Falling Skies -- I Have a Sinking Feeling; also, Outcasts
Mason Barge
simply AWFUL. I mean, F-minus I-want-to-kill-someone *AWFUL*.
I started to get that sinking feeling as soon as I saw Dale Dye cast as
the resistance commander.
Anyway, don't get your hopes up too high. If you were infuriated by Tyler
in "V", I'd suggest you give any weapons you own to a friend before you
watch this.
OTOH, I thought Outcasts was not terrible. I had low expectations and
was, actually, amazed at how good Jamie Bamber was. His character in
Battlestar Galactica was apparently 100% the fault of the
writers/producers.
Bill Steele
Mason Barge <mason...@gmail.com> wrote:
I was OK with Outcasts until it dawned on me that it was just a western.
The line about turning in your weapons was the tipoff.
DB
Wasn't that the guy from Ugly Betty, Eric Mabius? Jamie Bember is in
L&O:U.K.
--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---
Anim8rFSK
DB <deji...@hughes.net> wrote:
Where he's terrible; he's also in Outcasts, where he's, well, terrible.
--
"Please, I can't die, I've never kissed an Asian woman!"
Shego on "Shat My Dad Says"
DB
Anim8rFSK <ANIM...@cox.net> wrote:
Well, they may both be terrible but only Eric Mabius is in "Outcasts",
not Jamie Bember. See IMDB if you don't believe me.
Obveeus
I wonder who edited Jamie Bamber's 'Outcasts' credit off of IMDB?
Stan Brown
> Wasn't that the guy from Ugly Betty, Eric Mabius?
Yes. His name was in the opening credits, so I was surprised when
they killed him off.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
"Children -- so adorable. In a way they're like people."
-- Veronica, on /Better Off Ted/
Barry Margolin
DB <deji...@hughes.net> wrote:
> Well, they may both be terrible but only Eric Mabius is in "Outcasts",
> not Jamie Bember. See IMDB if you don't believe me.
They were both in it. I see him listed in IMDB.
Bamber plays Mitchell Hoban, Mabius plays Julius Berger.
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
Obveeus
"Barry Margolin" <bar...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:barmar-CE1FD1....@news.eternal-september.org...
> In article <dejikins-4213CA...@freenews.netfront.net>,
> DB <deji...@hughes.net> wrote:
>
>> Well, they may both be terrible but only Eric Mabius is in "Outcasts",
>> not Jamie Bember. See IMDB if you don't believe me.
>
> They were both in it. I see him listed in IMDB.
Bamber was listed yesterday on the main cast, but not today. Currently, he
still shows up in the first episode cast list, but no longer on the main
cast page.
> Bamber plays Mitchell Hoban, Mabius plays Julius Berger.
Wikipedia offers up the ability to see past versions of a page along with
documentation as to who edited the changes for each revision. Does IMDB
offer up the same historical documentation to the registered users?
shawn
Not to just a standard registered user. The closest you can come is if
you were the one that requested a change that history is available to
you, but not to other users. Perhaps there is something like that
available to the Pro users but I doubt it.
Stan Brown
>
> In article <dejikins-4213CA...@freenews.netfront.net>,
> DB <deji...@hughes.net> wrote:
>
> > Well, they may both be terrible but only Eric Mabius is in "Outcasts",
> > not Jamie Bember. See IMDB if you don't believe me.
>
> They were both in it. I see him listed in IMDB.
>
> Bamber plays Mitchell Hoban, Mabius plays Julius Berger.
Oy vey -- I thought Mitchell *and* the guy on the spaceship were both
Eric Mabius, and that we were going to find out Mitchell had a clone
or twin who would avenge his death.
Except for the beard, the two actors did look a lot alike -- or am I
the only one who sees a resemblance.
Arthur Lipscomb
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:37:10 -0400, Barry Margolin wrote:
>>
>> In article<dejikins-4213CA...@freenews.netfront.net>,
>> DB<deji...@hughes.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, they may both be terrible but only Eric Mabius is in "Outcasts",
>>> not Jamie Bember. See IMDB if you don't believe me.
>>
>> They were both in it. I see him listed in IMDB.
>>
>> Bamber plays Mitchell Hoban, Mabius plays Julius Berger.
>
> Oy vey -- I thought Mitchell *and* the guy on the spaceship were both
> Eric Mabius, and that we were going to find out Mitchell had a clone
> or twin who would avenge his death.
>
> Except for the beard, the two actors did look a lot alike -- or am I
> the only one who sees a resemblance.
>
You're not the only one! Until reading this I thought the same thing.
I had also been wondering how I came under the false impression that
Jamie Bamber was in this.
Dano
news:MPG.2869b0ea7...@news.individual.net...
On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:29:22 -0400, DB wrote:
> Wasn't that the guy from Ugly Betty, Eric Mabius?
Yes. His name was in the opening credits, so I was surprised when
they killed him off.
=====================================
Nope. They killed his evil twin Jamie Bamber.
I was wondering how this guy can do so many shows at once. He was supposed
to co-star in the now defunct Precinct 17.
Ken Wesson
> I was OK with Outcasts until it dawned on me that it was just a western.
Hey! So was Firefly, remember...
Bill Steele
Ken Wesson <kwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
And now that I've played back Falling Skies... Wagon Train?
Great way to make a low-budget science fiction show. It's all about the
humans and their problems, so you only need about two minutes of CGI in
two hours. And a matte painting of the ship in the distance.
Barry Margolin
Arthur Lipscomb <art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
> I had also been wondering how I came under the false impression that
> Jamie Bamber was in this.
Maybe you did it the same way I did, by reading the opening credits.
Barry Margolin
Bill Steele <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> In article <4e00d2e8$1...@news.x-privat.org>,
> Ken Wesson <kwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:18:50 -0400, Bill Steele wrote:
> >
> > > I was OK with Outcasts until it dawned on me that it was just a western.
> >
> > Hey! So was Firefly, remember...
>
> And now that I've played back Falling Skies... Wagon Train?
Wasn't ST:TOS supposed to be Wagon Train?
Professor Bubba
Barry Margolin <bar...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <ws21-16C4B5.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Bill Steele <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> > In article <4e00d2e8$1...@news.x-privat.org>,
> > Ken Wesson <kwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:18:50 -0400, Bill Steele wrote:
> > >
> > > > I was OK with Outcasts until it dawned on me that it was just a western.
> > >
> > > Hey! So was Firefly, remember...
> >
> > And now that I've played back Falling Skies... Wagon Train?
>
> Wasn't ST:TOS supposed to be Wagon Train?
It was sold as "Wagon Train to the Stars." It wasn't so much a
reference to the western genre as it was the idea that Trek would be a
class production that would attract major guest stars, as Wagon Train
did. Wagon Train was more or less an anthology series that boasted
guests who usually didn't do television, at least at that time. For
instance, Charles Laughton was in one episode, Bette Davis in another.
Bill Steele
Professor Bubba <bu...@nowhere.edu.invalid> wrote:
I didn't know that the guest star idea was part of the pitch.
Wagon Train isn't a western genre as much as a traveling anthology
genre. In those days there were really only two formats for an
adventure show. The protagonist(s) operate from a fixed base and
encounter a new situation each week (Man from U.N.C.L.E., Hawaii 5-0) or
they travel across country and come upon a new situation each week (The
Fugitive, Route 66, Hulk). (The Fugitive format is a special subset,
which includes seeking something while being chased by something else.)
Looks like Falling Skies is going to take the cross-country route with
its 200 civilians and 100 fighters, although they could just spin off
into the adventures of the small splinter group. Lower budget for
extras that way, although they lose the conflicts with the autocratic
commander and the interesting possibilities with the bandit leader. I
don't know how anyone who has been to screenwriting school could give up
on the autiocratic commander.
Mason Barge
"Just a western"? Bite your tongue!
At least half the good sci-fi/outer-space stuff I've seen is directly
attributable to the western. How about Star Wars?
Of course, the guy who really nailed this was Joss Whedon.
Mason Barge
You were laboring under a true impression. At least, IMO.
solarr
Wow, I had the exact opposite reaction. I thought "Falling Skies" was
pretty good, but I absolutely *hated* "Outcast". The only character I
even *vaguely* liked was Jamie Bamber's, and you know what happened to
him.
I typically put a show I'm interested in on Season Pass even before I
watch the first episode. That way, I will be inclined to watch
several episodes before I'm moved to delete it. For the first time in
a long time, one episode was enough. I have cast out "Outcast". ;-)
At least "Falling Skies" had John Pope. ;-)
Oh well, there's no accounting for personal tastes. Nor should there
be! ;-)
-/< /\ />-
Mason Barge
Well, that was my reaction to the sneak peeks, a day before the pilots
aired. I didn't hate Outcasts as much as you but it was admittedly pretty
bad.
I did soften a lot on Falling Skies. There were moments so stupid I was
ready to scream, but there was a lot of fun, too.
Ken Wesson
> Wagon Train isn't a western genre as much as a traveling anthology
> genre. In those days there were really only two formats for an
> adventure show.
Are there really any more now? Consider the recent big sci-fi shows:
> The protagonist(s) operate from a fixed base and encounter a new
> situation each week
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Babylon 5
Stargate SG-1
Stargate Atlantis
> or they travel ... and come upon a new situation each week
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Voyager
(Star Trek:) Enterprise
B5: Crusade
Stargate Universe
What's interesting to note is that B5 and Stargate do the first one well
and the second badly (Crusade being a notorious failure, and "you can't
spell disgust without SGU") while Trek does the second one well and the
first at least somewhat poorly (DS9 is not particularly well liked among
trekkies while TOS and TNG are regarded as the Trek crown jewels, and so
far all of the movies have followed either the TOS or the TNG
characters). This suggests that a single franchise should probably stick
with one or the other format and not try to change things up; perhaps
because the fanbase will tend to prefer one or the other and won't follow
the franchise to a new show that uses the "wrong" format.
The first format may be the more flexible, strangely, as it tends to be
tempered with some amount of travel -- B5 frequently had episodes that
took place primarily away from the station, for example. Notably, both B5
and DS9 added a ship that was used for long range missions/adventures
partway through (in B5, the first White Star to show up; DS9's crew got
the Defiant) and Stargate SG-1 likewise added the X-303 Prometheus and
its X-304 descendants in a later season.
Another thing worth noting is that the strongest shows and the strongest
individual seasons seem to involve an "arc threat" in every single case,
whether the stories were mostly episodic or not. TOS had the Klingons and
TNG and Voyager the Borg as recurring uberthreats that tended to
correlate with which episodes were stronger; the non-Star Trek franchises
took this much further when they were successful, as follows:
* B5's first four seasons are generally regarded as very strong, and the
fifth as weaker. B5's first four seasons and especially the middle
three have the Shadow War.
* Stargate: SG-1 had first Apophis, then Anubis, and then the Ori as arc
threats and had these mentioned, if not actually present, frequently
throughout the applicable seasons. Not a single season LACKED an arc
threat. The series as a whole cannot be considered anything other than
a resounding success.
* Atlantis had the Wraith throughout. Both SG series had the recurring
serious threat of Replicators of some stripe.
* SGU's first season lacked a coherent, identifiable "arc threat" other
than internal disagreement and shortages of supplies and expertise of
various types. There was no strong outside enemy. SGU's second season,
particularly in its second half, had such: the drone ships. Everyone
says they thought SGU got vastly better in the second season, and
particularly later in the second season; but it was too little, too
late.
Many other shows (not all sci-fi) follow a similar pattern: 24 had the
terrorist-of-the-season, Heroes had a supervillain-of-the-season, CSI
generally has a serial-killer-of-the-season. The most successful dramas I
can think of that lack such are generally far from being "adventure"
shows, even further than the CSIs, for example the Law and Order
franchise.
Another common factor in adventure story success seems to be a team that
gels and works well together. Such a team is present in Stargate SG-1 and
SGA but not in SGU until later into the second season, and such a team is
generally present in the various Star Treks. B5's senior officers plus
Delenn and arguably G'Kar form one as well, though Londo is more of a
wild card ala DS9's Quark (in superficial ways, at any rate). This also
emerges as a difference between the original Star Wars trilogy (well-
received) and the prequels (poorly). The original has a tight-knit group
of ragtag heroes in Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, and C3PO, but the
prequels don't, really, instead having a single consistent good-guy
swashbuckler (Obi-Wan) surrounded by others whose roles and allegiances
and even presence vs. absence are more unstable. Padme toggles between
"housewife" and adventure-girl, Anakin goes from kid to moody teen to
Darth Vader, the droids are much less consistently present, and there's
no Han-analogue to speak of; and the less said about Jar-Jar, the better.
The team can be rag-tag as in SW or professionals as in Trek, or include
a "native guide", a civilian, or even a rogue with the professionals
(Voyager had Kes and Neelix, later Seven of Nine, also the Maquis crew
members initially not fitting in as regular military officers; SG-1 had
Teal'c as "native guide" and civilian Daniel, later adding rogue Vala for
the trifecta; Atlantis had "native guide" Ronon; B5 had the regular
military but also the various major-race ambassadors as main characters).
A final factor seems to be the presence of comic relief, without
overdosing on it. Stargate had a certain jaded self-awareness regarding
common SF/action tropes, for instance (and later it had Vala Mal Doran),
while original Trek had its tribble episode and later series tended to
have someone whose quirks occasionally created humor -- Data, Quark,
Neelix, Phlox, even Seven of Nine. Spock and McCoy sparring also seems to
qualify sometimes. B5 seemed to derive humor in three ways: putting Londo
in sillier situations or exploiting his rivalry with G'Kar (mainly
earlier seasons, before things got more serious around him), putting
Ivanova in uncomfortable situations (usually involving sexual innuendos),
and lighter moments involving Garibaldi. SGU, notably, failed in this
area pretty consistently even in the higher-quality second season.
Returning to the original matter of stay-put-vs.-travel, it's not clear
that either offers an overall advantage on any of these points. Staying
put may create the greater potential for "brick jokes" and for some types
of occasionally-recurring humor, but makes more sense with a pro team
rather than a ragtag bunch most times, and a pro team has less
opportunity for humor of certain types. The team's cohesiveness is not
very dependent on which format.
Stay-put may offer the greater potential for an "arc threat", though
travel can manage it if the characters have to pass through various
hostile territories as they go -- Voyager clearly attempted this with the
Kazon followed by the Borg as threats, and may have intended to have an
extended period, perhaps a full season, in Krenim space originally for
the "year of hell" rather than just a two-parter with a reset-button
ending, and SGU may have had a similar plan.
> (The Fugitive format is a special subset, which includes seeking
> something while being chased by something else.)
The Quest, you might call this. This has turned up elsewhere, of course
-- the first SW film, for instance, with the Death Star plans as the
McGuffin and the Empire as the enemy. SG-1 had this in the later seasons
with the Sangraal and the Ori; and we can't exclude LOTR with the Ring
and the various evil forces of Sauron. Every single Indiana Jones movie
is of this nature, also.
A variation on that is a journey to a distant destination, with some sort
of bad guys around chasing you. BSG obviously does this with Earth as the
destination and Cylons as the bad guys. Star Trek: Voyager had the bad
guys vary in both their identity and their dedication to specifically
hunting Voyager as a goal, but the Kazon were particularly enamored of
trying to capture Voyager in the early seasons. SGU seemed to be planning
to have bad-guys-of-the-season chase the Destiny and cause it trouble.
All three, interestingly, had Earth as the goal, though only the latter
two had "get BACK to Earth" as the goal.
This obviously tends to work best as a subbranch of the "traveling"
format, but SG1's Sangraal/Ori arc shows that it *can* be done within the
"fixed base" format, in the varied form where you're not so much being
chased by the bad guys as questing after the same McGuffin and possibly
being chased by them when outside of the heavily-defended home base. (In
SG1's case, the Ori didn't dare directly attack Earth because of the
Antarctic chair weapon, but felt free to pursue, harass, and threaten SG
teams offworld.)
Oh, one more thing. A charismatically evil "face" for the bad guy side
seems to be desirable in the "arc threat", as representative or
especially as their leader or main enforcer. The following worked well:
Darth Vader
Ba'al, Anubis, Repli-Carter, Adria
Morden
Single supervillains with characteristic powers
The Borg Queen may have been an attempt to retrofit the Borg with such a
face (after Locutus wound up being a one-shot deal) but doesn't seem to
have fared as well, possibly due to being a retcon.
The following definitely don't work quite as well with arc threats:
* Ever-changing main baddies (besides Palpatine) in the SW prequels
(Darth Maul, then Dooku, then Grievous? Stick with one iconic baddie
like Vader and you might have done better, Lucas.)
* Faceless replicating bug-machines (SG-1, before Fifth and Oberoth).
An ominously faceless and amorphous enemy works better as a one-off than
as an ongoing season-arc threat (e.g. the Borg as initially
encountered). But it can sometimes work (SGU season 2 drone ships).
* Too many simultaneous supervillains (the third Spider-Man film suffered
from this; if you're going to have more than one main threat per season
still mostly have only one per episode, except when you really want to
exploit monster infighting for the win, as with SG-1 "Reckoning" --
funny that Replicators were present for the downfalls of both Apophis
and Anubis).
* A distant enemy leader that's mainly off-screen rather than out in front
leading the troops doesn't serve for this purpose. (The Doci;
Palpatine; the Borg Queen in episodes with Borg but without her.)
Nor does an interchangeable group of frontline generals (non-Adria
Priors; non-Grievous battle droids; drones and replicators of any kind;
not even bigger-than-normal bloated-spider replicators and Super Battle
Droids).
* Changing the bad guys' "rules" to add some sort of non-faceless leader
can work, but usually isn't that well received (worked: the "human form
replicators" and their leaders, and Locutus; more questionable: the
Borg Queen; did not work very well: the Terminator-Replicator from Ark
of Truth).
The best formula to follow is to EITHER give the bad guys a Queen/Emperor
that is mainly absent, and present if at all only for the most major
confrontations, and a front-line super-general like Adria or Darth Vader
that is iconic or charismatic in some way, OR keep the bad guys an
ominously mysterious cipher, a faceless horde of some sort. Don't change
from one to the other midstream. The faceless horde is the riskier
option, but it can work (LOTR has a distant baddie leader in Sauron but
the front-line generals and troops are essentially a horde; SGU's drone
ships; the Borg in Q Who) as well as fail (non-human-form replicators).
The horde has to seem menacing for it to work, and the more so because
their values/behavior/leadership structure is alien. Purple mechanical
bugs just don't seem as menacing as orcs, swarms of flying saucers
spitting weapons fire, or Borg drones with huge hive-ships, no matter how
many of them there are or how fast they reproduce. ID4 actually managed
to do a better job with a hive of interchangeable baddies -- badass ships
+ tentacles > kitten-sized purple bugs. Oh, and hissing, growling, and
blowing things up beats little clattery clanking noises, too. So does a
thousand voices saying in unison that resistance is futile.
The final lesson here is: If you really have kitten-sized bugs, make them
hissing *biological* spider-looking ones with scary red and black and
orange colors that scream "DANGER: POISON!" and reproduce like the thing
in Alien, and show a scary group intelligence when there are enough of
them, cutting power and opening doors and stuff rather than being really
*stupid*.
And if the heroes won't come to them, because the format is "go on
adventures from a base of operations" rather than "starship Enterprise",
give them f*$!ing ships. Cool ships. Badass ships. With lasers and stuff.
'Nuff said. :)
Bill Steele
wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:51:56 -0400, Bill Steele wrote:
A lot more detail than I wanted to get into, but yes, all the way.
And what we're discussing is far from new. Lots of old sagas have a
traveling team (The Argonauts) or a series of tales with a local base
(Knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood). The latter usually have
menace arcs (Modred, Sheriff).
And these descriptions fit a lot of the old Saturday matinee serials,
that often had a mysterious evil mastermind sending out henchmen each
week and finally showing up at the end. And Buffy had one per season.
One thing that's changed in television is that the sagas run a lot
longer, as they try to get up to 100 episodes for syndication.
We could list as a variation the recurring villains who show up every so
often but don't really have an arc. Batman and Dr. Who come to mind.
webman6
"Bill Steele" <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:ws21-73E39E.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
OP clipped for maximum brevity ---
Actually, the cast of DS9 was uncerimoniously informed by Paramount that
there were no plans for a movie for them because Paramount was locked into a
multi-movie deal surrounding the cast of TOS and TNG. Needless to say, the
principal cast members of DS9 were not pleased. This question frequently
comes up at Star Trek conventions.
DS9 is very well liked by Star Trek fans who appreciate character and story
development over action and special effects. Not that DS9 was lacking in
either.
Professor Bubba
<web...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> DS9 is very well liked by Star Trek fans who appreciate character and story
> development over action and special effects. Not that DS9 was lacking in
> either.
Nana Visitor has referred to DS9 as "the unloved middle child." It was
my favorite Trek series of the post-Classic era, and to me was much
more interesting than any of the others.
erilar
Professor Bubba <bu...@nowhere.edu.invalid> wrote:
I always enjoyed it. It was a nice change of pace with a space station
rather than a moving ship as vehicle for the series. I liked many of
the characters, too.
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist
Ken Wesson
> A lot more detail than I wanted to get into, but yes, all the way.
>
> And what we're discussing is far from new. Lots of old sagas have a
> traveling team (The Argonauts) or a series of tales with a local base
> (Knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood). The latter usually have
> menace arcs (Modred, Sheriff).
So, a thousands-of-years-old pattern then.
> And these descriptions fit a lot of the old Saturday matinee serials,
> that often had a mysterious evil mastermind sending out henchmen each
> week and finally showing up at the end.
Never saw those. Before my time.
> And Buffy had one per season.
Much like 24, or Heroes, or (apparently this was the plan anyway) SGU.
Others avoid it though, particularly travelers; Dr. Who doesn't have a
season of Daleks, then a season of Cybermen, then a season with a
nefarious plot by the Wire, then ... but rather mixes many things (plus
ad-hoc/new enemies) per season. So did TNG: no season of Romulans, then
of Klingon politics (ugh!), then of Borg ...
On the other hand, not all the stay puts do per-season arcs; B5's Shadow
War ran longer. Nor do all travelers avoid arcs: Enterprise season 4 had
several short (three-to-four-episode) ones, and I've already mentioned
SGU.
> One thing that's changed in television is that the sagas run a lot
> longer, as they try to get up to 100 episodes for syndication.
Which can cause trouble if you don't do per-season arcs, aren't episodic,
and your whole-show arc doesn't have enough story material. Then you can
end up with filler episode syndrome (Lost seasons 2-3, anyone?). A longer
arc made of shorter arcs can work, though; both Lost and Fringe seem to
have used such an approach, and Fringe with some success so far at
avoiding Lost's well-known problems:
Lost season 1: crash aftermath, finding there's someone else on the
island, finding the first few mysteries and the hatch, mostly trying to
survive.
Lost season 2: trying to get into the hatch and finding and joining up
with the tailies; the first signs of the Others.
Lost season 3: fighting the Others, keeping the hatch from blowing up.
Lost season 4: Widmore's ship and mercenaries, first signs of time travel
weirdness.
Lost season 5: "We have to go back!" and time-jumping.
Lost season 6: Gathering all forces for the final battles between Others
and Widmore, and Jacob's folks and MIB's.
Fringe season 1: Investigating anomalies, first signs of a pattern, ZFT
turns up as an effort to prepare to fight a predicted interdimensional
war.
Fringe season 2: The other universe becomes known to the heroes, and it
turns out Walter himself was, before removing bits of his own brain,
involved in the ZFT/preparations stuff. There are shapeshifting agents of
the Other Side here and various attempted incursions to fight.
Fringe season 3: Characters on both sides escalate the fight as a
doomsday device is built on each side. Characters on each side infiltrate
or are stuck on the other. Later in the season the focus is on stopping
the doomsday device.
Fringe season 4: ???
Fringe also shows character focus shifts: on Olivia in season 1, on
Walter in season 2, and on Peter in season 3. There are also long-range
payoffs; the ZFT telekinetically-defusable bomb thing from the first
season that was for Olivia to become prepared to fight the
interdimensional war does in fact prepare her to disarm Walternate's
doomsday machine late in season 3.
> We could list as a variation the recurring villains who show up every so
> often but don't really have an arc. Batman and Dr. Who come to mind.
Most threats in most shows lack arcs. Most CSI and nearly all L&O
villains are one-offs, though CSI has the serial killer of the season in
a few episodes, commonly more sparse early and clustering later in the
season and in the finale, and CSI:Miami and CSI:NY have had recurring
gangs and sometimes individual recurring villains in those gangs. L&O:CI
broke the usual L&O mold by having a multi-season, sporadic arc villain
in Nicole Wallace. Star Trek's various baddies range from one-offs to
recurrings without a particular arc progression, for the most part,
though Janeway has an escalating series of skirmishes with the Borg Queen
in later seasons of Voyager. Dr. Who has recurring villains with no
structured arcs as well as one-offs, as you noted earlier.
Even B5, the generally acknowledged king of arcs, had one-offs (the
aliens in the lower decks episode; the berserker probe; the alien-
guardian heart thingy in Infection in the very first few episodes; etc.)
and recurring villains without strong arcs (the raiders with the
triangular vessels, at least).