The Walking Dead: I'll TELL you how, buster.
Because I finally watched the fourth season of The Walking Dead, and I never got around to talking about the third season, and despite the record evident on this very journal, I do actually want (and even sometimes try!) to finish things I said I would might. (Although there's, like, A LOT to talk about for the series overall before delving into
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Firstly: I love your brain like whoa. Dunno where to start... how bout just getting the YOU'RE WATCHING THE SHOW WRONG, PEOPLE bits out of the way?
If their development sometimes appears cyclical it's because they're on a downward spiral
This. As we've discussed, the 'badly written/no character development' criticism BAFFLES me. Yes, I had the benefit of bingewatching. Yes, that makes it easier to see arcs and throughlines. But people. This is basic stuff.
I'm not raging at casual viewers here, or even really fandom, much as it frustrates me, because fandom's gon' fandom. It's the people writing (at least sometimes for money) reviews/articles intended for broad consumption.
Even if the devolution arc weren't SO LITERAL (which it is), as you say, we know how to obsessively track and discuss the most minute details of our week-by-week shows if we believe it's worth our while. We should reasonably expect reviewers'/mainstream ( ... )
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the 'badly written/no character development' criticism BAFFLES me. Yes, I had the benefit of bingewatching. Yes, that makes it easier to see arcs and throughlines. But people. This is basic stuff....
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL BUT NOT PARTICULARLY SUBTLE STORY CONSTRUCTION, PEOPLE.
Right? ALL THIS. I've been going trying to figure out just what exactly the fuck, because ... what exactly the fuck? And I CANNOT nail it down. (Although it's mixing into some other wider thoughts on storytelling that'll probably become yet another post, although thankfully this time NOT about TWD or anything specific.) Like, it feels like some kind of freak combination of factors, reinforcing each other. Something to do with expectations and the wider context and the public conversation that's ( ... )
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Right. Deep breaths. Because YES. THIS:
comparing it to other Acclaimed Shows.
to me, it feels like people coming from a Rembrandt self-portrait, and then dismissing a Van Gogh for being inferior.EXACTLY. OMG. I actually think that's a perfect analogy. I am so unbelievably sick of, and bored with, the reductive comparative criticism TWD is invariably saddled with. I mean, comparative criticism is fine, in its place, and it's an interesting and valid form of criticism. But it's not the ONLY form of criticism. If anything though, it is also, in my opinion (ha!), an even MOAR hyper-subjective form of criticism because it's not just evaluating a piece of art against what that art is trying to be, but against art with completely OTHER intentions and goals, which consequently means a reviewer is applying their own taste to two completely separate things and judging between them, ( ... )
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So, continuing Cracked's stellar roll, fucking David Wong has got up on his soap box to lecture about how TWD hates humans. I wasn't going to read it because OMFG, but then later in a somewhat more tolerant mood I gave it a go because Wong is frequently insightful - and then he occasionally misses the point so hard I get secondhand whiplash. THIS WOULD BE ONE OF THAT. By a few paragraphs in, all I was wondering was whether he actually watches the show, or just wanted to preach away on his own hobbyhorse. I ended up skimming, trying to find content that would change that impression, but when the first two subtitles are #4. When Shit Goes Wrong, Only the Badass Killing Machines Will Survive and #3. Communities Are Cool and All, but in a Crisis It's Every Man for Himself and the content of those points only veer off even more wrong- ( ... )
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