K.W. Taylor

Available as a speaker or interview expert

2006-09-13T14:55:00.000-04:00

I was just awarded the distinction of being included in the Speculation Speakers’ Bureau of AboutSF division of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction. So, if you have need of an interview subject, speaker, or have questions related to one of my areas of expertise, I'm available.

AboutSF is affiliated with one of the most amazing academic science fiction programs in the country. I heartily recommend volunteer opportunites they have available in helping create an academic Wiki resource for teachers of SF at all school levels.

Science Bunny and Genre-Commentary

2006-08-23T09:47:00.000-04:00

I've been having entirely too much fun with both Genre-Commentary and Science Bunny as of late, thus my short story submission-a-day work has gotten behind. It'll probably get further behind, because I'm planning to do some work toward my doctorate shortly, but I think submitting creative writing as part of an application package to a university ought to count as a submission in and of itself.

The exciting thing is how diverse my work has become. Working in an editorial capacity for a web-based magazine is completely different than being the illustrating half of a webcomic creation team. Writing a romance novel is completely different than writing a scholarly essay. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have even what little free time I possess to be able to experiment with such a wide range of working styles, types, and outlets. Someone who's only read my Dayton City Paper column might be surprised to know that I once wrote an essay called "Conquer the Land and Castrate the Gunfighter: Sexual Symbolism in Literature of the American West." And someone who only knows my academic work might be shocked to read a story like "Blood Wine."

Nobody that knows me in person would ever be surprised that I've taken a keen interest in learning how to draw manga, though, because even though my Red Eye novel series is written from a male POV and has monsters and fight scenes, I remain very much the kind of girl who gets excited over cartoons of very cute people with big eyes.

I have been known to squee. A lot. Did I mention I'm well over twenty-one, and yet the squeeing does not embarrass me in the least?

But that's kind of the thing, the reason I love writing, reading, theatre, TV and film, fandom, and all forms of art and creativity: the common bond in all of these things is expression of one's innermost humanity, sillyness and foibles and all. If I find myself in a situation where I am unable to express myself somehow, that's tantamount to cutting off a limb. Being able to express all facets of one's personality is what draws so many people into writing. I wouldn't want to stop writing short non-fiction opinion pieces, just as I am literally addicted to my Wacom tablet and absolutely love drawing Science Bunny even after only two editions.

Almost no one is aware of the diversity of the work that I do, and that's fine. If I'm never able to reach one large audience, I'll be perfectly content reaching lots of small ones.

New DCP piece's online version is up! Genre-Commentary news!

2006-08-16T14:35:00.000-04:00

Wherein I decide the new fall TV season is going to be awful, even before much of anything airs: "Fear and Loathing for Fall TV."

Also, yesterday marked the launch of Genre-Commentary.com: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Cult Media for the Discerning Geek. Web portal, magazine, news, reviews, critiques, rants, and raves about speculative TV and film. Read, enjoy, and if you'd like to be a contributor for us, email me (my address is all over the site).

Some notes on grammar and writing

2006-08-10T16:34:00.000-04:00

Correct use of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and syntax on a consistent basis is something more people ought to strive to master. Certainly, such concepts are more easily employed in writing rather than speech, and certainly one must consider the intended audience for a specific message when deciding how best to convey information. Stylistically, it may be important to use unconventional spelling or rely heavily on slang in a particular medium. It is inherently important, though, to be as straightforward and correct as possible whenever composing very formal pieces. Basically, you don't want to write a résumé the same way you'd write a text message.

Even though I spent years writing excruciatingly formal term papers, I don't write like that all the time. The types of grammatical mistakes I see that bother me aren't ones stemming from casual writing. I know how to tailor my language to suit the situation. The problem arises when people are writing things that need to sound formal and fail miserably because of a combination of common errors that render the resulting material confusing or cause it to bear the appearance of haphazardness.

I've done a lot of proofreading and copy editing on everything from short fiction to term papers to magazine articles to advertisements, and I've done this on both professional and volunteer levels. One of the biggest sources of mistake-riddled copy I see is the "letters to the editor" section of newspapers. Granted, that's part of the whole point of such a section, to be an unfiltered soapbox for the average reader of a particular publication. When I see the same kinds of mistakes over and over again, mere words cannot describe how much I want to sob hysterically when reading the Op Ed pages.

Taking merely one letter written in one paper and highlighting all problems of grammar, spelling, punctuation, or awkward phrasing, I find problems in six sentences out of twenty-one. In other words, well over a quarter of that piece would require copy editing were it to be considered publishable by a professional news organization.

The symptoms themselves, in the case of the particular letter in question, are not as egregious as some I have seen. There are no spelling errors, but there are lots of problems with sentence construction. There are lots of awkward prepositions, for example, and that’s an issue that bothers me a lot lately.

I am reminded of watching a segment of an entertainment news show discussing the release of Madonna's album Confessions on a Dance Floor. The host incorrectly called the work Confessions off of a Dance Floor. Not only is that the wrong title of the album, it is grammatically clumsy.

Is it technically wrong, though? To be perfectly honest, I don't know. To my ear, it sounds weird and bad, and it makes me think that the person making the gaffe doesn't read a lot and isn't exposed to traditional grammar. When I was in junior high school, I had quite a lot of fellow students who were growing increasingly fond of stating things like, "Richard Dean Anderson plays on MacGyver." "Plays on," before about 1987, was not a phrase I ever encountered to describe the concept of an actor appearing in a particular film, television program, or theatrical production. While not particularly wrong, as an avid media critic, I take issue with the verb "plays" being used here, too; it renders the entire profession of acting a little bit dodgy, childish, and trivial. Saying that an actor "plays" a particular character doesn't exactly carry the same sense of derision, but the term "portrays" is preferable. "Plays on," however, should be avoided at all costs as sounding infantile and grossly inelegant.

Essentially, while phrasing things awkwardly may not get you demonized, it will make your writing come across as seeming slightly immature. If your goal is to reach the widest audience possible with your composition, it's best to use as close to standard phrasing as possible.

Submission results thus far

2006-08-10T06:39:00.000-04:00

As a result of the plan I outlined yesterday, I now have a flash fiction piece posted at Flashing in the Gutters. The editor there is very cool, and not just because he took my piece. I did get one rejection, but it was due to a market closure, not a rejection of my work per se.

Yeah, I actually wound up submitting five very tiny pieces yesterday to five different markets. So, technically, I'm caught up until Monday if I don't have the time to put together anything else 'til then. This is a fine position to be in, because with the closure of one of the magazines I approached, I feel the need to do a lot of research to find another outlet that's appropriate for the story I submitted to them.

I'm keeping a separate CV of publication credits, which is mostly an easy way to point editors to a résumé independent of any commentary on my writing process.

Submission-a-day plan

2006-08-09T07:26:00.000-04:00

Writers of fiction all have them: a paper or electronic file of short stories we never did anything with, either because we're ashamed, scared, or because the piece didn't seem to fit the needs of any market. As I prepared to send out my first urban fantasy novel for its second round out in the world, I happened to open up that file and take a hard look at the contents. Some of the pieces, I hadn't read since finishing them. Some of the pieces weren't even finished. And the coolest thing about some of them was that I honestly had no memory of writing them at all. It was like reading someone else's short story collection.

Like any collection, some stories were better than others. A lot of them were much, much better than I thought. So why didn't I put any of them out there before? All of the above reasons in addition to the old enemies of lack of time and energy. During some periods, it was often the simple, stupid case of not having access to a printer on a regular basis.

Excuses like these are no longer going to fly. There is a wealth of items in this folder of mine. I apparently have had the nerve to send my novel to two different publishers of not-inconsiderable merit in the industry, so why not work on bolstering my shortform credits while I twiddle my thumbs for four months waiting to see if Famous Editor Guy at SF Publisher #2 decides to send me a rejection letter or not?

In addition to yesterday's submission of the novel query package, this morning, I submitted a flash fiction piece to a contest. That's two pieces in two days. And then it hit me: I want to be a published fiction writer full-time, but what on earth am I doing to truly achieve that goal? Yes, I'm publishing critical reviews and essays, and that's doing me a great deal of good. I also happen to love doing it. Why do I have no fear about putting my non-fiction self out there? I need to have the same level of work ethic for my fiction. Having a work ethic means going to work every day. If I already have a personal backlist to sell, why am I not attempting to do so?

For the rest of this year, then, I'm going to attempt the attempt itself. I'm going to send out one piece of writing per day and see where it gets me. If on December 31, 2006, I haven't sold anything, that's not even the point. The money is definitely not the point, and getting successfully published somewhere is almost not quite the point, either. The point, gentle reader, is simply to do what any job applicant ought: apply for the damn job. You don't get a job when you don't send out résumés, and you sure as hell don't get published if you don't send your work out.

Seem obvious? Then why have I struggled with this for so long? Because we all love what's new, and that includes our own work. We want to be published for who we are now, rightthisveryminute. If you haven't the time to complete a new novel every month but only a new novel ever year, last year's novel isn't going to seem nearly as cool to send out as this year's, which makes one dream incessantly about chucking the cushy day job and writing full time. Fine and dandy -- and great if you win the lottery -- but until you've got the luxury of being able to resign and write new material 'til the cows come home, it'll be a helluva lot easier to sell something if you've got the cred to back it up. Make your own personal slush pile work for you. Somebody somewhere will bite, even the tiniest of the small presses, and then you're one step closer to having a CV that looks all the more impressive for the effort you've made.

Duh, right? Yes. Duh. I'm thirty-one years old, and it took me a decade to get to this realization. Now, pardon me while I get my envelopes and stamps in order. I have a career to get off the ground.

Two exciting endeavors!

2006-08-08T16:53:00.000-04:00

It's been a while, but that's because I've been busy getting two new projects off the ground.

1. Genre-Commentary is a new web site set to launch this month that will focus on reviews, criticism, and essays about science fiction and fantasy TV and film. I'm serving as Editor-in-Chief, with Nate Yapp of Classic-Horror acting as publisher. While we gear up to prep the site for launch, we're still accepting applications for contributors. Email me at ktaylor85@woh.rr.com for more information on submission guidelines.

2. Science Bunny is an independent comic book small press I'm putting together with fellow G-C writer Thomas Kollman. I've been working on miniseries comic book ideas for a couple of months now, and Tom and I have had webcomic strip ideas floating around in our heads ever since Comic-Con '05. After a year of threatening to get this thing off the ground, we are finally close to actually doing so.

I'm still writing for the Dayton City Paper, to whom I've just turned in a new piece. My threats/promises to post that Charmed review in here are not going to pan out, though, because that piece will be one of my first articles on the new G-C site. Once that's truly set up, I'll link to individual works of mine on there. Mostly, however, I'm very excited to be primarily acting in editorial capacities with that project.

Missed another piece...

2006-06-26T10:34:00.000-04:00

... and owing to my too-busy life at present, I failed to mention in this blog that I did have a piece about the new Doctor Who series that appeared in a May edition of the DCP.

TV season recap

2006-06-26T10:23:00.000-04:00

It's been a while, but I had a new piece in the Dayton City Paper in the June 14th issue, which covers the 2005-2006 TV season, complete with my own "awards." I had a piece about the series finale of Charmed which was to run a while back, but it didn't make it into an issue. Look for it to appear here in the coming days.

I'm going on a brief hiatus from DCP for a month or so, partly because summer is a slow time for TV reviews (and I won't get to go to Comic-Con this year to have anything to report from there), but also partly because I'm a newlywed, and my husband might wind up a widower if I added anything else to my already-full plate until later in the summer.

Expect more news on some very exciting projects I'm working on in the meantime, however, and look for the Charmed piece later in the week.

More writing news

2006-01-25T18:14:00.000-05:00

My third piece for the Dayton City Paper can be found here: an examination of new television/technology trends.

I've got something really exciting planned for my column in February, so be on the lookout!

Writing news

2005-12-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

My second piece written for the Dayton City Paper appears in the new issue to be released tomorrow. The online version can be found here, and it's on Supernatural and Night Stalker.

I'm delighted about this. My next piece should appear in a January issue.

Writing news

2005-11-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

My first article for the Dayton City Paper appeared in their online edition as of November 16, 2005. It's on Veronica Mars, and I hope to be doing more pieces for the DCP in the future.

The Fallacy of Intent and Narrow Interpretations of Artistic Meaning

2005-10-18T14:35:00.000-04:00

One of the first things I remember learning in English classes that went a little above and beyond the concepts of phonics, sentence diagramming, and “capitalize the first letter of a sentence” was to avoid falling into the trap of “the fallacy of intent.” I learned, too, that “biographical criticism is to be avoided.” While these two concepts generally go hand-in-hand, they are not precisely the same thing. The latter is merely the idea of using an artist’s own life story to interpret a piece of art he or she has created, whereas the former is a little more complicated.

“The fallacy of intent” is a mistake made by the individual doing the written or oral criticism of a piece of artwork (written, filmed, slapped onto canvas; it matters not the medium here). For the critic to say – based on evidence supplied by the artist herself or himself – that the work means “concept X” because “the artist said that was his or her intention” is not sufficient to explain the merits behind that argument. Why not? Why are the artist’s own remarks something that should be considered with a grain of salt or ignored altogether?

Presently, film critics would have a much easier go of it if they merely took the director’s comments into account when analyzing a piece, particularly if it was already available on DVD and had a commentary track on it. As viewers, we love commentary tracks, because it gives us insight into the making of a film. As critics, we ought to loathe the commentary tracks, because they are too subtly influential when it comes to analyzing the artistic integrity of a piece. Why bother looking for subtext in the work itself or studying extant empirical data on relevant concepts like psychoanalysis or human behavior to explain a character’s motivation when one has only to ask a question of a director and have it be answered? Why attempt to glean one’s own meanings, when you can go right to the source?

The reasons one cannot solely rely on the artist alone are numerous and vary slightly based on the medium. In terms of print literature, a reader has a little more leeway, especially with a work by someone very Hemingway-esque who favors a lack of adverbs. Since the reader cannot know for certain how a particular character speaks a bit of dialogue, sometimes meaning is left ambiguous. To go to the author and ask what a character meant, then, is defeating the purpose of the ambiguity of the text. If the author had wanted the reader to be able to easily tell what the character meant, would he or she not have made the passage clearer in the first place? If one has access to the author, what is the point in asking a question like that? In fact, there is an entire short story by Henry James about an author who deliberately misleads his public when asked questions of that nature ("The Figure in the Carpet") because he is frustrated that they have never picked up on the secret, hidden thematic meanings in his works.

An artist is as potentially guilty of anyone else in the world of lying, being merely “flaky,” or working in a daze and barely knowing what a work is about even at the time of its creation. That is not to say that an artist never works with intention in mind, but when asked about that intention, it is never fully reliable. Novelists, scriptwriters, and painters are all performing solitary activities in which the mind is engaged but the process of creation does not take place externally at all. It is brain plus paper, and once it leaves the brain, to attempt to record the process by which the work took shape becomes imperfect. An artist – even a totally honest one – can never completely and accurately discuss every nuance of emotion or planning he or she felt during the moments of creation. Once something is on paper, it no longer belongs to the artist but to the audience.

To then later inquire of artists what they meant is no more authoritative than to ask a viewer or reader what they think is meant. The artists cannot remember each nanosecond of creative thought they had while working. They may be able to give general remarks, but the critic purporting a particular theory should never be discouraged if artists even completely deny that particular intention is present.

Artists’ interpretations of their own creative processes are very flawed. It is akin to trying to verbalize the first time you fell in love: how on earth can you accurately and fully concretize such an ephemeral, emotional moment? You can attempt to give a cursory sketch of it, but anything that comes from a primal part of the psyche is not easily captured with words.

What is far more useful is to take the work on its own merits, to explore shades of meaning that are present in the text, and to apply academic principles of investigation to themes, structures, and concepts that a critic wants to explore. One could argue that this methodology leads to a multiplicity of theories, all of which contract each other, and none of which are given any greater or lesser merit. Would this not lead to chaos? Is there no one, defining answer as to what a work means? And is that not where one would do well to ask the author, if possible, what he or she meant?

The problem is that individuals who are used to studying the hard or pragmatic sciences that are tied into absolutes are particularly wont to apply this approach to the arts. In point of fact, however, the arts are simply not the sciences. One can use scientific means to study a work of art, but in terms of formulating a theory or answer, the same results will not be forthcoming. A single, definitive, one-size-fits-all answer to a question about a work of art is never possible. It does not matter how many times the artist may claim that a “right” or “correct” answer exists. If there is evidence to support a particular notion within a work of art, then a critic has the right to purport that theory, supply convincing supporting arguments, and have that interpretation be taken seriously, even if it runs counter to everything the artist claims to have intended.

What is meant by “convincing supporting arguments,” though? A critic must supply evidence that is credible, accurate, and applicable in order to support his or her theory about a work. It is insufficient to merely state “this character did this action because of his attachment to this other character,” for example, and leave it at that. One must explain based on evidence in the work itself – and possibly also evidence in previous, pertinent criticism or artistic or literary theory – why this current idea is valid.

For example, a student submitting a paper on E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View who states merely that “the character of George was not in love with the character of Lucy” and does not offer any textual or external theoretical evidence, summaries, or direct citations that bolster this claim has failed in his or her attempt to craft a convincing argument. That is not to say that the argument itself is flawed, even if one were to find a detailed interview with Forster himself where he says “George was in love with Lucy.” What one must do is to pick out places in the text that speak to this point, as well as previous criticism and relevant data in related fields (psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, feminist theory, etc.). If a student submits a paper with enough supportive material on a work, an instructor should not find fault with the argument itself. This is because one goal of compelling artistic criticism should be to present ideas that may not have occurred to anyone else. Ergo, there is no right or wrong answer to what a work “means,” there are only varying degrees of convincingness or dubiousness about a particular claim based on whether or not there is enough evidence for it.

In journalism – as opposed to the broader category of criticism as a whole – one is trained to deal with facts and facts alone. If something is not true, it does not belong in an article. In the case of reviewing, however, a journalist must step back and stop letting intent cloud his or her assessment of a piece. A person conditioned to listen to and apply biographical analysis of the artist to a judgment or analysis of the artist’s work is not letting the art speak for itself. To return to the example of A Room with a View, allowing biographical criticism to come into play may be a useful starting point, but it cannot be the final say on the work. Forster was historically homosexual and dealt boldly with that topic in his later novels, but nowhere in A Room with a View itself did he address that topic at all. If a critic were to bring that into play in a review of the novel, or even the film version thereof, merely on the basis of the biographical Forster’s life as a gay man, it would not only be irrelevant but potentially erroneous. It is also vaguely insulting, as if no one could ever write about something with which they do not have personal involvement. If, instead, one honestly and objectively finds evidence of homoerotic themes in the work regardless of the author’s orientation and can supply textual and theoretical supporting evidence, then the argument for its existence as a viable interpretation of the work is completely and wholly valid.

While journalism, especially a critical review, is generally less formal than an academic essay or textbook, one would still do well to employ the same argument techniques. A review purporting a certain interpretation (as opposed to a mere statement of facts or basic “quality” opinion rating based on easily measurable aspects of a work) should strive to utilize present textual evidence to support its theses and contentions.

This is the hazy area where so-called “armchair criticism” comes into play. It is so very tempting for a viewer or reader who enjoys delving into the deeper meanings of works of art to use quantitative data to create what he or she would consider to be the “last word” on meaning. What the individual who is used to scientific rather than artistic analysis is failing to take into account still remains: art is not science. Artists themselves are not infallible arbiters when it comes to the meaning of even their own works. If you want to know the answer to a question of plot or characterization in a film, book, or television show, you would do well to resist asking the director, actors, or writers.

Before all else, look to the work itself. Look at it hard and often, and look at it so carefully you can almost feel the characters breathe from the page or screen. Formulate a theory of meaning, then, and proceed to base that analysis on actual, concrete, textual evidence. Note what the characters say and do. Note the use of symbolism in color choices or descriptions of atmosphere or background music. Examine what these symbols might mean. Delve into background source material, especially when it comes to character names and what their origins are. Read criticism that has come before you, and learn about how to psychoanalyze even fictional characters. Above all, look at universal tropes and master plots, as well as the multitude of schools of thought under the umbrella of artistic criticism.

In order to bolster your arguments, opinions, hypotheses, and critical ideas, the most important thing to remember is never to take anything for granted. The first step toward doing this is to look at the work itself separate and unique from its creator. If an artist is ever offended that his or her art is able to be easily examined on its own merits without imposing the meaning of his or her personality on it, then that artist is not seeing the bigger picture. The best way for a piece to become universal is if its meanings themselves are applicable to several different readings and for the greatest number of people to be able to find something of value in it that applies to their own lives. An artist creating only autobiographical works or works with very narrow delineations of meaning are still creating important works, but they will not have the same power of endurance that something more open to interpretation will have.

Ambiguity is not something with which people are comfortable, but if we learn to stop thinking in a constricted fashion when it comes to critiquing art, we will perhaps have an even better understanding of the infinite varieties of human expression.

***
Reach media critic K.W. Taylor at xxkwtxx@yahoo.com.

Op Ed: Doctor Who

2004-12-07T13:22:00.000-05:00

Everybody Weng-Chiang Tonight: Production Values and Genre Television
by K.W. Taylor

Over the course of nearly three decades of media consumption, I developed a fun – if completely useless – skill. Within a matter of moments, I can give a reasonable estimate of the production year of nearly any film or television program based solely on the visual style. Film quality and lighting are my primary cues; it doesn’t matter if the piece in question is set in an era far in the past or the future of the actual release date. I can tell the difference almost immediately between “genuine black and white” (pre-color era) and something filmed in black and white for artistic effect – for example, Young Frankenstein and The Elephant Man look nothing like Casablanca or the original King Kong.

So it was with some measure of shock that I recently played this little game with Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Not only was my estimate of 1970 rather further off the mark than usual (it was actually produced in 1977), but this discovery slightly hindered my resulting impression of the program.

Production values do matter in a filmed medium, especially in the case of science fiction, fantasy, and horror works. Special effects can date a piece to the point where subsequent generations may only be able to see its appeal in terms of a certain “cheesiness factor.” That is not to say that low-budget works do not have merit, but something lacking in characterization and plot that attempts to squeak by on its aesthetics alone will have more difficulty standing the test of time. (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow bothered me for that very reason, being a prime instance of something beautiful but rather hollow and empty.)

The BBC’s output in the sci-fi sector from the 1970s and ‘80s is a great example of how a series can either succeed or fail to engage new audiences today. Prior to my viewing of this particular Doctor Who serial, I was never exposed to this series except for hearing how fabulous it was from friends. My sole reference points of BBC shows consisted of a great love and affinity for Red Dwarf, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy miniseries, and a handful of sitcoms. Though hardcore Doctor Who fans may castigate me as an uninformed nutcase for even attempting to critique the entire phenomenon based solely on one arc, I contend that an outsider’s point of view may shed some light on why it’s difficult to indoctrinate new viewers into the series.

The primary difference between Doctor Who and other BBC cult shows is that it endeavors to – at least for the most part – take itself seriously. Sure, there are moments of comic relief, but at the core of this arc was a defined mystery to be solved, and lots of Sherlock-Holmes-meets-scary-monster moments that were played perfectly straight by the actors. While this is hardly a crime, it does mean that the episodes will slowly lose that exact quality: they will be taken less and less seriously as time goes on.

Red Dwarf, on the other hand, never took itself seriously to begin with, and therefore any laughably antiquated production values are merely one new wrinkle in the appreciation of what is essentially a “sitcom in space.”

This is not to say that a sci-fi show can never be a drama. But if you want your work to stand the test of time, you have to bear a few things in mind, the first of which is that no matter how cutting-edge your special effects are now, something better will always come along to usurp it. This is the logic George Lucas is employing, much to the chagrin of Star Wars aficionados everywhere. However, Lucas has a certain amount of artistic chutzpah at work here: he recognizes the reality of film as a changing medium, one with new innovations available all the time, and he is adapting his works to remain current, fresh, and as appealing as possible. I’m not saying I necessarily agree with revisionism in all cases (after all, it’s pretty much accepted that Ted Turner’s grand “colorization fiasco” of the 1980s was among the worst ideas ever), but it’s understandable given the sheer amount of special effects Lucas relies upon in his films.

Part of me wouldn’t be surprised if he later decides to re-edit American Graffiti to include some kind of wacky laser tag sequence, but I digress.

The same re-imagining of Red Dwarf for a repackaged video release several years ago, by contrast, left me cold. It seemed completely without cause, given that Red Dwarf’s continued appeal was based on its decided lack of special effects. Those that were employed were rudimentary, but almost charmingly so. At its core, Red Dwarf is a situation comedy: its episodes are thirty minutes long, it’s almost entirely character-driven, and early episodes even contained a laugh track. So why smeg about with its film quality, animatronic sequences, and insist upon the insertion of shiny new explosions seemingly at random? The show isn’t about its production values; it can exist quite nicely with or without them. The fact that Red Dwarf takes place aboard a space ship is almost inconsequential, because at heart the plots are merely an excuse to explore the humor and pathos of the characters’ situations.

Doctor Who, on the other hand, does not employ such methodology. If The Talons of Weng-Chiang can be taken as a good example of a typical arc, the program is plot driven and hinges upon a mix of mystery, mythology, and action/adventure (albeit rather staid adventure and decidedly un-thrilling action). It, like the majority of BBC programs even today, employed a technique for this arc that eagle-eyed American audiences likely find distracting: that of shooting interiors on videotape and exteriors on film. American programs are almost all shot on film, regardless of where the action is being captured, although it used to be common to shoot soundstage, interior sitcoms on videotape. Even as recently as episodes of Absolutely Fabulous, British programs were still using this practice. Doctor Who's employment of it is particularly jarring due to the near-constant need to change from outdoors to indoors from scene to scene. For Patsy and Edina to take the occasional jaunt off-set and step from video to film is not a huge deal. For the Doctor and Leela to keep moving from drawing room to sewer grating, however, can get pretty annoying.

The other problems that gives Doctor Who a sense of antiquity beyond its actual age are, unsurprisingly, the special effects themselves. In the case of Weng-Chiang, nothing bothered me so much as the hypnotic eyes of Li H’Sien Chang, with their flashing, strobe-light effect that looked like it was created on a horribly jerry-rigged precursor to Video Toaster. (Although, as an ironic side note, Video Toaster couldn’t edit in PAL, which is the screen format of British broadcasting, but four years of collegiate video editing classes indoctrinated a blind, seething hatred in me for anything that looks remotely Video Toaster-esque.) The flashlight-lit eyes of the vampires on Forever Knight look positively ethereal and groundbreaking in comparison with the ridiculously over-the-top Chang hypno-eyes, and the murderous puppet monster Mr. Sin even bothered me far less. One can only imagine director David Maloney squealing with delight when his effects crew showed him the white-strobe eyes, but I would sincerely hope he realized at some point in the intervening years how cringe-worthy it looks now.

By contrast, with the dinosaur-sized bird on Red Dwarf or the sad, listing second head of Hitchhiker’s Zaphod Beeblebrox, you knew what you were getting into as viewers: even the pitiful nature of the effects were part of the comedy. And, especially with the former, the effects were not relied upon very often.

What it all boils down to is this fact: it’s quite possible to produce a well-crafted genre program without a huge budget and still have it stand the test of time, particularly so long as you don’t get seduced by the lure of cheap-thrill technojunk that will look crappy by this time next year. I would have enjoyed Doctor Who so much more without the producers trying to insert “nifty” things into it. Today’s “nifty” is tomorrow’s leg warmers and day-glo headbands, and even things that resurface in popularity tend to only do so for their kitsch factor.

I would venture to say that some pieces may very well age far more gracefully, but usually they have a little more budget to work with. Even first season episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – though they may look a little grainier than seventh season episodes – still seem like tiny movies with interesting, mysterious lighting. Ultimately, that show may only suffer in the future due to changing fashion trends, but Joss Whedon was wise to keep special effects in their proper place. While giant rampaging snake demons are cool, the CGI-generated objects were never put front and center of a shot. Careful observers will note that elements that might look even remotely shabby are left blurry, in motion, and not lingered on. The majority of the effects are make-up based ones: vampire faces were carefully applied, and demons looked so outlandish and ridiculous that the result was almost full circle back to reasonableness. If the effect is so bizarre as to bear no resemblance to anything in real life, then the audience is far better able to employ a willing suspension of disbelief.

Angel, though set in the same universe, took a completely different tactic. While there were demonic entities (Skip, the Beast, Sahjahn), the focus was so primarily centered upon the characters, and the show possessed of such an overarching noir quality, that it was hardly a supernatural series at all. Buffy could perhaps best be described as a dramedy with demons, and Angel a soap drama with prophecies.

But for sheer visual appeal, Whedon was at his very best with Firefly. No aliens to render, no monsters to create, the show was one of the most stunning science fiction programs ever designed. Surpassing even the quality of some major motion pictures, Firefly depicted gorgeous space vessels, beautiful frontier planets with sweeping skies and vistas, and believable costumes that didn’t detract from the performances of the actors. Of all genre media, I believe Firefly will be among the best able to survive over time.

I would like to think the same of Farscape as well, but I fear the pop culture references spouted by the otherwise immensely-appealing John Crichton will stop being quite so funny over the next decade. Already, season one references seem just slightly dated, but otherwise Farscape is another example of a show that benefits from not relying heavily on special effects. Certainly, Moya is impressive when shot from a distance, and there is a plentiful amount of action. But like the more outlandish demons on Buffy, the alien effects are make-up driven and so ridiculous in appearance that there’s little opportunity to dismiss them as being laughable. The more divorced a creature is from any semblance of earth-bound reality, the more it can get away with in terms of believability.

Well, okay. Rygel can’t get away with much, I’m afraid. I can’t help but see him and think he’s Kermit the Frog’s very deformed third cousin.

At any rate, the salient point remains: if you have the budget, don’t let the seams show. If you don’t have the budget… well, then, you can’t afford to even take the chance of employing elements that will wind up looking threadbare later.

All in all, I don’t feel that Doctor Who is necessarily a failure. Comparing millions of fans’ fierce loyalty to the show for over forty years against one viewing of one episode is hardly fair. Even I felt the plot itself was engaging, Tom Baker possessed of a certain strangely attractive quality, and the entire premise not without a great deal of interesting aspects. But I’d also be fascinated to see what might come of the version currently in production, just as I’m curious about how the forthcoming Hitchhiker’s film might shake out. If such rich source material is actually given the production value it rightly deserves, maybe all that aforementioned “cheesiness factor” can be somewhat ameliorated.

Until then, though… I fear I’ll still think Magnus Greel looked like a hybrid Velcro Darth Vader, the life draining effect looked like something out of the old DOS game Ken’s Labyrinth, and the mutant sewer rat was just a shoddily-filmed stuffed animal.

Ah, but sure, as cheeses go? Doctor Who seems a nice mild brie: enjoyable enough, if not always as smooth as it could be.

Op Ed/News: Whedonverse

2004-12-02T19:42:00.000-05:00

News from the browncoat frontier: Serenity release pushed back

by K.W. Taylor

I daresay any Whedon fans who haven't already heard that Serenity is now no longer to be released in April but instead on September 30 ought to be manhandled by Blue Sun for not paying attention to news of our favorite crew of space monkeys. Unlike some people, I'm not assuming the worst (the worst being that the studio is shoving it off into the "fall wasteland" so as to make sure it won't fall down go boom in either Big Summer MovieLand or Holiday Movie Bonanza). In fact, I think this is an acceptable, albeit frustrating, move, and here's why:

- Let's face it. It's not going to be a summer blockbuster. The studio may have faith in the project (Hmm. Faith in Space. There's your spinoff, Joss!), but they're not being idiots. This film is going to be a huge draw for the fans (read: studio believes "cultish but small following" to come out in droves), but if you pit it against, say, Star Wars prequeldom, it's not necessarily going to pull in the newbies.

- Waiting until the holidays has a similar problem, plus the end of the year is usually filled up with Oscar contenders. Much as we might dig on Nate Fillion pantsless... well, that kind of happy thing just doesn't pull in the Academy Award nods. (Unless Joss had, say, recast Mal with Harvey Keitel.)

Fall has typically been thought of as a "dumping ground," though, and that's the problem. Fans are going to accuse the suits of dealing us the kind of blow that killed Firefly in the first place: autumn movie releases are the cinematic equivalent of putting a genre show on a Friday night. But what gave the season that reputation? Isn't it a bit silly to equate fall with movie death? While I think Serenity will do decently no matter when it's released, here's a little devil's advocate for you.

Despite this being the age of TiVo and TV-on-DVD, not to mention the fact that most people between the ages of five and forty are perfectly capable of programming a VCR, that lusted-after teen-to-early-thirties demographic is not home on Friday nights. At least not enough for most people that age to be able to get deeply involved in a complex dramatic sci-fi show with sweeping story arcs that take patience and consistent watching to keep track of. And that, right there, is the demo of most genre media. (Say what you will about geeks who dig on SF to be uncool enough that they never leave their parents' basement on a Friday night -- there's still enough of 'em that'll be busy with their weekly D&D game.) Those dedicated enough to tape, DVR, download, or simply stay home and watch the darn thing as it airs...well, those kids ain't gots the Nielsen boxes, yo. Ergo, they wind up hanging chads in Florida and simply don't get counted.

Obviously, an entire movie season is a horse of a different color, but there's still a problem, and it's a rather obvious one when you think about it. Summer time, the kids are out of school. High school, college, whatever, they're home, they're bored, and they have a little more cash to drop over-inflated ticket price money on. It's way easier for the kiddies to get to a weekday matinee whenever they feel like it. Come autumn, classes are in session, and it's a little dicier to try to scrape together the time and cash to make it to a flick before it hits second run bargain theater status. Sure, you've got weekends in there. Weekend matinees, even. But it's still not the big slam-o-rama of youthful flesh squeezing itself through the theater doors like you see in the summer time. And in college, it's a heckof a lot easier to drop $3 on a video rental as your evening's entertainment than it is to take the bus from your dorm down to the nearest mall to see a film for more than twice that amount of green.

So what's going to happen to Serenity?

The demo will shift, for one. Those who do go see it when it's released will be more of the upper range of the age bracket, skewing closer to thirty-four than eighteen. The audience of those who never got into Firefly first time 'round will be smaller. But I still have faith (Hmm. Faith rescues Wash from the Reavers, and then... er, sorry, what?) that the flick will do decent -- if not faboo -- receipts.

Consider this: between December of 2003 and March of 2004, the Firefly DVD set sold 200,000 units. That may not sound like a lot, but we're not talking record album sales here. DVD sets are a little pricier than your average Britney Spears CD. And 200,000 units in four months? That essentially boils down to someone buying a set every MINUTE.

Count to sixty. Hey, somebody just bought Firefly! That's no small potatoes, bucko.

The studio is also probably willing to put some extra muscle into this because of the fact that the movie's costing so little to make. $40 million budgets are pretty teeny compared to Lucas-sized expenses. Thus, I think we'll be blessed with a lot of promotion up front which could work to the movie's advantage: if the kids see Serenity previews all bloody summer, then maybe, just maybe, they'll make it a point to drag themselves out of their dorms and stagger down to the multiplex come fall. We have the potential for this to be a surprise sleeper hit just the way the DVD of the series was.

So fear not, mei meis. Things could still look shiny yet.