1x02, "Knock On Coffins"

[Elizabeth Bear]

Alan--

Writing SU makes me ravenous. And I'm totally tempted to claim all Em's cleverness, but alas, my ethics intrude. I am like the hungry tiger....

[AlanSJF]

Well if the writers are ravenous, and the characters are ravenous, I guess it's only fair the audience ends up ravenous too.

Then again, food. It's not like I really need an excuse...

[will shetterly]

Alan--

Writing SU makes me ravenous. And I'm totally tempted to claim all Em's cleverness, but alas, my ethics intrude. I am like the hungry tiger....

You are an honorable Bear. But you should remember that even when a bit isn't yours, it's inspired by your work, so you still get to have that little warm feeling of having helped add something good to the world.

[Barton Fender]

Wow!
Thanks for the best show not on TV.

[Cal]

Nice episode.  I like.  Interesting plot and lots of clever character work, though I have to confess I was not-so-secretly hoping that Hafs would have to (or decide to) consciously work her way up to her breakthrough, rather than have it strike her unawares...because I like characters who are  sneaky like that.  On the other hand, maybe that sort of risk-taking is more Chaz's style...

And I liked how it turned out anyway, so never mind.

Very fond of Sol now.  I think he may be related in some way to Sage Pender, which can only be a good thing.  Frost is awesome, and fascinating.  Hafs and Daphne continue to be lots of fun.  Brady annoys me somewhat, though, and I have to say--please don't thwack me for it!--I'm not seeing anything wondrous about Wonder Woman yet.  But it's early days, and I expect she'll surprise me sooner or later.

I'm not sure about Mum and Dad yet.  I like Falkner, mostly, and I approve of Reyes' sneaky tendencies (and vocabulary), but I distrust charisma--particularly charisma that can get turned on and off like a tap--so I'm keeping an eye on him...

[Elizabeth Bear]

Thanks, guys!

Will, actually, Emma wrote the pieces of that final scene that I borrowed from her--including the line about cancelling the wireless--long before I wrote any of the rest of the episode. *g* I just appropriated her genius.

[will shetterly]

Thanks, guys!

Will, actually, Emma wrote the pieces of that final scene that I borrowed from her--including the line about cancelling the wireless--long before I wrote any of the rest of the episode. *g* I just appropriated her genius.

Hey, we're all playing in the same band--so long as that's helping us do our best work, hurrah for the band! (Right now, I think you and Em are Lennon and McCartney, Sarah's George Harrison, and I'm Ringo.)

I often think Josh Whedon and Chris Carter fans underestimate the importance of the writing room.

[SaintPeter]

Great "episode".  Very fun!  As others have said, the best TV show you never saw.

Couple things -
In Act I Chaz is described as licking the sugar off his "mouth" then fingers, then "mouth" again - I guess you meant lips, but the word choice seemed awkward to me.

RE: Hafs = her own Wi-Fi
One thing that seems odd is that she could/would continue to manifest after it was done.  The way it was described, she was already ravenous after hosting it for only a little bit of time.  I would think that she'd need to "turn it off" or the load on her body would be too much.  If she has to supply all the energy, that's a lot of food to go through just to give yourself wireless.

Still, a very neat idea.  I want my own wireless - I could use the extra cash each month. 

Bravo, keep up the good work!

[colomon]

I could have used 5% more explanation of what is going on early in the story -- my "understanding" of Hafs' age and background was off, and because of that I was having a very hard time figuring out who was saying what.

Then later on, too much explanation -- the first bit about Jonestown and the bit about warchalk both felt to me like those places in TV shows where the writers don't trust their audiences to have a clue, and so write something that sounds completely out of character to fill them in.  (I'm looking at you, writers of Bones.)  Not that asking about warchalk is out of place, but the response "They're hobo signs for geeks." would have been sufficient explanation.

Hmmm.... maybe you could take advantage of being on the web and link to explanations rather than shoehorning them into the text?

But that's just quibbling -- on the whole, a fine episode, engaging, made me much more interested in Hafs as a character, sad to have to wait two weeks for the next one.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Alas, Sol, that's the problem with exposition.

If you already know something about the topic, any exposition is too much. If you don't, well, you need it, and you read it with interest. (For example, the much longer chunks of exposition regarding schizophrenia sprinkled throughout the episode.) "Hobo signs for geeks" only works if you know what a hobo sign is, and why geeks might need to use them. There's a lot of implied information in there. *g*

Or possibly those were just handled better. Impossible for me to tell from the inside....

We've decided not to link to wiki articles or the like because it's distracting, and breaks the flow of the narrative.

I'm curious as to what your initial understanding of Hafs' age and background was, and where you came by the misinformation. That would be a useful thing to know.

SaintPeter, may I suggest you check out the Jargon File on the main website, linked under "resources"

http://www.shadowunit.org/jargon.html

And in particular the definition of "breakthrough"?

[anagke]

Loved this so much. I am suddenly a Solomon Todd fangirl. The internal tics of his mental dialogue are fascinating, as is his immense hyper-awareness of his surroundings. And /oh/, the fact that he was at Jonestown. That was a really marvelous gutpunch.

As I already /knew/ I was a Hafhida fangirl, this episode only confirmed it. I guessed fairly early on that she was heading for breakthrough, but I was still on the edge of my seat the whole way through it. I especially adored the way the rest of the team reacted. The genuine fear and the fact that they were still protective and loyal and -- it was /amazing/. Lau going for her gun fortune cookies.

So much great stuff here. The visual images I got off of the confrontation scene with the gamma -- the very first image, with the white room and the kids all writing -- creeped me out in the BEST way.

Can't wait for more.

[colomon]

If you already know something about the topic, any exposition is too much. If you don't, well, you need it, and you read it with interest. (For example, the much longer chunks of exposition regarding schizophrenia sprinkled throughout the episode.) "Hobo signs for geeks" only works if you know what a hobo sign is, and why geeks might need to use them. There's a lot of implied information in there. *g*

But if we're in character, it's not whether the reader knows it, it's whether Hafs thinks Reyes will know hobo signs, yes?  And there's abundant context around paragraph making it clear she is trying to pick up a wi-fi signal, which is all the reader really needs to understand, anyway.  And now that I think of it, it's in character for many (most?) geeks to answer one cryptic reference with another cryptic reference -- though I suppose it could be a character thing to provide too much info in circumstances like that.

All I can say is, that paragraph felt wrong to me.  Perhaps I've just been over-sensitized to OOC infodumps from watching too much Bones.

BTW, I love that the overall sequence completely false-footed me.  I was sitting there worrying that networks were going to have to be down every other episode to keep Hafs from just figuring everything out in Act II -- only to discover that will NEVER be a plot device again!  That is awesome.

I'm curious as to what your initial understanding of Hafs' age and background was, and where you came by the misinformation. That would be a useful thing to know.

I think it was a combination of the way Hafs and Chaz were grouped together from Daphne's perspective in Episode 1 combined with the bonus bit with them on the beach by her parents' house.  It just led me to assume that Chaz and Hafs had very similar backgrounds -- about the same age, recruited in similar ways, etc.  In retrospect obviously that was wrong.  I'm pretty sure that was 100% me reading things the wrong way, but it led to severe cognitive dissonance when the "six years  in the Secret Service" thing cropped up.

But reading back over that bit again, the writing seems pretty clear to me now.  I must have just been too tired when I read that.  It was a very long weekend....

[Elizabeth Bear]

Hee. Fair enough.

Let's just say that while Reyes is capable of sending an email or using a spreadsheet, computer literacy, is ah. Not necessarily his strong suit.

Which is why he has Todd and Hafidha....

Thanks for clarifying the background thing. There will be further answers on how each of them was recruited forthcoming, either in episodes or extras. Never fear!

[ebony14]

Excellent episode. The intuitive leap about the Wall was nice, especially since folks who live and work in and around DC would probably jump to the Vietnam Memorial without much prompting, where people with other daily landscapes might not. I also like the fact that the episode, being somewhat Duke-centric, ended with the quote with which Hunter S. Thompson opens Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The blocking in the final scene was a little confusing, but I suspect that's me, reading at work with distractions (curse you, work, for distracting me from important things!), and that sort of scene is confusing anyway. I'm enjoying this; please keep going.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Thank you!

Duke has been heard to comment that as far as he knows, Hunter S. Thompson is an imaginatively fictionalized version of him....