Thank you, Doctor Who and BBC, for giving Syfy the idea of producing Christmas specials for summer shows. FYI, though, Syfy: A Christmas special, i.e. an episode of an off-season show made to air around Christmastime, doesn't necessary have to be about The Meaning of Christmas. The Doctor Who specials are rarely about The Meaning of Christmas; they just have, you know, exploding ornaments and such.
This isn't some kind of Jewish-viewer bah humbug sentiment; I grew up loving Christmas TV, and still have my favorites. No, it's just that watching Pete and Myka of Warehouse 13 try to save a guy who almost dies because he plans to work on Christmas is, you know, painful. The narrative attempts to pound The Meaning of Christmas into our heads through repeated hammer blows. . . .all without mentioning religion, of course. The other plot of the Warehouse 13 special, the one in which Claudia reunites Artie with his estranged father, is hilariously written and brilliantly executed by Saul Rubinek (Artie) and Judd Hirsh (his dad). Because it involves authentic emotions, rather than grinding a Christmas axe, that plot is touching as well as funny.
The Euereka Christmas Special suffers from some of the same problems, though not to the same degree. I enjoyed the main plot of this one; I laughed when the characters were supposed to be funny; I even appreciated the depiction of Santa as a brilliant physicist, and the way the storytelling frame (Jack is telling the story to a group of kids) left it up to the viewers whether or not they wanted to believe. (We English majors call that genre "The fantastic" -- the literature that invites the reader to hesitate between two possible interpretations of the story, one supernatural and the other not). If only Alison hadn't gone on quite so long about the Meaning of Christmas, I would have been perfectly happy with this episode.
Does it bother you Christians out there the way TV shows such as this push The Commercially Viable Meaning of Christmas, i.e. the one that has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus? Or if the Meaning involves family togetherness, as well as presents and food, is that enough?
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sanctuary: Get Well Soon
In the past seasons, Sanctuary has been rather like a sick friend: sweet, likeable, but not the most exciting company. Some of its ailments are incurable (Amanda Tapping's obviously fake English accent), but some others seem to be improving (the overly simple 'capture the monster-of-the-week' plots).
The season began with the conclusion of the best episode yet, one that combined Sanctuary politics and an evil plan to use a powerful abnormal. Our heroes had to rescue, rather than capture, the monster-of-the-week, and said monster turned out to be incredibly interesting for a change -- she was both a giant spider and the beautiful Kali, a goddess of creation and destruction. The episode was fast-paced and complex enough to hold my attention.
The episodes since then have not quite hit the high of that big-budget cliffhanger, but they have been satisfying nonetheless. Questions have been raised: Who are the powerful abnormals Will saw with Kali in his vision? Who are the invisible abnormals who also want to know? Who arranged the death of Big Guy's friend? These mysteries, and the clues the characters will find, add a second layer of complexity that simply wasn't present in the previous seasons. All of the episode plots except one have connected in some way to this larger story, and the one that didn't, "The Bank Job" was original, suspenseful and funny enough to keep me riveted anyway (our characters pretended to hold up a bank!).
Now that Sanctuary is feeling better, it also seems to be recovering a sense of humor. It's especially funny when it pokes fun at itself, for example, when a hostage in"The Bank Job" says of Helen's British accent, "I knew it was fake!" or when Amanda Tapping (Helen) of Stargate fame insists that Henry's theory of aliens is ridiculous. I would like to see even more humor on the show; even monster-of-the-week was fun on Buffy, with Joss Whedon's snark enlivening the script.
Sanctuary is still not as healthy as Syfy's best shows, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica, but I'd say the prognosis looks good.
The season began with the conclusion of the best episode yet, one that combined Sanctuary politics and an evil plan to use a powerful abnormal. Our heroes had to rescue, rather than capture, the monster-of-the-week, and said monster turned out to be incredibly interesting for a change -- she was both a giant spider and the beautiful Kali, a goddess of creation and destruction. The episode was fast-paced and complex enough to hold my attention.
The episodes since then have not quite hit the high of that big-budget cliffhanger, but they have been satisfying nonetheless. Questions have been raised: Who are the powerful abnormals Will saw with Kali in his vision? Who are the invisible abnormals who also want to know? Who arranged the death of Big Guy's friend? These mysteries, and the clues the characters will find, add a second layer of complexity that simply wasn't present in the previous seasons. All of the episode plots except one have connected in some way to this larger story, and the one that didn't, "The Bank Job" was original, suspenseful and funny enough to keep me riveted anyway (our characters pretended to hold up a bank!).
Now that Sanctuary is feeling better, it also seems to be recovering a sense of humor. It's especially funny when it pokes fun at itself, for example, when a hostage in"The Bank Job" says of Helen's British accent, "I knew it was fake!" or when Amanda Tapping (Helen) of Stargate fame insists that Henry's theory of aliens is ridiculous. I would like to see even more humor on the show; even monster-of-the-week was fun on Buffy, with Joss Whedon's snark enlivening the script.
Sanctuary is still not as healthy as Syfy's best shows, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica, but I'd say the prognosis looks good.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Fringe: When Bad is Good
When is bad good? When it creates suspense. When it sparks action. When it changes characters in drastic yet believable ways. When it leads to dramatic irony. In other words, when good writers know how to milk a plot where the bad guys are winning. When it's happening on Fringe!
As Fringe opens this season, Olivia is a prisoner in the alternate dimension, reprogrammed to believe she is her own double. The double is working against Peter, Walter, and the FBI in our dimension. Oh, no! Except, oh, yes! Fringe has never been as exciting, as fast-paced, and as fun as it is this season. Usually, the mood of a show plummets when the bad guys outwit the good guys at the end of successive episodes. On Fringe this year, each defeat only increases the tension.
How do they do it? Well, car chases help. The first episode of the season, which involved Olivia running away from a mental facility on the other side, was the most dynamic I've seen on Fringe. Even more importantly, the bad guys of Fringe, especially Olivia's double, are very engaging. In fact, Olivia's double, though ruthless and much too unquestioningly loyal to the evil Walternate, is much more fun than our always melancholy, sometimes flat Olivia. I'm hoping that after "being" her double for a while, our Olivia (who we are rooting for despite her woodenness) will retain some of that vivacity. Dramatic irony -- the classical trick where the audience knows something the characters don't -- also helps. We're too busy yelling angrily at Peter, "Can't you tell she's not your Olivia?" to feel depressed about the situation.
The episodes that take place in our dimension (and please understand that I am an episode behind, writing this) have not been quite as thrilling as the episodes taking place on the other side. They have relied too much on the same old plot we've seen again and again in previous seasons: strange science kills people in a gruesome way, the team investigates, yadda yadda. The episodes in the alternate universe, however, have broken free of this formula and provided twists and turns. The mystery pulls us on: What is Walternate's plan?
To sum up: I began watching Fringe, though I sometimes found it boring, because my husband was watching it. Now I'm asking him, "When are you going to have time to watch TV? There's a Fringe in the DVR!"
As Fringe opens this season, Olivia is a prisoner in the alternate dimension, reprogrammed to believe she is her own double. The double is working against Peter, Walter, and the FBI in our dimension. Oh, no! Except, oh, yes! Fringe has never been as exciting, as fast-paced, and as fun as it is this season. Usually, the mood of a show plummets when the bad guys outwit the good guys at the end of successive episodes. On Fringe this year, each defeat only increases the tension.
How do they do it? Well, car chases help. The first episode of the season, which involved Olivia running away from a mental facility on the other side, was the most dynamic I've seen on Fringe. Even more importantly, the bad guys of Fringe, especially Olivia's double, are very engaging. In fact, Olivia's double, though ruthless and much too unquestioningly loyal to the evil Walternate, is much more fun than our always melancholy, sometimes flat Olivia. I'm hoping that after "being" her double for a while, our Olivia (who we are rooting for despite her woodenness) will retain some of that vivacity. Dramatic irony -- the classical trick where the audience knows something the characters don't -- also helps. We're too busy yelling angrily at Peter, "Can't you tell she's not your Olivia?" to feel depressed about the situation.
The episodes that take place in our dimension (and please understand that I am an episode behind, writing this) have not been quite as thrilling as the episodes taking place on the other side. They have relied too much on the same old plot we've seen again and again in previous seasons: strange science kills people in a gruesome way, the team investigates, yadda yadda. The episodes in the alternate universe, however, have broken free of this formula and provided twists and turns. The mystery pulls us on: What is Walternate's plan?
To sum up: I began watching Fringe, though I sometimes found it boring, because my husband was watching it. Now I'm asking him, "When are you going to have time to watch TV? There's a Fringe in the DVR!"
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Warehouse 13: Why I Just Can't Care
My husband really enjoys Warehouse 13, and is dying to see it renewed for another year. I watch it with him, and have fun doing so, but somehow, I just don't care that much, about the characters or the future of the show. And why is that, when the plots hums along, the magic involves tongue-in-cheek references to historical figures and events, Artie is lovable, Claudia is cool, and Mykha is amusingly neurotic?
I think I found the answer today, while reading River Secrets, the third in Shannon Hale's Bayern YA Fantasy series. On the page I was reading, the main character (Razo) remembered a character he used to love (Bettin) during the time of the first book. Now, Razo was not a main character of the first book; he was decidedly secondary. And yet, there was a girl he loved, who had no role in the book, but was named as part of the author's effort to round out Razo, and as a natural consequence of Hale's creation of a whole, three-dimensional, fully realized fantasy world.
In contrast, the characters of Warehouse 13 seem to spring into existence the moment the cameras start rolling, and go back into stasis as soon as they stop. There is little evidence that they have lives outside of their recorded adventures. Sure, Claudia has a history (and is also probably the most engaging character of the four). But Mykha has parents who appeared once, and Pete dated Kelly, and that's it for them. It's inconceivable that we would learn about Kelly's family, as we hear of Razo's love in The Goose Girl. The world of Warehouse 13 simply does not have that kind of depth. The lack of tertiary characters isn't a problem -- it's a symptom, a sign. The real problem is that the main characters, and the world they inhabit, seem two-dimensional.
Apply this litmus-test to Jack, the main character of Eureka, and see what you get: he has a daughter, Zoe, another main character; a sister, whose baby's father we also meet (a tertiary character!); an ex-wife, who has appeared on the show; an ex-girlfriend, Tess; and an A.I. house. All of these characters have provided drama outside, and alongside, the mystery of the week. All of them remind viewers, over and over, that Eureka exists inside a complete and complicated world.
Some of Warehouse 13's difficulties stem from the fact that the "magical space" is simply too small. Too few people are involved in the Warehouse, so, much of the agents' time is spent learning details of lives and places that will never be mentioned again. On Eureka, every investigation takes place within the "magical space" of the town, so that every detail learned by the way adds to the complexity of the show's created world. I honestly don't know how Warehouse 13 could be fixed; the sad truth is that some premises are inherently limited.
So, Warehouse 13, if we don't see you next year: It was fun. It was good. It just wasn't great.
I think I found the answer today, while reading River Secrets, the third in Shannon Hale's Bayern YA Fantasy series. On the page I was reading, the main character (Razo) remembered a character he used to love (Bettin) during the time of the first book. Now, Razo was not a main character of the first book; he was decidedly secondary. And yet, there was a girl he loved, who had no role in the book, but was named as part of the author's effort to round out Razo, and as a natural consequence of Hale's creation of a whole, three-dimensional, fully realized fantasy world.
In contrast, the characters of Warehouse 13 seem to spring into existence the moment the cameras start rolling, and go back into stasis as soon as they stop. There is little evidence that they have lives outside of their recorded adventures. Sure, Claudia has a history (and is also probably the most engaging character of the four). But Mykha has parents who appeared once, and Pete dated Kelly, and that's it for them. It's inconceivable that we would learn about Kelly's family, as we hear of Razo's love in The Goose Girl. The world of Warehouse 13 simply does not have that kind of depth. The lack of tertiary characters isn't a problem -- it's a symptom, a sign. The real problem is that the main characters, and the world they inhabit, seem two-dimensional.
Apply this litmus-test to Jack, the main character of Eureka, and see what you get: he has a daughter, Zoe, another main character; a sister, whose baby's father we also meet (a tertiary character!); an ex-wife, who has appeared on the show; an ex-girlfriend, Tess; and an A.I. house. All of these characters have provided drama outside, and alongside, the mystery of the week. All of them remind viewers, over and over, that Eureka exists inside a complete and complicated world.
Some of Warehouse 13's difficulties stem from the fact that the "magical space" is simply too small. Too few people are involved in the Warehouse, so, much of the agents' time is spent learning details of lives and places that will never be mentioned again. On Eureka, every investigation takes place within the "magical space" of the town, so that every detail learned by the way adds to the complexity of the show's created world. I honestly don't know how Warehouse 13 could be fixed; the sad truth is that some premises are inherently limited.
So, Warehouse 13, if we don't see you next year: It was fun. It was good. It just wasn't great.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Eureka's Giant Step Sideways
If you caught Eureka this past summer, you saw something amazing: an old trope used in a truly new way. Many shows have had their alternate-timeline episodes (every Star Trek, to begin with), but Eureka is the first TV show I have seen to go to an alternate timeline and stay (rather like the Star Trek movie reset, in fact). The writers kept us guessing, till the last moment of the last episode, whether our main characters would, in fact, stay in the alternate timeline they accidentally (or, possibly, by Keven the autistic genius' design) landed in. In the finale, especially, they played with our expectation (or fear) that the season would "reset," sending characters and relationships back where they started. But, thank goodness, the alternate timeline was confirmed as the new reality.
Stepping sideways this season made an already good show better. The writers were able to keep everything that was working well (the main characters, the zany science mysteries), and revitalize everything that had stalled. The characters we have grown to know and love were thrust into new situations, and given new challenges; the accident-prone Fargo, for example, suddenly found himself the head of GD, a puppet of the DOD. Relationship drama burst out like daisies in spring: Jack and Alison finally got together; Jo and Zane never were together (though Jo still loved him, of course); Henry found himself married for years to someone he'd just met. In addition, the morally ambiguous time-travel stowaway Dr. Grant stole scene after scene and kept us wondering. No one walks the line between evil and misguided like James Callis, who walked the line between evil and crazy as Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Gallactica for years. It's a shame he seems to be written out of the regular cast by the end of the season finale.
I hear Eureka is taking a page from Doctor Who's book and bringing us a Christmas special this year. Now that's something to sing Hallelujah about.
Stepping sideways this season made an already good show better. The writers were able to keep everything that was working well (the main characters, the zany science mysteries), and revitalize everything that had stalled. The characters we have grown to know and love were thrust into new situations, and given new challenges; the accident-prone Fargo, for example, suddenly found himself the head of GD, a puppet of the DOD. Relationship drama burst out like daisies in spring: Jack and Alison finally got together; Jo and Zane never were together (though Jo still loved him, of course); Henry found himself married for years to someone he'd just met. In addition, the morally ambiguous time-travel stowaway Dr. Grant stole scene after scene and kept us wondering. No one walks the line between evil and misguided like James Callis, who walked the line between evil and crazy as Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Gallactica for years. It's a shame he seems to be written out of the regular cast by the end of the season finale.
I hear Eureka is taking a page from Doctor Who's book and bringing us a Christmas special this year. Now that's something to sing Hallelujah about.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Have you seen Haven?
Like a car left outside on a cold New England day, Haven took a while to warm up. But the last two episodes were truly enjoyable -- creepy when they were meant to be creepy, funny when they were meant to be funny. In case you're not familiar with it, Haven is a Syfy show based on Steven King's "The Colorado Kid" (a story I haven't read, for fear of spoilers). It's the story of small Maine town where people exhibit strange and often uncontrollably violent powers, told in a series of murder mysteries investigated by local cop Nathan and FBI-import Audrey. The highlights of each show are often the appearance of re-occurring quirky, small town characters such as the coroner Eleanor and the two brothers who run the newspaper, Vince and Dave.
The show does have some problems to work out, still. The writers need to give us more of the town's history and the origin of "The Troubles" in drips and drabs each episode; it's the town's supernatural bent, not each particular murder mystery, that's intriguing. Also, we were promised an "arc" in the pilot: namely, the mystery of Audrey's mother and her connection to Haven. These clues also need to be doled out more often. The writers of Haven seem to be under the impression that the way to maintain viewers' interest is to pose questions and then not answer them, in a sort of "Lost for Dummies" approach. In fact, Lost did something more complicated: each large mystery was broken into several smaller questions, and every time a question was answered, a new one was raised. That is what should be happening on Haven.
But I have hope. And I'm actually looking forward to Syfy Friday tonight!
The show does have some problems to work out, still. The writers need to give us more of the town's history and the origin of "The Troubles" in drips and drabs each episode; it's the town's supernatural bent, not each particular murder mystery, that's intriguing. Also, we were promised an "arc" in the pilot: namely, the mystery of Audrey's mother and her connection to Haven. These clues also need to be doled out more often. The writers of Haven seem to be under the impression that the way to maintain viewers' interest is to pose questions and then not answer them, in a sort of "Lost for Dummies" approach. In fact, Lost did something more complicated: each large mystery was broken into several smaller questions, and every time a question was answered, a new one was raised. That is what should be happening on Haven.
But I have hope. And I'm actually looking forward to Syfy Friday tonight!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
More on the Status Quo
Please don't misunderstand me: returning to the status quo is not always a bad decision. There are episodic shows that naturally return to the status quo; for example, Star Trek: TNG was an excellent show (probably made even more excellent in my memory since it was a family event while I was growing up) that always returned the status quo without becoming boring. Two factors helped it maintain this routine: first, an excuse. The Enterprise was a ship, constantly roving. The plot of each episode had to be resolved in a neat and tidy fashion, at least as far as the main characters were concerned, because next week those same main characters would be somewhere else. A good excuse like this spares the writers from any status quo-inducing measures that strain our suspension of disbelief. The traveling starship of Star Trek and Firefly isn't the only good excuse out there, either; several good speculative shows I can think of (Eureka, Warehouse 13, Moonlight, etc.) rely on the crime-show standby of "cases" to be solved. The second factor that helps a status quo show to remain dynamic is the proxy effect -- the fact that the show's guests, the inhabitants of this week's planet or the suspects in this week's case, do experience substantial, life-altering change. A war is averted, a culture is saved, a victim is protected or avenged; in other words, something BIG and emotional happens, even though the main characters go back to their lives unchanged. It's not my favorite plot structure, but there's no denying that it works.
On the other end of the spectrum, we've had a recent spate of shows that have no status quo. Syfy's Battlestar Galactica was all arc; the status of the fleet, and the situations of the individual characters, was constantly changing. Lost also had no resting place, although it used some awe-inspiring innovations to accomplish this. Whenever the characters experienced a lull on the island, the flash-backs provided a story of transformation to maintain a sense of forward motion. (Take, for example, last season's episode in which the characters made little progress on the island, but we witnessed Richard's life story). I happened to love this kind of show, perhaps because the structure more closely resembles that of a novel, or perhaps just because I glory in complications and am a sucker for romance (so, I like for people to actually get together). My all time favorite show, however, falls into the most common middle category.
Most shows lie in the challenging area between these two extremes. The writers want things to change, but not too fast, so they must delay, delay, delay. Joss Whedon set the standard for this type of writing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show had episodic tendencies, but against the backdrop of monster-of-the-week plots, Whedon and his team wrote stories that involved real, lasting, character growth. Willow went from sweet to evil to grown-up; Spike earned a soul; Buffy went through more changes than I can list, longing for normalcy at first, finding reasons to live after being dead, and becoming more and more isolated in the final season. Relationships between the characters on the show began, developed, and ended (Xander and Anya). Whedon wasn't afraid to absent (Oz, Angel, etc.) or kill (Joyce, Tara) main characters, heightening the sense of danger. The key to Whedon's victory over the status quo was the way the characters were allowed to react to their wonderful and horrible adventures like actual people who are changed by their experiences. Add to that witty dialogue, a perfect blend of comedy, melodrama, and fantasy, and great acting, and you get my favorite show.
On the other end of the spectrum, we've had a recent spate of shows that have no status quo. Syfy's Battlestar Galactica was all arc; the status of the fleet, and the situations of the individual characters, was constantly changing. Lost also had no resting place, although it used some awe-inspiring innovations to accomplish this. Whenever the characters experienced a lull on the island, the flash-backs provided a story of transformation to maintain a sense of forward motion. (Take, for example, last season's episode in which the characters made little progress on the island, but we witnessed Richard's life story). I happened to love this kind of show, perhaps because the structure more closely resembles that of a novel, or perhaps just because I glory in complications and am a sucker for romance (so, I like for people to actually get together). My all time favorite show, however, falls into the most common middle category.
Most shows lie in the challenging area between these two extremes. The writers want things to change, but not too fast, so they must delay, delay, delay. Joss Whedon set the standard for this type of writing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show had episodic tendencies, but against the backdrop of monster-of-the-week plots, Whedon and his team wrote stories that involved real, lasting, character growth. Willow went from sweet to evil to grown-up; Spike earned a soul; Buffy went through more changes than I can list, longing for normalcy at first, finding reasons to live after being dead, and becoming more and more isolated in the final season. Relationships between the characters on the show began, developed, and ended (Xander and Anya). Whedon wasn't afraid to absent (Oz, Angel, etc.) or kill (Joyce, Tara) main characters, heightening the sense of danger. The key to Whedon's victory over the status quo was the way the characters were allowed to react to their wonderful and horrible adventures like actual people who are changed by their experiences. Add to that witty dialogue, a perfect blend of comedy, melodrama, and fantasy, and great acting, and you get my favorite show.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Merlin: Early signs of status quo disease?
(written after the third, most recent season)
Merlin has begun showing signs of status quo disease. In case you are not familiar with that particular TV malady, it is the delusion that all elements of a TV show must return to the status quo by the end of the episode, and that the writers are justified in going to increasingly ridiculous lengths to secure such an ending. Victims of the full-blown syndrome are unable to experience any true character growth, form any new relationships, or make any progress towards long-term goals.
At first glance, Merlin seems to be escaping this fate, because the character Morgana has changed, finally picking a side in Uther's ongoing battle against magic users and leaving Camelot with Morgause. The fact that Morgana picked the "other" side, the side of the morally ambiguous freedom fighters / terrorists bodes well for future conflict.
No, the signs of stagnation lie elsewhere, in Merlin's struggle to keep his magic a secret. Keeping a secret, and keeping it and keeping it, for three seasons running, is not a trope that lends itself to interesting character interaction, since by definition the characters are not talking about it. And the horrors of repetitiveness that must be perpetrated to keep the secret safe! At the end of every episode, Arthur must be knocked unconscious so that Merlin can perform magic and save the day. It's a wonder Arthur can see straight, he has taken so many blows to the head. The predictability of this bit is such that a viewer ends up thinking that Arthur has been felled not by a dragon or stone monster or wizard, but by a plot device. And no, varying the plot by making him pass out from illness does not alleviate this problem.
Think instead how interesting it would be if someone discovered Merlin's secret. My vote goes to Arthur: he would be deliciously torn between his father and Merlin, ridden with feelings of guilt and disloyalty, and forced to reevaluate his attitude towards Merlin. We call those kinds of conflicts *drama*.
Merlin has begun showing signs of status quo disease. In case you are not familiar with that particular TV malady, it is the delusion that all elements of a TV show must return to the status quo by the end of the episode, and that the writers are justified in going to increasingly ridiculous lengths to secure such an ending. Victims of the full-blown syndrome are unable to experience any true character growth, form any new relationships, or make any progress towards long-term goals.
At first glance, Merlin seems to be escaping this fate, because the character Morgana has changed, finally picking a side in Uther's ongoing battle against magic users and leaving Camelot with Morgause. The fact that Morgana picked the "other" side, the side of the morally ambiguous freedom fighters / terrorists bodes well for future conflict.
No, the signs of stagnation lie elsewhere, in Merlin's struggle to keep his magic a secret. Keeping a secret, and keeping it and keeping it, for three seasons running, is not a trope that lends itself to interesting character interaction, since by definition the characters are not talking about it. And the horrors of repetitiveness that must be perpetrated to keep the secret safe! At the end of every episode, Arthur must be knocked unconscious so that Merlin can perform magic and save the day. It's a wonder Arthur can see straight, he has taken so many blows to the head. The predictability of this bit is such that a viewer ends up thinking that Arthur has been felled not by a dragon or stone monster or wizard, but by a plot device. And no, varying the plot by making him pass out from illness does not alleviate this problem.
Think instead how interesting it would be if someone discovered Merlin's secret. My vote goes to Arthur: he would be deliciously torn between his father and Merlin, ridden with feelings of guilt and disloyalty, and forced to reevaluate his attitude towards Merlin. We call those kinds of conflicts *drama*.
Why Merlin Works
(written after the end of the second season)
My husband, swayed by his love of the BBC series “Merlin” (the first season of which just closed on NBC), recently made the mistake of renting the Sam Neil “Merlin” from the 1980's. I made it only two thirds of the way through that morass of a miniseries before it became unbearable, but it did drive home the brilliance of the new "Merlin" as reimagined by the BBC. The problem with the 1980's “Merlin” is that it was about the Arthurian legends--all them, actually, one dreary event after the other. The best Arthurian literature has always been about something else.
T.H. White's “The Once and Future King,” the first introduction to the Arthurian legends for many of us, is of course about good government versus bad. Thanks to Merlin's magic, the young Arthur visits feudal fish, fascist ants, pacifist geese, and other political animals, and then tries to apply these lessons to Camelot. The questions raised by these magical journeys were vital, necessary questions for those like White who saw the rise of the Nazis and lived through World War II . In contrast, Malory's “Le Morte D'Arthur,” the source of much of White's plot, is about the problems of the dying chivalric code of the 1400's, while the twelfth century works of Chretien de Troyes (one of Malory's sources), are primarily concerned with the nature of courtly love. The point is, all of these seminal works use the story of Camelot to comment on their own times.
The new, twenty-first century “Merlin” is about the ideal of tolerance and the horror of terrorism, and all the gray areas created when they collide. The reigning king, Uther, is a tyrant who fears and hates magic; Merlin is a member of a persecuted minority. The “nice” characters--Morgana, Gwen, Merlin, and increasingly, Arthur--suspect Uther of being a bloodthirsty fanatic. He is, after all, willing to kill children in his zeal to wipe out magic. Clearly Merlin is a good guy, and Uther would be wrong to kill him. Yet most of the witches who attack Camelot are terrorists, willing to poison an entire city of innocents as revenge against the king. Is Uther evil? Does he deserve to die? Do we really think every man, woman, and child killed by our bombs was a member of Al Queda? Has fighting terrorism made *us* fanatics?
You see my point.
I don't want to suggest to any of you who haven't seen the show that BBC's “Merlin” is some sort of dry philosophical treatise. On the contrary, “Merlin” is full of sword fights and CGI monsters, snappy dialogue (especially when Merlin and Arthur squabble), and loads of that who-likes-who unresolved sexual tension that makes for such good TV. It's well-acted, and watching it is a light, fun adventure.
Like all the best Arthurian retellings, “Merlin” manages to do *both* at the same time: to be escapist and allegorical, exciting and profound. That's why I love it. That's why it works.
My husband, swayed by his love of the BBC series “Merlin” (the first season of which just closed on NBC), recently made the mistake of renting the Sam Neil “Merlin” from the 1980's. I made it only two thirds of the way through that morass of a miniseries before it became unbearable, but it did drive home the brilliance of the new "Merlin" as reimagined by the BBC. The problem with the 1980's “Merlin” is that it was about the Arthurian legends--all them, actually, one dreary event after the other. The best Arthurian literature has always been about something else.
T.H. White's “The Once and Future King,” the first introduction to the Arthurian legends for many of us, is of course about good government versus bad. Thanks to Merlin's magic, the young Arthur visits feudal fish, fascist ants, pacifist geese, and other political animals, and then tries to apply these lessons to Camelot. The questions raised by these magical journeys were vital, necessary questions for those like White who saw the rise of the Nazis and lived through World War II . In contrast, Malory's “Le Morte D'Arthur,” the source of much of White's plot, is about the problems of the dying chivalric code of the 1400's, while the twelfth century works of Chretien de Troyes (one of Malory's sources), are primarily concerned with the nature of courtly love. The point is, all of these seminal works use the story of Camelot to comment on their own times.
The new, twenty-first century “Merlin” is about the ideal of tolerance and the horror of terrorism, and all the gray areas created when they collide. The reigning king, Uther, is a tyrant who fears and hates magic; Merlin is a member of a persecuted minority. The “nice” characters--Morgana, Gwen, Merlin, and increasingly, Arthur--suspect Uther of being a bloodthirsty fanatic. He is, after all, willing to kill children in his zeal to wipe out magic. Clearly Merlin is a good guy, and Uther would be wrong to kill him. Yet most of the witches who attack Camelot are terrorists, willing to poison an entire city of innocents as revenge against the king. Is Uther evil? Does he deserve to die? Do we really think every man, woman, and child killed by our bombs was a member of Al Queda? Has fighting terrorism made *us* fanatics?
You see my point.
I don't want to suggest to any of you who haven't seen the show that BBC's “Merlin” is some sort of dry philosophical treatise. On the contrary, “Merlin” is full of sword fights and CGI monsters, snappy dialogue (especially when Merlin and Arthur squabble), and loads of that who-likes-who unresolved sexual tension that makes for such good TV. It's well-acted, and watching it is a light, fun adventure.
Like all the best Arthurian retellings, “Merlin” manages to do *both* at the same time: to be escapist and allegorical, exciting and profound. That's why I love it. That's why it works.
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