Act Breaks: A Retrospective on “Aftermath”
I wrote “Aftermath” while the pilot was in post production, and “A Queen’s Ambition” was going into production. It came together pretty quickly when I realized I only wanted it to be two characters, portrayed in universe by our, at the time, nameless prisoner, and Samson. This was mainly so that I could play all roles and ease the burden going into the following episodes which were meant to get bigger and more elaborate with time. Our philosophy is to always learn something new, or try a new technique with each episode, however big or small; we want to expand our abilities as the prisoners expand theirs.
“Aftermath” was technically the first story that was written to be a part of the overarching universe of Hidden Anecdotes and their Other Tales. The Pilot’s stories, including “The Man From God,” “Silhouette of a Thief,” and “Interstellar Beginnings,” were all adapted from previous short stories I had written; similarly, as has previously been established, “A Queen’s Ambition” was also taken from a story written for a creative writing class.
It is the first of what I think of as our Act Break Episodes. They’re always a little shorter, usually only two to three characters, and they’re almost always more comedic in nature than anything else. Beyond this, our Act Break Episodes have been “Other Tales 4 (OT_04) Motion Detected,” “OT_06 A Pyxie Named Yojimbo,” and “OT_08 Final Excerpts from the Journals of Gov. Andouille.” Yes, I have written most of them… what about it?
Act Break Episodes are fun to write, they’re easy to produce, and they help give more time to perfect standalone episodes. I like to think of the Act Breaks as in classic stage performance when the play would break between acts, and in order to maintain the audience's attention they would send out clowns, or mimes — or lesser performing characters in the case of commedia dell’arte — to put on a little side performance that means practically nothing. A great modern example of this would be Cirque du Soleil, where at the half way point, to give the dancers and performers a chance to catch their breaths, two clowns come out and randomly pick on members of the audience for their own sick pleasure and that of other audience members. However, my sick pleasure comes from putting worldbuilding into the Act Breaks.
But for all the talk of clowns and silliness, “Aftermath” is still not a pure comedy. None of them are. They are not meant to be fully comedies. Some of the deepest conversations you’ll have are with your best friend(s) sitting around and attempting to rationalize ideas and philosophies together, examining sides, and trying to understand how others might feel differently on a topic from you, and in turn why you feel a certain way about a certain topic. I want to reflect that in our Act Breaks. These nothing burgers contain more than meets the eye, just like everyday interactions.
