#even in its decline between s5 and s6

[fiona-fififi]

Incredible to me that I genuinely think this show would have been better off staying at FOX or just canceled outright. The move to ABC has done it zero favors.

[takaraphoenix]

Man, I really wish I had been more daring and a little braver about entering new fandoms back when I first got into Teen Wolf.

I discovered the show during the hiatus between s2 and s3 and I got so obsessed, I watched the first two seasons three times in the span of one month - something that has never happened before or after; the highest feeling of rewatching a show right away is one immediate rewatch. And then I dove head first into fanfiction.

If this happened today, me getting this attached and obsessed that quickly, damn it all to hell, I would have yeeted a dozen fics into the void before s3 even rolled around.

But gods, I was so awkward about entering new fandoms back then, because I was also still a bit of a new writer when it came to English (I have been a fic writer since 2006, in my native tongue, but writing in your second langua makes you more self conscious), so that added to the nervousnees.

But by the time I grew more daring, and actually did start writing for this fandom, the show was already on its fast decline. And I hated s5 so much, I dropped the show and didn't watch s6 until 2020, when Teen Wolf next decided to consume my life and I (re)watched the whole show.

And now that Teen Wolf is once again consuming my fandom life, I'm just... kind of mourning what could have been.

Because if I had been daring, if I had written for it back in 2013, then I would have had enough attachment to keep writing even as the show's quality rapidly declined, I would have written so much, this would be one of my top three most written fandoms, instead of me only having written 6 fics for it so far.

Anyway, this is a callout post for my past self: Bitch, why did you not write more Teen Wolf fics that cater specifically to all my interests so I can reread them now that the hyperfixation has reawakened?

[luulapants]

Digging into the Teen Wolf credits

So I fell into a bit of a rabbit hole researching the shift in writing and directing credits in Teen Wolf, trying to find some explanations for the lack of continuity, whiplash change of directions on storylines, and the messiness of the later seasons. A lot of people (myself included) tend to focus on casting issues and Jeff Davis as the be-all-end-all of these issues, but here are a few interesting things I’ve put together:

1. Waning involvement from the original producers/directors - 

Russell Mulcahy was a producer/exec on all 100 episodes and directed 39 episodes, including every season finale and all but one season premier (5a). He was a big-shot music video director in the ‘80s. According to his Wikipedia, “Mulcahy's work is recognisable by the use of fast cuts, tracking shots and use of glowing lights, neo-noir lighting, windblown drapery, and fans.”

Tim Andrew came on as a supervising producer and progressed to executive producer, holding a producing credit for all 100 episodes. He directed 35 episodes, including some of fan-favorite suspense episodes like Night School, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, and Riddled.

While their producer credits stayed steady, it’s the director credits that interest me. Between the two of them, they directed 75% of S1, 100% of S2, 83% and 75% of 3a and 3b. S4, it drops to 58%. Back up to 70% and 90% for 5a and 5b, then plummeting to 60% for all of S6. It’s worth noting that S4 is the first season where we start to notice that whiplash effect, not really sure what characters’ motivations are. In one episode, the focus seems to be family financial drama, and then we forget about that and focus on Lydia’s powers. Then the focus is assassins, then Kate Argent - and what the hell is up with Peter?

It’s hard to say for sure, but one could draw the conclusion that the decline in director credits from Andrew and Mulcahy also suggest a decline in interest from them in maintaining the show’s storylines.

In fact, in 5b and season 6, you see a third long-time producer, Joseph Genier, step in to direct a few episodes: the rather sloppy Maid of Gevaudan, Blitzkrieg, and Genotype. We can’t give him too hard a time over it, since his only other directing experience ever was a 2016 Netflix horror movie The Secrets of Emily Blair, shitty even by Netflix standards. He also has some late-season writing credits, but we’ll get to that later.

2. The curious case of Angela Harvey - 

In order to understand the writing on TW, you need to know Angela Harvey. She climbed the ranks from personal assistant to writers’ assistant, then, starting in 3a, staff writer.

A staff writer is a salaried, stable figure in the writing department, who works with what is often a rotating door of producers and head writers. They’re usually not the “ideas” person and don’t get the final say, but they help the head writer work through the story and stay on track. Most larger shows have a whole team of staff writers. TW never had more than one at a time.

Shortly after her promotion to staff writer, Harvey got her first full writing credit for Frayed, which is a controversial episode! It’s both praised and detested for the non-linear storyline, the sometimes confusing flashbacks, and Allison’s emotional hallucination of her mother.

After that, she went back to staff writer and was a rock for the show for all of S3 and 4. In S4, she got full writing credit for I.E.D. and Time of Death. Both got mixed reviews on-par with the rest of the muddled mess of S4, but I will note one thing: the human factor. I.E.D., for me, was the first episode that really gave a more rounded picture of Liam, who until that time felt very much like a new puppy coming in to replace our favorite old dogs that went to live on the big farm in the sky.

S5, Harvey gets a promotion to ‘story editor,’ which is pretty much just a title and pay promotion. She wrote A Novel Approach and Strange Frequencies, two more mixed-bag sort of episodes with some golden moments and some crippling larger-story issues. Then she writes the slightly stronger The Sword and the Spirit and... 

Gone. She vanishes from the credits for the rest of season 5. I haven’t been able to find any specific explanations, but I did find a rather telling quote from her in an article about how black writers get hired but not promoted in TV:  “I repeated staff writer four times,” she said.

Harvey then returns for 6x2 with a shiny new title: executive story editor. I can only draw one conclusion from this sequence of events, which is a contract dispute. Harvey demanded a promotion (as she should have, given her longevity on the show!), was denied, and walked off. The show floundered in her absence and begged her back with the new title.

She got full writer credits for two more episodes for S6 but left the show for good after the second, After Images.

To me, it seems clear that they had a strong, stable voice in Angela, but her commitment to the project waned as she realized that the show had no commitment to her. She may not have been the strongest head writer, but she was an essential core, a beating heart of the show. Her contributions were undervalued and, ultimately, the show suffered because of it.

3. The rotating door of writers - 

It’s not unusual for head writers to come and go on shows. Then again, most shows have a stable core in the writers’ room to host those head writers. TW had Jeff Davis, who has frequently been acknowledged to be overly hands-on with the writing (even in episodes he did not take writing credit for), and a single staff writer: Angela Harvey and, before her, Andy Cochran (who was staff writer for S2).

S1 did not have a staff writer, but that was because Jeff had a very firm grip on the story and also because there were only four writers other than Jeff Davis (and the original Teen Wolf movie writers). Interestingly, none of those 4 writers ever returned to the show after S1. This would become a theme for TW writers.

Jeff kept even tighter control on S2, writing 8 of 12 episodes with the help of Cochran. Other than them, there were four other writers, two of whom were a writing team.

Jeff wrote 15 of 24 S3 episodes and brought in 6 new writers and one S2 writer, Christian Taylor who also produced and directed. Of the new writers, only Ian Stokes, who wrote The Fox and the Wolf would become a regular writer afterward (though Alyssa Clark did write two more episodes in S4). Stokes wrote three S4 episodes and three for 5a.

Jeff wrote 6 of 12 episodes in S4, 5 of 10 in 5a, 4 of 10 in 5b, and then did not write again until the series finale.

Starting in Season 4, the writing credits are all over the place. Most writers come in for a single episode and never again. The few notable exceptions are:

Eric Wallace, a later seasons producer

Will Wallace (not sure if related) who was a writers’ assistant that seems to have been randomly granted writing credit for 5a’s Ouroboros, despite having no other writing credits to his name previously. He got writing credit for 4 other episodes in S5 and S6, plus a random staff writer credit for 6a’s Ghosted. 

Lindsay Sturman, a lalter seasons producer who now writes and produces for Supergirl. 

And producer Joseph Genier who, as he had been allowed to direct later seasons with no previous directing credits, was also allowed head writer credit with no previous writing credits.

What can we divine from this? Chaos, honestly. An inability to resist the uninformed and careless whims of the producers. The lack of lower-level writing staff, who are usually the ones there to give stability and cohesion to the story, meant that every new writer brought in new and contradictory ideas of what the story was about and where it should go. Looking at these credits, I can’t tell if the problem was that everyone wanted to write and writing spots were being given as thank-yous in exchange for producers laying down money or if they had such a difficult time finding quality writers willing to work in that environment that producers had no choice but to step in and write as well as they could given a lack of resources.

4. The vanishing first assistant director - 

Compared to the other issues, this one seems minor. However, it seems like TW gave up on the position of ‘first assistant director’ at some point. This position is essentially the right hand of the director, making sure that set runs smoothly and the director has everything they need. 

James J.D. Taylor held the position for 50 episodes, including all but 4 episodes in S1-3a. In the first 3, Jeffrey January filled in. For the fourth, Eric Sherman, who would come to be Taylor’s backup, it seems. For 3b and the first half of S4, Sherman and Taylor traded off every other episode. Taylor tried his hand at directing for S4′s Monstrous, at which point Sherman started trading off episodes with Matt Rawls.

Taylor went back to first assistant director for S5, but intermittently and with no backup for his position. 8 of 20 episodes in 5a had no first assistant director. Taylor directed 6x2 and was first assistant for 6x4 and 6x5, but 17 of 20 episodes of S6 had no first assistant. 

Sure, there were second assistant and second second assistants, but it seems very odd to neglect such a pivotal position. What is especially baffling is that 6b had first-time directors Tyler Posey, Linden Ashby, and Joseph Genier all working without a first assistant director. To me, this speaks to staffing issues and difficulty organizing a show that was clearly on its last legs.

In summary -

Where the early seasons had focused attention and investment from the original core producers, directors, and the show runner, clearly their attention and care for the project waned over time. They failed to promote the show’s most valuable workers and failed to bring in lower-level staff to do the grunt work in the writers’ room. Instead, they pulled in more and more higher level executives, who tend to have lofty ideas about where a show goes but no willingness to dig into the nitty gritty details. Film schools could make a study of Teen Wolf: “How to run a show into the ground.”

[buddha-in-disguise]

So, I’m still ruminating over 5.17. I’m still equally grateful that Melissa directed in a truly wonderful way (although the Eve fight scene was great, I do get annoyed at an entire sink moving as a guys head hits it, as if it weighs nothing & isn’t attached to anything. I get it. It is for dramatic effect, & it’s the kind of thing that happens throughout TV & movies, but still..... However, I digress).

Melissa directed the episode fantastically well. The lighting, framing on shots, overall pace on scenes - brilliant.

Sadly though I’m coming away having watched it wanting to tear my hair out, as I have far too often this season.

‪It is more than the general thoughts I’ve already written about in my last post. It is details like Alex suddenly referring to her dad as Jeremiah. We know how angry, hurt & upset she was with the news of his death. Is this a manifestation of that? That she is so angry, she can’t bring herself to use such personal terms in calling him dad? We have no idea, because suddenly it occurred. This is the sort of detail Chyler herself usually picks up & asks to be changed, which makes me suspect it was addressed somehow in other dialogue, but was cut. Maybe that was the case, maybe it wasn’t. Who knows, but I’d love to ask Chyler about it.

I’ve said this before - season 4 ended on a high. Fans were really feeling positive in ways they hadn’t for a while. You just need to look back on SM at the time.

Listening to the premise of S5, & again people were energised. The SM energy from SDCC was the most positive I had seen since the series began!

I’m still trying to figure out how they are expecting to wrap up the convoluted mess this season has been in 2 more episodes. I am struggling to figure out how they could even do it in 3, if 5.20 was going ahead. Even if 5.19 is extended to let’s say 1.5 hours in the schedule, it still wouldn’t be enough in my opinion.

I said briefly in my last post, I get frustrated because so much filler has occurred this season. Seriously, why did we have those two Winn episodes? ‪Well, Lex got on his ship & grabbed the cube...... but nah. I got nothing! ‬

‪Oh a few references for Dreamer (but we barely see her, so ...) & reassuring Kara ref Lena (which also .... when?) ‬

‪So nope. Those could be mentioned in a hot minute elsewhere.

Oh & pushing Kara to date William (a whole other mess I hate, but that’s for a different time).

‪But hey. We got Winn back!‬ Now before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I really am not against having Winn hop back in on occasion. However, for 2 episodes that right now offer nothing to the plot beyond those I’ve mentioned? On an already shortened season, to having two full episodes taken up with filler? Use Winn in episodes that fully pertain to the season. Not this.

I want the Danvers sister couch scenes back. I want Alex & Kelly having the discussions they did in S4 (we got more about them in S4 before they were together, than anything so far in S5 as a couple). I want J’onn to do more than flop around his Private Eye firm & use The Tower with Alex. I want Alex to be a kick ass agent, girlfriend & sister. I want Kara & Lena to make up! I want Brainy and Nia to get together again. I want Brainy & Lena to have their friendship back. I want Alex & Lena get together in a lab, or just work on cases - anything other than this stalemate we are getting. I want Kelly to be able to show her friendship with Nia & Kara & to actually get to know Lena. I want to know does she know Kara is Supergirl properly, not conjecture, (I think she does as I said in an earlier post - see photo).

All these interpersonal relationships can still also have some conflict between them, if that’s the sort of thing they want. After all, no matter how great a relationship (I include friendship in this) is, it isn’t always perfect. I’m not saying it all has to be through rose tinted spectacles. But not to the level of destruction we have seen this season.

Give us meaningful villains (like Lex in S4, not rehashed Lex in S5 that give us episodes that mirror what we already know). It isn’t as if they don’t have, oh I don’t know, a load of comics they could reference for ideas if they need them. Stop with the constant push/pull on Lena as a character, & allow her to be accepted into the friends, flaws and all, just like everyone else - including Kara!

Now - now fans are feeling flat. The loss of viewers has been incredibly sad & worrying to watch. This weeks number was - pitiful, & yet my timeline was full of fans all saying to watch because of Melissa’s debut directing. Some argue it was because of yet another hiatus, yet Batwoman didn’t slide like that on its return. The Flash (which Supergirl used to regularly keep up with on viewers) was a solid 1.2 million viewers on Tuesday.

If it hurts me as a fan to see this decline. I can’t imagine how most of the cast & crew feel. They deserve so much better.

SuperCorp fans are either a delusional minority, or causing the loss of 300k viewers (& counting) according to some, which is causing a lot of hurt & upset. I’ve seen SC fans not wanting even post on their own timelines for fear of some fans coming in to attack them for it.

I’ve had it happen to me, if I mention I ship SuperCorp (while we are at it, I ship Dansen - which is my 1st ship, then SC) and Brainia, which is especially close to me as my husband is transgender & I want representation to show that being transgender doesn’t mean you can’t have a meaningful relationship with someone. I want a Black lesbian woman to be shown as successful in her private & professional live.

The thing is, these ratings drop aren’t because of a minority of fans (& truthfully, whether anyone likes it or not, SC fans are the biggest in terms of fandom size). But general fans are leaving the show. Now die hard fans are starting to leave. Media outlets are increasingly critical on aspects of the show.

With the hiatus due to Covid-19 & coupled with Melissa’s pregnancy, will Supergirl survive without further erosion on viewing figures before S6 resumes? I don’t see how it can on current viewing.

The CW (or WB, but since Robert Rovner’s wife is now one of two heading up WB, I’m afraid nepotism might well be playing a part here - but I add, I have no basis on this beyond just a worry it might be happening & I truly hope it isn’t. I don’t want to imply it is happening, just that I worry it ‘might be’), need to step in and do something to save this show, because it has crashed and is burning faster than Krypton.

Having minorities on the show achieves nothing if they’re not being used properly. If those who constantly berate others with racist, homophobic & misogynist posts, who feel emboldened and comfortable saying all those things, because of validation from someone on the show, then it is a problem.

This post could go on into reams of reasons why I feel so disappointed with the show as a whole at the moment.

I genuinely wish more for the actors and crew. I feel sad that Melissa’s debut as a director landed the worst ratings demo all season. I absolutely hate that occurred in fact. I genuinely don’t want to be writing posts like this. There have been good (occasional great episodes) this season, but simply not enough. Maybe 25% off the top of my head fall into that category for me, with the other 75% either entirely unforgettable or so frustrating as a viewer I want to scream; whereas it should be the other way around, & good enough that for the odd episodes you might not enjoy much or at all, you forgive them because the rest are good enough to compensate.

I’m hoping we get something exciting enough to keep interest for S6. Will we? We won’t have long to wait & find out.

[cheryls-blossomed]

I’m sorry if you’ve already addressed this but how do you feel about the way WestAllen has been treated in S5 and S6? Personally, it concerns me that there has been a lack of any closeness btwn the couple. I know some of that is dictated by storyline but I worry that the show doesn’t want to show a interracial couple being happy, in love couple. Particularly when its a black woman being the one loved and cherished by the white hero. Maybe I’ll overthinking but I’m curious on your perspective.

I don’t think you are overthinking things at all. 

There’s always been explicit and implicit bias in the narrative where Iris is concerned, and for Barry and Iris, that has meant that they’ve been shortchanged frequently in the narrative, where central white couples in superhero media have not. They didn’t have a proper wedding ceremony. They didn’t even get married on The Flash. We never got to see their first time, and CW is famous for tame fade to black sex scenes, so really there is no excuse. Peddling a family show excuse doesn’t really fly, when we witness a decent amount violence, especially the employing of violent imagery against Iris at least once a season. As early as season 3, there was thus implicit bias in the way Barry and Iris were handled, in terms of allowing them the moments they deserve, BUT there was a steady commitment to romance during the early years of their relationship. Both seasons 3 and 4 did showcase romantic Westallen; obviously season 3 is undoubtedly the season of romance, but season 4 arguably had the best Westallen romantic moments in the show’s history. 

The issue came in season 5 when there was a shift from Barry and Iris being the emotional heart of the show. The focus shifted to Barry and Nora as the central relationship, which was inevitable because Nora was honestly the protagonist of the season in all but name, but the portrayal of Barry and Iris strictly as parents saw such a rapid decline of Westallen’s romance, which doesn’t make sense. Arguably, as parents acclimating to this role quite suddenly, there ought to have been more of Westallen, not less. It’s almost as if the show figured that they’d done the job of giving us romantic Westallen, and so there was not such a need anymore going forward. The show has also slowly become skewed towards Team Flash since season 4, thanks to our old friend Todd Helbing, which has resulted in a shift in the show’s priorities. We’ve moved away from the West-Allen family, in general, and towards the Team. 

But a lot of it is that the show perceives Barry and Iris as married and to the show that’s enough. The showrunners don’t prioritize romance anymore, and I do think this is where the implicit bias lies, because Iris, as the black leading lady, has been shortchanged frequently, and as has her romantic relationship with Barry. Oliver and Felicity can acknowledge their marriage anniversary on Arrow, but The Flash has had now two years gone by without acknowledging Westallen’s anniversary onscreen. This is where bias comes into play in how Barry and Iris are treated as the central interracial couple when compared to central white couples. Westallen have the best love story in DCTV, but the show still shortchanges them on moments, and it’s frustrating to see in these later seasons. Even Grant and Candice acknowledged that they found the lack of closeness between Barry and Iris this season odd, and especially in the first half, where we should have seen more of them, we got so little. External angst is fine if there’s some good cute, happy, romantic payoff, but we have gotten so much of the former and very little of the latter in the past two seasons. It’s definitely frustrating, and it’s the result of many things, but implicit bias in the narrative does play a significant role.

[safflowerseason]

What are you thoughts on the Dan and Amy argument scene in 5x03 because honestly I don’t remember a very big one

Oh, Anon. Strap in. I think you have not realized what you have unleashed. 

There is one very simple reason why this fight means so much in the history of Dan and Amy. In this scene, Dan loses the most important thing to him, and he realizes it. 

It’s not a *big* fight in the sense that it lasts very long, or that there’s a lot of yelling. But I would absolutely argue that it’s a very momentous fight for Dan and Amy. It’s my inspiration for all Dan/Amy fights, because it is the only fight they have that’s about their relationship. 

This fight basically severs their emotional relationship until the middle of S6, and also really boils down their connection to its fundamental parts, encapsulating all the reasons why Dan and Amy together are so dysfunctional and yet also so deeply tied to one another. A large part of this is due to the strength of the acting. Both Anna Chlumsky and Reid Scott bring the whole history of Dan and Amy to the forefront of their performances. And I just think this scene is played so well, particularly by Reid Scott, who brings out this very subtle but dangerous edge to the argument. Ultimately, this is one of the very few scenes where we see Dan care about something that’s not his professional ambition or his ability to fuck whoever he wants at will, and we see that in RS’s performance. However Mandel was directing (…or not directing) this scene, Dan and Amy’s emotional connection is not played for laughs here, as it is so often for the remaining seasons. It’s one of the few Mandel-era scenes that treats Dan and Amy’s relationship very seriously.

In this vein, the fight also possesses a particular meta-importance as well, because it’s one of the last *real* scenes that Dan and Amy share before Mandel’s vision for the show fully set in. Dan is pre-Mandelian Dan, an ambitious asshole who’s got a crush on Amy and literally cannot handle it in any way approximating healthy. By the end of S5, Mandelian Dan has begun to emerge—this merry, stupid, politics-bro incapable of any genuine emotion and who just sees Amy as his “buddy.” It’s definitely one of the last real scenes Reid Scott has where he’s getting to do something meaty. There are some decent moments in S6, where you see his frustration with his new career come through, but he’s separated from most of the main cast, so they don’t have the same overall impact within the show. 

In other words, this scene actually feels like it matters for Dan and Amy. It doesn’t feel like some upside-down absurd nightmare where everyone is casually acting out in monstrous ways because nothing matters. Dan did something shitty, and he faces the very real consquences of his actions in this fight with Amy.

The challenge of this scene is that basically by the end of S5, Veep is a different show, so I think looking back from that perspective, and considering especially the trajectory of Dan’s character, I can see why the weight of it might dissolve. Dan and Amy still work together frequently after 5.03, but we don’t really see the emotional dimension of their relationship the way we used to, except for Dan driving out to Maryland to bother Amy at her parents’ house, and Amy’s dad going off on him in the Brookheimer kitchen (and still, the show completely dodges the significance of that whole interlude.) This kind of works in the sense that Amy has obviously tried to cut off any emotional connection the two of them have, even if she’s still forced to rely on him for work, but the show never explores that notion. Significantly, as we get further and further in S5, the action within each episode starts to matter less and less, not to mention time and space start to bend in weird ways. 

Still, if you pretend S7 does not exist, you can trace changes in Dan’s behavior to this fight where he loses Amy, the primary example of course being that he starts sleeping around more aggressively. 

Because I’m truly obsessed with this fight and also want to procrastinate, I’m going to close read it now so everyone will understand my deep obsession with it. (But I’m going to preserve everyone’s timelines from my obsessive insanity.) Ahem. 

Context: So, Dan has slept with Sophie because he thought she could get him a job at CBS News. (Which is a patently ridiculous idea. Dan would know if Amy had a sister who worked at CBS News, not to mention the fact that he has met Sophie before and obviously knows enough about Amy’s family to refer to Sophie’s children as “illegitimate.” But to be clear, I do absolutely believe that S5 Dan would sleep with Amy’s sister, if Amy’s sister worked in television. I just don’t believe that Dan would buy that Sophie works at CBS News.) 

Dan does this right after Amy communicates to him that…she’d like to have sex with him.

It’s a huge admission for Amy, considering her past with Dan, and makes Dan’s betrayal a million times worse. In Amy’s head, she can’t believe she was so fucking stupid a second time. Instead of confirmation that Dan is attracted to her, she gets confirmation that no matter how much Dan likes her as a person, he’s still going to fuck her over with her sister in the pursuit of his career. It’s like a repeat of what he did to her when they ‘dated’, except a million times worse, because their relationship is much deeper than it was at the beginning of S1 and also because it’s her sister. HER HORRIBLE SISTER. 

Amy’s implied invitation to Dan carries with it all the weight of their arc over the course of the previous four seasons. They have grown much closer together than they were at the beginning of S1. Dan has proven himself to be there for Amy in very meaningful ways. They know each other much more intimately now, and they rely on each other a lot more. And Dan is a genuine person around Amy in a way he is around no one else. Even if Amy has not grasped that Dan is attracted to her, I do believe she understands on some level that she brings out Dan’s most human qualities. 

Also, Dan TOTALLY understood what Amy was saying to him. His smug expression said it all. He decides to sleep with Sophie after he’s already decided to go for it with Amy. Bleah. As much this essay is delving into Dan’s psyche and trying to understand and explain why he acts so horribly, it’s absolutely not a justification for him being shitty and mean to Amy. He deserves to be tortured forever. 

So, fast forward twenty-four hours. Dan approaches Amy at the end of the day, looking all cute with his stupid laptop bag. At first, the conversation begins like a normal one:

Jesus, you're still here? 

I don't know why. My only jobs seem to be asking Bob and finding out what Bob thinks.

Ugh. They’re still work spouses in this moment. 

Yeah, it's been pretty fun to watch. (pause) So you want to grab a drink or something?

First, we must notice how quiet Reid Scott is playing Dan so far. There’s almost none of Dan’s usual swagger. He sounds like he’s had a shitty day and he wants to go blow off steam with his best friend. Second, he is just a bit purposeful about asking her for drinks. He does this cute little shoulder-shrug thing! Like, we know Dan and Amy have had a thousand after-work drinks by now. They were lobbying together for months. Dan’s making it a thing for a reason (because he slept with Sophie and he knows that’s a shitty thing to do.) 

Third, what the hell is Dan doing by basically asking Amy out after he’s slept with her sister? 

Two things: he wants to pretend like nothing has happened, that the status-quo between them has not changed. It’s also his way of communicating to Amy that sleeping with Sophie doesn’t change anything about their relationship, in his mind. In other words—sleeping with Sophie hasn’t changed the fact that Dan still wants to get drinks with Amy and tease Amy and talk to her all the time. In Dan’s head, Sophie was basically a business decision that failed, so nothing needs to change. They can still be Dan and Amy. Maybe they can even have sex. 

Because Amy is not an emotionally stunted robot, this logic obviously does not work with her, and so she declines his invitation. 

No, thanks. Oh, but…

(Dan shrugs and starts to turn away.) 

Reid Scott’s expression here is a great combination of “hangdog” and “whatever, I don’t care.” Notice that Dan is still *quiet.* He doesn’t fight with Amy, he doesn’t try to get her to choose his company over work. It feels like Dan is maybe aware that he can’t really demand Amy’s time right now, all things considered. It’s time to go lick his wounds in private. 

…on your way, would you mind stopping at ABC News and picking up some Advil? Oh, did I say ABC News? I meant Rite Aid.

What a poisonously mocking delivery by Anna Chlumsky. She can’t help herself. And even though she is obviously hurt and furious, there’s a kind of power there. She can at least make fun of Dan for being so fucking stupid and short-sighted that he misheard CVS for CBS.

And Dan obviously embarrassed and angry at himself for sleeping with Sophie (I mean, duh, he’s gotten literally nothing out of it). And on top of feeling humiliated, there’s Amy, the one person he possesses real regard for, simultaneously mocking him for how stupid he was and denying him something he wants—her company. He wants to forget what happened, and Amy won’t let him. No one can get at Dan like Amy can, and she goes right for his masculine ego. Which is basically all he has. 

And so he lashes out at her, with the one tool left to him—reminding Amy that he chose her sister over her. 

Yeah, you know what, I think you're forgetting something, Amy, it’s that I still had sex with your sister.

The way Reid Scott says this line is just so awful. The smirk on his face is deadly. There’s none of his usual warmth—it’s like if he were actually the villainous DC sociopath everyone thinks he is, instead of an insecure asshole with a really handsome face. He’s angry, with himself and with Amy for refusing to forget that it happened, and the only thing he can do is take his anger out on her. And the way he eases into the line, with that little “yeah” at the beginning…he knows what he’s doing. He knows what he’s done with their relationship. He goes right for it as the way to hurt Amy. He fucked up, and he can’t handle it and he can’t deal with Amy mocking him for it, so he just has to rub it into Amy’s face. 

And Amy is angry right back at him, for being so terrible, and she’s also angry at herself, for believing Dan had changed. She looks like she’s swallowing down a scream. Nothing about this scene is really funny. These are two people who possess so much feeling for one other, and yet they’re also ready to hurt each other in order to save themselves from the reality of what it means to care for someone else: the fact that another person can hurt you. 

…So good night, have a pleasant evening, and I had sex with your sister.

(Dan exits.)

And the camera lingers on Dan’s whole exit, which is significant. When have we ever seen Dan voluntarily leave a fight with Amy? 

You might actually want to go to Rite Aid. Get some Valtrex. (pause, then rustling) Dan?

Amy gets one last parting shot, and the fight is over. I can’t quite figure out from Anna Chlumsky’s delivery if she calls for Dan because the rustling is unsettling, or if she think he’s making the noise, but either way…Dan is gone. 

So, Anon. That’s why this fight is so important. Either I’ve convinced you or terrified you with my obsessive analysis. 

[sol1056]

the bar was already so damn low it was practically underground

Well, I guess I’ll start with this quick correction, with thanks to @jeannettegray, who pointed out I mixed up days (for S1-S6) and weeks (S7) which would explain why it felt wonky when I was looking at it. Here’s the corrected chart of time in-the-tail versus not-in-tail: 

I included S8 in this version, but without a season coming after it, the only thing to track is the tail itself... and unless something truly wild happens between now and tomorrow, we’re already out of the tail. S4 and S5 had tails lasting 14 days each. I guess S8 isn’t the worst, since its tail looks likely to be 17 days. Yay, three more days of elevated viewership than the two worst seasons. 

Unfamiliar with the expression ‘long tail’? Here’s a reference image showing the rise and fall of a season’s viewership stats. More info in this S7 post, or you can just check my data-cronch tag. 

Or for a more pointed visual, here’s the past six months: S6, SDCC, S7, and S8... the last of which shoots up and comes right back down. Like a rock. 

For S7, I included IMDB rankings per season, and the range was wide enough I had to take good/average/bad and split it into four: great, good, okay, poor -- and S7 had more episodes in ‘poor’ than any other. That’s what I mean when I say the bar was so low the damn thing was underground... and yet amazingly, S8 utterly failed to hop over it.  

In fact, S8 did worse. Much worse.

viewer feedback via IMDB

Here’s all eight seasons, with their respective episodes averaged into each season’s value. It’s... well. Look for yourself.

For comparison, I also did a breakout, where the full seasons got split into 6 and 7, so we're comparing apples to apples with S3-S6 split seasons. The  pattern is pretty consistent, between first-half and second-half, in that the season-half (or half-season) with the ‘finale’ is usually the one with the higher score. People like big finale set pieces, and those tend to get highest ratings. 

Unless, of course, you’re season 8. Then people hate you. 

S1, S2, S5/S6 (as a two-part season), even S7, all have higher ratings for the finale-containing half. And then there’s S8. I usually try to avoid a word as strong as hate, but... there’s really no other word that fits when the difference is that stark. People really, truly hated S8, in case the Rotten Tomatoes score wasn’t enough to tell you that. 

Given the scores for S8, I had to create a new, even lower level to see how the seasons broke out in terms of ratings per episode. Now we have great (green), good (blue), okay (yellow), poor (red), and... terrible (maroon). 

Yeah. So. There you go. Remember when I said last season that The Voltron Show had lost its title as worst episode ever, unseated by the Feud? 

Well, the Feud has been unseated... by ten episodes in S8. Take your pick, there’s plenty to choose from. As of the time of this posting, the current three worst episodes are The Zenith (5.2), Uncharted Regions (5.3) and Clear Day (5.5). I’d list the ten worst but then I’d just be listing all but three episodes from S8, anyway. 

However, it’s interesting to see the pattern form when you put the split-seasons back together. You can see how in some ways, there’s a certain level of audience approval gradually building, I guess as people got used to the story’s vagaries, err, style.

The number of ‘great��� episodes (8.6 or higher) slowly climbs; the number of ‘okay’ episodes gradually declines. S7 breaks that pattern, with only one ‘good’ episode, a few ‘okay’ and the rest at poor. S8, well. Yeah. 

Okay, moving along, to the IMDB traffic. This is another viewership-style stat, since a site’s page tends to get hit the most when people want to know about the show they’re watching. 

The color-dot indicates the ranking for the week of release. S6′s biggest interest was the week it released, which tells me people were going direct to IMDB on the day of release or the next day. When that happens, it seems to correlate with viewers coming to rate every episode, often with a strongly positive slant. They want to get right in there and make their happiness known. 

S7, the leap upwards came a week later, and the utter wildness of the rating (plus the delay) seems to be related more to rubbernecking and controversy, rather than viewers reporting in. S8 not only debuted lower than the previous two seasons, it also had a delayed reaction (indicating more controversy)... and it dropped right back down, in one of the biggest post-peak drops I’ve seen yet.

viewer feedback via twitter

About six hours after S8 appeared on Netflix, I caught this sentiment analysis of the twitter stream for ‘voltron’ as a keyword. This is from midnight California time (point of release) to about 6am California time.

This is the tracker where I can’t review sentiment, and judging from the other tracker I use, the negative is higher... but more negative than positive is never good, no matter the totals. 

Twelve hours after release, I checked the other tracker. Traffic overall was pretty low compared to previous seasons (and nowhere near what S7 had prompted, not even in the same county). Sentiment was running about 3:1 negative --- that is, for every for-VLD tweet, there were three against. 

(If it makes anyone feel better, #Allura was the center of the maelstrom, with Shiro a not-quite-close second. No, despite the impression on tumblr, people weren’t sitting back and accepting Allura’s fate.) 

But seriously, the response was otherwise pretty subdued. This is a general traffic pattern + predictive, for #voltron as of two days after release:

Which is pretty much... nothing at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d think no season had been released at all. It shouldn’t look that flat when a season drops, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be predicted to fall within the week. 

And back to the sentiment analysis, showing the trends over the first week and a half after release. It’s continued to fall in a semi-regular pattern, so this is a fair-enough idea of what it looks like. (It hasn’t changed much; it just keeps gradually dropping.) 

24 hours after release, negative-to-positive was nearly 1:1; since then, it’s stayed pretty consistent with two positive tweets for every one negative. Which, okay, you might say, two-thirds of people expressing an opinion seem to be somewhat okay with things, right? 

Except I think there might only be like a few hundred of them. I mean, the peak up there, of total mentions? Maybe 1200, total. Sure, it’s great that 510 people had something nice to say while 498 were unhappy, but... that’s practically three people in an empty auditorium, if you go by twitter’s usual traffic levels. 

And no one’s sticking around, either. Once again there was a post-release bump thanks to the simmering controversy... and then everyone hung up the phone, left the building, went on vacation, but they sure checked out. 

That leap upwards? That’s not the week of release. That’s the week after. The week of release (second bar from the right) is flat for just a bit, before spiking upwards. And just like the wiki-extrapolated viewership stats, it falls promptly afterwards. Like a rock. 

(I so want to crack a joke about rocks fall, everyone dies, but... #TooSoon?) 

There’s one last chart to explore, but this one’s a bit of a doozy to explain. Once you see what it’s saying, though, hopefully you’ll find it as interesting (and illuminating) as I do. I’ll leave it here for everyone to ponder, and get into it in the final S8 installment. 

Coming in the next few days.

[takaraphoenix]

I reblogged a post about Angel and what a disappointment he is as a vampire the other day. I went rambly in the tags and narrowed it down to most other vampires having a dial and Angel only having a switch, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since; about what actually makes a vampire character interesting to me and why it doesn’t apply to Angel as compared to Spike and Harmony.

What I meant with the dial/switch metaphor is that usually, vampires are more... complex. They can go from “good” to “evil” and there is a dial between those two settings, it can be gradual and at one point its in the middle between both points and things get mixed and complicated. For Angel, “good” and “evil” are like flipping a switch, you only have the two extreme settings, there is no complexity to it.

That’s not to say that Angel himself isn’t a complex character, but as a vampire, he is incredibly, incredibly boring, because his vampirism completely lacks complexity.

At least in present day times, I do find Angelus in his time with Darla, Drusilla and Spike very interesting. Because there was a decline, there was more of a dial, I would assume. Sure, being turned made him switch to “evil” but then there was the corruption from Darla and the descend of Liam into Angelus.

Present day Angel, however? We meet him as the tortured hero, the vampire who turned his back on vampirehood to atone for the past sins of Angelus. He’s set to punish himself for what he did as Angelus and that, that started out interesting.

And then he loses his soul and at this point I have to take a moment praise David’s acting because I love the contrast he portrays between Angel and Angelus. Angelus might very well be my favorite BtVS villain, honestly.

But then he gets his soul back and that’s where things lost the appeal for me. Because he was just... good again. And he was just... for the most part... forgiven for anything that Angelus did because hey no Angel didn’t have a soul during that time! In universe, they make such a very clear cut between Angelus and Angel like they are actually two different characters when in fact they... are not. They’re still the same character and Angel gets a get out of jail free card when he loses his soul and it genuinely takes away so much of the potential appeal of Angel.

They could have kept that more complex. Had Angelus struggle with still remembering being Angel, with the feelings he had as Angel. And yet as soon as Angel loses his soul, he just goes completely murderous and feral with zero regard for Angel’s life and emotions, completely flipping the switch.

When William Pratt was first turned, his first impulse was to save his mom’s life and have her around for all eternity. As William the Bloody, he got corrupted by Angelus, Darla and Drusilla’s influences. So far, we’re the same here as with the Liam to Angelus situation.

The difference is the present. The difference is that even as a villain, Spike was already a complex character. His original motivation was having fun and when the fun got spoiled, he sided with the good guys but only for his own gain at first. And then he got conflicted. Spike has a dial. It slowly, gradually switched from evil to good but things were more complicated in the middle, when he did do good but also still was very okay with doing bad things too.

He became good before he got his soul back and getting his soul back did not inherently change his personality. The Spike from s7 (after he got his bearings again; early s7 Spike was in mental shambles) and the Spike from s5 and s6 are all in a straight line, there is a clear connection of growth between them, s7 Spike is the natural evolution of s6 Spike and not a completely new person.

And even when Spike loses his soul again in the BtVS comics, that doesn’t change who he is, because he still remembers the person he had become, he still remembers that Spike, he doesn’t just revert back into the high days of William the Bloody.

There is a... much more direct dealing with the bad one has done if the character’s evil deeds are not inherently separated from them.

Angel’s self-torturing and woe is me is getting old pretty fast because we know that everyone more or less forgives him whatever evil he has done because that evil is fully separated from Angel as a character and put onto Angelus. It would hold much more appeal if that separation didn’t exist and if, instead of a switch, there was a dial and a gradual shift between Angel and Angelus.

And it’s not just Spike who contrasts Angel here - this isn’t even a Spike vs Angel debate, this is inherently an Angel problem - because Harmony is genuinely the most fascinating vampire to me in this universe.

She loses her soul and becomes a vampire and... basically continues being herself but with a splash more murder. Her personality doesn’t change. That proposes the question of nature vs nurture, because both Liam and William didn’t just have the evil nature of becoming vampires, they also had the bad nurture of Darla and Drusilla in their lives respectively. Harmony didn’t; there was no sire who morally corrupted her into being her most evil and vicious self, so she just does some very minor villaining for a little bit before she quits it.

Harmony just quit being evil. She didn’t vibe with it so she quit it, on her own, with no actual outside motivation. For Spike, despite it having been his own choice and hard fight for good, Buffy and his feelings for her were an inherent trigger that made him want to be good. Harmony just decided for herself, on her own, to be good. Quit human blood, got an office job and, quite frankly, acted overall just like her very human self. Her journey (especially if you do consider the comics canon too) absolutely fascinates me because she is the absolute counter to the Angel-Angelus situation; there is no separation at all between human and vampire Harmony, not in her personality and only marginally in her behavior.

Being a vampire and doing varying degrees of evil are linked to one another and to the respective character, in all cases aside from Angel. And the decision not to let the evil of Angelus and the good of Angel be genuinely linked is what makes Angel as a vampire so very dull, because they defanged Angel; Angelus is the only one with the fangs.