Episode 47 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 47:

Recycled Plot

We'd been told the Malcolm/Dru accidental-sleeping-together thing was something that was a mistake. Now we see it repeated. Is there no fact that is not changeable, no plotline that is not recyclable?

If this is the way to a Daytime Emmy, I give in and resign myself to doing likewise.Why should I write new text to parody shows that do not involve new text?

A Word Or Two About The Mechanics

In this episode, as will surely be obvious to anyone having read Episode 41, I took the Episode 41 script and replaced various names with various other names to produce this new script.

How did I choose the substitutions? I drew a picture of the first plot that looked like this:

    Sasha                       Lynne
      |                           |
    blackmails                  loves
      |                           |
      v                           v
   Phyllis - Danny <=> Cricket - Paul 
                                  ^
                                  |
                                loves
                                  |
                                Mary

Then I poked around for a configuration of characters that had a similar enough set of relationships that I'd be able to construct a similar story, keeping in mind that Victor and one of his `former' wives was the obvious center hinge. Originally, I'd thought of murdering Joshua, but as I studied the picture, the Veronica/Joshua relationship worked better the other way around, so I realized Veronica had to be murdered and Joshua had to be covering something up. Finally I came up with the following picture, which dictated many of the replacements to be performed:

   Veronica                Little Victor
      |                         |
  blackmails                  loves
      |                         |
      v                         v
   Joshua - Nikki <=> Victor - Hope
                                ^
                                |
                              loves
                                |                              
                              Betty

I also decided that Phyllis/Joani have exactly the same relation as Katherine/Esther, for example, so that was an obvious pair of replacements. At first, I assumed Kurt would replace the Bug, but fortunately the Bug wasn't working miracles, just meddling in love, so Victor was able to take over that--replacing the Bug is not easy. Fortunately, that left Kurt as a wildcard; he's good that way since he is the master of all trades--not since Keemo have we had a character so versatile. When there was no one to fill Carl's role, I knew I had to finally play the Kurt Costner card. And Paul pretty `in the dark' so seemed right to replace Hope. And so on. The full set of replacements was:

Phyllis => *01 => Joshua           Lynne            => *13 => Little Victor
Tim     => *02 => Katherine        Kate C.          => *14 => Phyllis
Sasha   => *03 => Veronica         Joani            => *15 => Miguel
Esther  => *04 => Joanie           Malcolm          => *16 => Drucilla
Mary    => *05 => Betty            Ashley           => *17 => Paul
Carl    => *06 => Kurt             Hope             => *18 => Paul
Paul    => *07 => Hope             Miguel           => *19 => John Silva
Bug     => *08 => Victor           Cole             => *20 => Bill Bell
Danny   => *09 => Nikki            Nick             => *21 => Neil
Gina    => *10 => Jay              Sharon           => *22 => Drucilla 
Gina's  => *11 => Crimson Lights   Little Kate      => *23 => Little Danny
Kurt    => *12 => Cricket          Gina's waitstaff => *24 => Grace 

  To avoid old/new confusion, I first made everyone a unique name (*xx),
  then changed all the unique names back to the new people.

I was amazed after just doing the name substitutions how lifelike everything was. But I went ahead and did some light editing afterward to change some pronouns (`he' to `she' or vice versa) and to change some of the rhymes and other key text. And in a couple of places I rewrote a couple of sentences to make the text make at least superficially plausible sense. The motive stuff had to change in the last few paragraphs but mostly because Little Victor's love for Hope was different than Lynne's for Paul. But if you compare the two stories, you'll note a striking similarity!

What's Funny

One funny/sad thing is how interchangeable the dialog is in many cases. Kate/Esther vs Phyllis/Joani works almost perfectly without change. Dru's dialect is slightly different from Malcolm's, but I didn't change it so she comes out sounding funny here--I thought I'd just leave that `unfixed' since it was funny enough as it was. Miguel's servantspeak is slightly different than Joani's servantspeak, so I had to change some words, but the role of the two in conversation with their employer was nearly identical. Most of the other characters required almost no change. I wish there was more personal variation in speaking style, frankly--I think that's one way the show suffers.

Is there a Moral?

Oh. The moral is that it's better to recycle something when the audience and you both agree you're doing it for fun. You can't do something like this secretively and get away with it. The audience will spot it and call it junk. If I'd intended this as a serious attempt at recycling, I'd have been pegged in a second. Just as happened when the Malcolm/Dru thing was recycled.

That's all for Episode 47's morals. Don't miss Episode 48 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.