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TV series gone awry
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If they were made to try to make the character seem flawed, they did a terrible job at it. I felt no sympathy for them because they made no acknowledgement that the actions they took might be even slightly problematic and there was no growth I saw (episode 8).
The women characters seemed mostly sympathetic, which is what kept me watching as deep as I did.
The ‘sicko’ comment is where I drew the line, not with what I know and feel about communities that don’t fit the stereotypical mold.
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Strange to think that lo these 18 years ago, that was probably completely acceptable within the Zeitgeist of pop culture.
That’s not to say it’s not still a problem now, but there sure was a lot more of it in the early 00s.
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For sure this didn’t age well!
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@Rathenhope said in TV series gone awry:
The last few episodes of the Battlestar Galactica “re-imagining”. I’m still angry about how they squandered it all so very very quickly at the end there. It was such a lazy ending that didn’t meet up with any of the show that had happened before it.
I read an analysis where someone said that the way that the writing team came up with ideas was “put it in because it’s cool and we’ll figure it out later!” and then they got to “later” and they hadn’t figured it out.
The fact that they had no idea WTF they were doing was made obvious in their lazy retconning of who fathered Callie’s kid, which they had to scramble to fix once they finally decided who the Final Five actually were.
I hold that show up as the reason why, if you’re going to rely heavily on foreshadowing and mystery that your audience will expect to pay off in a big reveal, you need to have your end-game in mind from the start. Sure, you can add details, twists, and layers as you go along… but if you don’t know what the answer to your story’s central question is when pose it, you have at least a 95% chance of fucking it up at the end.
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@Aria said in TV series gone awry:
@Rathenhope said in TV series gone awry:
The last few episodes of the Battlestar Galactica “re-imagining”. I’m still angry about how they squandered it all so very very quickly at the end there. It was such a lazy ending that didn’t meet up with any of the show that had happened before it.
I read an analysis where someone said that the way that the writing team came up with ideas was “put it in because it’s cool and we’ll figure it out later!” and then they got to “later” and they hadn’t figured it out.
The fact that they had no idea WTF they were doing was made obvious in their lazy retconning of who fathered Callie’s kid, which they had to scramble to fix once they finally decided who the Final Five actually were.
The thing is. they didn’t even need to retcon that. That’s the worst part. ‘They only have babies if they are IN LOVE’ was an established rule for Hera. So that just means Callie and Tyrol actually did love each other. I just solved this non-issue. Huzzah.
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@junipersky said in TV series gone awry:
If they were made to try to make the character seem flawed, they did a terrible job at it. I felt no sympathy for them because they made no acknowledgement that the actions they took might be even slightly problematic and there was no growth I saw (episode 8).
The women characters seemed mostly sympathetic, which is what kept me watching as deep as I did.
The ‘sicko’ comment is where I drew the line, not with what I know and feel about communities that don’t fit the stereotypical mold.
That’s fair. The only reason I ask is that, while I barely remember much about the show’s specifics, I do recall it having a pretty liberal bent in general (Spader’s closing monologues were amazing, I recall at least that). But it’s quite possible I missed such undertones completely at the time.
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@Arkandel said in TV series gone awry:
@junipersky said in TV series gone awry:
If they were made to try to make the character seem flawed, they did a terrible job at it. I felt no sympathy for them because they made no acknowledgement that the actions they took might be even slightly problematic and there was no growth I saw (episode 8).
The women characters seemed mostly sympathetic, which is what kept me watching as deep as I did.
The ‘sicko’ comment is where I drew the line, not with what I know and feel about communities that don’t fit the stereotypical mold.
That’s fair. The only reason I ask is that, while I barely remember much about the show’s specifics, I do recall it having a pretty liberal bent in general (Spader’s closing monologues were amazing, I recall at least that). But it’s quite possible I missed such undertones completely at the time.
Definitely pseudo-progressive in message, deeply problematic in delivery. It’s very much an artifact of its time - which should almost always translate to mean that I liked it, but I acknowledge it has problems.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel I think that makes room for some interesting questions. For example how do y’all feel about shows which were progressive for their time - even revolutionary - yet which had some real dark parts to them, the worst of which being revealed after the fact and behind the curtains?
The example I have in mind is Buffy/Angel. At the time it changed TV as we know it. And although it definitely had some iffy parts (Spike nearly raping Buffy comes to mind) for the most part it showed on screen things that hadn’t been done before. Gay relationships, dealing with parental loss, sleeping with someone who becomes a total creep afterwards, etc.
However… Joss Whedon was by all accounts a really bad excuse for a human being (this pains me to say, btw - I used to be a huge, huge fan).
How much does that paint your reception retroactively?
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@Arkandel said in TV series gone awry:
How much does that paint your reception retroactively?
That’s an excellent question. And honestly, I’m not sure. I haven’t had the time or the energy to watch shows I used to love lately. I was never really into Buffy/Angel, but I was into Whedon’s later vehicle, Firefly.
I, generally, don’t consume media with a critical eye. I’ve never not enjoyed a film I went to see in the theatre, for instance, even when it is regarded as a bad one. So honestly, I doubt my view of it would change.
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@Arkandel said in TV series gone awry:
How much does that paint your reception retroactively?
It’s complicated. For me, a TV show or movie is enough of a collaborative endeavor that I don’t stress about it. I’m not going to boycott Firefly just because Joss Whedon was a horrible person. I’m not going to never watch the movie 21 again just because it has Kevin Spacey in it.
It might be different if it were more of a solo endeavor, but even then… I don’t think I would throw away my favorite book series if I discovered the author was awful.
I can totally respect someone who decided they couldn’t support that person in any way, shape, or form, though. Sometimes it’s hard to divide art from artist.
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@Faraday said in TV series gone awry:
It might be different if it were more of a solo endeavor, but even then… I don’t think I would throw away my favorite book series if I discovered the author was awful.
Dammit, Ender’s Game.
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@Arkandel said in TV series gone awry:
@Pavel I think that makes room for some interesting questions. For example how do y’all feel about shows which were progressive for their time - even revolutionary - yet which had some real dark parts to them, the worst of which being revealed after the fact and behind the curtains?
The example I have in mind is Buffy/Angel. At the time it changed TV as we know it. And although it definitely had some iffy parts (Spike nearly raping Buffy comes to mind) for the most part it showed on screen things that hadn’t been done before. Gay relationships, dealing with parental loss, sleeping with someone who becomes a total creep afterwards, etc.
However… Joss Whedon was by all accounts a really bad excuse for a human being (this pains me to say, btw - I used to be a huge, huge fan).
How much does that paint your reception retroactively?
So I have very vague memories of watching some random, early season episodes of Buffy when it first came out. It started when I was middle school and was not something I watched obsessively at the time, so I definitely missed that whole cultural zeitgeist moment.
I did, however, try to watch it as an adult several years ago, before the Whedon scandal broke, because I was curious if it really was as revolutionary and influential as everyone said…
I couldn’t even make it through half of the first season. Xander absolutely squicked me out pretty much from the first episode and did not improve in the seven or so that I watched before just giving up. It was bad. It was really, really bad how many “rapey ‘Nice Guy’ that I’m supposed to sympathize with even though he’s absolutely gross” vibes he gave off, so while I had twenty years of social change acting to my benefit when making my judgment, I was more than a little surprised by the level of shock and “B-b-b-but feminist!!!” think pieces that came out about the show later. My response was more along the lines of “Did… did y’all watch a different show than I did? It wasn’t subtext. It was right there, and not subtle, but also something that people just thought was totally okay in the '90s. And '00s. And '10s. And… yeah, you know what, Imma just stop there. Misogyny, hurrah!”
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@Aria Fite me! Buffy was my jam.
Yeah, season 1 wasn’t the best one. But for example The Body was… heart-breaking. I’d never watched anything like it. Whedon was a goddamn genius when he shot it; he didn’t share Buffy anything, no fadeouts, no ‘a few hours later’, not until everything was pretty much over.
Similarly Willow’s handling of Tara’s death was so well done. Tara was a genuinely good person and she died for… nothing. It wasn’t even on purpose. Shit just happened.
It wasn’t a perfect show by any means. In my opinion Angel was better; a lower peak, but far more consistent, and Wesley’s arc is my favorite among any characters on TV ever, including Walt in Breaking Bad.
But it was very well ahead of its time. Without it I don’t think the golden era of television would have been what we now know it to be.
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@Arkandel said in TV series gone awry:
@Aria Fite me! Buffy was my jam.
Ohh, I don’t judge anyone for liking it. Not at all. I mean, I grew up adoring Grease, which pretty much opens with a song and dance number that should be titled “Date Rape is Fun and Socially Justified, Right Guys?!”
It’s just that after viewing it, I kind of chalked up people’s obsession with it to the same sort of thing – nostalgia for something they watched and love growing up, problematic as it was. It was the shock being expressed at it, and Whedon, having profoundly toxic misogyny baked right in from the start that made me be like, “…Buhhh? I am surprised by your confusion and confused by your surprise. What is happening here?”
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@Aria said in TV series gone awry:
It’s just that after viewing it, I kind of chalked up people’s obsession with it to the same sort of thing – nostalgia for something they watched and love growing up, problematic as it was.
I think it’s a combination of nostalgia and all of us having been 25 years younger back when we watched it, so we didn’t have as many good examples of what feminism looks like. Being conventionally hot while using supernatural tae kwon do to win dominance displays with boys was about the best we were gonna get from mainstream media back then.
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@Aria It’s been forever since I watched it, but if memory serves, Xander does grow past the creeper stage. The problem with telling a story where someone overcomes their flaws and becomes a good person is that they START as a horrible person.
Alternatively I’m misremembering how much he develops into a less, uh… problematic person. I give it 50/50.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
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@Jennkryst IIRC there was a more involved arc planned out at first but the actor was struggling with addiction, and his character wasn’t as popular as his costars’.
I mean giving him a committed relationship with a girl he cheated on didn’t help his character become sympathetic, nor did they ever try to redeem him.
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@Jennkryst said in TV series gone awry:
The problem with telling a story where someone overcomes their flaws and becomes a good person is that they START as a horrible person.
This is absolutely true. I think that, at least for me, the trick is how a character’s general horribleness is presented, in no small part by the reactions from the rest of the characters in whatever media I’m consuming.
Do the people around them see their behavior poorly or do they treat it as acceptable? Is the horrible person depicted as sympathetic (maybe even funny) because of what they’re doing or is my sympathy being directed towards their target? Does the rest of the context in the scene suggest that I’m supposed to be questioning their actions or amused by them?
The character doesn’t necessarily have to be openly called out, but there being some indication that the creators of the piece recognize this as Not Okay will make me far more inclined to stick it out and see where the story goes than if the general tone is like, “Haha, yeah, this is Bob and he’s a complete piece of shit. Cool story, right?!”I can’t agree or disagree with the rest of your statement because, like I said, I absolutely tapped out after just seven episodes. Maybe Xander does get way better, but what put me off wasn’t just the way he behaved towards Buffy. It was the fact that everyone around him seemed to think it was absolutely fine and in the few cases where they didn’t, it was played for laughs.
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@Aria Yeah I loved Buffy when I watched it but going back and trying to rewatch a few eps I retreated into a misogyny cringe ball and stopped so as not to continue spoiling my perfectly good nostalgia with reality.
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@Aria said in TV series gone awry:
@Jennkryst said in TV series gone awry:
This is absolutely true. I think that, at least for me, the trick is how a character’s general horribleness is presented, in no small part by the reactions from the rest of the characters in whatever media I’m consuming.Do the people around them see their behavior poorly or do they treat it as acceptable? Is the horrible person depicted as sympathetic (maybe even funny) because of what they’re doing or is my sympathy being directed towards their target? Does the rest of the context in the scene suggest that I’m supposed to be questioning their actions or amused by them?
What about series like Mad Men where people around the protagonists (including the protagonists themselves) are just… flawed, each in a different way? Some are products of their times and misogynists or homophobic etc, others are driven by trauma in their pasts, or they are ambitious and self-serving, they have blinders on, etc.
Sometimes there’s no catharsis in bodies of work like this, either. That’s the drama in the characters’ arc; they could become better people, they have it in them, they are so close to getting it… but they fail.
Which is to say - not all shows (or books, MU*, etc) are meant for everyone to enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with watching something like this and going ‘this ain’t for me’.
Unless it’s Buffy, in which case you’re wrong, obv.
