I love these first episodes. Esspecially the Dorothy-development aspect.
Dorothy, throughout the series is very much a child. She may look 18, have the vocabulary and conversational skills (
for the most part) of an 18-year-old but she's so child-like. As I never seem to tire of mentioning her father did not do a good job of 'raising' her and pretty much stunted her emotional growth.
She's stunted to such a point that as of act 1 she still hasn't developed abstract thought, or the ability to sympathize with her fellow sentient-lifeforms, (
Abstract thought is something children aren't really capable of until age 11 or 12) thus her rather callus reaction to Soldano's death. But she does get better at sympathizing with people fairly quickly starting with act 6 -I love that her concern for Instro causes such confussion for her
- and it fully developes in act 8 when Dorothy gets her kitty
Really, she's an emotional two-year-old. She never quite grows up through-out the series (
not that that's a bad thing, and anyhow, who's going to grow-up completely over the course of only 7 to 9 months?), but she also seems to have a better understanding of the true nature of Paradigm than anybody else (
aside from *maybe* Angel and Gorden at the very end of act 26). She's just a fascinating character, she knows so much but she's so young that she's really not that interested in what it all means.
anywho, back to 'Roger the Negotiator'
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This episode and 'Dorothy Dorothy' together make my favorite episode of the series. But I had trouble watching it the first few times because Roger was such a jerk. At no point in the series is Roger as much of an ass as he is in the first episode. He is cockiness personified in this episode. But this episode not only introduces Roger, it also introduces Dorothy and Dorothy helps to make Roger likeable. I do like that Roger's suppose to be a jerk. It's such a relief after watching Batman. Bruce wasn't suppose to come off as a jerk (as far as I remember) and, I dunno, that just made me hate him. Roger's a rich young guy with a fast car and kick-ass Megadeus, even dispite his principles and his best efforts he's going to come off as a jerk from time to time.
Dorothy sometimes makes Roger too likeable, and one thing I really love about this series is that just when Roger's starting to feel like too much of a perfect guy the writers pull away and remind the audience that he's still a rich, impudent young man. The most notable example, I think, is in act 19 when Roger flings his business card at the woman at Paradigm Central office.
I guess I've kinda gotten desentisized to Roger's jerk nature in act 1, I barely notice it anymore. Or perhaps I've just been distracted by Roger's hands,. . . those big, beautiful hands, nothing like those horrible stick fingers we see in season two. Oh, no, Roger's hands in act 1 are fully articulated, honest to god, all american man-hands. In season two the animators really seem to enjoy exaggerating Roger's chest. Which is all well and good if you're a ten-year-old in love with spandex superheros; but, as a girl I think that if you have to exaggerate anything then, for the love of flying megadeuses everywhere, exaggerate the hands!
This episode has the best animation of the entire series. Not even the later half of the two-parter, 'Dorothy Dorothy', can match the sophisticated, 1920s elegance of 'Roger the Negotiator'. I'd love to know how much this episode cost to make compared to your average season two (or even season one) episode. The animation, truely, is on a whole other level. Even if the story wasn't as moody, laid back, and wonderfully well-paced as it is I'd still watch this episode over and over again for no other reason than to watch Roger's fluid motions.
Roger has these few, not even scenes, more like moments when his movements are simply, I don't know,. . . forgive me, but the only word I can think of is 'orgasmic'. There's the first time he gets out of the car, which is more cool than anything else, it doesn't really give any sense of his character. I think what I like more is when he hands, more like flings, his tie to Norman. There's a wonderful flippancy in the movement, in less than a second you know he has this natural masculine grace, he's a man, who even if he wasn't born wealthy, was born to be wealthy. He wears his affulance so well, which you can also see in the tie movement, along with a pure, deep-seated self-involvment.
The third of these fluid movements (and I think the last in this episode) is my favorite. It's 2 actions instead of one, all in about a 5 second time scale. Action 1, Roger yanks at his tie to loosen it, action 2, he plots down on the couch, flings his arm out and hooks it around the back of the couch. It's a fantastic precursor to Roger and Dorothy's relationship. The movement is part guinuine disappointment that the 'lady guest' is, in actuality, an android but also part over-kill. Roger's uses as familar language with Dorothy as his character is capable of, all of his actions and reactions are very exaggerated. While we don't really get any indication that Roger cares one thing or another for Dorothy until the very end of the episode, with this scene you get the feeling that he's trying to cover something up.
There is some sort of spark between those two when they first meet, I still don't quite know why. They both feel it. Dorothy pretty much falls in love at first sight, and while Roger highly resists it he's still affected by the same spark.
spoilers for act 26:
| spoiler (highlight to read): |
| Perhaps this is a result of the reset? Let's say for arguments' sake that Roger fell in love with her before the last reset. Could a remnant of those feelings have carried over even with his memory erased? |
Roger is one of my favorite protagionists of all time. A near perfect combination of negative and possitive traits that together create one hell of a likeable character.
Great episode. Can't wait for next week! 'Dorothy Dorothy'!
muchlove
-dork
) 