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445 lines
20 KiB
<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>
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<blockquote><cite>
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Dr. Franklin asks Sinclair to intermediate with an alien family who, because of
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their religious beliefs, refuse to allow surgery that would
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save their dying child.
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</cite>
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<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Gallardo,+Silvana">Silvana Gallardo</a> as Dr. Maya Hernandez.
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<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Kaplan,+Jonathan+Charles">Jonathon Kaplan</a> as Shon.
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<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+O'Neil,+Tricia">Tricia O'Neil</a> as M'Ola.
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<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Lee,+Stephen">Stephen Lee</a> as Tharg.
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</blockquote>
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<pre>
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Sub-genre: Drama
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<a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/010">7.74</a>
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Production number: 105
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Original air date: April 27, 1994
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006HAZ4/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: November 5, 2002
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Written by David Gerrold
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Directed by Richard Compton
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</pre>
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<p>
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<hr size=3>
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<p>
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<h2><a name="BP">Backplot</a></h2>
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<ul>
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<li> Some outside influence has interfered with the Minbari religion
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in the past.
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<li> The Children of Time, a minor race with strong religious beliefs,
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would rather let one of their number die than allow invasive surgery,
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which they believe destroys the soul.
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</ul>
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<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>
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<ul>
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<li> How did Ivanova defeat or escape all those raiders? There is some
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slight evidence she's working with them (cf.
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<a href="../synops/001.html#ivanova-console">"Midnight on the
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Firing Line"</a>.)
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</ul>
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<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>
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<ul>
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<li> Franklin's willingness to break the rules for a cause he believes in,
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though indicative of a strong moral character, seems likely to
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get him into hot water at some point.
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<li> On the other hand, Sinclair doesn't want to be placed in a position
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in which he has to stop Franklin from doing what he believes in;
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Sinclair would rather sidestep the issue than have his hand forced.
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This is consistent with his handling of the Senator's instructions
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in <a href="001.html">"Midnight on the Firing Line."</a>
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<li> The parents' reaction when Delenn refused to help could be viewed as
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hypocritical; they were perfectly willing to ask Delenn to violate
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<em>her</em> beliefs so they wouldn't have to violate their own.
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</ul>
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<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>
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<ul>
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<li> Kosh is aware that he was examined by Dr. Kyle (cf.
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<a href="/lurk/guide/000.html">"The Gathering"</a>.)
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When he's asked how <em>he</em> would feel if a doctor performed
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an operation on him, he says, "The avalanche has already begun.
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It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
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<li>@@@877970962 The Shakespeare corporation and the pfingle eggs are
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references to David Gerrold's novels "Under the Eye of God" and
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"Covenant of Justice."
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</ul>
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<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>
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<ul>
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<p>
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<li> By the way, here's something interesting: an outline got turned in
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this week for an episode which I won't identify just now. Came in
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from one of our writers, based on an assigned premise. It's
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something you've never seen done in ANY SF-TV series, and I don't
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think has ever been done in TV overall. A very daring little story.
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<p>
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Word finally came back from our liaison with PTEN. "Number one, this
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is absolutely against the demographics on the show. Number two, no
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studio or network executive in his right *mind* would EVER approve
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this story in a million years. Number three...it's a hell of a
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story, I love it, let's do it."
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<p>
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This has been emblematic of our relationship with PTEN: they've left
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us alone, and are trusting us in our storytelling. We want to go
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right out to the very edge, and they're letting us, which is
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wonderful. They've been, and continue to be, terrific to work with.
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<p>
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If the end of this particular story doesn't absolutely floor you,
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nothing will.
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<p>
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<li> When I developed the basic Believers story, and was looking for someone
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to assign it to, David was the first person we went to. He asked me
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at the time why him...he's more generally associated with humorous
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stuff. I had my reasons. See, lately, David adopted a young boy,
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about the same age as Shon. So about halfway into the outline, David
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called and said, "NOW I understand." I knew that having a child of
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his own now would mean that the story would be a lot more personal.
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Especially the end scene, which I knew would have to be done *very*
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carefully. I think David did a great job, and under his guidance it
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turned into a very moving episode. And with any luck, he'll write
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more down the road.
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<p>
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<li> There's some small amount of blurring that goes on in this show; a
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freelancer turns in a script, and things get added. For instance,
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there was a need to really tighten up the story in "Believers,"
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which could best be done by bringing in a small B story, which would
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allow us to streamline and intensify the main story. So I wrote the
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B story and slipped it in.
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<p>
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<li> Today David Gerrold came by the set to watch some of the shooting
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on his episode, "Believers." Unlike many shows, which basically
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throw the writer off the set, our writers are welcome to hang around.
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It's not only okay, it's *expected* that the writer will be there at
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some point, to be a part of the process. David was quite ebullient
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about the whole thing; he thinks that this is the best script he's
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ever written, and it's being filmed exactly as he'd hoped, if not
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better. So there he was, getting autographs, muttering something
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about somebody named "Hugo...."
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<p>
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What was interesting was one comment he made, which echoed almost
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verbatim something D.C. Fontana said when she came by the stage: that
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the atmosphere on set, with the crew, the cast, the production people
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is exactly the same as it was on the first season of the original
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Star Trek.
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<p>
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<li> I know from pfingle eggs...I let David have the reference because...
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well, I don't know anymore...I think water torture was involved.
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<p>
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<li>@@@885407465 <em>Who wrote Kosh's line about the avalanche?</em><br>
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That was Gerrold, as I recall.
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<p>
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<li> <em>Similarity between "Believers" & a DS9 novel?</em><br>
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A couple points. 1) When "Believers" was written, Peter's book hadn't
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yet hit the stands. 2) Peter likely got his notion of the sick kid
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and the religious parents from the same basic source we did: the
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headlines. This has been an ongoing problem in real life for some
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time. So he took that real premise, and did one story based on it,
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and we did another extrapolation. This notion did *not* originate in
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the Trek universe....
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<p>
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<li> And yeah, TV generally doesn't do this kind of ending. Which is
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why we did it...and our liaison at Warner Bros. deserves a lot of
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credit for letting us do it.
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<p>
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<li> It was important to tell David to pull no punches because in TV, most
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producers *want* you to do so, and he had to know going in that this
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was the way the story would go. David's a great writer, and David's a
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professional...meaning he understands where the general limits of TV
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are. If you're going to move the lines around, it behooves you to
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tell your writer that. Knowing the rules, he went out and did a
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bangup job on the episode.
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<p>
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<li> I view Delenn's comment about "suffering the interference of others"
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in regards to matters of the soul in "Believers" to be a reference to
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the Soul Hunter.
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<p>
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<li> What happened to Ivanova when she encountered the raiders? She
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got away by long-distance firing as she retreated as fast as she
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could, taking shots as she went. It wouldn't look real exciting in
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the long run.
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<p>
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<li> How Ivanova got away from the Raiders was taking advantage of her
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lead to run away, occasionally firing backward to deter pursuit,
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until she got to the jumpgate. It wasn't really anything dramatically
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interesting, and at that point you would start distracting from the
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main plot...and that couldn't be allowed to happen. There's really
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no place in the rest of the act where you can cut in without destroying
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it. And in the tag there's no room for the pursuit, only the arrival.
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<p>
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<li> Excuse me....
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<p>
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You don't think that "Believers" was SF. Tough.
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<p>
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No, it didn't have warp gates, or tachyon emitters, or lots of
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technobabble...it was about people. And the dilemmas they face.
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<p>
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Part of what has screwed up so much of SF-TV is this sense that you
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must utterly divorce yourself from current issues, from current
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problems, from taking on issues of today and extrapolating them into
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the future, by way of aliens or SF constructs. And that is
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*precisely* why so much of contemporary SF-TV is barren and lifeless
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and irrelevant...and *precisely* why such series as the original Star
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Trek, and Outer Limits, and Twilight Zone are with us today.
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<p>
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Like Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry and Joe Stefano and Reginald
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Rose and Arch Oboler and Norman Corwin and a bunch of other writers
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whose typewriters I'm not fit to touch, my goal in part is to simply
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tell good stories within an SF setting. And by SF I mean speculative
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fiction, which sometimes touches on hard-SF aspects, and sometimes
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doesn't. Speculative fiction means you look at how society changes,
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how cultures interact with one another, how belief systems come into
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conflict. And as someone else here noted recently, anthropology and
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sociology are also sciences; soft sciences, to be sure, but sciences
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nonetheless.
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<p>
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It's been pointed out that TV-SF is generally 20-30 years behind
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print SF. This whole conversation proves the point quite succinctly.
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In the 1960s or so, along came the New Wave of SF, which eschewed
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hardware for stories about the human condition set against an SF
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background. And the fanzines and prozines and techno-loving pundits
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of hard-SF declared it heresy, said it wasn't SF, this is crap. And
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eventually they were steamrolled, and print SF grew up a little. Now
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the argument has come to settle here. Well, fine. So be it.
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<p>
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I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who said that SF is anything I point
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to and say, "That's SF." Go pick up a copy of "A Canticle for
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Liebowitz," one of the real singular masterpieces of the science
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fiction genre, and it won't fit the narrow criteria you've set up for
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what qualifies as SF by your lights.
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<p>
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There is a tendency among the more radical hard-SF proponents to stamp
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their feet and hold their breath until they turn blue, to threaten
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that unless the book changes or the field comes around or the series
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cottens to *their* specific, narrow version of what SF is -- and that
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definition changes from person to person -- they'll take their ball
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and their bat and go home. Fine and good. And the millions who come
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to take their place in the bleachers and on the field will get to have
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all the fun.
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<p>
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Some of our episodes will fit your definition of SF. Some will not.
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This worries me not at all.
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<p>
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<li> The area that cannot be opened is the chest area, primarily; a nick or
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cut or scratch really doesn't count; it's puncturing to the body
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cavity wherein the soul is housed.
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<p>
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<li> No, the parents were not charged with murder. When a species on the
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station acts against one of their own kind in a particular way, and no
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other species is affected, they are judged by the laws that apply to
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their own species and culture. In their culture, what they did is not
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a crime, so they received no punishment. Had they done this to a
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human, then yes, they would have been charged with murder.
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<p>
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<li> I'm not quite sure if we're talking about the same thing; the
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two parents never said that the kid would die if he underwent the
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surgery, only that his soul would escape. This would leave him
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"soul-dead," for lack of a better phrase. And how are we to tell that
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they weren't right? I don't think it's quite as cut and dried as you
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seem to present. (And again, they were acting very much out of their
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real beliefs of how the universe operates. If someone here is
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injured, and declared brain dead, most folks think it's okay to pull
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the plug...even though one could make the argument that there's still
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a living soul in the body. This is the opposite situation; one may
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argue that there is still a mind somewhere in the body, but the soul
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is dead or gone. The phrase they use is that they put the shell out
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of its misery. To their mind, he was dead already.)
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<p>
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<li> Actually, I disagree when you say that the doctor was right. Says
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who? Not the parents. Not the episode. Nobody was really right,
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when you come down to it, except maybe Sinclair, who made the correct
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call. You say the boy was okay at the end...the parents didn't think
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so. Who's to say if there was or wasn't a soul inside?
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<p>
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I think David's script walked a very fine line and really didn't
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endorse either side. (I've had people send me email upset because we
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showed that the parents were right, and others because we said the
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doctor was right, and others because neither was right and the
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ambiguity bothered them.)
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<p>
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<li> Of course the surgical scars would've been a dead giveaway that
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surgery had been performed. Also, lying to them would have also been
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a violation of medical ethics. This was not a story about easy
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solutions.
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<p>
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<li> There's a wonderful scene in "Fiddler on the Roof" where Tevya is
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caught in an argument between two Rabbis. The first one makes a
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point. "You're right!" Tevya says. The second Rabbi makes a
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contradictory point. "You're right!" Tevya says. A third Rabbi,
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looking on, says, "Wait a minute, they can't *both* be right."
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<p>
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"You know," Tevya says, "you're right too."
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<p>
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<li> A lot of our episodes are constructed to work as mirrors; you see
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what you put into it. "Believers" has been interpreted as pro-
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religion, anti-religion, and religion-neutral..."Quality" has been
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interpreted, as you note, as pro-capital punishment, and anti-capital
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punishment. We do, as you say, much prefer to leave the decision on
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what things mean to the viewer to hash out.
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<p>
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A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument...and the
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occasional bar fight.
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<p>
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<li>@@@844403513 The thing about "Believers" is that, really, nobody's
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right, and in their own way, from their point of view, everybody's
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right.
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<p>
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<li> "The concept of loving parents being able to kill their child for
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their religions seems to be unrealistic."
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<p>
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Funny...I seem to recall this little story in the Old Testament about
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how a good and wise man was asked by god to sacrifice his own son, to
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himself kill his own child, and he was willing to do it, and was only
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stopped by god saying, in essence, "April fool."
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<p>
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<li> On the "predictable" argument...I can only shrug. The kid has a 50/50
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chance...he'll survive or die. And guessing the end isn't, for me,
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the key; this isn't a who-dunit; it's how our characters react on the
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way there, and what it *does* to them, I think.
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<p>
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<li> Since I suggested the ending to David, right down to the candles, I
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suppose I'll take the rap...but the question you're raising isn't the
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issue. There are only two possible results: the kid lives, or the kid
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dies, there ain't much in-between. You ask, "Who on earth is going to
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side with people who kill their own child?" The audience isn't being
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asked to *side* with anyone, there IS no easy solution, and no one is
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100% in the right.
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<p>
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There is a wonderful short story, which we adapted for Twilight Zone,
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called "The Cold Equations," where a small shuttle is going from point
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A to point B. There is enough fuel for the shuttle, and one pilot,
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and no more. The ship is bringing medicine to save 500 colonists. A
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young girl has stowed away on the ship to see her brother. She's
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discovered. If the pilot does nothing, the ship won't arrive, and he
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and the girl will die, and the colonists will die. If he sacrifices
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himself, she won't be able/won't know how to guide the ship to its
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destination. The only way out is to ask her to enter the airlock so
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he can space her and continue the mission. And that's what happens.
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You can't argue with math.
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<p>
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Sometimes, there are no-win scenarios. And what matters then is how
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your characters react, what they do and say, and how it affects them.
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That, really, was the thrust of the episode. And to go back to your
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question, "Who on earth is going to side...."
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<p>
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The operative word in your question is "Earth." No, no human is going
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to side with them (although I'd point out in the Bible that there is
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the story of Abraham, who was quite willing to murder his own son at
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god's request). They're not humans. They have a wholly different
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mindset, cultural background and belief system. People ask for ALIEN
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aliens, then judge them by human standards, and feel it's wrong if
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they don't behave like humans. These didn't. That's who and what
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they are. If humans side with them, or accept them, doesn't enter
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into it.
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<p>
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<li> The choice *had* to be either/or. That was the point; to put the
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characters in a situation of conflict and see how they handle it.
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Sometimes in life there are ONLY two choices, neither of them good.
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Your message comes from a position of trying to avoid the hard
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choices. But the episode is ABOUT hard choices. It *has* to be
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either/or.
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<p>
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To support your thesis, you bring up the "Cold Equations" alternate
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ending of the pilot cutting off both his legs to make up the weight
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differential. Lemme explain something to you. I was there. When we
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turned in the script, by Alan Brennert, MGM went nuts. "You can't
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have a sympathetic young woman commit suicide! It'll kill the
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ratings!" So they (the studio exec) suggested various "fixes." One
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was that instead of stepping willingly out the airlock, the pilot
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shoots her and has to deal with the guilt. (This by them is a
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*better* idea?) The other was the notion of the guy cutting off his
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legs to make up the weight.
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<p>
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First and foremost, it was a dumb idea because he'd be in no shape to
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pilot the ship. Second it wouldn't be enough weight. And finally,
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the very *nature* of "The Cold Equations," what the very TITLE means,
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is that there are some occasions in which the choices are stark, and
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there is NO way around them. If the ship has X-weight, and the fuel
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is for Y weight, and Y is less than X, then you've got a problem that
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can only -- ONLY -- be resolved by someone walking out the airlock.
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(And yes, they tried dumping things, but the ship is lean, not much
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to get rid of.) That's why it's the COLD equations; not the LUKEWARM
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equations.
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<p>
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I fought like hell to retain the original ending, and won. (You
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probably read about this, btw, in my articles for TZ Magazine.) This
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is studio-think, let's find a nice, unthreatening, safe, middle-ground
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where we can resolve this without anybody being upset, threatened or
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offended by the story. I'm sorry, but life sometimes hands you hard
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choices, there ARE either/or scenarios, in which nobody really wins,
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and SF should be exploring those as well as the fuzzy feel-good
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stories. It's time SF grew up a little, damn it, and started
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confronting hard questions that can't always be resolved by reversing
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the polarity on the metaphase unit.
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<p>
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<li> Afterthought: I just wandered into the kitchen, still ranting (as I
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am wont to do), explained it to Kathryn...who brought me up short (as
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*she* is wont to do) by pointing out the antecedent to BOTH stories.
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The ultimate "hard choice" example in SF-TV is of course "The City on
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|
the Edge of Forever," fromST. There are only two choices, both hard:
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either Edith Keeler dies, or the Nazis win WW II. Kirk *has* to let
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her die; there's no other choice.
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<p>
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It is, at the same moment, gratifying and annoying to have someone
|
|
around who's smarter than I am....
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|
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|
<p>
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<li> There were no changes in dialogue made in "Believers" subsequent to
|
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the first airing.
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|
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</ul>
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