How Stories Could Have Been Better On Teen Wolf
A couple of years ago I wrote a season by season description of how I would have fixed the plotting (and sometimes characterization) of Teen Wolf and thought that I had already posted it, but apparently I had not. Spoilers for every season.
Season 1:
It was pretty good at doing what it was supposed to do, which was set up this world, but I can think of a few things that probably would have improved it a little bit and could have been done pretty easily.
1) So they make this big deal about how an alpha is stronger with a pack and Peter trying to get Scott to give in to him, but, except for a few lazy things towards the end of the season, Peter doesn’t seem to have any real desire to grow his pack. There could have easily been a through line of kids being given the bite and not surviving it. I don’t even think we get a reference to that possibility until Peter is offering Stiles the bite at the end of the season and mentions that he has a decent chance of surviving. It could also have fed into the second season with Derek not just making new wolves and Scott trying to talk them out of it, but also their racing to get a couple of wolves that Peter made in season 1 to pick sides.
2) When asked who killed the janitor in the school, Scott could have not thrown Derek under the bus. I get that Scott thought that it was safe to blame Derek because he thought Derek was dead and he and Stiles had kinda already tried to get him arrested for the murder of his sister so there was suspicion on him maybe, but they could have just as easily said they didn’t see who did it very clearly. It was night, the school was dark, things were happening fast. Scott and Stiles literally didn’t see what the Alpha was doing like half the time (probably because of the SFX budget). There was no reason to give any name. All they needed to do was say that someone was after them. This was really just a lazy excuse for the writers to keep Derek out of play for most of the rest of the season and to give Allison something to be suspicious about since Derek had claimed to be Scott’s friend in early episodes.
Season 2:
1) I actually don’t think that the last minute change of masters for the Kanima should have been a thing. I think it would have been much better if either Matt had stuck through to the end of the season (either continuing to be the master or both he and Jackson being paired Kanima by the end) or the Kanima problem was resolved just in time for Gerard’s final gambit.
2) I’m not saying that I would have completely disentangled the two plots (like I would have for some of the later seasons), but I think that the Gerard plot would have been better if he stayed closer to his plans in 6b and if they really must keep his desire to cure his cancer through the bite, then he did it through another form of extortion and then the hunters that he had been keying up to kill all shifters (and remember that he was the one that reinforced the decision that Allison’s mom had made to kill herself before she turned) would turn on him and take him out themselves. The pill container was a little too blatantly used as a Chekhov’s gun for too long. At first I actually thought it was somehow keeping him from turning into a werewolf (which also would have been a better way to go with his plot line), but setting it up for so long only for it to be used as a last minute way to poison him in the finale just felt a little bit sloppy.
3) I would have put a little more of an emotional tug of war between Scott and Derek over the new betas. They even put in a perfect set up for it in the episode where Derek was giving them the bite. Boyd said that he made the choice to get the bite because he idolized Scott, but they never really dealt with that again and the only one of these Betas that really leaned towards Scott of his own volition and not because Derek was trying to get Scott on side was Isaac (which was adorable when it happened in season 3). As an aside, I also think that what I said above about a side plot where we meet teens that Peter had tried to make into Betas in season one could be introduced in season 2 as well. Some of them survive and surface in season 2 and Scott and Derek try to get them to take help in their separate ways and thus try to grow their packs. Scott would even have extra motivation, because these are not kids who volunteered (theoretically after having gotten the terms and conditions) like Derek’s betas, but they would be kids who were thrust into this world only to find themselves with people trying to kill them, just like he had been in season 1.
4) I would have made Matt less obviously a creep early in the season. I mean, because of how creepy he was starting with his introduction he became a very obvious suspect for killer of the season and this would have been great if there were other suspects that were at least as much of creeps as he came off as or if it had turned out that he was not in fact the killer, but there wasn't and he was. They could have shown his interest in Allison without immediately demonstrating to us that he was a straight up stalker. They could have had him be curious about some of the weird things, but have him act like he was intrepid reporter curious and not paparazzi or blackmailer curious. I mean, sure let some of that slowly show up as the season develops, but it was in the first episode that he was in.
Season 3a:
There are a few ways that 3a could have gone differently.
1) The Alpha pack could have been it’s own thing separate from the Darach plot line. They could have originally started heading in the direction of Beacons hills because they had heard about Peter’s shenanigans from season 1 and then when they got closer they heard about Derek and Scott. Alternatively, they could have come specifically for Scott and/or Derek. Either way, since these early seasons of Teen Wolf really liked their season long mystery character, there could be one of the members of the pack that was doing stuff behind the scenes without us knowing who they are, but have it be obvious that it has to be someone besides the members of the Alpha pack that we have already met. This would give us more of a reason to have that whole Derek backstory episode, because it would actually let us meet whoever our mystery Alpha is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for a flashback episode, but, when it comes right down to it, nothing in that episode taught us anything that couldn’t have been given us modern day in one emotional breakdown about Derek’s sweetheart and/or an angry speech about Gerard being a dick from Deucalian. Introducing the mystery alpha as a character in that and then revealing someone we’ve already met in the season was them would work pretty well.
2) The Darach could have been it’s own separate thing from the Alpha pack plot line. Okay, I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly that other people were theorizing this at the time, but when we first got Derek’s blue-eyed origin story, I thought it was going to turn out that Jennifer Blake/The Darach was Paige. They were already kind of hinting that the Darach was someone who was left for dead in the wilderness and then they go and set up that Paige was killed by the roots of the druid tree and her body stashed in the woods and torn up to make it look like wild animals by Peter. On top of that, I was already thinking that Haley Webb and Madison McLaughlin had sort of a similar look. They could have had the whole Darach story line still be about powering up to get revenge, but it could have been against what was left of the Hale Pack. The first season was about Peter (driven mad from what it had taken for him to recover from the fire) gathering power and hunting down everyone who was even sort of connected to the fire. Lydia being something other than human had made her have a bad reaction to the bite and similarly Jackson, because of his circumstances, had not had a standard reaction to the bite. Season three could have been, Paige, having been kept alive but in excruciating pain by the Nemeton, becomes the Darach, but only fully recovers after all of the Hales are gone. When Laura returns, Peter recovers, and Derek starts putting together a new pack, she is driven to get back at them. They could even have her be torn about it as the season goes on because she’s starting to see Derek the way she used to, but she is still filled with all of the rage that she stewed in for (however many years). Again, it would give the flashback episode more relevance and would be a good way to tie Derek’s history to his present. Also, with this being the season directly following Allison’s mother killing herself after Derek bit her, they could do a pretty decent parallel plot line with Allison struggling to stay on side.
3) The two above plots could be combined into one. Derek is being peer pressured by Alphas again (just like when Peter convinced him to turn Paige) and you might remember that one of the Alpha pack is also the Alpha that helped Derek try to turn Paige. It would be kinda similar to the original plot, but the motive would be more personal to some of our familiar characters instead of these two sets of bad guys that were only really after each other, but Beacon Hills got caught in the middle.
4) I don’t think they should have killed Erica off. I don’t know what behind the scenes drama happened that they killed her off, but with how little they actually did with Cora during the season, I think that she was a last minute replacement for Erica because for whatever reason it was decided that Erica couldn’t come back. At least when they got rid of Cora and never brought her back, they left an opening for her to return.
5) I also think they should have found more to do with Cora (which given that she is a Hale would have worked great with the Paige is getting revenge on the Hale’s plot line). I know that she probably had to leave when she did because of Reign, but they also underutilized her while she was on the show. They made her a Hale in order to fast forward through most of the reasoning that she joined the New Hale pack and was accepted, but they didn’t really use her except as another body in most of her scenes.
Season 3b:
This is probably one of my least favorite seasons. It does introduce at least three characters that I really like, but I definitely started to have issues with the plot coherence.
1) More scenes with Scott and Isaac. If I remember correctly, Scott and Isaac were living together at this point. They seemed to be getting extremely close. Up to this point it seemed like Isaac was really loyal to Scott (read into that whatever you want), but except for a few scenes they stopped capitalizing on this dynamic during 3b.
2) No romantic Allison/Isaac. You might notice that, until this point, I was barely commenting on the interpersonal dramas and what worked or didn't work. I could have easily complained about the Allison and Jackson issues from season 1 or the fact that even before everyone knew about the moon issues, no one held a grudge about the Lydia/Scott thing past the one or two episodes. But I didn't because Allison was new and no one else had any real loyalty to each other (Stiles knew what the problem was and Jackson and Lydia, while close to each other in some ways, were also very transactional). However, Allison and Isaac not only seemed to have a very short build up, but it also is a girl who is portrayed to still essentially love her ex and a guy who up to this point has been Mr. Loyalty to the same ex. If it had been building up over a couple seasons, it had been longer since Scott and Allison had acted on their feelings at all (remember the scene in the closet in 3a) and it had been longer since Allison had actively tried to kill Isaac...but all of those things were pretty recent and honestly I think that both Chris Argent and Scott's reactions were pretty on point.
3) Honestly, if I were to have a say in this, either the Nogitsune plot line would have been done later in the series or Kira would have been introduced earlier. Cramming Kira moving to town, meeting everyone, learning about her powers, bonding with the pack and having to face off against an enemy tied to the supernatural half of her family all being crammed into one half season was a bit much. Allison got the equivalent treatment over two half sized seasons (three if you count Gerard's ties to Deucalion). Lydia had her equivalent stretched over five equivalent lengths of episodes (I count the Benefactor season as her Nogitsune).
4) There is no way that Scott McCall would force a shifter back into human form after nine years and then not keep track of her, but that is exactly what the show implied that he did when he drops Malia off at her dad's and then Stiles finds her in a mental institution more than a month later. I understand that they were already introducing a different new character as a major character this half season and they hadn't pruned back the cast list yet, but this would have been a good time to instead have her be a recurring character that isn't in on everything, but is just around sometimes in preparation for being more major the next season. They would later do something like this with Brett and Lori from Satomi's pack. Though they never became main characters, Brett and Lori showed up on several occasions and Liam seemed to keep in touch.
5) I'm not sure I would have made the Nogitsune so specifically take over Stiles, but, if I had, I would not have done that whole weird thing at the end where the Nogitsune puked up an entirely different Stiles body, but continued to look like Stiles and when the Nogitsune was gotten rid of it turned out that the clone body was going to be the real body from now on. That opens up so many questions that I don't want to go to the trouble of answering and that I know other writers aren't going to bother with. It felt like a cheap gimmick to get twenty more minutes out of a plot that was already feeling drawn out.
Season 4
1)More young Derek.
2)Less Kate and especially less Kate and Peter and no one would have called a Jaguar La Loba. I might have even separated the Deadpool and Berserker season more. When all was said and done, the Berserker stuff felt like it was shoved into the beginning and the end of a more interesting season and putting Scott into the berserker body for one episode, while interesting in theory, felt like a pale echo of putting the villain into Stile's body the season before and they could have at least had Scott outside of the Berserker armor be Berserk for a little bit if they really wanted to do it.
3) Keep Isaac for another season, because I really want to know what interaction between Isaac and Malia or Isaac and Liam would have been like. Also, it was heavily implied that Argent took Isaac with him wherever they had gone and Argent is in a pretty decent amount of this (and future) seasons with no reference to what happened to Isaac.
4) I would have either not continued the romantic/sexual aspect of Stiles and Malia into this season or I would have ended it when she found out about Peter. She still would have returned to the pack and remained close to Stiles, possibly even literally sleeping with him (puppy pile), but she would not be his girlfriend. This is not just because I would prefer her with several different characters (I would, but I wouldn't do anything with any of those at this point either). This is because throughout their supposed romantic relationship, Stiles never stops actively talking about how he wants to be with Lydia and this is a continued problem for several of the relationships on this show and Malia deserves better.
Season 5a:
1)Too many cooks (villains) in the kitchen (season). Someone is going to make the argument that for most of the season Theo (and, to a lesser extent, the other chimeras) were part of the Dread Doctors as bad guys and that the Dread Doctors brought about the Beast/Man of Gevaudan as another Chimera, but Theo had his own motives that very much involved protecting himself from the Dread Doctors and the Beast way too early in the season for him not to be counted as his own thing and the Beast straight up slaughtered the Dread Doctors. Also, I remember Theo and his manipulating his way into two packs (a temporary pass into the sixth ranger slot in the McCall pack and the control of the chimera pack), and I definitely remembered the Dread Doctors experimenting on genetic chimeras, and I kind of remembered that there was a beast of Gevaudan in present day, but I totally conflated Sebastien Valet with Der Soldat and the vision of Der Soldat actually stuck, while Sebastien Valet did not, I think because he was just one more face shoved in at the last minute of a season that already had (Valack, Theo, Tracy, The Hellhound, The Dread Doctors, Donovan, Lucas, Josh, Gerard, and La Bete). If we had been given Sebastien's backstory towards the beginning of the season rather than after we had already had La Bete as a mystery teen for several episodes it might have worked out, but leaving him till the last minute just made him ironically unmemorable.
2) My solution for the Dread Doctors' story line, completely take out the whole 'one of the Dread Doctors was Sebastien's boyfriend' motive. The Dread Doctors' motivation becomes what it always should have been, they are trying to perfect chimeraism because they had gotten far enough in their experimentation to make themselves what they were, but it took far too much maintenance keeping their only partially successful upgrades for themselves from breaking down like the other chimeras (they could have brought any of the chimeras back if they wanted to as evidenced by what Theo did to make his pack) and the search for the perfect chimera and La Bete (if we still want to bring in La Bete) is because La Bete De Gevaudan was near un-killable because of how quickly it regenerated tissue and so they are trying to recreate the species (the Beast but not the Man) with the plan to splice it's abilities into themselves once they have a stable specimen.
3) Theo's search for a pack to call his own can stay mostly the same, but without any sort of implication that him trying to break up Scott's pack is in any way part of the Dread Doctors' plans. It was kind of discarded by the end of the season, but it was kind of implied in the original version that the Dread Doctors were getting something out of Theo screwing with the McCall pack other than just keeping them out of the way, but I think it would go much better if they just stick to, as an unnaturally made Werewolf, Theo doesn't have a pack and he covets Scott's. He can still sneak in and purloin the Chimera pack when he gets fed up with trying to steal Scott's True Alpha status, but other than that he's just another one of the Dread Doctors' only partially successful experiments. A stepping stone. He's not working for them, but he is aware of them and maybe their plans and he is trying to stay alive.
Season 6a:
1) I would have kept on top of the “when someone is taken by the hunt everyone forgets them” element. They definitely stuck with this for Stiles and they kind of delved into it for the guy that Corey and Mason saw getting taken in the library, but by the time Corey got taken they were just straight up ignoring this in favor of rushing to the end of the plot. One of my favorite parts of this whole season is the episode where Scott, Malia, and Lydia are going over all of the plot holes that are opened up by no one remembering Stiles and this leading them to realizing that somebody is missing. I think they should have continued to have moments like this throughout the season, they can fast forward through them more as they get practice working those things out and as they start to learn about (I think they call them artifacts), but the moments where they have to work it out should still be there.
2) If I were to keep Douglas' connection to the Dread Doctors at all, it would be to have him been one of them who had been taken and escaped from the Wild Hunt while trying harness their powers for the Dread Doctors and they had been protecting him until they were killed at the end of season 5 and now he had to find a way to protect himself until he could take control of the hunt.
3) Either way, I would have made it so that Douglas escaped from the hunt and the reason he was taking that bit of brain from all his victims was to disguise himself from the Wild Hunt and he was also the reason that the Wild Hunt was sticking around, because they could tell he was nearby, but they couldn't work out exactly where and so they were just going to take everyone.
4) I would have had a member of the pack taken every other episode until it was just Scott and one other remaining (Lydia would be a good option, since she is kind of the pack mom or Malia would also be a good choice since she has repeatedly shown signs of abandonment fears). This would again play on Scott's fears of losing everybody, and it would compound it by making it so he knew that he had lost people, but he couldn't even really remember who he lost. It also would have made the Wild Hunt seem like more of an imminent threat if anyone other than Stiles (and Peter offscreen) from our familiar characters were taken before the point where it was just the whole town being taken.
Season 6b:
1) I don't think I would have had the witch-hunt fear be a supernatural thing. The rest of it could remain more or less the same, but the fact that it carries on beyond the series is actually a better plotline if there wasn't a supernatural entity that caused the hunter explosion in the first place. Especially one that they beat by the end of the series. It also would have felt less like all of the episodes were just repeating themselves if Scott reasoning with people would occasionally make traction, which was nearly impossible with the supernatural fear influence but might have been doable to a degree if it was just normal prejudice and fear response.
