I'd agree. The difficulty with any story -- is when the viewer knows more
than the writers of the episode/book/story or characters, they will be
taken out of the story. Or if the story goes against their experience of
the subject matter in a specific way that they can't relate to it and are
taken out of the story. Or in this case, the viewers have seen similar
stories or are given enough information to be ahead of the characters, and
are way ahead of them...."example dumb robot dogs that aren't really that
threatening and can easily be outmaneuvered" or a little girl with weird
powers and odd reactions to things, with technology reacting to her? And
not questioning it? Hello?
Manifest and The Passage were better written in this respect, the
characters seemed to be with the audience, and it was less contrived. They
both had similar problems but in different ways. This trope is problematic
in that, well, you have to have your entire story and characters plotted
out well ahead of time. It's not a trope you can do by the seat of your
pants. But the other problem is it has been over done -- how many times
have we had the evil corporation that is unregulated and outside of
government control? Or the evil government conspiracy that no one can stop?
Watching this sort of makes me miss the Passage -- where we got to look at
it from the perspective of the well-meaning scientists/government and the
victims and the monsters. It had it's flaws (yeah, using a vampiric virus
to cure disease on death row inmates is a smart idea - not), but it was at
least tightly written and I cared. (Helped it had source material --
adapted from a series of books.) Even Mainfest was a bit more interesting
and better put together, the characters while they did improbable things,
didn't appear to be nearly as clueless.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2019-10-15 12:40 pm (UTC)I'd agree. The difficulty with any story -- is when the viewer knows more than the writers of the episode/book/story or characters, they will be taken out of the story. Or if the story goes against their experience of the subject matter in a specific way that they can't relate to it and are taken out of the story. Or in this case, the viewers have seen similar stories or are given enough information to be ahead of the characters, and are way ahead of them...."example dumb robot dogs that aren't really that threatening and can easily be outmaneuvered" or a little girl with weird powers and odd reactions to things, with technology reacting to her? And not questioning it? Hello?
Manifest and The Passage were better written in this respect, the characters seemed to be with the audience, and it was less contrived. They both had similar problems but in different ways. This trope is problematic in that, well, you have to have your entire story and characters plotted out well ahead of time. It's not a trope you can do by the seat of your pants. But the other problem is it has been over done -- how many times have we had the evil corporation that is unregulated and outside of government control? Or the evil government conspiracy that no one can stop? Watching this sort of makes me miss the Passage -- where we got to look at it from the perspective of the well-meaning scientists/government and the victims and the monsters. It had it's flaws (yeah, using a vampiric virus to cure disease on death row inmates is a smart idea - not), but it was at least tightly written and I cared. (Helped it had source material -- adapted from a series of books.) Even Mainfest was a bit more interesting and better put together, the characters while they did improbable things, didn't appear to be nearly as clueless.