There was a point where I was really good at juggling each show. Then a few weeks into watching season 1 of Black Lightning, I realized that I really couldn’t stand that show, and that made me realize that I couldn’t stand Supergirl much either. Now I’m just keeping up with Flash and Arrow, and when/if I have time, I watch Legends online.
May I suggest The Boys, on Amazon Prime? I haven’t seen it myself but it seems right up your alley. There’s also Watchmen, which I haven’t seen either but have heard good things about.
Yeah just DVR them and watch later so you can fast forward through ads. Sitting through commercials for TV is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Really? I heard that was one of the worse Marvel shows.
It was leaps and bounds better than Inhumans. Which ain’t a high bar to clear. I actually found the characters better portrayed and acted than Netflix Daredevil. It’s not as good as Luke Cage (IMO the best Marvel show Netflix did.), Jessica Jones, or Iron Fist. I find C&D to be decent, but not the pinnacle of Marvel’s tv work.
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That is the most rational argument I’ve heard from those who do not like the Arrowverse. By this point in time, it’s clear what their formula and style are. (Teen/Young Adult angst soap operas) The checking out a new show to see if it is different in genre style than the others for an episode or three makes sense. However, if you don’t like the genre style, no need to continue on.
I do agree that LoT is the best show in the CWverse. Mostly because it is willing to poke fun at itself for being the genre style it is. It doesn’t try to take itself to seriously. It accepts a certain degree of whimsy and absurdity. (And while I love what they’ve done with COIE so far, there is a tiny part of me that would adore seeing a giant Beebo be the thing that finally takes down the anti-monitor once and for all.)
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I loved the boys. Watched it twice. That’s point it, was only one season. There is just not enough hero material out there. But I will take more recommendations if anyone has any.
In regards to Supergirl… thank you for saying that! Supergirl is my favorite out of the bunch, but the past two seasons especially I have felt my interest waning. I so wish they would get back the importance of the Danvers sisters. Their bond/connection was so strong and with all they’ve been through it should feel like it’s growing, but with all the side stories it’s beginning to feel stagnant, and it shouldn’t. I could go on, but I think you explained it very well.
With so many other shows, I just gave up on trying to stay up to date with Arrow and Legends.
I just recently started watching Black Lightning on Netflix and am enjoying it, but obviously I’m very behind.
Batwoman also came as a pleasant surprise. I kinda new going in that I would like Ruby Rose as Batwoman, but I was unsure how the writers were going to approach her character and storyline. I love the characters so far. Mary is probably my favorite at this point, and with how things went down pre-Crisis I’m looking forward to seeing what happens down the road.
I gave every show with the exception of the latest, Batwoman a shot. I dropped Arrow ether on or after season 3. Dropped Supergirl after season 2. Dropped Flash during season 3 I think… that was the thinker season right? Dropped legends after season 1. And dropped Black Lightning during the current season.
I chose not to give Batwoman a shot only because I’m tired of the Arrowverse. I’m just gonna drop it after the first couple seasons. They start off good but don’t know how to grow into an actual superhero show instead of being a soap opera pretending to be a superhero show.
They’ve turned ever show into a team show having the title character whine in their melodrama while the supporting characters figure everything out in the background with little to no actual superheroing, making the title characters of their shows useless.
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I’ll take issue with that, in that they are a soap opera wrapped in a superhero costume. They always were and CWVERSE isn’t likely to change the formula. They figured it out with Buffy and have been in that direction ever since. It’s their “brand ID”.
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Can someone please explain to me the whole soap opera thing? When I hear that term I think Days of Our Lives. Not being sarcastic…I truly would like to understand the criticism.
Supergirl was the first to go. I just had too many shows and wanted to drop something, and the political messaging had become obnoxious, so I dropped it. I dropped the others in late 2017 because my daughter was born and there was less time for TV shows. Since then, I eventually caught up with the 2017/2018 seasons of Flash, Arrow and Legends on Netflix, and I watched most of season one of Black Lightning, but it never particularly grabbed me. I’ve been watching the 2018/2019 season of Flash currently and have nearly finished it. I’ve tried watching Supergirl several more times, and I just can’t get past the ham-fisted, condescending preaching of it.
Haven’t watched Batwoman yet. I’m sure I’ll give it a try some day.
Umbrella Academy?
They probably mean that a lot of the focus is on characters’ relationships and daily lives. Which isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. Nonstop, meaningless superhero action would be really boring.
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The name soap opera came about because early on soap mfgs were some of the most prominent sponsors.
As for a definition of the form (daily and weekly) thus excerpt from Wikipedia gives a pretty good definition of them in style and or as a genre.
“ Soap opera storylines run concurrently, intersect and lead into further developments. An individual episode of a soap opera will generally switch between several different concurrent narrative threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another or may run entirely independent to each other. Each episode may feature some of the show’s current storylines, but not always all of them. Especially in daytime serials and those that are broadcast each weekday, there is some rotation of both storyline and actors so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of a week’s worth of episodes. Soap operas rarely bring all the current storylines to a conclusion at the same time. When one storyline ends, there are several other story threads at differing stages of development. Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort of cliffhanger, and the season finale (if a soap incorporates a break between seasons) ends in the same way, only to be resolved when the show returns for the start of a new yearly broadcast.
Evening soap operas and those that air at a rate of one episode per week are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode, and to represent all current storylines in each episode. Evening soap operas and serials that run for only part of the year tend to bring things to a dramatic end-of-season cliffhanger.”
If you look at the form/style/genre definition, it’s clear that CWVERSE shows clearly fall into that category. CWVERSE shows have a conclusion of the main season story arc, and usually leave a teaser cliff hanger rather than a hard cliff hanger. (Flash is a good example that every season seems to end with something about the newspaper’s headline about Flash vanishing in Crisis. The byline is different, the date changes, etc)
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Ok…so multiple story threads…not all get resolved at the same time…ends with a teaser/cliffhanger for the next season. I feel like this applies to most serialized shows I’ve watched, CW or other, with the main difference being tone. So is Titans a soap opera? How about Game of Thrones? Both feature the multiple story threads, cliffhangers, and the look towards the next season, etc.
I can think of older shows like say, Lois & Clark, where it was mostly stand alone stories, but I hardly ever see that on TV anymore.
Yes, Titans and DP (which people around here never seem to point to) are both soap operas. Never got into GoT so I can’t say, but it sounds like it.
Soaps were originally how networks paid the bills they were huge money makers. Often bringing in 2-3 x what the cost, and the networks used that money to subsidize evening programming. With so many people working, and especially with two family households with both people working, soaps slowly lost their audience base. However, that doesn’t mean that the demographic shifted from liking them, they just changed the time slot and put up reality and chat shows in the void left by soap operas, because they are very cheap to produce.
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So then that brings me to what I really meant to ask. When people say they don’t like the CW shows because they are soap operas, what is it they’re hoping to see instead? Just seems to me like the term soap opera applies to such a broad range of shows.
Inherent in the traditional soap opera is a large dose of melodrama. When people compare long form fiction to soap operas, they’re saying it’s too over-the-top when it comes to melodrama.
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I think they are thinking/wanting a more action type show. Which we get in superhero animation. BTAS, JL/JLU, etc. where most of the storyline is battling. But action is in live action is expensive and time consuming to do.
When people call something a soap opera, generally I find that it means that it is heavy on relationship drama and moves at a snail’s pace. If you left the Young and the Restless for a month, chances were they were still in the same room when you returned.
I think it’s fair to some extent. Supergirl season 5 is a soap in my book. Excluding crisis we are pretty much where the season started. Someone might notice the absence of James but that’s about it.
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I’m not sure I agree on Supergirl moving at snail’s pace. We’re less than halfway in and in addition to the crossover, she’s stopped Lena from mind controlling everyone on the planet and has battled an ancient group of aliens that have caused catastrophes throughout history. It hasn’t been uneventful so far.
I suppose I understand the soap opera criticism from 2 perspectives, the first being the serialized storytelling and the second being the focus on the relationship drama. Neither really bother me personally, but I can understand folks wanting to reach a conclusion quicker and wanting more action in their shows. Less emoting and more doing, perhaps?
Having said that, I do look forward to Strange Adventures on HBO Max. An anthology series sounds like a nice change.
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I was looking at it more from a state machine perspective.
You could skip the first half season 5 without needing much explained because few of the events leave lingering effects in the world.
Leviathan had a leader introduced then taken away. If you never saw him, you are probably not going to miss him. Leviathan reboots midseason from status quo.
Lena reintroduced Tessmascher and concocted a plan that failed, Tessmascher is gone again, and we’re rebooting that arc at status quo from the first episode with Lena hating Kara.
Jonn’s brother was introduced and taken away, leaving little residual effects in the world.
Andrea is the big status change in the show for season 5. She was introduced and has had character development and the events of the first half season will likely be affecting the rest of the season.
Compare that with the first CBS where everything had changed midseason from episode 1. It’s not really a fair comparison I know as the first season have an easier time changing things, but Season 5 was extremely careful to reset everything in the midseason. (Though that is likely to change with crisis)
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