What Are You Watching?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Saw the MAWS finale, and it still felt rushed. Maybe I'm subconsciously missing the Arrowverse, but this could've flowed a lot better if it was double the length. Could've added a lot more character moments instead of speeding through plot like it's a marathon race.

Funny you mentioned that. I was just thinking about the Arrowverse myself, and yes, I fell off that shit hard just like everybody else did. I don't think I even finished Arrow's final season after the COIE event crossover. That said, while it's mostly lambasted now, and while even the early stuff couldn't escape a lot of those pesky CW-isms that everybody hates, the early Arrow, Flash, and LoT stuff actually had a pretty firm grasp on the fundamentals of good comic book style storytelling. Sure, they were kind of soap-opera-ish, but so are actual comic books, and it honestly fit rather well in this medium. It ended up giving more weight to stuff like the Slade arc from season 2 of arrow or the Thawne stuff from season one of The Flash.

As for MAWS, I think the show falls firmly in the "it's alright" camp for me. Nothing about it comes off as egregious or cringe (maybe a few things, but not much worth noting), but it also doesn't feel like it has any room to breathe. I saw people praising the show for having Lois find out Clark's identity so quickly, but to me it felt hollow and was robbed of emotional consequence despite the show pretending otherwise. I think if the show had let the season play out with her suspecting and having that sense of tension only to have it either revealed at the end or early on in a second season, that would have made the moments and subsequent fallout caused by it feeling a lot more impactful than it did by doing it so early.

This is the kind of show that if it gets a season two, I will probably still watch it since it has the potential to be better, but as it stands it was kind of a big "meh" for me so far.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Nothing about it comes off as egregious or cringe (maybe a few things, but not much worth noting)

I'll say the Flamebird running gag got annoying after the first couple episodes, and I generally prefer STAS' more sardonic humor compared to the wackier comedy from MAWS. There were a lot of "Yep, I sure remember when Team Rocket made this same gag on Pokemon over two decades ago" moments sprinkled throughout the season. At least it's nowhere near as bad as any of the YJ Forager scenes or Harley Quinn only knowing how to make the same ass joke when talking about Dick though. And I'm certainly not a "Jokes? In my capeshit?! How dare you?!" guy, but somebody at DC Animation really needs to work harder on the comedy angle. I remember watching that Catwoman DTV movie last year, and the quips in that were so awful it made the Thor 4 screaming goats look sophisticated by comparison.

Also, I saw a tweet from the showrunner confirming my suspicions that a lot of the pacing issues were from fear of cancellation. Which I understand due to WB's recent issues, but it's still insane how a Superman cartoon doesn't have the safety net to let things breathe. It's like if a new Batman cartoon had to speedrun from Year One to Damian all in one season because they were scared of getting cancelled, which there's unfortunately precedent for in Beware's case, but it's still a poor indicator of what's happening at WB.

And oh yeah, it's almost cumbersome to remember this is the first proper Superman animated series in 23 years. It certainly doesn't feel like that thanks to all the animated movies and Clark showing up in other cartoons, but the topic is still weary to think about. Likely explains why I kept seeing MAWS and STAS pitted against each other in Twitter arguments even though they're tonally very different shows.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Saw the first episode of Krapopolis, and Dan Harmon is so lucky he found a cast with wonderful chemistry in Community.



Mid title too.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So in case anyone had reservations watching the new Scott Pilgrim because they already know how the story goes and don't want to watch a third go-around

Spoiler

It's not an adaptation, it's a sequel. Rebuild of Scott Pilgrim time.

[close]

[Avaitor]

The change has definitely pushed this up in personal queue. The funny thing is that I wouldn't have minded a more faithful adaptation of the comics, since I'm not hot on a lot of the changes Wright made in the movie, but I like the idea behind this.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I can't tell if only 4 episodes of Invincible before a hiatus is a production issue or Amazon spacing out premieres to trick users into staying on Prime for longer.

And yeah, figured that Mark would be much less forgiving here than he was in the comics.

[Daxdiv]

I think I heard some people say that it's a way to build up hype for the next set of episodes. Though I can easily see Amazon delaying the episodes as a way for people to stick around for Prime.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I swore that I saw that it was a decision by the staff, that this is a good stopping point. Still, it's weird to do so when you only have an 8 episode season, but Stranger Things did something similar last year...

[Dr. Insomniac]

So has anybody else been watching Blue Eye Samurai? Because I'm halfway through that and enjoying it a lot. Very R-rated Mulan vibes.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Season 2 of Arcane's out, and I'm half-surprised it's the final season. One side because the show's been receiving pretty high acclaim so it's odd on the surface to end it now, and the other side due to how high the budget is. A quarter billion dollars for 9 episodes, which is hardly the most expensive amongst streaming originals, but I can see why they're calling it quits now.