The Thin White Line

[Earthnut]

I know from now on when I watch an episode I will be keeping my eyes open for the scar. I kinda sorta doubt if it is seen in any other episodes, and we all know it isn't mentioned. Oh well. I agree, this is an excellent episdoe. There's also a post somewhere that states the drugstore clock is on 10:13. Maybe the scar is mentioned in that post. I tried to find it but couldn't. You definitely have to keep your eyes open for clocks while watching any episode.

[ethsnafu]

The scar, as far as I can tell, is never seen in another episode. It's one of those 'forget you ever saw it' moments but its not something that bothers me greatly.

I have to concur with Reynard, Morgan and Wong were not afraid to be bold within the format or break convention a little and the interrogation sequences are absolutely superb, not only well written but superbly acted. Kudos to Scott Heindl in this, took me ages to realise he was also The Long Haired Man.

Eth

[ty7du]

I doubt it's even Lance's hand in those shots, they pretty much in television leave that sort of pick-up stuff to the second unit, the establishing shots, moving car shots and hands and clocks and whatnot.

But I wonder...

It does remind me of the film Dolores Claiborne, and in that one, Kathy Bates' hands are so wrinkled and rough after handwashing in the cold. They used some woman in the town for those shots, and you can really tell Kathy Bates doesn't have those kinds of hands. Great director's commentary track on that DVD, which is otherwise a vanilla DVD. The director never shuts up, talks non-stop, even during the end credits. I'm not even sure he took breaths. So much information, better than making of featurettes, I love good commentaries.

[Guest WaveCrest]

A contender with the Pilot episode for best episode of season one, I love this tale so much, with great work from everyone, the thing I love most is how Morgan and Wong managed to get away with a ten minute scene in one location with only two actors. No explosions, no shoot out, just two actors delivering great work. It's things like this that make me realise network television is so lost without them.

They wouldn't do it these days, not when things have to be so rushed. Yes, episodes of Millennium had similar running times to episodes of TV shows today, but Millennium packed a lot of stuff into it's stories. That scene between Frank and the incarcerated killer was one of the highlights of "The Thin White Line". Easily one of season one's best.

Josef, what you're referring to regarding the hand shots etc. could be called 'insert shots'. They were used a lot in the original Mission: Impossible TV series.

[Earthnut]

They do the same thing in a lot of the nude and love making scenes in the movies. The viewer thinks it's the actor but often it's a stand-in, unless of course, you have those scenes where you can actually see their faces. Now-a-days, as we all know, so much of what we see in the movies is special effects and it's very hard to tell the difference, if not impossible. That is NOT who WE are. We here are the "Real McCoy."

[ty7du]

They wouldn't do it these days, not when things have to be so rushed. Yes, episodes of Millennium had similar running times to episodes of TV shows today, but Millennium packed a lot of stuff into it's stories. That scene between Frank and the incarcerated killer was one of the highlights of "The Thin White Line". Easily one of season one's best.

Josef, what you're referring to regarding the hand shots etc. could be called 'insert shots'. They were used a lot in the original Mission: Impossible TV series.

Now, that's nothing. An early episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Three Men and Adena, I think that's the name of the episode. Two detectives try to get a confession from a suspected rape and murder of a 9 year old girl. It's the last 24 hours, they can't hold him any longer. It happens for the most part, in the interrogation room, called The Box. Brilliant episode, very tense, you can't take your eyes off the screen. And that was back in 1993...I think.

Oh yes, I guess it's called insert shots, but maybe when the main unit can't do a shot and hand it down to the second unit...or perhaps do the shot later in the schedule...then it's called a pick up shot.

[Guest I Made This]

They wouldn't do it these days, not when things have to be so rushed. Yes, episodes of Millennium had similar running times to episodes of TV shows today, but Millennium packed a lot of stuff into it's stories. That scene between Frank and the incarcerated killer was one of the highlights of "The Thin White Line". Easily one of season one's best.

It shows you how much television has changed today when everything has to be in a rush. I noticed that it seems to be a trait of Morgan and Wong to have a 'long scene' in their scripts. 522666 has that magnetic scene when Frank is on the phone trying to trace Raymond Dees, or in The X Files episode Beyond the Sea when Boggs (Brad Dourif) tells Scully about the time when he was on the verge of being executed he seen the ghosts of his family which he himself murdered. I love it when they write scenes in this way. I think The Thin White Line is the pincale of it though, how long does that scene last? Ten minutes?

[Libby]

I do like it when there are "long scenes". That does, to me, say a lot about writers and directors trusting the actors to be able to sustain a dialogue over several minutes. And also trusting the audience. (Which, after all, is what happens on a theatre stage.)

I think you've hit on the reason why I find a lot of current TV shows distracting. It seems these days to be about engendering excitement! and intrigue! simply by having fast cuts. It also seems to be happening even in some TV documentaries.

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

The long scene fits, and fits the material well. If the shoe fits...

I was listening to the Backtofrankblack commentary on this episode where they (somewhat lightly) criticized Frank tracing his scar with a computer scanning instrument and then clicking "find match." They were saying that this may have been a bit of technology exaggeration that convieniently worked for the plot. I still think the positives far outweight any negatives here. All in all, I think White Line is a good strong episode that seems to be at its strongest in the non-action scenes, which says a lot.