Meh.

“All the snakes have simply disappeared from the zoo.”
”Maybe they’re on a plane?”

 

Modern TV shows are bizarre. Sure, they have immense amounts of creativity, but they cross the line too easily. It can be a freelance killer-succubus killing molemen in Lost Girl, dwarves hatching from eggs and romancing pixie apprentices in Once Upon A Time or humping vampire doppelgangers in Vampire Diaries, undoubtedly there is something unusual going on. And yes, these are rather arbitrary examples and I neither confirm nor deny ever having watched those. Except the last one, . Sure, fantasy has always been popular, one merely has to remember Angel or Buffy. But even they had a source they respected and held on to. If there were deviations from the source material, hence acting against common knowledge and logic, it would complement the story without stepping too far. After all, Red Riding Hood wasn’t a werewolf until a couple of weeks ago.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Creativity is scarce these days, it appears that everything has been done before. It is the age of remakes, even TMNT got a reboot as alien turtles, not to mention a new MIB. Drug-ridden fantasy merely brings a little fresh spice into the mix. In the words of a Woodpecker ad: “What a refreshing change.”.

But all is not as rosy as it looks from behind the bush, the new stories keep falling into the same hole as that vampire-with-a-proneness-for-disco-ball-similarity-story. Sure, it has flash, but lacks essence. There isn’t a real story behind it all. Though let’s be honest, even Sanctuary had a lot more plot than most other modern shows, no matter how much it lacked logic or science. But it did have a whole world of international politics, public relations and semidemocratic leadership of a large organization ever-constantly trying to hide from the public view. It wasn’t simple, it was interesting.

 

Also, from ‘How to write as a scientist’ via io9

3. Some journals, such as Science, officially eschew the passive voice. Others print only the passive voice. So find a healthy compromise by writing in semi-passive voice.

ACTIVE VOICE: We did this experiment.
PASSIVE VOICE: This experiment was done by us.
SEMI-PASSIVE VOICE: Done by us, this experiment was.