Well, it was good. It had plenty of good bits. I don't want to say I'm disappointed, but... yeah, okay, I'm disappointed. A little.

I suppose part of it is that Upward Mobility was so very enjoyable that the bar was set pretty high and the wait drove expectations even higher. That's only to be expected with works released episodically by people who have more important things to do during the holidays.

The general feeling of stress and fatigue plaguing the team (which I could definitely relate to, with my midterm exams looming) seemed to affect the pacing of the story itself. It constantly meandered around and got distracted by various asides. (Nick's Lens! Burger joint robberies? Talking Polar Bears!) It wasn't *hitting* plot points as much as just sort of stumbling into them.

The handling of Sara's powers feels off. With a three-episode arc that kicks off with her accident, you'd expect her new abilities to play a *pivotal* role of some sort in the finale. Instead, she... saves a guy, who turns out to be a dupe, of another guy, who is actually just someone *pretending* to be the guy, who turns out to be working for Agent A, who is... Clarissa Broadbank! Which we (the readers) already knew. Sara's part is just kind of buried in the chain of events there.

The place in the story where I'd *except* Sara to make a dramatic contribution is taken up instead by the revelation that Grissom's a Jedi. Which is *nifty*, but...

It just seems like kind of a shoddy construction, plot-wise. Unless you look at the whole "Sara gets Speed powers" as just a device to usher the Sara/Ben arc along. In which case, the construction is fine (the conclusion of that arc being Sara arriving at Ben's house), but the thematic part suddenly becomes very eyebrow-raising. ("Okay, we've taken care of problem #11 with the relationship, Sara Doesn't Have Superpowers. Moving on to problem #12, Gryph Feels Like He's Betraying Kei.")

I enjoyed the banter between Geoff and Catherine, and just about any scene with Geoff in it. Who knew the man had so much Deadpan Snarker in him? But then, the IPO culture seems to bring out hidden humor potential in anybody.

Klingon bank robbery: priceless! Janice's arc through the Symphonies was pretty low-key compared to Utena and Kate's tribulations, but I have to say the Ragolian redread and her crew have been growing on me since, oh, The Revolution Will Be Televised or so.

So Catherine's getting a Lens *in addition* to whatever the "toybox" contains? Suggestive.

Overall a good story, but it makes me wish for a little less new set-up and a little more actual *closure*.

Well, it may seem strange, and perhaps, as it turns out, ill-advised, but - that was more or less what I was going for. I kind of wanted that disjointed feeling, that sense that things aren't perfectly lining up - because that's how a weekend that goes like this one did should feel to the people involved in it. Strange things happen that don't seem to have any significant connection to anything else; life proceeds with its own chaotic lack of a schedule even when all hell's breaking loose. In this business, especially, everything doesn't always wrap tidily up at the end of 44 minutes.

The thing about the UF version of the CSI crew that I always have to remind myself to hang onto is that, even as they accumulate various quirks and specialties just by exposure to the sci-fi background radiation of their new setting, they're basically still regular people, unaccustomed to and uncomfortable with the kind of pace and general craziness that's all in a day's work for some other parts of the IPO. That ends up being reflected in things like their reactions to Hell Night, and other matters I'll touch on below.

(As an aside, I'm not sure how much of a distraction you can legitimately call Sgt. Ragnarsson; he appears in one passage, provides an amusing mental image, and otherwise serves pretty much the same story function as, say, Frank Tripp. Again, to me that's all part of doing business in a universe like UF's - sometimes you get Jim Brass to help you knock on the door, sometimes you end up with a polar bear in power armor. Eventually, you learn to roll with it, or you find another line of work. :)

>The handling of Sara's powers feels off. With a three-episode arc that
>kicks off with her accident, you'd expect her new abilities to play a
>*pivotal* role of some sort in the finale.

It's funny, but that was pretty much exactly what I was striving not to do. It's so... expected, so pat, so straight-up comic-book origin story. Character is doing fine in some relatively mundane line of work, character gains superpowers, character saves day, recognizes True Destiny, puts on funny underwear. And I dunno. I'm a superhero guy, I love variations on that old story as much as the next guy, but putting Sara through that particular sausage machine just doesn't work for me. By sort of fading her powers into the background, I was basically trying to indicate that they haven't redefined her image of herself, or altered some cosmic setting such that she's suddenly in the save-the-day spot more often. In her mind, she's not A Super-Speedster who works as a criminalist to pay the rent; she's a criminalist who has an interesting ability.

Another thing that may be muddying the waters a little is that the arc this episode ends didn't really start with Sara's accident back in "Forward Momentum"; it started with Nick getting shot at the end of that episode. The investigation into that incident and the events connected to same unfold through "Upward Mobility" and through to the end of Hell Night in "Outward Trajectory".

Add to that the fact that, as with any multi-part episode that is itself part of a continuing series, it doesn't - it was never intended to - resolve everything that's going on; only the short-term course of events, that is to say, "Ecklie" and Kelshar's plot to cause havoc for the crime lab, and the way that plot got away from them when they involved other forces, like Big Fire, who decided their goal wasn't comprehensive enough. As the last few graphs before the ending credits note, the characters' work is far from done; all that really "ends" here is the immediate crisis.

As such, the next episode involves what to the characters are different incidents, but they connect back to what's already happened - life (and a continuing series) is like that.

>Agent A, who is... Clarissa Broadbank! Which we (the readers) already
>knew.

Well, I take your point, but we couldn't really help that. Besides, you knew that, but nobody else on the blue side (as it were) in-story did, so to them it was certainly dramatic. :)

>Unless you look at the whole "Sara gets Speed powers" as just a device
>to usher the Sara/Ben arc along. In which case, the construction is
>fine (the conclusion of that arc being Sara arriving at Ben's house),
>but the thematic part suddenly becomes very eyebrow-raising. ("Okay, we've
>taken care of problem #11 with the relationship, Sara Doesn't Have
>Superpowers. Moving on to problem #12, Gryph Feels Like He's Betraying
>Kei.")

Hmm. While it was never my intent to take such an... er... assembly-line approach to the matter, I can see where the way it's turned out so far would give you that impression. I can say that what happened to Sara in "Forward Momentum" really had nothing to do with the whole her-and-the-Chief thing (her remark, intended to be sarcastic, toward the end of that story notwithstanding), but it's up to you whether you believe me...

Anyway, I have some nice bits in the pipe for them in "Road Trip" already, hopefully demonstrating that her appearance at the very end of "Outward Trajectory" is anything but "the conclusion of that arc". One of the things I like about the ongoing evolution of their deal is that it's not easy for them - they've known each other for nearly a year by this point and still haven't figured out quite what the hell they are to each other, they only know they're something - which is so unlike the typical (or stereotypical) way these things go in the Chief's neighborhood that it's refreshing to me even as it's driving the characters crazy.

>I enjoyed the banter between Geoff and Catherine, and just about any
>scene with Geoff in it. Who knew the man had so much Deadpan Snarker
>in him? But then, the IPO culture seems to bring out hidden humor
>potential in anybody.

Heh, I dunno if it's the IPO culture in general, or working with Catherine in particular, that draws that out of him. As we worked on 108 and 109, those two seemed to develop an odd sort of chemistry that made putting them together in scenes a lot of fun.

>Klingon bank robbery: priceless!

It is my personal belief that even cops - maybe even especially cops - dream of being part of a really good heist. :)

>So Catherine's getting a Lens *in addition* to whatever the "toybox"
>contains? Suggestive.

Well, G did say in "Upward Mobility" that what's in the toybox is basically "Lens 2.0" - so it makes a certain amount of sense that someone being seriously considered for that would be Lens-eligible to start with.

>Overall a good story, but it makes me wish for a little less new
>set-up and a little more actual *closure*.

Yeah, sorry about that. It could be argued, and I would be hard-pressed to disagree, that the "sub-arc within larger television-style series concept" thing doesn't entirely work in episodic prose. Or at least that I didn't that part terribly well. But what the hell, every experiment is an opportunity to learn something, even if it's only "setting your eyebrows on fire hurts." :)

For the record, things we'll be looking at further in "Road Trip" include:

- Will the Real Conrad Ecklie Please Explain Where the Fuck He's Been?
- Catherine's conversation with Lindsey back in "Forward Momentum"
- Nick's unwelcome confrontation with his genetic origins (we'll find out who his Detian parent is, and no, it's not Gryphon)

(That, and whether Speed gets fired.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

As if it wasn't obvious by now.