Malicious Authorial Puppeteering
Jan. 24th, 2012 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerSo at the beginning of season 2 of Sports Night Casey and Dana finally admit their love for each other and I breathed a sigh of relief, which was premature because Sorkin - for reasons that surpasseth understanding - decided that Dana should decide that Casey should date other people for six months before he dated her because if he didn’t then they couldn’t have a serious relationship because Casey hadn’t dated enough people in the past. Or something.
(He’d been married for fifteen years, but apparently that didn’t count. Why? Because the writers were dead set on playing Dana like a marionette in order to keep their boring, boring, boring will-they/won’t-they storyline going and if logic and reason got in the way, then logic and reason be damned.)
But pretending for a moment that Dana was not the victim of malicious authorial intervention - how did she envision this plan working? Was Casey supposed to go out and seriously date someone for six months and then go back to Dana? Except that doesn't make sense - because part of seriously dating someone is that you're seriously thinking of spending the rest of your life with them, and if Casey were always planning to go back to Dana he couldn't possibly seriously date!
I really don't get why Sorkin inflicted such a stupid piece of plotting on his characters. He's GOOD at writing characters who are together! - just look at Natalie and Jeremy. Or Jed and Abby in West Wing! - so it's not like having Casey and Dana get together would be a problem for him.
Also, if Dana ends up getting together with Sam Donovan I may throw plates at the wall. I can't stand "He drives me crazy! It must be looooooooooooove!" story lines.
Given the writers’ brilliant track record making romantic decisions for their characters, I should probably start collecting cheap pieces of china.
(He’d been married for fifteen years, but apparently that didn’t count. Why? Because the writers were dead set on playing Dana like a marionette in order to keep their boring, boring, boring will-they/won’t-they storyline going and if logic and reason got in the way, then logic and reason be damned.)
But pretending for a moment that Dana was not the victim of malicious authorial intervention - how did she envision this plan working? Was Casey supposed to go out and seriously date someone for six months and then go back to Dana? Except that doesn't make sense - because part of seriously dating someone is that you're seriously thinking of spending the rest of your life with them, and if Casey were always planning to go back to Dana he couldn't possibly seriously date!
I really don't get why Sorkin inflicted such a stupid piece of plotting on his characters. He's GOOD at writing characters who are together! - just look at Natalie and Jeremy. Or Jed and Abby in West Wing! - so it's not like having Casey and Dana get together would be a problem for him.
Also, if Dana ends up getting together with Sam Donovan I may throw plates at the wall. I can't stand "He drives me crazy! It must be looooooooooooove!" story lines.
Given the writers’ brilliant track record making romantic decisions for their characters, I should probably start collecting cheap pieces of china.
