A good friend illustrated a clever writing technique to me by quoting this episode. It had to do with the economy of stating a threat. The example was marvelous, stellar. So I sought his out and guess what? Its not there. This talented writer and analyst had remembered something into this.
In fact, this episode is rather typical: the jokes are few and mild, the story linked to simple morals. The jokes are all in the characters, as James Brooks would always have it. But they are like those old Peanuts comic strips. We project things onto it. For that to happen, it needs to present a consistent, strong framework where the characters all illuminate a cosmology that we understand well enough to people with our imaginations.
Then it has to be effectively empty. The story is thin, the moral obvious and not worth absorbing. The drawing style needs to be sparse. This gives us something to visit each week that we can fill with whatever we bring to it. And afterward, we can remember is as being more clever than it was, because we define cleverness into it.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
In fact, this episode is rather typical: the jokes are few and mild, the story linked to simple morals. The jokes are all in the characters, as James Brooks would always have it. But they are like those old Peanuts comic strips. We project things onto it. For that to happen, it needs to present a consistent, strong framework where the characters all illuminate a cosmology that we understand well enough to people with our imaginations.
Then it has to be effectively empty. The story is thin, the moral obvious and not worth absorbing. The drawing style needs to be sparse. This gives us something to visit each week that we can fill with whatever we bring to it. And afterward, we can remember is as being more clever than it was, because we define cleverness into it.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.