sounds like a bad cover band

[musesfool]

So I've been reading reviews and recaps of He That Believeth in Me, and one of the things I've seen some people mentioning (in some cases with heaps of righteous indignation rather than the amused exasperation I think it calls for) is that Ron Moore is pulling all this stuff out of his ... hat and how the cylons never actually had a plan and

Comments

[skywaterblue]

The Mytharc is Always Fucked Up needs to be a corollary on TV Tropes

[musesfool]

I agree!

[skywaterblue]

Add it!

[musesfool]

That would require getting an account and figuring out how it worked etc. I am too lazy for that. You can add it if you like. *g*

[mandysbitch]

Possibly the exception to this is Babylon 5

You know, I was just reading somewhere that even Babylon 5 had trouble with the myth arc toward the end - they had to speed it up or something...?

Anyway, yes - and a friend of mine was also pointing out how myth arcs so often descend into mysticism (eg. Alias, The Pretender BSG). Mind you, a lot of them started that way, but I guess when you're constantly trying to lead everyone down the wrong path (so you don't reveal the right path to early) it leaves you very few options as to where the right path is actually leading.

[musesfool]

You know, I was just reading somewhere that even Babylon 5 had trouble with the myth arc toward the end - they had to speed it up or something...?

It's possible. I never watched it, so I don't know. I've just heard that it mostly did go according to what's-his-name's five year plan or whatever.

I guess when you're constantly trying to lead everyone down the wrong path (so you don't reveal the right path to early) it leaves you very few options as to where the right path is actually leading.

*nod nod*

I think a lot of times, the writers on these shows paint themselves into corners and have to retcon really hard to get out.

And I also think there are just many constraints on the medium, and plans often have to be thrown out the window, or significantly scaled back, or rejiggered to suit the available resources, etc.

[krazykitkat]

Yep. B5 was on its way to cancellation during 4th season (whole problem with the original conglomeration of networks dissolving etc). So parts of season 5 had to be pulled into s4, the final episode had to be filmed etc. I think it was TNT that rode to the rescue for s5, so then a new final ep of s4 had to be filmed, and s5 was a bit of a mess and most fans least favourite.

Apparently there were trapdoors to account for actors leaving etc. But on the whole, the 5 years went as planned.

[vee_fic]

Right. The "trap-doors" led to some really incomprehensible time-travel hijinks, in one case, and some hand-waving along the way; but in general the plot moved forward in quasi-inexorable manner until the (early) season 4 climax.

(And then season 5 was basically what happens if whiny emo goths were to write the show, except without a makeup budget or recourse to any dragons.)

The upshot of the mytharc being orderly, however, was that the themes, issues, and characters were thunderingly obvious, step-by-step deathmarches towards the thesis/climax. You never got to see a character turn on a dime, or do something surprising, because JMS sucked at character writing the characters were locked into the plot, and couldn't move or risk it all falling apart.

Compare to Buffy, where the arc-plot could totally go out the window at any moment, as long as the characters were (Joss's idea of) true and interesting. Shows that have an even weaker sense of arc, like everything JJ Abrams ever touched, moreso.

[sizequeen]

I thought that Angel resolved 3 seasons of mytharc quite beautifully at the end of season four. Obviously, they pulled it out of their assess, but the characters and the themes were so consistently written that they managed to have a resolution that made sense.

BSG, on the other hand, is filled with character and plot gaps and unresolved issues and basic information that's never been provided. i don't really trust BSG to resolve everything. I learned my lesson from the X-Files. I'd be happy with simple character resolution from BSG and having the fleet reach Earth. The first ep of season 4 was a great start.

[musesfool]

I'm not sure I agree on Angel, but I also had stopped watching it regularly during season 4 (and I also had some serious issues with what they did with/to Cordelia), so I can't really say.

I don't trust BSG to resolve everything. I don't trust ANY show to resolve everything, or even most things, anymore. I watched three seasons of Alias before giving up, and six seasons of X-Files.

I am still enjoying BSG a lot, which is my barometer - if I stop enjoying it, I'll stop watching (there are some s3 episodes I haven't bothered to ever watch) - and I am also kind of hoping Ron Moore has some other wacky tricks up his sleeve, you know? At this point, I kinda sorta want the WTFery, as long as it is entertaining.

[sizequeen]

I agree with your last point completely.

[musesfool]

*g*

[tiferet]

Well, the thing with the song was something Ron Moore had been wanting to do for ages; he told me so. (At a party given by someone who is friends with him and a kind of acquaintance of mine, on the night of the finale last season. We were all kind of fucked up; I remember thinking at the time that it was brilliant, and later realising that he'd essentially admitted to wanting to commit songfic on international TV for years and finally hitting a place where he COULD.)

But actually sometimes I think it's the things that a writer has been wanting to do since jump that fuck up the mytharc the most, because things change and grow and you don't want to give up on your original vision even if your characters left it behind two books/seasons ago. (Not that I think that this applies to HP even remotely, oh no, don't throw me in the briar patch...)

[musesfool]

Well, the use of the song itself doesn't bother me, because I can think of ways to make it work in the story, though I dislike the extratextual explanation of it. But I do think there may need to be some serious retconning of timelines to make the whole thing work.

sometimes I think it's the things that a writer has been wanting to do since jump that fuck up the mytharc the most, because things change and grow and you don't want to give up on your original vision even if your characters left it behind two books/seasons ago

Well, there's that too - clinging to the outmoded outline instead of rolling with the story as it progresses.

[miriam_heddy]

Well, there's that too - clinging to the outmoded outline instead of rolling with the story as it progresses.

That perfectly sums up JKRowling's way of writing.

[zooey_glass04]

It's really true - I was thinking about this the other day, actually, because I was watching that interview with Kripke where he talked about Hendricksen and Gordon, and basically mentioned the fact that in both cases the actors had so much other work that it was going to be nigh-impossible to keep the characters, and so it made a good story to have them go out dramatically. Which, while it doesn't totally ease my discomfort with those storylines, did remind me that between actors coming and going, and trying to keep a good story going which still makes sense, and various other considerations, there are a lot of factors determining how characters are delat with

[musesfool]

Well, I still think because actor availability is so fluid, he didn't have to kill Henriksen off. Henriksen is too valuable an asset, imo, to be treated so cavalierly, even leaving the race issues aside. Gordon, I think, had to die, so that bothers me less, except in terms of how it adds to the pattern that makes me uneasy.

What's interesting is the way that I actually judge fanfiction(especially my own) so much more harshly. I demand a lot more in the way of consistent characteristion and coherent plot and so on than I do from canon, I guess in part because I know fic writers actually have fewer external constraints.

Right. there are things that will make me click out of a story that I will just sigh and roll my eyes about (or try to fanwank away - hi, Dean doesn't know who Cinderella or Snow White is? Seriously?) in canon.