When the darkest chapter is reputed the best

Cafe Society
1

Advance reviews of the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, opening in June, are starting to come in (one, two — note, that site is having bandwidth problems and the pages may need to be reloaded a couple of times to show up). I’ve heard many people say that the original book, the third in the series, is their favorite, and thus they have both high hopes and deep fears for the movie: If it lives up to the book, it’ll be great, but the book is difficult, so it’ll be easy for the movie to screw it up. But the advance reviews are simply ecstatic, saying the Dementors are terrifying and that the movie is creepy, unsettling, and full of tension — and ‘not just a kid’s movie.’

Apparently, it’s going to be good because, just like the book, it’s darker than the first two. And of course, that has a lot to do with why the book is so well regarded by its fans: it’s “dark.”

Which started me thinking. Conventional wisdom, it seems to me, frequently rates the darkest entry in a series as one of its high points, if not the high point. There are lots of examples; consider The Empire Strikes Back, which is pretty consistently picked as the best Star Wars movie by a majority of people, and which is easily the darkest of the five so far. And the third prequel is being held out as the last hope for the new series, because it’s got Amidala dying for her kids and Anakin rebelling against Obi-Wan and giving over to Palpatine’s nefarious influence and all of that tragic stuff. The most fondly recalled episodes of Star Trek are the ones with disturbing undercurrents and sad (or at least ambiguous) endings, from TOS’s “City on the Edge of Forever” to TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise” to VOY’s “Year of Hell” (“The Trouble with Tribbles” is an exception), and the overall series generally labeled as the best, DS9, is inarguably the darkest. Batman was a joke until The Dark Knight Returns shoved him back into the murky shadows of questionable morality, and thus that volume, simply for the precedent it sets and the new tradition it introduces, has accumulated a certain cachet. And so on.

There are breaks in the pattern. David Fincher’s Alien 3 is widely considered depressing and unpleasant because it’s too grim. Ditto for season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I personally think gets a bad rap and is unfairly underrated, but which I would nonetheless agree doesn’t represent the series at its highest point. (I like season two, which is also awfully dark, now that I think about it.) The darkest entries in the James Bond movie canon, probably On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Licence to Kill, were rejected by the mainstream, though they do have their defenders. Likewise for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

But it seems to me that the pattern holds true more often than it doesn’t. Partly, of course, this is related to the bias of “importance” in tragedy over comedy, a bias I don’t really agree with (for example, I think a sublime comedy like A Fish Called Wanda is easily the artistic equal of a solid drama like L.A. Confidential, and may in fact be better) but that is certainly the wide conventional opinion nonetheless. (Note how getting dirty and unpleasant is a ticket to an Oscar nomination for an actor, e.g. Charlize Theron’s recent win, while only the very best comedic performances are so honored, and then only rarely.)

Further examples: Even though Buffy’s grimmest season isn’t considered its best, its single most painful and difficult episode, “The Body,” regularly appears at or near the top of the program’s best-single-show lists. Hell, every television series sooner or later does a “very special episode” where a long-term character dies or gets a disease or finds himself hopelessly addicted to Rumpel Minze and Funyuns, or whatever.

Anyway, I’d like to add to the list, both pro and con— series where the darkest installment is commonly considered the best, as well as series where the darkest installment is set aside in favor of something else. I’m wondering if I’m right, or if my perspective is skewed, and I’d like to have a larger pool of examples to review. Any help?

(Note I’m not talking about collected works where the entire thing is dark from beginning to end, like Garth Ennis’s Preacher or Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books. There has to be a recognizable gap between the lightest and the darkest entries in the series.)

2

Well, a number of people think Terry Pratchett’s NightWatch is the best of the Discworld series. It is by far the darkest of the set.

3

Con, if I remember the series correctly: does anyone consider The Last Battle the high point of the Chronicles of Narnia? Yet it’s the darkest of the books, yes? (It’s been ages since I read the books, so I could be off.)

4

I think there are two types of “dark” as you describe it:

One type takes familiar characters and provides emotional complexity and depth–the stakes are often greater, the challenges graver, and the ending more conflicted and ambiguous. Empire’s an excellent example of this. Instead of completely changing the tone of the series (like, say, License), this complexity adds (often unexpected) resonance–which is the main argument of the Majesty defenders, I suspect. It sounds like the new HP may fall into this category (though in this particular instance, it may have to do with a real director taking the helm, and not an audience-pandering hack).

The other type I’d characterize as more superficially “dark”. The darkness feels gratuitous and pasted on. The tone takes a quantum shift for no discernible, dramatic reason. Temple feels unnecesarily exploitative and Alien 3 seems grossly manipulative, both in a way that is (IMHO) a transparent attempt to get a reaction, even if it means sabotaging what we’ve seen in the previous films. The writing also generally tends to be substandard, with motivation and conflict poorly developed for the sake of mood (“darkness”).

I don’t know if one particular installment of the LOTR series is generally seen as the darkest (or the best, for that matter). The Godfather II is certainly the darkest (tonally and literally), and is often considered the best of the series (though not by me). I’m not sure if the Superman or Batman movies have enough good things happening in the series to bear this level of scrutiny (though, fwiw, the two darkest episodes–Part 2 of each–are also the most satisfying for me).

5

When the darkness is unexpected is probably when it has the most impact. Many of us like to be surprised and not see the same garbage we’ve seen a million times. When a light-hearted series takes a dark turn, it’s something we’re not expecting, and if it’s done right, it heightens our emotional contact with the characters and the series in general.

One example I can think of off the top of my head is the “Jurassic Bark” episode of Futurama, where Fry finds the fossilized remains of his dog from the year 2000.

You know from conventional TV rules that most likely the dog is somehow not going to be brought back to life or otherwise not live with Fry, because that would mean the introduction of a new character, and Nibbler already satisfies the part of the pet character. But the ending is surprisingly very depressing and sad. Instead of ending on a joke, we end on a montage of scenes where the dog waits for over 10 years for Fry’s return, when we very well know that Fry will never return and be reunited with him. Worse still, it was the decision of Fry that this not happen, because Fry figured the dog found a new life, unaware that it waited for him the rest of its life.

I like comedies and jokes, but when a comedy takes an unexpected emotional turn, it can work, as long as it’s surprising and not contrived. The episode otherwise was perfectly normal in terms of humor and all that, so even if you didn’t like the "dark"ness of it, you could still enjoy it as a regular episode.

An exception to this is another one of my favorites, “The Luck of the Fryrish”, where Fry discovers his brother stole his identity after he got frozen.

It turns out that the first man on Mars wasn’t Fry’s brother, but Fry’s brother’s son, named after him. The ending is emotional, but much more upbeat. Strangely, most of my favorite episodes of Futurama are the ones that half take place back in 2000.

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Cervaise: James Berardinelli agrees with you about A Fish Called Wanda; it’s in his top 10 of all time (number 10).

In the Back to the Future series, the first movie is generally considered the best, while the second one is the only one with any part to it that is decidedly dark in tone. The second film is the least liked by many (I among them) because this dark tone seems so out of place in what is essentially a light sci-fi adventure.

Let’s look at some examples form comics:

When DC decided to revamp Green Lantern in the wake of a successful reboot of both Wonder Woman and Flash in the late 80’s, they went with the darkest storyline to ever visit that title. To make way for a brand new Lantern, they had Hal Jordan go crazy, become a really nasty supervillain and destroy the Green Lantern Corps. The fans almost universally despised it, chiefly because they felt it was out of character.

On the other hand, in the early 80’s, the Uncanny X-Men had what is considered by most its best storyline to date, The Dark Phoenix Saga, which fits perfectly with this theory.

Likewise, the Spider-Man storyline people still think of when you want to cite the most affecting point of the series is the death of his girlfriend Gwen Stacy.

For Daredevil, the storylines many cite as its peak are either Born Again (arch enemy Kingpin discovers Matt’s secret identity and uses this knowledge to systematically destroy his life piece by piece) or the first Elektra Saga, both of which mark low points in the life of the character.

For the Fantastic Four, the first Galactus story (from the mid 60’s) is generally considered the high point of the series, which is far from the darkest point in the series. More recently, however, the Unthinkable and Authoritative Action storylines have been considered among the series’ best, and are pretty dark in tone for this book.

With Superman, though, attempts at highlighting his “dark side” almost never work; the character doesn’t really work that way, or at least nobody who’s tried has been able to get it to work.

Deconstructionist superhero stories generally go dark. Watchmen is considered the milestone here, and stories don’t get much darker. The Authority would be another example. There are those with a lighter touch, though, such as Tom Strong.

7

I think you missed the difference between ‘dark’ stories and ‘grim’ stories.

A dark story will have moments of relief even high points for the characters. That’s the reason they’re so well reguarded if done without manipulation of the audience you get all the highs and lows it’s a rollercoaster.

A grim story however saps your energy there’s no joy. No peaks just bleak endless sadness. By the end you don’t care if the ‘good guys’ win (if there are even any good guys in the story) you just want to shut it off and find something interesting to do.

(ps my 1,000th post…WooHOO!)

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No, apparently it’s going to be good because, just like the book, it’s not directed by Chris Columbus.

Preacher wasn’t exclusively dark by any standard. Ennis was having too much fun for that.

Only Christians. Everyone else with an ounce of brain considers it to be the nadir.

9

Small nitpick: “The Body” is from Season Five, not Six.

That being said, I was one of those that loved Season Six - while it was happening and still. I can’t wait until May 25th (?IIRC) when it’s released on DVD so I can watch it again.

I liked S6 because it was dark.

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I consider it the one book that’s the equal of Lion,Witch&Wardrobe, with The Silver Chair running closely behind.

Incidentally, CSL’s Space Trilogy gets better as each book gets darker, and a lot of Lewis fans consider his very dark TILL WE HAVE FACES to be his best fiction & his A GRIEF OBSERVED to be a far weightier support for Christian faith (in the midst of his questioning) than most of his Apologetic works.

11

I think the Twilight Zone episodes that are ‘Dark’ (i.e. the ones with unhappy or ambiguous endings that are not preachy) are the ones most highly regarded. I know, most people think that all the episodes were like that, but I believe there were a number of episodes that could be classified as comedy, or even light-hearted and at least half could be considered ‘preachy’ rather than just a good, dark story.

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I think what often happens is that the middle chapter of a trilogy or segmented story is (1) the darkest, (2) the least satisfying by itself, and (3) the most critically acclaimed. You have increasing conflict, increasing tension (as with the typical story arc), but nothing is resolved. Our Heroes face increasing opposition but are not yet allowed to prevail. Yet, since the characters and situations have already been introduced, you have opportunity for increasing character development and exploring the complexities of the story’s theme. The Empire Strikes Back is a prime example of this.

13

The best (:D) episode in Season 6 was Once More, With Feeling. And I think some of us got tired of Season 6 because Buffy was unhappy and drama-queenish and just plain sad almost all of the time. They tried to work reasons into it as to why, but it didn’t come across well. A lot of people just saw her as being a ninny instead of going to any dark place. The best advice I could give to Season 6 Buffy is to “tape an aspirin to it and walk it off!”

My favorite Season of Buffy is Season 2, and that’s the darkest I think they’ve ever taken it. Much like how I enjoy Season 2 of Angel: very dark–and they wrote it very well. (None of this stops me from buying Season 6 on DVD, though.)

(In a quick addition, many fans didn’t like that, we go too much of Spike in Season 6. Spike was better when he wasn’t neutered and wasn’t around as often.)

I think “dark” works well in a lot of cases because people can relate to sucky things happening in their lives. The dark episodes (or chapters or sequels) takes us to depths of character analysis (even if shallowly) you just can’t get to when everyone is happy all of the time. It also helps us reveal parts of ourselves by comparing/contrasting our lives and experiences with those of the characters.

14

I think “dark” chapters tend to polarize people. They’re not always loved, not always hated, but rarely just accepted as “on par.”

For example, I disagree that DS9 is “generally labeled as the best” Trek. Much as I love it and would label it so, it’s usually treated as the bastard step-child of the franchise.

Another example is the finale of Quantum Leap. I and several others thought it a perfect send-off. But many felt betrayed and confused.

Another example of Darkness for the sake of Darkness failing miserably: Highlander 2. Gritty, post-apocalyptic, and rubbish.

15

Interseting point, but I don’t entirely agree.

“Dark” is tone, “grim” is subject matter. These often occur together, but this is not always the case. All of the examples of “dark” stories which I cite do indeed have a dark tone to them.

Some stories can have grim subject matter without the dark tone. Take my Fantastic Four example, which cites the first Galactus story as the generally high point of the series. Galactus is intent on absorbing the life force of every living thing on Earth (he’s hungry), and there is no power capable of stopping him. This is definitely grim subject matter. But the tone was pretty straightforward adventure; I think Stan Lee may not actually have ‘dark’ in him.

If you regard grim as a more severe form of dark, which is differently from how I see it, it seems to me that would just make grim a more severe form of dark, not a separate category.

16

(talking more about TV here than other genres)
“Dark” for the sake of being “dark” isn’t usually recognized as good. “Very Special Episodes” are often that sort of dark - and they’re generally panned and avoided like the plague. It is very rare (if ever) that a VSE is listed as the one of the best episodes of anything.

Complexity, however, is interesting. When it’s done at a mediocre level, it’s still compelling, it still makes the viewer think, it still explores something - when it’s done well, it’s amazing. Simplicity done well is quite often underrated…but a complex plot that analyzes issues, characters, and situations seems better, harder, more worthy. And it’s easier to be complex when dealing with, say, death than when dealing with someone writing down a wrong number and hijacks ensuing.

“The Body” isn’t considered one of the best episodes because it’s dark, but because it dealt with a wealth of emotions and reactions, because it further explained characters, because it showed contrasts, because it had layers … though it was still dark. Season 6 was dark for dark’s sake, and there didn’t seem to be much there. I was thinking something along these lines a week or so ago when I was watching a rerun of what used to be my favorite show, and realized that my favorite episodes weren’t the “dark” or “heavy” or “crisis” episodes, but the ones that dealt skillfully with the characters and issues at hand.

17

Heh how about if I rename it ‘dark’ and ‘depressing’ then. :slight_smile: