The Importance of Being Earnest . . . But Not Too Earnest
by Stephen Simons
Hi, my name is Stephen, (hi, Stephen) and I am (sigh) a Moulin Rouge fan-boy.
I still remember the fever with which I called friends and family to tell them, “best movie . . . ever.” (sigh, again) That one movie has discredited me, to some, more than any other recommendation I’ve made.
The real, crippling problem with being a fan-boy – I am unable to change my opinion. The experience I had interacting with Moulin Rouge so fundamentally moved me that I still love it, and defiantly refuse to watch it again for fear of losing whatever it was. I can admit that the movie was corny, melodramatic, and frenetic to the point of becoming overwhelming, but I want to suggest that those attributes existed purposefully . . .
The best I can do is to accept that my experience, for whatever reason, did not reflect the common experience.
(Even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, I have to embrace the possibility that I am mentally divergent.)
These days, I seriously try to avoid the ‘fan-boy’ stigma. It stings every time I suggest a movie or show to one of those friends and family only to hear, “Yeah, but didn’t you tell me to watch Moulin Rouge . . . ouge . . . ouge” (echo added for effect).
Never again!
But now Continuum has me in its clutches, and I feel the fan-boy fever coming on.
That’s not necessarily a bad sign. I was a fan-boy for Fringe, and for Justified (season one), and Band of Brothers. I stand by all of those decisions.
Still, when we listen to a fan-boy’s opinion, (and I do this, too) we listen . . . a bit more skeptically.
The problem is, fan-boys tend to eschew rational analysis due to a dramatic emotional impact. That impact could come from a recent event in their life, the spirit of the group with whom they participate, or the sense of community the experience evokes. (Hey, there has to be some reason for the bewildering continued success of The Rocky Horror Picture Show . . . I mean, seriously.)
Some works just strike the right nerve to reach a particular person’s core.
I once traveled on an airplane that almost crashed. My memory of the engine roaring, the cabin shaking, and the gasps and moans of the passengers, serves as a heady reminder of how close we felt to death.
One week later I saw one of the scariest, most moving movies of my life . . . War of the Worlds. Stop laughing. The scene where the giant alien tentacles pulled Tom Cruise into its mouth, transported me back to the cabin of a cramped Boeing 737, my hand pushing firmly on the seat in front of me as the lady next to me hugged her little girl and whimpered, “We’re gonna be ok, baby.”
Nothing else mattered.
That scene, and therefore the entire movie got to me. It moved me. The emotional impact created a mysterious passageway in my brain that stepped right past all logic and reason. You can expose all the flaws and argue, successfully even, that the movie wasn’t good, but you can’t take away the feelings it evoked in me.
And there lies the problem with fan-boys. You can’t appeal to an objective reality with them because subjective experience drives their emotion.
So I fight it. I try to resist the external or internal stimuli and adjudicate on an even keel. After two seasons of Continuum, available on Netflix, (season three started airing April 6) I’m finding it more and more difficult. The show simply appeals to me on too many levels.
It follows Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), a protector (cop) from the year 2077, who gets hurled back to the year 2012 along with eight members of a terrorist group called Liber8. Separated from her husband and son, Cameron’s only comfort is her protector suit — a futuristic, bulletproof bag of tricks — and her implanted bio-upgrades, one of which serves as a constant two-way communicator between her and protector headquarters.
In an apparent extreme stroke of luck, Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen), a 16-year-old inventor/genius who works out of his parents’ barn, has just invented the encrypted communication software used in Cameron’s head, and he picks up her signal. He becomes, to Cameron, an essential information resource, and faithful comrade.
Meanwhile the terrorists have discovered that they went back in time 65 years instead of the six years they intended and lost their leader in the process. So they do the only thing they’ve been trained to do. They begin to fortify, arm, and fund themselves for revolution.
In episode one Cameron manages to, through a series of conveniently timed events, integrate herself with a Vancouver police department, claiming that she is part of a special task force hunting the Oregon based Liber8 terrorist cell. Since all Canadians apparently secretly expect the day that America’s terrorists will spill over into Canada, and since Liber8 immediately knocks over a bank and assaults the police precinct, killing eight officers in one day, the Vancouver police welcome her aboard, instead of meticulously fact-checking her credentials.
Also, at the end of that episode, in a flash . . . (back? forward?) . . . when Cameron thinks back on her life, we get to meet future Alec Sadler (played by the mysterious William B. Davis). The nice 16-year-old’s destiny is suddenly very confusing, and it becomes unclear who actually orchestrated the entire time travel debacle. Is Alec Sadler an old man willing to tinker with his own past, and are his intentions good . . . or evil?
I almost didn’t watch episode two.
Episode one wasn’t bad, just a little clunky. I’m a little tired of time travel. And the actor’s performances didn’t click with me. But I wanted to give the show a fair chance. When watching a pilot episode, I tend to look for potential more than I look for faults, and Continuum had plenty of potential.
As season one progressed, the writers dealt with the scrutiny a completely unknown person (without any identification, who seems to have all kinds of intimate knowledge of terrorists) would face. The show settled into a believable pattern: a fish-out-of-water, buddy-cop, crime-procedural that could continue for several seasons.
Again, I almost stopped watching. But, now, my wife was hooked.
Midway through season one I began to see something genuinely new and worth watching. The creator/writer Simon Barry, and the many other writers, showed that they were absolutely not going to fall into a serial, formulaic rut.
As the leaderless Liber8 terrorists break off to pursue their own believable goals and begin struggling against one another, Cameron finds herself helping some of them — as a means to an end — almost as much as she finds herself chasing them. The buddy-cop dynamic evolves and becomes increasingly complex. Alec Sadler, the young techi, begins to uncover his own involvement (future involvement) in the events unfolding in 2012. Both versions of him, future and present, become major and compelling plot catalysts.
Cameron’s own motivations are so compelling that we tend to sympathize with even her most questionable actions as she struggles between doing the right thing and doing anything to ensure a future where her son exists. Her deepest motivation, it becomes clear as her character develops, is to get back to her family. This makes for some of the most moving television I’ve seen this year.
I’ll say one more thing about the writing: It is imaginative, deeply thought through, and fearless in exploring all the possible implications of time travel. Several episodes had me cynically expecting a typical, tired retelling of the effects of interfering with timelines, only to impress me with their new take.
If you’ve seen my review of Fringe you know that I am constantly on guard against X-Files and Lost type shows that market themselves on unresolved mystery. So I’m surprised that it took me a season and a half (16 episodes!) before I suddenly noticed some unresolved mysteries beginning to cling at the edges of this show. Who is Mr. Escher and what is his real agenda? Have the police been privatized by a futurist? “Two by two, hands of blue” . . . where did these guys come from! So many mysteries.
Am I scared?
No. I think they actually have a resolution planned.
What logic do I base my belief on?
. . .
Could one say that I may be eschewing rational analysis?
No!
Why?
Um . . .
And that is why I’m afraid that I’m becoming a fan-boy. Join me, it’s fun in here!
