Re: Feral and the Dark Side (The original Cry Turmoil)

From: chance <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 22:54:30 -0800

>chance wrote:
>>>The writer intended it to be a statement that Feral could be a bad
>>>Kat under the right set of circumstances, and that a combination of
>>>"underappreciation" in MCPD and the opportunity presented by
>>>Turmoil provided those circumstances.
>
>Ed wrote:
>>I just can't see this at all. Regardless of underappreciation and
>>opportunity, Feral would never switch sides like that. It just goes
>>against his basic character. He might pretend to go along, like
>>T-Bone did, but would never mean it.
>>That's how I read Feral.

"That's how I read Feral" as well, and think that Feral in the T-Bone role
would've only worked if he had similar motives. I can't see his infatuation with
Turmoil eclipsing what constitutes his very being - ramrod straight, hard-assed,
by-the-book (at least publicly) jarhead copper. If Buzz Potamkin (or Margot
McDonough - I can't rightly recall which) ordered the Feral/T-Bone swap based
on preserving this aspect of his charcter, well...then the decision was a good one.
However...

>>That's an annoyingly myopic POV. In any well-developed series there
>>are going to be eps that study the character of the supporting
>>players. Maybe not to this degree, but close. To concentrate the
>>show only on our heroes leads to stagnation.

Not to mention that the central protagonists develop almost sympathetically
when the ancilliary cast does, as their environment changes with every
bit of "growing up" that the supporting characters go through. An ep focusing
on Feral that results in some change in the character would doubtlessly
influence further interaction with the Kat-guys at some point in the future.
The Kats' reaction to Feral would doubtlessly also be different in some
respects, and there you have it: both characters change even though
the 'focus' didn't always remain on Razor and T-Bone. Development of
the supporting cast is similar to changing the background paintings during
the course of telling a story. "Razor and T-Bone" filmed against the same
background each time would still fundamentally be "SwatKats", but how
much more interesting is it when they're filmed against many different
backdrops, and doing Kat-things in many different locales. Same goes with
the supporting cast. If they don't change somewhat during the course of the
series, they become little better than that same, stale background painting
that never changes.

It was justified by the overlords at the time by saying:

"Lance. You're writing for a bunch of 9yr. olds".

'Kay...hands up; how many of you are 9 yrs. old?
_____________________________________________________
"Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed
 antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters,
 through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in
 the winter of 1925. Endurance, Fidelity, Intelligence." -- "Balto"
_____________________________________________________

Received on Tue Mar 26 1996 - 01:42:57 PST