Night Court revival

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I wouldn't go so far as to call it "terrible." It could have been better, but I wouldn't call it terrible.

The "dream sequence as cold open" is, for me, the weakest point. Dream sequences can (and usually do) leave the audience no longer trusting the storyteller. In my own novel-in-progress, I ran into that problem, and ultimately had to kick the non-sequiturs up several notches to keep them.

And of course, this is Night Court, where non-sequiturs are the local currency, so the dream sequence simply wasn't high enough above the baseline non-sequitur level (until Faberge eggs came into the picture).

I saw it delayed 24 hours: chamber music at Disney Hall on Tuesday night.

 

[cooleddie74]

I just put the dream sequence in the same category as Wile E. Coyote being a defendant in an episode of the original series.

 

[Christopher]

The "dream sequence as cold open" is, for me, the weakest point. Dream sequences can (and usually do) leave the audience no longer trusting the storyteller. In my own novel-in-progress, I ran into that problem, and ultimately had to kick the non-sequiturs up several notches to keep them.

I liked the metatextuality of the dream sequence in principle, the clever way they incorporated the recap as part of the narrative and had Flobert comment on it. I just thought the whole thing got too big and loud with all the shouting and smashing things. I think part of the reason hardly any of the jokes landed with me was that whoever directed the episode had everyone deliver their lines too fast and frantically, so the pacing and tone didn't work and the whole thing just felt desperate and forced.

Getting back to the business of how they justified Julianne being a lawyer, what I should've said was that what bothered me about it wasn't a lack of plausibility but a lack of creativity. I was hoping they'd come up with a clever explanation for how a criminal lunatic could turn out to be a skilled and qualified prosecutor, but instead it just felt like they shrugged their shoulders and said "Look, this is Malick's gig now, just deal with it."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I was hoping they'd come up with a clever explanation for how a criminal lunatic could turn out to be a skilled and qualified prosecutor, but instead it just felt like they shrugged their shoulders and said "Look, this is Malick's gig now, just deal with it."

On that, we are in complete agreement.

And FWIW, the dream sequences in my novel (both nightmares, both about things that would not normally be considered nightmare-fodder) are intended as a way to get the reader even more intimately inside my protagonist's head. And ultimately, I end up lampshading them at least once, too (and I believe I caught a very little bit of lampshading of the dream sequence in the present episode).

 

[Christopher]

And FWIW, the dream sequences in my novel (both nightmares, both about things that would not normally be considered nightmare-fodder) are intended as a way to get the reader even more intimately inside my protagonist's head. And ultimately, I end up lampshading them at least once, too (and I believe I caught a very little bit of lampshading of the dream sequence in the present episode).

I'm always wary of writing dream sequences, since my experience with my own dreams is that they're never remotely as coherent as dream sequences in fiction. Certainly I'd never attempt a fakeout where something appears to be real and turns out to be a dream, since no dream is that cohesive.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

While I was taking a Short Story Workshop class, I once wrote, and turned in, a short story that is an actual transcription of a nightmare. "Reduvius Ferox," about a very large, very sentient, and very, very malicious insect who is "an assassin, from a race of assassins."

 

[Christopher]

While I was taking a Short Story Workshop class, I once wrote, and turned in, a short story that is an actual transcription of a nightmare. "Reduvius Ferox," about a very large, very sentient, and very, very malicious insect who is "an assassin, from a race of assassins."

I did once base a story premise on a dream, but only indirectly. It was in the early '90s, and I dreamed that I was having lunch with Matt Frewer, who had been terribly miscast as the star of a cheesy syndicated action series that my dreaming brain based on the real-life series Super Force. He was pleading with me to take over as head writer and retool the show into something less inane and better suited to him. When I woke up, I was taken enough with the challenge that I developed a comic-book series premise along those lines, with a Frewer-like scientist lead who was reluctantly obligated to become the wearer of the high-tech armored supersuit he'd invented for the police, because the project was put on hold due to budget cuts and he'd coded the only working prototype to his biometrics for calibration purposes.

Much more recently, I woke up from a dream thinking that the scenario I dreamt might have potential as a story premise, so I wrote it down on a sticky note that's still right in front of me on my monitor as I type this. But I haven't had occasion to use it, and I'm kind of afraid to take a close look at it for fear that it might not be worthwhile after all. Ideas that seem good to me right after I wake up from a dream often don't hold up to later analysis.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Seemed very Night Courty to me. Christopher's post had me a bit worried, but it was funny stuff.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Since I mentioned it, the title of my short story literally means "fierce assassin bug." Although the insect I came up with (roughly the size of a Thranx, from ADF's HC milieu) isn't based on any real-life assasin bug (unlike the real critter, it has a stinger that extends to its entire body length, and a venom that causes paralysis, excruciating pain, and a slow, lingering death).

On that pleasant note, and jumping back on-topic, I agree with Nerys. While having a convicted criminal who's a total nutjob as a prosecutor, with no explanation given, is weird and credibility-stretching even for Night Court, and the dream sequence wasn't weird enough to completely avoid the risk of lowering the stakes for the entire series, the episode in general had the typical "torrential flood of non-sequiturs" that's the whole basis for Night Court's humor.

 

[cooleddie74]

Gurgs and Flobert are the greatest creations of the new series. Toss in Dan and Abby and this show has the makings to go far.

 

[Christopher]

the episode in general had the typical "torrential flood of non-sequiturs" that's the whole basis for Night Court's humor.

On paper, perhaps. But any given thing can be done well or poorly, and in this case I found it to be done extremely poorly, in both writing and direction. I mean, in the classic series, people weren't hyper and over-the-top and panicking all the time like they were here. I've been watching some of the first season of the original lately, and it was actually far more laid-back, giving the jokes time to land rather than barrelling through them. Yes, it was more subdued than later seasons, but even those seasons weren't just nonstop hyperactivity and panic.

I mean, okay, it's valid to have Dan on the verge of panic about this woman who tried to kill him perhaps being after him again. But in that case, it would've been an effective contrast if Abby hadn't also been panicking broadly about her boyfriend's possible parentage, but had been more quietly uncertain or in denial or something.

 

[Caretaker]

This season premiere didn't work for me. A few chuckles. At least they mentioned Olivia.

 

[Christopher]

Okay, there was a pretty massive plot hole here. Abby wasn't afraid that she was Dan's daughter -- she was afraid that Jake might have been Harry's son, because Jake's mother said she slept with a judge/magician. So the DNA result testing her against Dan shouldn't have eased her concerns at all -- and the final result proving that Jake wasn't Dan's son should have increased her concern, because it meant it was still possible that he was Harry's son. It's unbelievable that the writers could've forgotten what they wrote a week before. Or else that they thought we would've forgotten and they could just blow it off without us noticing. Even aside from the contradiction, it's sloppy writing to set up such a big concern for her and then dismiss it so casually.

This is another one that only got one significant laugh from me (Melissa Rauch's delivery of "I'm setting feminism back quite a ways"), plus maybe an abstract appreciation of a couple of gags like the invisible-man thing and the way Gurgs got a rush on the DNA test. I didn't care for much else, although in the scene between Wendie Malick and Nyambi Nyambi, I just kind of stopped paying attention to the substance of what they were saying and enjoyed the sound of two such terrific voices.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

"Looks like you brought Tom Cruise's teeth to a cigarette fight."

Another banger, even if it predictably ended with Dan not being Jake's dad. Still, we got some fun hijinks with them bonding with that possibility.

And, of course, Wendie Malick continues to slay.

 

[Commander Troi]

final result proving that Jake wasn't Dan's son should have increased her concern, because it meant it was still possible that he was Harry's son

Thank you! I thought I was misremembering.

 

[Forbin]

Honestly, I miss half the jokes because they talk so fast.

 

[Turtletrekker]

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[BillJ]

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That just killed my interest in the show.

 

[cooleddie74]

Meh. I can live with or without Biyalik. The cutesy promo is dumb as dirt but at least it's not the actual episode.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

My instant gut reaction is I like that instead of "Hey TBBT fans, this is a reunion just for you", Biyalik plays herself and they make it all about Blossom.