Last night, AoS’ S4 mid-season finale was aired. And?
In some ways, it was different from S3 mid-season
finale, for example. In ‘Maveth’, Coulson rescued Fitz from the alien planet in
question, and there was this huge-scale explosion of a castle (belonging to
Malick and Hydra?) and in general back then AoS tried to recreated the
‘Avengers’ atmosphere, both then, and at the end of S3 proper, when Hive was
destroyed by a nuclear explosion in space. It did ignore the fact that a screen in a movie theatre was a
different beast from the screens on a TV or a typical domestic computer/laptop,
so the final result wasn’t quite
‘Avengers’-like; plus Luke Mitchell’s departure from the series caused more
damage – and now?
The S4 mid-season finale, ‘Laws’, was much smaller in
scale; in fact, in terms of special effects and all, it was more like ‘The
Librarians’ S2 finale, with few special effects, (if any); but ‘The Librarians’
really aren’t into special effects, (though the first two episodes of their S3
were something different). AoS, on the other hand, was – after all, it is a
part of MCU, so there!
However, as I may have written before, this time, with
S4, AoS is possibly working on a tighter budget than it did in the first 3
seasons. In part it is because Elena ‘Yo-Yo” Rodriguez (NCB) is getting her own
mini-series, (available on Dec 13, 2016), online – fair enough, but AoS/MCU
already did something similar between S2 and S3, and it didn’t prevent S3 from
trying to go epic, as it was already written.
On the other hand, the ratings of AoS S3 began to fall
down very fast, and right now, they do not appear to be recovering, regardless
of the presence of the Ghost Rider. The latter, of course, is his own kettle of
fish; in S4, AoS tried to do what DC’s ‘LoT’ did with Jonah Hex – something of
a special guest superhero on top of the regular team. It worked in ‘LoT’
because ‘LoT’ is a better (right now) TV series compared to AoS, plus-
In addition, ‘LoT’ is a part of the bigger DC’s
‘Arrowverse’ TV-verse, which also includes ‘Arrow’, ‘The Flash’ and nowadays –
‘Supergirl’ (2016 onwards). The four TV shows are not exactly a smoothly
functioning machine, they have problems, but as the ‘Invasion’ of last week has
shown, their casts and crews can work together without any problems, with each
show having its unique identity in the greater DC ‘Arrowverse’ TV-verse.
On contrast, AoS’ cast and crew have constantly
problems – with each other and with other people, I would guess. As promised,
Skye/Daisy and the Ghost Rider/Robbie Reyes didn’t have any romance or any sort
of a relationship between each other, which is one of the reasons why Robbie
(and his uncle) just went off somewhere else in the third quarter of ‘Laws’ –
so far there is no final and definite idea as to how to properly integrate
Robbie into AoS and S.H.I.E.L.D.
Again, this is nothing new – throughout the series
Skye/Daisy had a problem with having ‘an opposite number’ – Grant, Trip,
Hunter, Lincoln – they all came and went for different reasons and in different
ways, Robbie Reyes is just the latest, and while the writers may think that
this helps Daisy’s character development, the audience may just feel irritated
instead.
Now, the interactions between a show and fans is
important, but it is also less straightforward than people may think. Take, for
instance, ‘The Flash’, where people have been giving Iris flak. Now, it may be
so because in this incarnation Iris is Afro-American, but in truth, she just is
not very contributive to the show, not how Laurel is, or how Felicity is in
‘Arrow’. A crew of a show may have views about how a show is supposed to work,
and fans also may have views about that same issue – different ones, so hello –
conflict.
It is argued that not ALL the fans are offended when a
character gets ‘racebent’ or changed in some other way, as Ms. Rowling tends to
do with her characters (the original HP-verse, not the new ‘Fantastic Beasts’
expanded one), just the most vocal and obnoxious ones. Perhaps, but as AoS has
shown, ignoring them is not so easy, either…
Well, no, not just AoS – the entire MCU. Hydra is
supposed to be one of the bad people, yet there is a strong support for it
online (at least). They may not be the biggest faction, but they are there, and
they are well prepared to fight-off any opposition – and they have plenty of
opposition, because pro-Hydra is pro-evil (sort of). Moreover, since the
Internet is that sort of a marvelous
invention, any arguments can very quickly either die-out or grow to great
proportions.
Wait, isn’t this the sort of an argument that ‘socially-challenged’
nerds can only get involved in? Anyone sane will avoid this sort of a
discussion by a mile? Yes, and they avoided the fandom by the same mile too, it
seems, as AoS’ viewers’ ratings fell.
MCU instigated controversies – both unintentionally,
as it was with Hydra in general and with Grant Ward and Kara Palamas in AoS
specifically, and intentionally – Steve vs. Tony in the CA: CW film and Steve
becoming Hydra in the Marvel comics. The most…intense part of MCU fandom
reacted heterogeneously to these new developments, and sales fell. Viewers
ratings’ (especially for AoS) – ditto.
In addition, it is always tricky to calculate a sale –
there is no rule of thumb: people may buy-out a comic book issue/series of
issues/etc. in one area and ignore the same piece in the other. Just look at ‘Harry
Potter and the Cursed Child’ transcript book – it may not be a comic book, but
the principle is still the same: in some Russian cities it was completely sold
out, while here, in Toronto, Canada, I never saw people buying it, or any other
books in Harry Potter series, including the latest edition of ‘The Chamber of
Secrets’ with its magnificent new illustrations (by Jim Kay, I think). ‘Cursed
Child’ was sold at a flat rate of 15 dollars – cheaper than a novel set in the Pathfinder™
game-verse, and people still weren’t flocking to it…unlike in Russia. Bet you
this is not what Ms. Rowling expected when she had realized the transcript…
‘Cursed Child’ is relevant to the discussion about
MCU, AoS, DCEU and etc., because it also tried to be culturally diverse, as ‘The
Flash’ is, for example. In ‘The Flash’, Iris West is an Afro-American, and
people are displeased by this; with ‘Cursed Child’ Hermione and her daughter,
Rose, had the same issue. (They got over this by their acting skills, period). Ms.
Rowling promptly called them racists and that was the end of that, as far as
she was concerned. The same thing is happening in MCU, as Zendaya may be the
new Mary Jane in the new ‘Spider-Man’ movie, and-? Racism?
Well, on some level – certainly yes. However, on
another – no. It is somewhat
ridiculous to treat characters from books, comics, TV series, movies as
real-life people, but without this treatment these characters become, well,
products that need to be sold and bought, period, and they are usually being
sold to, and being bought by, a specific audience, which, in case of AoS (and
the rest of MCU, maybe), isn’t really interested in this sort of thing, not
entirely, not anymore.
There is also the option of putting a show onto
Netflix, for a flat rate. But again, not everyone can afford it, and even among
those who can afford it, there are
those, who are still uninterested in watching it, and if there are enough of
such people – the ratings plummet, and the show goes further downwards, now
further depowered by the people who are somewhat interested in watching it, but
cannot afford it – but AoS isn’t worried by them, because it is a free show
that is steadily losing popularity for the reasons discussed above – it was too
controversial for too long and now investors are losing interest in it or
getting worried.
Shows hate controversy: when one of the ‘background ponies’
on MLP: FIM began to be controversial, it was showed into background as far as
possible, and began to re-emerge only recently, now that the controversy is
long gone. AoS did not do the same
approach (pragmatic, if not sensible) to Grant and Kara Palamas, and paid the
price.
Speaking of Kara… The S4 mid-season finale had Melinda
May gotten replaced by a robot double – which was exactly what Hydra did via
Kara back in S2. Back then, Coulson very quickly recognized the imposter due to
intimate, personal details that Kara just could not know about May. Now… he is
fooled, but that is not the point, the point is that AoS is back to recycling
its’ ideas; S3 (especially post-‘Maveth’) had recycled many ideas from S2; S4 is
not as bad, but it still shows, and that also diminishes its’ chances to be
renewed (for S5 and beyond). ‘Agent Carter’ was cancelled after just two seasons, remember?
On the other hand, S4 shows a notable decrease in
InHumans – right now they are mostly plot devices; there are Daisy and Yo-Yo
and director Mace himself (clearly influenced by Steel from DC’s ‘LoT’), and that
is it. Oh, and there is also the senator’s brother, but right now he is a no-show,
so who knows? Instead, we are going to get the invasion of robot body snatchers,
spearheaded by Aida and Dr. Radcliffe, (who immediately knew that there was
something wrong with Darkhold, unlike May or even Fitz, for comparison). It is
possible that AoS is downplaying the InHumans specifically, especially at least
their own TV show airs (in the upcoming years), but with InHumans being largely
a no-show, and Hydra gone (cough),
AoS is lacking two of its major elements since the beginning of S3. Again – not
good.
So, in conclusion of the rant: AoS’ S4 is still going
strong, but not strong, as it was in the beginning. Will it be enough to rescue
AoS for the future seasons? Who knows…?
No comments:
Post a Comment