Double Take anyone? (slight spoilers from 02/22/01)greenspun.com : LUSENET : ER Discussions : One Thread |
OK, in tonight's episode, did anyone else have two identical scenes with Luka and the Bishop? One right before the credits, and then the exact same dialogue, camera angles, everything in the scene leading up to Luka's confession at the end?Was this deliberate, a fluke, any explanations? Or was this just my TV station (NBC out of Cleveland). That was so weird, I don't expect stuff like that on ER. I don't know if it was a screw up or another directoral experiment.
On a completely unrelated note, I also think this eppy was more graphic than usual. We don't usually see an aerial shot of an open chest cavity, hear someone saw a bone, see an impaled person AND a broken bone in one episode. I know it was a huge trauma but WHOA. It was a bit much!
-- Becky (pattonrd@muohio.edu), February 23, 2001
I thought that the flash back thing that they used was cool. I don't remember them ever doing something like that before. At the end of the eppi I wanted to go back and watch the begining again and catch all of those things. When we saw it at the end we saw it from a different camera angle. Like the opposite side. Very cool effect. Overall I loved the eppisode. I loved the part when Luka was telling the Bishop what had happend to his family. I hope that we can see a Luka that isn't so sad all the time now. :)
-- Jen (sjcpuma@yahoo.com), February 23, 2001.
Actually, the first scenes were all done again at the end of the show, but with a different camera angle except for the very last scene that we saw twice (with the Bishop) wich was exactly identical. I really liked that "directorial experiment" as you call it Becky. I don't remember really seeing this on ER. It was fun reliving those scenes, the same yet different. Those scenes,the flashbacks : it was a different ER, but I really enjoyed it.
-- Manon (brault@saglac.qc.ca), February 23, 2001.
Hey Jan, I guess we were typing at the same time and we both felt the same... Funny!
-- Manon (brault@saglac.qc.ca), February 23, 2001.
something pretty easy to miss, right after coming back from the first set of credits, was the subtitle "seven hours earlier".
-- Dave (jcs420x365@aol.com), February 23, 2001.
I thought this episode was Wonderful! The scene in the beginning was like a mirror image to the same scene at the end - with the camera angles reversed.Did you catch the comparision of Luka's dilemas 1) who to save: his daughter or his wife and then 2) Who goes up to the OR first: the woman who was impaled or her son who just had his head drilled.
No wonder Luka has been such a morose soul. I understand him better after the explanation of how his family perished.
Jo
-- Jo Reed (jojoreed@home.com), February 23, 2001.
This is a storytelling device called "in medias res" ("starting in the middle"). I think it might have been more effective had they not repeated nearly ALL the scenes from the teaser, though! That wasn't necessary.
-- Ellen (eedgert1@twcny.rr.com), February 23, 2001.
I wish I had seen the "seven hours earlier" thing... I thought it may have been a fluke, too- knowing it was a flashback would have made more sense to me.
-- Samantha (amoeba9999@yahoo.com), February 23, 2001.
I liked it very much. When he was talking to Kerry (the second time) I was like...didn't we see this earlier? Then it was neat how we got more info. like the first time Abby came out and talked to him and Luka asked if her patient was OK...well we had no idea the first time it was Elizabeth. It was neat how everything was reversed angles. I am not sure why they did it and what it was supposed to mean, but I liked it.
-- amanda (amanda.rehm@home.com), February 23, 2001.
Whew!!! And I though I was going crazy LOL!!
-- Jenn (psychomom1974@yahoo.com), February 23, 2001.
Dave - thanks for the input on the seven hours earlier! I didn't catch that, I was in the kitchen when it came back on after the credits. OK, I like it a lot more now that I realize what was going on! Without that subtitle, it didn't make a lot of sense.
-- Becky (pattonrd@muohio.edu), February 23, 2001.
I actually didn't like the "7 hours earlier" thing. Took away the suspense about Elizabeth because I totally guessed that who's Abby's patient was. Also by repeating the scenes a second time, episode time was lost. I thought it was odd that Luka didn't talk about the mugger to the Bishop too. And there weren't any other surgeons in the hospital that could have gone out to the field to help with the train wreck? Wouldn't a doctor who is not a surgeon be just begging for a malpractice suit by performing an amputation? Oh, and if for some reason I ever have to have such a grusome procedure, knock me out! I could never watch someone cutting my leg off. I've loved ER since it started but I just came away with a feeling that the show just isn't what it used to be.
-- Michelle (michellek@penchart.com), February 23, 2001.
I taped the episode and watched the beginning and the end and boy was I confused! First I thought I had somehow taped only the end of the episode then I realized they were repeating the beginning at the end. But My question is why? I just did not see the point. I also noticed that in the first part Abby was smiling at Luka when he got into the elevator and at the end she wasn't. She had this concerned look on her face. There were some subtle differences when they re-filmed the scenes.
-- Cheryl W (cfaz13@optonline.net), February 23, 2001.
I realize that ER takes a lot of dramatic license, but if I was the firefighter I'd be more interested in being alive than worrying about suing the person who performed a procedure successfully who was not qualified to. I liked the repeated scenes from different angles (haven't decided why yet). Goran Visnjnic did a great job. I was really impressed by both him and James Cromwell, particulary as it would have been very easy to have had this storyline be overacted.
-- Emma (webbef@hotmail.com), February 23, 2001.
I thought the way the repeated the scenes was pretty cool. I guessed right away that they were going to go back, simply because Kerry was talking about a major trauma, and I doubted there would have been another one before the train wreck (though it's obviously possible). I really liked how we saw a different perspective in the end, especially with Elizabeth, and we knew what Kerry was referring to exactly. I thought Luka was really good in this episode as well.Aside: ER may have some real competition in the ratings next week...the previews of Survivor hints it's going to be a must see!
-- Joanne (bucklind@hotmail.com), February 23, 2001.
It's kind of a "teaser". You are getting pieces of a story before it unfolds. Keeps you interested - an interesting approach..and it worked for me because I was glued.
-- PJ (annimated3@aol.com), February 23, 2001.
"I thought it was odd that Luka didn't talk about the mugger to the Bishop too."When you confess your sins, you are absolved of all your sins, whether or not you confess them. So it would not have mattered if he said anything about the mugger. IMHO, if Luka added anything else, I think it would have ruined the scene. It was a very moving scene, and I admit I had tears in my eyes.
Just my 2 cents.
-- Jenn (psychomom1974@yahoo.com), February 23, 2001.
I thought they were going to do the whole train wreck from Luka's point of view, as in flashbacks. The way they threw in the flashbacks at the wreck was pretty good... the first one with the woman helping the man, I couldn't tell at first if it was real or in his head. It's good to know he'll be happy from now on. Although I kind of thought he ending was faster than I thought...his story almost seemed rushed. I wish they'd taken a little more time w/ it.
-- Elaine (mrsclooney78@hotmail.com), February 23, 2001.
I thought this eppy was great!The gave us a trauma scene that was very interesting, a look at what has haunted Luka, and good advancement of sub-plots.
The Corday story was a little unnecessary, I thought, except it was a good excuse for the Carter story. In two very short scenes they advanced the Weaver/Lagaspi story and the Greene story as well.
Over all, a good episode.
-- Rusty Priske (rusty.priske@hrdc-drhc.gc.ca), February 23, 2001.
Elaine... I can't agree with the flashback at the end being too fast. That 5 minutes seem to last forever. I thought it was masterfully done, with just the right amount of information given to fulfill our curiousity, and give us a deeper understanding of who Luka is. I looked at the clock just before the flashback started, and couldn't believe it had only been 5 minutes. It told so much. Sometime less is more. I liked the way the whole epi was filmed, although I think we have had previous episodes were they have used similar effects as the double take filming. I just can't remember which ones.
-- Mollie (mollie@adelphia.net), February 23, 2001.
Did anyone else flashback to the backwards "Seinfeld" episode?
-- Marie (Momba@mariesmail.com), February 23, 2001.
Although I enjoyed the technical "twist" of seeing the opening scene twice from different POVs, I've begun to wonder: what was the point? What did we gain as an audience by seeing that particular scene again, other than a different visual perspective? (i.e. first we see Luka's POV in the Bishop's room, then the Bishop's POV in the room the second time, etc.) Sure, we understand (if we didn't figure it out at first), that Elizabeth was Abby's patient, and that Luka has endured a difficult ER shift that's vividly reminded him of the deaths of his wife and children. (But you know, almost everytime Luka works with patients who are mothers or children, I get the feeling he's reminded of their deaths on some level....) However, what we MAINLY understand when we see the scene the second time (if indeed we saw the "seven hours earlier" caption), is that seven hours have transpired since Luka, Carter, et al., began responding to the train wreck trauma. And I'm not sure that's a good enough dramatic reason to mess with the episode's plotting.It would have been much more interesting, I think, for the opening scene to show us Luka the next morning, AFTER the bishop's death and his confession, perhaps getting off the elevator, talking to whoever was working at the ER desk, maybe even interacting w/ Abby when he returned to the hotel. THEN, after the first commercial (& with a caption that says, say, "14 hours earlier"), backtrack and tell the story of the trauma, show us Luka w/ the bishop and the flashback of his family's death and his confession. THEN replay the opening scene (from different POVs) so that as an audience, we can notice the subtle "differences" in how Luka acts, knowing what we've learned in the interim (because what's transpired in the interim really has made a difference). This way, the episode's "doubletake" technique would serve a more dramatic purpose.
Does that make sense at all, or am I just being nitpicky?
-- Jules (jcomine@hotmail.com), February 23, 2001.