understanding. =We= are in a better position to understand why you didn't react to it than you are yourself, because we know what you missed. You didn't even watch the complete story, for Pete's sake. I am amazed that, without knowing what you missed, you dismiss it as "not necessary." You yourself are the living demonstration that it =is= necessary. (And obviously no one says Buffy is perfect and without flaw. Pretending that people say things that they do not is game-playing.) Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 14:38:01 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 Hi! David commented: >It also makes for tv series that approach the condition of soap operas: >minimizing the end-of-episode closure, multiple storylines that don't >always intersect, etc. I do not consider that a good thing because when >fully developed it results in a work which cannot be fully appreciated >even by a dedicated week-by-week viewer, but only by watching the whole >thing at once, which is a bit difficult when a season is 20+ hours long. I'm just curious -- did you ever watch Babylon 5? IMO that series is the perfect illustration of how serialized television can (and should) work. Or how about Star Trek: TNG? That is the perfect illustration of why non-serialized TV is so boring. Babylon 5 was a novel that unfolded over the course of 5 years. I came into it late, but I was able to catch up quite adequately thanks to the Internet. I believe that what we see in the arcs in shows such as BTVS wouldn't exist if it weren't for the groundwork laid by B5. TNG, on the other hand, was just annoying. With precious few exceptions (such as the season-ending cliffhangers), every episode stood completely alone from the rest. Something very significant would happen to a character one week, then the next it would be like nothing had ever happened, unless a passing mention was needed to further a plot point sometime later on. (Fortunately, with Deep Space Nine they managed to get a bit more of a clue as far as that goes.) As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't be nearly as interested in BTVS if there weren't so much of a continuing story about it. Monster-of-the-week episodes will only take you so far. I think that the fact that in season 5 "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0" will figure prominently is one of the most intriguing things I've ever seen on TV. But as I said earlier I also only really like the arc episodes on X-Files, so this might be just me. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 18:43:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 Gayle, I call your last "personal insult" and demand a halt. > I mentioned it for clarification, in a completely different context. Not > because it has anything to do with "Innocence." (It wasn't mentioned in > "Innocence.") I wasn't talking about "Innocence". I was talking about "Becoming". > But I think we do understand yours. It's not hard. We know that you are > handicapped by multiple factors -- by when you saw it (post-spoilers and > blunted by the anti-climaxes that followed), by the fact that you thought > you knew things you didn't and thus ignored much of what was going on, and > most of all, by the fact that you didn't watch the whole story. So just what > are we not understanding. Oh -- you completely and totally understand everything I say? In that case why do you profess to find me so mystifying? (Note: this is sarcasm. Not an attempt to claim you said what you didn't say.) > (And obviously no one says Buffy is perfect and without flaw. Pretending > that people say things that they do not is game-playing.) I did no such thing. Therefore it is not game-playing. Game-playing, O wise one, is a better description of deliberately ignoring disclaimers intended to prevent just this sort of tiresome indulgence. In the VERY SAME SENTENCE, I began "Nonwithstanding your own coments about inadequacies" [see, I am not pretending that you are saying Buffy is perfect], "one begins to feel that ...", i.e. it seems that you believe it's OK for you to point out flaws, but when I do so you insist there's nothing wrong, viz. that pathetic attempt to defend the silent vortex. Maybe you don't believe that, because I have not watched every episode of the show and are not as learned in the lore of Joss as you are, that I am not permitted to criticize the show [see, I am not claiming that you actually believe that], but you act as if you do. Get off the high horse and stop the game-playing. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 18:57:46 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 On Sat, 29 Jul 2000, meredith wrote: > I'm just curious -- did you ever watch Babylon 5? IMO that series is the > perfect illustration of how serialized television can (and should) work. > Or how about Star Trek: TNG? That is the perfect illustration of why > non-serialized TV is so boring. Some of it ... I watched the pilot and was not terrifically impressed, tuned in again part-way through season one, and then watched most but not all of the episodes up until the end of the Shadow War, at which point the show suddenly veered and began getting stupider and stupider. After another half-season or so I dropped it. My knowledge of TNG is much sketchier, but since it didn't have an arc this is less of a problem. > Babylon 5 was a novel that unfolded over the course of 5 years. I came > into it late, but I was able to catch up quite adequately thanks to the > Internet. I believe that what we see in the arcs in shows such as BTVS > wouldn't exist if it weren't for the groundwork laid by B5. This last is quite possibly true. I don't know who invented the term "story arc" or first actually applied the principle to this kind of a tv show, but the notion has become such a commonplace that I occasionally see people not grasping the distinction between "arc" and "non-arc" (i.e. stand-alone) episodes. > TNG, on the other hand, was just annoying. With precious few exceptions > (such as the season-ending cliffhangers), every episode stood completely > alone from the rest. Something very significant would happen to a > character one week, then the next it would be like nothing had ever > happened, unless a passing mention was needed to further a plot point > sometime later on. (Fortunately, with Deep Space Nine they managed to get > a bit more of a clue as far as that goes.) I can't argue with this description, but I disagree that it shows why non-serialized tv is boring. What we have here is not proper non-serialized tv. In non-serialized tv, the rule is that nothing significantly transforming can happen to the continuing characters. TNG broke this rule and tried to have it both ways, by having transforming events and then not following through. This is not the way to do it. > As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't be nearly as interested in BTVS if > there weren't so much of a continuing story about it. Monster-of-the-week > episodes will only take you so far. Indeed they won't, and that's one of the pitfalls of that approach, but there have been dozens of great non-serialized dramatic shows in tv history, so there are ways of doing it. One way is by having the transforming event occur to a guest character. Another way is by finding drama in the main characters in non-transforming situations. The former has been used in its pure form on "Angel" a few times; the latter is characteristic of a number of the stand-alones on "Buffy". ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 22:58:48 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 Hi, David responded: >Gayle, I call your last "personal insult" and demand a halt. And once again, I ask both of you to take it to personal e-mail. Thanks, +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 22:55:08 -0400 From: meredith Subject: o/ectofest 2000 Hi! In the event that some of you are in the area, here is news about a chance to see Kristeen Young ... in the daylight!!! ============ ECTOFEST 2000 Saturday, September 2, 2000 Kenosia Lake Park, Danbury, Connecticut Featuring: Merrie Amsterburg Amy Fairchild Anne O'Meara Heaton Susan McKeown Happy Rhodes Sloan Wainwright Jessica Weiser Kristeen Young As with last year, the event is to benefit the Women's Center Of Greater Danbury and the Interfaith AIDS Ministry of Greater Danbury. Admission will be a $20 donation. All the information is at http://www.ectofest.org. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 23:06:34 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 Hi! David responded: >This last is quite possibly true. I don't know who invented the term >"story arc" or first actually applied the principle to this kind of a tv >show, but the notion has become such a commonplace that I occasionally >see people not grasping the distinction between "arc" and "non-arc" (i.e. >stand-alone) episodes. I believe that Twin Peaks was the first show to take the concept so far. Babylon 5 was the next, and lasted a lot longer so I would imagine it's had a more lasting impact. >I can't argue with this description, but I disagree that it shows why >non-serialized tv is boring. What we have here is not proper >non-serialized tv. In non-serialized tv, the rule is that nothing >significantly transforming can happen to the continuing characters. I agree that that is the rule ... but I also maintain that "proper" non-serialized tv gets boring pretty quickly. If nothing significantly transforming can happen to the continuing characters, then after a while you've just seen everything before and there's nothing more interesting to say. You know in advance how the characters are going to react to any given situation, and it's just not worth spending time on any more. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 23:47:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 On Sat, 29 Jul 2000, meredith wrote: > I believe that Twin Peaks was the first show to take the concept so far. > Babylon 5 was the next, and lasted a lot longer so I would imagine it's had > a more lasting impact. This causes me to wonder if perhaps the comments I saw at the time, that Twin Peaks was unwatchable if you hadn't been there from the start, were due more to viewers' unfamiliarity with the arc concept than to Twin Peaks actually being more difficult than later shows in which viewers have gotten more used to the idea. > I agree that that is the rule ... but I also maintain that "proper" > non-serialized tv gets boring pretty quickly. If nothing significantly > transforming can happen to the continuing characters, then after a while > you've just seen everything before and there's nothing more interesting to > say. You know in advance how the characters are going to react to any > given situation, and it's just not worth spending time on any more. Are you basing this on specific shows, and if so are they recent ones? As my comment about TNG implied, genuine non-serialized shows of the old school are harder to find lately. But they did exist, and they did work. I suppose the purest form of these were cop, detective, and other similar shows, and most of the tv dramas I watched in my tv-watching days (late 60s, basically) were of that type, which I would extend so far as to include _The Avengers_. In these, the plot is not about the cop (or whoever): the cop is the person who comes in to investigate the plot, and thus remains usually detached from it. This could go on indefinitely, and often did. Book 'em, Dano. As I mentioned, a few episodes of _Angel_ have fit this pattern: he's the private eye, people come to him, he helps solve their problem. But the strong tendency has been to have the shows be about Angel himself, and thus more potentially transforming. Now this might be in part because of a belief that the whole notion of a detached cop is coming to be thought of as sterile, but even in the old shows the cops were not so detached as to remain unaffected emotionally or even not personally involved in the plots: they just didn't cause large life changes for the cop himself. And that degree of detachment, particularly in a character who does stuff like this for a living, I do believe. I have some thoughts on how this does & doesn't apply to _The Prisoner_, which was not in any sense a cop show, but I'll save those for later. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 00:54:05 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/dream I dozed off while listening to the baseball game, and dreamed a possible teaser for the first episode of =Buffy='s 5th season. As usual this is 100% GUARANTEED NON-AUTHENTIC [Downtown Sunnydale. A young girl is shopping: looking in store windows, flipping through clothing racks, etc. Cut to Joyce Summers puttering in her kitchen. The door opens, and the young girl from the first scene enters.] LITTLE MISS MUFFETT: Hi, Mom. [BLACKOUT] It would work, no? Of course, the new character may be too young to be shopping in Sunnydale by herself, but hey. And it would probably be even more dramatic if Buffy happened to be in the kitchen too...but these are after-the-fact thoughts. In =genuine= TV news, they're showing commercials for James "Titanic" Cameron's new TV series on Fox this fall, =Dark Angel=, starring Jessica Alba as (if I remember correctly) a genetically-altered warrior who has gone rogue. And the brief scenes in the commercials definitely have a Faith-ish air about them. As I've said before, if Faith weren't such an archetype she'd be a cliche... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 01:54:29 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 << > I mentioned it for clarification, in a completely different context. Not > because it has anything to do with "Innocence." (It wasn't mentioned in > "Innocence.") I wasn't talking about "Innocence". I was talking about "Becoming". >> Here is the actual exchange (in which, btw, note that I am talking about emotional impact and you are talking about a point of information): << > Do I understand correctly from Don's post that you haven't seen "Innocence" > or other eps in the arc? If so, you really didn't get the necessary > emotional buildup for the climax. I don't think that's necessary: certainly not to get the point that Angel doesn't know what he'd just done. >> Just to clarify, when I said that you were "handicapped" in judging B2, that was not meant to be insulting in any way. Who knows, you might not have liked it anyway; we'll never know. But when, on top of everything else, you haven't seen the whole story (which begins with "Innocence" and at minimum should include "Innocence," "Passion," and preferably "Becoming 1") you can't even, yourself, realistically speculate on how you would have reacted if you had seen the show under the same circumstances that we did. As to what you did take as an insult, the statement that pretending that people have said things that they are not is game-playing -- I won't argue about whether it is or is not apropos to this particular situation. I have no desire to spend energy exchanging insults with anyone; life is too short for that. When I find that I have fallen into some sort of trap, I simply resolve to be alert not to fall into such a trap again. As a result I have been hyper-alert to any sign that you might be about to , very possibly leading to premature judgments. But I must say that when the incident happened, it took me by surprise because I had not seen such behavior from you before, and, furthermore, I have not seen an definite instance of similar behavior since. Rudeness, persistent obfuscation, manipulating people by pretending they are saying things that they are not, and refusing to accept simple differences of opinion all seem out of character for you. (It all seemed -- dare I say it - -- downright Dafyddesque.) And yet the only way that I can imagine the behavior to be unintentional were if your reading comprehension skills were far lower than I know them to be. So both alternatives seem out of character. But I respected you before the incident, and I wish that I could respect you again (and not have to be on guard for manipulative traps). If you feel that there has been a misjudgment on my part that could be cleared up, contact me in private email. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 02:20:55 -0400 From: Robert Stacy Subject: Re: b/comments7/16 meredith wrote: > David responded: > > >This last is quite possibly true. I don't know who invented the term > >"story arc" or first actually applied the principle to this kind of a tv > >show, but the notion has become such a commonplace that I occasionally > >see people not grasping the distinction between "arc" and "non-arc" (i.e. > >stand-alone) episodes. > > I believe that Twin Peaks was the first show to take the concept so far. > Babylon 5 was the next, and lasted a lot longer so I would imagine it's had > a more lasting impact. I recall noting at the time that Steven Bochco was significant in this area, with shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, before Twin Peaks appeared. Admittedly, the arcs were sub-plots that would extend over four or five episodes, but I can't help thinking this primed the pump by showing what was possible when the scriptwriting was given center stage and allowed to stretch out. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #166 *****************************