How to explain 1840 Angelique...?

[David]

 

Methinks folks are making excuses for sloppy writing, which was a real problem during the show's final 6 months.

[MagnusTrask]

Methinks folks are making excuses for sloppy writing, which was a real problem during the show's final 6 months.

More like sloppy plotting I suppose.  For me, "writing" isn't where the plot goes, but the particular words chosen for the characters to speak.   If 1840 is just generally bad in every sense for the viewer, he/she will not want to bother "rescuing" it from its bad logic.   Others of us who like 1840 for other reasons, despite some later plot blunders, will want to do this kind of CPR on it, to find a way to make it make sense.   Put another way, yes, we're making excuses for sloppy writing or plotting, because we feel it's in our interest as viewers to do so.

Most of us who do this don't really think our fixes were anything the writers had in mind.

[David]

Three characters who were established as being alive in future time bands were killed in 1840, with no explanation offered as to how these deaths affected those future time storylines.
You can't make it logical. Dan, JF & Sam should have been slapped on the rump for having so little respect for their audience.

[MagnusTrask]

Three characters who were established as being alive in future time bands were killed in 1840, with no explanation offered as to how these deaths affected those future time storylines.
You can't make it logical. Dan, JF & Sam should have been slapped on the rump for having so little respect for their audience.

I know.  Some clever fans have managed to get partway toward fixing things, though, in interesting ways.   One fix is just letting history be changed.   Everything past 1840 now happened differently from what we saw onscreen.   In fact, I think the blunders in 1840 made it impossible for DS to continue in the present day in 1971, unless they were willing to start REALLY thinking out the consequences for the present, to the point where 1971 would become incomprehensible to long-term viewers who remembered the "present" from earlier.   It would get pretty trippy.

Some blunders are unfixable, but other eras made those too.  In both 1840 and 1897, Barnabas didn't get back into the box, so Willie couldn't have let him out in 1967 anymore.    1968's treatment of time-travel was often incoherent.

[tragic bat]

I agree with you David, there is no rationalizing away these heinous acts of "continuicide."

[MagnusTrask]

I agree with you David, there is no rationalizing away these heinous acts of "continuicide."

I should point out that in DS, changing history IS possible.   We just never get to see what all the history-changing in 1840 did to the present.   So 1840 screwed up later eras?  Fine, let's see it onscreen!   It might be interesting.

Most of the post-1897 storylines are hard to get through for me.   1840 isn't, because of writing (that is, how the characters react to events and the dialogue), atmosphere, characterizations, and many fascinating events that happen early in the storyline.  Therefore, I'm powerfully motivated to try to "save" 1840, even if just partly, rather than turning my back on it.   That seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.   

[David]

I'm hoping the audio dramas will fill in these blank spots. one of the  CD dramas already explains how the stairway thru time works.

[Gothick]

Just a line to note that as far as I am concerned, the audiodramas are NOT original series canon.  They are their own canon.  One can consider them the same way one might consider fanfic--as suggestions with regards to explication of canon, but even well-written suggestions are only that--NOT canon.

It may be that as fandom evolves, this attitude will fall away and people will just see some kind of amorphous blob of everything that has ever been put out with the name DS on it--from OS episodes to the Gold Key comics to the Burton/Depp production and beyond.  To me, each iteration is emphatically its own universe, its own canon.

I actually thought that the way the Stairway through Time worked was explained fairly lucidly in the excerpts from Quentin's diaries Julia read out in the drawing room in 1970.  One of the most fantastical conceits of DS because they casually have Quentin anticipating Einstein's concept of space-time by around 90 years.  It is the kind of thing that will appeal to the steampunk crowd if any of them decide to start watching the show.

G.

[David]

The Burton film /comics etcetera are each their own canons, but I consider the audio dramas original series Canon because the original cast is participating.

[MagnusTrask]

I like the Stairway explanation in Q1's diary, but while it fools around with space and time as Einstein did, Q1's idea was that time actually doesn't exist, and all there is is physical space.  That's really interesting, creative, daring nonsense, and I love it.  It makes me strain to imagine how such a thing could be possible.  It has always seemed to mean to me that if you build and shape a staircase in just the right way, in exactly the right dimensions, taking into account every last detail and contour to the micrometer, or whatever, it could alter time.

The ridiculous thing is that the Stairway just ends up looking like a traditional set of stairs, with the usual decorative knobs and railings etc..  It really should have looked like the weirdest thing you've ever seen, and barely recognizable as a staircase.

[Taeylor Collins]

My best story I think I have ever written (not boasting but I am PROUD) for the 50TH ANNIVERSARY fanzine come from sloppy writing and plot holes.  That is where you will find some of you greatest writing treasures!!

[Taeylor Collins]

I like 1840 as well so I try to save it myself.  Parts are genius. Parts are a total train wreck. I just read a great story by Kathy Resch that totally fixed the Roxanne problem!  PARADOX! Great novel!

[MagnusTrask]

My best story I think I have ever written (not boasting but I am PROUD) for the 50TH ANNIVERSARY fanzine come from sloppy writing and plot holes.  That is where you will find some of you greatest writing treasures!!

So did you fix those DS plot holes?  Or did you add more holes, intentionally, because they lead to great writing?

[Taeylor Collins]

Although, it doesn't deal with 1840, I fixed said plot holes and made three storylines mesh together to make the show as a whole make more sense!

[MagnusTrask]

Cool.  I keep having a fantasy of a ridiculously sped up DS parody, in which all the famous plot hiccups are resolved in a very forced way, in 5 minutes... or maybe one minute...