Backstory! (episode)

**"Backstory!"** was the sixth episode of season 2 of *Mythic Quest*. It greatly departed from all previous episodes in that it was essentially a dramatic period piece about one character, and most of the regular cast were not involved. Despite starring credits for three regulars, the piece was mostly acted by guest stars.

## Synopsis

*Carl Longbottom takes his first steps in the world of science fiction publishing.*

## Plot

Carl Longbottom arrives in Los Angeles from Clearlake, Iowa to take up a position at Amazing Tales Publishing. By virtue of a story he submitted, he's been tapped as a copy editor at the periodical.

He quickly meets fellow new recruits, A.E. Goldsmith and Peter Cromwell in the Amazing Tales offices. They quickly bond over their love of Robert Heinlein and then form a kind of reading group dedicated to helping each other write better.

After they read over each others' stories, it becomes clear that A.E. and Peter think less highly of Carl's work than their own, but Carl doesn't take the criticism well. Though he makes an attempt at integrating their criticism into his next draft, his colleagues think he hasn't quite made enough progress.

After their boss picks A.E. as the first of the trio to have a story published, she invites the two guys out for a celebratory evening. Carl, who seems to have been developing a subtle romantic interest in her, is put off this mini party when she notices Peter and her in an apparently intimate conversation at the club where they all to have met.

He forgoes the rendezvous to instead go home and throw himself into his writing. He produces a novella-length expansion to his original short story overnight.

Returning to the office the next day, he finds the the power arrangement between the trio has changes. A.E. is now the unofficial leader of the group, and the one who has better access to the magazine's editor. Now a kind of funnel for the two men's writing, it's she who can put new writing before the editor.

She at first appears to take both Peter and Carl's work into the editor, but it's soon revealed that she didn't show her boss Carl's novella. As she explained, the fact that it was longer only meant that it had more of the same problems of the short story.

Carl reacts badly to A.E.'s decision, suggesting that she was lording her power unjustly over him. He even goes so far as to state that the only reason she was in this position was because she had traded sexual favours with the boss.

He then determines to take his work into Sol's office himself, bypassing A.E. entirely. But Sol's nowhere around. Instead, he spies Isaac Asimov signing copies of books in a conference room. So he plucks up the courage to ask Asimov's opinion on the work.

Sometime later, a courier delivers Asimov's written response, which gives praise to Longbottom's use of backstory — but nevertheless redlines almost every sentence in the novella. Asimov leaves Longbottom with the note that he can, of course, ignore the notes, since it's his own book.

Initially despondent that Asimov essentially agrees with A.E. and Peter, he goes out and gets drunk. On his way back, he passes by an electronics store which has the Pong forerunner playing on a Magnavox Odyssey. As he watches the game auto-play, he, true to his magazine's slogan, "glimpse[s] through the veil of time", appearing to understand that — somehow — what he's seeing will affect the entire way stories are told.

Excitedly, he rushes back to the office, where he's late for a meeting. Though he freely admits to being drunk, he claims he's seen something revolutionary. He says they all should understand that there will come a day when computers will allow for the telling of sophisticated stories with massively branching storylines.

But his colleagues laugh him out of the office.

He returns to his tiny apartment and begins work on his full novel, presumably based on then short story and novella he's already had roundly rejected. By the next year, though, he's presented with a Nebula Award for the book, and it appears that he is vindicated. However, in an awkward meeting with both Peter and A.E. at the ceremony, it's clear that he has lost their friendship amidst the accolades.

The episode then flashes forward to 2015 for its final scene. Ian has brought Poppy to a kind Renaissance Faire, where C.W. is apparently running a chicken roasting stall. Drunk.

Though Poppy is clearly unimpressed by the has-been, CW animates Ian. Claiming that he's read everything Longbottom has ever written, he offers CW a job writing for a video game. Through his drunken haze, C.W. remembers the night when he watched Pong through a store window and realises that, at last, he might be able to live out his 1970s fever dream.

## Cast

### Starring

* Rob McElhenney as Ian Grimm
* Charlotte Nicdao as Poppy Li

with
* F. Murray Abraham as C.W. Longbottom

#### Guest Starring

* Josh Brener as Carl Longbottom
* Michael Cassidy as Peter Cromwell
* Shelley Hennig as A.E. Goldsmith
* Craig Mazin as Sol Green
* Susan Berger as Rose

#### Co-Starring

* Chet Grissom as Isaac Asimov
* Kendall Foote as Delivery Man
* Nicole Ghastin as Ursula K. Le Guin

## Trivia

* This episode has significantly different color grading to achieve a feeling of nostalgia for the decade in which it was set.
* There are significant shout-outs in the prop design to brands associated with the 1970s, such as:
	+ The Magnavox Odyssey
	+ The broader Magnavox company
	+ The RTD, Los Angeles' main public transit agency of the era
	+ *Silent Running*, a science fiction film from 1972
	+ TaB, the Coca-Cola Company's forerunner to Diet Coke
* The three main characters in the episode catch a glimpse of three giants of science fiction at their offices: Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ray Bradbury — but Bradbury's actor is not credited in the episode.
* The use of "Ave Maria" to underscore C.W.'s re-awakening in 2015 and the end credits is a seeming nod to Abraham's Oscar-winning work in *Amadeus*.
* C.W. Longbottom wins the 1973 Nebula Award for best debut novel. In reality, there was no category of that name awarded at the 1973 ceremony.