Justice League

That's Universal.

Is it? Shows how much I paid attention to the trailers last year (ish).

Tell me, what is the "very specific audience"/"desirable demographic" Lucifer, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham and iZombie is targeting? Just a broad description will suffice, so I get an idea.

Because it almost looks like you are saying that all of DCTV is similar because you aren't watching any of it out of principle yet still want to get a free jab.

edited 23rd Mar '18 10:48:56 AM by Julep

People who love superheroes who actually fight evil.

Mind you, Izombie is an urban fantasy (except for the fact it's not fantasy) so that's a different market than superheroes.

Yeah some of DC's TV right now is quite strong. Black Lightning especially.

And Lucifer is a police procedural with the Devil, angels, their parents, and a demon (so far). But also DC.

The DCU is a major and very visible failure for DC, but I honestly think it's their only failure at creating shared universes along different medias that aren't comics. The DCAU is easily one of the strongest cartoon universes that exist, and no matter what you think of the individual shows that make it, the Arrowverse is extremely good at merging various characters of different origins (well, Legends of Tomorrow excels at that, but it allows to tie everything together real nicely). They actually had with Supergirl and maybe Black Lightning now the best possible recipe for TV universes: first, pitching a show that stands on its own, and second, looking how it could connect to others while remaining independent.

In retrospect I think Justice League and The Defenders have similar flaws, in that they try to tie together various stories and characters in a way that does not feel natural, unlike The Avengers. They are pretext movies/shows, and those don't work.

I think that both JL and The Defenders also made a similar mistake in locking themselves so firmly into a specific direction that by the time that it became clear that the pieces weren't coming together like they'd hoped, it was too late to really course-correct.

By contrast, the Marvel films are usually flexible enough that even if one doesn't really work it won't spoil the whole thing (like BVS set JL up for failure in many ways).

Yes, the same way planning for The Defenders led to two of the worst parts of the Netflixverse so far, Iron Fist and the second half of Daredevil S2.

Rule of thumb for a crossover seems to be "don't dedicate an entire movie/show to set it up". Avengers has many qualities but story complexity is not one of them, it seems that for crossovers to work, you pretty much just need for a believable enough reason for all the characters to be together at some point - you don't need it to happen along a complex storyline.

The latest Arrowverse crossover was actually awesome, and its reason for existing (ie all heroes being here) was a wedding. And an alternate-universe nazi attack. Setting him up in all four shows beforehand would not have made it better in any way.

edited 23rd Mar '18 2:26:27 PM by Julep

The problem with the Defenders crossover is that its' clear it was outside of the authors comfort zone. All of them want to do very very gritty stories.

And the Defenders is about ninjas, an earthquake, and dragonbones.

Eh, I DID watch Arrow till the start of season 3, the whole first season of The Flash, the Start of Supergirl (I just can't with this show), the first episodes of Black lightning (but I have decided to rather binge-watch now), and the whole first season and half of the second season of iZombie. I also watched, back in the day, the first two or three seasons of Smallville. Hell, I even watched the whole first season of Gotham. So don't tell me that I can't judge those shows, I watched my fair share of them, current ones and past ones. And I have to honestly say, I enjoyed stuff like Lois and Clark way more when I was in a certain age.

What I mean with addressing a specific crowd is that those shows tend to be very melodramatic....love triangles left and right (Arrow was especially bad in this regard, in this show the love triangles had love triangles), contrived drama and the kind of story telling you would normally find in a soap opera, and which is especially appealing to a certain demographic.

And to be clear here, I am NOT saying that this is necessarily bad. I sure as hell can't condemn the CW shows after watching all episodes of Supernatural (and that even though I disliked season 12 and season 13 is really a drag, too). But I personally have a limit of how much I can take of this particular style and I do think that all this love-triangle stuff might be more appealing when you are actually in the age in which the hormones are running havoc anyway. And since this kind of melodrama is present in pretty much all of those shows, well, to me they are kind of the same because they share the element which is off-putting to me (judgement is still out on Black Lightning).

I would watch Arrow over a number of Netflix shows that just want to dwell in Grimdark.

The Netflix shows naturally target their own niche audience...but they are not the only kind of shows Marvel has or has planned, are they?

Black Lightning doesn't have any love triangles. Legends of Tomorrow and Lucifer dont fit your description either Swanpride.

And didn't you say you never watched past the first episode of Supergirl?

edited 23rd Mar '18 10:12:58 PM by windleopard

There is love drama in pretty much every single superhero show, not only DC. Between Ward and Skye, between Fitz and Simmons, between Coulson and Fridged Woman, between Jessica and Luke, between Matt and Karen, between Matt and Elektra, between IF and Colleen, between Lorna and Marcos, between Thunderbird and Blink, between Luke and Claire, between Luke and Misty, between Russo and Dinah, and I also remember a couple ones in Agent Carter. The only non-dramatic couple in the MCU is Hawkeye and his wife.

Maybe not in Legion, but it would be the exception, not the rule. Saying that it's a DC characteristic is plain wrong.

Sure, let me count all the current love triangles on the Arrowverse shows in the last two seasons - I think there is one, not even a central one - it is definitely not the central theme of the season, and even when it is mentioned it is on episodes' secondary storylines - and one that is solved in a couple of episodes by people taking about it (Mon-El-Saturn Girl-Kara). The only prominent Love Triangle on a DC show at the moment, as far as I know, is Chloe-Lucifer-Marcus on Lucifer, although maybe Liv will get one on iZombie (maybe Gordon in Gotham? I ditched that one). I'd argue that Black Lightning shows the most reasonable adult relationship in superhero shows' history considering the circumstances they are dealing with.

So yeah, it's a stereotype those shows grew out of. You keep saying that it's unfair for AOS to be judged on its first season and that it became better with time, well, it's not the only show in the universe that is capable of evolution. In particular, judging Supergirl on its first episodes is an egregious case of not giving a show a chance - coming from someone who watched the entirety of the Inhumans, it's a bit funny to see.

As for melodrama, see above. There is melodrama everywhere. The second seasons of Daredevil or Jessica Jones ran a lot on melodrama. So did the third season of AOS. Do some DC shows go too far with it? Yes, last season's Flash in particular. Are some Marvel shows doing the same? Also yes.

Actually I still haven't made it through inhumans. I think I lost my patience at episode five or six or so and I wouldn't even made it that far if I hadn't thought that a show with such a short run would be manageable. And I gave superglue a second shot but didn't make it past episode three

Even The First Avenger threw in a pointless love triangle that stopped mattering one scene later.

That really wasn't a love triangle in book.

You know, just having listened to a podcast on slash fiction, my first immediate thought was "wait, you mean Steve, Bucky and Peggy?"

I had completely forgotten that there was that one bit with that one secretary.

...Yeah, seriously, what was the point of that scene, again?

To set up a gag later on, no other reason. And it happens to be my least favorite scene in the movie. It's cliché, pointless except to set up some comedy for later, and it throws the characters (especially Peggy, who acts totally out of character in that scene and never acts that way again for the rest of the film) under the bus.

That scene reeks to me of “the writers realized there wasn’t really any character conflict until Bucky ‘dies’ so they threw in this to plug the hole.” And it’s terrible.

And nearly every love triangle is terrible.

I took it as a sign that Steve Rogers has become a handsome, famous, and sexually desirable hero.

Which hasn't changed him in the SLIGHTEST.

Plus more Natalie Dormer is always welcome.

edited 24th Mar '18 1:38:26 PM by CharlesPhipps

The problem is that the film doesn't make it clear how he's meant to be reacting to it there.

And the writing for Peggy in that scene is atrocious. Which is a shame because she's well-written for the rest of the film overall.

To me the only live triangle which ever worked was Fitzsimmons and will and that was because of the unusual circumstances. Usually a love triangle makes everyone involved look like a holes And yes. Worst scene in the first avenger. But more a contrived plot point to add more drama than an actual triangle since Steve isn't interested at all

More actors have joined The Kitchen, including Margo Martindale.

Um, I think you meant to post this somewhere else. What does this have to do with the DCEU movies?