The Ends of Various TV Shows (and a movie)
Apr. 7th, 2025 09:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroSuperman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 4) – The last gasp of DC/CW shows. The network definitely didn’t want to give them this season and screwed them hard, but they pulled out a decent finale anyway. They only got 10 episodes, but the first two of this plot arc were last season when Lex Luthor got out of prison, created Doomsday, and sent him to kill Superman. This season danced carefully around the fact they could only use most of their former regulars for an episode or two (the Irons family, the Cushing family, and Sam Lane) by containing their plotlines to single episodes and giving them other places to be. Interestingly, it ended on a bunch of the same notes as Supergirl (Clark revealing his identity, a wedding, almost all of the supporting cast from previous seasons returning), but then dedicated the last third of the final episode to Clark and Lois’s post-series lives and eventual deaths. This show did a very good job presenting Clark and Lois as good parents and good people who generally made good choices but weren’t perfect; and presenting a Superman who was a genuinely solid interpretation of the character. And a Lex Luthor who genuinely deserved to be flung into orbit.
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 7) – Aaravos was freed from his prison and able to enact his grand scheme for world destruction; but more importantly Callum and Reyla are finally a couple. The showrunners finally reach their actual intended length and conclusion with a season for each magic type; but the pacing for this show has consistently been an issue regardless of Netflix’s shenanigans. They spool out plot threads and then don’t follow them; they imply situations are going to be high-drama which then aren’t; and they’ve always been decent at writing entertaining individual scenes but pretty terrible about the connective tissue between them. This show was entertaining and the worldbuilding had a bunch of cute ideas, but it wanted to be Avatar and it never got there. And though this wraps up the main plot, it leaves enough hanging threads (Claudia is still out there, Aaravos can return in seven years) for a sequel series if they get another order. I’m frankly okay with just assuming that in seven years, Aaravos re-incorporates into the middle of a magical trap that Callum spent the interim setting up; and then the cast gets back inventing new pastries and discovering how many fingers half-elves will have.
What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 6) – As I noted in previous seasons, this show does best when it remembers to be an episodic sitcom and puts the vampires in wacky situations. We get a few more entertaining, wacky situations! This season got 11 episodes, with the last being the big finale that remembered that in order to be where they are and being doing what they’re doing…the vampires basically can’t change or grow. Or at least they always have to revert to status quo—they’re a sitcom family by nature and by supernatural curse. Guillermo has grown and his role with the vampires (and his life outside them) has changed and will continue to change; but if we checked back on the four vampires in 50 years they’d be running in the same circles and having the same arguments. (Which is the same message the movie managed in under two hours, it just took them six seasons to get there.)
Chance (2002 film) - In 2002, fresh out of Buffy, Amber Benson wrote, directed and starring in an indie film. It had an extremely limited release and I had forgotten all about it, but then spotted a link to where it had been uploaded to Youtube. It’s...not good. It’s random and extremely sophomoric; the kind of “elevated realism” slice-of-life drama, narrated by the main character directly to the audience, that gets written by many a 20-something. And as is common, it’s peppered with profanity and sexual material that’s clearly intended to be edgy. (I might alternately title it, “Clarissa Explains The Fuck Out Of It.”) Only, in this case, the 20-something in question had the ability to crowdfund the movie and get her moderately-famous friends (James Marsters and Andy Hallet, most notably) to co-star in it. But it was clearly made on a shoestring budget with basically no rehearsal. Even Benson’s line readings (of lines SHE WROTE) are awkward; it wasn’t a great script to begin with and the bad acting makes it worse. I think there’s an argument to be made that it was saying something about sexual politics in the 90s, but BOY that hasn’t aged well.
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 7) – Aaravos was freed from his prison and able to enact his grand scheme for world destruction; but more importantly Callum and Reyla are finally a couple. The showrunners finally reach their actual intended length and conclusion with a season for each magic type; but the pacing for this show has consistently been an issue regardless of Netflix’s shenanigans. They spool out plot threads and then don’t follow them; they imply situations are going to be high-drama which then aren’t; and they’ve always been decent at writing entertaining individual scenes but pretty terrible about the connective tissue between them. This show was entertaining and the worldbuilding had a bunch of cute ideas, but it wanted to be Avatar and it never got there. And though this wraps up the main plot, it leaves enough hanging threads (Claudia is still out there, Aaravos can return in seven years) for a sequel series if they get another order. I’m frankly okay with just assuming that in seven years, Aaravos re-incorporates into the middle of a magical trap that Callum spent the interim setting up; and then the cast gets back inventing new pastries and discovering how many fingers half-elves will have.
What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 6) – As I noted in previous seasons, this show does best when it remembers to be an episodic sitcom and puts the vampires in wacky situations. We get a few more entertaining, wacky situations! This season got 11 episodes, with the last being the big finale that remembered that in order to be where they are and being doing what they’re doing…the vampires basically can’t change or grow. Or at least they always have to revert to status quo—they’re a sitcom family by nature and by supernatural curse. Guillermo has grown and his role with the vampires (and his life outside them) has changed and will continue to change; but if we checked back on the four vampires in 50 years they’d be running in the same circles and having the same arguments. (Which is the same message the movie managed in under two hours, it just took them six seasons to get there.)
Chance (2002 film) - In 2002, fresh out of Buffy, Amber Benson wrote, directed and starring in an indie film. It had an extremely limited release and I had forgotten all about it, but then spotted a link to where it had been uploaded to Youtube. It’s...not good. It’s random and extremely sophomoric; the kind of “elevated realism” slice-of-life drama, narrated by the main character directly to the audience, that gets written by many a 20-something. And as is common, it’s peppered with profanity and sexual material that’s clearly intended to be edgy. (I might alternately title it, “Clarissa Explains The Fuck Out Of It.”) Only, in this case, the 20-something in question had the ability to crowdfund the movie and get her moderately-famous friends (James Marsters and Andy Hallet, most notably) to co-star in it. But it was clearly made on a shoestring budget with basically no rehearsal. Even Benson’s line readings (of lines SHE WROTE) are awkward; it wasn’t a great script to begin with and the bad acting makes it worse. I think there’s an argument to be made that it was saying something about sexual politics in the 90s, but BOY that hasn’t aged well.
