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Season two ending

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TheAngel

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Guest Jim McLean
I think you have misunderstood me on this point. I'm not saying it should have incorporated wider events or recaps scenes from the previous episode(s) within the montage, I'm saying that it would have been better to move on away from the montage and on to other scenes. I'm not advocating the inclusion of the filler footage that you mention, not by any means.

What I am advocating is that it would have been a better choice to limit the music-video/montage stuff to a few minutes, then end it and move on to new scenes as part of the regular episode. Stuff with Frank and Catherine, stuff about the Marburg plot, stuff that returns to the central narrative. Not spliced into the montage or anything like that, not part of the musical sequence, just regular scenes instead of some of the music video, not as well as. Consequently, that would not have required any greater budget. You simply spend less on the montage stuff and use that cash on the standard scenes instead.

I've never been on a disagreement with you on this. Yes there has been a misunderstanding there. Ultimately, I would have preferred the same, my point was on the premise of a montage was not negotiable, and if one went down that route, more money would inevitably allowed for a more relevant use of artistic license. Bottomline of choice, I'd have gone without - or for a greatly reduced size.

As for everything else, it seems we are mostly in agreement. So I will just close by pointing out one thing that I think everyone should bear in mind when dealing with questions of budget and time. The budget and production schedule for "The Time Is Now" would have been the same as every other episode in the season. Whatever choices they made, they made them with their eyes open as to exactly how much time and money they would have to spend.

I don't disagree with that either. As I think both of us have said, this was an idea you'd think would have had warning lights buzzing from the start. Rereading the comments made in the episode guide, it does sound like it was merely they expected more from what they had than what they got; that they had budgeted and timed for the period, but what they had in their head required more of both (and in TV both go together frequently).

The point about budget is a fair one and certainly I concede in this context it would seem that what they desired was something a little more en par with MTV rather than anything that pushed the story further as I speculated. That said, the question of budget and time does very much depend on how fleshed out the montage was; how well planned was the sequence? In this case it doesn't seem like this was actually the answer, but generally budgets and time allowances can on occasions potentially overrun if areas that are budgeted for aren't expanded properly in pre-production - unless pulled into check. If time is tight, sometimes productions do backstep to something safer that fits within their timeframe. That was my take until now.

That's the problem I find when one debates a point over a long period of time, ideas and comments begin to evolve away from the root; the topic grows larger than the source material. I guess I can't see Morgan/Wong's logic on this because The Time Is Now seemed - to me - to missing quite a lot textual background; things were happening around Frank which we never really felt in terms of scale, threat or implications - and that lead me to link the idea that maybe M/W had hoped to give the music video montage more relevance than it turned out they could afford. TTIN is lacking narrative colour in the last few acts IMO beyond Frank's immediate concern, and it seemed sensible to assume the writers would look to tie that external colour in with the internal colour they were looking for with Laura. Obviously it was more the MTV element they felt they failed at than the lack of narrative depth.

E: I'm not looking for you to concede anything you said - particularly if you hadn't intended to be read as I read it - I was just shocked at how aggressively you targeted points which I didn't see as either antagonistic or particularly challenging. I certainly had never seen the source you'd offered and was a little surprised to be presented with it in the same paragraph you were suggesting I should have known better from it.

Maybe I'm just being a little sensitive. It's my birthday today, and things haven't been going too brilliantly as it is. Straw that broke that camel's back maybe.

Edited by Jim McLean
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  • 9 months later...
Guest No Touching

Having just seen the two-part season two ender for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I was flabbergasted at how well Morgan & Wong tied together their entire season. So many elements were resolved (or at least referenced) that it was one of the more satisfying finales I've ever had the pleasure to watch. I loved the little bookends, rhymes, and callbacks they sprinkled throughout the episodes Beginning with the death of Frank's father (as suggested in Midnight of the Century), St. Sebastian Hospital, naming the parrot Kenny (rhyming it with Jordan's dog... both of her pets were also manifestations of animalistic terrors Frank faced at the beginning and end of the season), and the breakdown of Lara Means (I for one didn't find her freakout to be self-indulgent... for me, it only added to the insanity that was enveloping the world with the Marburg Virus and Rooster-controlled Millennium Group).

However, I found the most heartbreaking element of the story to be Peter Watts. His need to believe in the group, his eventual realization that he had to break free, and, ultimately, failing to do so. It does make me question why Frank was at his throat from his first appearance in season three. The last he knew, Peter was planning to make an escape with Frank and had been abducted. That's best served to be discussed in the season three board though.

And while I was skeptical of the idea of Catherine's death, the execution was marvelous. They had finally reunited, only for Marburg to split them apart. Her sacrifice, her silent goodbye to her family, and the chilling final moments with the catatonic Frank, his gift bombarding him with the apocalyptic distress calls around the world (or... er, the pacific northwest), all set to the tune of In The Year 2525. While I'm glad there was more Millennium after this, I think I would have been satisified had that been the ultimate conclusion.

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  • 2 months later...

Hello zeus and laredo this is a great debate here I may be wrong here but i dont think budget really has any meaning in this case dont t.v. shows usually save the big money for shows like the season preimere or the sweeps or the finales? you'd think they would Seems to me this was just a choice made by the writer's that they thought would be a good idea. Personally the montage didnt bother me one way or the other but i can see how some would think it went on too long

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Guest ZeusFaber

Hi Benny,

Yes, it was most definitely a conscious and deliberate choice by the writers.

A disastrous and misguided one, in my opinion, but to each their own.

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Guest Jim McLean

Wow, this is an old thread. I barely remember what I was arguing.

Suffice to say, with the good possibility of contradicting my younger self, for me it gave too little and took too long. When you build up the stakes in the narrative you risk losing your audience if you get too indulgent. I could see the clock ticking on the episode and felt this artistic bit of fun was eating away at the story relevant drama. If you consider what it informed the audience in relation to its duration, I think it risked pulling the viewer out of the story because its message wasn't strong enough to merit the attention.

Whatever and however made it as it was, I felt it could have been compressed more effectively. As I do recall saying, stretching it for an act gave the episode very little flexibility in post and I do wonder if any other scenes were trimmed because this was so rigid - or even if there was potential exposition or drama that could have been inserted at scripting that would have benefited the episode more than the indulgent art video.

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