Passing "Nostalgia"

[Guest Jim McLean]

An episode which poor E must suffer a lack of imagery, mythology and inner secrets. It's a sad thing when a show which is as heavily propelled by its mythology as its original dirty dramatic intent finds "stand alone" stories of the kin that spawned the series now seem out of place.

It's hard to get into Nostalgia for this reason, and of course, knowing the end is nigh. In some ways, one is just passing through this episode knowing that any further revelations as to Frank, Millennium and beyond will be found - if at all - at a point beyond this marker.

Shame really as there is a lot to like here. I enjoyed the parallel of wise old Frank's entry into this peaceful world as being one the viewer can now safely adopt; that we have seen some much in the show, that there is little need for the story to hide the killer from the audience - even though visually it carries this genre approach. We know who it is before we even see Frank's impression, and Frank's slightly unpreturbed assessment of the killer is echoed by the audience who also feel this same familiarity. We are Frank in this one, almost by the numbers watching another man mask his guilt with a perfect act of innocence. While the townsfolk are fooled, we the audience are not.

Which I've always found a funny parallel in real life - how people will naturally presume on innocence based on familiarity; that if we know the person - or at least have created our own personal "profile" of what the person is, they couldn't POSSIBLY be anything else. Media cases of suspects which particular profiles have shown this time over - old Michael as possibly the most international. It was amazing how many of his defenders would say "I KNOW Michael - I know he wouldn't do that." Regardless of whether one believes he did or did not, the idea that because we know the outer man, than we know the inner one, is a human conceit seen time over. I'm sure we know our best mate's very well, but do we know what gets him off? What he masturbates over? What sexual acts he's performed? What non sexual acts he's guilty of? How many wifes have lived with husbands for 30 years before discovering he's been gay? Surely they should know that. We don't know each other quite as well as our mind's like to profile, and I think this episodes first few acts succinctly plays this. The town has a portrait of what "type" of person the killer is, and refuse to see even the potential - yes not even the mere potential - that he MIGHT have killed. An allegory for human conceit in general.

The nostalgia title does have a natural tie to Hollis' past, but in a way, by intent or not, it plays well for the viewer - this was what Millennium was about originally - finding sexual killers. This is a nice little trip down memory lane for the audience.

And my favourite element of the episode? There is no fight out. We have an adult show which plays fairly close to crime investigation which doesn't rely on a chase or attack to resolve the story on a crescendo. We have a great character scene with Frank and that makes for a refreshing change for Millennium itself which too often has relied on the end fight.

Problems? Well, I still don't find Hollis' that comfortable for Millennium. She's nicely portrayed and compared to the neat pretty white 20 something detective of every other crime show, its nice to have a companion which doesn't fit the stereotype. That said, I just don't find I really believe in her - not like I did Peter in his pre conspiracy days. I can't say I've met any FBI types, but I find her character and history doesn't feel entirely at home in Millennium, so while she doesn't ruin the show, she's not quite as real as I feel a counterpart to Frank should be. It's just a feeling.

The only other problem is how the show is so bound by censorship. This isn't a fault of the episode, but the constraints of television are quite visible here. It's a down to earth episode which suffers from the inability to dance around natural reaction and subjects. The semen marks are danced over as nimbly as possible, the good old 'it's BS" is used to trying and navigate a ridiculous censor and these small elements do steal from what a less authoritarian approach to drama could achieve.

That aside, a great little episode with some nice little angles to look at it from. May not by mythological or conspiratorial, but its nice seeing Frank back in Frank's world, largely away from companions and doing what he used to do so well. A farewell to the sex offender of the week motif and in this context an episode which cleverly allows the audience to sit with Frank with the experience he has imparted on them.

Solid stuff.

[4th Horseman]

How many wifes have lived with husbands for 30 years before discovering he's been gay.

You brew an entire hodgepodge of salient points Laredo. We engage ourselves in conversations, we involve ourselves amidst the lives of those who allow us to do so, ones who life itself has put in our path, but as you so eloquently state, what do we really know of ANYONE? What do we really know of OURSELVES and what we might be capable of doing given a defined set of circumstances. We embrace others, and expect to be embraced in return, yet, paradoxically its best to keep those so very close to us truely at arms length. Even the reflection we see in the mirror cant be trusted. We think its impossible for the one looking back at us to conceive and/or carryout textbook fantasies, either of a criminal or sexual nature, yet we live on the razor's edge day by day, minute by minute, not knowing from one moment to the next when that darkness will extend its icy cold arms around us. More on this later, i just have to find a way to word it appropriately...

4 hours later:

I'm sure we know our best mate's very well, but do we know what gets him off? What he masturbates over? What sexual acts he's performed? What non sexual acts he's guilty of?

Its a rarity that this topic is spoken in such direct terms. However, your questions have piqued my interest. The profundity of any relationship lies in its complexity. Our greatest desires customarily lie under the umbrella of moral and ethical musings. We fear being judged by others, even those closest to us, therfore we subjugate ourselves to conformity and apathy. In regards to sex, the constraints of "values" often turn the very act itself into a plebian or hackneyed event. We like to think that we know what "turns on" our partner, yet, would we wager our mortal coil on the truth? Even in intimacy, there is uncertainty. Why is it that after a number of years with the same partner, the very act itself becomes one of banality or monotony? Why then is that very same act performed with a new partner or stranger so much more arousing and intoxicating?? Why are we willing to ramp up the intensity with someone we barely know and take a "cant wait till its over" attitude with a partner of many years?? It all touches on our animal magnetism. We see in others what we wanted to see in the ones we are with. A liar if will say that there is only one person whom they find physically attractive, one who gives you goose-bumps and makes your heart race. In reality, there are many others who cause similar affections..so you see, do we really know ourselves, much less others??? more later.....

4th Horseman...

p.s. - my post is only an observation, it is NOT from personal experience!!!!!

[Guest Jim McLean]

p.s. - my post is only an observation, it is NOT from personal experience!!!!!

Oh he doth protest too much. ;)

Seriously though, social observation is fascinating. Inevitably, we construct our social perception of others based our personal outlook on our community fused with our moral observation; liars will distrust others because they are placing their own matrix on another person; a good person won't see the bad because he can't people working beyond his own moral structure.

But as Nostalgia points out, the basic failing is in the simplicity of these observations. The barriers we each hide from each other create a world of seemingly few tones. Interaction between each other largely carries the same prefixes. The more people we meet, the fusion of mass similarities and our own moral judgments create communities where "accidents" and "abnormalities" don't exist - they exist "beyond" our framework of encounters. For really, our immediate associations; the day to day existence, is what we base our perceptions on. The things that happen beyond those walls, for instance, what we see in the news or papers, is almost a mass of fiction, which is of course why news papers and tragic news reports are so popular - people are disassociated from the actual event, it is drama, not TRUE reality. Our small lives are the TRUE reality, not what we hear/see on TV. Unless it happens on our doorstep, the incredulous abnormalities to our TRUE lives and social observations only exist "beyond".

Which is why Nostalgia is quite cool, and we have that great scene with Emma (despite being a little contrived) where she makes that observation. The town WAS her TRUE world, and the world beyond the fairy tale drama of newspapers, gossip and backseat politics. Once she moved away and became part of that world, that became her TRUE world, and the town became the fairy tale. She had now seen beyond the "truth" of her previous social sphere and accepted the truth of a new one.

Of course, the beauty is the issues of Millennium, Legion and Frank are the edges of another TRUE world which already weakens the truth of her previous one, the one where her sister died and she joined the FBI. Again, she's in transition. Maybe one day she'd look back and see the same again; that her world of the FBI was a cosier, happier fairy tale than the one that threatens to be opened to her - just as it was to Laura Means.

[ethsnafu]

p.s. - my post is only an observation, it is NOT from personal experience!!!!!

That's what they all say my friend.

But seriously.

Just a quickie to say I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion and though I came armed and deadly to the PC tonight, in order to contribute, a shocking dose of man flu has me dribbling into my tissue instead. Why the hell does a 'cold' leave you brain dead? You would think as a clinician I would know. I shall hopefully be cogent enough to write something of merit soon but please keep it coming.

It makes a very miserable, and somewhat pathetic, sod very happy.

Now where's the NyQuil?

Edited January 8, 2008 by ethsnafu

[4th Horseman]

That's what they all say my friend.

But seriously.

Just a quickie to say I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion and though I came armed and deadly to the PC tonight, in order to contribute, a shocking dose of man flu has me dribbling into my tissue instead. Why the hell does a 'cold' leave you brain dead? You would think as a clinician I would know. I shall hopefully be cogent enough to write something of merit soon but please keep it coming.

It makes a very miserable, and somewhat pathetic, sod very happy.

Now where's the NyQuil?

Laredo and Ethie....my conscious is clear These backhanded suggestions otherwise does nothing to dent the might armor of the 4th Horseman ...Perhaps if we were all a little more truthful with ourselves, instead of guiding our thoughts, decisions by the moral and ethical compass of our contemporaries, we would at least realize the possibility ...The Truth is Out There...Free your mind, and your a** will follow.. get better my friend....

4th Horseman

[ethsnafu]

Dearest friend,

How right you are.

If only I had a mind to free, at the moment it is mush. That great British love of innuendo is totally banal but we can not help ourselves I'm afraid, the prospect of a fine nudge and a wink must be accepted in honour of those lavatorial greats who pepper our comedy.

Oh and thanks for the best wishes my friend, as an old sage said "...Doctors are the worst patients..." and how right that bloody sage was.

[Raven Wolf]

Dearest friend,

How right you are.

If only I had a mind to free, at the moment it is mush. That great British love of innuendo is totally banal but we can not help ourselves I'm afraid, the prospect of a fine nudge and a wink must be accepted in honour of those lavatorial greats who pepper our comedy.

Oh and thanks for the best wishes my friend, as an old sage said "...Doctors are the worst patients..." and how right that bloody sage was.

(((hugs to my sweet ethie....))) May you feel better soon!!!!!

[BillQS]

I enjoyed Nostalgia very much and I think you did a great job of pointing out what a good episode it is. It is an episode overlooked because of it's placement in the season. Therefore, it suffers a similar fate to "Broken World" from Season 1.... of being a stand-alone right before the big guns that propel the backstory come to the fore.

(That being said, Nostalgia to me, at least, is much better than Broken World, although the finale in the Meat Packing Plant has some great visuals, otherwise BW is just flat to me.)

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

Nostalgia would have fit perfectly in the first half of season 1. I am curious to know if it was a script that had been ready for awhile waiting for production, or if the showrunners needed a episode quickly at the last minute and coming up with this one. Or maybe the sequence was done purposefully to change the pace? The recent Patrick Harbison interview touches on these production issues a bit, which I found interesting. In playing the role of "Armchair producer," putting the episode before Darwin's Eye would have worked nicely in my opinion, but that is hindsight talking.

Still a good episode, just a little out of place.

[ethsnafu]

Now this relates to something being discussed elsewhere. The last seven episodes of the third season were promoted as a self contained arc which suggests, at least to my mind, that their order and placing was intentional. Now no one seems to be able to deduce what that arc is mind but apparently there is one. If anyone does spot it, answers on a postcard please.

Eth