So Say We All

The Syfy (formerly SciFi) sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica did a lot of things that impressed me. Here's one.


The series began with a bang, but by the end of the second season, things had begun to fizzle. The show was still good, but it didn't feel as special as it did at its inception. Here's my best guess as to why.

At the beginning of the series, we find our characters in the middle of a huge crisis - their world and most of the people in it are destroyed by evil robots. We experience all the excitement of discovering how life will continue for the survivors, how these people will interact when thrown together, how each of them reacts to the situation, etc. etc. It is fertile ground for interesting stories and revelation of character.

Then things settled down. The survivors had more or less found their new way of life. There were still conflicts between the characters, they still had their personal struggles, but the show lacked the massive conflict it once had. The plight of our characters didn't seem quite as important as before.

So what did the writers do? Between the second and third seasons, the show jumps ahead one year. When we pick up the story again, everything has changed and the characters are in the midst of another major crisis. So we the viewers have all the enjoyment of learning about what happened in the past year, discovering how things work in a new present, and watching once again as the characters we love sort out their future.

Pulling this kind of series retool is a risky move, but in this case it paid off big time.

Why We Hate Time Travel

Time travel. Everyone hates it, but it remains one of the most-explored ideas in speculative fiction. Why do we hate it? Why are we continually subjected to it? Can it be saved from the realms of the implausible and the mind screw?

To begin an attempt at answering these questions, we should first be reminded of Sturgeon's Revelation, courtesy of our friends at TV Tropes. Sturgeon's Revelation states that 90% of everything is crud. When someone ponders, "Why are there so many sucky romantic comedies?" the answer is: "Because 90% of everything sucks big time." But this only begins to explain the public's hatred for time travel stories.

For answers we might look to the best examples, the 10% of time travel stories that don't completely bite. They're hard to find. In fact, I would posit that an even smaller percentage of works execute time travel well. In my mind, this involves jumping two major hurdles:

1. Time travel elements must not alienate your audience.

2. Time travel must be woven into the narrative in such a way that it is inextricable from the emotional journey of the characters.

Clearing the first hurdle allows your story to be enjoyed by its audience. In order to use time travel to its full potential, you must leap the second hurdle as well.

In a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons, Homer travels back in time and accidentally changes something. When he returns to the future, everything is different. He keeps jumping between past and present in an extended gag of making mistakes in the past and discovering a vastly different present. The episode succeeds in not pissing off the audience because the time travel serves the joke. However, time travel in this instance is purely a comedic device and not truly a part of the story. In fact, there is no story here. It's merely a montage based around different variations on a fill-in-the-blank joke. It's entertaining, but we're looking for something better.

The first story arc of the Young Avengers comic books involves the villain Kang the Conqueror. The Avengers have defeated Kang before, but because he's a time traveler he's allowed to return as many times as the writers desire with no further explanation than "time travel". It is revealed that one of the Young Avengers is actually a younger version of Kang who has come from the future to stop himself from God I can't even finish this plot summary it sucks so bad. The time travel is certainly a part of our characters' emotional journeys, but the number of graphs and charts and 3D models I would need to draw to begin to understand what is happening give this work a big thumbs down.

So what is an example of the best kind of time travel story? I'm surprised to hear myself say this, but Back to the Future. The time travel is simple enough to understand and fully integrated in the story of Marty McFly becoming entangled in the early stages of his parents' high school romance.

Here's a better one: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The mechanism of Henry's spontaneous time travel is mentally acceptable because it follows specific rules (everything only happens one way; nothing can be changed; Henry's body travels in time, but no objects, clothes, or food in his stomach, etc. etc.). Time travel is intricately woven into the plot - Claire's life is linear and Henry's time line jumps around. Better still, time travel has a huge effect on the character's emotional stories, the most obvious example being the strain it puts on Henry and Claire's marriage.

Seriously, read The Time Traveler's Wife. (Seeing the movie is not the same thing.)

So why are we continually subjected to time travel fiction? I think it's because it holds so much possibility. There's no better way for us as human beings to take a look at where we've been and where we're going. Time travel stories have the power to be transcendent - as long as they don't get seriously fucked up along the way.

Unsolved Mysteries

If you are interested in story, I encourage you to visit TV Tropes. It's a fascinating site to get lost in for hours and hours, and covers so much more than just television. I try to use terminology from this website in everyday speech. I'm hoping these terms will cross over into our cultural vocabulary. Terms like: Butt Monkey.

The Butt Monkey, as defined by TV Tropes, is the character that is always the butt of the joke - jokes made by other characters, or jokes played on the Butt Monkey by the writers. This is your Meg Griffin from Family Guy, your Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and your Mason from Dead Like Me. I'd like to talk about one of my favorite Butt Monkeys - Jerry from Parks and Recreation.


The writers at Parks and Rec have gotten a lot of comedy mileage out of beating up on Jerry. His coworkers all hate and ridicule him. What makes it so funny is that there is no reason why. When the gang from It's Always Sunny rag on Sweet Dee, we understand it. Because she's an obnoxious bitch. But Jerry is set up as just a nice, normal, happy guy. He's not really offensive in any way.

Or at least that's how it used to be, until they pulled on the dangling thread and the mystery of Jerry was unraveled. You may have seen the episode I'm referring to. The writers decided it was time to do a Jerry episode, an episode that was all about Jerry making a fool of himself. The Jerry ridicule gets so bad that his coworkers decide not to make fun of him anymore. By the end of the episode they are back to their old ways and the status quo is restored. Or is it?

There are several problems with this admittedly very funny episode. First of all, the episode turns Jerry into a complete buffoon. In the past, Jerry has embarrassed himself, but usually in ordinary ways, like when he accidentally says "murinal" instead of "mural". The joke is that the other characters are unnecessarily cruel to Jerry. In this episode, Jerry becomes such a clown that it's now obvious why the others make fun of him.

Another thing that was so great about Jerry as Butt Monkey was that it was never acknowledged. It appeared that everyone in the office had independently decided to mock and loathe Jerry. This episode made it seem like a joke they all shared, especially when they all decide to start being nice to Jerry.

But the biggest crime of this episode is over-exposure. There's never more than one or two Jerry jokes in an episode. They're like a little treat sprinkled here and there. After a full episode of dumping on Jerry, the joke feels played out.

It's always trouble when an episodic work solves one of it's essential mysteries. It's like when Fran and Mr. Sheffield got together on The Nanny. It's like when we found out Wolverine's origin story in the X-Men comics. Sometimes you need to just leave it alone.

Thank God we didn't see Wilson's whole face until the series finale of Home Improvement.

Grammar Naziism

Just a little post for a little thought. This exchange is adapted from the script for my smash-hit play, Eternity in the Hearts of Men:

GRAY
It was a donation.

DOROTHY
From who?

Did that make you cringe a little? Yeah, me too. It should be "From whom?", huh? Every time I read that line or hear it spoken aloud I feel a little twinge of shame. So why not fix it? (I'm sure you're one step ahead of me already.)

Because I'm not writing a science paper or a newspaper article or a medical brochure. I'm not writing prose or a poem. I'm writing a character. Some characters speak perfect English and some do not.

It sounds wrong, but I know that if Dorothy said "whom" it would sound even wronger.

Ripped from the Headlines: the Lynn Redgrave Story

Headlines are an interesting thing. They're not the title of the article. They're more like a movie trailer. They tell a whole story in a condensed form, but leave out some of the juicy bits so you are compelled to read the whole article (or see the whole movie).

Lynn Redgrave passed away last night after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. Today I want to look at how internet news sources are covering the story.

This article from New York Magazine says, "Lynn Redgrave Dies at 67". The headline gives the main idea. Including her age is a nice hook - the reader wonders how she died so young.

Film.com uses this variation: "Actress Lynn Redgrave Dies At 67". Similar, but it also includes some exposition for those who aren't familiar with the story's main character, Lynn Redgrave.

The folks over at London Theatre Guide Online took this approach: "Lynn Redgrave dies of breast cancer at the age of 67". Well, see, now you've just spilled all the beans up front. There's nothing that makes me want to read the article. You've already told me the whole story.

And then there's this gem from the New York Times blog: "Lynn Redgrave, 67, is dead". There are so many things wrong with this short headline. I love it.

First of all, saying "is dead" is not very specific with respect to time. "Dies" or "has died" or even the overly-sensitive "passes away" all indicate that this event just happened. "Is dead" sounds like "Newsflash: Napoleon is dead".

It even sounds a little like we should be happy about it, as in "The Wicked Witch is dead". "Lynn Redgrave is dead - finally".

Also, inserting her age in there like that? It's like they're setting us up. Dead people no longer have ages. That's just accepted. We can talk about the age they were when they died, but only in the past tense ("He was 83"). The first part of the headline makes me expect this: "Lynn Redgrave, 67, climbs Mt. Everest". The real headline has a twist ending. It's like at the end of The Sixth Sense. We find out that Lynn Redgrave was dead all along.

The whole thing seems conceived to make us believe Lynn Redgrave is a zombie.

Dead or undead?

That One Joke in 'Wet Hot American Summer'

The movie Wet Hot American Summer is very funny. It centers around a 1980s summer camp and uses silly, over-the-top, non-realistic humor better than probably any movie since Airplane. It's like a live-action cartoon. Plus, it has a heavenly host of great comedic actors - Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, David Hyde Pierce, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Molly Shannon, Paul Rudd, and more! But there's one joke in the movie that always bugs me.


It's one of the first jokes in the movie, too. It's early in the morning on the last day of camp and a group of campers runs past Camp Director Beth (played by Janeane Garofalo). Beth sighs lazily under her breath, "You're not supposed to be out of your bunks. You're in trouble..."

It's funny because it's so true-to-life. It's the last day of camp. Beth is clearly tired and no longer interested in trying to discipline the kids. It's very honest and recognizable.

And that's exactly why it bothers me. Because there are NO other jokes of this type in the entire movie. It's funny, but it's not the right kind of funny. Maybe this is too nit-picky? It just feels wrong to me.

It's like hitting Murphy Brown with a pie in the face.

This Post Contains SEXY SPOILERS for 'Friends', 'Who's the Boss?', 'Wings', and the 'Harry Potter' Book Series

When Friends started airing on NBC, it became a real game-changer for episodic television. On Friends, you had six attractive young people who could be paired up romantically any way you wanted, with the exception of Ross and Monica who were brother and sister. The show gave us Ross/Rachel and Chandler/Monica of course, but also played with Joey/Rachel, Phoebe/Joey, Phoebe/Ross, Joey/Monica, etc. etc.

This sounds like an obvious technique because it is so common now, but earlier shows didn't have this dynamic. On Who's the Boss?, the only two characters that could get together were Tony and Angela. On Wings in the original cast there was really only Joe, Helen, and Brian. You would never see Antonio hooking up with Fay or Roy seducing Helen. Shows were not created with such loose premises.

Now let's talk about how this idea can bleed into other types of stories, outside of the small screen.

This technique can easily be applied to other forms of episodic storytelling. Any story that continues for a very long time is perfect for this sort of dynamic. Look at the Harry Potter books. There were countless relationships spawned during the seven volumes that could not have been predicted early on, but rang true nonetheless. For four books, readers wondered if Hermione loved Harry or Ron. In Chamber of Secrets, no one could have guessed that Harry would end up with Ginny Weasley. There was Fleur and Bill who hadn't even appeared on the page together before they started dating. Also Hermione/Viktor, Harry/Cho, Ron/Lavender...

Superhero comic books have been applying this technique forever. Superheroes are always smokin' hot, making it easy to pair them off in countless ways.

Here's a novel idea, though. Or maybe not, but I just thought of it. Use this approach in your short format stories, too. Your plays and novels and short stories and screenplays. I don't mean that you should actually cram all these hook-ups and break-ups into a short story. But your story will be operating on multiple levels if your reader thinks it could happen.

Phoebe could make out with Joey. Harry could fall in love with Hermione. Your protagonist could fall for their best friend, or their best friend's boyfriend, or their boyfriend's best friend.

When you have a variety of sexy, single characters thrown together - that's the kind of work that makes people write fan fiction. And who doesn't want that?

6-way orgy? It could have happened...