Scenes from PQL / Waiting Room

What do you think about scenes from the Project and/or Waiting Room

  • Why not? It's cool to see the real project

    Votes: 5 55.6%
  • Sure, just don't overdo it.

    Votes: 2 22.2%
  • What we saw on the original series was about right.

    Votes: 2 22.2%
  • No I think they take away from the series and the mystery surrounding PQL.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    9

servo75

Project QL Intern
Dec 17, 2015
82
0
0
Spokane, WA, USA
Kind of a philosophy question for all of ya...

Late in the 4th season we started seeing scenes from the project, and of the leapees in the waiting room. From the fanfics I've read there are a lot of PQL scenes as well. Personally while I liked seeing the Project itself, I think too much of it is not a good thing.

My reasoning is that the series happens from Sam's point of view, so if he can't remember anything about the project, then we shouldn't be able to see them either, i.e. we should be as "swiss cheesed" as him.

Just wondering what your opinions are on this.
 
Interesting poll. Maybe I am biased as I watch a lot of Sci-Fi so control rooms and the backstory is interesting.
 
From the POV of a fanfic writer, Project based scenes are invaluable as a way of breaking up the action.
Leave Sam in jeopardy while you switch back to what is going on at PQLHQ, which ups the tension and the angst. It is a standard trick in almost all literature and TV. Split your characters into different groups and swap the action between them.
Yes, the standard format is predominantly Sam's POV, but it is acceptable to intersect Al's POV, so long as the transitions are clear. IMHO anyway.
 
Kind of a philosophy question for all of ya...

Late in the 4th season we started seeing scenes from the project, and of the leapees in the waiting room. From the fanfics I've read there are a lot of PQL scenes as well. Personally while I liked seeing the Project itself, I think too much of it is not a good thing.

My reasoning is that the series happens from Sam's point of view, so if he can't remember anything about the project, then we shouldn't be able to see them either, i.e. we should be as "swiss cheesed" as him.

Just wondering what your opinions are on this.

When the series began it was very much from Sam's point of view, especially with Sam narrating in voice over at the beginning and often during the episode (and that happened later in the series too).

I get that they wanted to mix things up a bit to keep the series from getting stale and for the most part the waiting room scenes weren't bad (although I don't particularly like the Dr. Ruth episode, Al's interactions with her were very touching) but I actually preferred when they stuck to Sam's point of view. The show is about him and his experiences, and he's the one we're really following. And whenever Al is not there Sam is on his own trying to muddle his way through and figure out the right thing to do, and we're there with him, not knowing. So that adds tension.

When you switch from TV to prose, especially for longer prose, I can see where people may want to fill in more information and break up the story differently, especially if they're writing in third person, which allows that leeway. But I've read plenty of case fics where no project scenes are included and it's just Sam on the leap and those work fine too. My preference is for the latter type of fic -- I don't care about what's happening at the project. I like watching/reading about Sam, so the project stuff has no interest for me.
 
From the POV of a fanfic writer, Project based scenes are invaluable as a way of breaking up the action.
Leave Sam in jeopardy while you switch back to what is going on at PQLHQ, which ups the tension and the angst. It is a standard trick in almost all literature and TV. Split your characters into different groups and swap the action between them.
Sometimes that can become formulaic such as on Star Trek TNG and DS9 that you'd sit and play "let's spot the B story". The A story was what the episode was about. The B story was comic relief or filler.

Spoiler: The B story in TNG was always Geordi & Data or Worf and someone else. The B story on DS9 was always Julian & O'Brien or Quark getting into trouble.
 
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I thought it was handled well. We didn't see much of it until later in the series, so there was a long period where we were left to wonder and speculate about PQL. I'm glad we got to get a peek at what was going on back in the "future" before the series ended. I especially liked seeing the scenes from the final episode that showed Al's desperate attempts to locate Sam.
 
I loved the Waiting Room scenes and really any time we were able to get a glimpse of the "future" during the series. I'm of the belief that the real reason that the Project wasn't shown for the first three seasons was because of budget. This is apparent to me because of the design of the handlink when Al finally "kills" the old one in "The Great Spontini" (regardless of the order mix up of the Gummi Bear's appearances).

The episodes were still always about Sam and his mission whether we were seeing it directly from his point of view or not, so I was always OK with it from a story perspective. Besides, it was nice to finally see all of the stuff Al talked about most of the time as opposed to taking his word for it.

"Dr. Ruth" was clearly the most creative use of the room and a nice twist on the conventional and formulaic leap-outs. And "Killin' Time" is just an awesome episode unto itself that expanded on everything.
 
I liked seeing the Project's headquarters, but the real story was always about Sam helping people in the past. If the show had gained a 6th year, I think they probably would've done another futuristic episode or two.