Michael Martinez
Tue, 07 Nov 2000 18:35:17 -0800
At 07:06 PM 11/7/00, you wrote:
>Back to my original point, the *character* was not very appropriate for
>a lot of the fisticuffs and dinosaur battles that the others were, and
>it appears to me that the writers didn't always know what to do with the
>character because of it.
Well, Summerlee took a sting from a giant bee, and made it necessary for
some of the other characters to invade a hive. But he also shot a
transmitter to prevent Malone (I think) from being eaten by a Velociraptor,
and he was able to identify the fact that a girl Malone had paired up with
was being controlled by a parasitical lifeform. Summerlee brought
scientific insight and fatherly wisdom to the mix which is now lacking, in
my opinion. And I enjoyed the oneupmanship between Summerlee and Challenger.
Michael (Sinelnikoff -- hard to spell, I know) tells me that he and Peter
McCauley used to trade barbs off-screen that made Summerlee and Challenger
seem rather tame by comparison (in a friendly banter -- there was no
animosity).
It makes sense for Summerlee to be there to explain the occasional
scientific foofah. Challenger is in danger of becoming a virtual infodump
vehicle without Summerlee to take up some of the slack. And Summerlee's
age may prevent him from swinging through the jungle on the vines but he
was able to point and shoot that pistol in "Barbarians at the gate" (he is
an ex-soldier, and therefore has some experience to bring to the expedition).
I believe the character would fit in nicely, even in an action/adventure
series, and he wouldn't have to be rescued every week like Maid Marian.
>I just perused some of the message boards and was surprised to hear that
>so many people don't like the second season so far. IMO, the first
>season was weak in many respects. The characters were fine and I
>actually liked them, but the stories left a bit to be desired. Seems to
>me that they're now trying a different tack and it'll take a few
>episodes for them to get their feet grounded. It's not all that bad and
>a far sight better than first season. The characters do seem a bit off,
>but there's only so many times you can have Marguarite act like she's
>siding with the enemy, only to end up freeing her friends and escaping.
>They've got to move on.
The first season stories were goofy and fun, in my opinion. But they had a
continuity in character development. Roxton and Marguerite were going
someplace, and so were Malone and Veronica.
Now they're making Challenger into a bit of a buffoon, and I don't know
why. There seems no purpose to it. One of the neat things about
Challenger in the first season was that he every now and then had to make a
hard choice between his personal goals and the well-being of his
companions. That is, there was a sense of Conan Doyle's hard-bitten
Professor Challenger in the character, even though the storyline had moved
beyond the book (which is an inevitable consequence of stranding the
expedition on the plateau for a television show).
Challenger is no Gilligan, but I wouldn't be surpised to see Alan Hale, Jr.
show up during one of Challenger's new weekly scientific exploits and say,
"Now, Little Buddy, don't go getting yourself mixed up in things even the
Professor wouldn't understand!"
Take the smoke-and-mirrors thing. I just knew that no matter what
Challenger did, his scientific explanation wouldn't hold water. Maybe they
got rid of Summerlee so they could throw Challenger off-balance and stop
questioning all the fantasy elements. He just sort of shrugged and
conceded that maybe there really was something called "magic".
That's not George Challenger. He would never say something like that. The
series is taking on a whole new direction, and it's going away from
anything remotely resembling Conan Doyle's classic story.
\\ // Science Fiction and Fantasy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
\\// Vicky Shaffer: Monster or mother? Is Brianna in peril?
//\\ http://www.xenite.org/special_events/vicky_shaffer.html
// \\ENITE.org......................................................
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| To unsubscribe: Contact: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| Type in the body of the message: unsubscribe lost-world |
| Xenite.Org: Worlds of Imagination on the Web http://www.xenite.org/ |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+