A new blog worth noting: ‘All Embracing But Underwhelming’. A blog on the study of Conspiracy Theories.
In other news, I am co-writing a stage production.
Author: HORansome
I’m alive
I’m trying to write a review of the second (and likely last) season of ‘Hex.’ The show isn’t the slow-motion, sometimes well filmed train wreck that the first season was. I should also probably post some updated thoughts on the latest ‘Who’ (mostly good) and the most interesting piece of fanfic I’ve ever seen, the pornographic (but only slightly) ‘Abducted by the Daleks’ sex tape that made the news last year. Then there’s ‘BSG’ and ‘Lost,’ both of which came to a close and did interesting things with their finales. The whole relocation back to Auckland thing is taking its toll, however, and the setting up of non-blog things here has become just another excuse for not updating.
Ah, bloggers; apathetic and protesting with it.
Spoken Thusly
Jane Espenon, writer of such fabulousities as ‘Buffy…’Gilmore Girls’ and now owner of a development deal at NBC/Universal recently wrote an illuminating post on spoken dialogue that sounds as if it were written (using Anya, from ‘Buffy…’ as an excellent example). As someone who speaks in written form and who has a penchant (?) for writing written dialogue I’m fascinated with naturalism.
I have what is these days called a speech hesitancy. It’s been a near-constant companion now for twenty-eight years. Years and years of speech training has reduced the hesitancy considerably. It doesn’t affect my writing (nor my singing or speech making) directly, but indirectly… Because I plan my sentences and don’t use those natural pause sounds like ‘Ah…’ or ‘Um…’ (due to being trained out of it) I only know ‘naturalistic’ dialogue from others. I love listening to people (and privately reconstructing their speech to fit my own). There are days when I’d like to be able to switch from my melodramatic speaking pattern to something more antipodean, not as a fitting in mechanism but rather because it would be useful. There are some parts of this great country of mine where speaking like a nounce can do your head in (in the most literal way); I sometimes have to pretend to be a foreignor.
I’m not sure where I am going with this. A lot of my fiction is either pastiche (usually of 1940s radio) or features solitary characters who are forced to talk to themselves or non-human entities. In part this is because I like soliloquies and melodrama. It doesn’t always make for great writing, but I’m fairly good at editing out most of my own pretentiousness. Yet I can also blame my penchant (?) on my own verbal inadequacy. It’s something I’m working on, something that having work performed is really helping with. Hearing my work performed, especially by other people, makes me realise just how awkward some of my writing can be to speak out loud. It can be a fairly embarressing learning curve.
Another of my works in progress. More news as it comes to hand.
Angels, Demons and the Da Vinci Code
As part of my researches into a course on conspiracy theories I have read all the Robert Langton (all two of them) books that Dan Brown wrote. ‘Angels and Demons,’ the lesser known of the two, details an Illuminati plot to destroy the Vatican and features a quest to locate the Church of Illumination. It also features an initially interesting sub-plot about a Catholic priest-scientist creating matter and anti-matter to prove the creation ex nihilo hypothesis (which, as a plot point, amounts to nothing in the end). ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (film coming soon) is about the Priory of Sion and the Church’s suppression of the Sacred Feminine. Conspiracy-tastic; pity that these two books are badly written, clumsily plotted and barely researched. As my good friend Majikthise pithily put it, seven million people can be wrong.
First, the characterisation. Nothing is left to the reader’s imagination; you always know what your main characters are thinking, which means that the suspense of ‘Will they or won’t they?’ is always ruined within a paragraph. Add to that the obvious candidate for ‘villian of the piece’ and you get paper cutouts maskerading as people. Robert Langton is a stereotype university professor of the school of ‘I obviously have never been taught by a university academic.’ Let’s ignore the flashbacks of classes (that belong, rightfully or wrongly, on TV) or the moments of erudition that seem to come straight from guide books. No, let’s focus on the characterisation. We can tell he is an academic because he wears tweed. Everything after that is just obvious.
The plot of each book is basically this: Langton is brought to the site of a bizaare murder. The murder scene evokes some esoteric fact of which he is the only real expert and is a clue that leads him to the next clue, which is itself a clue that leads to the next, and so forth. Luckily, as Robert isn’t totally polymathic, he gets a nubile assistant, say, a quamtum biologist or a cryptographer, who is able to help out. They solve each clue whilst being pursued by a religious zealot who is also an assasin. The assasin thinks they are working for a particular group (the Illuminati or the Church) but this is all a front. The real villian of the piece turns out to have been working with them the entire time amd they are only stopped in the nick of time. Normality is restored and Langton gets it on with the assistant (who, bizaarely, isn’t one of his graduate students). It’s plot-by-numbers, sometimes literally.
As to the research… I realise that fiction doesn’t have to map history. Surely, though, you can present the history as accurately as possible in the context of the story? You would expect Adam Weisshaupt to be mentioned in any history of the Illuminati. Aargh. The wish to wax lyrical on the non-lyrical nature of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ is doing my head in. I should focus these issues into exciting course content.
Yes.
Yes, I shall.
Doctor Who Season Two – New Earth
No Spoilers
‘New Earth,’ the first proper episode of season two of the new Who, has plot holes you could drive a bus through and characterisation that sometimes beggars comprehension. It is, I think without a doubt, the worse script Russell T. Davies has ever written.
It’s also a very bad first episode for a season.
First eps have a lot riding on them; you are bound to get new viewers who will need just a little setup to feel comfortable. You also have the returning viewers who just want you to go straight into the story. ‘New Earth’ really caters for the latter crowd; a returning villian with next to little introduction, a overly elaborate plot and a companion who spends most of the episode being out of her mind. It is the latter point which is probably the most vexing. New viewers want to see how Rose and the Doctor interact; ‘New Earth’ delays that by a week by providing a first episode that admittedly introduces the Doctor well but fails to introduce Rose, the character with whom we are meant to identify with and feel for.
I enjoyed the story; I can only say that I expected much more, especially after just how well ‘Rose’ reintroduced the show to the world last year. Next week looks fun, though; it has werewolves.
Lost Season Two
A lot of people found the second season of ‘Twin Peaks’ just a tad too bizaare, which was a major factor in its non-renewal; it lost its core audience, the non-genre fans that tolerate a little fantasy in their drama. ‘Lost’ season two, which could well have gone the way of ‘Twin Peaks’ season two, seems to have amped up its fantasy whilst continuing to focus on the mystery of the island. We’ve learnt a lot this season about the Dharma Initiative and the Others but, by and large, this information is sidereal to the character backstories the show does so well.
It’s a clever move. Die-hard fans love the unfolding mystery whilst casual viewers can dip in and out of the show and only be a little confused by the dealings in the hatch. With eight episodes to go and a lot more explaining to do I really can’t say I know where the show is going for its third season. I can say, however, that I’ll be sticking with it until the end, even if they do the unthinkable and kill off Locke. Still, the mooted plan for a theatrical release finale seems like a really risky idea; watching a show every Tuesday night is one thing, but heading off to the cinema to watch a film that will likely need a fairly detailed knowledge of the TV show is another matter entirely.
Perhaps, however, ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’ has tainted all my hopes, dreams and desires.
Damn you, David Lynch. Damn you to hell.