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tori_reviews2020-06-01 11:04 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote in tori_reviews2020-06-01 11:04 pm
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Now and Again 1x19: "There Are No Words"
Now and Again 1x19: "There Are No Words"
This episode is...well it's a lot of things, most of them bad. But firstly I have to point out that it's kind of uncomfortable right now; I'm writing this in the middle of April 2020, also known as the time we were all hunkered down and trying not to spread a virus around. Hopefully by the time I'm posting this that will have calmed down, but this wasn't exactly a good time to watch a virus story.
(Editing note...yeah, probably still true.)
Somehow I'd managed to spoil myself that this was going to be an it's all a dream story, but I think I might have suspected anyway. It doesn't really work as a dream, it's got too many subplots involving the Wisemans for it to make sense that this would be a dream, especially Morris' dream; but it also would have been very surprising if it had been real. This kind of world-changing event isn't something this show has gone into, and the pacing of it spanning weeks is also not really this show's style.
Also, the fact that it's all a dream is the only thing that made me not start this review off saying the episode is dumb, because if it was real I'd have a lot of questions about this virus. It can tell the difference between ink in words and ink in pictures? It works on all forms of ink and pencil? Does it work on markers? Paint? What about braille? What about initials carved in trees? What about microfiche, that's how a lot of old documents have been stored for a long time? Even in 2000 a lot of books had been put into digital files, anything that was mass-produced would have to be.
But, if I decide to allow these logic problems because it's just a dream (and some of those I question since I'd think Morris' subconscious would know more about how these things work) then I have to call it a bad Christmas Carol retelling. Yes Morris learned something in the end, but it doesn't have the structure of the source material.
While I'm sure this wasn't the intended implication, I'm also left to wonder if Morris is getting a little obsessed with Lisa and Heather. If this was Michael's dream then sure having subplots about them would make sense; and yes Michael did talk about his family before the dream started so it might have been lurking in Morris' subconscious, but the level of detail that subconscious put into their part of the story raises some questions. That could be an interesting angle to take if they had intended to, that Morris develops this weird obsession/fixation on Michael's family, but it sure hasn't been set up until now.
And I really don't like the last scene. Since we've been following Morris this episode we know what prompted this, but I still think at this point Michael has full Stockholm Syndrome. They've deprived him of things for so long, that a small dose of being given something back he treats as a display of affection. Maybe it is, considering apparently the dream was to teach Morris it's wrong to deprive someone of reading, but it's still manipulative. 'See I'm not such a bad guy, I gave you books and briefly treated you like you're still a human being (but still not a full grown adult).' Again, if that was the course the show was intending to take then I almost commend them for getting us to this point; but I still don't think that was the idea.
This episode is...well it's a lot of things, most of them bad. But firstly I have to point out that it's kind of uncomfortable right now; I'm writing this in the middle of April 2020, also known as the time we were all hunkered down and trying not to spread a virus around. Hopefully by the time I'm posting this that will have calmed down, but this wasn't exactly a good time to watch a virus story.
(Editing note...yeah, probably still true.)
Somehow I'd managed to spoil myself that this was going to be an it's all a dream story, but I think I might have suspected anyway. It doesn't really work as a dream, it's got too many subplots involving the Wisemans for it to make sense that this would be a dream, especially Morris' dream; but it also would have been very surprising if it had been real. This kind of world-changing event isn't something this show has gone into, and the pacing of it spanning weeks is also not really this show's style.
Also, the fact that it's all a dream is the only thing that made me not start this review off saying the episode is dumb, because if it was real I'd have a lot of questions about this virus. It can tell the difference between ink in words and ink in pictures? It works on all forms of ink and pencil? Does it work on markers? Paint? What about braille? What about initials carved in trees? What about microfiche, that's how a lot of old documents have been stored for a long time? Even in 2000 a lot of books had been put into digital files, anything that was mass-produced would have to be.
But, if I decide to allow these logic problems because it's just a dream (and some of those I question since I'd think Morris' subconscious would know more about how these things work) then I have to call it a bad Christmas Carol retelling. Yes Morris learned something in the end, but it doesn't have the structure of the source material.
While I'm sure this wasn't the intended implication, I'm also left to wonder if Morris is getting a little obsessed with Lisa and Heather. If this was Michael's dream then sure having subplots about them would make sense; and yes Michael did talk about his family before the dream started so it might have been lurking in Morris' subconscious, but the level of detail that subconscious put into their part of the story raises some questions. That could be an interesting angle to take if they had intended to, that Morris develops this weird obsession/fixation on Michael's family, but it sure hasn't been set up until now.
And I really don't like the last scene. Since we've been following Morris this episode we know what prompted this, but I still think at this point Michael has full Stockholm Syndrome. They've deprived him of things for so long, that a small dose of being given something back he treats as a display of affection. Maybe it is, considering apparently the dream was to teach Morris it's wrong to deprive someone of reading, but it's still manipulative. 'See I'm not such a bad guy, I gave you books and briefly treated you like you're still a human being (but still not a full grown adult).' Again, if that was the course the show was intending to take then I almost commend them for getting us to this point; but I still don't think that was the idea.