Okay, let's see if this works. Here's what happened. OldDarth aka Lou aka OD aka my favorite Canadian who is not my friend Matt or Nathan Fillion or Tanya Huff or Stana Katic--well, back when this sentence had a point, OD and I sat down and had a chat about a whole bunch of things, like that tiny little story I'm writing, and how I feel about Chuck and the like. And OD was kind enough to record it.
Thing about the interview is, it's over an hour long, which means that's kind of a long time to sit down and listen to lil old me and just the perfect amount of time to listen to OD, so he then kindly broke it up into three very fun chunks. So here it is, part 1 of the interview, which is about 20 minutes in length. We talk about some really fun things, like, uh, me.
Oh, yeah, and Chuck. We talk about him, too. Part 2, which is about What Fates Impose, will come out either Wednesday or Thursday, and then Part 3 will come out next weekend sometime!
Enjoy!
Frea
@OD - thanks for conducting the interview.
ReplyDelete@Frea - I always thought Frea O'Scanlin was your real name - but it sure is an awesome pen name.
I find myself so much in agreement with what you guys have discussed in this part. Eagerly waiting for the next installment.
Thanks again for sharing your insights.
Thanks for sharing, I look forward to other parts of the conversation :)
ReplyDelete@genie yeah, nope, I have a very boring, very middle-class name. My last name might even be Smith, it's so boring. It could be something like Sarah Smith. Or Jennifer Smith.
ReplyDeleteNicky - Careful what you wish for. :) Somebody may have been mentioned by name...
Nicky - Careful what you wish for. :) Somebody may have been mentioned by name...
ReplyDeleteIf that person is whom I think it is then my response to that is NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :) :)
I can't help but wonder whose name would merit a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
ReplyDeleteBecause wow, do they kick puppies in their spare time? :)
Im officially confused now, Frea? Its ok you'll just tell me to tune in and find out, thats me reading your mind ;)
ReplyDelete@Frea - I was thinking that a certain "stiff as a board" character would be mentioned by name in the next part and that elicited a shout reminiscent of the aforementioned character's shout in 3x12. :)
ReplyDeleteSeason One for the win! :D And yes, that's exactly how I rate those seasons as well.
ReplyDeleteChuck vs. the Wookie for tone, YES! :D With a capital 'F' for Fun!
Sorry, got a little excited there. I enjoyed the interview, and unlike most podcasts I didn't leap for the shuttle dial every ten seconds. ;)
Good job, Frea (or, you know, whatever your name is). LOL.
Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI have a theory on the two main problems with Chuck writing. The first problem is that everything on the show seemws to be based around how it will it will effect Chuck the character. The rest of the cast is just supporting him, they do not exist as their own people. The worst example of that is Sarah. During the show every kiss that we have seen except for one has been witnessed by Chuck to create. The writers have never done anything to really the advance the character of Sarah on her own.
I think that this mindset reuslted in the character taking actions that were either illogical or didn't fit her previsouly M.O. The writers didn't notice because they were only concerned with advancing Chuck's "Heroes Journey".
The second main problem is that they simply move the story along too quickly. With Shaw they had to make him a mentor to Chuck, a potential mate for Sarah, and a possible nutcase in about 30 minutes of screentime. The result was a character that failed in all aspects and was loathed by the fan base.
Another example was the last six episodes of season 2. I loved them but so many moments could have been more poweful if things had been slowed down.
Season 3.1 was a disaster because they were trying to fit a huge number of stories about people other than Chuck in a show where he was on screen 70% of the time. Too many things we needed to see were assumed or not shown.
One last note. If the WTWT is a 10 on my scale of annoyance, Chuck and Sarah lying to each other is a 9. I can't stand it. I don't think that they need to be in personal conflict for the show to be interesting. I think the show can work if it is the two of them against the bad guys. Now that I think about.
Since the pilot the TPTB have tried to sell Chuck and Sarah as an epic romance, a relationship for the ages. They succeeded. Epic couples who are madly in love don’t lie about everything, the support each other without conditions. If you are sick you tell the other. If you are about to go on a rogue mission to find your MIA mother you tell the other person even if it puts them in an awkward position at work. The continued secrets cheapens the relationship that the writers spent 50 episodes building.
Part 2 of the interview brings up an interesting, to me at least, observation of Frea's season rankings versus her story of What Fates Impose.
ReplyDeleteSantam - I completely agree with pretty much every single one of those observations. Sarah very often changes to fit the plot (Plot chameleon!). In the beginning of the series, a change from her was a fascinating thing, but over time, with so much buildup and so little continued payoff, Sarah's changes have become worthless as she becomes more and more of a pod person. I would love for not only Sarah, but for Ellie to get a full characterization--something that happened in S3.5--but with all the speculation posted on the interwebs about S4, I don't know if that's going to happen. It sounds like everybody's just going back to lying to Ellie again, this time to protect the Awesome Sprog, and if that happens, as an Ellie Suffragette, I will be very disappointed in Schwedak. They will receive a stern look from me.
ReplyDeleteChuck and Sarah as an epic romance is what I loved about S1 and S2. A lot of people make the claim that the writers were bullied by the fans to put Chuck and Sarah together at the end of S2, which was why they thumbed their noses at us and hit us in the face with the sucker punch that was Prague. To which I say, that's utter malarkey, writers, and shame on you. If anything bullied the writers into putting the main couple together, it was the writers. They wrote themselves into that corner with proper escalation and tension, and they didn't give themselves a way out that didn't involve a complete and total pod person makeover. It was like a game of chicken where they not only cheated, but they sabotaged everything by throwing exploding tacks into the road and sent my favorite ship crashing and burning into the side of a warehouse somewhere. I don't mind the WT/WT as much as a lot of people seem to because I thought (Beefcake, Ex, and Fat Lady aside) it was very well written until S3's nice little knife to the kidney and twist came along. The lying bothers me FAR more than WT/WT ever will. I don't like cheering on douchebags, and if Chuck and Sarah keep lying, that's what I'll have to do, and it makes me very, very grumpy to think about doing so.
Aardie - I'm glad I didn't bore you into fast-forwarding. YES to having another Wookie fan on CI! As far as my name goes, Frea is close enough. I'll keep going by that. :)
I agree with your statement agreeing about agreeing with me. Yesterday I tried to put myself in the writer shoes. TPTB wanted Chuck and Sarah to break up at the beginning of season 3. This wasn't an easy task because they couldn't physically seperate the two characters or have a serious injury. The answer that the writers came up with (Prague) didn't work for me at all because the situation was totally unfair to Chuck and seemed very OOC for Sarah. Additionally in order for the angst to work both Chuck and Sarah would have to refrain from giving any explanation for their actions. If they had a 10 minute chat before Prague the hurt feelings would have been much less.
ReplyDeleteThen I tried to think of a way to seperate them while still having them working together. I couldn't come up with anything other than the assett/handler issue which had been more than played out. As you said they boxed themselves into a corner. Everything that they had written said that Chuck and Sarah had to be together so the only way to keep them apart was to come up with an outrageous and OOC plot device.
I would've understood some tension about Chuck being a spy keeping them apart for a little while but anything longer than two or three episodes would have felt phoney to me and probably a lot of other fans.
Sorry, I haven’t listened to this (my attention span isn’t that long when it comes to audio). But the comments were pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this…
“The lying bothers me FAR more than WT/WT ever will. I don't like cheering on douchebags, and if Chuck and Sarah keep lying, that's what I'll have to do, and it makes me very, very grumpy to think about doing so.”
Anyone watch/watched Gilmore Girls? I was going to go into a comparison between Gilmore Girls’ Luke and Lorelai and Chuck, but I don’t think there is enough room on this blog for a rant comparison of that nature. I’ll just say that I hope that season 4 of Chuck is not like season 6 of Gilmore Girls, where the characters seem to be moving backwards in terms of character growth instead of forwards.
LA