Season Finales and Math Finals
May. 30th, 2011 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readingratJanuary 1985. I was in high school and looking forward to a peaceful two hours surrounded by mathematical formulas and numbers - just my half-yearly math exam and me. I wasn't even remotely worried, because I was used to acing math exams; there was no reason to suppose that this exam would prove the exception from the rule. Things started going pear-shaped when, after getting my copy, I checked though all the questions. The first few were okay, but then ...
I could do about forty percent of the paper, I reckoned, but as for the rest, I didn't even know what the questions meant, never mind finding a solution. I experienced that odd surge when all one's blood rushes out of one's head to the wrong parts of one's body and one feels hot and cold all at once. Finally, I started working on the paper, hoping that by the time I hit the half-way mark my blackout would have passed away and I'd get through the rest somehow. No such luck. I cast a furtive look around the class to see whether anyone else was on the verge of melting into a tearful puddle on their desks, but no. My classmates were either working at their papers or staring meditatively into space. No one seemed particularly fazed. So I told myself, "Stiff upper lip, this isn't the end of the world, just soldier on and don't disgrace yourself in public. It'll be bad enough when you get your grades and everyone knows that you botched it up completely."
After we'd handed in our papers I tentatively asked someone standing near me how they thought they'd done. "Oh, I just failed that one completely, couldn't do any of it," that person answered cheerfully and a few other bystanders joined in this chorus. I was vaguely relieved: so my brain hadn't been playing tricks on me and I hadn't lost my mojo. Nevertheless, the math exam was definitely screwed up, and even if the others didn't care, I did.
The next day our math teacher, looking slightly foolish, admitted that he'd distributed the final examination paper instead of the half-yearly one and that with the knowledge imparted in his class we couldn't have solved more than seventeen of fifty questions. Of course, he'd only grade those seventeen questions we could have solved.
I've forgiven the guy. I'm not even going to pretend that his stupidity and laziness marred my relationship to numbers for the rest of my life; it didn't. I do, however, feel that it is a teacher's job to check what he's distributing to a class at the very least, even if he can't be bothered to churn out a new exam paper every year. In my mind I associate that teacher with two hours of sheer terror, horror and numbness.
I feel much the same about the season finale after reading David Shore's comments and the writers' explanations. I now believe that they had no intention whatsoever of portraying House as a homicidial misogynist maniac. When they conceived that scene they were caught up in depicting a man at the end of his tether, a guy who has a tendency to extreme reactions even when he's nowhere near the end of his tether. They were looking for a grand, irreversible action with a ka-woom effect and they thought they had it there, along with a dash of humour. (And yes, I'll admit to snorting through my dismay when House handed Cuddy the hairbrush.) They aimed at 'House is burning all his bridges, alienating Cuddy and Wilson in the process', and they simply didn't anticipate what a considerable portion of viewers actually saw: House possibly attempting murder and definitely endangering the lives of five people. (House as a psychopath isn't something only one nutcase saw and is now splashing all over the 'net; a considerable portion of viewers and reviewers interpreted the scene that way.)
They botched it up. I understand that. I also understand that they can't stand up and say, "Sorry, folks, this isn't what we meant. Just forget the end of that episode." My math teacher could do that; for the House team it would be professional harakiri. They'll spend the hiatus writing themselves out of the tight corner they wrote themselves into (and are still talking themselves into), and hopefully come out of it with an explanation that will satisfy the rational needs of most fans. I can forgive them - it's their character, not mine. But as in the case of my math teacher, I feel that a bunch of highly paid professionals are paid for more than just writing down whatever comes into their heads. I expect them to anticipate the effect of what they write and then show to the audience, and not be caught wrong-footed by something they should have foreseen, but didn't.
And no matter how much the rational part of my brain may buy into whatever resolution they concoct during the hiatus, a lurking remembrance of that awful moment when I thought, "Oh my God, he's trying to kill Cuddy!" will taint my enjoyment of future episodes.
I could do about forty percent of the paper, I reckoned, but as for the rest, I didn't even know what the questions meant, never mind finding a solution. I experienced that odd surge when all one's blood rushes out of one's head to the wrong parts of one's body and one feels hot and cold all at once. Finally, I started working on the paper, hoping that by the time I hit the half-way mark my blackout would have passed away and I'd get through the rest somehow. No such luck. I cast a furtive look around the class to see whether anyone else was on the verge of melting into a tearful puddle on their desks, but no. My classmates were either working at their papers or staring meditatively into space. No one seemed particularly fazed. So I told myself, "Stiff upper lip, this isn't the end of the world, just soldier on and don't disgrace yourself in public. It'll be bad enough when you get your grades and everyone knows that you botched it up completely."
After we'd handed in our papers I tentatively asked someone standing near me how they thought they'd done. "Oh, I just failed that one completely, couldn't do any of it," that person answered cheerfully and a few other bystanders joined in this chorus. I was vaguely relieved: so my brain hadn't been playing tricks on me and I hadn't lost my mojo. Nevertheless, the math exam was definitely screwed up, and even if the others didn't care, I did.
The next day our math teacher, looking slightly foolish, admitted that he'd distributed the final examination paper instead of the half-yearly one and that with the knowledge imparted in his class we couldn't have solved more than seventeen of fifty questions. Of course, he'd only grade those seventeen questions we could have solved.
I've forgiven the guy. I'm not even going to pretend that his stupidity and laziness marred my relationship to numbers for the rest of my life; it didn't. I do, however, feel that it is a teacher's job to check what he's distributing to a class at the very least, even if he can't be bothered to churn out a new exam paper every year. In my mind I associate that teacher with two hours of sheer terror, horror and numbness.
I feel much the same about the season finale after reading David Shore's comments and the writers' explanations. I now believe that they had no intention whatsoever of portraying House as a homicidial misogynist maniac. When they conceived that scene they were caught up in depicting a man at the end of his tether, a guy who has a tendency to extreme reactions even when he's nowhere near the end of his tether. They were looking for a grand, irreversible action with a ka-woom effect and they thought they had it there, along with a dash of humour. (And yes, I'll admit to snorting through my dismay when House handed Cuddy the hairbrush.) They aimed at 'House is burning all his bridges, alienating Cuddy and Wilson in the process', and they simply didn't anticipate what a considerable portion of viewers actually saw: House possibly attempting murder and definitely endangering the lives of five people. (House as a psychopath isn't something only one nutcase saw and is now splashing all over the 'net; a considerable portion of viewers and reviewers interpreted the scene that way.)
They botched it up. I understand that. I also understand that they can't stand up and say, "Sorry, folks, this isn't what we meant. Just forget the end of that episode." My math teacher could do that; for the House team it would be professional harakiri. They'll spend the hiatus writing themselves out of the tight corner they wrote themselves into (and are still talking themselves into), and hopefully come out of it with an explanation that will satisfy the rational needs of most fans. I can forgive them - it's their character, not mine. But as in the case of my math teacher, I feel that a bunch of highly paid professionals are paid for more than just writing down whatever comes into their heads. I expect them to anticipate the effect of what they write and then show to the audience, and not be caught wrong-footed by something they should have foreseen, but didn't.
And no matter how much the rational part of my brain may buy into whatever resolution they concoct during the hiatus, a lurking remembrance of that awful moment when I thought, "Oh my God, he's trying to kill Cuddy!" will taint my enjoyment of future episodes.
