It's ok for a plot to take the whole season because attention needs to rotate through the cast. Hell, sometimes two seasons is fine if plotted out with care. Seasons are anywhere from 12-18 episodes on Network tv, it's possible to outline for the full season and make it balanced. The number of episodes is known before filming, for an established show like 911 there are repetitive writers. Have writer meetings months before filming, a rough outline for each episode, talk about the character arcs and how they can be handled. That way all writers have the same world view. Balance can be created.
This is possible. It takes organization and a plan but the payoff would be amazing to watch.
As a person who has watched a lot of tv, it has to improve. Stop relying on shock and death and sex to make things interesting.
And please stop sucking the fun and light out of everything. A drama can still be a drama balanced with some humor.
This is in regard to this post, and became a monster so I’m putting it in a new post to save the other thread’s op.
Yes, I will agree with part of this version of your post:
There is no reason Catra should have remained as static as she did throughout canon; other media has provided excellent templates on how it could have been achieved.
But I am going to fiercely argue against the mentality fueling your reasons why.
This rant got long, so there’s going to be a cut.
It’s also stream of consciousness, so please bear with me.
@1023sstuff or anyone else willing to ask for clarifications of points, please do.
I’m not going to hold a single person responsible for Season 5 making air in the state it did, because television is never made in a vacuum by one single individual.
But here’s someone I’d put more blame about SPoP reaching air in the state it did instead of Nate.
(we’re talking single digits of percentage, but it’s still more)
Chuck Austen was co-showrunner on SPoP from season 2 onwards, according to Wikipedia.
He was in his late 50s when he started work on SPoP for season 2, and had two other notable television projects under his belt at that time, including being one of the producers for Season 1 of Steven Universe.
Nate, on the other hand, was not prepared for being a showrunner.
Having read his Memoir “The Fire Never Goes Out” makes that abundantly clear, with the tiny hints he let himself be honest about.
And the lack of honesty was, in my interpretation, entirely fueled by his feelings of guilt and imposter syndrome, feeling obligated to fulfill the giant dreams of catching lightning in a bottle that had been placed on him, from a job offer that I’m sure everyone was telling him he was insane to reject.
I fully expect Dreamworks didn’t want Nate to make the next Steven Universe, by the way.
I think they wanted him to make the next My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
Nate was not prepared for that.
Let alone at that time of his own self-healing and understanding.
Remember: this is before he transitioned, and if I was reading the timeline of the memoir correctly he didn’t get his bipolar disorder diagnosis until part way through SPoP.
Nate, by all evidence I have, was not in a position to make a healthy depiction of recovery from abuse.
Because he, himself, was still learning what recovery meant for him.
This is not to say I 100% blindly believe Catra’s “on a silver platter, undergo extreme trauma get redemption for free” arc wasn’t wish fulfillment for Nate.
Because I don’t know him.
But I also wouldn’t be surprised if people who do know him do believe that.
Nevertheless…
That’s the story of one person, swimming in trauma, and that last part I can say with full confidence.
That explains some of Catra’s arc, and a fair bit of the snowball that came afterwards.
But that does not explain Season 5 making it to air.
Someone.
Should.
Have stopped this.
Someone should have supported Nate, helping ease the burden of being showrunner.
I don’t know if no one did, although Chuck Austen coming on board strongly suggests people at Dreamworks did try.
I do not know how much Chuck knew of Nate’s fears regarding the show (which I am extrapolating here, and I could be wrong), let alone how much he did do to help Nate.
I am not blaming Chuck for not helping Nate in a manner I want, because I don’t know what went on and besides Chuck isn’t a therapist and doesn’t deserve to be put in that position.
I strongly, strongly suspect people with money wanted to ride the Catra train for clout, and their dollars won over the dollars of people who didn’t want a huge lesbian romance in a cartoon on their resume.
And I suspect those people, fueled by past successes such as Avatar and Steven Universe and MLP: FiM pushed for Nate to be able to achieve his vision.
And people who knew better should have stopped that.
And it didn’t happen.
And I don’t know who to blame, because I was not there.
I don’t even blame Chuck, I repeat in all honesty, because I can’t see how a guy of his background could have made a difference.
But I’d still place the showrunner with 25+ more years of life experience and any experience in creating television as more (single digits of percentage) responsible for Season 5 making it to air in the state it was than the under 30 year old uncloseted trans man who was mere years into treatment for bipolar disorder.
I want a world where someone other than Nate was responsible for crafting the timeline and events of Catra’s redemption arc.
But I do not fucking blame Nate for us living in this one as though it was his intention all along.
Now, if Nate still thinks Season 5 was acceptable in 2040 as a 50 year old, then I’ll had different opinions.
I took Tim's comments to mean "next steps were engagement and we didn't want it to be offscreen so we broke them up so they can get engaged at the end of the season" anyways I'm clowning.
Welcome to the funhouse. It's great to have you here. We have a lot of fun.
Ironically, GOT’s D & D make Outlander’s Show Runners look really good!
As many in the Outlander fandom know, a number of the most outspoken Outlander haters recently noisily left our fandom in favor of GOT.
Well, in the last few GOT episodes, the one thing that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have done for the Outlander fandom is made Ron D. Moore, Maril Davis,Toni Graphia, and Matt Roberts look pretty good in terms of their ability to adapt novels to TV!
