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selenakName the five best uses of flashback/non-linear storytelling.
Hm, let's see what comes to mind.
1) Babylon 5: War Without End in season 3. I still remember how absolutely breathtaking it was, watching this two parter with its flash forwards for the first time. It did so many things. We finally got an explanation for events from s1's Babylon Squared. A wrap-up for Sinclair's storyline (and what a great one it was; I'm a Centauriphile and I still never fast forward through the Sinclair-Delenn-Sheridan bits when rewatching, and during the first time around went ZOMG Valen!!! big time). Most of all, though, we get the Aged!Londo scenes which manage to both deliver an incredibly gut wrenching revelation and an incredibly positive, mindblowing one. The Keeper, and the implication of what Londo's life had been these last years, made me whimper; the "old friend" to G'Kar and the ensuing realisation that the vision which has haunted Londo all his life means the exact opposite of what he and the audience always thought it would mean made my jaw drop. And of course I then wanted to know how we'd get from where the show was at that point in late s3, i.e. Londo and G'Kar still as mortal enemies, to "old friend", which was what the next two seasons were all about. (Well, I hear there was also some stuff involving some Earth Civil War and the like, but...) Which made the placement of this episode mid show such genius. Awesome, awesome two-parter.
2) Lost: The Beginning of the End (s3 finale) and ensuing season 4. For the first three seasons, Lost as a show used the flashbacks to great and sometimes not so great effect in basically every episode. And by the end of the third season, we were at a point where honestly, you got the sense that all the important backstory of our regulars was told. So what did they do? Didn't just come up with flash forwards instead but in essence changed the format of the show. Until then, the audience was pretty sure the characters wouldn't get rescued until the show finale, and that would be the end of the story. Now, beginning with the s3 finale which employed this technique for the first time (saving the revelation that this was a flash forward instead of a flash back until the very last scene), we got presented with the lives of several characters after they left the island, and, as it turned out, it wasn't a good one. New mysteries got introduced that drove the fourth season - who, other than Jack and Kate - as they were revealed in the s3 finale - were the Oceanic Six, how did they leave the island, why did they lie, whose body was in the coffin, etc. - to which we got the answers both during the course of the fourth season and at its end. The flash forwards offered a chance for character development (Sayid, for example, and the question of how and why he would end up working for Ben) that would't have been possible in the old flash back and island action format. It was a creative breath of fresh air and resulted in one of the best plotted and written seasons of the show.
3) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Fool for Love and Angel the Series: Darla: Actually, one of the ironies is this: of the few Buffy/Angel crossovers, these two episodes, in which technically no one crosses over - in the present day actions, the character remain in Sunnydale and Los Angeles respectively and have no contact with each other - are the only ones I'd call really essential for both shows, and enriching the respective other story instead of just being nice fanservice. Of course it's possible to enjoy either episode without watching the other. But, say, Angel's reaction to Spike's announcement that he killed his first Slayer takes on quite a different meaning in Darla. And no matter how often I rewatch, I remain fascinated of the parallel/contrast structure of the two climactic scenes - Spike's and Buffy's fight in Fool For Love crosscut with Spike killing Nikki Wood in the past, culminating in Buffy rejecting him in the present, in Fool for Love, and Darla's and Angel's last confrontation in China versus Darla asking Angel to turn her back into a vampire in the present. These are my favourite flashback episodes in any Joss Whedon produced show.
4) The West Wing: Two Cathedrals: the s2 finale. The s2 opening two parter would be another obvious choice, but when it comes down to it, my heart belongs to this one even more. It manages to both bring various narrative threads of the season to a climax - will Bartlet campaign again, the loss of Mrs. Landingham, the emotional impact his MS lie has on the staff -, while simultanously offering flashbacks that both deepen and put into a new light what the audience already knows. (Jed Bartlet's relationship with the late Dolores L., and his ongoing struggle between wanting to please and be loved, and wanting to do the right thing, which is here for the first time tied to his relationship with his father, and that in turn to his relationship with his religion.) Plus, it has Brothers in Arms and Martin Sheen delivering one of his best performances on the show, in Latin, no less, as Bartlet argues with God. What more can you ask for?
5) Sandman: The Wake: actually, a lot of Neil Gaiman's Sandman is told in a not-linear way, there are flashbacks in most individual volumes, and quite often the secret behind one flasback - for example, the references to Calliope's and Morpheus' son are just there in the third volume, but the name of the son and isn't revealed until Lady Johanna Constantine rescues Orpheus' head in Thermidor, and the full story of that catastrophic father-son relationship isn't revealed until Orpheus. So I might as well name the entire series. But I have to single out the very last volume. We start out with the present day story: Morpheus is dead, Dream lives, but as Daniel, and Matthew as stand-in for the audience is working his way through denial, bargaining and acceptance of this while a lot of individual stories, such as Lyta's and Alex Burgess', end on an unexpected note of grace. Then we get another present day story, this time not an ensemble story but one focused on one individual, the immortal Hob Gadlling; he's still sad for Morpheus, but as opposed to Morpheus able to change, and still curious about life, willing to risk love and loss with it. Then we get a past story using a Marco Polo related anecdote which already features Daniel-as-Dream. But the very last story, which wraps up the entire series, is a flashback again, to Shakespeare, whom the readers know made a bargain with Dream, the first part of which we've already seen long ago in volume III, Dream Country. It manages to at once a graceful story, a meditation on writing and storytelling, and on writers, a meditation on the character of Morpheus, and on top of all of that Neil Gaiman pulls off something incredibly audacious which would have made a lesser writer look ridiculous. The Tempest which Shakespeare writes in this story is traditionally regarded as Shakespeare's last play (last solely authored play would be more precise, but hey), with Prospero as a kind of authorial alter ego, and Prospero's last speech after he has given up his magic as Shakespeare's goodbye to his audience. They are also the very last words of The Wake, bidding farewell now for Shakespeare and Gaiman alike. It's elegant and awesome.
Hm, let's see what comes to mind.
1) Babylon 5: War Without End in season 3. I still remember how absolutely breathtaking it was, watching this two parter with its flash forwards for the first time. It did so many things. We finally got an explanation for events from s1's Babylon Squared. A wrap-up for Sinclair's storyline (and what a great one it was; I'm a Centauriphile and I still never fast forward through the Sinclair-Delenn-Sheridan bits when rewatching, and during the first time around went ZOMG Valen!!! big time). Most of all, though, we get the Aged!Londo scenes which manage to both deliver an incredibly gut wrenching revelation and an incredibly positive, mindblowing one. The Keeper, and the implication of what Londo's life had been these last years, made me whimper; the "old friend" to G'Kar and the ensuing realisation that the vision which has haunted Londo all his life means the exact opposite of what he and the audience always thought it would mean made my jaw drop. And of course I then wanted to know how we'd get from where the show was at that point in late s3, i.e. Londo and G'Kar still as mortal enemies, to "old friend", which was what the next two seasons were all about. (Well, I hear there was also some stuff involving some Earth Civil War and the like, but...) Which made the placement of this episode mid show such genius. Awesome, awesome two-parter.
2) Lost: The Beginning of the End (s3 finale) and ensuing season 4. For the first three seasons, Lost as a show used the flashbacks to great and sometimes not so great effect in basically every episode. And by the end of the third season, we were at a point where honestly, you got the sense that all the important backstory of our regulars was told. So what did they do? Didn't just come up with flash forwards instead but in essence changed the format of the show. Until then, the audience was pretty sure the characters wouldn't get rescued until the show finale, and that would be the end of the story. Now, beginning with the s3 finale which employed this technique for the first time (saving the revelation that this was a flash forward instead of a flash back until the very last scene), we got presented with the lives of several characters after they left the island, and, as it turned out, it wasn't a good one. New mysteries got introduced that drove the fourth season - who, other than Jack and Kate - as they were revealed in the s3 finale - were the Oceanic Six, how did they leave the island, why did they lie, whose body was in the coffin, etc. - to which we got the answers both during the course of the fourth season and at its end. The flash forwards offered a chance for character development (Sayid, for example, and the question of how and why he would end up working for Ben) that would't have been possible in the old flash back and island action format. It was a creative breath of fresh air and resulted in one of the best plotted and written seasons of the show.
3) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Fool for Love and Angel the Series: Darla: Actually, one of the ironies is this: of the few Buffy/Angel crossovers, these two episodes, in which technically no one crosses over - in the present day actions, the character remain in Sunnydale and Los Angeles respectively and have no contact with each other - are the only ones I'd call really essential for both shows, and enriching the respective other story instead of just being nice fanservice. Of course it's possible to enjoy either episode without watching the other. But, say, Angel's reaction to Spike's announcement that he killed his first Slayer takes on quite a different meaning in Darla. And no matter how often I rewatch, I remain fascinated of the parallel/contrast structure of the two climactic scenes - Spike's and Buffy's fight in Fool For Love crosscut with Spike killing Nikki Wood in the past, culminating in Buffy rejecting him in the present, in Fool for Love, and Darla's and Angel's last confrontation in China versus Darla asking Angel to turn her back into a vampire in the present. These are my favourite flashback episodes in any Joss Whedon produced show.
4) The West Wing: Two Cathedrals: the s2 finale. The s2 opening two parter would be another obvious choice, but when it comes down to it, my heart belongs to this one even more. It manages to both bring various narrative threads of the season to a climax - will Bartlet campaign again, the loss of Mrs. Landingham, the emotional impact his MS lie has on the staff -, while simultanously offering flashbacks that both deepen and put into a new light what the audience already knows. (Jed Bartlet's relationship with the late Dolores L., and his ongoing struggle between wanting to please and be loved, and wanting to do the right thing, which is here for the first time tied to his relationship with his father, and that in turn to his relationship with his religion.) Plus, it has Brothers in Arms and Martin Sheen delivering one of his best performances on the show, in Latin, no less, as Bartlet argues with God. What more can you ask for?
5) Sandman: The Wake: actually, a lot of Neil Gaiman's Sandman is told in a not-linear way, there are flashbacks in most individual volumes, and quite often the secret behind one flasback - for example, the references to Calliope's and Morpheus' son are just there in the third volume, but the name of the son and isn't revealed until Lady Johanna Constantine rescues Orpheus' head in Thermidor, and the full story of that catastrophic father-son relationship isn't revealed until Orpheus. So I might as well name the entire series. But I have to single out the very last volume. We start out with the present day story: Morpheus is dead, Dream lives, but as Daniel, and Matthew as stand-in for the audience is working his way through denial, bargaining and acceptance of this while a lot of individual stories, such as Lyta's and Alex Burgess', end on an unexpected note of grace. Then we get another present day story, this time not an ensemble story but one focused on one individual, the immortal Hob Gadlling; he's still sad for Morpheus, but as opposed to Morpheus able to change, and still curious about life, willing to risk love and loss with it. Then we get a past story using a Marco Polo related anecdote which already features Daniel-as-Dream. But the very last story, which wraps up the entire series, is a flashback again, to Shakespeare, whom the readers know made a bargain with Dream, the first part of which we've already seen long ago in volume III, Dream Country. It manages to at once a graceful story, a meditation on writing and storytelling, and on writers, a meditation on the character of Morpheus, and on top of all of that Neil Gaiman pulls off something incredibly audacious which would have made a lesser writer look ridiculous. The Tempest which Shakespeare writes in this story is traditionally regarded as Shakespeare's last play (last solely authored play would be more precise, but hey), with Prospero as a kind of authorial alter ego, and Prospero's last speech after he has given up his magic as Shakespeare's goodbye to his audience. They are also the very last words of The Wake, bidding farewell now for Shakespeare and Gaiman alike. It's elegant and awesome.
