Are their any mbav episodes that you grew more or less found of over time? have your opinions flipped on any episodes or specific character moments over the years?
AMAZING QUESTION! I definitely have grown more fond of certain episodes overtime, like "Evil Car" and "Flushed" specifically. Originally, I thought the villains were too weird or different, like they had already run out of villain ideas so they were doing weird combos to keep things fresh, but overtime I started to understand the series more as doing twists on horror movie classics and how that informed the absolute absurdity of the episode premises. I've had a total redemption arc with those two episodes and "Jockenstein" over that realization alone.
Also, I had an infamous (to me) revelation when I started working on my first ever mbav video early on, way before we even started the podcast, where I was a lot more critical of season one with problems I still feel the show has, but was thrown on my ass and shocked by how much I ended up enjoying season two. (I'm putting a break here because I for some reason keep forgetting that I can in fact yap about this show for thousands of words lol)
Throughout season one Benny is well known for being shit at magic, and while I think that fact is explored in a fun way throughout season one, I still feel as though there wasn't enough development of his powers throughout said season for it to feel like a satisfying arc that has small resolutions by the time "Revamped" comes around. In "Lawn of the Dead" he fucks up spells and causes chaos, and there's no growth throughout the season, he is still doing that in the exact same way he was in the pilot with examples like "Smells Like Trouble". If there was some evolution in how or why he uses magic throughout the season, even if he was still shit at it because realistically he wouldn't progress in skill in that time-span, then I would be an even more happy boy. I just needed him to use magic more primarily, it makes no sense that this arrogant nerdy bastard wasn't doing a spell in every episode, whether small or not ("Three Cheers for Evil" does this kinda well). They do a good job with it sometimes, but not enough for me to not feel like the character was too passive in his own character progression. I love a good active character in a show.
Another critic I had was with Rory (obviously), as well as the general group dynamic of the fang gang. My love for ensemble casts is very well documented, and for me, a good, strong friend group in a show needs to be earned. We can't just be told that this group of people are good friends and just believe it, I need it to be a tangible fact of the series through dialogue, character interactions, plot development, etc. And in season one I once again felt like we didn't get enough development of the core 5 besties by the end of the series. Everyone was still mean af to Rory and only barely tolerated him in the movie, and by "Revamped" not much had changed. Benny and Ethan had barely interacted with Erica, and Sarah was still standoffish with Benny and Rory. This makes complete sense at the beginning because of how they all met and became friends.
Erica is friends with Sarah only at the start, and has no reason to hang out with the three boys outside of defeating foes, which she is also not interested in doing, so that is pretty much never. There are way too many episodes in my opinion where she is completely sidelined because of this fact; it makes logical sense within the series but is also unsatisfying to not see develop over 13 episodes. And to get back to Rory, he's sort of a nuisance to Benny and Ethan in the beginning, its clear that he's trying to make a trio out of a duo that is not interested in accepting him. When he's turned into a vampire, they are pretty much forced into proximity with him and he also feels shoved into places awkwardly in terms of plot relevance, since he is also not that interested in defeating the weekly villains. This characterization of theirs is done properly and is enjoyable for me at first, but it needs to develop more for the show to feel worthy of investment and time.
And don't get me started on Sarah she's gonna get her own post on this at this point.
But then season two happened!
I was gobsmacked that every single problem I had with season one was immediately solved within the first few minutes of season one! The funny anecdote example I have was when I was showing a friend of mine the show to workshop my thoughts, again, all before the podcast started, and we decided to randomly watch an episode of season one and season two since we didn't have much time together. I had been focusing on the movie and season one exclusively because I had bought the DVD by this point and was watching only from that, with the plan to slowly make my way over to season two on Netflix, because that's how long ago this was lol. When we booted up "Hottie Ho-Tep" I almost fell over in my chair when I noticed just how different the show had become overtime, and how the group felt like a real friend group now; even if the issues I described were still kind of there, I was happy to see that any development had occurred at all. In "Welcome Back Dusker", Benny is irresponsibly using magic extremely casually! Just what I wanted! Erica is actually speaking to Ethan on the phone! They talk to each other now! Rory is hanging out with Benny and Ethan and is actually contributing to problem solving in his own special way!
There is definitely more I could say but I'm going to cut myself off there, thank you for the ask Anakin! I always appreciate your asks and discussion starters, its truly amazing!
GOOD MORNING HERE'S A NEW EPISODE OF THE VAMPY WAMPY CAMPY PODCAST WHERE WE REVIEW GRAVITY FALLS EPISODE 4 "THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE MABEL" AND ARE INTRODUCED TO GIDEON! I TOTALLY DIDN'T FINISH EDITING LATE LAST NIGHT AND FORGOT TO UPLOAD IT TO YOUTUBE BEFORE GOING TO BED! I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!
new episode of the podcast out now where we review episode 3 of gravity falls! make sure to check us out on spotify, we're living in a gangsters paradise, and so long!
popping in to givr a quick update! we know its been some time, but we're finally gearing up to continue with reviewing episodes of Gravity Falls! we have some really fun stuff planned for the future, so look out for more updates and new episodes coming soon!
