When I sat down to watch The Haunting of Hill House, a Netflix original series, I felt confident I would love it. Shirley Jackson’s novel is my favorite haunted house story. It was faithfully adapted in 1963’s The Haunting, starring Julie Harris as Nell. In 1999, there was a less faithful remake that starred...
For me the common denominator is story, mainly fictional story, but often true life or inspired by real events story. Story is a catch-all phase that includes plot, characterization, setting, theme, and other elements of storytelling. Story comes to us in many forms, from epic poetry to campfire ghost tales, from novels to music...
Back in October, when I started writing episode reviews of HBO’s Westworld, I warned readers that it was an experiment. Even then it was an experiment I intended to succeed rather than failed. Perhaps calling it a failure is saying too much, because I had fun writing the reviews and I learned a lot....
Let’s see if this premise sounds familiar. There’s a secret school where magic is taught. A boy, long feeling an outsider in the real world, learns he has magical powers. He learns of this school and finds himself drafted as one of its students. There he meets a know-it-all witch, who’s shunned by the...
The OA, a new series from Netflix, is an enigma. After watching its eight episodes, I find myself more curious about it than prior to watching. I definitely have more question. Before watching it, the big question is, “Will I like it?” After watching it, that question becomes, “Did I like it?” Because the...
Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends, I told you the last Westworld post. In “Trace Decay,” the eighth episode, we have reached the end of the middle. We had reached that point where all storylines veer towards the towards the final confrontations, where all protagonists are destined to face their antagonists in the climatic...
Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. There’s nothing profound in this statement. And I confess a lack of originality in it. Every book on fiction writing tells us this, and many books of literary critique state the same. Novels are often divided into three parts to represent the beginning, middle, and end. J. R....
Episode 6 of HBO’s Westworld, “The Adversary,” feels like a line between two dots that need to be connected in order to complete the picture. Following the big revelations and dramatic turning points of “Contrapasso,” episode 5, this episode slowed the pace down. In “Contrapasso,” we left William and Dolores in a cliffhanger, and...
If episode 4 was about subtle conflict and inner revelations, episode 5, “Contrapasso,” turned to violent conflict and major revelations. This was an episode of big changes for several characters—Dolores, Maeve, William, and others. Elsie, in behavior, made a discovery that frightened her. And Dr. Robert Ford met with the Man in Black for...
For the first time since reviewing HBO’s Westworld, I found myself uncertain what to write about an episode, episode 4, “Dissonance Theory.” For the first time, I felt I needed to rewatch the show before writing my review. I liked the episode. More than that, I recognized its significance in the general plot. Though...
