Heartofice Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 46 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: And I disagree. I enjoyed all of them. Even “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” had some very good parts. I mean for my own record I can go through them one by one: Wandavision - A great idea and premise, started off strongly stylistically, although slowly narratively.. and reached about the midway point without really pushing the story forward. I wasn't sure I was going to continue, despite the respect I had for the idea, but stuck with it and it improved towards the end. However it ended in a big MCU style shootout that was a big disappointment. It also raised a bunch of hopes about what it was doing with things like Quicksilver that it rowed back on and was never as good as it promised to be. Loki - This is still my favourite of the MCU shows and the most successful narratively. Even then it features a real sag 2/3rds of the way in and struggles to fill out its run time. Enjoyed the ending, but really an entire episode of one person speaking maybe wasn't all that great. Moonknight - Great first episode, liked bits of the second episode.. then there is a severe drop in quality and the show doesn't really recover, despite it picking up a bit when he 'dies'. The ending again was a big fight that was mostly kind of meh. A real waste of a show actually, would be better as a movie. Hawkeye - I thought this was pretty bad all the way from the start. Ms Marvel - Still reserving judgement on this. Really liked the first episode, quite liked the second episode.. really struggling to get through the third episode. I suspect it has the same issues I mentioned above Falcon and the Winter Soldier - The one show I was really looking forward to when the tv slate was announced and the biggest disappointment so far. Real pacing issues and a lacklustre second half of the season. Could have been a better movie. I'd say my criticism could also be applied to many of the new Star Wars series as well. None of Mando S2, Boba Fett or Obi Wan justified their run time or really were very memorable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 I honestly can't think of a Marvel show I didn't love. They all worked great for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 Yup. It's not hard to have an issue or two or three with a show in general, but all of the Marvel shows have been fun and solid. Ms.. Marvel continues to be a strong entry to the stable. It's just fun. And I forgot to ask after the third episode, with the flashback to the finding of the bangle by Kamala's great grandmother...the arm they took it off of. Did it look a little Kree blue to anyone else? Giving a little more credence to the Nega Band theory...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 I’ve enjoyed all the Marvel shows, I’m glad they exist. But I don’t think any have truly landed the six episode format, none of them have been close to flawless. And I still think Daredevil’s 3 seasons wipe the floor with all of them. I’m trying to think of other six-hour-ish television series, but drawing a blank… is it just that it’s kinda new, so there’s not much of a template for how you pace it? We used to have 20 odd 45 minute episodes (so long that it had to have an episodic format and not be one continuous arc), then 10-11-12-13 episode became the norm. Trouble is, nobody decided 6 is a good length of story, it’s more like ‘6 is how many weeks we can keep subscriptions rolling until our next series is close to launch’. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhom Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 2 minutes ago, DaveSumm said: I’ve enjoyed all the Marvel shows, I’m glad they exist. But I don’t think any have truly landed the six episode format, none of them have been close to flawless. And I still think Daredevil’s 3 seasons wipe the floor with all of them. I’m trying to think of other six-hour-ish television series, but drawing a blank… is it just that it’s kinda new, so there’s not much of a template for how you pace it? We used to have 20 odd 45 minute episodes (so long that it had to have an episodic format and not be one continuous arc), then 10-11-12-13 episode became the norm. Trouble is, nobody decided 6 is a good length of story, it’s more like ‘6 is how many weeks we can keep subscriptions rolling until our next series is close to launch’. I remember sitting down with my DVDs of 24 and watching all twenty four episodes in one weekend... Those days are certainly gone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 15 minutes ago, DaveSumm said: I’m trying to think of other six-hour-ish television series, but drawing a blank… Well, this is kinda cheating, but the first season of Breaking Bad was seven episodes. The final season of Better Call Saul is split up into 6 to 7 episode halves. As was Mad Men (both halves were 7 episodes). So...Disney is copying AMC I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 I suppose as well, we’ve kinda seen 6 ‘Season 1s’ so they’ve had to set out their stall amongst the six hours. It’s just an odd length; slightly too long for a movie-esque treatment, but not quite long enough that you can have episodes that break the mould a little and change the tone. Almost all the Marvel series have had an episode where we’ve all said “well that was interesting, but we’ve only got 2 episodes left…” or whatever. 16% of your runtime is slightly too valuable to waste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 Some of these stories certainly would have benefited from a few more episodes to let some of the ideas and stories gel a little better. Really, I think Falcon and the Winter Soldier had some really good ideas, bit it crushed too much into to small of a time frame. Would ten episodes have been better? Thirteen? I believe so at least. And naysayers will rail that the story couldn't sustain the number it had, how could you extend it? I think if there was a little more shoulder room you don't have corners cut and you can build better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 50 minutes ago, DMC said: Well, this is kinda cheating, but the first season of Breaking Bad was seven episodes. That was due to the writers' strike though, they didn't plan it that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 8 minutes ago, RumHam said: That was due to the writers' strike though, they didn't plan it that way. Details... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said: Yup. It's not hard to have an issue or two or three with a show in general, but all of the Marvel shows have been fun and solid. My problem is, none of them really ever rise above ‘solid’ and that is very much an MCU / Disney issue that I don’t think is going away. I still maintain all of those shows have pacing problems. They quite often try to cram too much in, with many plot threads being under developed, whilst really dragging in the middle because they need something to happen before we get the big event in episode 6. Netflix Marvel shows had similar issues, mostly they couldn’t keep up the pace in the second half and would just bolt on a secondary storyline to keep things going. But they had longer seasons and 13 episodes is too long to tell one story. I think the 6 episode commitment is a problem, too short to really tell a long form story, and too long to really keep it snappy and maintain momentum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 These are shows based on comic book properties. Are you looking for The Wire or Breaking Bad in your comic book television experience? Because your bar might be a little too high... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 9 hours ago, DaveSumm said: I’ve enjoyed all the Marvel shows, I’m glad they exist. But I don’t think any have truly landed the six episode format, none of them have been close to flawless. And I still think Daredevil’s 3 seasons wipe the floor with all of them. The trouble with Daredevil, as I've noted before, is that it still has that 'this is a serious TV show, so we're not going to do superhero stuff' vibe in much of the run. The Marvel shows actually embrace the genre and are far superior for doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 6 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said: These are shows based on comic book properties. Are you looking for The Wire or Breaking Bad in your comic book television experience? Because your bar might be a little too high... I think that’s a generally lazy argument that dismisses the genre, like because it’s comic book we can ignore deficiencies like writing an interesting story. By contrast I’m also watching 2 other comic book shows, The Boys and Umbrella Academy. Both are great, certainly better than just ‘solid fun’ , and they are not the only examples of comic book properties done well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 29 minutes ago, mormont said: The trouble with Daredevil, as I've noted before, is that it still has that 'this is a serious TV show, so we're not going to do superhero stuff' vibe in much of the run. The Marvel shows actually embrace the genre and are far superior for doing so. What part of "Blind man with hyperacute senses wearing a costume to fight crime" is a failure to "do superhero stuff"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 40 minutes ago, Ran said: What part of "Blind man with hyperacute senses wearing a costume to fight crime" is a failure to "do superhero stuff"? The part where they wait the whole of season 1 to debut the costume, then have him wear it only occasionally in season 2 and retire it for most of season 3? He also does fight crime - largely in the same way that non-superhero leads fight crime i.e. they fight nameless mooks with no special abilities, costumes, or powers. The main exception would be Bullseye, but Bullseye in the Netflix series is basically just a dude who impersonates DD. I guess you could also count Kingpin, but again, Netflix's Kingpin could appear on Luther. No comic book trappings to speak of. The whole series comes over to me as basically a crimefighting series with a 'hook', rather than a comic book series in the way that the Disney Marvel series have all been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 16 minutes ago, mormont said: The whole series comes over to me as basically a crimefighting series with a 'hook', rather than a comic book series in the way that the Disney Marvel series have all been. I'm not sure how that is a negative. Some of the best Daredevil comic book stories have been this. I could say the same thing about Punisher. The Dark Knight, often regarded as the best comic book movie ever is pretty much a crimefighting story that just happens to have a guy in a giant bat costume in it. There is room for both types of story. Also, just because Marvel shows have the ability to make things more fantastical, doesn't mean they get to forget the basics of plotting out a series or telling a story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 Hmmmm...I stopped watching Umbrella Academy after the first season, as it bored me. I just didn't find it compelling. So cannot comment there beyond it being a property based on a comic book. As to The Boys, we'll, that's pretty far from being a "superhero" story, being it's satire. Violent, messy, bloody satire...the superhero elements are the hook, as mormont points out. The point on story plotting and telling a story are legitimate, but I think you're still setting a bar too high. The issues within most of the MCU shows isn't in the story, it's in how they've chosen to present them, usually with more story they want to tell, but not enough time to do it. Probably because the cerators never know if they're going to have more time in another season later. YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 The Boys is absolutely a superhero story. It's a satire, yes, but it cannot work without the superheroes at all. The superheroes are mostly the thing being satired, after all! The fact is that a "superhero story" is really just fundamentally about having superheroes in them -- that's it. There are all sorts of genres of superhero comics: horror, science fiction, dramas, mysteries, thrillers, light comedies, parodies, satires, dark comedies, black comedies, thrillers, adventures, family drama, romances... hell, even erotica. I can't recall anyone ever arguing that Frank Miller's Daredevil run or his Born Again (both major sources for the Netflix series) are not actually superhero comics. Daredevil's secret identity and his struggles to keep it that way, his traumas that cause his drive to do this thing of putting on a costume and fighting crime, his training by a member of a secret mystical order of ninjas, these are all... well, superhero stuff. Obviously, one may prefer certain kinds of stories over others. Light-hearted stuff, stuff that embraces the full wildness of comics like multiverses and so on, things with a lot more humor or just a constant sense of "This is fun!", but superhero stories have a lot of variety to them. It's a big tent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 I still believe there can be a distinction between a "superhero story" and a story "about superheroes". The Boys is more of a deconstruction of the superhero genre... *shrug* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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