Deconstructing "The Fine Art of Crime"
Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 8:41 am
Hi, everybody. Long time reader, very rare poster. I've got kind of a long post I'd like to share.
I am extremely fortunate to have that elusive unicorn, a girlfriend who enjoys playing freeze games. She enjoys it so much that's it's often her that suggests that it's time for some freezing fun. One of the inspirations for us - no big surprise here - is the Wonder Woman episode "The Fine Art of Crime" (season 3, episode 4). She and I have analyzed the heck out of that episode, I'm guessing probably more than anybody else ever has, including the writer. We've come up with a bunch of discussion points to try to make sense out of the scenarios this episode presents. Yes, we know it's all fiction, but it sure is fun to think about! (here's the episode, available for a small fee on YouTube - https://youtu.be/xn5dSFsBu78)
- There are six people frozen in the museum. We know the student guy is an accomplice, instructed to steal the artwork when he gets revived. But what's the deal with the other five people? Did they get tricked into being subjects for this exhibit? Are they volunteers? If so, what's their motivation? If they volunteered, did they get frozen before they were brought to the museum or did they walk in under their own power and then get frozen? How long of a time commitment did they have to make? A couple of weeks? A month? More? I'm fascinated by the back story of, for example, that lady in the blue outfit, or the fisherman. How did they get involved in this caper?
- When the henchmen are off duty, are they supposed to go into the work room area and just remain frozen in there? And if so, are they given instructions before they're frozen that if they are revived and see somebody they don't recognize, they should attack that person? The guy in the police uniform is shown active later in the episode but he remains a statue for most of it. Is that how these guys really spend their off hours, in suspended animation? That doesn't really provide the best work-life balance, now does it? And since you can't unfreeze yourself, somebody has to be monitoring that work room. It's presumably that person that unfreezes the henchmen to attack Harold and later Wonder Woman. That monitor has to be a boring job, but hey, at least that person gets to remain active instead of frozen.
- The guy who gets disguised as a painter is going to get a bonus of $15,000 to steal that art piece. But how long does he have to remain a statue? Presumably, he gets frozen before he's brought into the rich couple's house. Then he gets unfrozen, steals the medallion, and gets refrozen. But when does his time as a statue end? A couple days later? A couple weeks? That rich couple paid for the statue, so it's not a temporary exhibit like the six people in the museum. Is he going to have to get "stolen" as well, when he unfreezes and probably just walks out the door?
- When that painter henchman guy walks into the main office, there is a secretary there, frozen in the middle of typing something. What's going on there? Does the boss freeze her when they have to discuss their crime business? What must that hiring interview have been like? "Well, your qualifications are excellent. You type 100 words a minute, there is some occasional filing to be done...what are your feelings about occasionally and randomly being placed into suspended animation for a while?" Does that count as her break? Does OSHA know about this??
- At the end of the episode, Harold says "One good thing about what those guys did to me is it gave me a lot of time to think." Wait, what? He was conscious while he was frozen? What does that mean for the people who are statues? Are they conscious and aware of their situation? If so, that has got to get really boring, really quickly. What about those off-duty henchmen in the work room, or the people in the museum, or that typing secretary? Are they aware of what's going on while they're frozen? If you remain conscious, I think that painter guy needs to ask for way more than $15,000 for several weeks of electronically-induced immobility. Although we never see any different settings on the big control machine, is it possible that they did something different to keep Harold conscious, possibly as some kind of added psychological torture?
Yes, yes, I understand that it's all just 48 minutes of fluff fiction from nearly four decades ago. But as somebody who thinks about freezing A LOT, this is just how my mind works. If anybody wants to add to this discussion, I'd be happy to keep it going.
I am extremely fortunate to have that elusive unicorn, a girlfriend who enjoys playing freeze games. She enjoys it so much that's it's often her that suggests that it's time for some freezing fun. One of the inspirations for us - no big surprise here - is the Wonder Woman episode "The Fine Art of Crime" (season 3, episode 4). She and I have analyzed the heck out of that episode, I'm guessing probably more than anybody else ever has, including the writer. We've come up with a bunch of discussion points to try to make sense out of the scenarios this episode presents. Yes, we know it's all fiction, but it sure is fun to think about! (here's the episode, available for a small fee on YouTube - https://youtu.be/xn5dSFsBu78)
- There are six people frozen in the museum. We know the student guy is an accomplice, instructed to steal the artwork when he gets revived. But what's the deal with the other five people? Did they get tricked into being subjects for this exhibit? Are they volunteers? If so, what's their motivation? If they volunteered, did they get frozen before they were brought to the museum or did they walk in under their own power and then get frozen? How long of a time commitment did they have to make? A couple of weeks? A month? More? I'm fascinated by the back story of, for example, that lady in the blue outfit, or the fisherman. How did they get involved in this caper?
- When the henchmen are off duty, are they supposed to go into the work room area and just remain frozen in there? And if so, are they given instructions before they're frozen that if they are revived and see somebody they don't recognize, they should attack that person? The guy in the police uniform is shown active later in the episode but he remains a statue for most of it. Is that how these guys really spend their off hours, in suspended animation? That doesn't really provide the best work-life balance, now does it? And since you can't unfreeze yourself, somebody has to be monitoring that work room. It's presumably that person that unfreezes the henchmen to attack Harold and later Wonder Woman. That monitor has to be a boring job, but hey, at least that person gets to remain active instead of frozen.
- The guy who gets disguised as a painter is going to get a bonus of $15,000 to steal that art piece. But how long does he have to remain a statue? Presumably, he gets frozen before he's brought into the rich couple's house. Then he gets unfrozen, steals the medallion, and gets refrozen. But when does his time as a statue end? A couple days later? A couple weeks? That rich couple paid for the statue, so it's not a temporary exhibit like the six people in the museum. Is he going to have to get "stolen" as well, when he unfreezes and probably just walks out the door?
- When that painter henchman guy walks into the main office, there is a secretary there, frozen in the middle of typing something. What's going on there? Does the boss freeze her when they have to discuss their crime business? What must that hiring interview have been like? "Well, your qualifications are excellent. You type 100 words a minute, there is some occasional filing to be done...what are your feelings about occasionally and randomly being placed into suspended animation for a while?" Does that count as her break? Does OSHA know about this??
- At the end of the episode, Harold says "One good thing about what those guys did to me is it gave me a lot of time to think." Wait, what? He was conscious while he was frozen? What does that mean for the people who are statues? Are they conscious and aware of their situation? If so, that has got to get really boring, really quickly. What about those off-duty henchmen in the work room, or the people in the museum, or that typing secretary? Are they aware of what's going on while they're frozen? If you remain conscious, I think that painter guy needs to ask for way more than $15,000 for several weeks of electronically-induced immobility. Although we never see any different settings on the big control machine, is it possible that they did something different to keep Harold conscious, possibly as some kind of added psychological torture?
Yes, yes, I understand that it's all just 48 minutes of fluff fiction from nearly four decades ago. But as somebody who thinks about freezing A LOT, this is just how my mind works. If anybody wants to add to this discussion, I'd be happy to keep it going.