On Point Pleasant...
Jan. 28th, 2005 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenI started chatting with the oh so evil ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swmbo about Point Pleasant and it got too long for a comment, so I'm sticking it here.
Heh, I just said "stick it here".
Anyhoo...
See, my urge with the show is to automatically make some notes and send them to Marti. Like we're three eps in so far and there's no cohesion. All the characters are too passive. Christina does stuff without it really being on purpose, and everybody has stuff happen to them just because she's around. It needs to be more active on all ends.
Plus it needs more of a core cast. Currently there's people who know each other, but it lacks the cohesion of other ensemble shows. These are just people who know each other. Even with some being related, some being friends, and others actually dating you don't feel like there's a connection. Even a soap like 90210 managed a cohesion amongst the core cast members. Without that cohesion we really don't give a crap about anybody, because if the characters don't seem to overmuch care if the others live or die, then why should we?
Now maybe Marti's working up to this, but it seems odd that she's taking so long with this fundamental when everything else is pratically being bullet-pointed and rammed into our skulls with Marti's usual lack of subtleness.
Like if it was me, I would have kept Christina's heritage a secret until their version of November sweeps. I get that since that's the schtick some of it had to be blown in advance to get people to watch, but I think you could have done "From the producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes a whole new battle of good against evil...." and thus got the schtick out there without screwing the pooch suspense-wise.
Then get your group together by having them all help Christina out on the mom thing. Keep her showing up the way that she did but don't have her rabbiting off on her own. Make this be a mystery that they're all trying to solve, because then you have more tension when Christina hides what she found out. Currently you have the girl of mystery and secrets being the girl of mystery and secrets. As far as the others are concerned this causes no tension, because to them there's no difference if the secret is that she's the spawn of Satan, or if it's that her dad was once a roadie for Kool and the Gang (arguably one in the same, I grant you).
So if you showed them building this trust with her by helping her out, then her having to pull back and push them away you'd actually get some drama and suspense going. And this is also where you throw in the little plot twists, like the one about Christina apparently dumping herself into the ocean in an attempt to suicide. Like that secret should've waited until the end of ep 3 at least, maybe 2 if we need to rush it to make sure to hook viewers. But either way what you're doing is drawing the audience in on the problem. We're watching the characters connect with her and then wondering why she's freaking out, then we're getting the benefit of knowing what they don't know while at the same time being given even more questions.
This would also go far towards getting the audience to give a shit about Christina's problems, because the other thing Marti's failed to do is make Christina interesting enough for us to care about. Again it's the passitivty. From what I've read about the show the ongoing schtick is supposed to be that Christina fights her own bad urges. Which, okay, can make for an interesting character, see also Angel and Faith. But with characters like Angel and Faith we were made to see their desire to be good, and their weakness towards being bad, and we get to give a damn about whether they succeed or not. With Christina we're told from minute one "Ooo! She's conflicted! She wants to do both!" and we just don't care because we don't really see Christina acting good or bad. Good stuff happens at best from a vague impulse on her part and ditto bad stuff. She's basically the moral version of somebody who doesn't realize how much static electricity they've managed to scuff up until they accidentally shock someone.
Jesse has the exact same problem. We're given tons of anvils to make it clear that if Christina is Angelus, Jesse is Buffy, but again we're told this. Jesse doesn't actually do anything to prove himself to be a good character. We need to see him acting in good ways. By episode three it should be clear that Jesse's the kind of good-hearted, captian of the sport of your choice team, student body president, spearheader of the safe sex education movement, whatever kind of guy. Yeah, he's a lifeguard (GET IT? GET IT???) but it's all tell no show.
A better way to handle Jesse would have been to make him and whatsherbucket - the sister of the dead girl - Judy? Make the two of them the ones to actively go after being friendly to the new girl, and show that friendship developing which then leads into Christina staying when her father mysteriously abandons her. Now we've got some cohesion, we've got tension on the mystery, and we've got more believablity on Christina staying with this strange family that apparently doesn't mind taking stray kids in since I guess that's legal now. Which, hey, good to know since I could use the cheap labor around the house.
So get Jesse acting like a good guy which would then dovetail into showing Christina's conflict. Like we should see her both being happy about the friendship with Jesse and whatsherbucket and touched by their help and helping them in return (this is where the parade would've come into play) while at the same time being apparently bitchy or whatever to the people who aren't being as nice to her (Jesse's girlfriend, for instance) and to all appearances it looks like normal teenage problems. It shouldn't be until ep 5 or 6 (with heavy hints in 4) that we come to realize that there's more going on around here, and that's when you segue into the heavy-duty morality and supernatural stuff. Not saying you don't have any supernatural stuff until then, but that's when the Point Pleasant version of the monster on Lost island finally shows its connection to the ongoing plot. Which in this case means revealing that the calls are coming from inside the house, in other words.
This is also when we need a different plot twist than the one apparently done last night. Now, granted, this is beyond the part where I managed to watch so maybe I read this wrong over in swmbo's LJ, but if the big "twist" on last night's ep was that Christina had intense goodness in her - Marti, that's not a twist. That's the solution to your problem. The problem as it was presented to us is "Christina has dark urges in her - can she possess the strength to combat them?" And, apparently, the answer is "Yes! So thanks for watching! Hope you enjoy whatever show replaces us as of next week!" If "She's also good! Dun dun DUNNNN!" is your idea of a plot twist, then you have definitely let the air out of any and all drama over the entire course of the show.
The actual plot twist should have been that she was bad. Because when you introduce her as the spawn of Satan, show her doing bad things yet no good ones, literally tell us that she's going to destroy the world, and then mention as a by the way that there's also some goodness - well there's no tension anymore. Especially since she's the protagonist.
Hell, the real plot twist could have been the audience wondering who of the two characters was the evil one. Both Jesse and Christina have similar enough backgrounds that they could have pulled a Jack and Bobby kind of scenario here where you draw the audience in by making them wonder which one is the bad guy. Not saying hang the whole show on it since Jack and Bobby proves that once you get rid of the mystery a lot of people stop caring, but if you're doing the special two-day event to kick it off then you can spend the first two eps using all the anvils and the telling to your advantage. Just mix it in with enough show that it's not 100% clear who's got the nasty background within minute one of the show starting.
Afterwich what you need to do is show more conflict with Christina. We should have a character here who thinks of herself as good, but is tempted into badness. Then you could get into all kinds of interesting scenarios where the guy from Melrose Place basically works as her evil tutor, and screws with her head by putting her in situations where she does things that seem like the lesser of two evils, but it's still evil. You could get a whole discussion going about moral grey areas, in other words, and that would work nicely as a symbolism of the age she's supposed to be, where as she leaves her teenage years she comes to realize things might not be as black and white as she thought. Then you get the tension between her and her friends again, and does she listen to their encouragement to be good or does she continue down the negative path? Who knows her secret? Who's actively working to help her? Who's actively working to stop her? And so on and so forth.
So there's my notes, and swmbo is still evil.
swmbo about Point Pleasant and it got too long for a comment, so I'm sticking it here. Heh, I just said "stick it here".
Anyhoo...
See, my urge with the show is to automatically make some notes and send them to Marti. Like we're three eps in so far and there's no cohesion. All the characters are too passive. Christina does stuff without it really being on purpose, and everybody has stuff happen to them just because she's around. It needs to be more active on all ends.
Plus it needs more of a core cast. Currently there's people who know each other, but it lacks the cohesion of other ensemble shows. These are just people who know each other. Even with some being related, some being friends, and others actually dating you don't feel like there's a connection. Even a soap like 90210 managed a cohesion amongst the core cast members. Without that cohesion we really don't give a crap about anybody, because if the characters don't seem to overmuch care if the others live or die, then why should we?
Now maybe Marti's working up to this, but it seems odd that she's taking so long with this fundamental when everything else is pratically being bullet-pointed and rammed into our skulls with Marti's usual lack of subtleness.
Like if it was me, I would have kept Christina's heritage a secret until their version of November sweeps. I get that since that's the schtick some of it had to be blown in advance to get people to watch, but I think you could have done "From the producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes a whole new battle of good against evil...." and thus got the schtick out there without screwing the pooch suspense-wise.
Then get your group together by having them all help Christina out on the mom thing. Keep her showing up the way that she did but don't have her rabbiting off on her own. Make this be a mystery that they're all trying to solve, because then you have more tension when Christina hides what she found out. Currently you have the girl of mystery and secrets being the girl of mystery and secrets. As far as the others are concerned this causes no tension, because to them there's no difference if the secret is that she's the spawn of Satan, or if it's that her dad was once a roadie for Kool and the Gang (arguably one in the same, I grant you).
So if you showed them building this trust with her by helping her out, then her having to pull back and push them away you'd actually get some drama and suspense going. And this is also where you throw in the little plot twists, like the one about Christina apparently dumping herself into the ocean in an attempt to suicide. Like that secret should've waited until the end of ep 3 at least, maybe 2 if we need to rush it to make sure to hook viewers. But either way what you're doing is drawing the audience in on the problem. We're watching the characters connect with her and then wondering why she's freaking out, then we're getting the benefit of knowing what they don't know while at the same time being given even more questions.
This would also go far towards getting the audience to give a shit about Christina's problems, because the other thing Marti's failed to do is make Christina interesting enough for us to care about. Again it's the passitivty. From what I've read about the show the ongoing schtick is supposed to be that Christina fights her own bad urges. Which, okay, can make for an interesting character, see also Angel and Faith. But with characters like Angel and Faith we were made to see their desire to be good, and their weakness towards being bad, and we get to give a damn about whether they succeed or not. With Christina we're told from minute one "Ooo! She's conflicted! She wants to do both!" and we just don't care because we don't really see Christina acting good or bad. Good stuff happens at best from a vague impulse on her part and ditto bad stuff. She's basically the moral version of somebody who doesn't realize how much static electricity they've managed to scuff up until they accidentally shock someone.
Jesse has the exact same problem. We're given tons of anvils to make it clear that if Christina is Angelus, Jesse is Buffy, but again we're told this. Jesse doesn't actually do anything to prove himself to be a good character. We need to see him acting in good ways. By episode three it should be clear that Jesse's the kind of good-hearted, captian of the sport of your choice team, student body president, spearheader of the safe sex education movement, whatever kind of guy. Yeah, he's a lifeguard (GET IT? GET IT???) but it's all tell no show.
A better way to handle Jesse would have been to make him and whatsherbucket - the sister of the dead girl - Judy? Make the two of them the ones to actively go after being friendly to the new girl, and show that friendship developing which then leads into Christina staying when her father mysteriously abandons her. Now we've got some cohesion, we've got tension on the mystery, and we've got more believablity on Christina staying with this strange family that apparently doesn't mind taking stray kids in since I guess that's legal now. Which, hey, good to know since I could use the cheap labor around the house.
So get Jesse acting like a good guy which would then dovetail into showing Christina's conflict. Like we should see her both being happy about the friendship with Jesse and whatsherbucket and touched by their help and helping them in return (this is where the parade would've come into play) while at the same time being apparently bitchy or whatever to the people who aren't being as nice to her (Jesse's girlfriend, for instance) and to all appearances it looks like normal teenage problems. It shouldn't be until ep 5 or 6 (with heavy hints in 4) that we come to realize that there's more going on around here, and that's when you segue into the heavy-duty morality and supernatural stuff. Not saying you don't have any supernatural stuff until then, but that's when the Point Pleasant version of the monster on Lost island finally shows its connection to the ongoing plot. Which in this case means revealing that the calls are coming from inside the house, in other words.
This is also when we need a different plot twist than the one apparently done last night. Now, granted, this is beyond the part where I managed to watch so maybe I read this wrong over in swmbo's LJ, but if the big "twist" on last night's ep was that Christina had intense goodness in her - Marti, that's not a twist. That's the solution to your problem. The problem as it was presented to us is "Christina has dark urges in her - can she possess the strength to combat them?" And, apparently, the answer is "Yes! So thanks for watching! Hope you enjoy whatever show replaces us as of next week!" If "She's also good! Dun dun DUNNNN!" is your idea of a plot twist, then you have definitely let the air out of any and all drama over the entire course of the show.
The actual plot twist should have been that she was bad. Because when you introduce her as the spawn of Satan, show her doing bad things yet no good ones, literally tell us that she's going to destroy the world, and then mention as a by the way that there's also some goodness - well there's no tension anymore. Especially since she's the protagonist.
Hell, the real plot twist could have been the audience wondering who of the two characters was the evil one. Both Jesse and Christina have similar enough backgrounds that they could have pulled a Jack and Bobby kind of scenario here where you draw the audience in by making them wonder which one is the bad guy. Not saying hang the whole show on it since Jack and Bobby proves that once you get rid of the mystery a lot of people stop caring, but if you're doing the special two-day event to kick it off then you can spend the first two eps using all the anvils and the telling to your advantage. Just mix it in with enough show that it's not 100% clear who's got the nasty background within minute one of the show starting.
Afterwich what you need to do is show more conflict with Christina. We should have a character here who thinks of herself as good, but is tempted into badness. Then you could get into all kinds of interesting scenarios where the guy from Melrose Place basically works as her evil tutor, and screws with her head by putting her in situations where she does things that seem like the lesser of two evils, but it's still evil. You could get a whole discussion going about moral grey areas, in other words, and that would work nicely as a symbolism of the age she's supposed to be, where as she leaves her teenage years she comes to realize things might not be as black and white as she thought. Then you get the tension between her and her friends again, and does she listen to their encouragement to be good or does she continue down the negative path? Who knows her secret? Who's actively working to help her? Who's actively working to stop her? And so on and so forth.
So there's my notes, and swmbo is still evil.
