Just sayin.'
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Salem's Lot 1979 and Salem's Lot 2024
Happy Halloween everybody! Julie's working late and the boy doesn't have school tomorrow so he's heading to one of those crazy f...
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(2007) * First of all let me say that as far as I could tell there are absolutely no dead teenagers in this entire film. Every year just ...
23 comments:
Oh sorry, I assumed that only those who finished season 3 would watch. Jordan's correct, don't watch otherwise.
I can't wait.
Thanks for the warning. We've just gotten started on season 2.
I'm hooked but have some issues.
Octo and I have talked about this stuff a little. I know you have your own brain and all but I suspect your issues correspond slightly to his: basically, the show's over-dependence on characters not talking to each other about stuff that they really should communicate about (in the interests of solving their problems and just pure common sense). I'm the biggest Lost fan you could find (in the "liking the show" department, not in the "participating in online creepy fandom" department) (since we have our own "creepy fandom" fiefdom right over here), but I agree this is a big problem with the first half of Season 2. Suffice it to say (without giving anything away) that LOST just never, ever "loses it," "drops it" or "jumps the shark." It may seem like the show has "lost it" from time to time but they always get it back, in spades, so much so that you're embarrassed to have doubted them at all. Just my $0.02
Also, the Jack/Locke "reason vs. faith" debate about pushing the button is incredibly lame. But, oh, boy, is there dark treasure to come. Just hang on.
Jordan is absolutely correct. There are times when you'll scream, "A lot of your problems could be avoided if you would just have an open discussion!", but it doesn't matter, other aspects of the show that you haven't encountered yet will soon blow your mind. Season two is near-perfect and season 3 is my fave so far.
I certainly won't stop watching, and yes, Jordan, I have my own brain. In fact, I think Octo is relating my frustrations to you. He's sort of borrowing my brain. And he shouldn't. My brain is full of insane hormones.
My frustrations with the show have led me to come up with this theory that for hour long drama, you have to be able to suspend your disbelief about a certain subject, and if you can't, you just won't enjoy that show. So for 24, I could totally suspend my disbelief about Jack Bauer getting anywhere in LA during a commercial break. Maybe that's because watching him do it fulfilled some sort of fantasy for me--he got from downtown to the Valley in ten minutes?! I LOVE him! Okay, then the second nuclear bomb blew up and I lost interest and stopped watching that show--they just went too far with that one.
For Big Love, I can basically get involved with those characters even though in real life, I'd have to run far away from them because they're all religious freaks. But I can just put that aside and watch. Second season maybe it went a little far and I might lose interest--just can't buy the concept if the religious nuts won't stop talking about the Celestial Kingdom. I'm interested in a guy having three wives, not Jesus, for Christ sakes.
But there's something about Lost that just defies logic to me, because I cannot imagine that people don't say, "Dude, omigod, I totally played the lottery with the numbers on this scrap of paper from that French chick!"
I mean, have you ever traveled to an island like that? Where there's nothing but time? You would know every single thing about everybody--in like a week. You'd run out of shit to talk about. There would be no secrets. Everybody would know Boone slept with his step sister and Locke was a cripple.
I just can't get past that somehow.
But then we watched so many episodes in a row--it's really like crack when you get into it. I'll give it that. So I'll hang in there.
I'm gonna quicky weigh in on this one - long-form television is a rediscovered genre, one requiring discipline and intelligence from the viewer, commodities that networks will embrace and disdain, depending on the whim of the moment. The clones are out there - Heroes, Prison Break, 24 - if you aren't there from the beginning, you're Lost.
That said, I caught most of Season 1 live, then lost track and caught up with the DVD release of Season 2.
Haven't seen a shred of Season 3, but I will say thaat this is arguably the best thing to hit TV since Twin Peaks. And THAT is saying quite a bit. The only caveat is that you have to get onboard (pun intended) from the beginning.
Writer's strike be damned! Just explain the giant polar bears!
Almost everyone in film school agrees that TV is more interesting than features now, and TV is the place to be for writers. I mean, when the writers are actually working, that is.
But surely you mean that this is the best thing to hit NETWORK TV. I can think of a few things better on HBO and Showtime.
But anyway, the faith vs. reason thing did get me a bit bent out of shape. For one thing, it's not really a leap of faith to just believe something some random guy tells you. Or maybe that IS a leap of faith. And that's why I suck at leaps of faith.
Although I suppose it was a leap of faith to find Octo smoking out every day in his Berkeley party pad and somehow decide he would be the father of my child. So maybe I'm awesome at leaps of faith.
But the faith vs. reason thing always bugs me in most pop culture entertainment, because faith always wins and the logical people end up looking so restricted and small minded. I sort of hate that trend.
I'll add another comment. I think it's fair to say that each "suspension of disbelief" problem in each show you've mentioned exists because of specific limitations to what Stan correctly calls "long-form TV" (in which the "unit of measure" is not the episode but the season). In other words, just like first-person novels ask you to accept that a stockbroker (in Great Gatby) or a landscape painter (in Brideshead Revisted) is somehow as eloquent and masterful a storyteller as F. Scott FItzgerald or Evelyn Waugh, or a musical asks to to accept that everyone not only can sing but can instantly launch into a complete song that somehow has been written for the precise situation of their life, so "long-form" television asks you to accept that nobody has that conversation.
There are structural reasons for each of these conceits. In first-person novels, the writer has chosen that form because he or she wants to exploit the advantages of imprisoning the reader inside the consciousness of a single character. And in modern long-form television the show must function week-to-week with sporadic viewers (many of whom have bad memories) tuning in and out without those viewers getting confused, irritated or baffled. So, the characters do not share the knowledge they would share in real life; this allows individual stories to work in terms of secret knowledge, character by character, without the problems of "consensus knowledge" that the viewer simply cannot keep track of. The more information is shared between characters, the less screen time they spend revealing (or conspicuously concealing) information, the fewer options for expository dialogue, and the fewer opportunities for "will he or wont he tell" suspense that carries the short-attention-span viewer from episode to episode.
I have some friends who are tremendous Lost fans -- they watch it every week, except when they miss it -- but the show never, shall we say, captures their full attention or their intellectual curiosity—they get together with a bottle of wine and have a good time, and, next week, you're lucky if they even remember who Desmond is, let alone the specific flashback clues that propel the show. If the characters all knew everything that the other characters knew (because the conversations had all taken place as early as would actually happen), these viewers would have no fun at all, because for them the show would feel like constantly arriving late for the tail end of a business meeting that they missed the beginning of and trying to keep up with what everyone was talking about. Hence, the conceit you're objecting to. Until it can be guaranteed that every viewer is sitting down with the Pavlovian food-pellet-machine-lever of a complete seasonal DVD box, shows are going to function in terms of concealed and revealed knowledge in order to stay interesting to the casual viewer.
Faith doesn't always win. Look at Back to the Future. I love that story for its rationalist vantage point.
In Part III, it brings me great joy when Marty fervently turns to Doc and says, "Doc, you're a scientist. So you tell me: What's the right thing to do" -- and he points at his own forehead -- "up here?"
Sherlock Holmes, the most famous fictional character in history, was the king of the rationalists. In the early Edwardian era, he's proudly quoting Darwin while talking to Watson.
I guess I'm saying you've got to have some "faith" in Reason. Or whatever.
Goodness gracious, me, J, do I detect an Ayn Rand shred of devotion to man's highest ideal?
Absolutely. (Without getting into an Ayn Rand debate.) The only codicil is that quite often what's being called "faith" is merely intuition (which is fine) or inductive reasoning (also fine) or simple hindbrain-based animal cunning (also also fine). When the Church hit the scene, it's first act was to tear down the Roman Empire and begin centuries of Dark Ages; and it's just been downhill from there. Let's lock up Galileo, burn Beatles records, fly planes into the World Trade Center and prohibit gay sex! Go, Faith, Go! The hits just keep on coming, century after century.
You could argue that the major plot development of The Matrix Reloaded is reason completely trouncing faith. By the end of that movie, every shred of religious mumbo-jumbo from the first movie has been violently dispensed with.
I do believe, however, that "faith" in the broad sense is an excellent armature for fiction (if only because it's always been a manifestation of a profound human imaginative quality).
And, no, I'm not contradicting myself. I'm simply saying that Luke Skywalker and Marty McFly have more in common than either would admit.
"Although I suppose it was a leap of faith to find Octo smoking out every day in his Berkeley party pad and somehow decide he would be the father of my child."
That's why I love her!
Great Jordan points on the mechanism of story vs. that big group reveal conversation Julie and I keep hopessly expecting.
The thing that often frustrates me is that the rationalist characters can't re-assess their situations and take in the new data that is obviously relevant. For example, Charlie reads Claire's diary and approaches the group about the Black Rock, because the French chick mentioned it and Claire dreamed about it. Jack, naturally, dismisses the discussion because it's about someone's dreams.
BUT, given the weird shit they've exprienced up to that point, including Jack himself, it makes sense to me that a rationalist would at least sift the information instead of dismissing it. "I followed my dead father through the jungle, and it turned out to be useful -- perhaps there are more useful chains of events out here that begin with ingredients I would previously deemed irrational."
It's kind of the idea behind Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he argues that science itself undergoes paradigm shifts as more knowledge is gathered.
One of my favorite examples of someone getting this right happens in Sleepy Hollow. Johnny Depp won't believe in the ghost stories until he sees something patently impossible in his real-world schema. After he takes a little crazy nap he strides down the stairs and tells the elders of Sleepy Hollow "We are not after a common criminal, but a murderous ghost; let's get to it!" (Or something like that.)
Again, it's easier in a movie because you're not trying to drag along a discussion for as many episodes as possible. I'm not saying that's Lost's problem, but an excellent example of Julie's "faith always wins" gripe is the character of Joel on Northern Exposure, who would be confronted and confounded weekly by some bit of local folk wisdom that made no sense, yet he'd never learn anything.
YES Octo!! It is again the reason I loved "Dog Soldiers" (my favorite find from reading Horrorthon). A group of well-trained soldiers who remember how to fire guns when the shit hits the fan. A Werewolf rips apart a team-member, the soldiers look at each other and say "well now we're fighting a Werewolf, what do you remember about the stories" then they fight the damn thing.
In a bastardization of Sherlock Holmes...."sometimes the shit is sooo crazy it must be true". Jack's disbelief in every new strange occurrence, in the face of ALL the other strange occurrences started to turn me off in season 2.
Northern Exposure was crap.
And I reiterate the point I keep making to anyone who's in the midst of a particular LOST season:
1) Just keep going
2) Don't worry about it.
Really.
God, you people are watching this at a sub-atomic level. I almost feel guilty saying that I like LOST. Can't you just kick back and dig it? It's the very best television on television. ANY television show can be picked apart in this manner, I dare you to suggest one that can't. Watch LOST, it's cool.
Dog Soldiers, yes! Great example. And it reminds me of Clooney's "can we all agree we're fighting vampires?" speech in Dusk Till Dawn.
I was thinking of that Clooney speech, too!
JPX, you touch on something very important here. I can't speak for everyone else but I have very strong beliefs on this subject; namely:
1) I am probably more interested in that "sub-atomic" level of thinking than anyone else here; and
2) I am the most fervent advocate of the sit back and enjoy it philosophy around. (Just look at my last comment here.)
The point I want to make is that these are not mutually exclusive positions. Somewhere along the line many if not most people became convinced that these two forces (analysis and enjoyment) are somehow the opposite of each other, getting in each others' way, when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. They compliment each other; enhance each other, are necessary to each other. I used to say, "The worst aesthetic theoreticians are the ones who emotionally distance themselves from art in the mistaken belief that this is what it means to be 'critical.'" (I still say this.) I think my entire written output at Horrorthon upholds my belief that the strongest "fanboy" love of the stuff and the most careful critical study of the stuff go hand in hand and complement each other.
Well put Jordan, a very good point but somewhat puzzling. Surely the criteria you use to dissect a show will also play a part in determining whether or not you'll enjoy or even watch it.
I found this article on belief to be utterly fascinating: http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html
But it's the age old argument and it can be applied to almost everything. By putting something you hold dear or "love" under the magnifying glass, you risk the magic vanishing before you and nobody wants that.
I can't play a musical instrument to save my life. I can't even smack a tambourine against my ass without screwing it up in seven different ways. But when I listen to, say, Virtual World by the Verve I can close my eyes and be taken away by the magic. I may not know what Richard means when he sings "she's breathing light into lone dead stars" and I frankly don't care. If someone like I'mNotMarc (who is very talented) tries to break it down and explain it to me musically, I don't want to hear it. I don't think that's a negative thing or that it makes me a lesser "fan" than someone who can play their songs note for note. And of course it doesn't make me more of a fan either. It's harmless and I think it's the way that I enjoy music.
Many people apply this kind of reasoning to god which is something that I think is dangerous because your "beliefs" dictate your behavior.
But getting back to Jordan being able to enjoy something and critically analyze it and point out its flaws. That's the way you appreciate art and that's great news for everyone who reads his thoughts on the subject.
Oh man, I'm all over the place...
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