#45-60 minutes is a lot of time when you aren't building towards anything

[boasamishipper]

i think the biggest problem of season 3 (of which there are Several) is the shift away from football being the crux of the story, which has undoubtedly resulted in the aimless, overstuffed, unfocused narrative we've been seeing for the last eight episodes. season one was as excellent as it was because whether richmond won or lost a match actually mattered; if they lost too many matches, they'd be relegated, and relegation was always treated as a distinct, tangible threat. there were stakes. and while season two had its issues with pacing and unnecessary subplots, no one would call it aimless. the characters had a goal (pun intended): to get promoted back to the premier league. if they lost too many matches, they would stay in the championship league. we as the audience were invested in whether or not richmond won or lost, and the narrative was all the stronger and more coherent for it.

season one asked us, can afc richmond avoid relegation? and we were invested in the answer. season two asked us, can afc richmond be promoted? and we were invested in the answer. now we're eight episodes into season three, and the overarching goal of the season, the question it is asking its audience to remain invested in, is...what? what are we building towards? is afc richmond's goal to win the whole damn thing? to beat west ham? to beat man city? to do just enough to avoid relegation again?

and because we can't answer this question, the narrative has suffered greatly. how are we supposed to believe beard when he says man city is the team's white whale if we haven't even seen them play each other yet this season? if ted's total football epiphany was so life-changing for richmond, why did we speed past all the matches this episode where the team won using that strategy? if this is all leading to a final nate-ted west ham-richmond match, why haven't we spent any time with nate at west ham? why haven't we gotten to see him grow and develop as a coach? at one point, the team was doing so badly that higgins suggested firing ted, who has been visibly struggling on and off the pitch - and the narrative did not give that suggestion the weight it might have had in season one or two. we spent an entire episode watching rupert, rebecca, and chelsea fight over zava - and then two episodes later he was gone, and we haven't so much as mentioned him since. just last season, sam was being heralded as the star of afc richmond, highly sought after by other club owners - but we haven't gotten to see any of his alleged brilliance on the pitch this season at all. i have to kick a little ball around, which those same people love me for, sam said in 3.07, that is, until i fuck up or miss a penalty, or i decide to fight back - a speech that was excellently delivered by toheeb, but loses some of its weight because we haven't actually gotten to see any negative reaction to sam missing a penalty or fucking up or deciding to fight back (not even in season 2 after the dubai air boycott).

(all this to say: i do enjoy the show. i love the characters, i've been enjoying the episodes as individual units, and i'll continue to tune in week after week. but for a show that once boasted football was life, it's sure been suffering since it decided to stop focusing on that.)