HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-05-23, Page 5Other Views
Dang all those spoiled rotten adults
I’m going to war with bugs Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
One of my favourite television shows is
the now-discontinued medical comedy
Scrubs.I enjoyed it since it first came
on the air in October, 2001 right through to its
eight season (though it went to nine).
Good shows are difficult to run, but even
more difficult to end in a satisfying way and,
in my opinion, Scrubs found that perfect
balance at the end of its eighth season with a
heartfelt farewell.
Season nine however… it’s suffice to say
that if I’m ever talking about Scrubs, I’ll say,
for me, it ended with season eight because
season nine diverged from the main
characters, looking to start something new that
just didn’t work out.
This was 2010 when the show ended and the
idea of signing a petition, requesting that the
creators “do a better job” was unheard of. If a
show was bad, people stopped watching (as
they did with season nine, which is why there
isn’t a season 10).
It reminds me of a debate I got into with a
friend about Stephen King novels. I love his
work, but I always found that his endings
lacked something.
This was especially true with his saga The
Dark Tower series. The final book actually has
two endings: one that King says is the “true”
ending, and an epilogue that sees the main
character repeating the whole story over again,
with just a small change to the back story (and
we’ll never know how that played out).
That’s King’s creative vision, however, and,
beyond that, his right to write his stories as he
sees fit. That series ended in 2004, 13 years
before the highly controversial movie of the
same title came out (following a parallel
universe kind of story).
My experience with Scrubs and The Dark
Tower series go to show you how much the
world has changed in the last 10 to 15 years.
Over the weekend, the television show
Game of Thrones, based on the George R.R.
Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book
series, wrapped up, but even before the final
episode aired, people had set up a petition
asking for the last season to be completely
recreated.
There’s likely a few reasons for this, chief
among them is the fact that George R.R.
Martin’s writings hasn’t yet caught up to the
seasons. (Also, the fact that some modern-day
items, including a branded coffee cup and
water bottles, were accidentally left on-screen
during the medieval television show.)
“David Benioff and D.B. Weiss [the show’s
writers] have proven themselves to be
woefully incompetent writers when they have
no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back
on,” the petition’s author, Dylan D. says. “This
series deserves a final season that makes
sense. Subvert my expectations and make it
happen, HBO!”
Dylan later explained that he needs the
show, as well as a Star Wars television show
that may follow, to “escape” from “awful crap
going on in the world.”
Dylan is, in my opinion, completely
indicative of what’s wrong with the mind set
of many people in the western world: there’s a
generation of spoiled rotten brats walking
around calling themselves adults.
Anyone is allowed to like or hate television,
movies, music, books or video games, but to
ask for something to be redone just because
you don’t like it (regardless of how many
people agree) is the epitome of selfishness.
To me, the entire Game of Thrones fandom
(or fan kingdom, as it were) is mind-boggling
because, despite the fact that so many of them
hate this season, the number of people
watching continues to go up and up and,
according to a couple news reports, that’s due
to people “hate-watching” the television show.
Hate watching is when someone tunes into a
show just to see how bad it is.
Hate-watching can be fun sometimes. There
are movies out there that are so bad that they
just need to be experienced, especially with
friends. However, tuning in week after week
just to find out what’s wrong with something
(unless you’re a media critic) is just
encouraging the show’s creators to keep doing
what they’re doing because, in the end,
success is based on viewer numbers. How bad
Game of Thrones may have become was due to
people watching it to complain about it.
Unfortunately, like a lot of evil in the media
world, I believe the kind of entitled bullying
Dylan and his ilk present can be traced back to
Electronic Arts (EA).
Back in 2012 Bioware, a video game
production company owned by EA, put out
Mass Effect 3, the final installment in a well-
received trilogy.
When Mass Effect 3 was first released, it
was done so with an ending that a lot of
players didn’t enjoy. While I was on the fence
about it, a lot of people moaned and
complained until EA, likely worried about
possible spin-off games (and the money)
released downloadable content that would
change the ending to something they hoped
fans would appreciate more.
In my opinion, that decision set the stage for
this kind of whining where people expect an
ending that fulfills them personally, rather than
tell the story, and that’s a world in which I
don’t want to live.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2019. PAGE 5.
Respect the source
Like just about every media outlet in the
world – including this one, check out
Denny’s column this week – we have
people writing about the conclusion of the
wildly popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
Denny raises a good point in his column, and
reviews have been pouring in for the series,
which has captured the attention and
imagination of the world. However, what I
want to write about is what happens when
writers run out of source material.
The Game of Thrones situation has been
well-documented. Author George R.R. Martin,
who penned the Song of Ice and Fire series
upon which Game of Thrones is based, still has
two more books to write. These will be called
Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.
While Martin has made himself available to
Game of Thrones show runners David Benioff
and D.B. Weiss, he has only provided bullet
points to his plot, leaving Benioff and Weiss to
fill in the blanks on their own. This process has
led to some varying reviews to say the least,
while many feel the television writers have
completely lost their way without Martin’s
steady hand (and prose) to guide them.
The show, however, is wildly popular and
viewers simply can’t get enough. Martin is
adamant that he won’t be rushed to finish his
books, so this is how we end up here.
Benioff and Weiss have been left to
essentially write what amounts to fan fiction (a
fan writing his/her fantasy scenes with the
characters and storylines created by someone
else) and they’re getting raked over the coals
by many for their efforts.
Next, take Margaret Atwood and her
absolute classic, The Handmaid’s Tale. The
book was groundbreaking and controversial
when it was first released in 1985 and it has
proven to be eerily prophetic as time has gone
on. Its themes are so relevant right now, that
Hulu has produced a television show based on
the novel. The Handmaid’s Tale has exploded
in popularity, winning a number of awards
along the way.
The first season of the series was essentially
a true adaptation of Atwood’s novel. It now has
a second season under its belt, with a third set
to premiere in just a few weeks. Those writers
have worked from their own notes, not
Atwood’s, to create the series which continues
to captivate audiences.
Late last year, Atwood announced the
pending release of The Testaments, which will
hit book stores this fall. A direct sequel to The
Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments will take
place 15 years after the final scene of its
predecessor. She went to great lengths to make
clear that her book has nothing to do with The
Handmaid’s Tale television series.
So... where will she go? Will we see aspects
of the television show in Atwood’s writing? If
so, was that her plan all along, or was she
influenced by what the show runners put on
our television screens? Or, does it go the other
way? Did Atwood have an idea for The
Testaments, only to watch the show and see a
better one on her television screen?
It’s an interesting discussion. Martin, for
example, can’t help but be inundated with
information and reviews from the final Game
of Thrones season, many of which were critical
of many choices. Were these Martin’s choices?
If so, will he change them after this
responsibility-free dry run?
It seems as though Martin might have what
we call in the golf world a mulligan. He could
remain committed to his years-long vision, or
he could change a few turns along the way,
learning from the television show’s mistakes.
Huron County is paradise in May – for
the 15 minutes between the time the ice
finally melts off the bird bath and the
arrival of the stinging, biting bugs.
I was reminded of this last week on one of
the first days where it was actually a pleasure
to go outside to do some work instead of
requiring an act of self-discipline. It wasn’t
long before I noticed insects flying around my
head and the psychological warfare began.
Were these actually blackflies? Probably
not because I actually saw them. My
experience with blackflies is that you don’t
even see the little terrorists until you find you
have a hunk of skin missing and a welt that has
you trying not to scratch it for the next week.
They leave you paranoid about anything that
buzzes until the really hot weather arrives and
they disappear for another year, turning the
battlefield over to the mosquitoes.
Blackflies were a new experience for
me when I moved south into Huron. The
farm I grew up on in Kinloss Township north
of Lucknow had plenty of mosquitoes but
no blackflies. It may have had something to
do with the heavy clay soil on our farm –
clay so stiff that when my mother sent my
brother and me out to weed the garden in
the heat of summer it was like hoeing the
sidewalk.
Not so on all that farms in the area. My
bachelor uncle, who lived with us, had a farm
about five miles to the northeast and he and my
father farmed together. The land there was light
and gravelly – to the point where the most
money my uncle ever made was when a
construction company began excavating gravel
from a large hill on the farm. (As a side note, I
went to do a story on the Mennonite Huron-
Kinloss Produce Auction a couple of years ago
and discovered it was located on my uncle’s
old farm where the hill had competely
disappeared, spread now across roads who
knows where.)
Anyway, back to the blackflies. They
seemed to thrive on that light soil. My father,
who had loved farming with horses, still used
the team where he could in the farming
operation despite the fact we had a tractor, (I’m
showing my decrepitude here) would complain
that the blackflies nearly drove the horses
crazy if he was working with them near the
bush.
While blackflies kick off the season of
torment in the spring, it’s the mosquitoes that
plague us for a much longer portion of the
warm season. They have their own form of
psychological warfare as you hear them buzz
around you and suddenly they stop and you
wait for the sharp pinprick that tells you where
they’ve settled. It’s sort of nature’s version of
the terror of the World War Two German
“doodlebug” attacks on Britain where, when
the engine cut out people waited to find out if
the falling rocket would explode near them.
Unlike the blackflies, you can have the
satisfaction of squashing mosquitoes as they sit
tethered to you by their little proboscis,
sucking out your blood. If you don’t smack
them soon enough, however, you soon end up
with a bloody little explosion mark on your
skin. And if they get away, or suck too long,
you’ll end up with a itchy reminder for days.
The terrorizing power of mosquitoes has
taken on new meaning in recent years with the
arrival of West Nile Virus in Ontario. Now we
know that not only are mosquitoes annoying,
but if an infected mosquito bites us, we can
suffer a debilitating illness. Most of the
mosquitoes won’t carry the disease but, like
Russian roulette, it only takes missing one to
do the damage.
We wait so long for the warm weather to
arrive (especially this year) that we can’t just
let the bugs keep us huddled indoors. And so
was born bug repellent. We used to slap on or
spray bug repellent on our skin with abandon –
the more the better – until we began to be
warned that could be dangerous to our health.
After my first confrontation with bugs this
spring I dug out an old long-sleeved shirt that I
spray with bug repellent before I venture
outside.
Lately I’ve seen advertisements from Mark’s
Work Warehouse for outdoor clothing that’s
infused with bug repellent. I’m not sure how
that stands up if the clothing has to be washed.
We don’t even open windows here in
Ontario unless they have screens on them.
Which is where I’m often mystified by movies.
Often you’ll see people in movies that are
supposed to take place some warm area like the
Mediterranean region, who fling open
windows which have no screens on them. Can
these paradises really be bug-free or is it just
another case of Hollywood making the world
in movies more perfect than it really is?
Anyway, like most of you, I’ll accept
fighting off bugs in return for the pleasure of
being outside in Huron County in the summer.
I’m not looking forward to being relieved from
this plague by the return of cold weather come
fall.
Keith
Roulston
From the
cluttered desk