The Rules and 2Shy
Chris Williams
Hi, Folks,
The Rules and 2Shy
Jeff Vlaming wrote 2Shy. It was one of his better efforts.
His most recent work was Hell Money. I, and others, slammed
that one.
2Shy was a proper X-file. 2Shy was aimed at us, the internet
crowd. And 2Shy was a valid MOTW. The sort of ep that makes
us happy.
For new readers, note this was one of my first Rules analyses.
It is briefer than most and it addresses an obsolete corollary
to Rule 1, i.e., that Mulder or Scully must be personally
threatened by a monster for it to achieve size. That became
cliche in season 3 and we saw little of it. As season 3's
monsters were often marvelous, clearly that corollary is/was
invalid. And so I jettisoned it.
Pardon the paucity of alliteration. I hadn't yet selected
a style back when this was prepared. :-)
Let's have a look.
<My Usual File Insert>
*****************************************************************
The idea in these analyses is to look for certain Rules
which a Monster Of The Week ep must follow to be good
XF material. We have some Rules we've developed and
polished and I try to map the current MOTW to them in explanation
of strengths or weaknesses in the ep. There is a vague notion of
applying the Rules as a final polishing screen to stories of this
sort. Please note, these analyses are not necessarily reviews.
The Rules are:
1. The monster has to be big. The threat must be far
reaching and deserving of our dear duo's effort. We have
two main corollaries to this theorem. 1) The threat has to be
murderous. Lesser crimes don't qualify. 2) We need high
values on the creepiness coefficient.
2. M&S need to solve, or fail to solve, the problem through
their own struggles. No gift solutions. One should not judge the
importance of this rule by its brevity.
3. Without the UFO/Conspiracy present, there is nothing to
rivet our attention on every word of dialogue in our quest for
clues. Therefore, our interest in the characters must substitute
for this and we need to have a scene revealing a new tidbit about
them.
4. Excellence requires a thematic structure. Some underlying
theme must thread throughout the ep. This is Charlotte Price's
(of Her Majesty's X-philes) contribution and her best example,
albeit not an MOTW, is the listening theme permeating Little Green
Men.
**********************************************************************
So, 2SHY:
1. Pretty big monster, I'd say. Only at the last second was Scully
threatened, but threatened she was. Mulder felt threatened in his
chase outside. Plenty creepy. Nice, high body count.
2. Poor. The computer expert did all the hard work. And,
folks, no one can crack PGP that quickly. OTOH, they physically
faced the monster on their own and rescued themselves from total
violation of this rule. On the third hand, a victim had to save
Scully. Overall, weak.
3. They blew it. More missed characterization opportunities. Scully
could have had a weight problem in undergraduate school and made a
show of empathy with the women. Mulder just very, very briefly
showed his FBI specialty in concluding the monster wasn't going to
NY, but we should have had another line or two of dialogue about
this. Our twosome was not terrific tonight. They get 0 on Rule #3.
4. Not bad, really. The theme of old contrasted with new was
essentially pervasive. The detective claiming to be old fashioned
about women assigned to women predation cases and then asking Scully
to fax her autopsy report to him. The old Italian poems on email.
The old issue of women not knowing a date is "safe" gets a new
slant from internet. Pretty good theme structure around this
contrast.
So ends my first attempt to analyze a new episode with the Rules.
Seems to work. I'd rate 2SHY as average X-Files fare and better than
average for the rest of TV. They nailed 2 of the 4 Rules. A
reasonably
good effort.
ADBB,
Chris
Karen Green
On Sun, 9 Jun 1996, Chris Williams wrote:
> Pardon the paucity of alliteration. I hadn't yet selected
> a style back when this was prepared. :-)
We'll forgive you, Chris. Only 5 strokes with an old William Safire
speech instead of 25 ("nattering nabobs of negativity," anyone?).
> 2. Poor. The computer expert did all the hard work. And,
> folks, no one can crack PGP that quickly. OTOH, they physically
> faced the monster on their own and rescued themselves from total
> violation of this rule. On the third hand, a victim had to save
> Scully. Overall, weak.
I remember this being a general chorus when the episode first aired -
"we heard Scully was supposed to kick butt in this one, and in the end she
got her ass saved by the victim!" I'm not sure I agree. Yes, Incanto
_was_ shot by poor ravaged Ellen (who, one fears, will be doing
double-time in her Building Back Self-Image seminars), but I'm not
convinced that Scully was dead meat if Ellen hadn't intervened. She still
had those scissors in her hand and, while they weren't long enough to do
the sort of Grace-Kelly-in-Dial-M-for-Murder damage they were evoking, she
still could have taken an eye out or something. I think it's wonderful
that Ellen had the opportunity to turn the predatory behavior of Incanto
back on him, but I think Scully would still have prevailed without her
shot.
And I wouldn't say the Computer Boffin did _all_ the hard work! After
all, both Scully and Mulder had to spend an entire afternoon walking
around Cleveland, interviewing academics. As a doctoral candidate, I can
assure you that that is NO happy task.
And Scully did the lab analysis, and also discovered the spongy metacarpal
(though I'm not sure what that represented: how much adipose is in the
metacarpal?). I though they were okay with investigation.
> 3. They blew it. More missed characterization opportunities. Scully
> could have had a weight problem in undergraduate school and made a
> show of empathy with the women. Mulder just very, very briefly
> showed his FBI specialty in concluding the monster wasn't going to
> NY, but we should have had another line or two of dialogue about
> this. Our twosome was not terrific tonight. They get 0 on Rule #3.
No, I thought Scully's interaction with the Old School detective was a
nice bit. And Mulder's watching her, not interfering, letting her stand
her ground. The scene in the autopsy room, after the discussion with the
detective, when the camera pulls back to show Scully lower her tensed arms
and shoulders from where she's had them propped up on the table, was a
really fine touch.
> 4. Not bad, really. The theme of old contrasted with new was
> essentially pervasive. The detective claiming to be old fashioned
> about women assigned to women predation cases and then asking Scully
> to fax her autopsy report to him. The old Italian poems on email.
> The old issue of women not knowing a date is "safe" gets a new
> slant from internet. Pretty good theme structure around this
> contrast.
I like this theme, and it wasn't one that I'd picked up on at the time.
But, as I've already mentioned off-group to Chris, the theme I saw was the
connection between Scully's run-in with innocuous sexism ("I'm not
sexist") and Incanto's predation on these insecure women: the ways in
which women can feel diminished by men (literally, in the victims' case),
whether it is malevolent or innocent. It reminded me of the PSA on sexual
harassment in which a woman is shown growing smaller and smaller as her
male boss makes leering comments. I'm not trying to be a knee-jerk
feminist (just a regular one!), or to imply that all men are exploitative
of women, or that Scully was being exploited by the detective in a way
comparable to Incanto's exploitation of his overweight victims. I think we
saw an indication of Scully's own strength, in her resolve and
determination in the face of offensive behavior, as opposed to those poor
insecure women who needed the reassurance of a man's interest in order to
feel better about themselves. Thank heavens this detective wasn't on the
job for the Donnie Pfaster murders - he would have gone to town on Our
Scully.
So where does that leave us? Big monster - check. Investigative work -
check (though I agree the codecracking was AWFULLY quick).
Characterization - half-a-check. Theme - check. Gosh, Chris, it works
for me!
And, _really_ great tears on the part of the young actress playing Jessie.
Very moving, I thought. Spunky as hell, that girl, too.
I have one final thought that occurred to me last night when I was
watching the scene in the hallway of the station when Mulder gives Scully
his theory on the "fat-sucking vampire." I know that people tend to get
_awfully_ cranky at the idea that after all she's seen, Scully still
resists Mulder's "finely-tuned insanity." Last night a reason for that
flashed in my brain. I have a bunch of friends who are artists, and what
I've noticed about them is that the way they see things is just plain
different from the way the rest of us do. We non-artists tend to grow up
with a fairly conventional draw-inside-the-lines way of seeing the world -
and the more scientific among us (I'm talking Scully, not me, lord knows)
have a more sharply-defined set of lines than the rest. But artists see
as if they're missing the filter that the rest of us view the world
through. The most extreme example of this, perhaps, is Impressionism or
Cubism, but even strictly representational artists have the same gift.
And Mulder has that gift, too. What makes him a great Violent Crimes
specialist, or a great X-Files investigator, is his ability to throw out
all established conventions and take the evidence's word at face value.
If a victim is found with all her fat sucked out and digestive enzyme all
over her, he doesn't need to find a way to fit that into a conventional
understanding of the way the world works. He just figures it's a
fat-sucking vampire. He's gone a step beyond Holmes' "If you eliminate
the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth,"
because he won't even eliminate the impossible. Scully has a firm set of
boundaries into which theories must fit, but Mulder starts with a tabula
rasa. Which is why she's always confounded by him, and why we pay lots of
money to stand in crowded museums looking at Cezanne.
I'm sorry if this was already painfully obvious to everyone else, but I'd
never really articulated for myself why it had never bothered me that
Scully is still a skeptic. And now I'm ever so much happier. It fits in
my lines, now, you see.
Karen
Bennetta Schmidt
In <Pine.SUN.3.93L.96060...@namaste.cc.columbia.edu>{snip}
>
>And I wouldn't say the Computer Boffin did _all_ the hard work! After
>all, both Scully and Mulder had to spend an entire afternoon walking
>around Cleveland, interviewing academics. As a doctoral candidate, I
can
>assure you that that is NO happy task.
Hard to find a more cantankerous lot, isn't it?
>
>And Scully did the lab analysis, and also discovered the spongy
metacarpal
>(though I'm not sure what that represented: how much adipose is in the
>metacarpal?). I though they were okay with investigation.
>
>> 3. They blew it. More missed characterization opportunities.
Scully
>> could have had a weight problem in undergraduate school and made a
>> show of empathy with the women. Mulder just very, very briefly
>> showed his FBI specialty in concluding the monster wasn't going to
>> NY, but we should have had another line or two of dialogue about
>> this. Our twosome was not terrific tonight. They get 0 on Rule #3.
>
>No, I thought Scully's interaction with the Old School detective was a
>nice bit. And Mulder's watching her, not interfering, letting her
stand
>her ground. The scene in the autopsy room, after the discussion with
the
>detective, when the camera pulls back to show Scully lower her tensed
arms
>and shoulders from where she's had them propped up on the table, was a
>really fine touch.
I agree. (And, no, Al, this isn't just another me too post!) But
probably being an avowed Chauvinist, Chris missed how fine Scully's
reaction to the Detective was.
I think that part of that, too, is that we see that sexism exists at
all levels, from the innocuous to the hideous, so that it's not only
the impact of the contrast, but the implication of the whole spectrum.
Thank heavens this detective wasn't on the
>job for the Donnie Pfaster murders - he would have gone to town on Our
>Scully.
>
>So where does that leave us? Big monster - check. Investigative work
-
>check (though I agree the codecracking was AWFULLY quick).
>Characterization - half-a-check. Theme - check. Gosh, Chris, it
works
>for me!
>
>And, _really_ great tears on the part of the young actress playing
Jessie.
>Very moving, I thought. Spunky as hell, that girl, too.
I really liked Jesse!
>
>I have one final thought that occurred to me last night when I was
>watching the scene in the hallway of the station when Mulder gives
Scully
>his theory on the "fat-sucking vampire." I know that people tend to
get
>_awfully_ cranky at the idea that after all she's seen, Scully still
>resists Mulder's "finely-tuned insanity." Last night a reason for
that
>flashed in my brain. I have a bunch of friends who are artists, and
what
>I've noticed about them is that the way they see things is just plain
>different from the way the rest of us do. We non-artists tend to grow
up
>with a fairly conventional draw-inside-the-lines way of seeing the
world -
>and the more scientific among us (I'm talking Scully, not me, lord
knows)
>have a more sharply-defined set of lines than the rest.
This is the point at which I begin to have problems with Scully, and
the perception of science in general that is portrayed here. I'm not a
big fan of the view that science is a set of rigid rules. That may be
okay in medicine and physics, but not in science overall. Science is a
process more than anything else - the scientific method we hopefully
all get introduced to in school. I'd like to see Scully evaluate all
of the evidence, not just say, "It's impossible, Mulder." A good
scientist should evaluate all of the data, whether it fits their
preconceived notion or not, then go with whatever theory best fits the
evidence, however far-fetched it may sound at face value.
But artists see
>as if they're missing the filter that the rest of us view the world
>through. The most extreme example of this, perhaps, is Impressionism
or
>Cubism, but even strictly representational artists have the same gift.
A truly gifted scientist can be that way, too. They have the ability
to propose things the rest can't or won't see. Two good examples are
Galileo and Alfred Wegener. Both used evidence to propose theories
that the rigid rules said were impossible, and both were right! That's
why science as a personal religion is a real problem. Part of the
whole should be an open mind. I suppose that's why, in part, I can
relate to Mulder's wild theories.
Bennetta
Chris Williams
bls...@ix.netcom.com(Bennetta Schmidt ) wrote:
>In <Pine.SUN.3.93L.96060...@namaste.cc.columbia.edu>
>Karen Green <kl...@columbia.edu> writes:
>>
>>On Sun, 9 Jun 1996, Chris Williams wrote:
>{snip}
>>
>>And I wouldn't say the Computer Boffin did _all_ the hard work! After
>>all, both Scully and Mulder had to spend an entire afternoon walking
>>around Cleveland, interviewing academics. As a doctoral candidate, I
>can
>>assure you that that is NO happy task.
<snipola>
>I agree. (And, no, Al, this isn't just another me too post!) But
>probably being an avowed Chauvinist, Chris missed how fine Scully's
>reaction to the Detective was.
I do not think of myself as such, even if capitalized. I think of
myself as a jack-booted crusher of flowers.
:-)
Chris
Karen Green
On 10 Jun 1996, Bennetta Schmidt wrote:
> In <Pine.SUN.3.93L.96060...@namaste.cc.columbia.edu>
> Karen Green <kl...@columbia.edu> writes:
> >
> >And I wouldn't say the Computer Boffin did _all_ the hard work! After
> >all, both Scully and Mulder had to spend an entire afternoon walking
> >around Cleveland, interviewing academics. As a doctoral candidate, I
> > can assure you that that is NO happy task.
>
> Hard to find a more cantankerous lot, isn't it?
We have our moments, that's for sure!
> I agree. (And, no, Al, this isn't just another me too post!) But
> probably being an avowed Chauvinist, Chris missed how fine Scully's
> reaction to the Detective was.
Well, Bennetta, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
> I think that part of that, too, is that we see that sexism exists at
> all levels, from the innocuous to the hideous, so that it's not only
> the impact of the contrast, but the implication of the whole spectrum.
Yes, this is phrased much better than my entire post, and encapsulates my
view exactly. I know Chris thinks that this was not deliberate, but it's
certainly not an issue that has been confronted in any substantive way,
due to the level of respect to which Scully is accustomed.
> This is the point at which I begin to have problems with Scully, and
> the perception of science in general that is portrayed here. I'm not a
> big fan of the view that science is a set of rigid rules. That may be
> okay in medicine and physics, but not in science overall.
Humbly corrected, Bennetta! You're right; I'm bringing my prejudiced and
ill-informed Humanities view to bear on an area which, frankly, ahs always
mystified me. But of course, for Scully, medecine and physics _are_ her
sciences. And Scully is not, I think, a scientific genius on the level of
Einstein; her paper responded to him, but she did not, I think, present a
wholly new and utterly revolutionary way of thinking. I think Scully is
an awfully intelligent woman (yes, I'm a Scullyist and I wear the label
proudly), but I don't think she works on the level of flights of
creativity of the great scientists you've mentioned in your post. I
think, perhaps, that she might even have taken refuge in science _because_
it provided for _her_ a set of determined and determinable rules.
SOmething has happened somewhere in Scully's life to make her tamp down
her response to messy and outside-the-lines phenomena, whether they are
within or without her (I'm thinking of her masterful withdrawal during her
session with the regression therapist). SHe and Melissa represent a kind
of yin and yang of reaction to the world and its experience. We haven't
been given enough information yet as to what made Scully into this careful
and controlled a person. But I think she's a scientist, perhaps, because
she is controlled, not that she's controlled because she's a scientist.
So I shouldn't have blamed science, which _is_ and _can_ be a wonderfully
creative field, but Scully's own personality, and the reassurance _she_
seems to need from science.
Is that better, Bennetta?
Karen
Bennetta Schmidt
In <Pine.SUN.3.93L.96061...@vanakam.cc.columbia.edu>
<Pine.SUN.3.93L.96060...@namaste.cc.columbia.edu>
>> Karen Green <kl...@columbia.edu> writes:
>> >
>> >And I wouldn't say the Computer Boffin did _all_ the hard work!
After
>> >all, both Scully and Mulder had to spend an entire afternoon
walking
>> >around Cleveland, interviewing academics. As a doctoral candidate,
I
>> > can assure you that that is NO happy task.
>>
>> Hard to find a more cantankerous lot, isn't it?
>
>
>> probably being an avowed Chauvinist, Chris missed how fine Scully's
>> reaction to the Detective was.
>
It's funny, in a few posts last summer, he was complaining that he's to
old to change his ways, ect., but now I see he says he's just a
"Crusher of Flowers", whatever that means.
>
>> I think that part of that, too, is that we see that sexism exists at
>> all levels, from the innocuous to the hideous, so that it's not only
>> the impact of the contrast, but the implication of the whole
spectrum.
>
>Yes, this is phrased much better than my entire post, and encapsulates
my
>view exactly. I know Chris thinks that this was not deliberate, but
it's
>certainly not an issue that has been confronted in any substantive
way,
>due to the level of respect to which Scully is accustomed.
>
>> This is the point at which I begin to have problems with Scully, and
>> the perception of science in general that is portrayed here. I'm
not a
>> big fan of the view that science is a set of rigid rules. That may
be
>> okay in medicine and physics, but not in science overall.
>
>Humbly corrected, Bennetta! You're right; I'm bringing my prejudiced
and
>ill-informed Humanities view to bear on an area which, frankly, ahs
always
>mystified me. But of course, for Scully, medecine and physics _are_
her
>sciences. And Scully is not, I think, a scientific genius on the
level of
>Einstein; her paper responded to him, but she did not, I think,
present a
>wholly new and utterly revolutionary way of thinking. I think Scully
is
>an awfully intelligent woman (yes, I'm a Scullyist and I wear the
label
>proudly),
Oh, she's definitely very intelligent!
but I don't think she works on the level of flights of
>creativity of the great scientists you've mentioned in your post. I
>think, perhaps, that she might even have taken refuge in science
_because_
>it provided for _her_ a set of determined and determinable rules.
>SOmething has happened somewhere in Scully's life to make her tamp
down
>her response to messy and outside-the-lines phenomena, whether they
are
>within or without her (I'm thinking of her masterful withdrawal during
her
>session with the regression therapist). SHe and Melissa represent a
kind
>of yin and yang of reaction to the world and its experience. We
haven't
>been given enough information yet as to what made Scully into this
careful
>and controlled a person. But I think she's a scientist, perhaps,
because
>she is controlled, not that she's controlled because she's a
scientist.
This is very interesting, and something I don't think has been delved
into much. I'll bet the same thing caused Scully and Melissa to react
in opposite ways, too. It's like military brats and time - they are
generally either obsessively punctual or habitually (and deliberately)
late. I don't know, perhaps it does have something to do with their
father, but I can't quite put my finger on what it might be. I'll have
to give it some more thought. Good point!
>So I shouldn't have blamed science, which _is_ and _can_ be a
wonderfully
>creative field, but Scully's own personality, and the reassurance
_she_
>seems to need from science.
>
>Is that better, Bennetta?
I like it!
>
>Karen
Bennetta
Chris Williams
bls...@ix.netcom.com(Bennetta Schmidt ) wrote:
>>
>>Well, Bennetta, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
>It's funny, in a few posts last summer, he was complaining that he's to
>old to change his ways, ect., but now I see he says he's just a
>"Crusher of Flowers", whatever that means.
>>
Always have been, even back in the days of yore, when current flowed
in glowing vacuum tubes and it was Rod Serling who smoked on TV.
A jack-booted crusher of flowers (not capitalized) is one who tends to
the harsh. Think Gordon Gecko in fatigues. :-)
>>> I think that part of that, too, is that we see that sexism exists at
>>> all levels, from the innocuous to the hideous, so that it's not only
>>> the impact of the contrast, but the implication of the whole
>spectrum.
>>
>>Yes, this is phrased much better than my entire post, and encapsulates
>my
>>view exactly. I know Chris thinks that this was not deliberate, but
>it's
>>certainly not an issue that has been confronted in any substantive
>way,
>>due to the level of respect to which Scully is accustomed.
If it was not deliberate and you see it there, then the character to
analyze is probably not Scully and her upbringing, but Vlaming and
his.
>This is very interesting, and something I don't think has been delved
>into much. I'll bet the same thing caused Scully and Melissa to react
>in opposite ways, too. It's like military brats and time - they are
>generally either obsessively punctual or habitually (and deliberately)
>late. I don't know, perhaps it does have something to do with their
>father, but I can't quite put my finger on what it might be. I'll have
>to give it some more thought. Good point!
This is sort of Shanna's cue, so I won't say much here. She'll happen
along any minute now. :-)
>>
>>Is that better, Bennetta?
>I like it!
>>
>>Karen
>Bennetta
Chris
Shanna Swendson
In article <4pqk0p$f...@tiger.utw.com>, cwil...@utw.com wrote:
(quoting Bennetta)
> >This is very interesting, and something I don't think has been delved
> >into much. I'll bet the same thing caused Scully and Melissa to react
> >in opposite ways, too. It's like military brats and time - they are
> >generally either obsessively punctual or habitually (and deliberately)
> >late. I don't know, perhaps it does have something to do with their
> >father, but I can't quite put my finger on what it might be. I'll have
> >to give it some more thought. Good point!
>
> This is sort of Shanna's cue, so I won't say much here. She'll happen
> along any minute now. :-)
You weren't paying attention. The topic has been picked up and addressed
in the "Hidden among the relationship debators ..." thread.
The topic is on the table: what did cause the divergence in personal
outlooks between Scully and Melissa?
My theory: Melissa was just Melissa, possibly reacting to her strict
military upbringing. Dana, as the younger sister, was trying to be the
opposite of the older sister.
Next?
(Hee hee, we're corrupting another one of your sacred rules posts and
turning it into a TFB meeting!)
Shanna