Week 1: Diagnosing a Failure

The opening lecture. The course's one question, and the method every diagnosis in the course uses.

23 February 2027

The course asks one question: what does a long-running story owe the people who remember it? Before it can be answered, you need to be able to prove that a story broke a promise. This lecture is how.

Outline#

• The record. What counts as established, and why the audience keeps it whether the studio does or not.
• Locate. Both sides of a failure, each cited to a title and a scene.
• Classify. Contradiction, orphan or drift, and how to argue between the two that fit best.
• Trace. From the failure back to the decision behind it. What counts as a public source: an interview, a trade report, a release schedule, a casting announcement. What doesn’t: a fan theory, however good.

The method is the Continuity Audit’s structure, in the same order. The Mandarin, in tomorrow’s seminar, is the worked example.