Still Dead After All Those Years – Chapter 8, Act 1, Strip 2

From the outside, the place looks very much the same way it looked when we last saw it… that’s one of the advantages of stock footage, of course. It – oh, so clearly – communicates a sense of consistency and the absence of change. And Nolan Nobucks is frequently out of change, let alone bigger bills, and there you have a perfect circle coming back to his enthusiasm for recycling stock footage. It’s almost like it was fate that he was born with that family name – although his ancestors only adopted it after moving to the new world. Back in France, their family was called Trespauvres.

Back in-universe, there has been change of course. Subtle change – so subtle that Nolan was tempted to recycle more stock-footage – but change nevertheless. Most obvious is the fact that Mopey has risen to replace her erstwhile mentor in his tenured position as head of the Faculty of Universal Science and Parascience. Professor Dr. had lobbied for that faculty name to encompass his excessively wide range of scientific interest…as well as the similarly wide range of possible B-movie subject matters and themes. Mopey saw no need to change it.

Nor did she see any need to change anything about her predecessor’s long-established policy of maximum cruelty and callousness toward students (hey, it builds character). But in this case her personal inclinations lined up perfectly with her reference for her late scientific idol, so a change wasn’t really to be expected here.

Which leaves the somewhat higher level of Canadian!OSHA compliance as the most noticeable sign of change. But should we really surmise to see Mopey’s hand at work here, or might this change be down to somebody else’s influence? More on Monday.