Fannish5: Say what?
Jun. 9th, 2012 05:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFive canon events that you found unbelievable and wished had not happened.
Actually, dear meme, these are two different categories, which do not always go hand in hand with each other. For example, given that Londo Mollari is my favourite tv character of all time, I did, of course, spend a lot of canon wishing he wouldn't keep making certain decisions, and much later on I went "oh no!" when the ultimate consequences happened, of course I did. But at no point did I find the decisions Londo made unbelievable, and as horrible as certain late canon events were if you're fond of Londo, they were the right events from a storytelling pov. So I had to think about canon events meeting both criteria, and a third one - i.e. that they don't just make me sad because I'm fond of the character(s) concerned but that I wish they had not happened because that would have improved the story story canon was telling instead of lessening it.
1.) Babylon 5: Vir's last scene in Sic Transit Vir. I've written about this before; his "what relationships doesn't have its ups and downs?" is OOCness for the sake of a funny punchline, and this in an episode devoted to showing how very serious Vir takes doing something (as in, acting against and saving lives) about his guilt re: the horrible Centauri policy towards the Narn during the second occupation. It's not that Vir is incapable of loving someone with blood on their hands (see also: Londo), but he has to know that person first and have reasons to believe there is more to them than that. Whereas he hardly knows Lyndisti, not any more than he does, say, the Emperor Cartagia in the episode 4.02., where witnessing Cartagia's callous flippancy after torturing G'K'ar makes Vir go from "there must be another way" to "We should kill him!" So basically the episode asks me to believe Vir is willing to overlook Lyndisti's enthusiastic participation in doing to many Narn just what he later witnesses Cartagia doing to one Narn just because she's hot and willing to have sex with him. Just....no.
2.) Doctor Who, 6.02.: The Doctor decides not to look for the mysterious little girl in the space suit any more and takes off. Actually, I was torn between this and the Doctor ignoring the Crack(s) through season 5 unless it's an arc episode, because it's the same principle at work - the Moff set something up for which there couldn't be pay-off until the finale, and in order to post pone said pay off, he put plot over character instead of bothering to come up with a Watsonian reason why the Doctor would act this way. But the ignoring-the-little-girl thing from seaosn 6 is worse. Not least because you don't even have to drag in 40 years of canon; Moffat himself made a big, big textual deal when establishing Eleven as a character in the first two eps of his run that this specific incarnation of the Doctor can't stand to see children cry/the idea of them being in pain. Doesn't mean he is incapable of causing said pain by accident - see him messing up Amelia's childhood by arriving years too late - but not deliberately and if he's able to do something about it. And yet, we're asked to believe that the Doctor, having found out there is a little girl living in horrible circumstances due to the Silence, a little girl who has just been shot at by his Companion, a little girl, moreover, who is some sort of lynchpin on whatever the long term plan of the Silence was, and still goes "ah well, who knows where she is now, let's take off". For the obvious Doylist reason that the story can't let him found out yet the little girl in question will become River Song, but without bothering to give us a Watsonian reason at all. And it's not impossible to come up with one. There is the ever reliable fixed-point-in-time explanation, for example - just tell us that the Doctor senses this little girl is Pompeii, basically, something that has to happen in order not to cause universe-breaking paradoxes etc. Or let him intend to pursue, then let adult River, who at this point has won enough credit with the Doctor to do such a thing, show up being cryptic and ask him not to, asking him to believe her when she says there is a good reason. Or let later Eleven himself send himself a message - again, there's precedent - if you don't want to give such a heavy hint to River's identity. But give us something instead of this unbelievable behaviour which I wish had not happened.
3.) Angel the Series: Cordelia's last scene in Disharmony. And we're back at the funny punchline sacrificing character problem, though as opposed to the B5 example with Vir, where it was an isolated incident not having any bearing on Vir's consequent characterisation, this scene would prove ominous for Cordelia's subsequent storylines. I've written an entire post about why I think the problematic writing for Cordelia isn't s4, which offers a fix-it if anything, it starts in s2 and the majority of it happens in s3, and of course there's far more to it than a gag about Cordelia's material-girl-ness in one episode, but let me reiterate from said post why I think the punchline from Disharmony (basically: Wesley: You can't buy Cordelia's forgiveness. Angel: Buys Cordelia's forgiveness) is so problematic. It heralds several things playing out from this point onwards:
a) Cordelia does not call Angel on his crap anymore (or if she does, as when a pregnant Darla shows up, it will be presented as for the wrong reasons and/or funny because of the inappropriateness of the reaction, not as blunt insight spelling out the truth)
b) Angel privileges Cordelia over the rest of his friends
c) The tight bond Cordelia formed with Wesley and Gunn during their months alone is not shown as important to her as her relationship with Angel; it might as well not have happened (any scene between Cordelia and Wesley post-Disharmony could as well have happened pre-Reunion without this making a difference).
...and that is why, despite the fact it made me smile on first broadcast, I wish this scene (and the subsequent development) had never happened and found it unbelievable.
4.) Alias the tv show: Nadia's death by glass dinner table in season 5. Look, I know I'm biased about Arvin Sloane and love Nadia as a character. And of course one of the reasons why I wish Alias had ended with s4 - by no means the only one, but definitely an important one - is that Sloane in a state of atonment and reconciled with the Bristows was more emotionally satisfying to me than Sloane regressing to Evil Overlorddom so he can be the villain to the show's finale (together with Irina, but that's a separate problem). However, given Sloane's past track record I did not find it unbelievable as such. It's the how that's so galling. If you want Nadia's death and Sloane's Rambaldi obsession as an unplanned cause for same as the turnaround that makes him shatter and regress, fine (or rather, not, because NADIA), but seriously - he pushes her away from Rambaldi's manuscript, she stumbles and crashes into a glass table in his living room?!? This isn't tragedy, this is farce. In conclusion, unbelievable and of course I wish it had never happened.
5.) Fringe, 4.15: Olivia Dunham decides that she will do anything for love, and she will do that, to go all song misquoting on you. The show explicitly frames her choice not being between two equally valid sets of memories, which as I wrote in my original review at the time could have been a moving and good story, but between one romantic relationship and an entire lifetime of memories and non-romantic relationships. It declared Olivia willing to give up everything else that defined her if she would have said romantic relationship. In a show where I was willing to buy one day pregnancies, multiple universes and time line resets, I could not believe this, not based on who Olivia had been until then, and oh, do I wish it had never happened. But it did.
Actually, dear meme, these are two different categories, which do not always go hand in hand with each other. For example, given that Londo Mollari is my favourite tv character of all time, I did, of course, spend a lot of canon wishing he wouldn't keep making certain decisions, and much later on I went "oh no!" when the ultimate consequences happened, of course I did. But at no point did I find the decisions Londo made unbelievable, and as horrible as certain late canon events were if you're fond of Londo, they were the right events from a storytelling pov. So I had to think about canon events meeting both criteria, and a third one - i.e. that they don't just make me sad because I'm fond of the character(s) concerned but that I wish they had not happened because that would have improved the story story canon was telling instead of lessening it.
1.) Babylon 5: Vir's last scene in Sic Transit Vir. I've written about this before; his "what relationships doesn't have its ups and downs?" is OOCness for the sake of a funny punchline, and this in an episode devoted to showing how very serious Vir takes doing something (as in, acting against and saving lives) about his guilt re: the horrible Centauri policy towards the Narn during the second occupation. It's not that Vir is incapable of loving someone with blood on their hands (see also: Londo), but he has to know that person first and have reasons to believe there is more to them than that. Whereas he hardly knows Lyndisti, not any more than he does, say, the Emperor Cartagia in the episode 4.02., where witnessing Cartagia's callous flippancy after torturing G'K'ar makes Vir go from "there must be another way" to "We should kill him!" So basically the episode asks me to believe Vir is willing to overlook Lyndisti's enthusiastic participation in doing to many Narn just what he later witnesses Cartagia doing to one Narn just because she's hot and willing to have sex with him. Just....no.
2.) Doctor Who, 6.02.: The Doctor decides not to look for the mysterious little girl in the space suit any more and takes off. Actually, I was torn between this and the Doctor ignoring the Crack(s) through season 5 unless it's an arc episode, because it's the same principle at work - the Moff set something up for which there couldn't be pay-off until the finale, and in order to post pone said pay off, he put plot over character instead of bothering to come up with a Watsonian reason why the Doctor would act this way. But the ignoring-the-little-girl thing from seaosn 6 is worse. Not least because you don't even have to drag in 40 years of canon; Moffat himself made a big, big textual deal when establishing Eleven as a character in the first two eps of his run that this specific incarnation of the Doctor can't stand to see children cry/the idea of them being in pain. Doesn't mean he is incapable of causing said pain by accident - see him messing up Amelia's childhood by arriving years too late - but not deliberately and if he's able to do something about it. And yet, we're asked to believe that the Doctor, having found out there is a little girl living in horrible circumstances due to the Silence, a little girl who has just been shot at by his Companion, a little girl, moreover, who is some sort of lynchpin on whatever the long term plan of the Silence was, and still goes "ah well, who knows where she is now, let's take off". For the obvious Doylist reason that the story can't let him found out yet the little girl in question will become River Song, but without bothering to give us a Watsonian reason at all. And it's not impossible to come up with one. There is the ever reliable fixed-point-in-time explanation, for example - just tell us that the Doctor senses this little girl is Pompeii, basically, something that has to happen in order not to cause universe-breaking paradoxes etc. Or let him intend to pursue, then let adult River, who at this point has won enough credit with the Doctor to do such a thing, show up being cryptic and ask him not to, asking him to believe her when she says there is a good reason. Or let later Eleven himself send himself a message - again, there's precedent - if you don't want to give such a heavy hint to River's identity. But give us something instead of this unbelievable behaviour which I wish had not happened.
3.) Angel the Series: Cordelia's last scene in Disharmony. And we're back at the funny punchline sacrificing character problem, though as opposed to the B5 example with Vir, where it was an isolated incident not having any bearing on Vir's consequent characterisation, this scene would prove ominous for Cordelia's subsequent storylines. I've written an entire post about why I think the problematic writing for Cordelia isn't s4, which offers a fix-it if anything, it starts in s2 and the majority of it happens in s3, and of course there's far more to it than a gag about Cordelia's material-girl-ness in one episode, but let me reiterate from said post why I think the punchline from Disharmony (basically: Wesley: You can't buy Cordelia's forgiveness. Angel: Buys Cordelia's forgiveness) is so problematic. It heralds several things playing out from this point onwards:
a) Cordelia does not call Angel on his crap anymore (or if she does, as when a pregnant Darla shows up, it will be presented as for the wrong reasons and/or funny because of the inappropriateness of the reaction, not as blunt insight spelling out the truth)
b) Angel privileges Cordelia over the rest of his friends
c) The tight bond Cordelia formed with Wesley and Gunn during their months alone is not shown as important to her as her relationship with Angel; it might as well not have happened (any scene between Cordelia and Wesley post-Disharmony could as well have happened pre-Reunion without this making a difference).
...and that is why, despite the fact it made me smile on first broadcast, I wish this scene (and the subsequent development) had never happened and found it unbelievable.
4.) Alias the tv show: Nadia's death by glass dinner table in season 5. Look, I know I'm biased about Arvin Sloane and love Nadia as a character. And of course one of the reasons why I wish Alias had ended with s4 - by no means the only one, but definitely an important one - is that Sloane in a state of atonment and reconciled with the Bristows was more emotionally satisfying to me than Sloane regressing to Evil Overlorddom so he can be the villain to the show's finale (together with Irina, but that's a separate problem). However, given Sloane's past track record I did not find it unbelievable as such. It's the how that's so galling. If you want Nadia's death and Sloane's Rambaldi obsession as an unplanned cause for same as the turnaround that makes him shatter and regress, fine (or rather, not, because NADIA), but seriously - he pushes her away from Rambaldi's manuscript, she stumbles and crashes into a glass table in his living room?!? This isn't tragedy, this is farce. In conclusion, unbelievable and of course I wish it had never happened.
5.) Fringe, 4.15: Olivia Dunham decides that she will do anything for love, and she will do that, to go all song misquoting on you. The show explicitly frames her choice not being between two equally valid sets of memories, which as I wrote in my original review at the time could have been a moving and good story, but between one romantic relationship and an entire lifetime of memories and non-romantic relationships. It declared Olivia willing to give up everything else that defined her if she would have said romantic relationship. In a show where I was willing to buy one day pregnancies, multiple universes and time line resets, I could not believe this, not based on who Olivia had been until then, and oh, do I wish it had never happened. But it did.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-09 04:00 am (UTC)So much this. If they had even just tried a little less hard to make the choice so explicit, it could have been tolerable. Ambiguity can be your friend, Fringe! As it was, it was just so purposeful, and so out of line with the Olivia we had gotten to know.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-09 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-09 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-09 07:25 am (UTC)