How did you feel about Season 9?

[binkie]

Thanks very much to everyone who took the time to start unpicking the suitability question.

Belle provides an excellent assessment of the suitability question as it applies to the Lucas/John storyline, while illustrating the extent to which it can be held to have been rather more successful in its application to other characters:

(20-11-2010 11:19 PM)Belle Wrote:  Unless John/Lucas suffered from split personality disorder none of this makes sense, because they are not the same person! ... I don't really think the sub-theme had a purpose, maybe in Harry and Ruth's story (Harry becoming softer and in doubt of his abilities and Ruth hardening up but also in doubt)...

Thanks also to Kirayuki for addressing some interesting issues around subjective memory. I am, as part of a lengthening list, working on something for the Lucas thread about the treatment of memory in relation to this character across seasons 7 and 8 (I do have other interests, honestly!). BravoNine, BoHenley and Byatil all point out some of the many logic gaps in the execution of the storyline. I suspect we will never tire of doing this!

I’m just going to have to be a pedant for a moment now (it is, as Harry might say, sort of in the nature of my job description) and maybe clarify my interest.

The problem I am trying to resolve is not so much whether the writers served well the sub-theme of suitability, or whether this was done in a logical or rigorous way. I think we can all pretty much accept that it wasn’t. I understand that the writers believe they are trying to make us think about existential interpretations of identity. What I do not understand is what the writers expect us to do now with what seems to be the conclusion of the suitability sub-theme that there is no such thing as suitability? This is what I mean when I suggest the sub-theme invalidates itself. What does the conclusion mean for the narrative and emotional integrity of the show, both retrospectively and in future? Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the character used by the writers to develop this sub-theme was John/Lucas, and ignoring the individual details of that storyline, my questions are: what are we to take from the suitability question? And what are we to do with this information now we have it?