Just to weigh in on the whole season 8 thing...

[deird_lj]

I've seen quite a few comments lately saying "They should have taken out the one-shots and focused on the main story" or "It's going on too long - why didn't they get to the Twangel bit faster?" or similar.

And it surprises me. Because, actually, I'd want the opposite.


Suppose there's a comic book. A comic book spawned from a tv show called Betty the Cyborg Slayer, in which Betty and her friends fight evil and rid the world from cyborgs on a weekly basis.
And then there was a big battle, and Betty ended up with an army of fellow Slayers, and the cyborg factory exploded with all the MegaBorgs in it, and the world was saved. Epic end to the show.

So, anyway, the comic book...

The comic book starts with a four-issue story, in which Betty and her friends have to deal with a rogue cyborg running amok in Chicago.
(And in the middle of issue 2, they're sneaking through the downtown mall towards the rogue cyborg's hideout, and they sneak past a conversation about someone called Sparks.)

And then there's a one-issue story about Betty's old friend Fiona, who's been tracking down a cyborg spy hiding somewhere in Asia.
(And when Fi breaks into the office of the guy she's monitoring, one of the files on his desk mentions "The Sparks Program". But it's not relevant to her investigation, so she doesn't bother reading it.)

Next, there's a four-issue story about Betty dealing with a Slayer who's been reprogramming cyborgs to beat up people she doesn't like.
(One of the cyborgs, while shutting down, starts repeating nonsense phrases - like they do - and starts talking about "sparks... database... error... error... sparks... minichip... error...")

And then there's a one-issue about one of the new Slayers, doing battle against a cyborg in Berlin, and angstily wondering about what life could have been like if she hadn't been called to cyborg-slaying.
(One of the cyborg's minions mentions "Sparke" in the middle of a conversation with his boss - but the entire conversation's in German, so we don't necessarily notice.)

Then we go back to Fiona, who's still in Asia - and we spend four issues with her...


...you see the point?

The Cyborg Slayer comics are all about the one-shots. There's a problem, there's a resolution, we move on to the next story, and all the time there's this other story happening. By issue 12, the fans are pouring over the comics, looking for more references to "Sparks", and claiming that page 23 must be significant, because the damaged computer in the background is throwing sparks everywhere, and what is this about, anyway? When are we going to find out more? When are the characters going to start figuring it out?

And yet, no-one feels like it's taking too long - because every one-shot gets resolved; every four-issue arc ends with a neat resolution; if anything, it's going fast.


I guess I'm wanting something similar to Nine's arc on Doctor Who. Lots of fun stories, lots of neat little resolutions - and always, in the background, the constant repetitions of "Bad Wolf". You don't even notice it the first few times - but by the end of the season you're going back over everything, looking for more references, because it's everywhere.


As I see it, the problem with the season 8 comics (or one of the problems, anyway) isn't that there are so many little stories - it's that there's no real resolution.

The first arc? Let's see: Dawn is a giant, Amy's working with Warren, the government are after the Slayers, Buffy falls asleep, Ethan gets killed, zombies attack the castle, Willow flies, Willow gets lobotomised...
...and the whole thing ends with the government going "Hey, Slayer! We're going to attack you!" and Buffy saying "Bring it on!" - end of story.

There's no resolution. The four-issue story is over, and we don't know why anything happened, they didn't stop Amy (just delayed her), they didn't solve anything apart from turning zombies into gentlemen at a dance. The closest we can come to a resolution is "Buffy wakes up". (And we still don't know who kissed her - that'll have to wait a few more issues.)


Take away the one-shots, and you're still left with at least a 20-issue comic, with no ending in sight. Make more one-shots (or shorter story arcs), and there'd be resolutions all over the place - but still a longer story lurking in the background, waiting to become the main plotline right when we're not expecting it...


*sighs*

I can dream, can't I?

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

What I don't get is what you have against cyborgs. Cyborgs are awesome.

But yeah, good point. I can definitely see how that would work.

[deird1]

Some cyborgs are awesome. (Like Cameron. And Boomer.)

Personally, I was a big fan of the plotline with Betty falling in love with the Cyborg With Reprogramming - even if she did have to shut him down when his microchip got corrupted. But he was cool (in a broody sort of way).

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

What gets me about cyborgs is this: when do you legally become a cyborg? I know people with pacemakers and contact lenses, do they count as cyborgs?

And clearly, Betty belongs with the newer, sleeker cyborg who broke his own programming just for the hell of it rather than being reprogrammed by a bunch of passing gypsies Microsoft employees.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, I'm one of the people, who wrote that I'd cut about 20 issues from S8, yet basically I agree with what you say. To sound less scizophrenic, my favorite thing is the kind of story you describe, with lots of small stories and a big one building up in the background (like on B5 for example). Buffy S5 was a good example for that but there like you said the smaller plots were resolved, the individual episodes/miniarcs entertained.

I guess my real problem with S8 is that almost non of the individual arcs worked ot for me, of the longer ones, only the Faith arc did and of the one shots basically only "the chain". Lack of resolution was one aspect of it (like with TOYL), just plain bad was another (like the trip to 19th century germany).

I think I'm advocating cutting it down because the main plot is the only one I'm still invested in and I want to see it come to a resolution before it's lost in the boring, though in an ideal universe, where the mini-arcs and one shots could be rewritten,I'd be quite fine with the structure.

[deird1]

I guess my real problem with S8 is that almost non of the individual arcs worked ot for me, of the longer ones, only the Faith arc did and of the one shots basically only "the chain".

There is that.

Lack of resolution is one thing; lack of good writing is a completely separate issue.

[rahirah]

I actually think that the best issues of the series have been some of the one-shots, so if I were playing editor, I would be far more likely to whack the hell out of the main arc, which has wandered all over Robin Hood's barn without going much of anywhere.

[deird1]

*nods*

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Don't have really much to say except Season 8 is making me feel exhausted. Reading it is like running a marathon and I've reached the point where I just can't be excited. Sigh.

I think I could've made it through a 20-issue comic without oneshots though. Two years. Yeah, I could've done that. But it's the third year now and I'm tired.

The little resolutions sprinkled throughout the story aren't helping with the overwhelming and nigh suffocating urge to just have the thing be finished and to have all the niggling questions answered. Or else to realize that they're never gonna be answered so I can let it go.

I think it's an awful idea for a comic running on a four-year story arc to play "Oh, hide the plot point! And let's be secretive about our central characters emotional motivations and the context therein!" Mysteries like this don't work. Plot twists, yes. Mysteries with masks and questions like "Does Buffy even know that Spike's alive?" No. I stopped caring about Twilight's identity a year into the mystery and speculation. When it was revealed that it was Angel, I was relieved that the speculation wank would be over. Oh, and I'd already guessed that it was Angel. So I didn't care that it was Angel. At this point, the story not feeling the need to tell me if Buffy knows and/or cares if Spike is alive only makes me feel distance emotionally from her character. And I hate that because she's my favorite character and I've never been in a position where I didn't get what she was doing emotionally.

So yeah, I'm tired of the mystery games. I think they're cheap and ineffective and they're exhausting me. It'd be one thing to have the characters not knowing, but letting the audience know. Just let the audience know, please.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Seconded. *g*

[deird1]

Plot twists, yes. Mysteries with masks and questions like "Does Buffy even know that Spike's alive?" No.

Agreed. It definitely works to make the readers emotionally distant from the characters. After all, how can you identify with someone when you have no idea what they're thinking?

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Word.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I keep coming back to Kurt Vonnegut's tips on how to write a good story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Season 8, so far, has got 6 and 7 down perfectly. The rest, though...

[sarian71]

"Reading it is like running a marathon and I've reached the point where I just can't be excited."

*sigh* One by one, S8 comics are making people depressed. And that is depressing to watch. I think we have a vicious circle here...

"Oh, hide the plot point! And let's be secretive about our central characters emotional motivations and the context therein!"

Yes! Of all the storytelling mistakes they've done, that is definitely the biggest and the most tragic one. They've forgotten the essence of BtVS! No wonder fans feel alienated and disillusioned.

"It'd be one thing to have the characters not knowing, but letting the audience know. Just let the audience know, please. "

This. Exactly.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

I feel like my once-annoying plan for reading the comics - not bothering to get issues and just reading the TPBs whenever they come out/I feel like buying them - is actually making me less pissy over S8, lol. Cause there are much bigger time spans between when I'm reading new stuff, so I get new stuff all in one jolt, which cuts down on the annoying waiting for new plot developments, and it makes me a lot less invested in it - not that I would be hugely anyways cause, um, yeah. Season 8.

For instance, while all this Twangel business is going on, I haven't read a single one of those issues, and won't for a good while, since I believe I still have another TPB in between that one and the one I've read.

But anyways, yeah, Season 8 has so much silliness that frankly it's crazy. Like at first I was all like "yeah, whatever, it's silly, I don't take it seriously, whatever" but now it's just getting kind of dumb and the characters are all jacked up. I agree with what angearia said about being tired definitely. Although I felt that way more about the Buffy Omnibuses - like, I'd bought five of these suckers and we haven't even gotten to S4 yet SCREW THIS.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Although I felt that way more about the Buffy Omnibuses - like, I'd bought five of these suckers and we haven't even gotten to S4 yet SCREW THIS.

LOL! Yeah, I started reading those and had literally all of them at hand. But I got tired of the stories in that.

[deird1]

Although I felt that way more about the Buffy Omnibuses - like, I'd bought five of these suckers and we haven't even gotten to S4 yet SCREW THIS.

*nods ruefully*

I got up to book four...

[snickfic]

Yes to this. I think the reason NFFY worked precisely because of what you're describing: a self-contained arc with character dynamics I cared about. I heartily wish there'd been more like that. (FWIW, I have much the same trouble with S7.)

And I second what others are saying about just being worn out, and I haven't even been paying that much attention. However, I suspect my problem is the same fundamental impatience that keeps me from watching TV shows as they're running. I think I've watched exactly four TV shows from week to week, and I almost didn't make it through Dollhouse. I only managed it by watching the last six eps all in one go. It's even worse with comics, where you only get one issue a month. Whatever interest I have in the story when I start is long gone by the time it gets where it's going.

[elisi]

I can dream, can't I?
Well *I* am counting down to the start of Doctor Who S5, which will apparently 'have a thread running through it'... :)

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I guess season 8 will look much better in retrospect when people will be able to read it from the first to the last issue in one take. But as the story drags for three years with non-resolutions - it's hard to have fun with it. The longer it drags the more it looks like a proverbial carrot (even if it isn't).

[quinara]

*nods* Yes.

I like long and involved stories... But this is too long, and not that involving. One of Joss's supposed strengths was always to sweep you up in the emotion and stop caring about the integrity of the plot - but you simply can't sustain sweeping when you're telling a story in piecemeal once a month for three years. I could imagine, maybe, someone telling a mystery over that length of time, but in that situation (when people have a month of pore over not that much source material) everything has to be a clue and a perfect reflection of the world, rather than just some random crap thrown together (*cough*Warren*cough*). And you have to convince people that this is true, by putting in some satisfying reveals along the way (not WTFs).

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

You know, I think a lot of the complaints about how Season 8 is structured are coming from the people who aren't enjoying it (or in some cases, aren't even reading it), but still want to know what happens and how it ends. So they're getting impatient to reach the destination rather than enjoying the journey.

Is it frustrating to have to wait a month between installments? Yes of course. But as I said two years ago and still believe, I'd much rather have a story where we see pieces of the jigsaw being snapped into place one by one, than a serial where every episode ends on a "cliffhanger" which is immediately resolved at the start of the next issue, and every 4-issue arc ends with a reset button and no change to the overall situation.

So I prefer it this way. I can see, though, given other people's reactions, why it might have been a better commercial decision for Joss and DH to go for a shorter season with fewer digressions.

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the very few who actually loves that S8 is long. And I can't wait to read it all in one sitting once it's done.

I think S8 started to get one fans nerves when it started being shippy -notice how many talked about it when Buffy expressed feelings for Xander and right now when we got glowing Bangel. Shipping... always comes first. *winks*

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

There are things I don't like about Season Eight, but then there are also stuff I don't like about all seasons. Overall, I'm very satisfied about Season Eight. I do agree that it would have been better if Twilight was revealed much earlier, and we got to see why Angel is doing what he's doing.

As for connecting with the characters, I think I connect just fine with Buffy, Xander, and Dawn. I haven't connected with Willow ever since she became super witch, and Giles is filled with mystery for me to connect with him, but I'll wait until the season is done.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

It's funny, because Willow's character arc is probably the thing about S8 I love most. The whole business with her keeping Kennedy away from Buffy, and her mixed emotions about finding out about Buffy and Satsu, and how she reacted to discovering Oz has a child now. It's giving us lots of really deep insights into Willow's character without ever banging the drum and saying "This is a special All-Willow episode!" Not to even mention the unfolding Saga Vasuki mystery.

[next_to_normal]

I think it could work either way - as a shorter, more streamlined mystery with no pointless sidebars, or as a series of standalone stories connected by a thread of minor references. You're right - it's all about the resolution, so either way, there's got to be a payoff in order for it to be satisfying. With your scenario, we'd get regular resolutions to each arc to satisfy us. In the other scenario, we should get little mysteries solved that provide clues to the bigger mystery, and it wouldn't drag on beyond the point that people lose interest in solving it.