Foreshadowing
MEBarack
Kathy
Thanks for enlightening me on the change in the Highlander writers after the
first episodes. I love learning about that inside stuff. I guess it's a
measure of our obsession that we read in things that were not intended. So I
will chalk up the happy cooincidence to serendipity.
Embebe
Maggie
I suspect it's more that once something is out there it sparks a later
idea. So tattoos was an offhand remark as Duncan and Richie went into
the coffee shop in Steveston (or wherever they were in the boonies).
Then later when the creators are hatching the Watchers, tattoos come to
mind. Themes and images in a series, I think, are less often
foreshadowings of later ones and more often reminiscent of earlier ones.
I did think in The Gathering that RR was being set up for immortality,
and in Family Tree I was sure of it. Then when there wasn't evidence of
it for a long time, I thought I had read too much into it.
I haven't seen anything to indicate whether Prophecy was foreshadowing
AAA or whether they just used the prophesy in ArcA since they already
had it. That's one I'm curious about. When I was watching ArcA, the
Avatar prophesy seemed to explain why the danger in the earlier episode
had seemed so weenie compared to the build up. It was intriguing to
think that Cassandra might have misread the prophecy. Anybody know when
the writers planned AAA?
Maggie
Morey, Kathy M wrote:
>
> MEBarack wrote:
> >
> > My already healthy respect for the writers has notched up as I see the USA
> > repeats (again) from the beginning. Has anyone else picked up on the
> > foreshadowing of the watchers arc? In the Gathering, Conner says Richie is
> > going to need looking after and Duncan says he'll "watch" him. Then in last
> > night's eppie about Leo the innocent Vietnam vet, Richie asks how the
> > immortals can recognize each other. Duncan's answer: "A tatoo."
> >
> > Embebe
> >
>
> I think you may be reading too much into these. As I understand it, the
> writers during the first few eps of the first season were not the same
> ones as those we've come to love (David A, David T, Gillian H, and Donna
> L) so I doubt those moments from the very beginning of the series were
> _meant_ as foreshadows of anything.
>
> To paraphrase something AP was quoted as saying, sometimes we find more
> than they actually put in there. (Anyone remember the exact quote?)
>
> Kathy
>
> Limerick Construction Zone
> Hard Hat Required
> Watch This Space
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Robert Schechter
Maggie wrote:
>
> I suspect it's more that once something is out there it sparks a later
> idea. So tattoos was an offhand remark as Duncan and Richie went into
> the coffee shop in Steveston (or wherever they were in the boonies).
> Then later when the creators are hatching the Watchers, tattoos come to
> mind. Themes and images in a series, I think, are less often
> foreshadowings of later ones and more often reminiscent of earlier ones.
Wasn't the boonies; it was the sticks, right before the boonies.
> I did think in The Gathering that RR was being set up for immortality,
> and in Family Tree I was sure of it. Then when there wasn't evidence of
> it for a long time, I thought I had read too much into it.
I saw it throughout Season 1, over and over; I was sure of it, and this
was, yes, before I knew or had seen season two. The first two eps, of
course. I may have been anticipating the explanation, but I *knew* that
some sort of pre-immie buzz was necessary and would turn up sooner or
later, because of two other events: the fact that Richie couldn't sneak
up on Duncan in Revenge is Sweet, and because of the way Duncan went
looking for Richie in The Sea Witch. Driving aimlessly around Richie's
old neighborhood is not a good way to find a teen who knows the
territory; but it was one of DM's standard ways of finding other
immortals. There were others, lots. (add to list: Richie pre-immie
indications) But the absolute clincher came in The Hunters, when DM,
almost frantic, having realized that mortals are killing immortals, and
he doesn't know how they know about them, rushes into the barge, asking
Tessa with real fear in his voice, "Where's Richie?" The question had
no real point at that time unless he believed that Richie might be in
danger. And when she tells him, DM runs out to find him, leaving Tessa
alone. When that happened, I absolutely *knew* that 1) Richie was a
pre-immie, and 2) there had to be some way to identify them.
> I haven't seen anything to indicate whether Prophecy was foreshadowing
> AAA or whether they just used the prophesy in ArcA since they already
> had it. That's one I'm curious about. When I was watching ArcA, the
> Avatar prophesy seemed to explain why the danger in the earlier episode
> had seemed so weenie compared to the build up. It was intriguing to
> think that Cassandra might have misread the prophecy. Anybody know when
> the writers planned AAA?
If you find out, please let me know. I have been asking anybody who
might know anything to let me know, particularly when DA knew--not just
that Richie would die (although I'd like to know that, too), but that DM
would take on this mythical task.
Now. That quote of AP's. I don't have it exact, either (it's
somewhere, but we're close enough). He's right and he's wrong. It's a
good quote, and it sounds smooth, but there's more to it all than that.
So, he said that sometimes we get more out of it than they put in. (I
visualize that in a print article; anybody remember?)
Anybody who writes for or is involved with the dramatic media is part of
a tradition that goes back way past Shakespeare. It is a theatrical
world of its own, with its own language, its own imagery, and its own
visual/verbal shorthand. (Aside: to those of us who do ST, go back to
the wonderful TNG episode "Darmok." That's the kind of thing I'm talking
about.) There is a sort of theatrical synecdoche that allows drama to
transcend the limits of realtime and the need for detailed backstory.
All the audience needs is a knowledge of the referents, and it can fill
in the blanks and a story can be told in the time available. And it all
intertwines as the stories weave themselves around each other.
If one character refers to another as a "Romeo," we have an image
brought to mind quite different from the character in the play, who was
a naive young man, full of enthusiasm and first love. The word has been
overlaid with a shade of "seducer," here, and a shade of "habitual
and/or skilled lover," there, that weren't put there by Shakespeare.
These meanings have grown out of the traditions of the role, the actors
who have played the part, the need for the shorthand characterization to
apply to other characters in other plays. I'm not going to continue
with this, because, well, you could write a book, but I'm not going to.
If something is there it is there, whether it was put there
intentionally or not. (Kathy, as Chief Nuance Noticer, is well aware of
this.)
People go back and analyze older literature in Freudian (or--sheesh!--
Jungian) terms; are these analyses invalid because the original author
never heard of Freud? (Yeah. Some are. But not all.) Anybody who
undertakes criticism of a dramatic/literary/artistic work needs to be
extremely careful that he is not projecting his own hopes/psychological
needs/wishful thinking onto the work in question. But any author of
fiction puts more into the work that appears on the surface; sometimes
he puts more in than he himself is aware of.
A show like HL has a _shape_, and the writing is produced under time
constraints for the writing, and time constraints about what is shown;
unlike a novel that can take years to write, years to edit, and be as
long as one pleases. If the story conforms to the _shape_ of HL, and
tells a decent HL story, it is *there*, and sometimes, in creating the
proper shape, more is put in than they think they are putting in. And
while I've talked about the writers, the identical thing is done by the
actors, for practicing their craft also requires the same layering
ability. Sometimes the layers happen, without writer or actor or editor
or anybody being aware of their creation, but with the result being
easily visible. The whole greater than the sum of the parts--something
of that sort.
Eleanor
claire
Gee. Great Post Eleanor! (I apologize to the group for a public airing of
a private joke.)
Eleanor Schechter wrote:
> Maggie wrote:
> >
> > I suspect it's more that once something is out there it sparks a later
> > idea. So tattoos was an offhand remark as Duncan and Richie went into
> > the coffee shop in Steveston (or wherever they were in the boonies).
> > Then later when the creators are hatching the Watchers, tattoos come to
> > mind. Themes and images in a series, I think, are less often
> > foreshadowings of later ones and more often reminiscent of earlier
ones.
>
> Wasn't the boonies; it was the sticks, right before the boonies.
Snerk! Never feed Eleanor a straight line. That one is right out of the
script.
> > I did think in The Gathering that RR was being set up for immortality,
> > and in Family Tree I was sure of it. Then when there wasn't evidence of
> > it for a long time, I thought I had read too much into it.
>
> I saw it throughout Season 1, over and over; I was sure of it, and this
> was, yes, before I knew or had seen season two. The first two eps, of
> course. I may have been anticipating the explanation, but I *knew* that
> some sort of pre-immie buzz was necessary and would turn up sooner or
> later, because of two other events: the fact that Richie couldn't sneak
> up on Duncan in Revenge is Sweet, and because of the way Duncan went
> looking for Richie in The Sea Witch. Driving aimlessly around Richie's
> old neighborhood is not a good way to find a teen who knows the
> territory; but it was one of DM's standard ways of finding other
> immortals. There were others, lots. (add to list: Richie pre-immie
> indications) But the absolute clincher came in The Hunters, when DM,
> almost frantic, having realized that mortals are killing immortals, and
> he doesn't know how they know about them, rushes into the barge, asking
> Tessa with real fear in his voice, "Where's Richie?" The question had
> no real point at that time unless he believed that Richie might be in
> danger. And when she tells him, DM runs out to find him, leaving Tessa
> alone. When that happened, I absolutely *knew* that 1) Richie was a
> pre-immie, and 2) there had to be some way to identify them.
Oh! Yes! But there's more stuff than that. Why would DM take in a punk
who tried to break into his store? Why would Connor tell DM to "keep an
eye on that one"? Why did Felicia zero in on Richie in Free Fall? And why
was Duncan so concerned about them being alone together? More concerned
even, than he was with Tessa being alone with Richie. And also in Free
Fall, there's that line where Richie says to Tessa, "But I have time on
my side. Unlike you." The writers were dropping hints.
> > I haven't seen anything to indicate whether Prophecy was foreshadowing
> > AAA or whether they just used the prophesy in ArcA since they already
> > had it. That's one I'm curious about. When I was watching ArcA, the
> > Avatar prophesy seemed to explain why the danger in the earlier episode
> > had seemed so weenie compared to the build up. It was intriguing to
> > think that Cassandra might have misread the prophecy. Anybody know when
> > the writers planned AAA?
>
> If you find out, please let me know. I have been asking anybody who
> might know anything to let me know, particularly when DA knew--not just
> that Richie would die (although I'd like to know that, too), but that DM
> would take on this mythical task.
I'd like to know the answer to this too. I think certainly by FUOT, which
was too much of a bridge piece to be coincidental, but I wonder if they
knew all the way in 3rd season in "Methos" when the ROG tells Duncan he is
"Too Important to Lose." Did the ROG know? Is that why he's been
protecting Duncan? Never can be too sure of anything where the ROG is
concerned.
> Now. That quote of AP's. I don't have it exact, either (it's
> somewhere, but we're close enough). He's right and he's wrong. It's a
> good quote, and it sounds smooth, but there's more to it all than that.
> So, he said that sometimes we get more out of it than they put in. (I
> visualize that in a print article; anybody remember?)
Which episode are we talking about here? And in what context did AP say
this?
> Anybody who writes for or is involved with the dramatic media is part of
> a tradition that goes back way past Shakespeare. It is a theatrical
> world of its own, with its own language, its own imagery, and it's own
> visual/verbal shorthand. (Aside: to those of us who do ST, go back to
> the wonderful TNG episode "Darmok." That's the kind of thing I'm talking
> about.) There is a sort of theatrical synecodoche that allows drama to
> transcend the limits of realtime and the need for detailed backstory.
> All the audience needs is a knowledge of the referents, and it can fill
> in the blanks and a story can be told in the time available. And it all
> intertwines as the stories weave themselves around each other.
>
> If one character refers to another as a "Romeo," we have an image
> brought to mind quite different from the character in the play, who was
> a naive young man, full of enthusiasm and first love. The word has been
> overlaid with a shade of "seducer," here, and a shade of "habitual
> and/or skilled lover," there, that weren't put there by Shakespeare.
> These meanings have grown out of the traditions of the role, the actors
> who have played the part, the need for the shorthand characterization to
> apply to other characters in other plays. I'm not going to continue
> with this, because, well, you could write a book, but I'm not going to.
>
> If something is there it is there, whether it was put there
> intentionally or not. (Kathy, as Chief Nuance Noticer, is well aware of
> this.)
I also think good writing involves having a vision for the body of work as
a totality, and not just making it up as you go along. You need to know
where you are going. Why you are going there. What are the conflicts that
could keep you from reaching your destination. Writing which lacks this
sort of vision just meanders. It begins nowhere, ends nowhere, and
accomplishes nothing.
> People go back and analyze older literature in Freudian (or--sheesh!--
> Jungian) terms; are these analyses invalid because the original author
> never heard of Freud? (Yeah. Some are. But not all.) Anybody who
> undertakes criticism of a dramatic/literary/artistic work needs to be
> extremely careful that he is not projecting his own hopes/psychological
> needs/wishful thinking onto the work in question. But any author of
> fiction puts more into the work that appears on the surface; sometimes
> he puts more in than he himself is aware of.
Hmmm. I actually think ignorance of Freud and Jung would make the
symbolism of their work *more* valid, not less. The writer would be
providing symbols from their subconscious and not contriving symbols to fit
a pre-formed framework. The former is more valid to me than the latter,
but both work.
And I know from my own writing -- which is very amateurish -- that I often
don't really know what I've written until a month or so after I completed
it, and then I can go back and see a unity of form and shape which I did
not know I had put there.
> A show like HL has a _shape_, and the writing is produced under time
> constraints for the writing, and time constraints about what is shown;
> unlike a novel that can take years to write, years to edit, and be as
> long as one pleases. If the story conforms to the _shape_ of HL, and
> tells a decent HL story, it is *there*, and sometimes, in creating the
> proper shape, more is put in than they think they are putting in. And
> while I've talked about the writers, the identical thing is done by the
> actors, for practicing their craft also requires the same layering
> ability. Sometimes the layers happen, without writer or actor or editor
> or anybody being aware of their creation, but with the result being
> easily visible. The whole greater than the sum of the parts--something
> of that sort.
>
> Eleanor
Absolutely. Not to knock Hercules or Xena, but this _shape_ is what
differentiates HL from those shows. They are nothing beyond themselves.
Whereas, HL is a door which opens to something much greater. A true myth.
This is why I don't mind spin-off girls so much. True myths should grow
and mutate. Precisely because True Myths are organic.
claire 7si...@ktc.com
Maggie
Robert Schechter wrote some great sentences about artistic intention and
viewer realization:
>
> Maggie wrote:
> >
> > I suspect it's more that once something is out there it sparks a later
> > idea. So tattoos was an offhand remark as Duncan and Richie went into
> > the coffee shop in Steveston (or wherever they were in the boonies).
> > Then later when the creators are hatching the Watchers, tattoos come to
> > mind. Themes and images in a series, I think, are less often
> > foreshadowings of later ones and more often reminiscent of earlier ones.
>
> Wasn't the boonies; it was the sticks, right before the boonies.
I knew I was getting that wrong. Thanks for the correction. Great line.
snip about Richie's immortality
> I saw it throughout Season 1, over and over; I was sure of it, and this
> was, yes, before I knew or had seen season two. The first two eps, of
> course. I may have been anticipating the explanation, but I *knew* that
> some sort of pre-immie buzz was necessary and would turn up sooner or
> later, because of two other events: the fact that Richie couldn't sneak
> up on Duncan in Revenge is Sweet, and because of the way Duncan went
> looking for Richie in The Sea Witch. Driving aimlessly around Richie's
> old neighborhood is not a good way to find a teen who knows the
> territory; but it was one of DM's standard ways of finding other
> immortals.
I completely missed both of those. They used to have so many weird
scenes of DM driving around thinking. I never liked those scenes. Oh, I
should have paid attention to what the scenes were doing.
> There were others, lots. (add to list: Richie pre-immie
> indications)
It bothered me that Gregor never said anything, when he was needling
Richie to risk his life. He made that heartless crack to Tessa about her
age and was so generally destructive that I kept listening for the
ambiguous taunts about Richie's impending immortality, but I didn't pick
up anything. I watched very carefully to see Piton's reactions to Richie
in Eye of the Beholder. I was sure TPTB were playing with us when they
left the door of the armoire ajar so Piton's finding Richie wouldn't
have to depend on the pre-buzz. It threw me no end when Piton said to DM
with such surprise, <you mean, you'd challenge me over a mortal> because
Piton had no regard for mortal life at all and thought Duncan's concern
pure sentimentality. It seemed like the wrong line, and it wasn't
necessary to the plot or the dynamics. If it was meant to apply to the
models, then the editing was off. After the first fight, Piton agreed,
<All right, I won't hurt the boy.> Perhaps the original script allowed
more ambiguity in the reference for mortal?
But the absolute clincher came in The Hunters, when DM,
> almost frantic, having realized that mortals are killing immortals, and
> he doesn't know how they know about them, rushes into the barge, asking
> Tessa with real fear in his voice, "Where's Richie?" The question had
> no real point at that time unless he believed that Richie might be in
> danger. And when she tells him, DM runs out to find him, leaving Tessa
> alone. When that happened, I absolutely *knew* that 1) Richie was a
> pre-immie, and 2) there had to be some way to identify them.
Yes, by then, I had no question, either. In fact, when Tessa came home
and was talking about what Horton would have done if she had been
immortal, I thought the plot was going to be Richie's first death. I
thought the hunters would pick him up and kill him and he'd wake up and
have to deal with them while discovering that he was immortal.
snip
> Anybody who writes for or is involved with the dramatic media is part of
> a tradition that goes back way past Shakespeare. It is a theatrical
> world of its own, with its own language, its own imagery, and its own
> visual/verbal shorthand. (Aside: to those of us who do ST, go back to
> the wonderful TNG episode "Darmok." That's the kind of thing I'm talking
> about.) There is a sort of theatrical synecdoche that allows drama to
> transcend the limits of realtime and the need for detailed backstory.
> All the audience needs is a knowledge of the referents, and it can fill
> in the blanks and a story can be told in the time available. And it all
> intertwines as the stories weave themselves around each other.
> If one character refers to another as a "Romeo," we have an image
> brought to mind quite different from the character in the play, who was
> a naive young man, full of enthusiasm and first love. The word has been
> overlaid with a shade of "seducer," here, and a shade of "habitual
> and/or skilled lover," there, that weren't put there by Shakespeare.
> These meanings have grown out of the traditions of the role, the actors
> who have played the part, the need for the shorthand characterization to
> apply to other characters in other plays. I'm not going to continue
> with this, because, well, you could write a book, but I'm not going to.
> If something is there it is there, whether it was put there
> intentionally or not. (Kathy, as Chief Nuance Noticer, is well aware of
> this.)
And this keeps shifting. So sometimes sucking on a raspberry popsicle,
as I'm doing now, is funny for one reason and sometimes funny for
another reason and sometimes it's not funny at all.
> People go back and analyze older literature in Freudian (or--sheesh!--
> Jungian) terms; are these analyses invalid because the original author
> never heard of Freud? (Yeah. Some are. But not all.) Anybody who
> undertakes criticism of a dramatic/literary/artistic work needs to be
> extremely careful that he is not projecting his own hopes/psychological
> needs/wishful thinking onto the work in question. But any author of
> fiction puts more into the work that appears on the surface; sometimes
> he puts more in than he himself is aware of.
Great description of the fact that a work of art has a life of its own.
The author/creator doesn't think of all the implications in the
creation, some of which he or she will recognize when pointed out and
some of which he or she will reject. The creator presents it, but then
it goes into the world and interacts with people on its own. When a work
goes into a time or place beyond its birth, it is inevitably read
differently. We Americans have been informed that a moss-green Range
Rover will be seen differently in Europe than in the US. In D.H.
Lawrence, the sheer fact that a young man and woman spend time alone
overnight is infused with sexual tension in consequences. Without a
teacher or critic to tell us that, the reader today is likely to think
more happened. To get the same effect today, the characters have to have
intercourse. Impressionist painting upset viewers when it was new; now
we think of it as pretty and safe. Context makes all the difference.
> A show like HL has a _shape_, and the writing is produced under time
> constraints for the writing, and time constraints about what is shown;
> unlike a novel that can take years to write, years to edit, and be as
> long as one pleases.
I find myself thinking about Dickens and Richardson a lot. Episodic TV
may be a lot like the early English novels that were produced episode by
episode in magazines. When the story was popular, the episodes got
strung out to milk the sales. Richardson's will-she-or-won't-she plots
are alive today in interminable soap operas. Even the abridged version
of his Clarissa available today is over 1500 pages long. If a character
was popular with the readers, there were more chapters with that
character.
You mentioned The Bear earlier, I think. I'm thinking of its three or
four (more?) versions. One was a Saturday Evening Post hunting adventure
story. Faulkner kept playing with the ending, though, and the shape.
Then he produced the novella version with the long part 3 (I think it is
part 3; the memory is hazy) with - I'll bet - your long sentence. That
one has his wonderful, confused, and fascinating thoughts about whether
land can be owned, what we owe what we kill, and so forth.
Part of the fun of the open-ended episodes of a long-running series is
that we do get to know the shape of the episodes, the shape of a season,
and the shape of the relationships. Someone complained about Double
Jeopardy, which was relocated to season 5, and speculated that it would
work better if replaced in season 4, where it was originally produced.
And these shapes resonate against other stories in the culture, part of
which includes other TV.
>If the story conforms to the _shape_ of HL, and
> tells a decent HL story, it is *there*, and sometimes, in creating the
> proper shape, more is put in than they think they are putting in. And
> while I've talked about the writers, the identical thing is done by the
> actors, for practicing their craft also requires the same layering
> ability. Sometimes the layers happen, without writer or actor or editor
> or anybody being aware of their creation, but with the result being
> easily visible. The whole greater than the sum of the parts--something
> of that sort.
>
> Eleanor
It seems that viewers who are most unhappy with the current Highlander
were responding to the _shape_ of the series as adventure. Those who are
most intrigued with the current stuff may be responding to the _shape_
of the series as fantasy and myth. I think both those shapes are there.
Very thought-provoking. Thank you.
Maggie
Maggie
claire wrote:
>
> Gee. Great Post Eleanor! (I apologize to the group for a public airing of
> a private joke.)
>
> Eleanor Schechter wrote:
> > Maggie wrote:
> > >
> > > I suspect it's more that once something is out there it sparks a later
> > > idea. So tattoos was an offhand remark as Duncan and Richie went into
> > > the coffee shop in Steveston (or wherever they were in the boonies).
snip
> > Wasn't the boonies; it was the sticks, right before the boonies.
>
> Snerk! Never feed Eleanor a straight line. That one is right out of the
> script.
snip
> claire 7si...@ktc.com
Oh, my. Don't tell me you two actually do all your own work! I have
other tips, if you decide to change.
Smiling benevolently at the innocent,
Maggie
Jette Goldie
StevieAnn wrote in message <01bce7d5$86ed9a20$b02810d1@home>...
>
>Maggie <c...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in article
><345CB522...@mail.utexas.edu>...
>
><snipping to get to the point>
>
>: Someone complained about Double
>: Jeopardy, which was relocated to season 5, and speculated that it would
>: work better if replaced in season 4, where it was originally produced.
>:
>: Maggie
>
>Huh ? What's this about Double Jeopardy being in season 5 ? I started
>watching HLTS during the USA reruns and now I do remember that they did
>show this twice in both 4 and 5, but I thought they were just playing with
>the schedule (they seemed to want the seasons to end on a certain day of
>the week). Was this ep not shown the first time in season 4 ?
>
yes, in the UK but not in the US.
Jette Goldie (Jo's my jo!) boss...@ednet.co.uk
(Married, not Dead!)
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