‘Runaways’ continue to gather steam, as they are going
slowly but relentlessly towards their S1 finale. (Are seasons even a thing for
Web TV shows?) They are continuing to be separate and apart, different from the
traditional comics, but that is no problem – so does ‘Riverdale’, when it comes
to the rest of its’ franchise: there’re ‘Riverdale’ comics, and there’re ‘Archies’
comic, they are together but separate. Ditto for the ‘Runaways’.
In other news, the ‘Librarians’ TV show also continues to go…through
its’ 4th season, as a matter of fact. It already has embraced the
old age progression gag as the (upcoming) episode 4x05. Again, as it was
written regarding their S3, the ‘Librarians’ are unconventional heroes…that are
going down the conventional path since S3. They are still going strong, but
they are still going nowhere, even if they have their own comic book series,
(at least for a while). Yay them, that is so impressive.
Yes, not really – often TV shows and their literary
adaptions, (comics, books, etc.) do not often mesh, not even if they are part
of ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Dr. Who’ franchise, which brings us back to the following: all
of these TV shows, (and Web TV shows) are commodities to be sold to, and bought
by, consumers, audience. They need to sell, because otherwise? They don’t go anywhere,
as AoS has done by S5; even though ‘Rewind’ gave them something of a boost, AoS’
S5 is still in the lower ranges of AoS numbers, still lower than S3, for
example, and ‘Life Earned’ was probably the lowest AoS episode yet. Why? For a
number of reasons, including the argument over whether Hydra is Nazi or just
fascist, and the issue of the characters’ treatment – the latter continues even
now, with the FitzSimmons doing, well, the whole gender role stereotype: in the
first four S5 episodes Jemma was made really, well, feminine, while in ‘Rewind’
Fitz turned into some sort of a commando, causing Lance Hunter, (or Nick
Blood?) to exclaim: “But that’s my thing!”
That is certainly a thing – yes, the return of Lance Hunter
did boost the numbers for ‘Rewind’ – and then AoS promptly hit everyone with a ‘fall
finale’ hiatus, causing everyone to lose attention and interest in AoS again,
at least for a while, and with new shows (i.e. ‘Grown-ish’) coming and old
shows (i.e. ‘X-Files’) returning to the TV in 2018, AoS got its’ job cut out
for it – again. Yes, the Hydra controversy has mostly gone back into the
background, as MCU got rid of Hydra for good…although AoS seems to be showing
signs that it might be coming back or something; ‘Rewind’, with its’ U.S.
military conspiracies and co. was much more interesting than the previous
episodes of S5 combined, but again – the fall finale, and it seems that all of
the goodwill gathered by ‘Rewind’ will be wasted. At least ‘Librarians’ have
better sense than to do anything like that, now do they?
This gets us back to creativity, and here is the thing. AoS’
S5 has it. So do ‘Runaways’. Only ‘Runaways’ are using it more sensibly than
AoS ever did, but yes, it’s tricky to work it out; ‘Librarians’ seem to be
going all out, and so far they aren’t having much better luck than AoS does,
plus AoS has racial variety going for them, while ‘Librarians’ have only one
person of color in their cast – Ezekiel. With a name like this, you have to wonder
as to just how and why John Harlan Kim got this particular job: was he lucky,
or is he some sort of a token actor here?
This question obviously does not apply to ‘Runaways’ because
of the obvious reasons, and they still had plenty of creativity, (though Old
Lace did not appear in this episode – and he is a part of the regular cast back
in the ‘Runaways’ comics, damn it!). They are still going strong, (though yes,
they do not have much distance left to cover), and they are still different and
varied. Hydra may (or may not) be gone from MCU for good, but AoS seems to be
on the way out of MCU all the same – already it is gone from the MCU
mainstream, and we’re talking about Disney here – they know where the money
goes, and if it is out, so’re you.
Hopefully, Hulu will be able to keep ‘Runaways’ – and the
upcoming ‘Cloak & Dagger’ series – out of its’ clutches. See you all next
time!
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