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Feb. 11th, 2006 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI just watched something on BBC1 called 'Sea of Souls' , I think. Never seen it before.
Its about a bunch of parapsychologists. This week they had to deal with a woman manifesting electrical phenomena, that turned into a huge great thing with a demon. And also a bilocating magus who is hundreds of years old.
I started out thinking I'd like it - parapsychologists digging into the psychological history of this sparky lady to find out what might be causing phenomena. Thought it would turn out to be some emotional thingy manifesting as sparky electrical stuff. Like on Angel with the telekinetic. Interesting character stuff.
So then it turns out the woman summoned a demon. Okaaaay... could still be character based. Making one's demons external, big mess.
But no. In the big final confrontation it turns out its actually about the central character changing his mind about the basic nature of the univers, going from 'rationalist' to 'believing in magic'.
!
What up with that? Does the world really need to do that? Do we need to explore the issue of the literal existence of magic via fiction on TV? I'm thinking no.
So, now I'm thinking this is a bit pointless and dumb actually.
Also, it lacked teaminess. It had one guy figure it all out on his own, and his assisstants figure most of it out on their own, and not connect until after the action is all finished. Why? What the assisstants did has *no* bearing on how the plot progressed or the outcome or setup of that confrontation. Because the one guy just figured everything himself. Even calling it 'figured' is a bit much, it was more like 'remembered out loud for the benefit of the audience'. Why? Why bother?
Buffy and Angel used demons and magic to explore character and emotional issues, and stuff like prejudice and race issues, all sorts of stuff that carries over outside the metaphor.
Making the actual point of the show be 'the skeptics are wrong, magic is real!' is just... immensely boring. Rather useless. Or possibly depressing. I mean the purpose can't be to convince people, because it is all made up and therefore not evidence. It can't be to please the scientists, because they're calling them wrong. So are they actually trying to get an audience of people who think science is all dumb and wrong? Why??? So they can watch themselves proved right every week and feel better about the world? That would just be very depressing.
I do not wish to write about believers confronting skeptics. I really can't see the point.
I wish to write about people exploring real emotional, psychological or even sociological stuff via metaphorical demony magical ghosty stuff.
Very big difference.
And I'd quite like to watch / read about the latter too, but am not so often finding new stuff like that.
Its about a bunch of parapsychologists. This week they had to deal with a woman manifesting electrical phenomena, that turned into a huge great thing with a demon. And also a bilocating magus who is hundreds of years old.
I started out thinking I'd like it - parapsychologists digging into the psychological history of this sparky lady to find out what might be causing phenomena. Thought it would turn out to be some emotional thingy manifesting as sparky electrical stuff. Like on Angel with the telekinetic. Interesting character stuff.
So then it turns out the woman summoned a demon. Okaaaay... could still be character based. Making one's demons external, big mess.
But no. In the big final confrontation it turns out its actually about the central character changing his mind about the basic nature of the univers, going from 'rationalist' to 'believing in magic'.
!
What up with that? Does the world really need to do that? Do we need to explore the issue of the literal existence of magic via fiction on TV? I'm thinking no.
So, now I'm thinking this is a bit pointless and dumb actually.
Also, it lacked teaminess. It had one guy figure it all out on his own, and his assisstants figure most of it out on their own, and not connect until after the action is all finished. Why? What the assisstants did has *no* bearing on how the plot progressed or the outcome or setup of that confrontation. Because the one guy just figured everything himself. Even calling it 'figured' is a bit much, it was more like 'remembered out loud for the benefit of the audience'. Why? Why bother?
Buffy and Angel used demons and magic to explore character and emotional issues, and stuff like prejudice and race issues, all sorts of stuff that carries over outside the metaphor.
Making the actual point of the show be 'the skeptics are wrong, magic is real!' is just... immensely boring. Rather useless. Or possibly depressing. I mean the purpose can't be to convince people, because it is all made up and therefore not evidence. It can't be to please the scientists, because they're calling them wrong. So are they actually trying to get an audience of people who think science is all dumb and wrong? Why??? So they can watch themselves proved right every week and feel better about the world? That would just be very depressing.
I do not wish to write about believers confronting skeptics. I really can't see the point.
I wish to write about people exploring real emotional, psychological or even sociological stuff via metaphorical demony magical ghosty stuff.
Very big difference.
And I'd quite like to watch / read about the latter too, but am not so often finding new stuff like that.