Quantum Storytelling

For those that didn’t know, last week was premiere week for TV shows. Here are my two cents…

Chuck

Not impressed. Funny premise, but tries too hard and one hour is probably too long for the hook. Humor wears thin already within the pilot, and the serious parts are hard to take seriously.

Journeyman

Great. I liked it a lot. A lot of people have been taking a dump on it as a cheap Quantum Leap clone, but have you watched Quantum Leap lately? It’s still an amusing show, but like any TV show from the late 80s or early 90s, it has not aged well. Because someone did it in 1989, that rules it out for 2007? Sorry, does not compute.

It’s easy to sympathize with the main character Dan, largely due to the people in his life not believing his time-traveling explanation for his disappearances of several days each time. Even if this changes when the show kicks into high gear, it’s a great way to endear his character to the audience in the pilot.

Of course like many shows, the reason why he’s bouncing around randomly through time is a mystery, and if the writers know what they’re doing they hopefully won’t ruin that for a few seasons yet. It’s a tough balancing act to give the viewer payoff nuggets of information for why something is happening without ruining it.

Bionic Woman

So-so. It’s entertaining enough, I will keep watching until they do something totally stupid. TV writers must believe that audiences will buy into anything. What am I talking about? The character Jamie Sommers is in a car wreck, which is why her doctor boyfriend takes her to his top secret organization that gives her bionic abilities. The lame? He is in the car with her during the accident. Her body is completely mangled and his isn’t. More, he immediately dons his doctors’ outfit and surgical mask, and begins performing surgery on her a few minutes after the wreck!

In what universe does the audience buy that? Maybe they will provide a reason for it in a future episode (he’s a robot?) but if it’s a logical snafu of writing convenience, it seems like failure to me. Sure, it’s just entertainment but something like that seems incredibly simple for even a n00b plotter to correct. Here’s to hoping the little snags like that are intentional.

The only other downside is that a lot of people are drawn by Katee “Starbuck” Sackhoff playing the villain and her dialogue was horrible, with less-than-stellar delivery of her badly-written lines. Her “Time out!” utterance as she takes out a cigarette and smokes it during the big fight scene was like something out of a bad Keanu Reeves movie, with villain monologuing that was surprisingly flat. Because her Starbuck character on Battlestar Galactica doesn’t seem to suffer from monotone-itis, I have to chalk it up to Bionic Woman’s bad dialogue.

Life

Cop Charlie Crews was wrongly convicted of murder, and sent to prison for a life sentence. More than a decade later, the evidence in the trial was found to be faked and Charlie is released. After suing the department and the city and winning to the tune of millions, Charlie is back on the force.

The premise didn’t excite, but don’t let that fool you. What makes Life shine is sheer character of Charlie. To keep himself from going insane in prison, Charlie read Zen books. You might be saying to yourself, “That’s an interesting quirk, but is it entertaining?” The answer is yes. A once ordinary cop has become a little… eccentric from his trauma of prison life. He approaches interviewing witnesses in an entertaining and sometimes funny manner. After the first day or so his newly appointed partner is sick of his Zen quips and quotes, to which she responds

Reese: “Is that Zen?”
Charlie: “I don’t know, is it?”
Reese: “Is THAT Zen?”
Charlie: “I don’t know, is it?”
Reese: “Is that Zen?”
Charlie: “I don’t know, is it?”

Maybe you just had to be there, and I suggest you do exactly that. At times Charlie’s character seems like a child, but he has much more serious motivations that are revealed to the audience towards the end of the pilot. Give it a try. You may find yourself hooked on Life entirely because of Charlie’s charm.

What, No Heroes?

I haven’t gotten into Heroes. Everyone I know who watches it is perpetually disappointed, and is in a constant state of hope that the writing will get better. I’ll stick to its lesser known rival, The 4400. It has yet to scare me away.

The funny thing about NBC’s lineup is that they did a really good job of picking solid hooks for each show, and making audiences well aware of them. I’ve been seing previews for all the NBC shows in movie theaters for months now, so I was well aware of Chuck, Journeyman, and Bionic Woman about six months before they premiered.

How do I know NBC did such a good job? Because I honestly can’t tell you what the new shows are on any other network. I also have to give NBC kudos for attempting to bring sci-fi and more outrageous hooks to mainstream audiences. They are expanding definitions of TV that were previously held by cable and the Sci Fi channel. Which begs the question, where is Sci Fi?

On September 27th, 2005 I decided to launch a place where I could talk about my hobby of writing. It all started with this post. Two years have gone by in the blink of an eye. As I look back on the various incarnations of this site, it’s fun to get a bit nostalgic over what I think are the more memorable bits.

As any reader here knows, I’m fond of structure. For me, most of the creative process, its burps and hiccups, revolve around structure and the role it plays in shaping the overall work. Story DNA was probably my first post focusing on this apsect, and little did I know there would be many more to come.

As I strafed the topic of my fiction, I discussed dystopias, and battled it out between fantasy vs. sci-fi. 2005 was my first time for NaNoWriMo. I had a hunch about geneplore long before my 2006 discovery of the geneplore model.

Of course who could forget my debates with Melly over art vs. entertainment.

Another 2006 revelation was 7 Secrets of Writing Scene by Scene. That was a huge one for me, as the blindly-draft-hundreds-of-pages method has never been anything but failure for me.

I have fond memories of the folks over at Writer Unboxed getting a kick out of my writing on the wall. I still have the shower crayons, and yes still use them.

2007 brought some finality to my evaluation of writing methods & techniques, along with good habits to help you see the light at the end of the tunnel. It should go without saying that great software always helps.

Thanks for coming along with me on this crazy adventure, and may we have many more!

There is a group of movies for me that excel so well in their suspension of disbelief that they deserve their own category. It starts with 1987’s Angel Heart, from the novel by William Hjortsberg and screenplay by Alan Parker.

Harry Angel is a private investigator hired by a creepy business man named Louis Cyphre to track down a singer named Johnny Favorite, who owes Cyphre a debt. Without giving the story away, there are plenty of twists and turns, and none of the characters are what they seem.

What I love about this brand of storytelling is the way in which it plays with your mind. If the writer were sitting on the couch next to you, they might cackle with glee as you squirm in your seat at every plot twist and realization.

What would we call this oh-so-special category?

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