Leading to a tension-filled moment between Gloria and Edith I'll never shake no matter how many times I see it. When EDITH is in crisis (sometimes spiritually) Stapleton makes you feel her pain like no one can.
Unexpected depth/seriousness in “light” fare
- Thread starter FredH
- Start date
I did not know that.
All in the Family did not shy away from serious issues--there were a number of such episodes. Edith's sexual assault comes immediately to mind. There was also the abortion episode of Maude, which was a spin-off show.
EDIT: Sorry--should have read the next posts.
A lot of comedies do have shows with serious moments, particularly when the actor dies and they have to deal with the loss of that character on screen.
I just remembered watching the Tasha Yar episode during the first season of TNG. I had no idea it was coming, and all through the episode I kept expecting some kind of reset so I was completely bowled over by the funeral scene at the end--and I didn't believe what had happened even after the show ended. TNG had some really powerful moments like that. The decision over Hugh, for example, or The Offspring which left my friend in tears at the end.
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That memorial scene wrecked me. More than anything, the moment when Data asks Picard, “Did I miss the point?” — and you can just hear in Spiner’s voice how desperately he wants, this time of all times, not to have missed the point.
Yeah, Resident Alien fits right in with Eureka and Warehouse 13 in terms of tone. I could easily see it taking place in that same universe, and honestly I think it would be a better fit than Alphas, which actually did crossover with Warehouse 13.
In the '80s, TV Guide and their ilk actually gave away the deaths of Yar, ''V'''S Robert Maxwell, and Joe Coffey of HILL STREET BLUES. Those subscribers, like me, knew of the croakings in advance......but in her case, so did Yar herself. Shall we admit her regulars-only last will and testament seemed ridiculously up-to-date? (Unless she updated and revised it weekly, which seems to me a waste in proportion to cost.)
Remembered one actually that stuck with me since i was a kid.
Return of the Jedi - when the Ewoks do their hit and run battle a team gets hit, one Ewok falls down and his friend tries to get him up but he won't move. For all the War in Star Wars we never actually see much of the cost of war, it's all anonymous mostly when spacefighters and other ships blow up, even when Alderaan is hit we only get a number.
Stormtroopers get hit en masse but we never truly care because they're the bad guys.
Yet this quick and small scene is that much more powerful for it because it shows actual death.
Return of the Jedi - when the Ewoks do their hit and run battle a team gets hit, one Ewok falls down and his friend tries to get him up but he won't move. For all the War in Star Wars we never actually see much of the cost of war, it's all anonymous mostly when spacefighters and other ships blow up, even when Alderaan is hit we only get a number.
Stormtroopers get hit en masse but we never truly care because they're the bad guys.
Yet this quick and small scene is that much more powerful for it because it shows actual death.
Heck, I was always really bothered by the Rebel crewers getting killed right at the start of the first movie.
Sure but this was standard Hollywood action.
That was deeper, showing the mourning and loss in war.
Yes. Such a heartbreaking moment!
Reminded me of this which I saw again yesterday:
Edit: The Everybody Loves Raymond episodes "Robert's Rodeo" , "Golf For It", and "The Finale" - Ray sees just how bad Robert's bull gore wound actually was, Ray and Robert realize that someday their parents will die, and when everyone realizes Ray could have died on the operating table, respectively. They do love each other, even if it's dysfunctional a lot of the time.
He even looks like an evil Riker on old Earth.
That scene in Moonraker always makes me sad. Corrine didn't do anything bad but Drax makes her run then she us chased and torn to pieces by two dogs. Thankfully we never see it happen
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It’s the classic fate of the Bond conquest who isn’t the current movie’s main guest star…
Without Williams' music, who we be as moved?
As for Alderaan, I'm still amused that Lucas didn't re-release A NEW HOPE yet again in theaters with five seconds of extra Smits looking out his glowing window.
I would - for me in this moment it's not Williams' score but the one Ewok who's been hit cry out in pain and fall silent and his buddy getting up, speaking to him and trying to get him to move only to realize he's dead and he mourns him right there while the battle rages around them.
This "humanization" ("ewokization"?) of the cost of war is what always got me since i was a kid and it never fails to make me sad even today, 40 years later since i first saw it.
Millions or billions actually die, Alderaan has been blown up. Rebels and Imperials die by the hundreds and thousands in their battles but it's rarely that personal than in this small scene betwen 2 Ewoks we didn't even know by name ( Wookiepedia sure has their complete bio down to the last 3 generations though).
That's a great point. Especially true as it is part of who we are as human beings. We can see horrific disasters on the news where thousands die, but unless there is a human connection we tend not to feel true empathy.
In real life, for example, the attack on the trade towers in 2001affected many North Americans strongly and impacted most of the world, but the explosion in Lebanon a few years back that was also affecting or the tidal waves in Japan a little over a decade ago, or Asia twenty years ago did not have the same emotional impact for us unless we had a personal connection to those places. For those elsewhere in the world, 9-11 was a terrible day but didn't have the same emotional impact it did in North America.
The Ewok scene was brilliant in that the movie creates a culture of "people" whom we grow to care about even if we don't know their names, and then some random member of that culture is killed and the audience is left emotionally affected years later by this one brief scene.
In real life, for example, the attack on the trade towers in 2001affected many North Americans strongly and impacted most of the world, but the explosion in Lebanon a few years back that was also affecting or the tidal waves in Japan a little over a decade ago, or Asia twenty years ago did not have the same emotional impact for us unless we had a personal connection to those places. For those elsewhere in the world, 9-11 was a terrible day but didn't have the same emotional impact it did in North America.
The Ewok scene was brilliant in that the movie creates a culture of "people" whom we grow to care about even if we don't know their names, and then some random member of that culture is killed and the audience is left emotionally affected years later by this one brief scene.
The Buffy episode "Storyteller" has that lightheartedness with Andrew's perspective of events, the fourth-wall breaking opening, and the way he retells the past to suit his own ends. And then when it gets into the scene underneath the school, when they're standing around the seal, it just turns into something else entirely and I really wasn't sure how it was going to end.
The final scene in Blackadder go forth was brilliant in that it was funny and moving all at the same time, and the very last shot of the battlefield turned field of poppies was very moving.
Rodney and Del boy in the lift after cassandra had a miscarriage was superbly moving.
Marty cuddling Eddie in Frasier knowing the little guy is getting on in years.
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