BFA: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster
Jan. 22nd, 2010 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethRemember when I said I needed to listen to a less good one to set a bar I could jump?
... yes.
So I listened trying to figure out what didn't work.
Primary was that it seemed like a companion chronicle centered on an original character. I mean instead of fully acted Doctor and Nyssa arriving in a situation as we follow there adventures, it was Brewster narrating his life. Interminably. And just when you're up to 'and we care why?' ... no, lets be honest, ten minutes after we're up to why, then and only then do the Doctor and Nyssa turn up... very, very briefly. So the usual reason of why we're listening to a Doctor Who story, to hear the Doctor, does not apply. For quite a long time.
The second and rather larger problem is we aren't given any threads to pull us through Brewster's story. There's no mystery, no what-happens-next. Sure, weird things are happening, but he's just describing them as we go along. What happens next is never something we have to figure out. No questions.
There's a mysterious apparition, granted, but he's pretty sure it's his mother, and spends the whole first episode telling us so, and it just plods. The idea there's any mystery about her doesn't turn up until much too late. And then it turns out to be a complicated convoluted time travel thing, and again, not a mystery, because we aren't asking the question. We're asking 'wtf?' about the answers, but we weren't in fact wondering the things they've been answering. No thread, no mystery, no questions.
The four parts are four different styles, it says so in the extras after the story. Ghost story, detective story, base under seige, and... you know I can't actually remember, something time travel-y that wrapped the whole thing up I guess. And everyone commented on how complicated it was, and someone said they don't try and understand it they just read it out, and really, complicated on that level is not a virtue. It was a ghost story that did not fulfil the requirements for an ending for a ghost story. It was a detective story where we already knew the answer to whodunnit before the investigators even knew there was a crime! It wasn't a caper story, there wasn't anything complex about the plan. And base under seige ends with successful defence of the base, so it didn't fulfil the requirements of that subgenre neither. Whatever it set up, the ending didn't fit any of it.
It was all there to make us care about Thomas Brewster. It tells us his whole miserable and heartbreaking life story. At length. With a narrator. And a lot of impenetrable slang that doesn't really add anything except 'lookit, we're not at home!' which is never my favourite use of language. So it's setting up the start of one of those poor boy makes good stories, right? Except he never does. So what ending do we want for Brewster?
There's a bit where he stands around with Nyssa and the conversation goes 'we're both orphans! notice!' and then the story wanders off. Er, I'm not feeling very generous to this story, sorry. But presumably that was part of the character design, give him something to connect with Nyssa. And from there the plot makes sense, if it's as much about Nyssa as it is about Brewster. Their parent, who they love and miss very much, turns out to be a fake and secretly evil. Tada, secretly about Nyssa! Which, yes, that should work, except for the pervasive feeling Nyssa isn't really in this one. She doesn't do anything. She gets kidnapped for a bit and runs away quite a lot and is talked to fairly often. But she doesn't say anything important, run toward, escape on her own, build anything, repair anything, make any technical discoveries to save the day, or do much of anything her own self. That 'I'm an orphan, like us!' bit is pretty much the only Nyssa shaped bit.
Apparently they were introducing the new companion Thomas Brewster. In the process they totally Marty Stu the poor sod. Not because of what they did to him - though the very important parent, mad keen thief skillz, secret high tech knowledge, best friend loves him from afar, ends up stealing the TARDIS all scores pretty highly. It's what they did to everyone else - they're practically erased, bent out of shape, made a bit stupid, overly trusting, too slow, and all to put Brewster front and center. It's utterly the wrong way to go about things.
To introduce a new companion you need to know how they interact with the established characters. They get saved, they learn things, they do some saving in turn. Sometimes they can start with the saving but it's harder to avoid the 'look at me, I'm special!' of it if that happens. Most of all though they become interesting to the Doctor and his companion, they are interested in the Doctor and his companion, and by interacting with our only stable points they then become interesting to us.
Otherwise you're writing original fic with some canon characters slapped on, and it all goes horribly wrong.
I do realise, writing these, that anyone who has actually got their script made and has demonstrated the ability to write a beginning middle and end in the process is doing rather better than I have thus far. I mean I've finished two scripts. Ever. And 50 fanfics only if you count the drabbles. I'm well aware of my shortcomings.
But I have to pull apart what doesn't work so I can aim squarely at what do.
We are there for the Doctor and Nyssa. We have to keep it specific to those two, no matter who else we want to aim the audience's attention at. If those two are interested in another character the listener is too.
And whatever style of story we start we have to give it the ending it needs. The ending is as much part of the template as teh setting and the particular scares.
... yes.
So I listened trying to figure out what didn't work.
Primary was that it seemed like a companion chronicle centered on an original character. I mean instead of fully acted Doctor and Nyssa arriving in a situation as we follow there adventures, it was Brewster narrating his life. Interminably. And just when you're up to 'and we care why?' ... no, lets be honest, ten minutes after we're up to why, then and only then do the Doctor and Nyssa turn up... very, very briefly. So the usual reason of why we're listening to a Doctor Who story, to hear the Doctor, does not apply. For quite a long time.
The second and rather larger problem is we aren't given any threads to pull us through Brewster's story. There's no mystery, no what-happens-next. Sure, weird things are happening, but he's just describing them as we go along. What happens next is never something we have to figure out. No questions.
There's a mysterious apparition, granted, but he's pretty sure it's his mother, and spends the whole first episode telling us so, and it just plods. The idea there's any mystery about her doesn't turn up until much too late. And then it turns out to be a complicated convoluted time travel thing, and again, not a mystery, because we aren't asking the question. We're asking 'wtf?' about the answers, but we weren't in fact wondering the things they've been answering. No thread, no mystery, no questions.
The four parts are four different styles, it says so in the extras after the story. Ghost story, detective story, base under seige, and... you know I can't actually remember, something time travel-y that wrapped the whole thing up I guess. And everyone commented on how complicated it was, and someone said they don't try and understand it they just read it out, and really, complicated on that level is not a virtue. It was a ghost story that did not fulfil the requirements for an ending for a ghost story. It was a detective story where we already knew the answer to whodunnit before the investigators even knew there was a crime! It wasn't a caper story, there wasn't anything complex about the plan. And base under seige ends with successful defence of the base, so it didn't fulfil the requirements of that subgenre neither. Whatever it set up, the ending didn't fit any of it.
It was all there to make us care about Thomas Brewster. It tells us his whole miserable and heartbreaking life story. At length. With a narrator. And a lot of impenetrable slang that doesn't really add anything except 'lookit, we're not at home!' which is never my favourite use of language. So it's setting up the start of one of those poor boy makes good stories, right? Except he never does. So what ending do we want for Brewster?
There's a bit where he stands around with Nyssa and the conversation goes 'we're both orphans! notice!' and then the story wanders off. Er, I'm not feeling very generous to this story, sorry. But presumably that was part of the character design, give him something to connect with Nyssa. And from there the plot makes sense, if it's as much about Nyssa as it is about Brewster. Their parent, who they love and miss very much, turns out to be a fake and secretly evil. Tada, secretly about Nyssa! Which, yes, that should work, except for the pervasive feeling Nyssa isn't really in this one. She doesn't do anything. She gets kidnapped for a bit and runs away quite a lot and is talked to fairly often. But she doesn't say anything important, run toward, escape on her own, build anything, repair anything, make any technical discoveries to save the day, or do much of anything her own self. That 'I'm an orphan, like us!' bit is pretty much the only Nyssa shaped bit.
Apparently they were introducing the new companion Thomas Brewster. In the process they totally Marty Stu the poor sod. Not because of what they did to him - though the very important parent, mad keen thief skillz, secret high tech knowledge, best friend loves him from afar, ends up stealing the TARDIS all scores pretty highly. It's what they did to everyone else - they're practically erased, bent out of shape, made a bit stupid, overly trusting, too slow, and all to put Brewster front and center. It's utterly the wrong way to go about things.
To introduce a new companion you need to know how they interact with the established characters. They get saved, they learn things, they do some saving in turn. Sometimes they can start with the saving but it's harder to avoid the 'look at me, I'm special!' of it if that happens. Most of all though they become interesting to the Doctor and his companion, they are interested in the Doctor and his companion, and by interacting with our only stable points they then become interesting to us.
Otherwise you're writing original fic with some canon characters slapped on, and it all goes horribly wrong.
I do realise, writing these, that anyone who has actually got their script made and has demonstrated the ability to write a beginning middle and end in the process is doing rather better than I have thus far. I mean I've finished two scripts. Ever. And 50 fanfics only if you count the drabbles. I'm well aware of my shortcomings.
But I have to pull apart what doesn't work so I can aim squarely at what do.
We are there for the Doctor and Nyssa. We have to keep it specific to those two, no matter who else we want to aim the audience's attention at. If those two are interested in another character the listener is too.
And whatever style of story we start we have to give it the ending it needs. The ending is as much part of the template as teh setting and the particular scares.