It might not be realistic but there isn't time in a 50 minute action show to properly differentiate the subtleties of "who knows what" at the level of academic specialisms and that essentially duplicated well, Cutter, Abby, Connor and Stephen in S1. Stephen they got away with by making him the "action" character who sympathised with the scientists.
So both Connor and Abby got retooled in S2, Connor as computer-geek (which was certainly implicit before) and Abby... well I think they still don't quite know what to do with Abby but they were clearly angling for a more action-woman take on the character with the kick-boxing and so forth. I personally rather disliked that (if only because of the inevitable Abby/Caroline cat fight) and the fact that they still didn't really appear to know what to do with her.
I think, with a clearer focus, and less emphasis on purely dangerous critters they could split the animal honours between Cutter - identifies fossils and Abby - understands behaviour but it would need a strong editorial lead, I think, to prevent it being Cutter knows everything. It may be, with the loss of Stephen, they can move Abby into the "sympathetic action person role", but I'm not sure that the writers have that much confidence in "strong" women (if you see what I mean).
I think they also have to be really careful about explicitly stating that all these people are subtley different from the ones Cutter originally knew. The problem with alternate timelines, classically, is that the audience rapidly ceases to care about any character because they "aren't real" and there will be another one along in a minute.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 08:08 pm (UTC)It might not be realistic but there isn't time in a 50 minute action show to properly differentiate the subtleties of "who knows what" at the level of academic specialisms and that essentially duplicated well, Cutter, Abby, Connor and Stephen in S1. Stephen they got away with by making him the "action" character who sympathised with the scientists.
So both Connor and Abby got retooled in S2, Connor as computer-geek (which was certainly implicit before) and Abby... well I think they still don't quite know what to do with Abby but they were clearly angling for a more action-woman take on the character with the kick-boxing and so forth. I personally rather disliked that (if only because of the inevitable Abby/Caroline cat fight) and the fact that they still didn't really appear to know what to do with her.
I think, with a clearer focus, and less emphasis on purely dangerous critters they could split the animal honours between Cutter - identifies fossils and Abby - understands behaviour but it would need a strong editorial lead, I think, to prevent it being Cutter knows everything. It may be, with the loss of Stephen, they can move Abby into the "sympathetic action person role", but I'm not sure that the writers have that much confidence in "strong" women (if you see what I mean).
I think they also have to be really careful about explicitly stating that all these people are subtley different from the ones Cutter originally knew. The problem with alternate timelines, classically, is that the audience rapidly ceases to care about any character because they "aren't real" and there will be another one along in a minute.