A packed finale delivers more excitement than disappointment, but remains muddled in several important ways. At least the gang's finally back together after a season fixated on themes of isolation.
I love how you delve into the long-term side effects of the Mat recasting. I'm surprised as to how much this wound up reshaping S2 as a whole.
Things like this always fascinate me: serialized TV shows are always subject to external influences. Actors can suddenly quit, get cancelled, fired or became physically incapacitated, disruptions like Covid or The Writer's Strike can cut down your budget and episode count, locations might fall through, the studio might demand some major changes just because. And all this forces a creative rethinking of a work in progress. Setups or whole plotlines have to be dropped, new characters or directions need to be introduced, motivations and actions rejiggered. I've seen this happen a LOT, especially on 'Lost' and 'Van Helsing.'
And so, you end up wondering about what could've been. Like, what would 'Wheel of Time' S2 look like had all three characters been involved in the search for the Horn? How would that ripple out and influence the other concurrent plotlines?
Anyway, thanks for the extended write-up. I'm hoping to catch up on the show before S3 premieres, whenever it may be. I doubt it'll happen before 2025 given the effect of the Strikes.
S1 was just fine, but it was actually starting to get quite good when COVID hit. Harris leaving meant that they couldn't even film a coherent exit scene for his character, so they had to use really awkward B-roll of him staring into the middle distance worriedly as the rest of the cast cornily shouted for him to follow them into a magical portal (and then we don't see him again until he's recast in S2). It's increasingly clear that this is the moment that S1 fell apart (episodes 7 and 8 were not strong, and at least a chunk of that came from rushed changes).
I think a lot about LOST too (e.g., Mr. Eko)! The strike season, S4 of LOST, was actually my favourite season, but knowing that it could have been even better can be frustrating to sit with. Sometimes, engaging with TV is all about learning to let go and just love the 'final product' despite little frustrations and a nagging sense of what could have been.
I also think a lot about fan fiction and how that serves communities trying to imagine different versions of a story. I've never written any myself, but revisiting LOST with alternate headcanons in mind, or imagined (better?) versions of scenes is a really fun exercise. I have increasingly been thinking about making a podcast called something like 'What if Jack Died in the Pilot: A Creative LOST Rewatch Pod' focused on production challenges / character arcs / writing choices insofar as they serve a creative almost fan-fic style discussion of "What If...
I wonder if maybe the idea came up in the WoT Writer's Room to possibly end the season early, with the last Harris episode available, and then pick up with a longer S2 featuring the initially intended story with a different actor?
Re: LOST - I keep meaning to write an epic-length article about how the Strike impacted S4, and how that among other things led to a big, mythology-heavy flashback episode called 'The Outlier' being completely dropped. Like, nobody talks about it, but the evidence is all there - in the season itself, in interviews and BTS materials. I mean, for me, engaging with the text of Lost also means keeping up with the extra-textual material that supported it and there were regularly discrepancies btw what was promised there (eg. said by actors or Darlton) and what ended up onscreen, especially in S4.
Such a podcast might be cool! I've long fantasized about rewriting the show based on my criticisms. Like, what if Sun and Jin were written out after S4 (cause they had almost nothing to do later)? Or what if Season x had less or more episodes? Or what if this storyline avoided the wheelspinning? If you do it, I'd really like to be a guest.
I would LOVE to hear more about The Outlier some time! Sounds fascinating. Super looking forward to whenever you write that - and would be happy to engage more about that theoretical maybe one day podcast!
I'm also an admin in a LOST Discord server called The Island with folks making really great content: this one guy does music analysis, another does maps, another did that recent YouTube doc about the Pilot, and another is doing a beautifully upscaled chronological reimagining (LOST Circle). Check it out some time and come chat! https://discord.com/invite/sueFDfz7
I love how you delve into the long-term side effects of the Mat recasting. I'm surprised as to how much this wound up reshaping S2 as a whole.
Things like this always fascinate me: serialized TV shows are always subject to external influences. Actors can suddenly quit, get cancelled, fired or became physically incapacitated, disruptions like Covid or The Writer's Strike can cut down your budget and episode count, locations might fall through, the studio might demand some major changes just because. And all this forces a creative rethinking of a work in progress. Setups or whole plotlines have to be dropped, new characters or directions need to be introduced, motivations and actions rejiggered. I've seen this happen a LOT, especially on 'Lost' and 'Van Helsing.'
And so, you end up wondering about what could've been. Like, what would 'Wheel of Time' S2 look like had all three characters been involved in the search for the Horn? How would that ripple out and influence the other concurrent plotlines?
Anyway, thanks for the extended write-up. I'm hoping to catch up on the show before S3 premieres, whenever it may be. I doubt it'll happen before 2025 given the effect of the Strikes.
S1 was just fine, but it was actually starting to get quite good when COVID hit. Harris leaving meant that they couldn't even film a coherent exit scene for his character, so they had to use really awkward B-roll of him staring into the middle distance worriedly as the rest of the cast cornily shouted for him to follow them into a magical portal (and then we don't see him again until he's recast in S2). It's increasingly clear that this is the moment that S1 fell apart (episodes 7 and 8 were not strong, and at least a chunk of that came from rushed changes).
I think a lot about LOST too (e.g., Mr. Eko)! The strike season, S4 of LOST, was actually my favourite season, but knowing that it could have been even better can be frustrating to sit with. Sometimes, engaging with TV is all about learning to let go and just love the 'final product' despite little frustrations and a nagging sense of what could have been.
I also think a lot about fan fiction and how that serves communities trying to imagine different versions of a story. I've never written any myself, but revisiting LOST with alternate headcanons in mind, or imagined (better?) versions of scenes is a really fun exercise. I have increasingly been thinking about making a podcast called something like 'What if Jack Died in the Pilot: A Creative LOST Rewatch Pod' focused on production challenges / character arcs / writing choices insofar as they serve a creative almost fan-fic style discussion of "What If...
I wonder if maybe the idea came up in the WoT Writer's Room to possibly end the season early, with the last Harris episode available, and then pick up with a longer S2 featuring the initially intended story with a different actor?
Re: LOST - I keep meaning to write an epic-length article about how the Strike impacted S4, and how that among other things led to a big, mythology-heavy flashback episode called 'The Outlier' being completely dropped. Like, nobody talks about it, but the evidence is all there - in the season itself, in interviews and BTS materials. I mean, for me, engaging with the text of Lost also means keeping up with the extra-textual material that supported it and there were regularly discrepancies btw what was promised there (eg. said by actors or Darlton) and what ended up onscreen, especially in S4.
Such a podcast might be cool! I've long fantasized about rewriting the show based on my criticisms. Like, what if Sun and Jin were written out after S4 (cause they had almost nothing to do later)? Or what if Season x had less or more episodes? Or what if this storyline avoided the wheelspinning? If you do it, I'd really like to be a guest.
I would LOVE to hear more about The Outlier some time! Sounds fascinating. Super looking forward to whenever you write that - and would be happy to engage more about that theoretical maybe one day podcast!
I'm also an admin in a LOST Discord server called The Island with folks making really great content: this one guy does music analysis, another does maps, another did that recent YouTube doc about the Pilot, and another is doing a beautifully upscaled chronological reimagining (LOST Circle). Check it out some time and come chat! https://discord.com/invite/sueFDfz7