Tru Calling
Aug. 30th, 2010 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroTru Calling was a show with a lot of potential, killed before its time by Fox, like so many others. All things considered, it was no Firefly or Dollhouse: The writing just wasn't there until far too late. As much as I like Eliza Dushka, she cannot carry an ongoing series as the central character. And the writers seemed to like to do stuff and thing try to go back and try to make it make sense later.
When you watch through the series in one go, the first thing that becomes obvious is that it was extensively retooled about halfway through the first season. The early episodes make it obvious the central cast are the three Davies siblings, Tru's best friend Lindsay, Davis and Luc. About halfway through, older sister and coke addict Meredith is written out and never mentioned again; Lindsay is marginalized and eventually put on a bus; and Luc is killed at the end of the season after existing on the edges of plots for a while. (The emphasis on family in the early episodes was set up in a way that worked quite well--I actually preferred the idea of Tru's father being a "normal" person who couldn't deal with his wife's ability and/or couldn't deal with the responsibilities of fatherhood; and exploring the way that screwed up each of the Davies children. The eventual reveal worked okay, but it was a rough transition.)
Meanwhile, Jack appears as the "evil Tru", but it's obvious in his early appearances that they haven't quite figured out what that means yet--the writers added the character without figuring out the mythology behind him. When they did figure it out, they established that Jack only rewinds (and always rewinds) at the same time Tru does, and he gets a vision of the person who asked for help so he can stop Tru. Early episodes imply that he's already on Day 2 while Tru is still on Day 1; and that he checked into a mental institution years before the series started (and held several jobs involving the dead afterwards) before arriving at Tru's morgue, even though he shouldn't have started rewinding until the first episode of the series (Tru's college graduation) when she did. The writers of those first few episodes seemed to think that Jack just rewound whenever he saw a dead body, so he could relive a day four or five times by just not saving the person.
Later episodes (basically, after they moved a couple of better showrunners onto the series) actually sorted out a completely different mythology. They made sense of a lot of the early sequences by making it pretty plain that there was an intelligence behind Tru's power, some kind of guiding force that decided which bodies asked for help, and when. (Without that, the show just becomes a jumble of bizarre coincidences.) Only specific bodies ask for help, not just any body that died of non-natural causes. Jack was directly linked to Tru, and he found his way to her because Tru's father was acting as his mentor. Jack wasn't "death himself", he didn't have a bizarre obsession with dead people (which there were brief hints of) and he didn't particularly enjoy his job. He just believed he was doing the right thing by keeping fate on track, and maybe he was right. Oh, and each body could only ask for help once: Screw up the day, you'd better hope there was a second body to ask, because otherwise you were stuck.
Though they did pick up one theme and keep it: The odds were always stacked against Tru. This universe operates under a very in spite of a nail sort of way. Just changing one thing in the morning wasn't sufficient to alter fate--if the person fated to die could get into any circumstances that were at all close to how they died originally, or even if something else could kill them at about the right time, it was good enough. Fate resisted change, even before Jack got there, and once he was there, he always had the easier job.
One of the showrunners actually posted about their future plans for the second season, and what the mythology actually was. It matched up pretty well to what I had expected, actually. There's also a third post (just click "next" from the second one) that talks about the Jensen arc. Jethrien had called this one--they kept talking about there being "consequences" from messing with the natural order, and Tru saving Jensen was supposed to demonstrate one of them: He ends up a soulless monster. (I guess Harrison evaded this fate at the end of season one because Luc died in his place? Maybe Harrison's redemption came because he was given Luc's soul? Interesting to speculate on.)
It's actually kind of a shame that the series ended when it did, because the writers really did hit a stride in season two. They had the mythology sorted out and actually planned some arcs; and the writing did improve quite a bit. Davis had always always has issues with the "mysterious mentor" role, and he was much more compelling as the clever but socially-inept sidekick. ("Look what Santa has for you! It's a bone saw!") While Jensen was kinda milquetoast, the rest of the med school cast was rather delightful, a mish-mash of the most entertaining Scooby Gang characteristics. Harrison gets to wrestle with his ability to "go straight" and actually be competant. Jack just has too much damn fun with his role because Jason Priestly, for all of his faults, is a really good actor. (Honestly, the character they were having the most trouble with going into second season was Tru herself.)
I was okay with the "warring Fates" idea once they settled into it in late season one. It wasn't what I signed on for, but it worked all right. I think it would have been interesting to see play out, but I know they would have taken it at too slow a pace, with a lot of near-misses of Tru, Davis and Harry finding out about her father's role with Jack. And the tenor of the show was such that we'd never really see the supernatural Fate entities at work and actually get a resolution between them, unless they changed up the status quo again. (Actually, it would have been interesting if a precognitive character was added, giving Tru and Jack the chance to actually learn what the changes they make or don't make actually do to the future.)
And the part I find particularly amusing was that, by the end of the series, everyone was better at Tru's job than she was. She never planned her lies in advance, she didn't get particularly better at improvising, and from the first episode to the last, she relied on her photographic memory and ability to make connections to get her through things. Jack is much better at smooth talking and setting up contingencies; Davis and Harry actually plan out how they'll do things so they have a ready story. (I realize that there wouldn't be much dramatic tension if Tru was awesome at her job, but still, I found this interesting.)
One other trivia note: Tru audits med school classes at Hudson University, the alma mater of Dick Grayson, introduced to comics by a noteworthy writer.
When you watch through the series in one go, the first thing that becomes obvious is that it was extensively retooled about halfway through the first season. The early episodes make it obvious the central cast are the three Davies siblings, Tru's best friend Lindsay, Davis and Luc. About halfway through, older sister and coke addict Meredith is written out and never mentioned again; Lindsay is marginalized and eventually put on a bus; and Luc is killed at the end of the season after existing on the edges of plots for a while. (The emphasis on family in the early episodes was set up in a way that worked quite well--I actually preferred the idea of Tru's father being a "normal" person who couldn't deal with his wife's ability and/or couldn't deal with the responsibilities of fatherhood; and exploring the way that screwed up each of the Davies children. The eventual reveal worked okay, but it was a rough transition.)
Meanwhile, Jack appears as the "evil Tru", but it's obvious in his early appearances that they haven't quite figured out what that means yet--the writers added the character without figuring out the mythology behind him. When they did figure it out, they established that Jack only rewinds (and always rewinds) at the same time Tru does, and he gets a vision of the person who asked for help so he can stop Tru. Early episodes imply that he's already on Day 2 while Tru is still on Day 1; and that he checked into a mental institution years before the series started (and held several jobs involving the dead afterwards) before arriving at Tru's morgue, even though he shouldn't have started rewinding until the first episode of the series (Tru's college graduation) when she did. The writers of those first few episodes seemed to think that Jack just rewound whenever he saw a dead body, so he could relive a day four or five times by just not saving the person.
Later episodes (basically, after they moved a couple of better showrunners onto the series) actually sorted out a completely different mythology. They made sense of a lot of the early sequences by making it pretty plain that there was an intelligence behind Tru's power, some kind of guiding force that decided which bodies asked for help, and when. (Without that, the show just becomes a jumble of bizarre coincidences.) Only specific bodies ask for help, not just any body that died of non-natural causes. Jack was directly linked to Tru, and he found his way to her because Tru's father was acting as his mentor. Jack wasn't "death himself", he didn't have a bizarre obsession with dead people (which there were brief hints of) and he didn't particularly enjoy his job. He just believed he was doing the right thing by keeping fate on track, and maybe he was right. Oh, and each body could only ask for help once: Screw up the day, you'd better hope there was a second body to ask, because otherwise you were stuck.
Though they did pick up one theme and keep it: The odds were always stacked against Tru. This universe operates under a very in spite of a nail sort of way. Just changing one thing in the morning wasn't sufficient to alter fate--if the person fated to die could get into any circumstances that were at all close to how they died originally, or even if something else could kill them at about the right time, it was good enough. Fate resisted change, even before Jack got there, and once he was there, he always had the easier job.
One of the showrunners actually posted about their future plans for the second season, and what the mythology actually was. It matched up pretty well to what I had expected, actually. There's also a third post (just click "next" from the second one) that talks about the Jensen arc. Jethrien had called this one--they kept talking about there being "consequences" from messing with the natural order, and Tru saving Jensen was supposed to demonstrate one of them: He ends up a soulless monster. (I guess Harrison evaded this fate at the end of season one because Luc died in his place? Maybe Harrison's redemption came because he was given Luc's soul? Interesting to speculate on.)
It's actually kind of a shame that the series ended when it did, because the writers really did hit a stride in season two. They had the mythology sorted out and actually planned some arcs; and the writing did improve quite a bit. Davis had always always has issues with the "mysterious mentor" role, and he was much more compelling as the clever but socially-inept sidekick. ("Look what Santa has for you! It's a bone saw!") While Jensen was kinda milquetoast, the rest of the med school cast was rather delightful, a mish-mash of the most entertaining Scooby Gang characteristics. Harrison gets to wrestle with his ability to "go straight" and actually be competant. Jack just has too much damn fun with his role because Jason Priestly, for all of his faults, is a really good actor. (Honestly, the character they were having the most trouble with going into second season was Tru herself.)
I was okay with the "warring Fates" idea once they settled into it in late season one. It wasn't what I signed on for, but it worked all right. I think it would have been interesting to see play out, but I know they would have taken it at too slow a pace, with a lot of near-misses of Tru, Davis and Harry finding out about her father's role with Jack. And the tenor of the show was such that we'd never really see the supernatural Fate entities at work and actually get a resolution between them, unless they changed up the status quo again. (Actually, it would have been interesting if a precognitive character was added, giving Tru and Jack the chance to actually learn what the changes they make or don't make actually do to the future.)
And the part I find particularly amusing was that, by the end of the series, everyone was better at Tru's job than she was. She never planned her lies in advance, she didn't get particularly better at improvising, and from the first episode to the last, she relied on her photographic memory and ability to make connections to get her through things. Jack is much better at smooth talking and setting up contingencies; Davis and Harry actually plan out how they'll do things so they have a ready story. (I realize that there wouldn't be much dramatic tension if Tru was awesome at her job, but still, I found this interesting.)
One other trivia note: Tru audits med school classes at Hudson University, the alma mater of Dick Grayson, introduced to comics by a noteworthy writer.
