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?

How do you react to a lie? Angered? Outraged? Do you seek out justice or the truth? Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick examines such a question, much like many of Dick’s other stories.

The basic premise of the story (no spoilers) is that the majority of the world’s population lives in underground bunkers after a nuclear war. The war is conducted on the surface by high level beaureacrats while the average Joe hunkers down in cramped quarters and lives a meek and meager lifestyle underground.

Except here comes the usual Dick twist; The war ended after two years, yet the population has been kept underground for fifteen years. This is of course, a carefully managed conspiracy by faking war-related broadcasts and news. But why would anyone want to pull such a conspiracy on the public living in bunkers? For power of course. To control the resources of land and manufacturing, while keeping the rest of the population in poverty below.

Most of the story revolves around two characters. One character lives below, and must travel to the surface to find a medical supply for his community. The other character lives above, and works in the agency responsible for creating false war news and propaganda.

I’ve told you virtually nothing about the story’s actual plot, in case you want to read it. The reason I bring all this up, is because I found it interesting how a convoluted conspiracy affects the characters–or more importantly, how it doesn’t.

My issue with the storytelling is purely a character problem. Several of the characters who exist on the surface and help to perpetuate the conspiracy do not actually believe in the motives or goals of the conspiracy itself. They have no ‘buy-in’ to the conspiracy. Yet, these very same characters act day-in, day-out, without giving their role in the conspiracy much thought. To me this doesn’t seem very realistic.

The question for me which shatters the illusion, or shatters my suspension of disbelief is this; “Why wouldn’t they just walk away? Or worse, work to undermine the conspiracy?”

Indeed, one of the central characters helps to do this, but he seems to do it in complete paranoia, and without much scruples as to why and how he should care to begin with. In other words, he defies the conspiracy in a less-than intentional way. This makes him less of a hero, and more of a bystander who simply tries not to hurt the tankers as much as his peers do.

The same is true for the character who must travel to the surface. Once he discovers that the war is over, and has been over for a while, he does not seem greatly distressed by this news. Dick’s explanation seems to be, this ‘tanker,’ as the bunker-dwellers are called, has become so accustomed to life in squalor underground, that he doesn’t know what to think when he finds out about the reality of life on the surface.

I don’t buy it. Because Dick later explains that the conspiracy could not be exposed to all the tankers at once, as it would ’shock’ them and cause a revolution. Of course it would! And I believe it would with the main characters as well.

Keep in mind, the characters did not grow up from childhood in these surroundings. The entire framework of the premise takes place over 15 years. Unless the characters are all fifteen years old, there is no way they would go about their routine so mindlessly when it comes to something as important as freedom, and a conspiracy to infringe upon it.

None of the characters seem to take a hard emotional stand, or fight for anything they believe in. This not only makes the story less believable, it denies the reader an identification with a hero. It hurts both the logic of the conspiracy, and the characterizations.

It is an excellent example where the author could have asked himself, “What would I do in this situation?” Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem Dick asked such a question. If you read it, you might agree that a character affected by conspiracy is a penultimate truth.

Rebel Without a Crew is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Anyone interested in storytelling ought to give it a read. Truly inspiring.

I could go on and on about how inspiring the book was for me, but that won’t do it justice. Just read it.