The Schalter

Written by: Hattie Kennedy

Early last year a whisper started to run around the Internet. It grew to a murmur and soon everyone who was anyone knew that J.J. Abrams had a new project in the pipeline. Abrams, creator of Alias and more importantly Lost was working on a new film. Mysteriously untitled, virally advertised, this was a film that was going to revitalise the blockbuster, this was the film that would change the Monster Movie for good. With a tiny budget and an unknown cast, the only thing that stood out about this film was the name of the producer. The teaser trailer played on this as it showed only his name and a date 01/18/08. No title was given. Film fans and Lost fans around the world were hooked and every nugget of information that was leaked from thereon in served only to fuel this frenzy.

Fast forward a few months and a longer trailer hit the net. This time it included a title, Cloverfield, a title that was at once enigmatic and evocative. The later trailers contained nothing that hinted at disappointment for the fans. It seemed that J.J. Abrams would deliver again, he had yet another hit on his hands.

Yet with hindsight I’m forced to consider whether he ever really has delivered.

Alias ran for five seasons, but the final three seasons of the show came from way beyond the shark. Despite its ludicrous premise and the fact most episodes revolved around Jennifer Garner in a tight leather outfit, the show managed to be entertaining and engaging throughout the first two seasons.

The first two seasons were an enjoyable romp through the lives and times of supposed international spies. Yet soon the double, triple and quadruple crossing began to wear thin and the overwhelming story arc became a little Dan Brown. The all too important suspension of disbelief became nigh on impossible. With the end of the second season and the beginning of a dubious amnesia plotline it became clear that this particular Abrams’ star had well and truly fallen.

Another, little acknowledged, Abrams creation is the dramedy Felicity, the story of a girl who follows her boyfriend to New York, gets dumped, gets a haircut and gets feisty. Supposedly the starting point for Alias there are several actors common to both shows. Starring Kerri Russell the show ran for four seasons from 1998-2002. Whilst popular, there is little of any real merit about the series. The narrative gimmick of Felicity recording a tape cassette to send to a best friend becomes irritating and the fact that a seminal moment for many fans is Felicity having her hair cut shows the paucity of content in this series. This same haircut, according to some, was the cause of a decline in ratings in the second season.

Lost is the moment at which J.J. Abrams well and truly became the darling of television. A mysterious island, a terrible plane crash, a whole host of “others” and plenty of laughs, screams, spills and thrills. Lost was an instant success. Viewers everywhere were hooked, pulled in by the promise of mystery and more importantly the promise of resolution. Yet this resolution never quite transpires and with the end not in sight until the 117th episode in 2010 it seems there will be a long time to wait until it arrives. For the first half dozen episodes, Lost was truly gripping and more importantly promising. However as week after week mystery upon mystery was piled onto the viewers, so that by the end of the first season more questions had been posed than answered. The second series started weakly and yet still we watched, desperately hoping that the noises would be explained, “the others” would be unveiled and that suddenly a S.W.A.T team would burst onto the island and announce that this was all a secret US Government Testing Facility and the survivors were all test subjects. Or was that just me?

As an underground bunker was discovered, more links between characters found and a ridiculous button pushing plotline began, my interest waned and the feelings of violation began. I, for one, plan to wait until the morning after that 117th episode has aired and then read the episode synopses on Wikipedia. Avid Lost fans continue to bemoan my lack of attention span, and the absence of my appreciation for the finely crafted nuanced drama that the show provides. Excuses abound as to customary dips in quality at the start of each series, and in the middle, and sometimes at the end as well, just after the start, right before the end and in that all important seventh episode. Lost failed to deliver throughout and no excuses are acceptable for something that just lacks a storyline.

I wish I was astounded by the sheer arrogance of a team of writers, directors, producers and creators, who think that they can tease an audience with yet another veiled mirror and a bit of fake smoke. I remain convinced that the creative team at Lost sit down every Monday morning with a stack of doughnuts and a tank of coffee and have conversations that summarily run along the lines of “What the fuck are we going to do with them this week?”.

Armageddon and Mission Impossible 3 aside, J.J. Abrams is so determined to break the boundaries of his chosen genre that he forgets that the key to being innovative is pushing the boundaries and stretching the rules. Those very codes that define each genre exist to make the viewing process coherent and to provide challenges for innovative directors or producers. Just as Monopoly played without the rulebook is enormously frustrating, disappointing and just no fun at all, so is a film or television show with no coherence.

Yet Cloverfield enrages and disappoints me in ways that none of the other shows and films I have cited managed to. Cloverfield takes everything the viewer wants and deserves from a cinema experience and throws it aside. Plot holes abound, seriously wounded legs are forgotten about, a pole through the shoulder causes no lasting damage, the only people to survive a helicopter crash are those wearing no protective gear. Apparently to truly get the film I should have followed the fake websites and companies set up to accompany it. If I had read the site, I would understand who Slusho! are, that an oil rig had been damaged and I would have been able to see Abrams say that the monster was lying dormant under the sea. Well, much as I refute Nabokov’s right to insist upon the death of his character Charles Kinbote, I insist that once the film is out there, then the producer or the director has little right to comment on what they themselves carelessly or otherwise left up for interpretation. In their world Roland Barthes is spinning in his grave and Xavier Gens is vigorously clamouring that Hitman was the heartbreaking portrait of a man driven to kill by his frustrated desires to be a music hall star.

And so, as we leave the cinema, we hear a child’s lone voice cry out “but Mummy, the man’s wearing no clothes.”

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