Lucky Lulu Fox
LightNews LightNews
luckylulufox.bsky.social
Lucky Lulu Fox
@luckylulufox.bsky.social
18 followers 100 following 0 posts
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Lucky Lulu Fox
zhandlen.bsky.social
Reviews are for subscribers only at this point, but here's a taste of what you're missing:
This, to me, is the essential difference between J.J. Abrams much-derided “mystery box” approach to plotting, and writers that use questions to pull viewers and readers in. I don’t hate “mystery box” stuff completely, but the more obvious it is, the more irritating it becomes, and it typically relies on events that are so outlandish and strange it’s impossible for the audience to put them together ahead of time. Which, then, almost inevitably leads to disappointment when the truth is revealed. It’s essentially trading in on audience trust before that trust has been established, buying on credit what it presumes it will earn in the future. Here, though, we get mysteries that we can almost grasp. Nothing that’s happened so far has the thrilling, utterly out-of-left-field vibe of, say, the Smoke Monster on Lost, but the way these almost answerable questions work to deepen our investment and build our faith in the story we’re being told is a far more sensible approach. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Straczynski knows what he’s doing when he seeds these moments in, and more importantly, I have complete trust that he knows what they all mean. I don’t need writers to plan everything out ahead of time, but if you’re going to try and get my attention with hints and questions marks, you better be damn confident you can make the resolution as interesting as the set-up.
January 16, 2026 at 7:18 PM