I think this is definitely a massive improvement from S3, which I personally still liked but could tell it was the weakest season Dragons Rising has had. All the split up groups plots were interesting in different ways, and seemed to have equal amount of focus.
As most people know, S3 seemed to have a good bit of Executive Meddling from LEGO. Basically if you weren't aware Thunderfang was basically inserted in because the LEGO designers created him for a set and LEGO wanted the next season to center around him. Even Pixal coming back in S3 was apparantly mandated by LEGO too because they put her in a set.
I don't have the inside scoop of how the relationship between the writers of the show and LEGO go, but with how well this season has been so far, I have to wonder if maybe they did a compromise: "If we follow your lead for S3, let us have more free reign for S4."
If you look at the writers of the seasons, S4P1 has the most episodes written by Kevin and Doc (5 episodes) since S1P1 (where they wrote 6 - or 5 if you count the Premiere as one two-part episode)
If this does get picked up as a full show, I hope Disney is open to going outside the Disney umbrella (current and former) for the guest stars.
With this special, they had to credit Sabrina's record label, so I could see a situation with Disney wanting to only having guests that would take the least amount of rights and licenses to bother with.
I've seen people hoping for a David Corenswet episode for the fun connection to the original show having a Christopher Reeves episode. But with Disney owning Marvel, would they allow one of their properties to basically promote their rival? And even if they are open to it, would WB (or whoever owns them at that point) give them the permission to use the names? (Though I could see with the Muppets type of humor, them making that into a running gag of the episode of them not being allowed to reference Superman)
Stranger Things 5 Missed Opportunity (but why I think they went where they did):
While I think I did like Holly's storyline and dynampic with Max, I do think Holly's side of things should have been a mystery just like S1 Will was, but to counteract that have the side story could have been flashbacks to Will in the Upside Down throughout the season, basically showing S1 from his point of view. That would be a parrallel to S1, answer questions from S1 on how he contacted Joyce, and could show that Will is likely thinking about those moments now that Holly's been taken.
But here's why I think they might have went with Holly's story the way they did: There's two things I'm thinking
Sadie - Maybe they wanted Sadie to be able to have more to do, while still having her in the coma,
Jamie - I saw something that I partle agree with, there's a chance that this plotline might have just been a way so Jamie could play a character not in full prothestics for Vecna
With starting S5 with an 18 month time skip, it feels like we're missing a section of the show and that got me thinkings.
With reading somewhere that an original idea for the season was supposed to start right after S4's ending, and then do a time skip during the season and then changed it (most likely due to the writers strike delays making it take longer to start filming).
With deciding to start with the time skip, I wonder if they ended up taking story beats that were planned for the 2nd half of the season and adapted and pushed them to the first half, making them need to fill in the gaps for what became V2...
V2 feels like a lot of filler moments made to fill up time and just reusing elements from the past: Will being captured (sidelining him so he doesn't use his powers), will being a spy (barely) setting up an attack at a major building (Hawkins Lab/hospital), Max escaping Vecna's mind with "Running Up That Hill". Then situations like Holly escaping, getting captured again, and having to escape again, lots of time taken up by characters explaining the lore...
So far this season will end up having 2 guest cast members that were previously starring cast in a Disney+ book adaptation that was taken off the service:
Tamara Smart (Thalia) was in the 2020 Artemis Fowl movie, and Kristen Schaal (Tempest) was in the Mysterious Benedict Society series: (Pictures below)
While I did like the first season, I think this has been a major improvement. Tyson fits in perfectly to the main cast, getting to see more of Grover and Clarisse's plots on the side is a fun bonus of the adaptation.
One thing is they are definiely nailing the humor of the books so well this season much more than the first season. The first season was funny but I think they were too hesitant to go full book-humor because of potential mood whiplash for new fans. But now that they've gotten comfortable with the world and have the new fans it's like "Now we're really here".
I also do wonder if they're potentially amping up the humor this season to prepare for S3, where basically every actor has been saying in every interview "It's much darker, much bleaker", etc...
The Blockbuster joke in E3 felt like something that would have definitely been in the book to me at least.
I know this is likely just a coincidence, but seeing on how both these shows are on my mind because of their revival seasons, I just noticed something interesting.
Gumball's younger design (when Anais is born) shirt has a similar color scheme as Phineas' concept/pilot design:
One thing I've really enjoyed about The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball
In the first couple seasons of TAWOG, the show had a much more episodes centered around the core family, which it sort of drifted away from as the show went on and brought more characters in, and ended up being more focused on the town with a few family based episodes here and there.
TWWWOG seems to be bringing back that family dynamic focus. Of this first half of this season, about half of the episodes are all based around some parts of the family's dynamic, and half are school based.
After the last Dan Povenmire screenshot/short tease about upcoming episode...
I'm really hoping they don't overdo the "Hey, remember this joke from the original run!" based episodes. They already had a 2 segment story arc out of the Buford mold joke, and now this croquet episode.
As someone who was hesitant about if this was really needed and felt like Dan & Swampy just going back because their new stuff wasn't clicking , I'm glad to say that I really enjoyed the first batch of episodes.
It really does feel like it just continues straight on from when it ended, got a couple meta "We're back" jokes in the first episode, but if you were watching the show for the first time, you could just go straight here and be none the wiser that there was an entire decade between episodes.
The only real change I've noticed in the formula is I think they're substituing the lead up to the boys projects for more action based sequences in the climax that the original show used to save for 22 minute episodes, or specials. My best guess is because having worked on more action-focused shows with Milo and H&G, they decided they wanted to bring that aspect into this show as well.
After thinking on it some more, I think the reason it felt rushed was that it was likely Russell trying to tell a planned season story in less than 20 minutes or so and sort of force it to connect to just this season.
With the revelations that everything from Ruby, Belinda, and The Doctor stepping back on the UNIT set was part of the reshoots in February, I think this is likely what Russell was planning or something similar
After the scene in the TARDIS, they would come out and celebrate winning, with that leaked club scene image. Then as a leak suggested, we see Susan watching. Then S3 is set up to be The Doctor looking for Rogue, Susan, and potentially Poppy (maybe at the end of the finale Belinda does remember somehow and wants to get her back)
So, we have S3 with The Doctor and Belinda, and maybe Ruby all together searching for them all, then the finale would have them come back to the present, see someone's missing and The Doctor has to fix the timeline by regenerating, then reveal we've been watching the time-shifted timeline the whole time.
Potentially even the Jodie moment was a leftover from a potential multi-doctor christmas special with her to end Ncuti's run.
I think Russell and the crew even after having filmed the reshoots were still hoping there was a chance that Disney was going to renew before they had to finalize the episode, and were hoping that this ending would be the alternate never spoken off ending.
Doctor Who: I think the showrunner style has to change
With how much pressure that must be to be the head decision on where stories go, I think it would work much better if they go to having two co-showrunners. The Classic show essentially did that with the producer and script editor working together (to varying results of course..)
I just don't think in this day and age, it works to have one person solely in charge of where the story goes. With Co-Showrunners, they would be able to bounce ideas off each other, and shoot down ideas they think wouldn't work
Or another suggestion, they could do something similar to what The Simpsons now sometimes does for the last couple seasons One of The Simpsons showrunners, whenever he's in charge of an episode, he gets another writer to basically be an episodic showrunner, tackling the showrunner duties for that episode, sometimes it's simply the writer of the episode, sometimes it's another writer from the team.
Doctor Who's version could be something like, letting the episode writers take complete creative control over their episodes while whoever the showrunner is just checks off on it at the end, and focuses on the executive side of things.
While not explained well, I actually think there's a chance that we (me included) have the ending implications reversed
The episode makes it seem like Belinda's life has been fully rewritten but after seeing someone else say something I think it's actually the opposite.
The Doctor says that time has shifted in one degree, with one person - Poppy - missing. Maybe the reveal is actually supposed to be implying that the entire season has taken place in this shifted timeline where Poppy didn't exist, and the fourth wall screen shattering was The Doctor going back to the actual reality...
Long post, because I'm tired of seeing the negativity for it everywhere, even though I know this isn't going to change anyone's mind, I needed to get it out.
As someone not nostalgic for the original, I watched the remake for the first time and then watched the original, and I really think people are really overreacting to the changes for making it a more grounded film
I think people are taking the ohana phrase way too literally. Do you really think the message of the original is “You can never leave your family ever” I really think the remake did a good job on keeping the saying but expanded it to saying that it also means you need to not forget to take care of yourself as well.
People are treating the ending like Nani just abandoned Lilo at Social Services and left, but no that’s not what happened at all. Lilo and the neighbors all agreed they wanted Nani to be able to have a life of her own, and Nani was the one to be the most hesitant about it. And she has a stolen portal gun, to literally instantaneously visit her anytime, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to not give the message in a 2025 film “Yeah, a barely 18 year old should have full custody of her 6 year old sister because of a family saying.” This lets them be close but also doesn't put the pressure on Nani for needing to have custody over her.
The original movie, Nani’s side of things isn’t really explored much at all. We see her mad at Lilo and trying to get a job, but the job montage is just basically for comedic Stitch moments and don’t really get Nani’s perspective much at all. The original film focuses more on Lilo & Stitch’s friendship. and Jumba and Pleakley’s comedic failed attempts to get Stitch. The remake decided to go for a more grounded tone and give Nani just as much, if not a little more, focus as Lilo.
Also, I understand the reasoning for Gantu’s removal. Watching the original, the Gantu finale feels like a “Oh, shoot, we’re a 2000’s sci-fi movie. We need a spaceship chase climax”, where a pretty generic big bad comes in and is defeated in probably less than 20 minutes. With the film making everything more grounded, having Jumba - Stitch’s creator - be the villain does make sense narratively speaking. I think people are also confusing the original film Jumba to entire franchise Jumba he ends up becoming.
Jumba in the original film does exactly the same things up until the third act with Gantu, talk about tearing Stitch apart, willing to hurt Lilo. When destroying the house, he even literally says “Hiding behind your little friend won’t work anymore”. He literally only changes sides because Stitch asks him to, which immediately turns him into a comedic character, completely forgiving him for everything else.
Also don’t forget, there was more than one movie in the original series. With having that foreknowledge now, maybe there are already plans to make Gantu into a future villain for a sequel expanding his role and having Jumba’s heel-face turn happen more gradually.
