C&D cancelled - Oct 25

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. This week – on Monday – us Canadians put its’ own spin on this thesis, by creating a minority government. It became obvious almost immediately, that Singh, and Scheer, and Trudeau, do not get along and probably will not, and so it is anyone’s guess where this arrangement, the minority government, will get. Probably nowhere fast, that is where.

…Ivan Andreevich Krylov, the man who had adapted the fables of Aesop and Lafontaine for the Russians during their imperial period, had one among their number titled ‘The Swan, the Pike, and the Crayfish’, in which the titular characters were hired to deliver a some sort of a load, (it is never defined just what it is), somewhere. The load is not heavy, but the swan went for the sky, the crayfish began to move backwards, (in Russia, it is a common folk myth that the crayfish walk only backwards, because reasons), and the pike went into the water. Whose fault it was, the fable rhetorically proclaimed, is not for us to judge, but the load never went anywhere. The Russians consider this fable to be one of Krylov’s best ever. For Canadians, the Trudeau Swan, the Singh Crayfish and the Scheer Pike can be much harder to endure, especially since they are not the only characters on Canada’s political Olympus, and our country’s political landscape has acquired other features by now. In Western Canada – there is a lot of resentment brewing towards Trudeau and his government because of oil, and ecology, and native rights, and what else have you. Miss Greta Thunberg left her mark there too, but now her ‘phenomenon’ is dying down: if Al Gore, in the years past, as America’s VP, could change the tide, then neither can Ms. Thunberg, no matter how much she was tried to be puffed up in the past weeks and months.

…And in the East we got the good old Quebecois separatism, which, apparently, also gotten re-started these days. Fun! I remember that, however, vaguely, back in the 90s, when my family just came to Canada, it was all the talk, especially among the Anglo-Canadians, but nothing came out of it back then; what will come out of it now is for anyone to guess.

But enough of the depressing reality, let us talk about… television. Pause. No, let us not talk about the new ‘Watchmen’ TV series, which is already a shit-storm of alt-left, alt-right, fanboys, SJWs, and what else have you, and so far the series have only aired its’ very first episode. What will happen as more of its’ episodes is aired? More hubbub and controversy, and that is all that I care about. Why? Because I do not like ‘Watchmen’, I did not like the original comic series, I was not a fan of the film, and I am staying away from the TV series too. I had had this sort of bad excitement back with the SW7 & 8 films, and do not need its’ TV analogue too.

This brings us to Marvel, and – more bad news: C&D are cancelled. Why? Good question, and so far this is no concrete answer. The easy way would be to blame the latest Marvel shake-up, as Kevin Feigle begins to manage the Marvel TV, as well as the Marvel movies. But the more subtle signs that something wasn’t right there could be seen in S2, which was more jumbled and less tight than S1 had been, it felt almost like two seasons smashed together, just like how the ‘Fallen Kingdom’ movie felt like two movies smashed together, and SW8 – as a film that had fragments and elements of another film, especially in the end. Just like AC of MCU, or ‘Swamp Thing’ of DCEU, C&D may be just another TV series that got canned…just because. Maybe the numbers weren’t high enough… since the end of S1, as the S2/the series proper ended on Ty & Dy leaving New Orleans for pastures new. There are rumors of them appearing on ‘Runaways’ S3, but now it’s anyone’s guess if this’ll come to pass.

…Yes, in the comics C&D did come to NYC, but MCU is different from Marvel comics, and Ty & Dy’s departure from New Orleans felt like an end of something – in this case, it was of the C&D show proper. Ouch.

…Speaking of comics? The 2017 ‘Runaways’ comic reboot has amounted already to 24+ issues, while C&D – to 50% of that number, at best. Clearly, something was going on with C&D in the entire Marvel multiverse, not just to MCU, and now it has manifested itself: C&D is cancelled for good for now. That is real life for you. It sucks.

…You can argue that not all of real life is bad: the NatGeo site nowadays permits about 4 or 5 free articles a month, (the benefactors), plus there are some YouTube videos from that franchise that are appearing on YouTube on a more regular basis than once every week or so, (the generosity), so really, turn that smile upside down! Or not, because in Canada the political landscape has become an unpredictable and volatile cul-de-sac, (by Canadian standards, but still), and elsewhere it is worse. In the U.S., we got the brouhaha with the impeachment, now it seems to be going forwards, but it will make much fewer people happy than initially; and across the pond we got the Brexit, which is still going forwards…somehow, and increasingly more and more people are getting fed-up with it, especially in Great Britain proper. In under a week now there will be a lot of people unhappy with Boris Johnson and the rest of his crew, one way or another. Of course, the latter will have their own axes to grind and to bear once everything explodes, and that will just make everything worse, again, but hey! That is real life for you. It sucks. Just look at C&D – it did not suck, so it got cancelled, and we just have to grin and bear it. End of the story.

…This is it for now. See you all soon!