Book Blurb: Three Graphic Novels. House of Java; Feynman; Three Shadows

On the website GoodReads.com I've been briefly logging my thoughts about the books, comics, and graphic novels I've been reading. Here are a few recent entries.

House of Java: Vol. 1
by Mark Murphy

Jul 01, 13

3 of 5 stars

A slim collection of short, slice-of-life comics -- not stories so much as little vignettes, mostly centered on a Seattle coffee shop and the people who frequent it. Interspersed within these vignettes are longer stories, some of which work better than others. The first of these long-form stories, "Rest Stop," seems decidedly out of place among the low-key everyday kinds of character-driven narratives that make up the rest of the book. "Rest Stop" feels as though it wanted to be a kind of psychological thriller but lost interest somewhere along the way. The rest of the stories, though, are enjoyable. I also like the loose, sparsely elegant drawing style, which accents the feel of quick sketches grabbed at the local coffee shop.

Feynman
by Jim Ottaviani (Goodreads Author), Leland Myrick (Goodreads Author) (Illustrator)

Jul 22, 13 

4 of 5 stars

I'm becoming quite a fan of Jim Ottaviani's graphic novels, which focus on notable scientists and scientific achievements. I'd never heard of Richard Feynman, but this book presents him as an intriguingly eccentric sort of genius with a fondness for expressing quantum physics principles using funny little pictures -- making him a natural subject for a graphic novel.

At times the presentation of his physics lectures gets to be rather dense and hard to navigate. At least, I found it so for a few days when I came to it at the end of a long day and was probably more than a little too tired to wrap my head around these ideas. Feynman, at least as presented here, seems to take a kind of impish delight in accentuating the ways that physical laws at the quantum level simply don't conform to any of our usual expectations and common-sense. The funny little pictures ultimately make it easier to follow, I think, but it is more dense in places than the average comic-book. 

Three Shadows
by Cyril Pedrosa

Josh Mcdonald's review

Aug 16, 13

5 of 5 stars

It's difficult to say a lot about this story -- a kind of allegorical fantasy about a family trying to avoid a dark, threatening destiny (represented by the titular three shadows).

It shouldn't be much of a spoiler to say that the book is the author's response to the death of a friend's young son (the cover-flap says as much.) I saw where at least one reviewer questioned what exactly the story is saying about destiny and the necessity/futility of trying to change it. But I think it's a mistake to try and pin this story down to a "message". Instead, it should be taken as a kind of meditation, as the author's attempt to come to grips with unacceptable reality, to explain the unexplainable. The two parents in this book have very different responses, and ultimately neither is any better or worse than the other.

The artwork I found particularly engaging. It seems at times deceptively simple, almost haphazard in its loose sketchy quality, but there is a tight precision behind it all. It carries the story well without being distracting.

Four Doctors, Chapter 10

The foppish, Victorian-garbed Doctor was somewhere in the midst of explaining the current state of the time-war and why it required the intervention of his own future incarnations, when both of the other Doctors suddenly cried out in agony and collapsed to the floor. It took Victorian Doctor a moment or so to notice.

"... of course we want to contain events and keep them from impacting the rest of time and space but we're finding leaks in the safeguards we've setting up so ... what is it? What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing much," Tweedy-Doctor said as he picked himself up off the floor. "Just pieces of ourself being stripped away rather abruptly. You didn't notice?"

"No. Can't say as I did."

"Which means," Pinstriped-Doctor chimed in, "that it's happening somewhere between him and me."

"That might explain why the grumpy one hasn't turned up yet," Tweedy-Doctor said. "I do hope he's all right."

Rory stepped into the middle of the collected Doctors. "Excuse me a moment here, I just want to get a few things straight." He addressed the one he'd known all along as the Doctor. "Are you saying that you three ... you're all the same person, just...?"

"Earlier versions of me, yes. It's a bit complicated to explain just now..."

"And one of these earlier versions has gone missing."

"More or less, yes."


"But if you ..." he looked around to Pinstriped-Doctor, "if you both are later versions of the same person shouldn't you remember what happened to him?"

"You would think so," Tweedy-Doctor said. "But timestream-crossing does some funny things to a person's memory."

"Define 'funny,'" Rory said.

"Worst-case scenario, it could completely wipe a person's complete memory of everything that happened before he crossed his own timestream," Tweedy-Doctor said. "I've ... we've ... done this sort of thing before and we know what we're doing so the effects are more subtle."

Pinstriped-Doctor picked it up: "it's a bit like reading a book you'd forgotten you'd read before. It all starts to feel very familiar and you remember being there before, but details only fill themselves in as you keep going forward."

"Seems awfully inconvenient," Amy said.

"I know, right?" Tweedy-Doctor answered. "And that's the best-case scenario."

"Right," Pinstripes interjected, turning toward Victorian Doctor. "So, where are the others?"

Victorian Doctor looked confused. "The others...?"

Tweedy cut him off, impatiently. "The others. Teeth and Curls, Technicolor Dreamcoat, and the rest."

"The Time-War doesn't involve them."

"I'd say it does," Pinstripes said.

"We're the one who started it," Tweedy said. "We antagonized the Daleks and dragged the Time Lords into it. Or did we antagonize the Time Lords, and drag the Daleks into it?"

"In any case, it's our war ... all of ours, like it or not," Pinstripes said.

"Still," Victorian said resolutely, "I've chosen to keep them out of the thick of it."

"Probably for the best," Pinstripes murmured. "They'd probably just get in the way."

Tweedy just shrugged. "So what exactly are we doing here?"

"I've been explaining that," Victorian said in exasperation. "If you'd been listening..."

"...instead of writhing on the floor as large bits get torn out of our past, yes, we're so sorry."

"There are leaks in the timestream," Victorian Doctor went on, pointedly ignoring the commentary. "We've found a scattering of time-corridors..."

"Yes we've noticed," Tweedy said. "At least I noticed, and I assume that's why he's here."

"And more than a scattering," Pinstripes said.

"A whole network," Pinstripes said. The Victorian Doctor was brought up short by that.

"A whole network? Are you sure?"

"Reaching out to some of the worst wartime atrocities throughout time and space," Pinstripes said.

"And centered right here," Tweedy said. "On Gallifrey."

"Well," Victorian said. "It seems like this is worse than I thought."

"Isn't it always?" Tweedy said.

"That's always been my experience," said Pinstripes.

Chapter 9 >

Chapter 1 >>

Four Doctors: Chapter 9

Takeshi Watanabe settled into the grass under a tree to watch the gathering crowds in the park.  Rose sat beside him, trying to gauge the emotion behind his stoic facade. She wondered, alternately, about the best way to initiate a conversation and whether she should even try. And so they sat, side by side, watching as benumbed survivors accumulated around them. The Doctor paused by Rose's elbow just long enough to thrust a testing finger into the air.

"The time-distortion is thick enough to cut with a knife here," he said, before wandering off to explore the park.

Once he had left, Takeshi spoke up. "What is it, this 'time corridor' your Doctor is looking for?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Rose said with a shrug. Then thought better of it. "Actually my guess might be a bit better than yours..."

"I would guess a time-corridor is a thing that is used somehow for traveling to a different time."

"Right. Okay," Rose said. "So your guess really is as good as mine."

"And the blue box," Takeshi continued, "this is also for traveling to different times? You and your Doctor, you have come from the future I perceive."

"Yeah," Rose said.

"Did you know of this ...?" he waved a hand to encompass everything around them. "You knew this would happen today?"

"Yeah," Rose admitted. "I mean no, we didn't know it was today ... I mean, we didn't know when we got here.... See, I think the Doctor doesn't always manage to steer the TARDIS -- his time-machine, I mean -- as well as he pretends to. Half of the time we don't know where, when, we end up. So yeah, we knew, historically, that this happened ... but we didn't know it was happening here, now, while we were here. Does that make sense?"

Takeshi sat in brooding silence for a bit before speaking again. "You could change what happened, could you not?"

"I don't know," said Rose. "The Doctor, he does seem to get involved wherever he goes. I think he can't help himself, he just tries to fix things wherever he goes. And yet... I don't know. I almost destroyed everything by trying to save my own father's life. I think some things, somehow, can't be changed."

"We call them 'fixed points,'" the Doctor said from behind them. "And Hiroshima, August 5, 1945, is one of them." He squatted beside Takeshi. "Hundreds of people have tried, hundreds of times, to change what happened here today. I've tried myself, more than once. I am truly sorry." He put a hand on Takeshi's shoulder. Takeshi bowed his head and appeared to be fighting back tears.

The Doctor stood up. "Right," he said. "Work to be done. You wait here." And he strode off across the park.

Takeshi and Rose sat for some time in awkward silence. Eventually Rose spoke up: "The Doctor really does a lot of good, you know. Even if he can't change ... all this," she waved a hand at their surroundings, "he ... he's a good man."

Takeshi said nothing, but pulled a small chess set from his jacket pocket and began setting it up. He moved a few pieces, playing both sides of the board without much enthusiasm. Rose, having run out of encouragements to offer, watched in silence. Neither of them saw the man approach until he stood directly above Takeshi's chessboard.

The man looked ... not quite right, somehow, but not in any way they could put a finger to. His eyes seemed wrong, devoid of life. His movements were a little too deliberate, too precise, as he lowered himself to sit at the chessboard and move a black pawn.

"Play," he said to Takeshi. And Takeshi played. The game was intense. Neither man spoke, all focus was on the board. Rose soon lost interest and went to find the Doctor.

She discovered him standing by the river, watching people wading into the water. Wading in, and not coming out.

"They're going in to die," the Doctor said to her. "They're drowning themselves. Do you notice what's wrong here?"

Rose looked. She studied the scene intently. Aside from the obvious, abject despair of a population trudging so numbly to its death ... "Where are the bodies?" The Doctor nodded. That was the right question, though she still wasn't quite sure what it meant.

"Where's Takeshi?" he asked suddenly. He looked back, then took off running toward where the old man and the odd man continued their game.

Takeshi was decidedly uncomfortable about this strange adversary. For all his intensity he seemed dispassionate about the progress of the game. Even as Takeshi stood poised to force mate in the next four moves, the other hardly blinked. At the last moment he switched his move. A weak feint with a pawn, which left his rook exposed, just to see how the other would react. He didn't; he took the rook without comment.

Then the Doctor was there, nudging Takeshi aside to take his place for the rest of the game. The Doctor recovered easily and pushed boldly into mate in two. The stranger looked up, raised his hand, and touched his fingertips to the Doctor's temples. The fingertips shone suddenly with a bright light. The Doctor cried out briefly, then went silent. The stranger hauled the Doctor's limp body over one shoulder and carried it off toward the river.

< Next Chapter

Chapter 8 >

Chapter 1 >> 

Four Doctors: Chapter 8

“Donna!!” The sudden voice startled her. She pulled back from the door and turned to face the lanky, tweedy young man who had just called her name.

“Donna, that is your name, isn’t it? I mean you look like a Donna,” the young man rambled on as he worked himself between Donna and the blue box.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked him.

“No! I mean, how could you know me? I mean if you knew me you’d remember me, wouldn’t you? And since you clearly don’t, you clearly don’t. QED, as they say.”

“Right. So it this yours?” She asked, pointing to the box.

“This? Yes, I mean no, this is nothing of any consequence. Not something you need to concern yourself with. Just an old police box. Nothing to see here.”

“Nothing to see? Well then, I’d just like a quick look at nothing if you don’t mind.” And before he could object she pushed past him and into the box.

-          -

Amy and Rory heard the scuffle just outside the door and were just about to investigate, when the door burst open. A ginger-haired woman burst in with the Doctor close behind.

“No, don’t!” the Doctor cried and lunged at her as she crossed into the control room. He grabbed her and covered her face with his hands. “Don’t mind any of this, it’s all an elaborate hallucination. Just forget you saw any of it.”

The woman wrested herself free and took a look around. “So it is a TARDIS. I knew it was,” she said.
The Doctor watched her carefully, skittishly. “Um. So you remember… I mean, you recognize…”

“Oh, I’ve seen a TARDIS before. This one isn’t quite as nice as the Doctor’s, mind you, but it’s close enough. Same make, different model I expect?”

“It is…” Amy began, but the Doctor cut her off.

“It’s more like than you might think,” he said. “And you’re feeling all right…? No imminent brain-explosions…?”

“I should hope not.”

“Um, Doctor, what…?” Rory interjected, though no one was really paying any attention.

“But you do remember the Doctor…?”

“Remember him? I only just left him the other side of the hill there.”

“Of course you did! That’s why … it hasn’t happened yet, has it?”

“What hasn’t…?”

“Oh nothing. Nothing at all for you to worry your pretty little old head about.” He grabbed her in a great big bear-hug – or as big a bear-hug as his lanky frame would allow. “Ah, Donna, it is so very good to see you again, I can’t even begin to tell you.”

“Oi, there, not so chummy,” the woman snapped as she pushed the Doctor away. “Not till we get a few things sorted out here.”

“Ah, there’s the old Donna,” the Doctor said affectionately.

“Doctor, what’s this about?” Rory tried again.

“Doctor?” the woman, Donna, looked around. “Is he here?”

“He’s right there…” Amy started to say.

“Yes, we’ll get to that,” the Doctor said.

“Ah, there he is,” Donna said as a wiry little man in pinstripes and sneakers came into the TARDIS.

“I say,” he said, “I like what you’ve done with the place,” He crossed to Rory. “Doctor, is it?”

“Um, no,” Rory said. The pinstriped man turned to Amy. “Doctor?”

“No,” Amy said, shooting a questioning glance at the Doctor.

The pinstriped man followed her gaze. “Oh.” He showed a momentary disappointment which quickly gave way to enthusiasm as he approached with a hand extended. “Doctor!”

“Yes, of course,” the Doctor said, shaking the man’s hand.

The pinstriped man touched his own hair and indicated the Doctor's as he muttered, “Still not ginger …”

“I know,” the Doctor replied.

“Ah, well. Good to meet the next … the next?”

“Yes.”

“Of course. The next … so how do I, how does it…?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

“No, I expect you’re right.”

“Doctor!” Amy and Donna both called out simultaneously. Both men turned in response.

“Right,” said the Doctor. “I guess some introductions are in order. Amy, Rory, Donna," he pointed out each in turn, followed by the pinstriped man. “And the Doctor. Myself. In a previous life, you might say.”

“Okay,” said Rory. “I think it’s time for some kind of explanation.”

But before either Doctor could respond, another strange man – tall, with shoulder-length wavy hair and a sort of Victorian-style outfit, strode boldly into the TARDIS. “So,” he said. “I suppose we’re all wondering why I’ve called myself together here.”

“You know, I’ve always wanted to say that,” the pinstriped Doctor said to nobody in particular.

“And now you have,” the tweedy Doctor replied.

“Yes, I suppose so,” the pinstriped Doctor said. “Somehow not quite the same though, is it?”

< Chapter 9

Chapter 7 >

Chapter 1 >> 

Four Doctors: Chapter 7

Takeshi Watanabe stood quietly at the TARDIS door, looking out at the blasted wasteland that just moments ago had been his hometown of Hiroshima, Japan. Rose stood by, wanting to say something but no words seemed appropriate to the moment. The Doctor glowered over the console, poking at buttons and frowning at readings. Finally he straightened up and strode briskly toward the door.

“Right. Let’s go,” he said to Rose.

“Where?”
 
“I’ve got a lock on the time-corridor. We’re going to check it out.”

“Doctor…” Rose gestured at Mr. Watanabe and at the scene beyond. “Shouldn’t we just leave well enough alone?”

“Someone who doesn’t belong here is already involving themselves in this. I’ve seen it happen countless times before, and it never ends well. Not unless I make it end well.”

He walked to the door, pausing at Takeshi’s shoulder. The two men stood a moment in silence, looking at the devastation. The Doctor put a hand gently on Takeshi’s arm. “Too much war,” he said. Takeshi nodded and followed numbly behind Rose and the Doctor.

They passed in silence through the crumbled burning ruins. Here and there a survivor would emerge to stagger away, or to wail pitifully over loved ones buried in the rubble -- or perhaps reduced to ashes in the street and a shadow burned into the wall. Many had been scarred, burned, some were barely recognizably human any more. If indeed there were such a thing as Hell, Rose thought, it couldn’t be worse than this.

She found that she had to keep reminding herself of the reality of the scene around her. This wasn’t a quick jaunt thousands of years to a distant future. It was only moments ago, in real-time, that this desolation had been a vibrant and active city. Too much time-travel, she supposed, could have a kind of numbing effect. She only had to look to Takeshi, to his reaction to the ruins that had been his home, to feel again the reality of it all.

And, just perhaps, to understand a little better why the Doctor wanted her tagging along on his travels.
The steady stream of survivors grew as they moved away from ground zero.

“Where are we going?” Rose asked.

The Doctor pointed several blocks up, at a stand of bamboo and trees that seemed to have been mostly spared.

“Asano Park,” Takeshi muttered to himself.

Rose looked around at the growing crowd around them. Many were already approaching the park, taking shelter within the greenery. “They’re all going there,” she observed.

The Doctor nodded. “Most of the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing end up there.”

“Right where someone put this time-corridor thing,” Rose completed his thought. He nodded grimly.

“There’s something very not right going on here,” he said.

< Chapter 8

Chapter 6 >

Chapter 1 >> 

Four Doctors: Chapter 6

“Doctor, are you sure we’ve even moved?” As far as Donna could tell, the rocky wasteland around them looked a lot like the rocky wasteland they had just left behind.

“Mmmm?” The Doctor was staring out past the horizon, lost in thought. “We’ve moved. That was Skaro. This is Gallifrey.”

“So is there a reason why half the planets we visit look like Beachfield Quarry in Sussex?”

“Hmm? Of course there is,” the Doctor said, then fell into a moody silence.

“Right,” Donna said. “That’s helpful. Thanks.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor replied, shaking off his mood. “Industrial civilizations throughout the universe may develop in an infinite number of different ways, but the devastation it leaves on their native ecosystem looks the same everywhere.”

“So we left that first place, Whadayacall…”

“Skaro,” the Doctor said. “Home planet of the Daleks.”

“Those metal things we saw back there?”

“Yes, those metal things that invaded your own planet not too long ago.”

“Did they?” Donna asked. “When was that?”

“It was right before you appeared on my TARDIS the first time. Surely you remember…?”

“Yah,” Donna replied. “Surely you remember I had a wedding to plan back then? Alien invasions were not a big concern of mine.”

“Clearly not,” the Doctor said. “So we’ve gone from Skaro…”

“Home planet of the Daklites, right.”

“Daleks,” the Doctor snapped. “The single most ruthless war machines in the known universe. And we’ve come here to my own home planet of Gallifrey…”

“Hang on now,” Donna said. “You told me your planet was destroyed.”

“Well it was,” the Doctor said.

“And it was time-locked, or something, so you could never go back.”

“It was,” the Doctor said.

“So how can we be there now?”

“That,” the Doctor replied, “is what I’d like to figure out.”

He pulled the gadgety device out of his coat pocket and began taking more readings. “That time corridor we blundered into seems to be transporting something from the Thall City of Skaro, where we were before …” He adjusted some dials and took a few more readings. “… to somewhere just over that rise over there.”

Donna had tuned out the Doctor’s speech and was surveying the scenery around them. 
“So I imagine it looked better before the big war, then?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “It always looked like this. My people call this the Wastelands.”

“Oh, there’s originality for you.”

“We’re scientists, not poets.”

“Obviously. Do you suppose anyone lives out around here?” Donna asked, looking around at the myriad caves in the surrounding rockface.

“Oh, quite a lot. We call them the Outsiders.”

“Of course you do.”

“But they’re not our concern right now,” the Doctor said, returning his attention to his gadgety device. “We’re far more concerned with who’s responsible for this time-corridor. And the Outsiders just don’t have the technology, the wherewithal, or, quite frankly, the interest.”

“No, I don’t suppose they would,” Donna quipped, but found the Doctor too engrossed in his readings to take notice of her acerbic wit. “So,” she went on, “I’ll just nip about and see what’s what, then.”

“Sure, fine,” the Doctor said absently.

“Maybe see what the natives are up to.”

“Jolly good. Enjoy yourself.”

Which left Donna with nothing better to do than to follow through on her bluff, even though the Doctor’s complete and utter failure to notice rather dampened the appeal.

Climbing to the top of the rise behind them, looking out over the barren landscape below, she saw an odd and oddly familiar blue box in the valley below. She turned back to look the way she had come – the Doctor was still engrossed in his work, and the TARDIS stood a few meters beyond, right where they had left it. She considered calling out to get the Doctor’s attention, then decided not to bother him. She set out down the hillside to investigate the duplicate TARDIS on her own.

< Chapter 7

Chapter 5 >

Chapter 1 >>

The Sacrament of Story

I found the following story on Facebook recently.

One day Buddha was walking through
a village. A very angry and rude young
man came up to him and began
insulting him.
"You have no right to be teaching
others!!!" he shouted.
"You are as stupid as everyone else.
You are nothing but a fake!!"
Buddha was not upset by these insults.
He just smiled. The man insulted him
again and again but the only reaction
he could get back from the Buddha
was a
smile and silence. Finally he stomped
his feet and left cursing.
The disciples were feeling angry and
one of the them couldn’t keep quiet
and asked the Buddha, “Why didn’t you
reply to the rude man?”
The Buddha replied, “If someone
offers you a gift, and you refuse to
accept it, to whom does the gift
belong?”
“Of course to the person who brought
the gift,” replied the disciple. “That is
correct,” smiled the Buddha.

I liked the story, so I "Facebook-liked" it and shared it. Though I'm Catholic rather than Buddhist, I felt this story was very much in keeping with my own ideals. Just change the character of the Buddha and it might as easily be a story out of the Gospels, or from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

But, as any writer can tell you, changing a character in a story ends up changing the story. Once I put St. Francis in the Buddha's role I came to realize how a Christian -- a true follower of Christ in the way that few besides Francis have ever managed -- would have handled the situation differently.

Francis would have upped the ante. He wouldn't have simply refused to accept the "gift" of Hate, but would have offered the gift of Love in exchange. Which, in turn, got me thinking about an interesting point of Catholic  theology. We are told that all religions, all traditions, point the way toward God. But it is only in Christ that we find the fullness of Truth. The Buddha's way in this story is good and wise, a challenge that most of us would not be up to. That's fine, as far as it goes. But Christ would have us take it that one step further.

Another story:

A young man approached Christ and asked, "What must I do to gain eternal life?"

In reply, Jesus turned the question back to him: "Why do you ask me? Do you not know the commandments?"

"I do," the young man insisted. "And I  try to live them every day!"

And Jesus looked at him with love. "Then only one thing remains," He said. "If you would be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. Then come follow me."

In the Biblical version, the young man goes away sad because he has many possessions and is not ready to part with them. In the Franciscan version, Francis and his followers rejoice that their many possessions allow them to give generously to the poor.

A religion, any religion, is ultimately made up of the stories we tell ourelves. Stories which inspire, guide, help us make sense of the world we live in. Any story that pushes me or challenges me to improvement is a good story. Any religion that accepts such a story is a beneficial and important part of civilization.

Which is a large part of why, even with all the problems plauging the Church, I remain faithfully Catholic. This is where I mind Christ, where I meet Christ, where I take his stories and make them my own. With Christ, the journey takes a lifetime. Perfection is the goal, and there is always another step that can be taken toward that end.

Movie Musings: Lincoln

The biopic has never been my favorite form of filmmaking. Which is not to say I haven't enjoyed a good many of them -- it's just that, inevitably, somewhere along the way I find myself thinking that there is just too much material for the one movie to do justice to. If they could just narrow their focus, I find myself thinking, pick one pivotal moment of the person's life and make a really strong movie about that, then we might have a much stronger movie.Well, Steven Spielberg has actually gone and made that movie I've been wanting to see all this time, and making my point a lot more effectively than I ever could.

Lincoln avoids the ungainly biopic-sprawl by focusing its dramatic energies on a single point in history. In the time between his re-election and inauguration, President Lincoln is determined to push through Congress the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, thereby finishing what he had started with his Emancipation Proclamation, and fixing it as unassailable law. The politicking and backroom-dealing involved in making this happen provide the narrative momentum, through which the person and character of Abraham Lincoln is presented.

In this sense the screenplay, by award-winning playwright Tony Kushner, feels more like a stage-play than a movie. And that may be a big part of what makes the narrative work so well. The biopic is a kind of distant cousin to the Overwrought-Big-Budget-Epic, in the sense that both types of movie can fall into the trap of creating sprawling, elaborate, and ultimately unnecessary, set pieces just because they can. A stage drama, on the other hand, is often at its best when it does more with less -- finding ways to bring the larger story into the one episode, the one location, the one dramatic moment that marks a turning point. It is, perhaps, something of a lost art which screenwriters might do well to re-learn.