Also the title of a bad Ewan McGregor film...
Title: In the Eye of the Beholder
Fandom: Life on Mars (Oh, really?)
Rating: G
Word Count: 640 words.
Notes: Gen. My obligatory weekly fic response to an episode. Spoilers for 2.05!
Sam sees everything go black, fade into nothingness, and then reappear again through his best friend the TV.
He sees Annie on screen and wants to touch her, tell her he's alright, just deeper in the coma for a while, but soon he'll be out of it, soon he'll be okay again. And he knows it's mad that he's worrying about some fictional person's concern over him, but she is concerned, and he appreciates that. Annie may not be real, but she's real to him, in that moment, on the screen, and in those moments by his side. He's proud of her, despite the fact she's artificial, because she's grown in his company, he's been an influence on her.
He sees Gene being Gene, always Gene, never anything but Gene, and of course, Gene is wrong. He's going about things the lackadaisical way and Sam really wishes he wouldn't, so he's more than pleased when Chris - sweet Chris, stupid Chris - starts quoting Sam, himself, like a grand champion. And Gene, because he is who he is, does listen. Sam knows he's not as thick as all that. Gene's been smart enough to take on Sam's ideas before, to learn from his own mistakes and Sam's wisdom. And suddenly they're doing everything the right way. He's made an impact in the long run.
*
They see Sam's eyes close, his legs crumple underneath him, perspiration gushing from his forehead as if transplanted there by the canal itself, and suddenly he's not responding to their voices, to Gene's slaps or Ray's heavy kicking foot.
They see Sam, out cold, but running a fever, and he looks like he might very well be on the edge of putting a foot into the grave, so, in typical fashion, they find him somewhere nice and dark and hope to damnation he doesn't need a doctor. If he does need a doctor, they've probably got a lot of explaining to do, because it sure as hell seems like Sam's on something not-quite-legal and they don't have time to do any proper investigation, when they've got a case of their own.
They see Sam thrash and moan and babble words at a rate of nineteen to the dozen, his eyes rapidly shifting under his lids as he blurts out words which have little to do with the case they're working on. And they sit by him, at different moments, in different shifts, sometimes as a group, telling him about the next clue they've uncovered, until finally, they've solved the case. He responds occasionally, almost like he understands, but not quite, because he's loud, very loud, talking into the void as opposed to talking to them.
*
We see a writer using smart plot devices to give an actor the break he so desperately deserves, because being in every scene of sixteen hours of television is almost akin to water torture, and okay, so maybe he doesn't get a month's holiday in Barbados, but it's better than nothing.
We see high quality production values in a television show that likes to bend reality and twist with viewers' minds. A show that is sometimes too clever for its own good, and occasionally most likely gives certain professional types late, late nights because they can't possibly live up to all of the expectation and hype they've set themselves up for.
We see that we don't see anything, because it's all up in the air, and the only people who really know what on earth's going on are contractually obliged not to tell us. But we also see that we're not alone - we're all in this together, waiting, hoping, and promising we'll like the ending, even if it ends up that the premise of the show was that everything we see was all supposed to be Dan Brown's next novel.
Fandom: Life on Mars (Oh, really?)
Rating: G
Word Count: 640 words.
Notes: Gen. My obligatory weekly fic response to an episode. Spoilers for 2.05!
Sam sees everything go black, fade into nothingness, and then reappear again through his best friend the TV.
He sees Annie on screen and wants to touch her, tell her he's alright, just deeper in the coma for a while, but soon he'll be out of it, soon he'll be okay again. And he knows it's mad that he's worrying about some fictional person's concern over him, but she is concerned, and he appreciates that. Annie may not be real, but she's real to him, in that moment, on the screen, and in those moments by his side. He's proud of her, despite the fact she's artificial, because she's grown in his company, he's been an influence on her.
He sees Gene being Gene, always Gene, never anything but Gene, and of course, Gene is wrong. He's going about things the lackadaisical way and Sam really wishes he wouldn't, so he's more than pleased when Chris - sweet Chris, stupid Chris - starts quoting Sam, himself, like a grand champion. And Gene, because he is who he is, does listen. Sam knows he's not as thick as all that. Gene's been smart enough to take on Sam's ideas before, to learn from his own mistakes and Sam's wisdom. And suddenly they're doing everything the right way. He's made an impact in the long run.
*
They see Sam's eyes close, his legs crumple underneath him, perspiration gushing from his forehead as if transplanted there by the canal itself, and suddenly he's not responding to their voices, to Gene's slaps or Ray's heavy kicking foot.
They see Sam, out cold, but running a fever, and he looks like he might very well be on the edge of putting a foot into the grave, so, in typical fashion, they find him somewhere nice and dark and hope to damnation he doesn't need a doctor. If he does need a doctor, they've probably got a lot of explaining to do, because it sure as hell seems like Sam's on something not-quite-legal and they don't have time to do any proper investigation, when they've got a case of their own.
They see Sam thrash and moan and babble words at a rate of nineteen to the dozen, his eyes rapidly shifting under his lids as he blurts out words which have little to do with the case they're working on. And they sit by him, at different moments, in different shifts, sometimes as a group, telling him about the next clue they've uncovered, until finally, they've solved the case. He responds occasionally, almost like he understands, but not quite, because he's loud, very loud, talking into the void as opposed to talking to them.
*
We see a writer using smart plot devices to give an actor the break he so desperately deserves, because being in every scene of sixteen hours of television is almost akin to water torture, and okay, so maybe he doesn't get a month's holiday in Barbados, but it's better than nothing.
We see high quality production values in a television show that likes to bend reality and twist with viewers' minds. A show that is sometimes too clever for its own good, and occasionally most likely gives certain professional types late, late nights because they can't possibly live up to all of the expectation and hype they've set themselves up for.
We see that we don't see anything, because it's all up in the air, and the only people who really know what on earth's going on are contractually obliged not to tell us. But we also see that we're not alone - we're all in this together, waiting, hoping, and promising we'll like the ending, even if it ends up that the premise of the show was that everything we see was all supposed to be Dan Brown's next novel.