Rewriting History

It’s off to the Nebula conference week, and I have a hefty to-do list. I was supposed to do more of it over the weekend, but I got wild and crazy and decided to have a weekend. Plus, there was this knitting problem I had to fix. But now I have a ton to get done in the next couple of days. Eeep!

Anyway, since I posted about the cancellation of Timeless on Friday, the network changed its mind and there will be a season two. It will be a shorter season and will likely run during the summer. Not this summer, but the next one. They had fun with the way they announced this, framing it like the Time Team had gone back in time to change the network’s mind and rewrite history. There was even a video one of the cast members did in character, in which he acted like they’d just come back from the mission and were reporting their success. There’s been some talk about treating this like a family show (with somewhat educational content). They put the first season on in the late slot, but it’s pretty squeaky clean and involves the characters meeting with interesting historical figures. It’s perfect for an early evening, watch with the whole family thing (Mark Hamill even mentioned that his family has been watching it together in an interview that was in Parade this weekend).

Meanwhile, the season finale of Once Upon a Time falls into the “don’t get me started” category because they set up some potentially cool stuff, and then didn’t use any of it. Red herrings are one thing, but devoting most of an hour to characters going after a goal and then that goal not actually meaning anything is another thing entirely. I think the main problem with these writers is that the only story element they really value is surprise. If you see something coming enough to anticipate it, they think they can’t do that thing because it has to be a surprise. So they go off in another direction with no setup, but then they don’t even come up with a good reason behind what they did set up. And I spend a lot of time yelling at the TV and stress knitting. But I learn a lot about how not to write.

And now I have a busy day of doing laundry, going to the library, writing a presentation, and cleaning house ahead of me.