For many, many years I eagerly awaited the new season of Doctor Who. Back in the day, I watch the “Golden Age” Doctors several times, and was at first a bit skeptical of the reboot of the show this century, but of course, that reboot has provided me (and so many others) some of the most memorable Doctor Who moments ever, as well as some of the finest writing and acting, not to mention special effects finally commensurate with the state of the art. The Golden Age special effects were, well, to be honest, nobody watched for the special effects.
And when I learned that the latest Doctor was to be regenerated into a woman, I was very keen on the idea. About time, I thought (see what I did there? 🙂). Unfortunately, the show also got a new show-runner (the person responsible for the arc of the series), and a new team of writers. And it was apparent to me, from the very first episode, that the writing and story arcs, such as they were, were simply not very good. I really liked the new Doctor, and I hated that she did not enjoy the same level of creative teamwork that had been the show’s backbone for so many years. The new show runner, a man named Chris Chibnall, apparently decided to basically ignore the decades that had preceded him. Continuity has always been a challenge in a show that spans five decades (and deals with time travel!), but it still deserves at least a modicum of effort. I haven’t watched any of the latest season, and feel no strong need to. And apparently the most recent holiday episode (used to be Christmas, now it’s New Years for some reason) completely destroyed the basic assumptions and origins of the show. Why would I care to see that?
The man who ran the show all through the David Tennant, Matt Jones and Peter Capaldi years, a man named Steven Moffat, left the show (so I hear) to concentrate on the most excellent Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes show. The irony is that that show seems to have disappeared. Cumberbatch is off doing a million other things now, including becoming a part of the Marvel Character Universe (MCU) as Doctor Strange. So we lost Sherlock Holmes, too.
And speaking of the MCU, look what happened there: Iron Man & Captain America are both gone, not to mention the others who perished in the fight against Thanos. Iron Man & Captain America pretty much formed the central core of the whole MCU, by virtue of movie seniority (Iron Man) and historical credentials (Captain America). Not to mention the iconic and magnetic personality of Robert Downey, Jr., whose constant wit was like a perpetual motion machine in the Avengers movies. There will be more MCU movies, but that’s a HUGE loss.
On television, the extremely excellent (IMO) Agents of Shield has dissolved. Yes, the stories had ranged further and further out, convoluted and Ouroborean in their complexity. But they still held together, and the characters had become real (not always true in science fiction) and we cared about them, and their conflicts and their hidden facets. I also really liked the Agent Carter series, and hated to see it pulled, though Agents of Shield managed to even wrap up that story line in their last few episodes.
I wish I could like the DC super hero movies, but let’s face it: they never had the mojo that the Stan Lee movies did. I suspect that’s because, even in the deeps of comic book time, DC heroes were never complicated. It was always super goodness vs super evil, end of story. Sure, in “modern” comic novel times, they’ve tried to add internal character conflict, but it’s really sort of painted on, not inherent. I believe I foresaw this, even as a kid, when Batman kept adding Bat-things to his arsenal, and Superman had a new superpower seemingly every issue. I think the writing was on the wall when Superman started using his super-ventriloquism. Across interplanetary space. Yeah. Super-ventriloquism. Sure, Aquaman and Wonder Woman are cool, but I think that’s more due to the actors, not the stories. And I understand WW84 is kind of a bust, which I hate.
Contrast to the MCU heroes who were ALWAYS conflicted, from the gitgo. Spider-man was an actual teenager, with teenage problems, and living with his aunt, a widow. His boss was a jerk, he had girl friend problems. Ironman was a spoiled rich guy. Hell, the Hulk was a rampaging, mindless monster. Captain America was about as close to one-dimensional as they portrayed, but don’t forget he started out as a 98 pound weakling. So there’s stuff there, too. Thor was an actual GOD, so that added a whole new dimension (literally). And that naturally leads to Doctor Strange, and the unreality HE represents. Like I said, a pantheon of characters with deep character wells from which to draw.
As for the X-Men, who apparently live in a completely separate MCU, they’ve pretty much played that story out into ultimate entropy and the heat death of the (MC) Universe (2). There’s nothing left to do now.
Star Wars? God we can only hope there’s no more there to come. The Mandolorean has obvious promise, but the most common thread I’ve seen in Season 1 and the first few episodes of Season 2 (like Jethro Tull, I’m “Living In the Past” 🎶 ) is: Mandolorean goes to a planet, some person or group there enlists his help on some local problem, he helps, he and Baby Yoda leave. I understand there’s some big plot Reveal at the end of Season 2. I hope it’s not just a contrivance.
Star Trek? They were forced to not only reboot the franchise, they went so far as to shift it into an alternate universe with alternate basis and history. Entertaining as far as it has gone, I hope it can go further. That remains to be seen.
Peter Jackson has squeezed every drop of cinematic juice out of Middle Earth there was to squeeze, more actually. Three full length movies for the Hobbit? Everybody KNEW that was not right. I guess he might assail the Silmarillion, but that is NOT a cinematically oriented tale. And the characters are impossible to bring down to human stature.
So, the cinematic (and small screen) hero world is not as much fun anymore. I guess it could just be me, and the result of “getting on” as I am so obviously doing. But these playful bits of heroic story-telling have been with me for so long, I find it a bit sad to see the more iconic and central parts departing. Like Samwise Gamgee said, they are going into the West, they are leaving us.
(c) 2021 Chuck Puckett