The Lineage of Influence, From Catch 22 to Scrubs

I'm currently on a bit of a classics kick lately in my reading, having read The Man in the High Tower, then All Quiet On the Western Front and now Catch-22. I've enjoyed all three quite a bit so far even though I am only about a third of the way through Catch. One of the things that struck me about it how similar it is to the TV version of M.A.S.H.

MASH itself has a bit of a confusing legacy. It's best know as the TV show that ran from 1972 to 1983 about surgeons serving in the Korean War, a TV show that was an adaptation of a largely forgotten movie that was itself and adaptation of an even more forgotten book, overshadowed by the TV show that bares their name. And for good reason, MASH is unquestionably one of the greatest TV shows of all time, a personal favorite and one I re-watched in its entirety early this year. So what does all this have to do with a novel written in 1960 that no one really remember outside the phrase that it gave its name to?

Turns out quite a lot. You see, Catch 22 is about a pilot in World War Two who's only goal in life is not to die. Drafted and thrown into a war zone he spends as much of time trying to get out of fighting as he does getting thrown in to it. Surrounding him are a group of wacky, crazy characters who get into their own antics and adventures. The whole book is basically one long, incredibly manic episode of MASH, even though it came out over a decade before MASH the TV show and a whole seven years before the book that inspired the movie that inspired the show. Confused yet?

Don't be, cause they're all rather similar from a bird's eye view. You see MASH the TV show is about a surgeon drafted into the Korean War who's only goal in life is not to die. He spends a great deal of time roaming the camp and getting into trouble with his hair brained, psychotic cast of background characters until the shells start flying and the casualties start coming in. Then he's up to his elbows in blood and guts trying to save the lives of kids who should be making out at drive in theaters instead of dying in a war zone.

Both of these stories are about people trying to stay sane in living hells, in the worst places on earth and craziest of all, both stories are meant to be funny. They are comedies through and through. They exists to make you laugh. Cause what's funnier than war?

I cannot say for certain what inspired the collective writers of MASH over the years because I have never met them, but I think the influence of the novel on the show is fairly clear to anyone who has witnessed both works. And there's nothing wrong with that, taking influences from what came before is how we grow as writers, it's how we push the medium forward.

I think too, that a novel like Catch 22, itself coming out to mix reception at release and then going on to becoming one of the classics of American literature helped pave the way for shows like MASH, itself a risky and boundary pushing show of the time. MASH, the show, had an enormous challenge ahead of it. This was a show about Korea, the last great American War coming out in a time of America's current greatest war, Vietnam. The show was meant to serve not just as comedy, but as a political statement. That was hard enough to do at the time, hell it's hard enough to do now. But to go the extra step and say we want this to be a comedy, to go even further and say we want this to be a comedy with a message, with dramatic intent, with a political will, well that's damn near impossible. Even if you can pull it off on paper, even if you get a studio to green light it, getting an audience to ride the emotional waves as you crest and crash from comedy to casualties, from laughter to tragedy is a challenge for any writer in any medium.

But they pull it off. Both Catch 22 and MASH are able to pull off this effortless drift along the spectrum in a way that somehow feels natural, maybe because that's how real wars are, laughing one minute and running for your life the next. Catch 22 tends to be more blunt, punctuating sentence after sentence of jokes with an off hand, casual mention of a characters death. MASH tends to play its focus tighter, sometimes pushing its downer moments to the climax of an episode or separating the antics in the Swamp from those in Surgery.  In the end they manage to strike a balance that allows the reader and viewer to experience the whole range of emotions intended, to be pulled to and fro without ever getting ripped from the story completely.

Which brings me to Scrubs.

Scrubs is also, in my opinion, one of the greatest half hour sitcoms to ever grace a television set. "My Screw Up" and "My Lunch" are two of the greatest episodes of television period and ones I think back to often. The show as a whole, while largely a goofy comedy was able to, seemingly effortlessly, slide into more dramatic and sometimes tragic moments. It walked a path laid down before it by shows like MASH, by books like Catch 22.

There were many, many medical shows before Scrubs and even medical comedies. MASH even had its own ill fated spin off set in a normal  hospital back in the states, so it was by no means the first. But the works that came before helped inspire it, they helped lay the ground work for future shows to follow in their footsteps, for future creators to point back and show a precedent for when it was successful.

Through works as these we can see the lineages of our own works, of those that came before. I think we often spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about our direct influences, on our creative idols and the altars upon which we worship them. Perhaps we should take more time to consider those who paved the roads we now use, rather than those who walked them.

Character Study: Wesley Wyndam-Price

Over the past couple of months I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer all the way through, and re-watching its spinoff, Angel. This re-introduced me to one of my favorite characters, Wesley Wyndam-Price. Wesley has a wonderful arc across his time on both shows, not only developing and evolving but somehow also managing to stay true to himself.

Significant spoilers for both shows are coming. You've been warned.

We first meet Wesley, played by Alexis Denisof, in season three of Buffy. After Rupert Giles is deposed as Watcher (read: mentor) to slayers Buffy and Faith, Wesley is sent by the Watcher's Council as replacement. In those early days he serves a foil for Giles. Where Giles is often stuffy and forced into the roll of restraint and experience, Wesley is new, but very arrogant. As head boy he exhibits every preppy, academic nancy boy trait to the maximum. Giles is often reserved and shy, Wesley thrusts himself in to the forefront, only to gloriously fail out of clumsiness or inexperience. In Wesley we are introduced to a smart, but insecure fellow who is constantly trying to prove himself.

Over the course of his arc, Wesley will make many mistakes, but almost always from trying to do the right thing. First we see him struggling to assert his position of superiority over Buffy and Faith, neither whom have any notion of falling in line with anyone, let alone a nerdy pretty boy from across the pond. Wesley comes into the situation seeing that Giles has given Buffy to much leeway, and he's not wrong in that assessment, but over compensates. Buffy ignores him in favor of her old teacher, and Faith goes inevitably rouge. Faced with losing control of a super powered teenager, Wesley conspires with the Watcher's Council to abduct and reform Faith. This goes less than smoothly.

We next find Wesley in the Buffy spin-off Angel. After his numerous failures in Sunnydale, Wesley was fired from the Watcher's Council and drifted to L.A. to become a 'rouge demon hunter.' He wears a leather coat, carries weapons and tries again and again to be a bad ass, only to fail miserably. After yet more miss steps he joins Angel in his detective agency, serving as resident occult expert and the brains of the early group.

This is where most shows would have left him. In the office with his books and manuscripts, serving as a nice vehicle for exposition when the plot demanded it. But the writers of Angel decided to push the character farther, putting him in situation after situation just to see how he'd act. We soon see his loyalties pitted against each other when the Watcher's Council offers Wesley full reinstatement if he will only betray Angel and allow them to recover the wayward slayer, Faith. Wesley refuses, turning his back on his past and stepping out into a new future, one about helping people rather the accolades of the Council or his father.

Soon after we see Wesley sliding into a position of leadership at Angel investigations. His old clumsy ways recede as his natural leadership abilities and overall competence takes center stage. His countless scrapes with demons and Watcher's training mold him into a capable fighter. Friends with their own issues help him break out of his shell and become more confident. We see the character truly growing.

Again, this is where many shows would have left him. A valid arc of growth, from the bumbling British rich boy, arrogant and inexperienced, to a true instrument in the fight against evil. Then comes one of Wesley's most defining moments. When a prophecy declares that Angel will kill his son, Wesley does everything he can to disprove and discredit it, but sees time and again that it must be true. With no other options he enlists that aid of Angel's enemy, Holtz, not to betray or hurt Angel, but to protect his son. Once more Wesley's best intentions end in tragedy. Holtz (not surprisingly) betrays Wesley, has his lackey slit Wesley's throat and runs off with the kid.

Wesley is expelled from the group of heroes. After recovering from his injuries, Wesley strikes out on his own. He becomes a true Demon Hunter instead of merely fancying himself one. He even puts a loose crew together, often taking care of jobs that Angel's group missed, and working with them, albeit reluctantly, several times. It serves as a particularly interesting conflict because both Wesley and his former friends at Angel Investigations have equal reason to feel betrayed and wronged by the other party.

During this period we also see Wesley's relationship develop with the evil lawyer, Lilah. What starts out as an affair of self loathing and comfort develops into genuine affection as Wesley's pure heart can't help but grow attached. It is in this moment that we realize how far Wesley's come. From insecure comedic relief, to a tortured and troubled soul. One that has been darkened by multiple conflicts and twisted by his constant attempts at doing the right thing turning to ash in his hands. This isn't helped when Lilah is fed upon by Angel, now once again Angelus (long story,) and Wesley is forced to chop of her head to prevent her from potentially becoming a vampire.

Eventually Wesley rejoins Angel and his group, albeit as a completely different person. The boyish naivete is long gone, replaced by a collapsible sword wielding badass with little light to hold onto after chopping off his girlfriend's head and his true love, Fred, still dating Gunn.

Time goes on and in the final season of Angel we see the team taking over the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart. Wesley fights against the places corruption along with the rest of the team, but almost seems more comfortable there, maybe because of his flirtations with the dark side, or his relationship with Lilah. The idea of boyhood, insecure Wesley is permanently put to rest when Wesley's Father comes to visit. Wesley is reverted to his clumsy, weak self and unable to adequately preform in front of his Father, even accidentally activating a bomb (or so he thinks.) His father betrays him, leading to one of my favorite scenes in the entirety of the show.

Wesley and his Father have a stand off on the roof. They argue and vent built up rage at one another. Wesley's Father demands his son to hand over a powerful artifact that could be used to mind control Angel, and Wesley refuses. In a desperate move, his Father attempts to take Fred, Wesley's long love, hostage. He never gets the chance. The second he moves toward her Wesley opens fire, gunning down his Father without a second thought. It turns out to actually be a robot, but Wesley had no idea of that when he shot him. (Again, long story.) This cements Wesley's rise as a truly remarkable individual and forever severs his ties with his past.

At the end of the show, Wesley and Fred finally admit their love for one another, only for Fred to get a serious infection and quite literally be destroyed from the inside out. She dies a very painful death in Wesley's arms, only for a powerful demon to walk around in her body. (And you thought the robot thing was weird.) Wesley is forced to not only see a constant reminder of his one true love, but also to deal with her killer. How does he react, what does he do? This man who had been through so much, who had his throat slit and several of his dear friends die? The man who started out as a pompous book worm, turned want-to-be demon hunter, turned actual demon hunter?

He helps her. He helps the demon after she has lost everything, after her kingdom has been turned to dust. He helps her find her way in a world that confuses and frightens her. Does he do this out of some desire to see Fred again? No. He is told point blank that her soul is gone. And when the demon adopts Fred's appearance, Wesley challenges her for the first time, warning her to never do it again.

So why? Why does he help the twisted evil thing that burned the love of his life from the inside out?

Because it's the right thing to do.

This a quote from the episode "Lineage."

Wesley: "The perception is that I'm weak. That's why they went for me."

Angel: "They're wrong. You do what you have to do to protect the people around you. To do what is right, no matter the cost. You know, I never really understood that. You're the guy who makes all the hard decisions, even if you have to make 'em alone."

Doing what's right, no matter the cost. Alone.

That is Wesley Wyndam-Price. From Head Boy, to Watcher, to Rouge Demon Hunter.

He was a character who fought the good fight, when he had nothing to show for it, when it cost him everything. Various jobs, his friends, even the love of his life. For no other reason, than because it was right.



I hope you enjoyed this article.

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Thoughts On Battlestar Galactica

A brief confession. I never watched Battlestar when it was on. Never cared about it when it was on. I was one of the many who wrote BSG off as another over hyped, cliched ridden sci-fi show with a low budget and cheesy acting. A judgement I came to without ever having scene an episode. I ignored it along with all the other over hyped cult classics and went about my merry way.

With all the recent talk about how wonderful Blood and Chrome is and hearing the names of BSG's actors whispered in reference on too many times I decided to finally sit down and give this serious a fair shot.

I was wrong. I'll be the first to admit it. I was damn wrong. I'm not sure what exactly I had been expecting. A cheesy, Star Trek style space opera with weak writing, weak acting and overall coating of cheese perhaps. Maybe another Stargate Universe, a decent show that limped along. A show that had it's highs and lows and survived off its interesting concepts. Maybe a Doctor Who. A show that inspires a deep love as whole but fails utterly when broken down into it's various parts.

Whatever I was expecting, I got a show that starts off with interesting concepts and world building and escalates into a wonderful and fascinating study in human relationships and just how far a person can be pushed before they break. This is hands down on of the better shows I've seen in a long time, and one I've enjoyed immensely. Is it perfect? Not in the slightest. Is it great? Defiantly. Does it deserve it's spot in the revered pantheon of Nerdom? Yes, I think it does. While not a Zeus or a Hera, it certainly earns the spot of an Apollo, or Athena. (See what I did there?)

To better illustrate what makes this show work so well in spite of it's faults, I'm going to break it down and hopefully in the process you will gain some greater insights into your own writing. I'm going to go easy on specific examples as I wish for this to remain as spoiler free as possible.

The Bad

Melodrama - This show has drama. More drama than you can shake a stick at. The plot puts the entire human species at risk while adding in love triangles, espionage, betrayal, politics and religion. Most of the time it creates a tense atmosphere the reflects the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Most of the time it takes characters we care about and pushes them to the limit. It breaks their souls and allow us to watch as they struggle to pick up the pieces.

Drama is a tricky thing. Too little and we're bored. Too much and it rips us out of the moment. They go from heartbroken to whiny. We go from sympathetic to annoyed. The line is thin and subjective to the viewer. What may be heart wrenching to one, causes another eyes to roll.

The show is usually good about braving that type rope but falls enough to be noticed.

Plot - This show excels in plot for reasons I'll get into later. Here I wanted to address some of it's weaker points. This ties in to some of the point's about drama. A show this complex, with many different strands that intersect and intertwine can create a web that grabs a hold of the viewers attention and refuses to let go.

Go too far however, and the viewer's suspension of disbelieve vanishes amongst betrayals, reveals and plot twist. The viewer loses his trust in the writer's plans and wonders how many choices are being made for a cheap boost in the viewer's attention (or ratings.) This show has some excellent twist and turns, but towards the end I found myself wondering how much had been planned out from the beginning and how much the writer's were making up as they went along. You can normally get away with this, BSG however built it's entire premise around the plan of it's players. When you do that you have to be sure of where you're going, or the viewers will lose faith that you can find your way.

The show also has a strong reliance on flashbacks. Sometimes going so far to have an episode that is entirely a flashback, with further flashbacks within it. Most of the episodes use the to show background of a character and fill in their past. Others seem to use it fill in plot holes or other problems that might arise. I think I'm one of the few people who doesn't really mind flashbacks. They allow us to skip the boring parts while retaining the interesting. Others may not be so kind to the shows liberal use of them.

The Good

World Building - I'm a huge sucker for world-building when it's done right. Done wrong, world-buildings is a mess of granular details we have no reason to care about and exposition dumping that slows down the narrative. When done right it lures us into the world crumb by crumb until we're hopelessly lost in it's magical forest.

Battlestar Galactica uses it's world-building to a wonderful degree. It starts out with the twelve colonies, setting up that this is not our world or history. It tells us of servants that rose up in defiance and the war that resulted. It expands into not one, but two distinct and fleshed out religions with their own flaws, failures and successes.

More importantly while the religion gives us the central plot device in the search for Earth, they make sure to use it beyond that. The religious beliefs and lack thereof gives us an added layer of depth into the characters. It pops up in politics, episode plots and random stories. It permeates through every aspect of the world which gives it the weight needed with the viewer while helping to round out the world it exist within.

The Cylons begin as a faceless, emotionless enemy. By the end we see they have their own culture, believes, personalities. They evolve from a boogie man harassing the survivors, from a one dimensional wolf harassing sheep to a proper faction in their own right. More than villains, they are shown to be agents of their own fate, with their own hopes, dreams and fears.

Contrast this with Stargate Universe. A show I have no problem with going on the record of having liked, and was very sad with it's cancellation. The shows have a very similar core concept. That of survivors on their own, a long way from home. Or in BSG's case, without a home. While SGU has some world-building in terms of the Ancients and other artifacts, it never comes close to the comprehensive nature that BSG takes with the Cylons.

Stargate Universe was set in what is basically our own world, with some minor differences. The characters all came from Earth. Had our history, our religions. This limited in their options to use these for conflict. Far easier to poke fun at the false gods of fiction than religions who will boycott your show. In the end I think it gave SGU a shallowness of the world that BSG was able to lack. Battlestar was able to achieve not only depth but a truly impressive scale due to the effort and execution of its building.

And of course, who could forget frak. Frak is used as the de facto expletive in the show in place of another four lettered word that starts with F. Though it could also be interpreted as other expletives in certain context. It's a brilliant work around for television censorship. Anyone who's been in the military can tell you there is a lot of cussing involved, no matter what branch you're in. To have a show with people under stress driving them to betrayal and suicide holding in every cuss word would seem unrealistic, and bleeps distracting.

While the use of the word isn't perfect, things like mother fracker can seems forced, it's a wonderful dash of world-building that adds even more to the story. I also find it rather catchy.

Balance - The re-launch of Battlestar Galactica ran from 2004 to 2009. This was a time in America dominated by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A time of deep, bi-partisan political entrenchment and bias across seemingly every form of media. No matter what side your political beliefs fall on, it's undeniable that Bush Era saw a bias in both fiction and news media that boarder lined on Propaganda from both political ideologies.

In the middle of this we have a show about war. A show about government and religion in a time when the country in which is was made was deeply divided over the issues. At the heart of the shows first and second season were the questions of power in government. A careful balance between the military and the people, between civil liberties and national security.

It would have been easy, far to easy, for the show to take a stand for one or the other. For the show to stand up on it's soapbox week after week and denounce a tyrannical military establishment shoving aside the concerns of the people, or lament the weakness of soft-hearted liberals unable to stomach the realities of war.

While the show certainly has it's moment of over reaching military power, and a civilian government unable to make the tough calls, I think it walked a remarkable thin line when so many others in this country were unable to. Whenever one side or the other over stepped it's bounds in the show, they always had reason to do so, and their actions felt within their character.

Character Development - While on the subject of politics, this show has phenomenal character development. Two of the show's central characters, Commander Adama and President Roslin (played by Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell) show wonderful character growth throughout the series, along with others. Adama starts out as the old vet. Military man through and through who has no time for politicians. Roslin is a school teacher who finds herself in the role of President to a dying people. Not only to they evolve as individuals, learning and adapting to the situations they encounter, they evolve together as well. The Commander is softened through the lose of those under his command, as The President is hardened by an unforgiving world. They start out as rivals, gain each others respect and eventual friendship. Adama and Roslin are lesson in how you write a love story. There's no courting, no flirting. Their relationship evolves naturally over time, rising and falling with the circumstances that surround them. And no matter their feelings, they stay true to themselves and act accordingly. Their intertwining path is truly masterful.

As is the development of other characters. This show has a massive cast that grows and shrinks over the course of the show. Instead of relying on a few, small number of characters with which to grow and cultivate, the show continuously challenges itself to fully develop as many characters as possible. Branching out from Adama, Roslin, Lee and Starbuck we meet Chief Tyrol, Lt. Sharon Valerii, Dee, Karl 'Helo' Agathon, and on and on. The sheer amount of characters that not only are fully fleshed out in their own right but continue to evolve and change over the course of the show is staggering on the level of mind blowing. For those who have watched the show think of who Lt. Gaeta was at the start of the show and who he was at the end. Or Starbuck, who begins the show as butch, cigar chomping cliche evolves into well rounded character with real depth and conflict.

One great example of this, without spoilers, is the three pilots. Early on in the show there's an episode where some new pilots need to be trained. Three lucky recruits are sent to Starbuck to be trained as pilots. We see three young adults ready and eager. The minute I saw them I thought, hears a couple of red shirts. Expendable characters that will be dead within a few episodes. Of those three characters one has a long, multi-stage arc and another is always around, developing their own character. What in any other show could have been cannon fodder to be introduced and tossed away becomes an opportunity for growth and development and a chance to get the viewer invested.

Not only is the show not afraid to bring in side characters and give them full arcs of their own, the show isn't afraid to kill characters off. This is something that I miss dearly in a lot of shows, especially those that deal with war. The show is built on the premise that it's a dangerous life and people die and sometimes for shitty reasons. The show goes behind having this spouted by characters to show it in action. Characters die. Characters we've come to care about over dozens of episodes. Characters that had hope and dreams and plans for the future. Instead of pissing us off it makes us love the show even more. It makes us care about the characters that have survived, makes us carry some of the weight that they carry themselves.

Instead of fearing that the viewer would become lost and confused in a sea of characters, Battlestar Galactica gave us a reason to care about each and everyone. They used their cast to give a sense of realism to the world that many shows are missing.

Plot - TV is a tricky medium. In a movie, or a novel you generally have a strict linear progression. You have segments or chapters sure. And a novel is prone to being made up of several stories, tied into a larger whole. You might have the various kingdoms a party is traveling through, or several cases a detective must solve tying into a larger mystery, but the book is working toward a single tale, a single ending.

While TV shares similarities, it has a challenge all its own. Each week it must tell a self contained story strong enough to satisfy the viewer. It must also show the development of plots and characters toward a whole that not only makes the actual story, but compels the viewer to return week after week.

BSG has some wonderful episode plots that focus a specific section of the world, be it politics or religions, while juggling its many characters and plots. More impressively, the show is able to loosely defined goal of a destination and stretch it out without the viewer losing hope. They interweave so many plots, both global in terms of Cylon vs Human or Military vs Civilian bound together by dozens of relationships, rivalries and loyalties.

No matter the size of the conflict, from a worker's strike on a ship, to searching for food, to a love triangle the show boost it's plots through so many layers of worldbuilding, groups, relationships and character that you can't help but enjoy the ride.

One of things I found most impressive with show comes at the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3. I won't spoil anything, or at least I'll try not to. Season's one and two have their central focus on the fleet and it's drive to Earth. Far from stale at the end of Season Two, the writer's took the show in a radical direction. They changed up the dynamic completely. There's a decision within the show that is made, followed by a time jump. I found myself thinking it would be a few weeks, maybe a couple months in time. Nope. It's a year. A year. Let that sink in a minute. Something happens in the show, then we cut to a year later. A whole damn year. How many shows do that?

The world we find ourselves in a year later is quite different. The times have changed and relationships with it. People who an episode before where going on their first dates are now married or have kids. The whole time I was watching I kept expecting a retcon. Someone to hit the reset button and go back to the last save. It was a dream sequence or a vision or someone who find a wormhole and warn the others. Nope. They stick with it. They follow through and keep the changes and all of it's consequences. Whether you agree with the choices or not you have to admire the balls of the writers. I don't know of single other show that's done something like that and stuck with it.

Which brings me to another point. Flashbacks. The show has so many, and yet for the most part, they work. Flashbacks are one of those things you see on all these writer's list floating around the internet as an evil thing you should never do. BSG seems to have one every four episodes or some. Some episodes are nothing but flashbacks. Razor, a Battlestar Galactica TV movie is itself one long flashback that has other flashbacks within it. But it works.

Why? Because it allows us to see the good bits without getting bogged down in the boring. During the Season 2/Season 3 jump it skips over a lot of stuff. Most of it probably would have been boring or slow. So they skip it. A few episodes later we get an episode showing us only the most interesting bits that had happened. It allows us the best of both worlds. Along with everything else in the show, it's a fine line that BSG navigates well.

Conclusion
 
I've enjoyed Battlestar Galactica more than I have other shows in a very long time. It took a while for me to like it as much as I do. Like Stargate Universe it was a good seven episodes before I found myself really caring about what was going on. Maybe that's a problem with me, maybe it's one with the show. I am certaintly glad I stuck with it.

Battlestar manages to wade through countless minefields to come out with fists full of storytelling gold. It not only earns its spot in the Pantheon of Nerdom but is strong enough to defend that spot for decades to come. If you are at all interested in writing, TV, or sci-fi you owe it to yourself to seek this out (it's on Netflix) and give it a watch.

This article is by far the longest I've written for the site. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to see me ramble on other shows, let me know in the comments below.