[Lith]

Last month my father decided it was time to finally watch all those DVDs we had sitting around, and we ultra-marathoned the series. Well, my attention span and writing schedule didn't let me watch all of them, but I did watch probably a third of them.

I haven't watched them since Season 5 originally ended, so a long time now. And it was an interesting and not wholly satisfying experience.

In the intervening time, I've studied a lot of writing, among other things. But what surprised me when I watched it, was how many writing devices JMS used that I picked up on. I could tell when there was infodump, I could tell when characters were telling each other things they already knew. I could tell that it was television, in that these people are in charge of an entire city, they don't have the time to be personally involved and investigating everything. I could also tell when the author took over for the characters and stuck things in their mouth, just because it was interesting to him or made some deep point, making all characters sound a little bit like each other.

I was also impressed (or rather, re-impressed) with just how much philosophizing there was in the show. Dang, it's talky!

But for all that, I still think the series is remarkable. JMS's tools as a writer may be more limited than others, but he does more with them.