#the 100 mess

[jennyboom21]

Wait wait wait

Mel is at Pride with Aaryn Zech?!? Is this true?!?

[thebastardofgloucester]

I just wanted to say I loved your post about how much the 100 s3 sucked. I absolutely love more indepth analysis and I think we need more of that on this site, especially in the 100 fandom (or former t100 fandom), because there is SO much badness to write about. Keep up the good work man :)

I’m kinda pleased this post has caught on, as I’m pretty sure I was boring my own dash to death (the handful of people on it familiar with the 100 had dumped it for a range of reasons). But I’ve been trying to understand why Game of Thrones remains so highly rated (the last episode of the previous season received a fucking Emmy despite featuring the immortal words ‘you want a good girl but you need bad pussy’ - which might honestly be the nadir of modern TV writing), and the similar, if more limited, success its aspiring little brother has achieved made me think more about recent unfortunate trends in tv storytelling.

I should add, one reblogger pointed to ‘24′ for its role in normalizing torture-as-drama, and I’m kicking myself for forgetting that. Thanks FOX.

I’m even further out of date with GoT than I am with the 100 (I haven’t watched a full episode since 3x07, but out of morbid curiosity I’m quite familiar with how things have gone from clips and recaps), but if you are in the mood for more roasting of shallow and infantile storytelling, I’d recommend FandomFollowing’s The Fanwankers podcast. They actually touched upon JRoth’s bullshit and the Lexa issue in a previous episode. I haven’t been this engaged in GoT for years, and these guys get the credit/blame.

[thebastardofgloucester]

why do you think it's obvious jasper was supposed to die?

iirc, devon bostick posted something about saying his goodbyes that the fandom caught onto mid-season. jasper’s ptsd seemed to be building to the point where he was suicidal. It’s my understanding (I haven’t actually watched the whole finale) that the editing surrounding Jasper’s last scene is really choppy, and I can’t find it right now, but someone argued really convincingly that the big shock death of the episode was supposed to be Jasper shooting himself when the CoL was destroyed (it would help explain why Christopher Larkin and Javier G-M, among others, talked about how triggering and brutal the finale was, when what was aired was downright mild by comparison to the last stretch of episodes.  I think a lot of stuff got cut out in response to the furor around the mid-season character deaths and torture porn, and I’m pretty sold on Jasper’s death being one of them.  

[thebastardofgloucester]

ironically, I think that this season of the 1OO was ‘iconic’, in the sense that it was in so many ways emblematic of the deeply flawed and shallow approach to storytelling that Game of Thrones and its ilk has unleashed upon the TV landscape because despite its objective shortcomings it has been a critical and ratings dynamo. 

I’m wracking my brain trying to think of other really successful shows that employed that approach to the point of avoiding more coherent writing and characterization before GOT became a hit, and honestly not much is coming to mind. Whedon is known for, among other things, killing off characters for shock value, but anyone honestly appraising his work would admit that complex character and thematic arcs are just as much a staple of his work. Shows kill people off for dumb reasons all the time, and have done since I can remember, but I think there was usually an understanding from the audience and critics that, except in certain cases, it was usually a sign of desperation and stagnation. Now, killing off  a secondary character or maiming a main in each episode is worthy of praise for some reason, even if there are still very clear divisions between ‘expendable’ mains (i.e., not straight and white, and in a lot of cases, not men) and those who are ‘safe’ for anyone who watches a lot of media. 

GoT’s not entirely to blame for that - but I would argue that the idea that casual cruelty and gore is now seen as something for shows to include as a matter or course lies somewhere at D&Ds feet, though to be more specific, it’s derived from pay channels programming (Spartacus, the Sopranos, hell, even Band of Brothers) that existed well before GoT, but until then didn’t attain the same cultural resonance to the point where other shows rushed to copy it. Some of that is changing standards of network censorship, but some of it is an idea of what creatively works and what does not work. 

EDIT: One of the rebloggers mentioned ‘24,’ specifically in terms of normalizing torture-as-drama, and that is absolutely accurate. It also had an extremely high attrition rate for non Jack Bauer characters, though I don’t know how influential it was in that regard outside the specific genre. It definitely deserves mention regardless, it’s just been literally a decade since I watched it. 

The finale of 1OO was surprisingly bloodless (save some bizarre grossness with Ontari) - but it’s pretty obvious that is was massively hacked about in the editing process, almost certainly as a result of the feedback from 3x07 - I’d really be curious to know if the writers got pressure from above to be less of a PR nightmare with their wanton violence and triggering content under a TV-14 rating. Beyond the obviously ADR-ed scenes between Lexa and Clarke, it’s fairly obvious Jasper was originally meant to die. 

This season was, taken as a whole, from the perspective of storytelling, thoroughly awful - a horrible misuse or outright waste of a variety of interesting plot threads (the Ice Nation, Raven’s disability, MW characterization fallout, Lincoln’s entire character, etc), a deeply derivative and uninspired AI plot with holes you could fly a nuke through, the characterization bloodbath that was the Arkadia colonization 3a plot, which basically kept the non-Clarke/Murphy regulars busy while things were rushed like hell in Polis, the way the show cut the legs out from under itself by killing Lexa and Lincoln and found itself unable to narratively replace them. Luna’s entire existence was a waste of time and a narrative dead end unless she comes back next season; even if she does, it wasn’t worth a two episode diversion when you’re supposed to be moving towards a climatic endgame. The Haunted Ark episode was blatantly filler. And the ALIE plot, which steadily took over the show as it did the cast, was really underwhelming, never growing from a standard ‘bad AI’ story to anything more layered or morally nuanced (no, the illogical melting reactors asspull does not. count.). All the while, the characters suffering the most were minorities, but that’s nothing new. That said, the show took its homophobia, racism, internalized misogyny, and ableism to new and exciting depths over the middle portion of the season.

But the finale is getting praise, from sources other than sycophants like IGN’s Eric Goldman, who’s yet to apologize for a really tasteless rape joke. There’s a new formula in TV, and at least for now, even if you crash and burn your way along it, it will get you positive writeups. 

We’ll see how long that lasts. Social media has turned into a PR nightmare for the show, with all its engagement initiatives turned back upon them by rightly furious fans. The 1OOs ratings plummeted after the premier, briefly buoyed up by the influx of Clexa shippers (some of whom came back for the finale, but an unadjusted 1.33 is nothing to write home about). They won’t get that next year. 

[thebastardofgloucester]

someone used ‘we seem to be made to suffer; it’s our lot in life’ unironically for a 1OO gifset and I burst out laughing oh my god

[yesbothways]

Is anyone still watching The 100?  Is Lexa “back” yet?  

[teainthegarden]

howaboutjude replied to your post “i just re-blacklisted everything* to do with theloo, even my fave...”

the show doesn't make sense anymore, it's like they aren't even trying :(

i know :/ they have really fucked up everything. it would be funny if it wasn’t so painful :D

[teainthegarden]

drusill-a replied to your post “i just re-blacklisted everything* to do with theloo, even my fave...”

i will probably stop watching after the season finale (lexa will be in this episode, i must watch it). i'm 100% sure blorke is an endgame and it makes me cringe. how has a show with so much potential become such a disaster? :( it's sad.

yeah i think i too will watch the finale, just to see clexa for the last time, though i’m pretty sure part of lexa’s role in the episode is to tell clarke to move on or smth so that season 4 can be about blorke lmao. it’s disgusting how they are already pimping blorke and how clarke is not really allowed to grieve lexa. there’s a handful of characters i really love but it’s not enough for me to continue watching the show, especially since the writers are ruining their characterisations to move the plot forward and making female characters props to male characters and killing poc characters. i seriously want the eternal sunshine treatment to erase this show from my memory.