Whatcha Bleedin' Watchin'?

[Dr. Insomniac]

From what I heard though, if COVID didn't happen, Falcon and the Winter Soldier was supposed to premiere first as the more conventional Marvel show, then Wandavision. But then the pandemic occurred, and they switched places. And I think with how successful the MCU's been, they can afford to make more shows or movies that play with the existing fandom's expectations and do something different. And while they did have problems, I do miss the way the Marvel Netflix shows handled things compared to their movie cousins.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Iron Fist and The Defenders aside, I think that the main problem with the Marvel Netflix shows, or rather "hindrance" may be a better term here, was being forced into 13-episode seasons. Really, while Daredevil, The Punisher, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage all had great content, they felt really stretched out and padded at times. Out of the three, I think that Daredevil managed to fair the best in making the most of it's episode-count, along with the first season of Jessica Jones. Everything else felt about twice as long as it needed to be. Like, Luke Cage season one felt genuinely well-paced throughout the Cottonmouth arc, but felt really padded out after his death. I feel like that content could have been condensed into two or three episodes as a season finale rather than an entire back half of the season.

I exluded Iron Fist because, despite having the same episode-count issue for it's first season, the show obviously had way bigger problems at it's core to begin with. And The Defenders was actually the shortest of all of these despite having the most characters to juggle, ironically enough. That said, the episode-count was fine. The pacing was somehow still way too slow, though, and the story structure didn't really allow for the actors and their respective characters to really jive together with too many meaningful interactions. That's one area where the movie efforts of the team-up events were definitely executed far better.

[Avaitor]

I wasn't expecting to see Emma Caulfield in WandaVision, but it's nice to see her again. I know she's stuck around in B-movies, but it feels like this is the first time I've seen her.

I'm enjoying the show as is so far, especially when I started to take it as a straight-forward sitcom tribute as opposed to a spoof of them. It helps that just about everyone involved can more than hold their own with the material. I'm curious to see where the show goes from here- I'm expecting something more depressing and fantastic underneath the show's core.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Have they ever said the words "Scarlet Witch" in any of the MCU? All live-action superhero adaptations are always a little bit ashamed of using superhero names, even the recent Wonder Woman film never used the words "Wonder Woman" despite how campy the film was, and the aforementioned Marvel Netflix shows were always afraid of saying any codenames. But it's a special case when even most of the promotional material just calls Wanda by her name.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

To be fair, even in most comics I read they tend to refer to her as Diana more often than Wonder Woman, but then again I've mostly only read post-COIE DC stuff which was around the time the medium itself was trying way too hard to shed the "childish" image of the silver age that preceded it.

As for the MCU, I think it's more about finding organic ways to use superhero names. Afterall, most other heroes and villains have been referred to by their alter ego names at various points once they established an in-Universe reason to call them by that name. I'm sure Wandavision will utilize it's unique set-up to call her by Scarlet Witch at least once, but I don't think referring to her as Wanda is meant to slight the comics. It just sounds more natural for a live-action script. I mean, try imagining the opening scene of Civil War with Captain America taking the extra second to fully annunciation Scarlet Witch instead of just Wanda when giving her orders in the middle of a tense situation. It would feel out of place. Same with when they speak to her in more casual conversations. It just makes more sense to use her real name. If anything I'd argue it's more in line with Lee and Kirby's original vision of Marvel treating it's characters as real people first and superheroes second. Reading their entire 100+ issue FF run kind of cemented in that idea for me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Maybe it was thanks to years on and off of watching some Smallville, and seeing the show bend over backwards to omit the word "Superman" from their dictionary while every other superhero in the show had their superhero name said plenty of times, but I think there are times when refusing to say the codename becomes unintentionally sillier than saying it. I remember a whole episode where they make their own Justice League, and one of the characters says "Green Arrow, Cyborg, Impulse, Aquaman, and Clark", and I burst out laughing.

For what it's worth, I think the film side of the MCU handles it well.

[Mustang]

Been watching bits of WWE for roughly the past couple of months. I've always been a fan of Roman Reigns, but I'm loving this heel angle. I also love the Alexa Bliss and Fiend stuff, but I hate it that Asuka is afraid of her. Speaking of Fiend/Bray, this guy has been amazing. I wish to see him get more title shots.

Bobby Lashley. I remember loving this guy back in the Ruthless Aggression era, but now, my goodness. This whole "angry all the time" angle is terrible because to me it comes off as a stereotype that don't need to be. The guy used to be so laid back and I sort of wished he went back to that. Also, I hate that he's being matched up against all these small dudes which makes me miss the domination of heavy weight wrestlers despite having a decent amount of top tier heavy weights

That being said, whatever or wrestling again.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Put Paul Heyman with anyone and you tend to get gold. Roman Reigns is one of the few things that I can still actually enjoy (let alone bear to watch) about modern WWE. I feel like Drew McIntyre is a good champion cursed with mostly bad booking. He had some decent matches against Randy Orton and an outright great one against Roman Reigns at Survivor Series, but a lot of his other feuds since defeating Brock Lesnar have been rather disappointing, IMO. It's not due to a lack of talent as much as it is due to a lack of proper opponents for him to work with given his style of wrestling.

I have been going back and watching a lot of classic wrestling content lately, though, as well as some stuff from other promotions. I've really learned to appreciate Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, Terry Funk, Jerry Lawler, and Sting (among many others) all the more now that I've seen more matches from when they were in their prime.

[Mustang]

Agreed. Drew is definitely being booked terribly. Liked the Orton matches. Would love to see more matches between Drew and Roman, but I need them to merge in order for that to happen. I'm hoping for a Drew and Sheamus feud. I know they have a match, but I'm hoping for an actual feud for once. Hell, for all I care put Bobby Lashley against the man.

Looking at some of the modern wrestling definitely make me reminisce about the Golden age classics a lot. Not so much with the days of Jerry Lawler in his prime but more so Randy Savage vs Hogan, or The Rockers vs Oriental Express. Sting vs Flair will always be a classic I remember but I just love Crow Sting so much. One of the greatest technical matches I've ever seen was Bret Hart vs Mr. Perfect for the IC title.

Modern wrestlers has so much talent it's ridiculous what they're doing in the ring (although I think a lot of these guys should only be able to get as far as the IC title), but there are none that are nearly as charismatic as the Hogans, Warriors, Savages, etc which is unfortunate.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Agreed. Drew is definitely being booked terribly. Liked the Orton matches. Would love to see more matches between Drew and Roman, but I need them to merge in order for that to happen. I'm hoping for a Drew and Sheamus feud. I know they have a match, but I'm hoping for an actual feud for once. Hell, for all I care put Bobby Lashley against the man.

Yeah, Sheamus would make for a good rival to him should they decide to go with that feud, and I'm actually surprised that they haven't matched him against Bobby Lashley yet. The thing is, I really like the in-ring work of some of his other opponents like Seth Rollins and AJ Styles (the latter probably being my favorite currently active performer for the entire company), but their styles don't mesh all that well with Drew's, IMO. He's at his best when he's taking on similarly sized/built opponents. Not that I think that smaller guys need to be sidelined to bigger opponents, but in Drew's case he just seems to work best with bigger guys, like Brock Lesnar, Keith Lee, and as previously mentioned Reigns and Orton. But on top of that even some of those feuds don't do him any favors due to the booking. Drew should have never lost the title to Orton. Even if he won it back it killed his momentum and Orton doesn't need the title given his tenure with the company.  Likewise, putting him against Lee and having him go over comes at the expense of taking away some of Lee's momentum. I feel like Damien Priest would make a really good opponent for him, but I doubt that they'd move him into the main title picture so soon after moving up to Raw's roster. Samoa Joe would also be a good opponent if it was a few years ago, but unfortunately he's been sidelined to a commentator role due to in-ring injuries.

Looking at some of the modern wrestling definitely make me reminisce about the Golden age classics a lot. Not so much with the days of Jerry Lawler in his prime but more so Randy Savage vs Hogan, or The Rockers vs Oriental Express. Sting vs Flair will always be a classic I remember but I just love Crow Sting so much. One of the greatest technical matches I've ever seen was Bret Hart vs Mr. Perfect for the IC title.

I love Crow Sting. I was more just noting my newfound appreciation for his earlier stuff after going out of my way to watch some of his earlier matches. And I 1000% agree about Hart Vs. Perfect. God I miss that era of wrestling.

Modern wrestlers has so much talent it's ridiculous what they're doing in the ring (although I think a lot of these guys should only be able to get as far as the IC title), but there are none that are nearly as charismatic as the Hogans, Warriors, Savages, etc which is unfortunate.

I agree. Most of my problems with modern wrestling has little to do with the talent and almost everything to do with how they are used. The best performers in the world will still look like crap with crappy booking and the shitty writing that they are forced to regurgitate. To me, CM Punk was the last wrestler to have the same level of star power as someone from the Attitude Era and they basically sidelined him to the point of frustrating him to walk away from the profession for good.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So even when that guy from SWORD asked what Wanda's codename was, nobody had an answer. Weird.

Spoiler

Now when's Ian McKellen's showing up so Wanda can add more members to her fake family?

[close]

[Avaitor]

I've been having less time to watch shit lately, but I have found a little time to finally get to season 2 of Cobra Kai. I'm only halfway through so far, but I'm still mostly enjoying it, but like EK, I'm mostly here for Johnny, Danny, and Miguel, although I do also like Hawk and Aisha, and I'm interested to see where they go with Kreese. I don't really care about Robby either, at least not to the extent the show wants me to. Sam's tolerable, but she reminds me of Nancy from Stranger Things, the bland teenage girl mostly added to give other teenage girls someone to latch to.

My least favorite character has to be Demetri. He's basically just Xander Harris without the wit and pathos.

[Avaitor]

Oh yeah, so I did finish season 3 of Cobra Kai last week, and I did mostly like it, moreso than season 2. The series is getting more over the top, but this does balance out comedy better with its melodrama at least. But I have to admit, the show was at its best in season 1, and I think I know why- Kreese is just too much.

Martin Kove is a lot of fun as him, and I do appreciate that this season has been trying to find more shading to the character, but Kreese just adds too much of a wrench into a show that honestly was working just fine when it was about Johnny and Daniel. Those are the show's real triumphs, the fact that William Zabka and Ralph Macchio are still so good at their roles and have excellent chemistry. My favorite episodes tend to be the ones that pair them up together.

I'm also still not very impressed with Robbie as a character. He's just a flat pretty boy with a bad streak, and he drives the show to a halt when he isn't paired with one of the better characters. I'll also say that I did admire that the show was giving Sam some worthwhile development, but the fact is that her actress just isn't very good. Meanwhile, I think Tory's actress is pretty decent, but I don't buy her character.

[TheDisneyPlayhouse]

I've only seen the first Episode of Cobra Kai. I'm generally not very into Live-Action shows admittedly (With some exceptions), though I liked the first Episode of the show, so I do plan to continue watching it

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Invincible had a pretty solid premiere, IMO, though I'm not sure it was such a good idea to have one of the big reveal moments come at the end of the first episode instead of after maybe three or four. It worked a bit better in the comic since they took a bit more time to establish a status quo first to make the turn mean a bit more. That said, structurally the show makes a lot of story-telling improvements over the comic, so I can't complain too much.