Josh Hill wrote:
> Did they use a zoom?

I only dare speak at present to the first 11 episodes, but it is blatant 
in those that they frequently "moved" the Enterprise model with a zoom 
lens and then matted in the background. With such a complicated 3-D 
shape as the Enterprise, it is blatant that, although the ship is 
supposed to be approaching or receding, there is no change in 
perspective. A flying saucer, a V-2, or a flying teardrop might get away 
with it, but those pylons and struts betray the cheat.

> That's an interesting observation. I wonder if that has something to
> do with the transition from episodic to arc-driven shows. In the
> former, plot arises from character, and the characters are fixed. In
> the latter, the characters are cogs in a larger drama, even the leads.

I think it's more complicated than that, and here, knowing full well 
that I am taking a risk, I have to dissent in some part from a well 
known dictum of our Joe's. In the old days, in the more serious dramatic 
series, the episodes were largely about the guest stars. The series star 
(and there was frequently only one, or, if there were several, they 
rotated the position of star-of-the-week) was somewhat of a still center 
around which the plot revolved. Usually, the star was key to the 
resolution of the plot, though the extreme case, "Michael Anthony" in 
"The Millionaire", almost always departed the story in the first act. 
Thus the many shows about drifters, either in the old west, or today. 
(It is obvious when watching the first episode of "The Fugitive" that it 
was intended to be another drifter show, and it never entirely ceased to 
be one.)

The price to be paid was that virtually every single leading character 
in an American episodic television drama, except for the few shows with 
a military venue, where it wouldn't quite do, was modeled on Philip 
Marlowe. Even "The Prisoner" is simply the ne plus ultra of the style.

(After this became boring, we got the era of freak detectives. Blind 
detectives. Psychic detectives. Fat detectives. Elderly detectives. 
Hot-babe detectives.)

"Hill Street Blues" came up with a better solution. But the problem is 
that it's hard to do meaningful character-based police work. In the end, 
what we get is straight procedural work by characters with family 
problems. Law shows do a bit better, as long as we can generate a 
constitutional crisis of the week -- and as long as it is fashionable to 
perceive politics, legal philosophy, and character as three sides of the 
same coin.

As usual, Joe found the right answer. The drama of "Babylon 5" /is/ 
driven by the characters. But, because he doesn't push the Dreaded Reset 
Button, he can also let the drama mold the characters. The closing 
credits of "Sleeping in Light" make the point very clearly, with the 
before-and-after portraits of the characters. So Londo does the things 
he does because he is Londo, but he wouldn't be Londo if he hadn't 
experienced those events. In most shows, the leading characters have to 
be as invulnerable to psychological trauma as they are to bullets. (The 
famous ending of "Requiem for Methuselah" is damned effective, but, in 
the larger view, it's still a cheat.)

-- 
John W. Kennedy
A proud member of the reality-based community.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32