Vasco da Gama, episode #10 (or, “Café Coincidence”)

     Allow me to show you to your table at the most transparent framing device ever. It’s all pretty simple, really—Rob and MacSnoopeigh go to a restaurant where everyone they meet is somebody they know. Not only that, but every one of those somebodies has a story that segues into a completely unrelated scene.

     A cheap cop-out? A way of recycling old or unused material? A testament to my laziness as a writer? Well, only partially. I knew in advance that Kel wasn’t available for this episode. No Kel means no Mrs. Vasco da Gama, and no Mrs. Vasco da Gama means no “Vasco” scene, since the “Vasco” scene is basically all about Mrs. Vasco verbally cutting her husband down to size. This is the only essential difference in basic format between this episode and Episode #4 (“Occupation: Unemployed”). It may be that one of the scenes in this Vasco is a leftover from a draft of that earlier episode—it’s about Rob interviewing for a job.

     Another scene is a definite Vasco first—well, two firsts, actually. It’s the first face-to-face (voice-to-voice? Take your pick; it’s radio) meeting between Science Boy and Professor Proteus, and the first time in Vasco that I played against myself in the same scene. And I do mean the same scene—what you’ll hear is not the result of intercutting or overdubbing, but almost-careful writing. The Expositron machine in this scene should really have been called the Let-Rick-Take-a-Breath-and-Switch-Characters machine. That’s what it’s there for…other than getting off a few sarcastic sallies at the expense of Science Boy, of course.

     I haven’t much else to say about this episode. (This is a testament to my laziness as a chronicler.) For his part, Ian has “a hazy memory of Kel and Rick doing their Mel and Flo from Alice”. That’s pretty hazy, alright…Kel wasn’t there, and I think we’d all have remembered her telling us to kiss her grits.

     I’ll add one more thing about framing devices, though: blame it on Joseph Conrad. I was a quite the Conrad nut at this time in my life; a lot of his major works are structured around the framing device of people sitting around swapping stories. So, while you’re listening to “Café Coincidence”, just imagine that everyone’s on a boat instead of at a restaurant, and is talking about mysterious goings-on at sea, or merchant captains gone rogue in the far reaches of the African jungle. And, while you’re at it, see if you can spot the framing device that frames the main framing device for…  

Vasco da Gama, episode #10

     That last bit wasn’t a framing device, folks—it was just a cheap hand-off to a link. Joseph Conrad, eat your heart out.