Thread:Stryzzar/@comment-1037137-20150313055759/@comment-1037137-20150410061250

They had no clear path, goals, or priorities laid out, that much is certain. No clear plan for how to carry this out from the start to finish; what we got accomplished absolutely nothing, it added zilch to the series or to its characters, it might as well have not been produced because it's obvious that they didn't know what they hoped to gain from this thing. You don't need to be a full-time professional in the business to recognize how empty and valueless this season is, but a full-time professional ought to have recognized that unfortunate fact sometime during the production of it. No drama is worth the destruction of a series of beloved characters, and these guys, especially the first cast, are highly beloved and nobody was any happier about the derailments when they first started becoming apparent. If that's what it takes to get your drama, then once again, something is very wrong with how you do things. Most shows don't need to resort to that low to get drama, and you're just shooting yourself in the heels once you take those kinds of liberties. Somebody WILL notice, and they WILL let you know when you've allowed that to happen. That's just the reality of it. The drama in this was not only damaging beyond all rationale, but it was cheap, and it was insufferably nonsensical. Total Drama failed at drama, shouldn't that be an automatic red flag? Consistency may be hard for a large cast, but it's not exactly something you can neglect, something they openly have done lately. There's just no measure to how much they got wrong in attempting to achieve their drama in this entire mess and some of the seasons to precede it. There are just some things you don't do in the process of getting it. And this drama was cheap, hollow, empty, pointless, and patronizing.

Their treatment of Gwen has been abysmal. She was the wrong person to make the center of so much romance bait and they have been so out of control with it that it left her in shambles, constantly stripping at her persona to milk it out of her, and even after that triangle crap finally died, they still kept picking her personality apart until almost nothing left of her original self remained. Leaving us with the Gwen fans cannot stand today. TDA and TDWT were a double whammy blow against her character, setting her up for something that tainted everything we loved about her in TDI, be it her stubbornness, integrity, strong wits and independence, whatever. None of that is there now. The triangle cost her a lot of admirers, TDAS seemed to all but cripple her fandom,, where most fans can only talk about how much they miss the old Gwen rather than how much they love her character. Nobody likes the current Gwen, not even those who still adore her. They took away everything that made her relatable and easy to root for. Her interactions have suffered bigtime too, I actually rooted for her and Zoey at least meetin properly, but that was before my present-day opinions of the two of them and that was before the exploited the living hell out of it to the complete deprivation of Gwen's character just to seal that deal. Poorly played all around. She should not have become THAT fast a friend of any one of them. And she had no reason to befriend Mike at all. Gwen used to be cautious about who she let in before she called them friends. And these guys are probably a bit too sappy for her old tastes. And yes, I could not stand Gwen's actions and attitude on those in those episodes, it was stupid as you said and just wretched, I thought. I've just wanted to smack her ever since the Trinity. Like I said, she cannot ever handle her problems and her smug attitude put me off, in those moments she should've been anything but some smug a-hole. Yeah, I really don't like her guts lately. But either way, the fandom definitely is at the end of its ropes when it comes to Gwen. She's widely seen as a joke now and fans are tiring of the nonsense constantly associated with her. They cannot afford to botch her up again. And they need to be made aware of that before it's too late. There's nothing to be gained by scratching repeatedly at a fresh scab. And as far as Gwen's concerned, it's time to let the wound heal.

Yeah well I disagree since she was that in TDA and it is still one of the many things of TDA fans remain critical of, even if not everyone is put off by her villainy and some actually came to like it somehow. Still was badly received generally speaking and it's obvious that further exploiting that has become an enormous distraction for many and only fueled the disconcerting inconsistency of her character. Neither the fans nor the haters are getting what they desire from Courtney with her increasingly negative portrayal. We've seen enough of her getting screwed over by her own hand or somebody else's hand, each time serving to leave both sides thoroughly annoyed. Yes, unfortunately some in the crowd don't see anything wrong with how her karma plays out or don't mind seeing it play out constantly regardless of whether the reasons make sense or not or if the circumstances are forced or not. But most haters don't appreciate her attitude being played up so strongly and fans don't appreciate being treated to the same outcome every time when they hope for something better, each outcome usually being worse than the previous. What happened in SMS was truly forced and contrived, I mean where did that crap even come from? Somebody who's not even the season's antagonist and was seemingly coming back together and rebalanced and they plant a big red bullseye on her forehead? Whatever this writer or the guys supervising him were thinking, why didn't anyone stop them? Everything it it destroyed everything to occur prior. Who's foolish enough to believe that that wouldn't warrant an outcry? Not a damn given to the previous ten episodes and the events related. I mean what kind of common sense is that? It defies all logic, they were asking to be blasted when they put that script together. This is all self-inflicted, what they brought on themselves with this season. Yeah, Courtney is liable to remain the biggest base breaker. The sad thing is it NEVER had to come to a point where she's this controversial, no character has to reach that point. But because they just don't know when to quit or acknowledge any limits to what they can get away with, that's the status she now carries. I don't like how they let it get that bad with so many people, many of them extremely popular characters. And again, what are they gaining from this? It's not funny, it's not entertaining, the outcome of her character gets worse with each outing for no real purpose, they go about her like they are consciously trying to destroy her character entirely, like they don't like her for whatever reason.........It feels like a vendetta, why does it feel like a damned vendetta? One played up at the expense of both sides of the spectrum? To the point where both sides panned the episode? If that's not a sign that it's time to cut the crap, then I don't know what is. Yes, both sides will remain extremely vocal no matter what happens. For all her faults and chaotic portrayal, she is still adored and loathed across the board, equal measures. But I think people are ready for a change of pace, maybe the fans should actually get a little something for all their hopes that Courtney might shine again and maybe the haters should get the break from her antics that they have desired. It's episodes like these that have set the fires alight when it was totally unprovoked. And it's all on the writers who clearly don't recognize how badly they've abused the routine.

Thanks much. I just may tell them that up front when the time and the context warrant it. I can't think of a simpler summary for how to respond to this season, simply put don't do what this season did. It's my intention to learn more about what's going on in there and how this came about, and I've had some success but more needs to be done. But what really matters above all else is that they understand how this affected us as a fandom, that's the greatest priority, so that they know how to avoid stirring such negative feelings again. This should've been totally preventable. As for Terry McGurrin, he'd best be careful this time around. If this next finale bombs, fans will know precisely who to blame for it. And the stakes are higher, first 26-episode installment in five years in the first of a new spinoff? He can't afford to screw up this one.

Couldn't agree more. As a wise internet critic once said, in order to do something well, it takes TIME. And there needed to be a long and bracing effort to spot, tackle, and amend every tripmine scattered throughout this script, or to straight up start from scratch to find a better setup for what was a directionless premise that rode on a couple of Creator's Pets the fandom sees as Scrappies to get it by. Every season counts, the effort invested counts, listening to and understanding your fandom counts, considering everything carefully before you go through with it counts. If it takes months more to see to it that that is all accomplished before a season is deemed complete, then so be it. That's the way it should be. Pixar would never have been the success story it is if they were more concerned with deadlines than making their movies the best family films they can offer.

This is far from over, and I'll decide what to do next here based on what eventual response I get. It's seriously wrong that anything about TDAS is considered canon, ais it takes more away from the series than it added to it, and is an unnecessary bad memory nobody needed. It just set the entire series back, and it's gonna take one hell of an effort to help it recover from that. I'm not even sure how this even looked good on paper, the mismanagement and poor judgement were of nighmarish proportions. They should drop the deadlines and making sure they invest an effort that really counts, one that really keeps the fandom in mind with the goal of servicing the majority satisfactorily. This does the opposite. And I can't comprehend how they thought more than a certain few would like it. They were never going to get away with this no matter who they were aiming for or whatever their big idea was. Zoke has been singled out as perhaps the primary reason for this season's failure, as the focus on it may very well have affected at least in part their choices on many other things. Possibly, I don't know, but the suspicion is warranted. However, it must be spelled out in blunt terms that nearly every aspect of this season, and especially of the Trinity, is problematic. No aspect must go unaddressed, or they will inevitably repeat. Seeing how bad they get, shouldn't take that chance. By now they must have realized that they're never hearing the end of Zoke, the fans have not forgiven that even with its legion of defenders, most of whom happen to be younger people. But they need to hear out everything else that went wrong in tandem to it. And that effort must start with how they handle the characters, the very heart of the show.