Bad news on the horizon, I am afraid – ‘River Monsters’ (RM)
is getting cancelled; S9 is going to be the final season.
On one hand, everything
must end, and I honestly feel that RM should have finished by S7 or S8, when it
jumped the shark by going out to sea. (Until S8 it stuck only with freshwater
monsters, remember?) On the other, what will Animal Planet offer as a
replacement? ‘The Zoo’ is a good show, (although I feel that it is focusing too
much on daily lives of zoo vets), but it isn’t a good equivalent/replacement;
the various pet shows? ‘Tanked’? Do not make me laugh. These days, AP is all
about pets and domestic/domesticated animals; ‘RM’ went out into the wild, into
the remote corners of the world, as the various Nat Geo Wild programs do – you know,
‘Wild Borneo’, ‘Wild Scotland’, etc.? With ‘RM’ gone from AP, it will be an end
of an era, and in a sad way.
But then again, lately the TV shows seem to be on the sad/disappointing
end of things in general. ‘The Catch’, for example, has subtly revamped itself:
it got rid of all the same-sex/interracial couples and is now a straightforward
crime drama full of humor, drama and sex…yeah, it is still good, but the
same-sex/interracial couple angle set it apart from the other mystery dramas
and with them largely gone, ‘The Catch’ is more generic than it was in S1. It
is still fun to watch, but somehow S1 of it was more intense and powerful – but
maybe it is just me.
And moreover, ‘The Catch’ is still rather better than ‘Powerless’,
which is suffering from chronic unpredictability: maybe it’s just Canada, but
it has been airing irregularly, with intervals of one, two or maybe even more
weeks between the episodes. What gives? It wants to be a solely U.S. TV show?
Then why air in Canada at all? ‘Powerless’ has found its footing as a TV show,
but due to the gaps between the episodes, it may have problems.
These gaps, mid-season breaks and the like can be trickier
to implement in a show than it may look like. ‘Blindspot’ handled its
mid-season hiatus well enough, but it clearly has a precise, concise and clear
game plan in regards to plot development, and character development, and etc.,
so that it can recover, or rather – it has
recovered from the latest hiatus well enough.
AoS…initially, the info that Grant is coming back, as a
guest star, was very exciting, but by now the excitement is gone and the old battle
lines are probably getting drawn: people who love him and those who hate him,
and the two groups don’t get along. AoS should probably resolve the issue of
Grant being a part of AoS for good in S4, or else the controversy that his
character is creating, on top of the controversies about Hydra and Steve vs.
Tony vs. Bucky may cause much worse backlash than what AoS needs – it needed to continue with the Ghost Rider and co., to make
a new start with the Reyes brothers, and the new director, (i.e. Mace), and the
Watchdogs…etc.
Well, okay, it did not need
to, but… But the fact is that after the S3 finale AoS had direction problems on
top of everything else. In the first 3 seasons there was clear-cut progression,
as S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with aliens/InHumans and Hydra (the organization) in
various proportions, culminating in Hive, an alien/InHuman who was also in
charge of Hydra by default. S.H.I.E.L.D., (or rather – Lincoln), destroyed Hive
forever, ending S3 openly – Coulson was no longer in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D.;
Daisy seemed to have turned vigilante; etc. The road to move on into the future
was clear. So what happened next?
We all know as to what happened next. S4, which began with
the Ghost Rider mini-arc and a clean break from the previous seasons, is
concluding where it began – with Grant Ward, and Hydra, and etc. The only
question is why? Clearly, the matter of finances is there, (S4 AoS is much more
frugal than the S3 AoS was), but it doesn’t really explain everything; rather
than bringing back Dalton, they could’ve just continued with Luna all the way
instead – between the Ghost Rider, and the Watchdogs, and the occasional InHuman,
and even the LMDs, they could’ve created a genuinely original and new S4…and
instead they created a chimera of old and new…and not in a good way…
Or, you know, if it was simply a matter of cash and it was
cheaper to work with Dalton than with Luna, then they should’ve just worked
with Dalton from the start, (somehow, but still), and not gotten involved with
Luna, period. If you do not have enough cash to make a good AoS/Ghost Rider ‘crossover’…then
do not. Just stick with the tried and tested and remain within the budget;
otherwise, you will still fail…
Okay, AoS is not returning to the TV screens until the next
month, so let us talk about Marvel’s ‘The Defenders’ instead. The last of them,
‘Iron Fist’, was released on Netflix in March 2017 and it had plenty of its own
flak, considering that the titular character was played by the ‘Game of Thrones’
Flower Knight. You know what? The fan base knew about this long before March
2017, so it was not a surprise – or a problem. The problem is that ‘Iron Fist’
is strongly influenced by DC’s ‘Arrow’ the TV show, especially the first season
– but we have discussed this in the past.
What next? First, there was ‘Daredevil’, who introduced
several of Marvel’s B-string characters: the titular hero, the Kingpin, (Wilson
Fisk), the Punisher, Electra…and the Hand. It also has two seasons under its’ belt now, making it a showrunner and the
front man for the defenders’ team. Then – ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘Luke Cage’, which
introduced their titular heroes and
gave variety to the usual cast of Marvel’s heroes as a woman – an abused woman –
and an Afro-American man from NYC. That alone balanced out the whatever flaws
JJ and LC had (as shows), and then came ‘Iron Fist’, and while it was
reasonable to expect the titular character to be an Asian, or an Asian-American
man, in the comics he isn’t, not
really, so live with the Flower Knight in the role of a warrior monk, people!
…Of course, it does not really help that the defenders’ team
moved into their endgame as well,
with the all four of the defenders, (plus their allies), square off against the
Hand and its’ ninjas, because, well, they do need a good and worthy opponent.
The Kingpin is still in the big house, so why not ninjas? It works. ‘The
Defenders’, just like ‘Blindspot’, have a clear plan progression in sight,
while AoS does not. AoS’ ‘Ghost Rider’ mini-arc tapped into the vigilante ideas’
pool a-la ‘The Defenders’, and it could’ve stayed there or moved on with the Ghost Rider, but it didn’t, but
rather returned to its old haunts – and the problems associated with them.
So: RM is moving into its final season, ‘Blindspot’ is going
strong, as do ‘The Defenders’, ‘The Catch’…isn’t as strong as it used to, and neither is 'Powerless'; and
AoS will have problems when it returns in April or so. That is it for now, see
you next time!
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