Thoughts in two universes
Oct. 26th, 2024 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakStar Trek:Jeri Taylor has died. I associate her mostly with Voyager and Janeway - who was very much her creation -, but she did get her start in TNG and wrote The Drumhead, which to this day remains one of my favourite episodes. (Also a good example of why one episode with this basic premise works and another doesn't, when compared to a season 1 of Battlestar Galactica episode. In both cases, an actual act of sabotage happens and the investigation escalates to a MacCarthy-esque (as we said back in the day; this was before the last two decades, where more modern comparisons would apply) paranoia exercise, with civil liberties being dispensed with left, right and center, until it's the show's leading man on the dock. Here are my two main reasons why Jeri Taylor's version works for me better than Ron Moore's does: 1) in the TNG episode, one of the people on team Dispense with Civil Liberties In This Investigation is Worf, i.e. a sympathetic, heroic regular. Who doesn't snap out of it until late in the game. Whereas the BSG episode has only unsympathetic people on Team Paranoia, and our heroes holding firm. (Well, this is season 1. In later seasons....) Which robs the episode of some of it power and point that The Drumhead makes, i.e. that you can be full of good intentions and in still let your belief in "in times of danger, we have to dispense with the niceties and get our hands dirty for the greater good" drive you to a place where you do something unjustifiable. There is no magic protection against it by virtue of being a good person. The other better writing choice is that the original defendant in The Drumhead is a half Romulan whom the audience doesn't know, whereas as far as I recall, in BSG the ones on the lines are two sympathetic recurring characters. The difference is that Picard and friends have no more idea whether or not the half Romulan is guilty than the audience does. The emotional stakes are simply easier if it's someone we know and like getting accused from the start. So yeah: Jeri Taylor, I loved that episode.
Speaking of female showrunners, here's an interview with WandaVision and Agatha All Along show runner Jac Schaeffer about the latest episode. I rewatched some of WandaVision since we have to wait for another week for the Agatha All Along finale, and I have to say it holds up really well, and my two problems with the finale aren't really that heavy anymore. For external reasons, in a way. Meaning: stuff not in the show itself but what came after. What was most bothering me during my original watch was Monica's line in the finale where she told Wanda regarding the citizens of Westview "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them", which back in the day came across to me as if downplaying the horror the townspeople had gone through and implying Wanda sacrificing the version of Vision and the kids she created in the hex in order to end the spell enslaving said townspeople was the greater tragedy. (Rather than Wanda undoing something she did in the first place.) I no longer think that, not least in Agatha All Along we still see the emotional scars from the whole experience for Westview. But also because Multiverse of Madness irritated me by essentially letting Wanda repeat essentially the same emotional arc WandaVision had put her through a lot more sledgehammery and with less three dimensional character and creativity. (Sorry not sorry, Sam Raimi), which made me more sympathetic to Wanda again. And lastly, when I rewatched that scene I paid more attention to Monica adding that if she'd have Wanda's power, she would have resurrected her mother in no time flat. Given that both Wanda and Monica deal with grief in WandaVision, and in a time-distorted way - for Monica because she got un-blipped and then had to cope with the shock reveal of her mother's death and the missing five years, and for (the equally unblipped) Wanda because as Vision points out in the last episode that still uses the sitcom format (i.e. the Agatha reveal episode), the two deaths of Vision happened a few weeks ago - , it makes Monica's sympathy for Wanda a lot more personal to her and less coming across as something the viewer is meant to see as the overall attitude of the narrative.
Something else that watching Agatha All Along and WandaVision back to back hammered home to me is that Jac Schaeffer really excells at creating Marvel shows with multiple female roles that simultanously work as acting tour de force showcases. Elizabeth Olsen in none of the MCU movies has the chance to showcase the sheer variety she does in WandaVision, but as much as the show is built around her, it also offer a meaty character driven storyline for Monica Rambeau (who essentially gets (re-)introduced here as an adult character, does a great job with Darcy Lewis (a better one than the later Thor movies, imo) as a supporting character, and of course introduces Agatha as a great new MCU villain. Which isn't to say the male roles are background noise - Paul Bettany as Vision(s) also gets more to do, acting wise, than in any MCU movie save perhaps in his original appearance in Age of Ultron, and my rewatch had me paying more attention to the kids for obvious reasons, so I noticed the scene where Billy, having newly developed his Wanda-inherited telepathic powers, tells "Agnes"/Agatha he likes being with her because it's quiet and she's quiet, i.e. he can't read her mind, upon which she looks downight intrigued which might have given Ms Schaeffer the idea to pair up Agatha and a teenage Billy in the spin-off as each other's foils. Also, the flashback to Agatha and her original coven and mother in Salem was especially interesting to me regarding the question as to whether or not Agatha can control her power when attacked by another witch. Now, presumably none of the other witches including her mother are aware of the exact way Agatha's power works at this point, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to kill her the way they do, but she must have already killed other magic users. Here's the fascinating thing: she actually does hold back for a while with her mother. I had misremembered Agatha killing all seven witches of her original coven at the same time, but this is not what happens.
What happens is:
- Agatha gets tied to the stake, her mother is the speaking accuser
- Agatha pleads (including the "teach me"), her mother pronounces judgment; the other witches, but not her mother, start to all zing Agatha simultanously
- Agatha starts to reverse the flow of power (visualized in the blue magic from the other witches turning into Agatha's purple)
- Now her mother starts to attack Agatha magically as well
- Agatha sucks all the other witches dry except for her mother, who takes in what has just happened as they both stop
- Agatha and her mother have the "I can be good"/"No, you can't" exchange
- Her mother attacks Agatha again
- Agatha sucks her mother dry as well.
So while it's true her mother starts with the original magical attack later than the other witches, it's still noteworthy that Agatha is able to stop for her mother the first time around instead of immediately draining her as well. Given this is relatively early in her life as a witch, one should think that a few centuries later she'd have mastered the trick of how to stop (if she wants to) - though then again, presumably after her mother she never saw any reason to stop for anyone and threw herself into her supervillain career?
Speculation: we'll get another flashback to that near-execution/first serial killing, because that's presumably when Rio and Agatha first met? (At least that Agatha is aware of; I guess Rio saw her before when Agatha killed other people.)
Speaking of female showrunners, here's an interview with WandaVision and Agatha All Along show runner Jac Schaeffer about the latest episode. I rewatched some of WandaVision since we have to wait for another week for the Agatha All Along finale, and I have to say it holds up really well, and my two problems with the finale aren't really that heavy anymore. For external reasons, in a way. Meaning: stuff not in the show itself but what came after. What was most bothering me during my original watch was Monica's line in the finale where she told Wanda regarding the citizens of Westview "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them", which back in the day came across to me as if downplaying the horror the townspeople had gone through and implying Wanda sacrificing the version of Vision and the kids she created in the hex in order to end the spell enslaving said townspeople was the greater tragedy. (Rather than Wanda undoing something she did in the first place.) I no longer think that, not least in Agatha All Along we still see the emotional scars from the whole experience for Westview. But also because Multiverse of Madness irritated me by essentially letting Wanda repeat essentially the same emotional arc WandaVision had put her through a lot more sledgehammery and with less three dimensional character and creativity. (Sorry not sorry, Sam Raimi), which made me more sympathetic to Wanda again. And lastly, when I rewatched that scene I paid more attention to Monica adding that if she'd have Wanda's power, she would have resurrected her mother in no time flat. Given that both Wanda and Monica deal with grief in WandaVision, and in a time-distorted way - for Monica because she got un-blipped and then had to cope with the shock reveal of her mother's death and the missing five years, and for (the equally unblipped) Wanda because as Vision points out in the last episode that still uses the sitcom format (i.e. the Agatha reveal episode), the two deaths of Vision happened a few weeks ago - , it makes Monica's sympathy for Wanda a lot more personal to her and less coming across as something the viewer is meant to see as the overall attitude of the narrative.
Something else that watching Agatha All Along and WandaVision back to back hammered home to me is that Jac Schaeffer really excells at creating Marvel shows with multiple female roles that simultanously work as acting tour de force showcases. Elizabeth Olsen in none of the MCU movies has the chance to showcase the sheer variety she does in WandaVision, but as much as the show is built around her, it also offer a meaty character driven storyline for Monica Rambeau (who essentially gets (re-)introduced here as an adult character, does a great job with Darcy Lewis (a better one than the later Thor movies, imo) as a supporting character, and of course introduces Agatha as a great new MCU villain. Which isn't to say the male roles are background noise - Paul Bettany as Vision(s) also gets more to do, acting wise, than in any MCU movie save perhaps in his original appearance in Age of Ultron, and my rewatch had me paying more attention to the kids for obvious reasons, so I noticed the scene where Billy, having newly developed his Wanda-inherited telepathic powers, tells "Agnes"/Agatha he likes being with her because it's quiet and she's quiet, i.e. he can't read her mind, upon which she looks downight intrigued which might have given Ms Schaeffer the idea to pair up Agatha and a teenage Billy in the spin-off as each other's foils. Also, the flashback to Agatha and her original coven and mother in Salem was especially interesting to me regarding the question as to whether or not Agatha can control her power when attacked by another witch. Now, presumably none of the other witches including her mother are aware of the exact way Agatha's power works at this point, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to kill her the way they do, but she must have already killed other magic users. Here's the fascinating thing: she actually does hold back for a while with her mother. I had misremembered Agatha killing all seven witches of her original coven at the same time, but this is not what happens.
What happens is:
- Agatha gets tied to the stake, her mother is the speaking accuser
- Agatha pleads (including the "teach me"), her mother pronounces judgment; the other witches, but not her mother, start to all zing Agatha simultanously
- Agatha starts to reverse the flow of power (visualized in the blue magic from the other witches turning into Agatha's purple)
- Now her mother starts to attack Agatha magically as well
- Agatha sucks all the other witches dry except for her mother, who takes in what has just happened as they both stop
- Agatha and her mother have the "I can be good"/"No, you can't" exchange
- Her mother attacks Agatha again
- Agatha sucks her mother dry as well.
So while it's true her mother starts with the original magical attack later than the other witches, it's still noteworthy that Agatha is able to stop for her mother the first time around instead of immediately draining her as well. Given this is relatively early in her life as a witch, one should think that a few centuries later she'd have mastered the trick of how to stop (if she wants to) - though then again, presumably after her mother she never saw any reason to stop for anyone and threw herself into her supervillain career?
Speculation: we'll get another flashback to that near-execution/first serial killing, because that's presumably when Rio and Agatha first met? (At least that Agatha is aware of; I guess Rio saw her before when Agatha killed other people.)
