More proof...

[hmpf]

... that Sam's creators just didn't find him particularly interesting, which explains why they didn't bother to give him proper character development and his story a proper ending:

'I always said to him [John Simm] that he'd got the Tom Cruise rose in Rain Man: his job was to make what Phil does make sense....Without Sam, Gene doesn't make sense; without Gene, Sam just wouldn't be interesting enough. They compliment [sic] one another perfectly'.

- Matthew Graham

Taken from: http://community.livejournal.com/lifein1973/859493.html

As I've suspected for a while, Sam was just a foil for Gene.

(Well, okay, maybe I shouldn't write 'creators'. For all I know it's just Matthew Graham. Who so far has the distinction of having produced all the annoying soundbytes about the show. Haven't heard anything annoying from the other writers yet, really.)

I'm beginning to develop a distinct dislike of Matthew Graham. I should probably stop reading interviews and articles by/about him.

Comments

[kernezelda]

This explains a lot. I went into LOM with Sam as my POV character, and yet lost sympathy for him over the course of eight episodes, while at the same time not gaining much sympathy for anyone else. There was no growth, no change in his arc - just the same sequence over and over. Propose a modern technique, argue with Hunt, achieve a minor compromise while being mostly proved wrong.

I've been discussing this with Katya (veritykindle), and we agree that the writing of the series seemed inclined to put Sam in the wrong. He never truly progressed, never truly adjusted to the world he found himself in. LOM seems to be more of a fish-out-of-water program with only trappings of sci-fi, and Due South did that kind of program much better, allowing both leads to grow and change together. In LOM, it was Hunt who let Sam have his head, and who sometimes gave in. When Hunt and Sam compromised and worked together, that's when the show was at its best.

On the advice of selenak and vilakins, I will not watch the second season.

Most of series two...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

is pretty good, actually. I just rewatched parts of it with a friend, and the tantalising thing is, Sam *does* seem to make progress in it. A lot is made of following your instincs and gut feelings in that series, and Sam sort of comes around in that respect, learning to trust his feelings.

Only in 2.08 they show us that he apparently can't apply that to his life in 2006 - and the way they show it, it is heavily implied that 2006 is just inherently hostile to that kind of approach to life, that it is a sterile, dead world. Bleh.

I never really lost sympathy for Sam, although he is deeply screwed up. Clearly I like my men deeply screwed up. *g* But yeah, the lack of development is annoying. It's like in the old days of TV, when character development was verboten. Ah well, in the old days of TV, this was made up for in fic, and we can still do that. *g*

[neuralclone.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that the Matthew Graham et al. started with the focus on Sam, and it was when they discovered that Gene had a big following that they switched their focus to Gene. (The first series did have an overall theme tying it together and answering the question "Why 1973?" - Sam recovering his repressed memories of his father and what he did.)

[neuralclone.livejournal.com]

(And to be fair, Matthew is probably just trying to say that as characters in a drama they need each other to work. Gene would probably come across as a loutish thug and Sam as a procedure-obsessed bore, without each character tempering each other.)

I don't know.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I think he's really saying that Sam *is* boring. It explains so much...

[emeriin.livejournal.com]

Oh, for fucks sake. Usually, when a guy like Gene (who is pretty much all brashness) is favored by the audience, the creators still go for the complex character. Or they should do anyway. I, personally, while I love Gene, find him boring while Sam; a slightly insane, whiny, complete and utter dickhead, is far more interesting to me.

(And I was emeriin from a while ago, by the way. Real life got terrible and I had to vanish.)

Don't worry, I remember you. :-)

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Nice to see you're back. I was worried a bit!

I think Sam may be a case of accidental complexity. I think the writers think he is far more straightforward a character than he really is. Much like the tragedy of the ending, Sam's complexity is not the result of a conscious decision but a side-effect of the writer's own psychological make-up. So, both the tragedy and Sam's character are essentially parts of the writers' subconscious made manifest.

Or something.

(I love me some long-distance psychoanalysis of people I've never met. *g*)

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

I'm new to the dialogue but I'd like to point out: Tom Cruise in Rain Man was a complex character, and even as he acted as a foil/mirror he still had his own story arc and character development. So I think Graham's comment actually leads well into his last statement, "they complement one another perfectly." Sam and Gene do; Sam without Gene is one long psychological breakdown and without Sam, Gene is...well, Kojack. *grin*

I'm not really defending Graham too much; I was unhappy with the series finale and while I respect what they were trying to do, I think they cheapened Sam a lot by having him committ suicide, which up to the point it actually happens is very, very out of character (IMHO). But overall I do see character development in both Sam and Gene, which could not possibly happen without the other, and even if it did would not be anywhere near as interesting.

My own suspicion, unsupported natch, is that writers got too carried away with their own cleverness about Sam's situation and went for the metaphysical gut punch rather than the elegant, mysterious ambiguity of it. The sad (not really sad but I mean, rather, reflecting poorly on Graham et al) is that in fanfic there are a few stories that tackle the question "WTF is really going on?" with more panache and creativity than Sam's own creators did.

Just curious...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

because I'm not sure I really understand:

what is the metaphysical gut punch of 2.08, in your opinion? Because I didn't really feel metaphysically gut punched - or rather, I did, sort of, but in a way that I don't think was intended by the writers, nor shared by 99.9% of the audience.

Re: Just curious...

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, good question, I suppose. I consider Sam's suicide a metaphysical gut punch becuase.....

Gut punch, obviously because it just seems so out of character with the Sam that has been built up over 16 episodes. If Sam was the suicidal kind he would have just stepped off the building in 1.01 whether Annie was there or not. He was farrrr more desperate at that point than at the end.

Metaphysical because it puts his experiences in 1973 into some spiritual, rather than concrete, context. IMHO. This was his 'soul'/mind shutting down and it was where his spirit went in that moment.

As I get more into the series, I think I'm one of those who thinks that his waking up in 2006 was a dream. The lighting, his listless dispondancy (as opposed to his anxious emoting all during 1973/4), the strangely quick hospital recovery, all point to a lack of life there. I know, I know, "the creators say..." Blah blah. But I am totally unconvinced that Sam would spend so much of the series listening for his mother and then commit suicide on her once he made it back. IMHO he knew that she was not real, that HE was not real, and that bizarrely 1974 was the only reality he had left.

Could still mean he was dead, but cuts out the suicide part which I just find utterly distasteful and unbelievable.

I think for me the problem here is...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

that I can't really see subtlety anymore because I know (and got that impression even while watching the show, before I'd read any interviews) that what could, benevolently, be perceived as subtlety (e.g. the blue tinge of 2006 and the emotionlessness there as subtle hints of Sam being actually dead, and not really awake) was really writerly laziness ("let's make 2006 cold and boring so Sam has a motivation to return to 1973!) Any subtlety, I think, was largely accidental - much like the tragedy of the ending was accidental rather than intended. This is why I don't think the writers were trying for a gut punch - they were trying for the opposite, rather: a totally mindless happy ending (that would fall apart if the audience stopped to think about it for a moment, but again, I don't think that was clever and intentional. I think they really just wanted us to be happy and then forget about it.)