I actually miss Episodic Television

I watched a YouTube video on Smallville recently, and one of the complaints about the show of course was that there was "soooo much filler".  It's kinda funny coming back to Smallville discourse after spending years in the Anime Community where "Filler" has a mostly different meaning.

When I look back on Smallville comparing it to the modern state of Superhero TV shows, the "Filler" is exactly what I miss.  To me what makes Clark Superman is how he deals with small things as much as the big things.

If you follow the discourse among actual DC and Marvel Comic Book readers, you'll notice one thing that has been lamented about the state of Superhero comics for well over a decade now is how everything is "written for the Trade" and thus you don't get simple short one off stories anymore, not in the main continuity at least.

Well Superhero based TV is finally catching up to the Comics in this regard.  And while for now everyone is excited about the possibilities, I feel like the one person noticing that this is leading to exactly why so many of us Comic Book Nerds started preferring TV and Cartoons to the actual Comics in the first place.

Saying Smallville was good actually may be mildly controversial, but saying that about Batman The Animated Series is not.  Michael Baily has lamented how since The Joker killed Robin and crippled Barbara Gordon in the late 80s you can't just tell one off Joker stories anymore, not in the main continuity, he became too big for that.  In the 90s BTAS became the source for new short one off Joker stories.  And it did the same for all of the villains.

The reason none of the modern attempts at creating new Batman villains have truly become Icons like the ones who've been around since at least the 70s is because those classic villains had who they are and what works about them defined by tons of short and simple one off villain of the week stories.  Then later writers started trying to find ways to make them work in more Epic and long form stories with varying degrees of success.  But now every new villain is introduced as the Big Bad of a huge status quo shaking event, and they may have worked great for that event, but attempts to bring them back just reveal their short comings.

It's not just the Superhero genre though.  Perhaps with something like a High School Drama it's harder to easily tell the difference between something episodic and something trying to be a 20 hour movie.  But I can still sense that I generally prefer the former to the latter.

For hour long live action TV shows my ideal is somewhere between purely episodic and every episode being a huge earth shattering plot development.  I want there to be an overarching storyline in the background, but for most individual episodes to work as their own stand alone stories.  That was how Buffy/Angel, Xena and Smallville operated back in the day. and it used to be that was also how most long running TV Anime worked.  

Now it seems like if a new show did what I like it would be viewed as a step backwards.  I look at how Netflix's Daredevil was praised from season 1 as a new evolution of the Superhero genre making everything that came before and contemporary with it look amateur in comparison.  But all I see is how the potential for interesting one off stories with a Superhero who's also a Defense Attorney were squandered by the obsession with making a 13 hour Kingpin movie.  Season 2 I liked more then most people in-spite of not doing what I prefer, then season 3 won back the season 1 people and I hated it.

And even with Anime what I like is becoming rarer, with Light Novel and Visual Novel adaptations dominating the market.  And Manga meanwhile hasn't had the same history as Marvel and DC Comics, they were always "written for the trade" to some extent.  So it's mostly original Anime, or Anime that diverted from the source material in ways purists hate like classic Sailor Moon and FMA that are structured the way I most prefer.  The later of those mostly isn't allowed anymore, and even original Anime are often written for the Binge watcher even if it aired weekly since most Anime don't make their profits from the TV broadcast anyway.

I love plenty of shows that aren't structured this way, I'm simply sad that this kind of TV is dying out.  

Why I like Prequels

A lot of people hate on Prequels in concept because "We know what's gonna happen", ya know what, that's what I like. they are denied the option of doing the most shocking thing possible just because it's shocking.

A lot of films have great surprises/twists to them, and they're very good, but that's not the be-all/end-all of film making.  There are a lot of people out there who feel being "predictable" is the worst criticism a story can have leveled against it, and to me that is a stupid way of thinking.  Too many mysteries are ruined because they cared more about the reveal being unpredictable then about it making sense.

Knowing what's going to happen doesn't hurt historical films, or faithful novel adaptations, there is no reason why a fictional prequel which often has more innate wiggle room then those should be a problem.

Being predictable does not have to hurt your story.  Let's take unmAsked, the second season finale of Pretty Little Liars for an example.  Lots of people complained at the time, because there are always some complainers, that Mona being -A was to predictable, even those who hadn't read the books had heard Mona was the first -A in them.

I predicted it would be Mona, and all through that sequence of Spencer and her in the lair I knew what was coming.  But the actual reveal still had a huge impact on me, My heart was racing, it was tense as hell.  Because being predictable doesn't mean a damn thing if it's well dome.

I have grown to love PLL even more since then, I consider it the Greatest show in the history of Television.  I loved the latest 5th Season finale, but I still feel cheated that they changed the nature of the Twin issue just because everyone was expecting it.  It'd have been much better if they'd simply followed unmAsked's lead.  I'll keep watching PLL till the end, but the more I've digested Dollhouse the more I've come to consider it the most disappointing season finale.

So I think there is a great virtue in knowing where the story is going, with the question merely being how.  So let's return to the subject of actual Prequels.  I liked watching the Star Wars Prequels knowing they didn't have the option of randomly killing Obi-Won or Anakin, or Yoda or the Droids or Chewie or even Organa just so it'll be unexpected.  Really my only criticism of ROTS is that Padme dying does create continuity issues with what Leia told Luke.  But it wasn't to be shocking Lucas did it, he wrote himself into a corner with the theme of Anakin's weakness being not handling loss, for that reason I can forgive it.

If The Force Awakens kills off OT survivors (besides the Droids) that wouldn't be shocking, that would fit the pattern of how the SW legend has worked so far, Luke is now in the role of Qui-Gon in Episode I and Obi-Won in Episode IV.  But if one of the 3 new leads is killed off, that would be a cheap ploy, (Also the Droids shouldn't be killed off because they should be the ones who see the whole story, I went off on that already).

I am not familiar enough with Abrams to guess how likely he is to pull a ploy like that.  But with the Prequels I didn't have to worry.

That of course does lead us to the issue of Quasi-Prequels, like Gotham on Fox.  It's a Prequel in format, major Batman characters before they become who they'll become, though a few pretty much are there already.  But it's not in continuity with any specific future Batman adventures we've seen, the Batman mythos are subject to change, and that's good I want different takes to be different, but certain things should be unshakable.

A recent statement from the producers of the show said that "Not everyone from Batman canon will survive the series".  They want the option to kill off characters that viewers are assuming are safe because they appear in Batman comics and movies.

I fear what this means for the end of Season 1, their generic serial killer who kills women because of his mommy issues story-line is probably a sign that they're gonna Fridge either Barbara or Leslie Tompkins.  Either of those options will tick me off for no other reason then my annoyance with Fridgeing in general.

In terms of how that breaks with Canon, Tompkins is like the character she's named for in name only, and is a character I never liked really anyway (even before War Games and War Crimes).  But if they kill off the mother of one of the DCU's most important and iconic characters before she has that child, I will be pissed and will likely quit the show simply for that.  And that is independent of my personal fan theory of wanting Barbara to become Batwoman.

Smallville was in a similar place to Gotham, during their good years they never did anything like that.

But in Season 8 when they killed Jimmy Olsen only to then reveal that was never really Jimmy Olsen.  I was pissed, and was unable to keep consistently following the show, I checked every now and then, and saw how it ended, which I had very mixed feelings about.

This comes back to my issues with how TV shows are made now days in general.  Anything with a Genre element to it they feel they need to kill off at least one Main or significant Recurring character every season to keep a sense of danger.  The Vampire Diaries which I loved watching for awhile, was from very early on one of the worst offenders of this, they killed someone off every few weeks.

Gotham is about the Batman universe, one defined by it's darkness and Pulp/Film Noir roots.  So you may feel "certainly a Batman show ought to be killing people".  But Gotham has so far done a great job of showing this is a violent and dangerous world without needing to kill any major characters.  We see Penguin and other villains killing people constantly.  We don't need to butcher canon in order to keep a sense of danger, and dying isn't the only bad thing that can happen to a character.

Deaths should happen, but they have no impact if they happen all the time, like on Game of Thrones or True Blood.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer never killed off an important character until 3 quarters of the way through Season 2.  That did have an impact.  And then they didn't kill off anyone in Season 3, or 4, there wasn't another death till 5.  During the last season and a half the deaths increased to help show how things had escalated.

That's how Gotham should be, we're not in the world of Batman yet, there is nothing to escalate to if already the lead's love interests are being killed off for season ending shockers.

Here is why I'm upset about the upcoming Supergirl show

I'd been thinking for awhile, and had expressed on IMDB, how I kind of don't trust a channel other then the CW or ABC Family to do a Teen or High School/Collage hour long Drama.  Other Networks are all about being "Adult", especially the non Cable ones, and Glee has no appeal to me.  CBS in particular is a channel that seems to care only about Cop and Lawyer shows.

Then I read that this Supergirl show will start with her being already 24.  And I was like THAT'S NOT SUPERGIRL, THAT'S SUPERWOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the Supergirl stories I like from the Comics, from all the various incarnations of Supergirl, are all set with her either in High School or Collage.

It's like her being a female Superman is all they really cared about.  24 is literally the same age Clark Kent was when Smallville ended.

Supergirl was an opportunity to do something like the Early Seasons of Smallville but without the extended Prequel burden or the No Flights no Tights limitation.

I think that's the source of the problem though.  Smallville even though it is by any objective standard the most successful Comic Book based TV show of all time.  Is for some reason known for it's Hatedom rather then it's Fandom.  So they don't want to be confused with Smallville, instead they're just gonna create a show more likely to resemble later Smallvile then early Smallville, which is when the show's quality took a nose dive.

They should have done Powergirl with the premise described for this show.  But that name isn't as marketable.

Supergirl being a Female Superman is a small part of her appeal.  It's also being a younger superhero.  Supergirl could've been the new Buffy or Secret World of Alex Mack, or Pretty Little Liars with Superpowers.  Any of those would have been interesting.  I wanted the drama of her possibly going to school with Nastalia Luthor or Lena Thorul.

But making it so the character's only difference from Superman is being a female Hero just draws attention to how they could have instead given a chance to a Superheroine that isn't linked by name to a male hero.  Like Stargirl, or Zatana, or Black Canary, or heck just give another try to a Wonder Woman pilot.

First Teen Titans ticks me off that it won't have Donna Troy, and now this.  And Gotham as much as I love it keeps screwing over Montoya.  At least Flash is good and Arrow is improving.