|
Narrative
|
Don't examine this too closely. You don't listen very well, do you?*
Said by producer Donald P Bellisario at an early-1990s SF convention in response to a persistent fan with very specific questions about the way things worked on Bellisario's series Quantum Leap. An unashamed admission of handwaving details unnecessary to the enjoyment of a show, and an exhortation to not let the obsession with those details get in the way of the story. Implicit in the Maxim is a request to understand that the story is being told by a small production team that due to the limitations of the medium has to work quickly, with limited budget and tight deadlines, and has to dodge Executive Meddling, all while trying to turn out the best product it can.
However, it should not be used to excuse problems with concepts central to a show's premise: To use the above example, Quantum Leap was a show about a man traveling through time, "leaping" into different bodies throughout history, where he attempted to "put right what once went wrong" on a personal individual level. The specific mechanics of how this time travel worked were never central to the story, and could thus be justified with a Hand Wave. However, weak characterizations or poorly researched history should not be so easily excused (not to say that was a problem with Quantum Leap which generally showed their work... just to say that it would be problematic if they hadn't).
Frequently quoted in various fan communities in response to excessive Fan Wank and to arguments about Canon, Fanon and the Word Of God.
See also MST3K Mantra, Rule Of Cool, and A Wizard Did It.
|
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.