Tag: shows

Good Shows Don’t Always Need Multiple Seasons

Everyone would love to see their new favorite shows have multiple seasons. It’s a natural desire: when people become attached to a show and its characters, they want to see more of it, and want the story to continue. Even though I’ve fallen for this trap myself, I can’t help but look at some shows and think “it really would be fine by itself.”

What do I mean? Well, let’s look at Stranger Things. The show, which was a knock-out when the first season came out, had a popular second season, with a third on the way. I have to say that the second season was pretty good. But I, and at the time a lot of other people, thought that Stranger Things would have been perfectly fine as just one season. Why? Well, I thought it wrapped up its arc pretty well. Yeah, there were hints that the show wasn’t over yet, and yeah that there were still things to resolve, but overall I thought it wrapped up pretty well. Honestly, if you had just cut out the Will Byers bit, then you could have ended the show right then and there.

And it’s not just Stranger Things. I’ve seen other shows where I found that the first season wrapped up everything pretty well, and didn’t need anything beyond it. Of course, however, when something is popular enough, the company who made it is going to want to milk the show for all it’s worth. They’ll make season after season, until people lose interest and the show loses money. Which sucks, especially when it was a show you actually liked at the beginning (yes, I liked Supernatural when it was in its prime).

But it’s not only that. Sometimes, when another season is added, it can seem awkward and out of place, especially when it’s working off the old plot. Or directors and writers change, causing characters to change as well, sometimes for the worse. People notice when the character starts acting different, even if it’s a subtle difference. This all sets the second season at a disadvantage, as it not only would have to make the story line from the first season flow, but also maintain what was so great about the first season. It would have to lie up to its predecessor, and when its predecessor was perfect by itself, it’s nearly impossible to.

Now, I’m not saying that just because a show has a good first season that nothing should ever follow. There are plenty of shows that make their following season/seasons just as good as the first, for the most part. As the show starts hitting seasons 9 and 10, then things become tedious. I’m just trying to say that not every show needs a sequel, especially when the first season did such a good job at finishing itself.

The Haunting of Hill House-Paranormal or Just Metaphor?

Beware: Spoilers

Recently, Netflix released a 10-episode series known as The Haunting of Hill House, inspired by the original novel by Shirley Jackson. The show doesn’t center around much of the original plot, however. Rather, it centers around the Crain family (making them the center focus rather than a distant detail), and their troubles in an after the house.

The Crains initially buy the derelict manor in order to flip and sell it, so they could afford to build their own dream home. As time goes on, however, strange things begin to occur around the house, culminating in a “final night” that causes them to leave in a hurry. This night, and life in the house in general, slowly comes together in bits and pieces seen through “character focus” episodes. There is the long-standing mystery of what exactly happened the “final night”, which is solved at the end, but the viewer can’t help but notice that a complex and frayed family dynamic is at the forefront.

Now, throughout the series, there is plenty of the paranormal. There are obvious ghosts, hidden ghosts, even the crazy imagination ghosts. The show lets you know that yes, this is a horror story, making some freaky designs and figures. The ghosts do follow the adult Crain children around, affecting some more than others (Nell and Luke experience the paranormal the most, Steven and Shirley the least). The house has a certain quality about itself as well, seemingly alive and possessive, taking over the minds of Olivia Crain and Nell Crain, and protecting itself against attack. There are multiple levels to the paranormal in this show, providing an especially ghoulish aspect.

In Nell’s episode, however (named the “Bent-Neck Lady”, after the main ghost that haunts her), all this comes into question. Unlike the other siblings, her episode is rife with mental stability issues, as she deals with sleep paralysis, trauma, and anxiety. The youngest Crain’s stable life is ripped out from under her with the death of her husband and a switch to a new therapist. From then her mental health declines rapidly, leading her to enable her twin’s drug addiction and have an argument with her visiting sister. The episode culminates with her returning to the Hill House and committing suicide via dreamlike state , leading to another interesting twist. In the moments before she hung herself, she realized that she had a noose around her neck and she was standing on the edge of a staircase, and got confused and scared. In the moments after, the viewer realizes that she was the “Bent-Neck” Lady, having haunted herself the whole time.

The episode, which works as the halfway point of the series, explains how Nell ended up dying in the house. But it also hints at how the mother, Liv, died in the house as well. Both Luke and the father Hugh blame the house for “killing” Nell and Liv, despite the fact that both were suicides. This could be explained: Nell went into a dreamlike trance, seemingly led by the house into putting the noose around her own neck. As for Liv, she starts seeing ghosts that convince her to kill her family to protect them. From what, is unknown. It’s easy to argue that the house does contain some supernatural capabilities, actively influencing Liv and Nell to their final moments.

However, notice who the house seems to affect. Liv came into the house with an unknown mental illness, marked by migraines that she would get periodically. Her condition was only exaggerated by the fact that Hugh didn’t get the proper help for her, unable to because of stigma against mental illness that plagued the time period. The old house started to get to her, leading her to have sporadic and “possessed” behavior, leading up to her death.

As for Nell, she was also mentally vulnerable, having suffered from trauma and anxiety since she was as young as 6. She was also more prone to being “influenced” by the house, and only was really affected by the house when she was in her most vulnerable state. Luke also, sits in a vulnerable state, and was more prone to being affected by the house due to his struggles with drug addiction.

Also, it can’t help but be noticed that most of the paranormal occurrences occur when the family is divided, following the hill house. Which begs the question-is it really paranormal? Or is it all just a metaphor?

Well, we don’t really know. You could go either way, but you can also say it’s a mix of both. There are shared paranormal experiences among the family, adding a more solid paranormal experience. At the same time, there are individual experiences that are especially tied to mental illness and especially trauma, which solidifies the hypothesis that it’s all a metaphor. All-in-all, it’s never fully explained. Although the cast does like to relate to the metaphor theory, especially as the family is so dysfunctional and traumatized that it would make a great amount of sense.

The Haunting of Hill House is actually a very good show. While it does have its corny shots and moments, it is one that provides multiple layers to its horror, making it perfect to watch in time for Halloween.

The Adventures of the Bland Male Protagonist

I’ve already written a bit about some of my qualms with tropes and stereotypes of female protagonists in the past. However, I haven’t spent any time to talk about perhaps one of the biggest tropes among male protagonists that irks me: the boring hero.

What do I mean by the boring hero? I mean the guy who is in all the action movies and shows that has the same boring and bland personality and backstory, who always becomes the hero and saves the day. He has nothing unique to offer the viewer except that he’s insanely muscular and attractive (but then that becomes a bit unoriginal when that’s how they all look), and is usually just a gritty tough macho guy. He kicks ass and gets the girl, although he doesn’t really provide anything to make the movie or show worth watching.

What makes them stand out to me even more is that usually they are the least interesting thing about the movie. They are the stars of action movies and shows, the ones who keep the story going, and yet everything around them is infinitely more interesting than them. Their personality is like a black hole-they suck the life out of the movie. Literally.

The Boring Hero is seriously one-dimensional; he has no unique background, and he has no character development as the story goes on. Even the female love interest is more interesting, and she has almost the same cookie-cutter personality as the male protagonist. He never gets fleshed out, which drags what might have been an otherwise good movie or TV show down hard.

The Boring Hero doesn’t provide anything of real value to the movie. They seem to stay in place while the story goes around them, despite being the central focus. And they always have that one grand “epiphany” moment, that changes their course and turns them into a hero, with cool music following in the background. But the epiphany is a quick, fleeting moment that almost never appears again. It’s not even a real epiphany, but rather him deciding to act in the typical heroic manner.

The sad part is, this trope even appears in amazing films. Films such as Avatar have been able to hide the fact that the main protagonist is insanely bland and boring through the amazing visuals and characters around them. But that doesn’t change the fact that the main protagonist is so generic that he just becomes another character that the viewer forgets within a week.

Is this trope dying out? No. It’s still strong and present, coming out in films as recent as Solo. Each time the boring hero makes an appearance, there is always something (very, very small) that is supposed to mark them as insanely unique and deep characters, despite them still being bland and generic. A lot of action films and shows want to try and promote themselves as “unique” and “noteworthy”, without putting any effort to actually flesh out their protagonists, particularly the males. It’s a trope that’s gotten old years ago, and definitely needs to kick the bucket.