Not a great day on black rock...

[shadowkat]

Cable has been acting wonky since 12:43pm this morning. My high speed internet connection and the TV.
Both more or less unstable. The highspeed went out just as I attempted to post an extreemly long and involved response to a thread on a discussion board entitled www.teaatheford.com - which I hadn't visited in ages. It was all about the Television Business, Nielsen Ratings, TV shows, Sorkin, personal opinion and comedy. Also with intricate html. And no, did not back the baby up. So gone.
More annoying than anything else.

So took off for a walk to my area grocery store, before the weather got too gnarly. It's been threatening to rain since 2 pm. But doing zip. Had planned to leave earlier when it was sunny and clear blue skies, but got caught up in the post that well was eaten by time warner highspeed internet cable malfunction. (Am currently on dial-up, in case you haven't figure that out for yourselves). Anyhow, I go, stop by the local bakery first to pick up chocolat chip coconut macroons - the only things can eat at bakery, then two blocks down to the grocery store. Only to find my way blocked by yellow police tape. Fifteen cops. Three cop cars. And a bunch of bystanders. Not only is the grocery store blocked off, but about two blocks in both directs are. I ask an elderly man who appears to be of Middle Eastern or Mediterrean descent, what is up.

"Well, a cop killed a guy in front of the grocery store there."
"Really? Just now? Why?"
"The guy was holding a knife to a lady's neck and he shot him down."
"So have the closed the grocery store?"
"Yeah, it's shut down - don't know what they plan on doing there. Or if the guy robbed it. Or just
what happened."

I sigh, think okay, more information than I really want to hear right now - since, ahem, this is the only grocery store that has cheap veggies and meet and general grocery supplies within walking distance. So really sort of have to continue to go to it. I do my civic duty and inform everyone I pass headed in the direction of the grocery store and intersection that they can't get through, it's completely blocked off and to go around. Then I wander off to a discount meat market two blocks down to buy what I'd planned on buying at the grocery store. Oh well, suppose, I should count my lucky stars - gotten there much earlier - I could have found myself with a knife to the neck.

Came home, watched the rest of the BSG DVD's that I rented - I rented a DVD from netflix of the shows I missed last year due to the robbery/cable blow-out. Yes, I appreciate the irony.


Called time warner, who proceeded to inform me that although there were cable outtages in Queens and Manhattan my area was not affected by these outtages. I tried to inform them that every time my cable and/or modem goes out - they have an outtage in Manhattan on the East Side and that clearly the two are linked. They insisted this was a coincidence. Right, said I, a coincidence that has occurred more than ten times? I don't know but that's a pretty regular coincidence. So they set up an appointment for a technician to come out to my place on Monday between 2pm and 6pm. Apparently it is impossible to schedule an exact time - you have to give a range, since people tend to cancel at the last minute and forget to call in. Do know this - the customer service rep is not in Canada, he is in Queens, which would explain the Queens accent.

At any rate, after talking to my mother about her woes with Time Warner Cable in Hilton Head, I'm starting to wonder why no one has found a way to drive these folks out of business yet by creating a better service? Apparently they refused to install close-captioned cable tv service in my Granny's apartment at her assisted care living complex, because their computers stated that a man was in her room and getting the service. They refused to believe my mother, the assisted care staff, or anyone else who told them otherwise. Because as we all know, computers are infallible and computer database administrators and customer service reps never make stupid mistakes. Fed up, my mother went to the Time Warner office in her area, in person, with the information, and made the request. They stated that according to their records no one was getting cable in that room and they'd be happy to help and had no idea why the customer service people refused to oblige. Sigh. And we wonder why we haven't blown up the world yet? Actually don't answer that, I know why, we are too bloody stupid to find the right button.

Sooo...have gotten zip done today. And oh, cable modem appears to be working again - all four lights are on. We'll see how long it lasts. Seems to go up to four, then back down to one every 2 hours.

Regarding the BSG DVD's - will say this "Scar" and "Sacrifice" - which I'd missed last year, really do explain Starbuck and Apollo's choices in the finale. If you've missed those two episodes, there's no way in hell that their actions in the finale make a whit of sense. Proving how much of a serial this show truly is. Also, there's a great podcast on the DVD about "Black Market", which I despised more than the episode that proceeded it. I saw both those episodes last year and felt no need to resee them, once was quite enough, but did watch the podcast on Black Market. And I have to say, I admire Ron Moore. He states how much he hated Black Market. What worked, what really didn't, what they wanted to do, and how it was his fault - not the fault of his writers, crew, actors, or director. The only writer I've heard state that. He says part of what bugged him about the episode is it is so conventional - it has the conventional television set-up and the coventional television solutions, which is against everything he is trying to do BSG - which is to attempt to break out of those boundaries, do something really new and different. And he does accomplish that in places in the episode - most notably at the end, where he has the hero blow away the bad guy without just cause (I mean not in self-defense), so that it amounts to an execution. He says the reason for this, is the other route gives the audience what they want - that vengeance, but emotionally lets them and the hero off the hook. It's not as interesting. This reminds me of a conversation I had with an online friend recently regarding a character killing a pet and her fear that the character wouldn't be redeemable. I told her not to worry about that. Worry about what you want to say through this character, how this character's actions change and effect him and how they propell the plot forward. Your reader will forgive you if the action makes sense, is true to the character, propells his/her story forward. They will not forgive you if took an easy way out, it was clearly out of character or did something gratuituous. Moore gets this. He understands the necessity for ambiguity. His problems with Black Market were mine - it tended to be cliche, the bad guy while played by an amazing actor was a tad too Mr. Big Bad, and they did a few cheap eye-rolling audience manipulating bits - but there are four scenes that work. His analysis of what worked and what didn't and how it was his responsibility as a creator not to fall down on the job again impressed me. He said, sure it's hard work doing this, but everything is hard - that is your job. Don't whine do it. And do it right.
Now, that is what it means to be a professional writer!

Comments

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I love Ron Moore, but he's not the only television writer that admits mistakes.

JMS's commentaries on B5 are equally good in that he takes the blame for things that go wrong, even if it's technically not a writing problem, because he was the one calling all the shots. I especially love the bits when he makes fun of "the writer" getting too talk-y, especially since he wrote all of the episodes in S3 and S4 and most of S5.

Both Moore and JMS are really good about pointing out their own writing mistakes and owning up to screwing up and the famous, "If I could re-do this, here's how I'd change it..."

And although in both cases they are correct, one thing they both tend to leave out is that there really are other meta issues at work.

I know in the case of JMS, he was told in the middle of S4 that he'd have no S5, so suddenly all his episodes had to become exposition central as he rushed to tie up all the loose plots (Shadows/Earth War). He didn't get his S5 until the last minute, and that was because TNT came in as a sort of "angel investor" and bought S5. Now I was on the rec.arts.b-5 Usenet newsgroup, where JMS would interact with fans and answer questions. It wasn't a case of him blaming his external situation as it was explaining that even he had to bow to external pressures on some things. I think he makes reference to it in the B5 commentaries, but he never blames it for his own weaknesses in writing. He tends to view it as "this is the television business and I didn't adequately respond to it, so this problem is on me."

I think there was a similar situation with "Black Market." I seem to recall that it was supposed to be aired later in the season and got moved up to an eariler slot. Since the running arc was so tightly woven, there were some last minute issues. I seem to remember it at the time and I think I remember a passing mention in Moore's blog. But again, it was the same deal. "this is the telvision business and I didn't adequately respond/adapt to an issue; I know better; this problem is on me."

One thing I like about Moore (and JMS) is that because they do approach things first as a "fan" of genre television (and a fan of genre in any format in general), I think they're better able to take a step back from their own work and analyze different aspects of it. They also know that the fastest way to alientate people is to blame the fans for "not getting it" (Whedon? Are you listening?) While they don't always give fans what they want, they also know that if the majority of people are going, "Don't like" or "Don't get," they know it's because they didn't argue their case properly through the righting or the presentation of the material.

So, yeah, Moore and JMS are true writing professionals. They both have egos as big as the outdoors, but they're fairly honest about the art of writing. That's one thing I appreciate about both of them and that's why I trust them to tell me story, even if I don't always agree with what they're saying.

Ah did not know that about JMS, thanks.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Did not know what you posted about JMS, although vaguely remember reading something to that effect way back when news broke that they were doing a 5th Season of B5. I was a huge Babylon 5 fan, but did not go on the net until around 2002, and never heard the commentaries. What I remember was JMS constantly having to do a hop-skip to deal with the networks. First he sent a script to the Roddenberry bunch who stole his idea for DS9 but did not do it the way he wanted. (That may just be a rumor, not positive), then the network did not like the lead in first season and wanted someone with more presence - and to give JMS credit he made that transfer work so well that I'm still uncertain whether he planned it at the outset. And finally the network pulled the plug on him, he had to scramble to give the show a good send-off, only to end up getting a last minute save after he aired the final episode. Which shocked everyone. And at least two members of the cast he could not coax back for a fifth season due to the fact that they'd moved on to other gigs. What so many people don't understand about tv is how rough it is - it is not the same as writing a film, comic book, or novel. You aren't given the time, you don't have the assurance they'll let you show your whole story, you don't get to do multiple drafts and edits, the network could force you to air an episode out of sequence. It's crazy.

JMS and Ron Moore are rare breeds in the tv writing field - because both chose to create telenovels. Most sci-fi tends to be anthology or episodic/serial like what Whedon kept attempting with shows such as Firefly, Angel and Buffy or we see on Star Trek and the Star Gates. Even Farscape was in some ways episodic in format. Only B5 and BSG are true serials or telenovels. (Deep Space 9 became a serial later, but it started as an episodic show.) What Moore and JMS did that was different than everyone else in the field, as far as I know, is they created detailed character books and detailed back stories, and a detailed arc way before they even put the story on air. JMS even more so - since his tale was almostly completely plotted. Ron Moore I think is more flexible and his tale is a bit more open-ended. Yes, he has a full character book, and yes he has the whole world laid out, but he hasn't plotted out each episode or story. From the podcast he didn't sound like he had plotted out each episode quite as much as JMS had ahead of time. Whedon didn't do that. Whedon flies by the seat of his pants. He did not know who Angel or Spike was as a character until about three or four years into his series. He didn't know what he was going to do with Xander and kept changing his mind. He experiemented. He threw stuff out there - he's what you might call an intuitive writer - which is great, it's how I write, let the character reveal who they are as you move along. The only problem with that is well - continuity issues. Particularly in a TV series.

While I love Whedon's writing (he's still amongst the best dialogue writers out there), I respect JMS and Ron Moore's storytelling skills a bit more. Whedon is great at finding the emotional core of a character and a marvelous character builder - he also takes huge risks, but he's not a great plotter and has a tendency to jump tracks or fall a bit too much in love with one character to their detriment (*cough*Fred*cough*, *cough*Willow*cough*), which his writers had a tendency to do as well. (I'm reading his Astonishing X-Men at the moment, and oh god, the plot-holes.) But I suppose all writers have their achilles heels.

(Sorry for the Whedon/BSG comparison - I watched three BSG episodes today and three S6 BTVS episodes. So sort of on the brain.)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, I think much of the weakness in middle-late S2 of BSG comes from the attempt at a more episodic structure, which doesn't come naturally to Moore, it's not the way he thinks. Not that the episodes don't talk to one another - when Lee doesn't shoot the hostage taker in Sacrifice it's a stronger momment because he did in Black Market (although that felt overthrought at the time). It's more that the series plot is running along in the backgound instead of being a driving force and the focus is very much on the character and monster of the week.

Plotwise I think Joss is good at thinking up brilliant new twists but he's not your man for crossing the t's and dotting the i's of them. Didn't he admit to not to not being up to intricate mystery or politcal plotting when he was fanboying Veronica Mars? I'm not very sensitive to plotting (sat through the whole of The Draughtsman's Contract without even realising anyone had died much less tried to figure out who dunnit) so I tend to miss those things.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'd agree I think that's where Moore struggled in S2 BSG - with the stand-alone episodic format that he may have felt the network was pushing him to do. Networks are backing off now - due to the success of true serials such as Lost, 24, and Prison Break. And the feeling that audiences are losing interest in the episodic format. We can thank the reality show as well for this. Networks have finally realized that the serial has its strengths - one being forcing your audience to come back each week to catch the second half of that cliff-hanger.

I'm not overly sensitive to plotting

I'm unfortunately or fortunately, overly sensitive to it. It's probably a good thing since I'm attempting to write a novel. And I think part of the reason I'm sensitive to it is what failed in my last attempts was well the plotting. They say you tend to be the most critical of what you consider your own flaws or at least the most sensitive to them.

I vaguely remember Whedon mentioning that Rob Thomas wrote Veronica Mars far better than he wrote Buffy. Except Thomas isn't much better at plotting than Whedon is. Both have reveals that don't quite work, while their misleads made perfect sense and often were preferrable. In the last Season of VM, the plot gets so convoluted that you almost need a map to follow it, and the bad guy reveal at the end? Doesn't quite track. It tracks enough for me to shrug and say, okay I'll buy it, but I tend to be more forgiving - particularly if you hit my other itchs. But not enough for everyone to.

What Thomas succeeded in doing that Whedon didn't - was adult storylines. He could make the adults interesting and he managed to avoid falling into romantic/soap opera cliches with Veronica/Duncan/Logan triangle - Whedon working with metaphors did fall into those cliches to an extent with Angel/Buffy/Spike. Part of the difference, I think, is Thomas knew at the outset who Logan and Duncan were and Whedon really hadn't a clue what he was doing with Spike and Angel. And that's a problem when you are crafting a tv show - you need to know who each character is. What their motivations are. Whedon in his commentary did admit more than once that he had no clue what he was doing with Spike and it did not occur to him until after the actor proposed it - that Spike might be in love with Buffy and that was why he was sticking around. The actor proposed it - because he was trying to figure out what Spike's motivation was and couldn't get it from the scripts which made it close to impossible for him to act the part with any sense of consistency. (I remember Keifer Sutherland being interviewed on Inside Actor's Studio a while back - stating that every time an actor takes a role, particularly a television role - the best and simpliest way of attacking that role is to figure out your character's main motivation for being there. What drives him. Sure we all need to eat, drink, get shelter. But why are doing this particular thing - and how does that particular thing work as a uniting thread through the film, tv series or play? Marsters has stated in numerous interviews that he had to make it up, because the writers had no idea most of the time and kept changing their minds. Whedon and the writers admit it as well. As a result, Spike became for some of us the most interesting character on the series because he was the most unpredictable - we had no clue what they'd do with him - while for others he became the most frustrating character for the same reason.)

Ron Moore on BSG - knows what motivates his characters. He knows what motivates each and every one of them. I think the only cast of characters Whedon knew that about was Firefly - which is why he loved that show so much - he'd learned how to do it on Buffy and Angel, with Firefly he had it plotted out, he knew the characters, who they were, how they worked together. What he wasn't completely sure about was how to meld what he loved about Westerns into Sci-Fi. It can be done - see George Lucas' Star Wars or even Brisco County Jr. But it isn't easy. And that's where he got most of his criticism. I think if he'd pulled back more on the Western motifs - much as he did in the film, he'd probably have gotten a bigger audience and the show may have lasted longer.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I think BtVS made a virtue out of its use of soap clichés, the mother dying of cancer, the bad boy with the heart of gold, the almost rape and its aftermath. In the same way BSG uses the sheer cheese of the set up it inherited and plays it completely straight, imagining how people might realistically respond to robots wiping out most of the human race.

As to knowing the characters from the beginning I think Whedon did know his core four. And Drusilla (if I believed in animi I might think Joss had a soul guide in the form of some underweight crazy girl with a genius IQ because she seems to keep cropping up in one form or another all over the place). Who knows if Firefly had had another season some Operative type character might not have pulled a Spike and made it to recurring. Probably the frustrating thing for fans of Spike per Spike is that Joss may have tended to see him more in terms of his interactions with other characters, particularly Buffy as time went by but didn't he bring him back in S4 for working so well with everyone in Lovers Walk? Having said that I do think Spike's story and character development is pretty coherent in retrospect.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me wrong - I liked what Whedon did with them and I think he made the characters work in retrospect. There are isolated moments though that don't quite mesh. Caught a few re-watching some of the episodes of S6 and S5. Like why the heck no one stakes Spike is one issue. Yeah, sure it's because the writers didn't want them to. But honestly, it makes no sense that the Scooby gange didn't dust him after S4. Or, specifically, after CRUSH - knowing he knew who Dawn was. Why Spike doesn't tell Glory does make sense. What does not make sense is why it doesn't occur to Buffy and her friends until Intervention that he could, possibly out of spite? And especially after the events of Yoko Factor. That's bad plotting. And more or less what happens on most tv shows.

And I'd agree he did a good job playing with soap cliches. Anyone who decides to write a thesis or book on what influenced Whedon, should spend some time watching General Hospital, old cheesy Westerns, Slasher horror films, and reading X-men comic books - because he basically makes fun of the cliches found in those genres. Spike and Buffy/ Buffy and Angel are in some ways Whedon's twist on the "soap opera couple". He played with the guy gets redeemed by love cliche, just as he played with the guy sleeps with girl and becames an ass cliche - both taken from the daytime soap opera.
(Heck daytime soaps are still doing it. And Whedon was a huge fan of both Passions and GH. Having watched soap operas in my lifetime - I appreciated how he played with the cliche. Still do. Part of the reason, I own the latter seasons on DVD. It is hilarous in places and very subtle.) Whedon liked to make fun of the genre's he loved, while at the same time doing the opposite of what the formula asked for. In the Slasher - it's the cute blond girl who always dies in the alley, in Whedon's BTVS, it's the cute boy who gets it. And in his pilot - the cute blond girl is the monster, not her date.
In the soap opera - the guy and girl have a love hate relationship, he forces himself on her, she forgives him, they get married, she dies or disappears (Luke and Laura) - in Whedon's world - he is the one who dies, she forgives him but she's not going to marry him, and they go their separate ways, because in typical soap opera fashion he comes back from the dead to haunt her ex.
Then of course you got the kids - the rapidly aging kid from no-where. Angel gets Connor, Buffy gets Dawn. But unlike a soap, both are given a metaphorical purpose - for Buffy - it's her normalacy, the child, the innocence - the part of her that will never become a slayer, never get hard, and for Angel - same deal, the part of him that never becomes a monster, just a hero, super-strength intact.
Great idea. But, I think once it was accomplished, the writers weren't quite sure what to do with them. Connor in some ways played out a little better than Dawn.

Again, don't get me wrong - I enjoyed it. I own the last seasons of the series on DVD, when Dawn and Connor were introduced. But I can understand by the same token why it did not work for a good portion of the audience. It was enjoyable but flawed. I like flawed - for me, that's part of what tv is all about. It's too rough to ever be perfect. ;0)