I had this lesson imprinted into me young by being a teen in the 90's who doesn't like Harry Potter. "You only have to read 4 books before it gets good" absolutely not! I could be reading 4 books I actually like.
Exactly I never got into those books also but boy do i remember the lines outside of bookstores in the late 90’s for them cause by then I had my 2 big fandoms Batman and the power rangers but the fans really turned me off to potter with them assuming just because they like the franchise everyone else does also by bringing it up in conversations where it doesn’t belong like in comic book conventions
If it takes you 4 books to get into something, it isn't exactly worth getting into lol that's like saying give it 40 mins and then you'll get into the movie thats an hour and a half long 🤣 I say this as someone who did like the H.P. books btw
I used to like Harry Potter, but the end is very disappointing. Not counting the sequel, "Cursed Child", never even bothered to read it. Anyway, all of them married straight and with children... Come on!
When it comes to TV shows, books, and movies I wish people would just accept the answer of, "I wasn't enjoying this, so I moved on." But it's like everything has to be an argument. Or fans think they have to convert you into liking what they like. They always say, "just give it another chance." My question is how many times do I have to give something a chance before I like it? You shouldn't have to put in so much effort to like something that's not working for you.
yeah, not liking something is not an ethical problem for the creator or audience, sometimes you just don't like things, and that's ok. no point in forcing yourself to watch/read the whole thing. there's a difference between giving a show a few eps to grab you, and forcing yourself to watch an entire show you don't like and hating every second
Imagine someone who isn't having fun watching one piece but still thinks "I'll watch it all the way through to see if it's good." That's would be a miserable existence.
Which is perfectly fair; most diehard fans of that series have at least something early on that draws their interest, and even if it “gets good” some 40 episodes/100 chapters in at least most people aren’t saying they were bored. But if you’re not feeling hooked early on and it’s taking too long to feel invested… yeah, I get that; not least for it being a huge commitment that’s daunting as a prospect of getting into.
Speaking as someone who is a die-hard One Piece lover... Yeah I do think the common point of "You gotta stick it out till volume 9/episode 40 or so!" is a *huge* mark against it, and that if anyone was reading the early volumes or watching the first few arcs and not enjoying it *at all,* that's an entirely fair reason to give up. Like for my part, I still consider the early material *fairly enjoyable.* Sure, it makes a massive leap in quality around the point everyone talks about, but if you're not *at all* vibing with the characters or the world or the humor or anything else... I don't think you actually need to get all the way to the climax of Arlong to conclude that One Piece just isn't for you.
I think it depends on what you're criticizing. "I don't like where this story is going" is a criticism that should probably have the caveat of "I haven't actually seen it yet, it might turn out ok." But "I'm not enjoying this," or "This character is unlikable," or "This story beat turned me off," or even "I don't want to watch this anymore," are judgements you can make at any time.
I do think you can say "I don't like where this story is going...and I can't think of an ending that would fix that." or "...and the only ending that would fix it would be unpleasant in a different way." Though that has a lot of overlap with "this story beat turned me off."
@@chrismckenzie3414 Excellent point. There are shows where I went “I’m sure the ending is enjoyable and will address the issues I have now, but I’m not enjoying it now and probably won’t enjoy the experience getting there.”
People should also be aware of their personal biases and prejudices when criticize something. Like, would you hate this character if it is straight white man (instead WOC) but behave the same and make same decisions?
@@scottbutler5 i do think TV has lost the art of TV. Like a movie, yeah, in most cases watch the whole thing. A book I didn’t finish I try not to give an opinion on beyond it lost me enough I am not sure I wanna go back. But TV is literally SUPPOSE to be consumed as episodes and streaming has made people treat TV series like parts of a very long movie. It’s not! even as part of a larger framework each actual episode should be able to be created as its own thing with a beginning, middle, and end. And therefore people should be able to have opinions on that contained thing as it happens. By episode.
I remember Yatzhee once saying "People tell me FF13 get's good about 20 hours in. You know that's not a point in its favour right? Put your hand on a stove for 20 hours, and yeah you'll probably stop feeling the pain but you'll have done serious damage to yourself."
I remember dealing with a double sword of this in high school. I was told I couldn't dislike/judge a book series without reading it all. Then when I read it all the argument was "well, you must like them since you read it all"
This is why many people say "3 episode rule" because the 3rd episode at maximum should give you something to wanna stay. In my mind it should be first episode get's you curious, second episode shows what a normal episode is like, and 3rd gives you the definite reason to stay.
I wouldn't put it as a '3 episode rule', although I know that's what it's usually called but I agree with the overall point. I'd use the rule but apply it as a rough percentage of the series length. If it's ony a 4 or 5 episode mini-series, then watching 3 seems pointless as you may as well watch the last 1 or 2. So one episode should be enough, maybe two if there's uncertainty but for longer shows (12 episodes plus), then 3 episodes should be enough.
I don't think anyone is obligated to give their attention to something for three episodes before deciding if they're going to continue with it. Similarly, you don't have to read every book you get (purchased or borrowed or downloaded whatever) for a prerequisite number of chapters before you can decide it's not for you. If you want to give a thing a chance, whether for so long or right through, you have that option. If you have any strong reaction -- whether liking it or really hating it -- you have a right to your reaction. And when you like something and someone else doesn't and quit midway, it's usually not your job to kvetch about them bailing. You could maybe argue that some UA-camrs have an obligation, either because the thing appears to be in their milieu and their audience is expecting that UA-camr to stick it out, but even then, I'm not sure. Reads With Rachel is a book community UA-cam channel, and its host is a beautiful member of the LGBTQ group, and she often talks about trigger warnings. Many authors and even actors have been a bit salty or facetious about trigger warnings, seeing them as spoilers. But Rachel made what I think is a terrific point. Trigger warnings are like allergens lists. Many foods in stores these days have ingredients lists on their packaging. If you or someone you're buying groceries for has allergies, of whatever degree, you check the list. If you don't, you don't have to (at least it's not as imperative as it could be for someone with allergies). Same thing with trigger warnings. If there are issues that would cause you to have a mental version of an allergic reaction, a trigger warning list could protect you from reading or watching something that probably would wreck your mental health. If you don't have anything that requires such a warning, just ignore the trigger warning list (either fast forward through it if visual or auditory, or avoid the page(s) with the list. Sorry. Didn't mean to lecture like a school marm. But I think it matters. And if a UA-camr doesn't feel like they want to stick with reviews of each episode etc, they can make an announcement. Vera has done that when she decided she wasn't getting that much from a series. Just because someone is a UA-camr shouldn't force them to get through something just because someone else expected that to occur. Oops. Kinda went lecture again. Culpa over mea like bees over Nicholas Cage in a certain movie.
@@nancyjay790 I agree with the rest of your post but just wanted to point that nobody is saying it's an obligation. The three episode rule (or however many) is just a guide, a way to fairly judge whether something is for you or not, without investing a load of time. That only applies IF you decide to start watching in the first place, it doesn't apply if the show holds no interest to you and you aren't watching any of it. 🙂
Readers have a whole name/category "DNF" for books that they Did Not Finish because they weren't enjoying them and it's a completely legit and universally accepted thing and at least in my bubble, I almost never see someone argue that the person who DNFed a book should come back to it and finish it before criticing it. Life's too short to spend time on things that we don't find enjoyable and you should be able to talk about the part you read/watched, at least to explain why you abandoned it. I find it interesting that this is more understood for books than TV shows.
Agree and disagree. Like, absolutely you aren’t ever required to finish something if you aren’t enjoying it. But I balk a bit at being able to judge something as being wholly “bad” if you’ve only seen a fraction of it, specifically something designed as a cohesive unit like a movie or a serialized season. For me I dislike the trend towards “I didn’t like this thing so it’s bad”. I prefer more of an actual analysis, and since “bad writing” has become such a dog whistle for chuds I also tend to ignore that as a criticism without some actual examples or discussion of how it’s bad.
Judging writing is a very tricky thing. I'm currently existentially wrestling with Dragon Age Veilguard... a game that's gotten a lot of heat for being badly written. The core writing is okay, so it is mostly not bad, or good. But nothing exists in a vacuum. I do think it's very badly written for the series. So yeah, 'thing bad' needs qualifying. But I do think instinct can often be accurate. Many might not be able to explain why they think something is bad, but that doesn't make them wrong, per se.
This. I would also bring issue with people just blatantly lying about why they think why something is bad. Like claiming that characters supposed did something horrible but when you actually see it, that's not what actually happened.
I think there's a difference between someone putting out a review and saying they didn't finish a thing vs saying they just didn't like it and they quit and its not a definitive review. If a video game reviewer doesn't want to finish something, them saying it was too long and it never got good so they quit is fine, just don't give it a review score and say "its not for me." The feedback is still worthwhile and as someone with similar opinions I might avoid said piece of media.
I’ve had an experience with watching Andor, where when watching the show as it came out, it was a deeply miserable experience and I hated the show for it, and it greatly affected my day to day mood for 2 months. In part just because it’s a brutal show, and in part because I didn’t know what the moral compass of the show was, and I didn’t like where it was tending. In the finale my mood flipped on its head. Because I saw where the show was building to, and it was triumphant and hopeful and recontextualized the entire season of TV beforehand since I now had faith that the showrunner wasn’t trying to build something I morally disagree with. So I’m in the situation where overall I think Andor is a great show and the entirety of it is recontextualized for me, but watching it was also a deeply miserable experience that contributed greatly to me being depressed for a while there.
Yeah, I follow a content creator that said once that if by the third episode a series hasn’t hook you up then you should stop watching. That doesn’t mean that it can’t have twists later on, but that by the third episode the series must have something to make you stay, like interesting characters, a hint or two about the plot that might get your attention… It might not fit every series out there, but overall I think that it’s a pretty solid rule
Ideally the first episode (counting 2-parters as one) should the big hook for me and the second one should an example of a normal episode as proof it’s viable as a tv show. So for me, third episode is pushing it.
Yeah I normally go by three episodes (counting two part pilots as one) but if I hear good things about a shows later half then I might he a bit more patient with it. It also depends a bit on the genre, as one stories just take longer to build up but within the first three episodes you should have general idea of what the show is going to be like.
That's just not true. Many a series has trouble findingf their footing in the first season only to vastly improve later on. That's one of the advantages of television, or at least it used to be.
Its more, there should be something you like and can latch on, even if its not there yet. And ok star trek and other shows had characters. or a t least a fun character.
@@Dunybrook You’re not wrong, but (unless I’m mistaken) we’re mostly talking about shows that hinge on the finale to give context and payoffs all the set ups of the show. Can you judge the quality of the episodes you’ve already seen when you don’t know the twist/payoffs that are being set up?
If you weren’t my hero before, you are now. One of my biggest pet peeves in modern TV are the shows that only make sense and are only satisfying once you’ve finished them (or rather that is the promise).
And pretty sure that people miss the point, and mean, the ending was so good, but it always build on something that was already there. Like shows that just get so great, never were bad to begin with, or had good. Something.And i mean messy starts even that have something to hanfg on whatever. Like star tek and characters.
@@marocat4749 I feel like she could be going one of 2 ways with this. Either calling out heavily serialized shows with plot twists at the end that contextualize the entire story, Or talking about judging (possibly reviewing) a TV show that you’ve seen some (or a lot of), but not the entire thing. I took it to mean the former, but now I’m not sure.
There are alot of shows I won't rewatch because they were either a shlog to get through to get to anything good or they started out good and over time became meh until cancellation. I don't expect the quality of seasons to stay EXACTLY the same but if it dips to an extreme, a rewatch is less likely for me
I would agree for shows where it's not explicitly the point of the show to make sense only after the threads come together. There are shows out there I immense enjoyed that had me going, what the hell is going on, until the last third or the last quarter and then the ending made them even better still. One example I have of this is Higurashi no naku kori ni. Season 1 is a constant bombardment of wtf with tiny hints to what might be going on sprinkled throughout, it is only well into the 2nd season that everything is revealed and the payoff is so good. If it's intended to be confusing and done well, it's really enjoyable, at least in my experience.
@@DerNikoI agree. I’m a big fan of mysteries and the subgenre “WTF is going on.” To me, I think the difference is that a good “WTF is going on” doesn’t need a good ending to be enjoyable. It would be preferable and a bad ending would be disappointing, but my positive opinion doesn’t hinge on a good ending. If I keep thinking “this better pay off or I’ll feel like my time was wasted” then it’s not doing its job.
4:00 I was 40 minutes into watching Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) in a movie theater, deeply unsatisfied by the experience, and then realized, hey, I have other things I'd rather do and I can just get up and leave without asking anyone for permission! It saved my time and mood and wasn't rude or intrusive for anyone else. DNF (did not finish) is a common term in the booktube community for a lot of different, valid reasons. If I'm not enjoying or interested in a book I'm reading for myself, I don't have to finish it! No explanation required.
I watched Black Sails back when it was newish and didn't like it, but kept watching because my sister and mum were watching it, by the end of season 1 and especially into season 2 I had turned around and started to appreciate what those earlier episodes in season 1 were doing, by the end of season 2 it was one of my favorite TV shows of all time. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was another show I didn't enjoy during the first few episodes, but "clicked" during the watching of the show. I sometimes have the same experience with music, where I have to listen to a couple of songs from an artist before I find the one that "clicks" and I can go back and enjoy the earlier stuff. Two years ago I tried to get my partner to watch Over the Garden Wall, after 3 episodes they said they didn't like it and didn't want to watch it anymore. This year I asked to rewatch it at their place (because they have MAX and I don't), they were intending to do something else, but after it went past where they had watched they ended up sticking around and watching until the end. They now want to rewatch the entire show (including those early episodes they didn't like two years ago) next year. I do however think I disagree with both you and Linkara that a character death has to be satisfactory or pander to my catharsis to be good, and not doing that is inherently "not a good thing". A lot of character deaths are good to me precisely because they don't do that. I'm also not too comfortable factoring trailers or how a show was released ("bing" or weekly) into how to judge them, since that is often out of the hands of the actual creators of the show, and feels to me like it's just giving more power to the corporate owners on the top, at the detriment of the actual artists. The last thing in particular also becomes irrelevant to how shows are viewed after it's initial release, since after that all shows' format become "binge" by default to all new viewers.
People absolutely say "you can't say something is good until you've seen the end" when criticizing Rotten Tomatoes scores for an entire season of TV being based on only the first couple of episodes reviewers get to see early at least.
Which is the fault of networks for not giving them the whole thing. Reviewers have deadlines and if you only give them three episodes, that’s what they’re going to review and then RT slaps it on the whole season.
Completely agree here!!! RT is a larger corporation that mandates reviews from its employees, so it makes sense for them to be *required* to watch the full season of a TV show in order to properly review it. But that same logic *DOES NOT* apply to individuals! If it’s not a legal obligation by a larger corporation, you DO NOT have to watch the entirety of a movie/show in order for your opinion on it to be valid.
I do definitely think it's context-dependent. And also personal! AAA definitely worked for me, because I loved a character who was mysterious, and you had to work out, episode by episode, the level to which she cared about other people. That was the engagement I felt as a viewer, trying to work it all out. I knew it wouldn't be resolved entirely per episode, because it wasn't sold as a 'you will love how morally redeemable this character is'. She was an unreliable narrator and I enjoyed watching her chaos, even if I was dismayed by a lot of her actions. I think Hahn's charisma always swayed me there too, I can't lie. Her comedic timing and chemistry with the other actors 'excused' a LOT for me. There was also ZERO walkback of character deaths. There were stakes. I loved the honesty of the show. Sometimes people do bad things because they can. And sometimes people die when they aren't ready. That was helped by the show's ending, and it all came full circle for me because I watched all of it. I had however, enjoyed the first several episodes, so again, this is quite a biased, personal perspective.
Now that I think about it, "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie is one where the end changes completely the experience of reading it. But, as you say, it does not invalidate the experience of reading it for the first time, when you don't know anything about the end.
I do think that’s the kind of twist that is quite impressive, but if the rest of the story isn’t enjoyable then it doesn’t matter. The book is good because it was enjoyable throughout, not because the ending made up for the of it being a slog.
Then, of course, there's the possibility of guessing the ending in advance, as my late mother did with "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and many other books. This knack of hers came in especially handy for "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"...
It was fairly good for a while, if the show had ended in season 5 or 6 because of some weird thing like an airplane with most of the main cast crashed, people would still be raving about the show. It was nothing short of astounding how much the show was screwed over in the last two seasons (the show had flaws before that, but it really went downhill after that). I'm pretty sure they accomplished what people didn't think possible, to take a show that should be too big to fail and turn it into something people want to forget about.
To be fair, Game of Thrones was good before the final seasons. The writing and acting was solid and compelling, it's just it ended poorly. A story as a whole can definitely fail by its ending, but it can also have good and bad that can be appreciated separately, especially if it's episodic like a tv show
@@antney7745 I mean Game of Thrones IS still good on the whole, it just has a bad ending and an overall bad final season honestly. That’s why TV shouldn’t be treated like a really long movie. It has EPISODES for a reason. Even with the serialized plots there’s many a game of throne episode you could sit down and watch and recognize what brilliant TV it is without even knowing all the connective tissue that led to that episode.
The thing to keep in mind about fans who just want to disqualify any negative criticism of their favorite media is that consuming more of it probably won't satisfy them. If you do finish the work or remain current with it, they might just turn around and claim instead that your watching so much of it somehow proves you didn't hate it.
one of the reasons why i dislike comments like this is that you know your own tastes and if you see things in a show that you know you don't like. Of Course you are not gonna like it. like duh?
There are really good shows that I can't watch because I can't stand some elements of them. In books, my favourite example is The Great Gatsby. Interesting book that I really didn't want to have to read (yet had to as school assignment) because the people in it were way too awful and I was too fed up with BS like that in real life. Reading other people's writings about the book was way more interesting and beneficial than the book itself. Another book(s) that was painful to read but that I kept reading because it hooked me anyway was The Magicians trilogy. It was painfully well written from a too depressed guy POV which was both impressive and really painful to read but the trilogy book in itself was an emotional journey of the main character healing and that was so weirdly cathartic - many couldn't stand the books or even just the first book, but for me it worked despite discomfort.
As long as someone is able to articulate what they don't like(like you do) I will listen and learn why. I never expect someone else to agree whole heartedly with me, not even my best friend.
Some writers absolutely excel in taking advantage of this mindset. Weave an extremely complicated buildup with twists and turns and ratings boosting revaluations galore only to just… not pay anything off … lol
I generally wait for a series to end to judge it as a whole, but I do judge individual episodes as well. An example of this is the Doctor Who episode 73 Yards. It really disturbed me that Kate Stewart and Carla just abandoned Ruby like that. Future episodes repaired the damage, but it still occurred.
Funny thing regarding 73 Yards, my mum was very confused when we got to the finale and Carla was getting invited to UNIT and joining in on the fun, because she had abandoned Ruby in that episode. Took her a while to remember that it had ended with it all being reset.
I often have problems leaving/quitting something that makes me uncomfortable, so your insistence that you don't need to stick something out till the end really helps.
What do you mean you don't want to go out with me any more? You have to at least wait until we're engaged before judging me. I might be a great husband for all you know.
The first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was famously not very good, but the finale did really elevate things. Contrarily, Umbrella Academy started very strong but seemed to fall apart bit by bit in subsequent seasons and then nosedive at the end. Same with Westworld. Character death in fiction is a tricky thing because it happens to people all the time in real life in ways that are entirely tragic and unexpected, and while that's not necessarily a justification for including it in escapist fantasy, if you avoid that apect of reallity completely people will accuse your works of being too predictable.
"You can't judge something before the end" Dude, I put 50+ hours into Persona 5. I watched 36 episodes and a movie of Jujutsu Kaisen. They're not for me and I REALLY tried! I'd actually prefer a "Can you make it to this episode or part and make a judgment then?" It's not the whole thing and acknowledges that something isn't amazing at the start but gets better. I wouldn't want someone to judge like Star Trek Next Gen on it's first season. But if you don't like it in like Season 3, then that's fine. This has it's own problems but is a better mentality than the former.
"It gets REALLY good after 20 episodes!" That's 20 episodes I could be... illustrating, planning my next TTRPG session, finding something else to watch that also deserves a fair shake.
For me, I am always willing to give books or TV shows the time to find themselves (Its often why people say of their favorite show or book series, that the first few are okay but the latter ones are better)... but there has to be something in that early stuff that makes it worth the wait. Something that holds my interest that makes me want more. If it isn't, then no, I'm not finishing it. My time is too valuable to waste.
Those of us who come from the time when a TV season was ~26 episodes delivered weekly with no way to rewatch them unless you taped everything definitely understand this. I agree that you shouldn't watch something you really don't enjoy. Of course, we also had far fewer shows back then. Of course I also have regret from tuning out of some shows that had a shaky first season but developed into things people loved. (I have trouble getting into a show if I don't watch from the beginning.) With modern shows, every episode has to move the main plot and there's rarely much time to explore characters or episodic stories within it. With older shows, they wouldn't work without those. And finally, there are the shows that you love the story, but then it begins to drag. I'm particularly reminded of Lost, where they were left in a holding pattern by the network, so they couldn't put too much to the main plot and had to come up with new mysteries. I guess I'm just completely mixed up about this.
You nailed the point about fridging on the head. The worst case of fridging I've ever seen is from, of all places, a concept album: The Astonishing by Dream Theater. And it's for all the exact same reasons as you described with Vanessa in Deadpool 2 but on fast-forward.
I always jugde things as I watch/read/play whatever and if I am not having a good time I will stop. I have stopped middway through many TV-shows, movies, games and books so I don't know if the ending saved any of them and will never know.
If I've decided something is worth my time, then it already has some appeal to me as I don't blindly watch anything just because it's there. Because of that I do try and see it through the full season but I still drop out on occasion if it's not enjoyable. Why waste time watching something I'm not enjoying, the hate watchers should learn that. However, I fully believe in what's known as the 3 episode rule (adjusted for season length) and if a show hasn't pulled you in, then you should stop watching. A good ending does not make a good TV show.
While I think shows can evolve and get better, even make the bad parts of shows work in the future, you don't owe anyone anything. If it doesn't grab you quickly, then you don't have to watch it or give it the benefit of the doubt
It took me a surprisingly long time to realise that if you were.ploughing through a tedious book and nor enjoying it there was no moral imperative that means you have to keep reading.
13:00 I have a real problem with the "but they came back at the end" argument because it seems to imply that that means the trope has been subverted. But it doesn't. They killed her to motivate the male character which is still sexist even if they "fix" it later. Same deal with ST: Discovery where they just killed off the gay couple. They did the homophobic trope and it doesn't make it better that they tried to undo it later.
As a child I would force myself to get through things I didn't like, and even rewatch things I knew I hated, but now I just don't have the time. Interstellar, 30 Rock, MASH, The Mighty Boosh, I gave up on those. I do always think it's worth revisiting though. Initially there may have been external factors (if you're tired or not doing well mentally) that now, in a different space, your response could be better. There have been several things I revisited that I didn't like/gave up on the first time (The Prestige, Spaced, Ready Or Not) that I now love. However, if I still don't like them the second time around, as was the case with Boosh, I won't try again. Especially if it's something favoured by a person I care about and whose opinion I value. I'll give it another go for them, so that we may share in the enjoyment, and undoubtedly sometimes their enthusiasm rubs off on me. Equally, however, sometimes it still doesn't work.
I agree with you. If something is meant to be experienced in one sitting (such as a movie or play), then it would be unfair to comment on the whole if you caught only a portion of it. But if series is designed to be episodic, then each episode should have a proper beginning, middle, and end and should be eligible for individual evaluation. It is it's own "whole" that happens to be part of a bigger one. And thank you for adding "especially" for those of us who watch your videos to the end. It was very sweet of you to say.
I was always told that if you start a book you should finish it. I didn't snap out of that mindset until I found myself physically and mentally incapable of continuing my struggle to finish Salman Rushdie's 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet'. Thanks, Sal, you did me a solid there!👍 Not that I give up on books easily though, I wasn't into 'Hamnet' at all, but the last 100 pages got me good. I had to put it down several times to wipe the tears from my eyes, in fact. The only other time that has happened to me was when reading Isabel Allende's 'Paula'. As for movies and tv shows: the only movie I ever walked out of was 'Eyes Wide Shut'. I can put up with anything except mindnumbing boredom. Sorry, not sorry! I was happy that I gave the tv show 'Spartacus' a second chance after that dreadful first episode, but noped out of 'Game of Thrones' after season 1. Idk exactly what it was, but apparently it just wasn't for me.🤷♀️
I would say you can judge something from a partial experience but you can’t critique it. I’ve noped out of a lot of “great” TV because it wasn’t for me. I don’t care how well developed, produced, acted, etc it is if it doesn’t hold my attention. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, none of those are for me. And I’m not going to get what you get out of the experience if you force me to watch it. I’m just going to be super annoyed. But I can’t critique any of those shows, because I know nothing about them. I just knew I didn’t want what they were giving. I don’t feel like I could judge them as “good” or “bad” because, again, I didn’t invest in learning about them. The judgement I can give is “I didn’t like it.” And I can definitely give that judgment with only watching as much as I did
I really like how you express your opinions and how easy you make it for me to understand where you’re coming from even if I somewhat disagree. I disagree with your views on Agatha, but I do agree with your assessment that you can judge a piece of the whole, especially if the whole is not out completely.
I love this. I hate the mind set that you have to watch or read something in its entirety before you can judge it. If it's not good, but gets good later, I'll never know this because it hasn't been good enough to make me want to finish it.
Personally I agree and disagree. I do think there is value in being able to judge a part of something and say “this doesn’t work”, but I do think such criticism should be restricted to that part of it. I think when critiquing something which the critic has only seen part of, that analysis can only really be useful for that part and for me, it would be unfair to judge a full tv show based on just a couple episodes. I mean, imagine judging all of Doctor Who based on Love & Monsters? And some shows/films/books are just slow burns anyway, or only get really good some episodes in. Gotham for me would be a good example. The Pilot is kind of rubbish, but after trawling a mostly mediocre season 1, season 2 gets really great. Similarly, certain sitcoms for me like Friends and Brooklyn 99 also have somewhat rocky starts before middle season highs.
I'm someone who often takes in entertainment in an 'all-at-once' way so I'll binge watch shows or i'll read books really quickly. I did once buy a book for my friend's birthday and decided that I was going to read it first, make notes on my initial thoughts and summarise them chapter-by-chapter, leaving a piece of paper with my thoughts after each chapter in the book so she could effectively read it with me as she went through it. It was probably the first time I slowed down and evaluated my thoughts and feelings in the moment and I definately got a feeling of, oh this works or oh this doesn't work in the moment rather than always evaluating the piece as whole. I've started to do this again with some shows like the Penguin, House of the Dragon and Doctor Who and I definitely see the value of doing this! I didn't find the ending of Doctor Who to be that great and I have a main criticism for the overall season 2 of House of Dragon but because I had to pause after each episode, I appreciate certain individual episodes a lot more than if I'd have binged them so I absolutely agree you can judge - positively or negatively - before the ending.
Ultimately, there's a spectrum - at the one extreme, you have someone who watched the first couple of minutes of An Unearthly Child and decided that the entirety of Doctor Who is rubbish because they don't like police shows being told their opinion is entirely valid; at the other extreme, no-one's allowed to make any judgement about Doctor Who because it's still being made (and even then, next season will take us past 500 hours' total viewing time, just counting the series, including specials, the TV movie, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures and Class - not counting audio books and other media). My view is that it's entirely valid to judge based on whatever you've actually experienced, but when sharing your judgement, you should caveat that judgement with an indication of what you're actually judging - which can come from context: if you're talking about an ongoing series or franchise, then it's implicit that you're only judging based on what's already been released (unless you establish that you have access to unreleased material). It's also valid for people who know more (because they've got that insider access, because time has passed, or because you only sampled whatever it is) to tell you that your conclusions about your sample don't apply to the work as a whole - while there are police in it from time to time, and the opening scene of the entire franchise shows a policeman patrolling then zooms in on a police box, Doctor Who is not at all about the police.
I agree with this argument a lot I think. I think there's so much nuance to these ideas, based on the particulars of how the media is created and released, and the context and criticism people come to it with, and certainly people who ARE judging it as a whole aren't wrong - but that also doesn't give them position to say 'you can't judge it till the end,' because ultimately they're not *right* either. Each person's perspective on a piece of media is just that, their perspective. I do think if you're talking about a piece of media you haven't finished, you should make that clear in the discussion so that people understand that nuance of your criticism, but that in no way means you don't get to make a criticism or that you are obligated to finish it. In terms of books, I have always been of the opinion that if a book can't grab me in the first few pages, or it does something to put me off, it's not worth continuing and it's failed at its job to reel me in. Obviously there's always the possibility that I WOULD change my mind if I kept reading, or that I would even like the first chapter in the future if I tried it again, or that after reading the whole thing I would see it in a different light, but that possibility isn't a guarantee, and I don't owe anything to a piece of media, or its creators, or its fans. This argument reminds me of when people talk about a piece of media and say things like 'it gets good eventually, just keep going.' And honestly if I'm not being entertained or intrigued on some level, I don't care how good it gets. Similarly if the story makes decisions I strongly dislike, I wouldn't automatically be satisfied if they later went back on or recontextualized those decisions, because that doesn't automatically make it better. I fully agree with your point that even if, for example, a potential character death is undone or revealed as a trick, it doesn't erase the feelings of shock and dismay at that character dying. And I would further say that it doesn't erase or undo all the narrative consequences and implications either. I enjoyed Agatha All Along overall, but I think the deaths you referenced and how they were handled were a weak point of the show. In general I think people will use all kinds of arguments to dismiss other's opinions and media criticism, just because it makes them uncomfortable. Personally, I don't think there's limits to when you're allowed to have an opinion on something. There's some media I've never properly engaged with at all that I nevertheless know I would not like and I can name issues I have with it that turn me off from even giving it a chance because I've heard the criticism of others, seen promotional material and excerpts, and generally gotten enough information to generate a pretty good impression of what it is and how it'd effect me. Do I know for sure? No! Are there nuances I won't discover if I keep ignoring it? Yes. But I've accurately determined that at this point in time, I am not interested, and I find what I know about the subject off-putting. This obviously isn't the same as an informed criticism, but it's still a valid opinion.
Gosh I love your point about just knowing sometimes that you're not going to like something. That's how I feel about the Saw movies (not a shocking example cos those are what they are-). Sure, I haven't seen them, and there might be something there, but the concept (and certain graphic details I've heard) turn me off it.
It depends. Southland Tales, Sucker Punch, Scary Movie - those are movies that I gave a chance despite not enjoying the beginning, and they validated my initial impression that they were bad at every step. Starfield was a game that I invested 3 hours in, and hated every second of it. Which is why I did something I've never done before, and requested a refund. And when that was denied, I did something I've never even thought of doing and posted a chargeback. So I do think that if you're really not enjoying it, don't keep investing in it. That said, Star Trek: Prodigy was a show that I didn't like at the beginning. The first several episodes didn't click with me. But after that it quickly became one of my favorite series. I had almost reached the point where I was going to give up on it, before it turned around for me. So basically it's a case by case basis. Is there enough potential in there to see it through, or is it completely irredeemable. Ideally a good work will capture my attention from the start, but I know sometimes they need time to cook before they get really good. But if they aren't providing anything enjoyable at all, there's no reason to keep going.
"Ah, you judged my story early! But it turns out that, for the purposes of a final episode twist, I undid all of that characterization and development that you were criticizing, so your argument is invalid! Mwahahaha!" Yeah, I'm definitely with you on these criticisms. Just because something happens later that undoes or changes the context of an event in a story doesn't mean it can't be judged in the moment or as a culmination of only the things up to that point, as well as the other examples you gave. But the point that stuck for me is the release format one, and it makes me wonder if that was a factor in the release schedules for stuff like the Disney Plus shows. Letting the public know the low number of episodes and being fairly up front that the whole season has already been shot gives it the "you gotta watch it til the end!" defense that has reached prominence most recently with the rise of bingeable shows, while also having the weekly release schedule to have time to actually build anticipation and get multiple bumps in the media and staying in the public consciousness. Whether the protection from criticism part was fully deliberate or not, it really does feel like the perfect midpoint to allow you to take advantage of both sides of that coin.
I mean if anything is so bad that it makes you lose interest, you can judge it. With film, I figure if it wasn't so bad that I turned it off after 15 minutes, then I'll stay till the end, barring the exceptions listed in the video like serious triggers. But with a series, if I don't like even the first episode, and I haven't been warned by fans that the first episode or season is something you have to "just get through," I'll give it one more episode, then I'll quit it if I'm still not into it. My time is precious, and there is always so much else to see. And yes, I'll voice judgment of what I saw up to the point I quit, as it's the creative team's job to make me stay invested from one plot point to the next, and a critic's (and even audience's) job to analyze why the creators may have failed to do so. I won't say, "It's a bad show." But I will say, "It failed to keep me invested and here's why."
I've decided to wait and watching Agatha over a week period for some of the reasons you mention here. It made for a better experience. I regret not having done that for the Accolyte. I have the feeling I would have loved it more. (I like both series, I don't have the same problems with Agatha you have) but these are my thoughts I also think rewatch can help. 4 5? years in I think I appreciating the Timeless Child for what it is for the first time.
So in the anime community there was, for a long time, the shared idea of the "3 Episode Rule" Where, as long as it's not offensive, you generally give it three episodes for something about it to hook you and if not, drop it.
Years ago a friend and went to see Moulin Rouge. This was the only time I’ve walked out of a movie. But it was only because my friend wasn’t enjoying it. I would have stayed though I wasn’t getting much out of the show.
Hi Vera, Love your Content. I may not always agree with all your opinions, but I value and look forward to whenever you do a critique on shows I'm interested In (Doctor Who, Agatha, etc.). That being said - I think what you're saying is quite fair. We all have opinions on pieces of entertainment and critiques are simply an opinion discussing what works, what doesn't work, or underlying themes and messages. With TV shows, books etc. if I'm not pulled in early on I lose motivation to continue the thing (no matter how good it seems to anyone else). It just doesn't speak to me or work for me, or maybe I find it uninteresting in certain ways. With that, if it's not connecting person I don't think they need to watch it to the end to gain understanding of why it does not work them. I also say this knowing that I have strongly encouraged friends I like to try to finish certain series for ending, or the eventual plot twists I already know are coming (ex: Steven Universe, Battlestar Galactica, among others). I just don't get why it's a problem. For instance, I liked Agatha All Along, and you didn't like the main character. That's fine - Hell, your critique helped me realize that there were aspects of the main character *I* actually didn't like...and when you think about it there really wasn't any growth for her, personally. So yeah, you're not obligated to continue watching something you don't like even if everyone else thinks you should "Watch to the end."
Thank you for the video, Vera! When analyzing any piece of media, both angles of judging in its entirety, and its individual parts are important. If the beginning and the middle of a story are bad, it is really unlikely that a good ending (quality-wise, not necessarily a happy one) will make the earlier parts good. A good story must always aim to be good when considering both its individual parts and the entire work. Personally, if an entire story cannot be at least good across the board, I will usually prefer to deal with a bad ending. Even if the ending was disappointing or not worthy, at least, the journey towards it was good.
So people can't just watch a pilot and decide something isn't for them, and quit? They can only form an opinion if they've consumed all of it? This just makes it sound like people are obligated to consume a lot of media they don't even like. It's ridiculous. I agree with all of your points. On the subject of how sometimes the ending can change a story for the better, I've wondered how many people have experienced the opposite? More than once I've had a movie or series I was really enjoying, and then an absolutely terrible ending ruins the whole thing for me.
For me, It depends on the type of show. For example... Like Sitcoms get one episode to pull me in, Drama gets maybe two depending on the tropes used. My ADHD doesn't let me see how predictable story telling lol. Another thing if a story is dependant on a surprised twist it's not a good story because it becomes unable to surprise you after the first time.
I have the exception that may prove the rule. There are people in the world who love Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place but think that Parks and Rec is just a The Office clone because they gave up in the first season. Those poor, poor people missing out on something that they would likely adore (as it was the template for Michael Schur’s later shows that they love.) if they skipped ahead some or stuck it out.
Absolutely. I think there are plenty of shows which really do pick up, at least in my opinion, later on in their run. Good examples I have would probably include even Brooklyn 99. While the earliest series aren’t bad, it does pick up for me in later episodes. The same for the show Gotham, where the first season isn’t really indicative of how good later episodes are. Some things are just slow burns.
This is why I always advocate for skipping ahead. I never would have watched Bojack Horseman the whole way through if I didn't skip to season 5, then get impressed by the writing enough to want to watch the whole thing. I've watched plenty of shows where I just skipped episodes I didn't care about and I enjoy them all the more for it
Thank you, you are also beautiful valid and loved! I think it's perfectly valid to judge a series by the first couple of episodes, first episode if it does something like fridging, "it gets better in the end" is no justification for wasting our time.
As someone who was one of the people saying "wait until the whole series is done before passing judgment" during Flux, I agree with everything in this video. If it isn't working, you aren't obligated to finish watching it. If you don't like something, you aren't obligated to finish it. I rarely drop books in the middle, but I'll drop shows and such, sometimes without realizing that's what I'm doing until way later when I realize it's been X amount of time since I watched the last thing. I think where, for me, it becomes something that I'm going to comment on, like I did with Flux, is that while you aren't obligated to finish it, you do anyway, and continue to criticize in a public forum. Which, I know, is the entire point of being a critique channel. One I very much enjoy even when I disagree with the critique, and sometimes because I disagree, because your critiques highlight something I missed out on when I watched/read a thing. When something is talked about week after week, and week after week I hear primarily negative comments, I wonder why you continue watching when it's clear you don't like the thing. It starts to feel like a hate-watch, which is a phenomenon I only sort-of get. Watching something you know can be good in the hopes that it does get there is one thing. Watching it knowing it's going to be a trainwreck and then commenting on how much of a trainwreck it is as you do is another. And while I agree with you that the ending of a show doesn't necessarily save it from having been bad in places, I also thing failing to stick the landing on an otherwise good show can absolutely ruin that show. See: Game of Thrones. My brother ADORED that show up until the final season, and then, like many, he watched that season, and never went back to rewatch it again, even though he'd rewatched the whole series on streaming before each new season. The ending ruined the experience for him, and took something he'd considered amazing, something that was dear to him, and turned it into garbage, because he knew what was coming in the end.
I think your opinion is extremely valid. Like i don't like to finish stuff I'm not really enjoying and i probably have never finished a show/movie/anime/novel etc that at some moment started bothering me for some reason or another. You can totally judge a thing by just a part of it and decide if it's good or bad FOR YOU. And honestly no one can have a 100% objective opinions on art especially.
I have had exactly one case where knowing the ending/knowing what comes next kept me from quitting a show and it was because the introduction of Gus Fring and the end of Breaking Bad addressed/fixed the problem I had. This is the ONLY time yhis has happened.
I mostly agree with your main point, but I noticed something in how you discussed the topic that I think highlighted where I do disagree with you. In the section about how whether you liked an individual episode is meaningful (which I wholeheartedly agree with), you sometimes referred to whether or not the episode "worked" as if it meant the same thing, and to me it doesn't. I wouldn't say you could judge whether a single episode successfully accomplished it's planned role at all without knowing what that purpose was, which may not be clear in the moment. To me, that seems like a difference that is significant to effect whether you should be doing it. I was much more surprised by your take on trailers. Your opinion seemed so plainly wrong to me that it made me wonder if we're even considering the same question. I'll have to go check your video, but the idea that you expressed that a trailer's purpose is to help you accurately judge a movie does not match my lived experience. I'm much more familiar with trailers made to sell tickets.
I have got out of the movie theatre mid-film twice in my life, basically triggered: - Bitter Moon (Roman Polanski) - Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro) Otherwise, I usually stay to the end.
I watched a friend tell another friend that the show she was not enjoying would be better if she just waited until the second half of the second season of an animated show. So 39+ half hour long episodes so that they could begin to enjoy the show. My friend said “Life is too short for me to spend that much time on something I am not enjoying and don’t have to do.”
I have told people to just skip the first season of a show when it's too different and weird compared to the rest of the show (some older shows needed a season to find their footing), but telling someone to slog through the shitty parts when a plot synopsis until the shitty parts end is good enough, is confusing
Fabulous intro, Vera! While an ending can't save a show or book for me, it certainly can ruin everything that came before it. Time to watch the rest of this vid. Love you, and love your work. Parasocial hugs here if you want them. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤
Absolutely agree an ending can totally ruin a work that was enjoyable up to that moment. I find that usually happens when the creator seemingly had a particular ending in mind when they started then allowed the story to develop in such a way that the planned ending no longer fit but still used that ending anyway. It’s somewhat less annoying when you know the series was canceled and they have only a couple of episodes to wrap it all up, but it drives me crazy in books when it feels like the author just gave up and slapped an ending on that makes no sense.
One thing too is the whole "it gets good at X point" where if you take it at point value is like did they not think it was "good" before "X point?" They probably liked it enough to keep reading or watching it beforehand. I do believe there is merit to the whole "judge the whole" with Mystery being the easiest to argue for. And to an extent books which (should) tell a complete story from cover to cover. Tho I strongly believe individual chapters should be able to work "on their own" and should be judged whole. The author has control where chapters start and end, and books are rarely read in 1 sitting so the author creates chapters which convey where the author is "comfortable" you stop reading. I've read books where if a chapter break happened at x point (usually where a "negative" cliffhanger would be) I probably would have hated it and soured my experience, even if everything else was the same, but in the example I'm thinking, the author didn't have a chapter break there. Side note I consider "negative cliffhanger" as something thats instantly resolved next ep/ch and it's certain there'll be little to no consequences. So if a series does it, it sours my experience. At bare minimum I believe it should take at least an entire chapter to resolve the previous chapter's cliffhanger, even more if it's supposed to be impactful (like Ned's death in GoT is felt throughout the series).
perhaps my only counterexample to this is Peter Capaldi as the 12th doctor - judging by even the first series I wouldn't have predicted that he'd become my favourite. but the thing is 12 was still quite inticing even before his first series ended.
As an avid reader, this is something constantly brought up in the reading space. I myself think it’s perfectly fine to judge something if you haven’t finished it but especially when it comes to books I like to be transparent and say I did not finish the book and to what point I got (40%,60%, etc).
reminds me of the opposite effect of liking the guts of killing off a main character in attack on titan and thinking oh cool we are going to shift over to the sisters story then they undid the impactful death
I was thinking about this recently since I usually start my letterboxd reviews at about the 2/3 mark of the film when I can. I do take into account any twists or added context that the ending might provide, but there's usually something that i've felt or notices throughout the film that i can already articulate by the third act. like you said about providing that feedback earlier on in a piece, i think it can help contextualize my thoughts better if i include my initial reactions. i do try to keep things spoiler free so sometimes i have to be a bit vague lol. i found that when i go back to my review later, it's nice to know if parts were confusing or if the ending didn't fully answer my questions. in the unlikely event someone else reads my review, i hope it gives them a better picture of the experience or opens a discussion
i totally agree with you, Vera, there have been dozens of movies that if i could not get into them within the first 15 minutes or i feel offended and icky at the begining....then i stop watching
First of all, a positive comment: you are an excellent researcher and a fantastic presenter of that research even when I don't necessarily agree with your opinions - that's REAL commentary and criticism that you offer and not whiny infantile tantrums a lot of YTuber "influencers" go about spouting ad nauseam.
This is wonderful! I have agreed with Vera on most of her takes on a series but we disagree on Agatha. Why is that wonderful? Because I understand and respect where she is coming from. But the show works for me. I like that her expressing her opinions in no way changes that view. Great video and I agree with the point. I have been on the other side of this with The Acolyte. I watched, didn’t enjoy and kept being told “to watch until the end.” The end was my least favorite part of the series. The fans who enjoyed it are absolutely valid. But it didn’t work for me. And that’s fine. Art is wonderful and subjective.
That's a cool point you made about keeping earlier annotations when revising your friend's stories. That's is super useful To use your dinner analogy, I'm somebody who pushes through a mediocre dinner because I've heard the dessert course is awesome, lol. I'm on book 10 of a 13 book series I dislike cuz I like some of the side plots & have to see it through.
I feel like reading a book series you dislike for the good bits is much easier than watching a show for the good bits. I started watching The Blacklist and I like many parts of the show just not the sum, it's frustrating and I have been trying to slog through it while multitasking, but books are so much faster and easier to consume. I keep wishing I could just read the show instead, I gave up on trying to finish it like two months ago
This is the same thought I had with SGU... initially thought it was dull and boring and actually thought about binning it however as the show started to actually get good around episode 10 and I absolutely love it. Overall SGU is not a show for the faint of heart because it's a show that requires patience.
Negative comment. Mwah ha ha ha! Edit: Also agree that it's a silly argument I doubt anyone is going to sit down and tell me to watch all 21 seasons of grays anatomy before I can say it's a bad show. If your hook into a product is weak why should I commit to reading/watching the whole thing?
I've pushed myself through pieces of media I didn't like very much, because I want to see how they turn out, and sometimes there are shows that hardly anyone talks about online, so if nobody is watching it, why can't I? (Sometimes a show might get a bad rep, but when I watch it, I really don't see anything wrong with it. Recently I managed to watch Series 11 & 12 of Doctor Who and I actually liked watching them. I have my own criticisms regarding certain eps, but I can say I liked S12 more than S11).
Місяць тому
I think there is dangers in both approaches. I was a big fan of Lost before it ended and think both Lost and Game of Thrones are fine examples of the “Cascade Failure” where the story feels bad when it ends but then when you sit with it and have moments come to mind you just see more and more examples of how this thread was left hanging or this piece of info never worked. So as we know we have them you can have the opposite the Cascade Success where you enjoy the end of the story and as you think about it over the next few weeks you see more and more points where a characters early motivation made on of their actions obvious or a line paid of or an action even in an early season of a show finished off having such effects. In these days of binging and on demand many great shows are not given the time to grow and can not make us care about characters or have them behave in a sensible way as they have to shoot out story as fast as possible to stop someone from just giving up on the show and moving to another. Other way round mind you are the shows that only care for the end, I think there is a big difference between not getting a thing and not enjoying it. If you do not understand a thing then latter you pick it up and are like oh wow that makes sense thats cool that happens all the time someone says a thing that feels off and you not sure why then maybe years of decades latter you hear a fact and boom you now know why that one comment made you know something was up their, not knowing it all is fine story’s unfold but relying on you enjoying that unfold to the level of making the story only good is a modern danger. Feel the Prequal Star War and Fantasic Beast where all about that hearing everyone’s therorys online and then coming up with a loverly twist that none saw coming to make those who have been watching therory videos for weeks before gasp in shock, but userly making a story that has no clues to what’s coming including people’s behaviour so everyone has to have very little personality or feeling of self interest or rational behaviour the plans often made by someone are so complex you ask why they did not just do one way similar option and any future generations coming to it will have no idea what therory they skill fully took down with that comment it will just feel like a person saying some wired stuff out of character. In short I wish more shows had the space to grow characters and build plots and feel that the curse of having to grab attention fast is breaking modern TV, but also feel its being broken by writers hearing the ideas of their biggest fans and reacting too if you give a person space to make a vision it has to be one of their own not just feel like the films are reaction videos to the UA-cam reviews.
The funny thing is, good shows never get comments like this. I've just rewatched the first season of Arcane and a lot of videos about it, including the ones which were coming out while the season was airing, and no one has ever said "wait! You can't judge it before you've seen the end". Or Game of Thrones. Or Breaking Bad. Or many other wondeful shows. But people will say it a lot with other shows, and then it mostly always ends with time proving that yeah, the show was bad. Now, of course, it can also be not one's cup of tea, and if the show is not for you right of the bat, it will not become more for you by the end, but that is usually easily identified straight away, mostly by the concept itself. It goes the other way as well. No matter how good, or how bad season 2 of Arcane will be, it will have no bearance on season 1 - it will still remain a masterpiece. Even the first 4 seasons of GoT are still fantastic, though the end ruined the show. So yes, we can and should judge the thing as we are presented. And hey, if suddenly the ending makes a show super good, you can always say, aha, I was wrong, I understand now. But let's be honest - how often does that really happen? In my case - pretty much never. And with Agatha specifically, as an example. The death of Sharon was terrible, and the characters caused it because they didn't care for her well-being. Even if she did come back from the dead, who cares? That will not change how she was handled by the others. The issue is not that she died. The issue is how she died and how others behaved. They still behaved that way. So yes, that absolutely is deserved of critisism.
They would have done if anyone said it was bad. Here’s a small correction for you. It doesn’t happen when something is universally regarded as good. Because art is subjective. Not objective. And the first season of Game of Thrones was not universally beloved. Breaking Bad was nearly dropped after its first season. They both did not become truly successful until later seasons. By all accounts the sentiment of not judging until x point is more relevant for these shows. We all agree they were great now, but that wasn’t always the case at the time. Arcane is slightly unusual in striking gold immediately, it normally takes a season or two for a show to figure itself out. But I am left to wonder if it really is as successful as that. It’s certainly highly regarded, and everyone who has seen it says it’s good, but it feels like its success is only in cult spaces. Has the mainstream picked up on it? It was out for at least a year before I ever got round to watching it, and I never had to dodge spoilers at any point, whereas I always have to be careful online whenever a new Star Wars or marvel show drops. Arcane is good (correction: great) but it hasn’t been as culturally significant as Stranger Things or Squid Game. No. Where it actually happens is when it’s related to a big IP, thus big mass appeal, big audience, big range of viewers, big range of opinions, big opportunity for discourse. It’s no coincidence that Stranger Things has conjured more discourse as it became more culturally relevant.
@@intergalactic92Are you sure that isn't culturally significant? Just because you personally didn't find about show, that doesn't mean that people don't talk about it.
The only caveat I have is that (almost) *nothing* can excuse a bad character death. The only thing that can make a character death better is contextualisation of *that character's* motivation to make the death seem like their choice or the result of their choices or somehow morally fitting in the story. The first character that comes to mind is from the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini. **Spoilers incoming.** If you like dragons and fantasy worlds, you should give the series a try. I'm about to spoil some really important character moments for the protagonist. Brom is introduced as this slightly crazy grizzly guy in the village the protagonist, Eragon, grew up in. When some events that confuse Eragon happen, he goes to Brom for help because the guy mentioned stuff once that seemed related to his conundrum. An inciting incident happens and then the pair are on the road, Brom mentoring Eragon. Later, Eragon does a dumb thing and nearly dies, but Brom gets in the way and dies for him. At the time, this is kinda just a mentor death for a character doing something very stupid, so like it enotionally sucks but what can you do. Later, Eragon has realised that he's the son of someone not quite the big bad, but the next worst thing. He goes to another mentor he has found by this point very emotional about that fact. Then, it is revealed to him that Brom was his father. Thus, the presence of the character and his death is recontextualised. It isn't just some grouchy guy who feels guilty for not being able to stop the BBEG, but a father who's staying near his son to watch over him the best he can, scared of getting attached because all he lost. Now the death is an act of love. So, that's one instance where a death is improved later, but even then you could still take a character's initial circumstances and judge them, especially if the reveals happen in later books. For all you know the author mightn't have even planned those extra layers. But in 99% of cases, a death isn't fixed by bringing the character back. All that changes is that the author is now using that character as a crutch, killing and bringing them back to suit the plot and in my opinion that makes it worse. **Spoilers for Agatha All Along incoming.** I didn't like pretty much any of the deaths in the series, apart from Lilia. Sharon was just needless, Alice was literally killed in her prime which feels tragic in a bad way to me. Agatha's death then return as a ghost has me torn. I just don't like it when a series kills a character it isn't willing to keep dead, but being a ghost is very in character for her. So in a way it is developing her character. I think I've settled on giving it a pass because apparently her ghostly status comes from the comics. Anyway, TL;DR: The only way to improve a character death after it happens is by developing the now-dead character's motivations. So, that can be the reasons why they died, or MAYBE the reasons why they came back (Dean's return from purgatory in Supernatural is my best example of that, its a time when death in the show actually works). Bringing a character back through another character's hard work or even without any will feel cheap because it doesn't consider the dead character at all and suggests the author only cares about them as a tool for the protagonist's development
An example of something being saved by its ending (for me) is The Batman. If they had ended that film saturated in the same darkness, depression and pessimism as most of that film lived in, I would have wanted nothing to do with the franchise from there out and would have hated that film, but because they pivoted the tone of the character at the end I do enjoy it and want to see where they go with him. Even so, I don't blame anyone for bailing on something midway if they don't like it. The audience isn't obligated to stick with something just because it's not done yet.
I think it would depend on the style of the show. Some shows need to be judged by their seasons, as they are serialised - like Game of Thrones. The last season of Dr Who, however, was mostly stand-alone episodes, so you can love Rogue but hate Space Babies.
I process as i watch, its why ppl don't really watch tv or movies with me, bc I'm a person who literally comments as something happens like you said you did with your friends writings. I'll sit there and pasue and be like whoa wait that makes no sense and then rewind and see if i was taking it right. I definitely agree with this take, i do like to push through, though, bc I don't want to not finish things, but when it gets too much, i have to leave, and i leave for good. But i am definitely all about the process, even though i'll binge something, i will still pause and be like omg whoa, its why i love tv more than movies, Television gives mw time to process and collect my thoughts
The most you can ever say is. I like it so far. or I don't like what i've seen so far. Or I'm not impressed but its watchable and i'm curious. No one can ever say anything more that under any circumstances. EX: endings can tie up loose ends that you didn't realize could be tied up. or they can make things worse with a bad twist.
Apparently this “you have to watch/play the whole thing before critiquing it!” dictate doesn’t apply to Hogwarts Legacy. Bc I’m 98% finished on a secondhand copy and everyone claiming to be a gaming journalist who made a HogLeg video has a LOT of explaining to do.
You make some very valid points here. I'm the type to watch an entire show like "Agatha" before judging it for the most part. If I'm not enjoying it, I won't finish it, period. I remember years ago when "Queer As Folk" was on Showtime. It came on every Sunday and my friends and I would gather to watch it every week. Some episodes were great, some were awful, but usually the end of each season would make up for the bad stuff. We would then have a discussion about that week's episode and then hit up the local gay bar, lol. I think it really depends on what kind of viewer you are, or even the type of media you're watching. Regardless, it's the viewers opinion, which they have every right to. Thanks for opening up this discussion :) -- Constance
I personally feel like there's two parts to this process. The first is that, if you start something [reading a book, watching a movie, playing a game, ectc], you are 100% not obligated to either finish it, or even enjoy it. I feel like there's a bit of a discourse around 'you have to read/watch until *insert arbitrary number*, then it gets good!' kinds of suggestions. I believe that no one should have to, or feel pushed to, do anything that is meant as enjoyment, when they aren't enjoying it. I wish that more people would accept 'I didn't like this, and that's okay' as an answer. However, the second part consequently means that attempting to say 'this was the worst thing ever' when you've only seen part of it, doesn't quite work, doesn't quite make sense. At least, I think so.
Yeah. If I didn't enjoy 70% of something, the ending won't change that. Now, I enjoy mysteries and don't need to understand everything from the start, but each section of a book or series needs to earn its keep. Episodic narratives get a little more leeway. Still, the good episodes don't improve the bad ones.
Anime has the 3 episode rule. Generally, the idea is, if an anime wasn't caught you by the end of the third episode drop it because it's unlikely episode 6 or even 12 will grab you. Now, there are a few anime that need more than 3 episode to really get into the meat of things, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb.
The only piece of media where I give a caveat of "you WILL need to commit to watching the two seasons" is a mystery anime, Higurashi. In full, my caveat is "you will need to commit to two seasons if you decide to watch it, cos unless you see the answers at the end of season two you will have no clue what is going on".
My love of Books and My Dyslexia has taught me a long time ago that it is Completely ok to Judge a piece of media you are consuming in your pastime. One only has so many hours in a day, week, month or even year. Question what makes you uncomfortable and decide if it's worthwhile continuing to the end or just stop. Unless an opinion actively seeks to harm yourself or others, Your feelings on something are valid.
5:35 I will say that I often caveat my favourable opinions on ongoing serialized shows as "so far, it's been _____, but maybe they'll mess it up" - in fact, I recall making similar comments early on for both Agatha All Along and The Penguin, though moreso for AAA because the MCU shows have had difficulty landing the ending. I think the best way is to emphasize the source of the issue: if it's how a character death occurred, say it's *how this went down* and emphasize that, and maybe acknowledge "even if they came back, this bit will still bother me, but maybe in hindsight I won't be so angry", just as I've sometimes had the opposite, noting in hindsight "oh, they really didn't land that payoff and that retroactively made this thing worse". Will it stop people on the internet criticizing/arguing? No, that's impossible.
I had this lesson imprinted into me young by being a teen in the 90's who doesn't like Harry Potter. "You only have to read 4 books before it gets good" absolutely not! I could be reading 4 books I actually like.
Exactly I never got into those books also but boy do i remember the lines outside of bookstores in the late 90’s for them cause by then I had my 2 big fandoms Batman and the power rangers but the fans really turned me off to potter with them assuming just because they like the franchise everyone else does also by bringing it up in conversations where it doesn’t belong like in comic book conventions
If it takes you 4 books to get into something, it isn't exactly worth getting into lol that's like saying give it 40 mins and then you'll get into the movie thats an hour and a half long 🤣 I say this as someone who did like the H.P. books btw
I used to like Harry Potter, but the end is very disappointing. Not counting the sequel, "Cursed Child", never even bothered to read it. Anyway, all of them married straight and with children... Come on!
"Just keep playing. It gets really good in Hour 87."
I read all of them and only liked the 3rd one. I would definitely have been better off using the time to read books I actually like.
When it comes to TV shows, books, and movies I wish people would just accept the answer of, "I wasn't enjoying this, so I moved on." But it's like everything has to be an argument. Or fans think they have to convert you into liking what they like. They always say, "just give it another chance." My question is how many times do I have to give something a chance before I like it? You shouldn't have to put in so much effort to like something that's not working for you.
Yes Malazan/Book of the Fallen fans are the worst for this :P
yeah, not liking something is not an ethical problem for the creator or audience, sometimes you just don't like things, and that's ok. no point in forcing yourself to watch/read the whole thing.
there's a difference between giving a show a few eps to grab you, and forcing yourself to watch an entire show you don't like and hating every second
Imagine someone who isn't having fun watching one piece but still thinks "I'll watch it all the way through to see if it's good." That's would be a miserable existence.
Which is perfectly fair; most diehard fans of that series have at least something early on that draws their interest, and even if it “gets good” some 40 episodes/100 chapters in at least most people aren’t saying they were bored. But if you’re not feeling hooked early on and it’s taking too long to feel invested… yeah, I get that; not least for it being a huge commitment that’s daunting as a prospect of getting into.
Speaking as someone who is a die-hard One Piece lover... Yeah I do think the common point of "You gotta stick it out till volume 9/episode 40 or so!" is a *huge* mark against it, and that if anyone was reading the early volumes or watching the first few arcs and not enjoying it *at all,* that's an entirely fair reason to give up. Like for my part, I still consider the early material *fairly enjoyable.* Sure, it makes a massive leap in quality around the point everyone talks about, but if you're not *at all* vibing with the characters or the world or the humor or anything else... I don't think you actually need to get all the way to the climax of Arlong to conclude that One Piece just isn't for you.
I think it depends on what you're criticizing. "I don't like where this story is going" is a criticism that should probably have the caveat of "I haven't actually seen it yet, it might turn out ok." But "I'm not enjoying this," or "This character is unlikable," or "This story beat turned me off," or even "I don't want to watch this anymore," are judgements you can make at any time.
Yup.
I do think you can say "I don't like where this story is going...and I can't think of an ending that would fix that." or "...and the only ending that would fix it would be unpleasant in a different way." Though that has a lot of overlap with "this story beat turned me off."
@@chrismckenzie3414 Excellent point. There are shows where I went “I’m sure the ending is enjoyable and will address the issues I have now, but I’m not enjoying it now and probably won’t enjoy the experience getting there.”
People should also be aware of their personal biases and prejudices when criticize something.
Like, would you hate this character if it is straight white man (instead WOC) but behave the same and make same decisions?
@@scottbutler5 i do think TV has lost the art of TV. Like a movie, yeah, in most cases watch the whole thing. A book I didn’t finish I try not to give an opinion on beyond it lost me enough I am not sure I wanna go back. But TV is literally SUPPOSE to be consumed as episodes and streaming has made people treat TV series like parts of a very long movie. It’s not! even as part of a larger framework each actual episode should be able to be created as its own thing with a beginning, middle, and end. And therefore people should be able to have opinions on that contained thing as it happens. By episode.
I remember Yatzhee once saying "People tell me FF13 get's good about 20 hours in. You know that's not a point in its favour right? Put your hand on a stove for 20 hours, and yeah you'll probably stop feeling the pain but you'll have done serious damage to yourself."
I heard that FF13 is underrated.
I remember dealing with a double sword of this in high school. I was told I couldn't dislike/judge a book series without reading it all.
Then when I read it all the argument was "well, you must like them since you read it all"
This is why many people say "3 episode rule" because the 3rd episode at maximum should give you something to wanna stay. In my mind it should be first episode get's you curious, second episode shows what a normal episode is like, and 3rd gives you the definite reason to stay.
I wouldn't put it as a '3 episode rule', although I know that's what it's usually called but I agree with the overall point. I'd use the rule but apply it as a rough percentage of the series length. If it's ony a 4 or 5 episode mini-series, then watching 3 seems pointless as you may as well watch the last 1 or 2. So one episode should be enough, maybe two if there's uncertainty but for longer shows (12 episodes plus), then 3 episodes should be enough.
@@Elwaves2925 That works too, the point is by a certain proportion of the series, you should know whether it's gonna keep you interested or not
I don't think anyone is obligated to give their attention to something for three episodes before deciding if they're going to continue with it. Similarly, you don't have to read every book you get (purchased or borrowed or downloaded whatever) for a prerequisite number of chapters before you can decide it's not for you. If you want to give a thing a chance, whether for so long or right through, you have that option. If you have any strong reaction -- whether liking it or really hating it -- you have a right to your reaction. And when you like something and someone else doesn't and quit midway, it's usually not your job to kvetch about them bailing. You could maybe argue that some UA-camrs have an obligation, either because the thing appears to be in their milieu and their audience is expecting that UA-camr to stick it out, but even then, I'm not sure.
Reads With Rachel is a book community UA-cam channel, and its host is a beautiful member of the LGBTQ group, and she often talks about trigger warnings. Many authors and even actors have been a bit salty or facetious about trigger warnings, seeing them as spoilers. But Rachel made what I think is a terrific point. Trigger warnings are like allergens lists. Many foods in stores these days have ingredients lists on their packaging. If you or someone you're buying groceries for has allergies, of whatever degree, you check the list. If you don't, you don't have to (at least it's not as imperative as it could be for someone with allergies). Same thing with trigger warnings. If there are issues that would cause you to have a mental version of an allergic reaction, a trigger warning list could protect you from reading or watching something that probably would wreck your mental health. If you don't have anything that requires such a warning, just ignore the trigger warning list (either fast forward through it if visual or auditory, or avoid the page(s) with the list.
Sorry. Didn't mean to lecture like a school marm. But I think it matters.
And if a UA-camr doesn't feel like they want to stick with reviews of each episode etc, they can make an announcement. Vera has done that when she decided she wasn't getting that much from a series. Just because someone is a UA-camr shouldn't force them to get through something just because someone else expected that to occur.
Oops. Kinda went lecture again. Culpa over mea like bees over Nicholas Cage in a certain movie.
@@nancyjay790 I agree with the rest of your post but just wanted to point that nobody is saying it's an obligation. The three episode rule (or however many) is just a guide, a way to fairly judge whether something is for you or not, without investing a load of time. That only applies IF you decide to start watching in the first place, it doesn't apply if the show holds no interest to you and you aren't watching any of it. 🙂
@Elwaves2925 Fair enough.
Readers have a whole name/category "DNF" for books that they Did Not Finish because they weren't enjoying them and it's a completely legit and universally accepted thing and at least in my bubble, I almost never see someone argue that the person who DNFed a book should come back to it and finish it before criticing it. Life's too short to spend time on things that we don't find enjoyable and you should be able to talk about the part you read/watched, at least to explain why you abandoned it. I find it interesting that this is more understood for books than TV shows.
Agree and disagree.
Like, absolutely you aren’t ever required to finish something if you aren’t enjoying it. But I balk a bit at being able to judge something as being wholly “bad” if you’ve only seen a fraction of it, specifically something designed as a cohesive unit like a movie or a serialized season.
For me I dislike the trend towards “I didn’t like this thing so it’s bad”. I prefer more of an actual analysis, and since “bad writing” has become such a dog whistle for chuds I also tend to ignore that as a criticism without some actual examples or discussion of how it’s bad.
Judging writing is a very tricky thing. I'm currently existentially wrestling with Dragon Age Veilguard... a game that's gotten a lot of heat for being badly written.
The core writing is okay, so it is mostly not bad, or good. But nothing exists in a vacuum. I do think it's very badly written for the series.
So yeah, 'thing bad' needs qualifying. But I do think instinct can often be accurate. Many might not be able to explain why they think something is bad, but that doesn't make them wrong, per se.
This. I would also bring issue with people just blatantly lying about why they think why something is bad.
Like claiming that characters supposed did something horrible but when you actually see it, that's not what actually happened.
I think there's a difference between someone putting out a review and saying they didn't finish a thing vs saying they just didn't like it and they quit and its not a definitive review. If a video game reviewer doesn't want to finish something, them saying it was too long and it never got good so they quit is fine, just don't give it a review score and say "its not for me." The feedback is still worthwhile and as someone with similar opinions I might avoid said piece of media.
I’ve had an experience with watching Andor, where when watching the show as it came out, it was a deeply miserable experience and I hated the show for it, and it greatly affected my day to day mood for 2 months. In part just because it’s a brutal show, and in part because I didn’t know what the moral compass of the show was, and I didn’t like where it was tending.
In the finale my mood flipped on its head. Because I saw where the show was building to, and it was triumphant and hopeful and recontextualized the entire season of TV beforehand since I now had faith that the showrunner wasn’t trying to build something I morally disagree with. So I’m in the situation where overall I think Andor is a great show and the entirety of it is recontextualized for me, but watching it was also a deeply miserable experience that contributed greatly to me being depressed for a while there.
Yeah, I follow a content creator that said once that if by the third episode a series hasn’t hook you up then you should stop watching. That doesn’t mean that it can’t have twists later on, but that by the third episode the series must have something to make you stay, like interesting characters, a hint or two about the plot that might get your attention… It might not fit every series out there, but overall I think that it’s a pretty solid rule
Ideally the first episode (counting 2-parters as one) should the big hook for me and the second one should an example of a normal episode as proof it’s viable as a tv show. So for me, third episode is pushing it.
Yeah I normally go by three episodes (counting two part pilots as one) but if I hear good things about a shows later half then I might he a bit more patient with it. It also depends a bit on the genre, as one stories just take longer to build up but within the first three episodes you should have general idea of what the show is going to be like.
That's just not true. Many a series has trouble findingf their footing in the first season only to vastly improve later on. That's one of the advantages of television, or at least it used to be.
Its more, there should be something you like and can latch on, even if its not there yet. And ok star trek and other shows had characters. or a t least a fun character.
@@Dunybrook You’re not wrong, but (unless I’m mistaken) we’re mostly talking about shows that hinge on the finale to give context and payoffs all the set ups of the show.
Can you judge the quality of the episodes you’ve already seen when you don’t know the twist/payoffs that are being set up?
If you weren’t my hero before, you are now. One of my biggest pet peeves in modern TV are the shows that only make sense and are only satisfying once you’ve finished them (or rather that is the promise).
And pretty sure that people miss the point, and mean, the ending was so good, but it always build on something that was already there. Like shows that just get so great, never were bad to begin with, or had good. Something.And i mean messy starts even that have something to hanfg on whatever. Like star tek and characters.
@@marocat4749 I feel like she could be going one of 2 ways with this.
Either calling out heavily serialized shows with plot twists at the end that contextualize the entire story, Or talking about judging (possibly reviewing) a TV show that you’ve seen some (or a lot of), but not the entire thing.
I took it to mean the former, but now I’m not sure.
There are alot of shows I won't rewatch because they were either a shlog to get through to get to anything good or they started out good and over time became meh until cancellation. I don't expect the quality of seasons to stay EXACTLY the same but if it dips to an extreme, a rewatch is less likely for me
I would agree for shows where it's not explicitly the point of the show to make sense only after the threads come together. There are shows out there I immense enjoyed that had me going, what the hell is going on, until the last third or the last quarter and then the ending made them even better still. One example I have of this is Higurashi no naku kori ni. Season 1 is a constant bombardment of wtf with tiny hints to what might be going on sprinkled throughout, it is only well into the 2nd season that everything is revealed and the payoff is so good. If it's intended to be confusing and done well, it's really enjoyable, at least in my experience.
@@DerNikoI agree. I’m a big fan of mysteries and the subgenre “WTF is going on.”
To me, I think the difference is that a good “WTF is going on” doesn’t need a good ending to be enjoyable. It would be preferable and a bad ending would be disappointing, but my positive opinion doesn’t hinge on a good ending.
If I keep thinking “this better pay off or I’ll feel like my time was wasted” then it’s not doing its job.
4:00 I was 40 minutes into watching Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) in a movie theater, deeply unsatisfied by the experience, and then realized, hey, I have other things I'd rather do and I can just get up and leave without asking anyone for permission! It saved my time and mood and wasn't rude or intrusive for anyone else. DNF (did not finish) is a common term in the booktube community for a lot of different, valid reasons. If I'm not enjoying or interested in a book I'm reading for myself, I don't have to finish it! No explanation required.
I watched Black Sails back when it was newish and didn't like it, but kept watching because my sister and mum were watching it, by the end of season 1 and especially into season 2 I had turned around and started to appreciate what those earlier episodes in season 1 were doing, by the end of season 2 it was one of my favorite TV shows of all time. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was another show I didn't enjoy during the first few episodes, but "clicked" during the watching of the show. I sometimes have the same experience with music, where I have to listen to a couple of songs from an artist before I find the one that "clicks" and I can go back and enjoy the earlier stuff.
Two years ago I tried to get my partner to watch Over the Garden Wall, after 3 episodes they said they didn't like it and didn't want to watch it anymore. This year I asked to rewatch it at their place (because they have MAX and I don't), they were intending to do something else, but after it went past where they had watched they ended up sticking around and watching until the end. They now want to rewatch the entire show (including those early episodes they didn't like two years ago) next year.
I do however think I disagree with both you and Linkara that a character death has to be satisfactory or pander to my catharsis to be good, and not doing that is inherently "not a good thing". A lot of character deaths are good to me precisely because they don't do that. I'm also not too comfortable factoring trailers or how a show was released ("bing" or weekly) into how to judge them, since that is often out of the hands of the actual creators of the show, and feels to me like it's just giving more power to the corporate owners on the top, at the detriment of the actual artists. The last thing in particular also becomes irrelevant to how shows are viewed after it's initial release, since after that all shows' format become "binge" by default to all new viewers.
People absolutely say "you can't say something is good until you've seen the end" when criticizing Rotten Tomatoes scores for an entire season of TV being based on only the first couple of episodes reviewers get to see early at least.
Which is the fault of networks for not giving them the whole thing. Reviewers have deadlines and if you only give them three episodes, that’s what they’re going to review and then RT slaps it on the whole season.
Completely agree here!!! RT is a larger corporation that mandates reviews from its employees, so it makes sense for them to be *required* to watch the full season of a TV show in order to properly review it. But that same logic *DOES NOT* apply to individuals! If it’s not a legal obligation by a larger corporation, you DO NOT have to watch the entirety of a movie/show in order for your opinion on it to be valid.
I do definitely think it's context-dependent. And also personal! AAA definitely worked for me, because I loved a character who was mysterious, and you had to work out, episode by episode, the level to which she cared about other people. That was the engagement I felt as a viewer, trying to work it all out. I knew it wouldn't be resolved entirely per episode, because it wasn't sold as a 'you will love how morally redeemable this character is'. She was an unreliable narrator and I enjoyed watching her chaos, even if I was dismayed by a lot of her actions. I think Hahn's charisma always swayed me there too, I can't lie. Her comedic timing and chemistry with the other actors 'excused' a LOT for me. There was also ZERO walkback of character deaths. There were stakes. I loved the honesty of the show. Sometimes people do bad things because they can. And sometimes people die when they aren't ready. That was helped by the show's ending, and it all came full circle for me because I watched all of it. I had however, enjoyed the first several episodes, so again, this is quite a biased, personal perspective.
Thx. You saved me the time of typing all that out. Nice to see someone with my EXACT same opinion. LOL
Now that I think about it, "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie is one where the end changes completely the experience of reading it. But, as you say, it does not invalidate the experience of reading it for the first time, when you don't know anything about the end.
Agatha Christie all along.
I do think that’s the kind of twist that is quite impressive, but if the rest of the story isn’t enjoyable then it doesn’t matter. The book is good because it was enjoyable throughout, not because the ending made up for the of it being a slog.
@@calebmarmon1310 You're right about that. I enjoyed the book until the end, then enjoyed it in another way.
Then, of course, there's the possibility of guessing the ending in advance, as my late mother did with "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and many other books. This knack of hers came in especially handy for "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"...
Sadly grifters take that idea to it's extreme by judging shows before they even come out... and reviewbombing it...
Well yes, but that’s dipping into the conduct of outrage merchants and I prefer to not acknowledge them as much as I can get away with.
@@CouncilofGeeks that is so fair 😅
We fell into that trap with Game of Thrones. We judged it as being good - before - watching the final season...
It was fairly good for a while, if the show had ended in season 5 or 6 because of some weird thing like an airplane with most of the main cast crashed, people would still be raving about the show. It was nothing short of astounding how much the show was screwed over in the last two seasons (the show had flaws before that, but it really went downhill after that). I'm pretty sure they accomplished what people didn't think possible, to take a show that should be too big to fail and turn it into something people want to forget about.
To be fair, Game of Thrones was good before the final seasons. The writing and acting was solid and compelling, it's just it ended poorly. A story as a whole can definitely fail by its ending, but it can also have good and bad that can be appreciated separately, especially if it's episodic like a tv show
@@antney7745 I mean Game of Thrones IS still good on the whole, it just has a bad ending and an overall bad final season honestly. That’s why TV shouldn’t be treated like a really long movie. It has EPISODES for a reason. Even with the serialized plots there’s many a game of throne episode you could sit down and watch and recognize what brilliant TV it is without even knowing all the connective tissue that led to that episode.
The thing to keep in mind about fans who just want to disqualify any negative criticism of their favorite media is that consuming more of it probably won't satisfy them. If you do finish the work or remain current with it, they might just turn around and claim instead that your watching so much of it somehow proves you didn't hate it.
one of the reasons why i dislike comments like this is that you know your own tastes and if you see things in a show that you know you don't like. Of Course you are not gonna like it. like duh?
There are really good shows that I can't watch because I can't stand some elements of them. In books, my favourite example is The Great Gatsby. Interesting book that I really didn't want to have to read (yet had to as school assignment) because the people in it were way too awful and I was too fed up with BS like that in real life. Reading other people's writings about the book was way more interesting and beneficial than the book itself.
Another book(s) that was painful to read but that I kept reading because it hooked me anyway was The Magicians trilogy. It was painfully well written from a too depressed guy POV which was both impressive and really painful to read but the trilogy book in itself was an emotional journey of the main character healing and that was so weirdly cathartic - many couldn't stand the books or even just the first book, but for me it worked despite discomfort.
As long as someone is able to articulate what they don't like(like you do) I will listen and learn why. I never expect someone else to agree whole heartedly with me, not even my best friend.
Some writers absolutely excel in taking advantage of this mindset. Weave an extremely complicated buildup with twists and turns and ratings boosting revaluations galore only to just… not pay anything off … lol
Paging JJ Abrahams?
@@CouncilofGeeks
JJ Abrahams and his damn mystery boxes. His way of writing has also inspired the writers of Rings of Power. Just saying.
I generally wait for a series to end to judge it as a whole, but I do judge individual episodes as well. An example of this is the Doctor Who episode 73 Yards. It really disturbed me that Kate Stewart and Carla just abandoned Ruby like that. Future episodes repaired the damage, but it still occurred.
Funny thing regarding 73 Yards, my mum was very confused when we got to the finale and Carla was getting invited to UNIT and joining in on the fun, because she had abandoned Ruby in that episode. Took her a while to remember that it had ended with it all being reset.
I often have problems leaving/quitting something that makes me uncomfortable, so your insistence that you don't need to stick something out till the end really helps.
What do you mean you don't want to go out with me any more? You have to at least wait until we're engaged before judging me. I might be a great husband for all you know.
EXACTLY
SUCH a good point about leaving notes on your reading experience itself so that the creator can hone it
The first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was famously not very good, but the finale did really elevate things. Contrarily, Umbrella Academy started very strong but seemed to fall apart bit by bit in subsequent seasons and then nosedive at the end. Same with Westworld.
Character death in fiction is a tricky thing because it happens to people all the time in real life in ways that are entirely tragic and unexpected, and while that's not necessarily a justification for including it in escapist fantasy, if you avoid that apect of reallity completely people will accuse your works of being too predictable.
"You can't judge something before the end" Dude, I put 50+ hours into Persona 5. I watched 36 episodes and a movie of Jujutsu Kaisen. They're not for me and I REALLY tried!
I'd actually prefer a "Can you make it to this episode or part and make a judgment then?" It's not the whole thing and acknowledges that something isn't amazing at the start but gets better. I wouldn't want someone to judge like Star Trek Next Gen on it's first season. But if you don't like it in like Season 3, then that's fine. This has it's own problems but is a better mentality than the former.
"It gets REALLY good after 20 episodes!"
That's 20 episodes I could be... illustrating, planning my next TTRPG session, finding something else to watch that also deserves a fair shake.
For me, I am always willing to give books or TV shows the time to find themselves (Its often why people say of their favorite show or book series, that the first few are okay but the latter ones are better)... but there has to be something in that early stuff that makes it worth the wait. Something that holds my interest that makes me want more. If it isn't, then no, I'm not finishing it. My time is too valuable to waste.
Those of us who come from the time when a TV season was ~26 episodes delivered weekly with no way to rewatch them unless you taped everything definitely understand this. I agree that you shouldn't watch something you really don't enjoy. Of course, we also had far fewer shows back then.
Of course I also have regret from tuning out of some shows that had a shaky first season but developed into things people loved. (I have trouble getting into a show if I don't watch from the beginning.) With modern shows, every episode has to move the main plot and there's rarely much time to explore characters or episodic stories within it. With older shows, they wouldn't work without those.
And finally, there are the shows that you love the story, but then it begins to drag. I'm particularly reminded of Lost, where they were left in a holding pattern by the network, so they couldn't put too much to the main plot and had to come up with new mysteries.
I guess I'm just completely mixed up about this.
You nailed the point about fridging on the head. The worst case of fridging I've ever seen is from, of all places, a concept album: The Astonishing by Dream Theater. And it's for all the exact same reasons as you described with Vanessa in Deadpool 2 but on fast-forward.
I always jugde things as I watch/read/play whatever and if I am not having a good time I will stop. I have stopped middway through many TV-shows, movies, games and books so I don't know if the ending saved any of them and will never know.
If I've decided something is worth my time, then it already has some appeal to me as I don't blindly watch anything just because it's there. Because of that I do try and see it through the full season but I still drop out on occasion if it's not enjoyable. Why waste time watching something I'm not enjoying, the hate watchers should learn that. However, I fully believe in what's known as the 3 episode rule (adjusted for season length) and if a show hasn't pulled you in, then you should stop watching. A good ending does not make a good TV show.
I hate not knowing how things end, so I usually read the plot synopsis or episode summaries to feel a sense of completion.
While I think shows can evolve and get better, even make the bad parts of shows work in the future, you don't owe anyone anything. If it doesn't grab you quickly, then you don't have to watch it or give it the benefit of the doubt
It took me a surprisingly long time to realise that if you were.ploughing through a tedious book and nor enjoying it there was no moral imperative that means you have to keep reading.
13:00 I have a real problem with the "but they came back at the end" argument because it seems to imply that that means the trope has been subverted. But it doesn't. They killed her to motivate the male character which is still sexist even if they "fix" it later. Same deal with ST: Discovery where they just killed off the gay couple. They did the homophobic trope and it doesn't make it better that they tried to undo it later.
Omg, ST: Discovery, I’m still mad about that. I couldn’t watch the rest of it. Ugh!
As a child I would force myself to get through things I didn't like, and even rewatch things I knew I hated, but now I just don't have the time. Interstellar, 30 Rock, MASH, The Mighty Boosh, I gave up on those.
I do always think it's worth revisiting though. Initially there may have been external factors (if you're tired or not doing well mentally) that now, in a different space, your response could be better. There have been several things I revisited that I didn't like/gave up on the first time (The Prestige, Spaced, Ready Or Not) that I now love. However, if I still don't like them the second time around, as was the case with Boosh, I won't try again.
Especially if it's something favoured by a person I care about and whose opinion I value. I'll give it another go for them, so that we may share in the enjoyment, and undoubtedly sometimes their enthusiasm rubs off on me. Equally, however, sometimes it still doesn't work.
I agree with you. If something is meant to be experienced in one sitting (such as a movie or play), then it would be unfair to comment on the whole if you caught only a portion of it. But if series is designed to be episodic, then each episode should have a proper beginning, middle, and end and should be eligible for individual evaluation. It is it's own "whole" that happens to be part of a bigger one.
And thank you for adding "especially" for those of us who watch your videos to the end. It was very sweet of you to say.
I was always told that if you start a book you should finish it. I didn't snap out of that mindset until I found myself physically and mentally incapable of continuing my struggle to finish Salman Rushdie's 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet'. Thanks, Sal, you did me a solid there!👍 Not that I give up on books easily though, I wasn't into 'Hamnet' at all, but the last 100 pages got me good. I had to put it down several times to wipe the tears from my eyes, in fact. The only other time that has happened to me was when reading Isabel Allende's 'Paula'.
As for movies and tv shows: the only movie I ever walked out of was 'Eyes Wide Shut'. I can put up with anything except mindnumbing boredom. Sorry, not sorry! I was happy that I gave the tv show 'Spartacus' a second chance after that dreadful first episode, but noped out of 'Game of Thrones' after season 1. Idk exactly what it was, but apparently it just wasn't for me.🤷♀️
I would say you can judge something from a partial experience but you can’t critique it.
I’ve noped out of a lot of “great” TV because it wasn’t for me. I don’t care how well developed, produced, acted, etc it is if it doesn’t hold my attention. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, none of those are for me. And I’m not going to get what you get out of the experience if you force me to watch it. I’m just going to be super annoyed.
But I can’t critique any of those shows, because I know nothing about them. I just knew I didn’t want what they were giving. I don’t feel like I could judge them as “good” or “bad” because, again, I didn’t invest in learning about them. The judgement I can give is “I didn’t like it.” And I can definitely give that judgment with only watching as much as I did
👆
I really like how you express your opinions and how easy you make it for me to understand where you’re coming from even if I somewhat disagree. I disagree with your views on Agatha, but I do agree with your assessment that you can judge a piece of the whole, especially if the whole is not out completely.
I love this.
I hate the mind set that you have to watch or read something in its entirety before you can judge it. If it's not good, but gets good later, I'll never know this because it hasn't been good enough to make me want to finish it.
You are 100% correct, as it is possible to criticise a part of the whole while liking the whole.
Personally I agree and disagree. I do think there is value in being able to judge a part of something and say “this doesn’t work”, but I do think such criticism should be restricted to that part of it. I think when critiquing something which the critic has only seen part of, that analysis can only really be useful for that part and for me, it would be unfair to judge a full tv show based on just a couple episodes. I mean, imagine judging all of Doctor Who based on Love & Monsters? And some shows/films/books are just slow burns anyway, or only get really good some episodes in. Gotham for me would be a good example. The Pilot is kind of rubbish, but after trawling a mostly mediocre season 1, season 2 gets really great. Similarly, certain sitcoms for me like Friends and Brooklyn 99 also have somewhat rocky starts before middle season highs.
I'm someone who often takes in entertainment in an 'all-at-once' way so I'll binge watch shows or i'll read books really quickly. I did once buy a book for my friend's birthday and decided that I was going to read it first, make notes on my initial thoughts and summarise them chapter-by-chapter, leaving a piece of paper with my thoughts after each chapter in the book so she could effectively read it with me as she went through it. It was probably the first time I slowed down and evaluated my thoughts and feelings in the moment and I definately got a feeling of, oh this works or oh this doesn't work in the moment rather than always evaluating the piece as whole.
I've started to do this again with some shows like the Penguin, House of the Dragon and Doctor Who and I definitely see the value of doing this! I didn't find the ending of Doctor Who to be that great and I have a main criticism for the overall season 2 of House of Dragon but because I had to pause after each episode, I appreciate certain individual episodes a lot more than if I'd have binged them so I absolutely agree you can judge - positively or negatively - before the ending.
Ultimately, there's a spectrum - at the one extreme, you have someone who watched the first couple of minutes of An Unearthly Child and decided that the entirety of Doctor Who is rubbish because they don't like police shows being told their opinion is entirely valid; at the other extreme, no-one's allowed to make any judgement about Doctor Who because it's still being made (and even then, next season will take us past 500 hours' total viewing time, just counting the series, including specials, the TV movie, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures and Class - not counting audio books and other media).
My view is that it's entirely valid to judge based on whatever you've actually experienced, but when sharing your judgement, you should caveat that judgement with an indication of what you're actually judging - which can come from context: if you're talking about an ongoing series or franchise, then it's implicit that you're only judging based on what's already been released (unless you establish that you have access to unreleased material). It's also valid for people who know more (because they've got that insider access, because time has passed, or because you only sampled whatever it is) to tell you that your conclusions about your sample don't apply to the work as a whole - while there are police in it from time to time, and the opening scene of the entire franchise shows a policeman patrolling then zooms in on a police box, Doctor Who is not at all about the police.
I agree with this argument a lot I think. I think there's so much nuance to these ideas, based on the particulars of how the media is created and released, and the context and criticism people come to it with, and certainly people who ARE judging it as a whole aren't wrong - but that also doesn't give them position to say 'you can't judge it till the end,' because ultimately they're not *right* either. Each person's perspective on a piece of media is just that, their perspective.
I do think if you're talking about a piece of media you haven't finished, you should make that clear in the discussion so that people understand that nuance of your criticism, but that in no way means you don't get to make a criticism or that you are obligated to finish it.
In terms of books, I have always been of the opinion that if a book can't grab me in the first few pages, or it does something to put me off, it's not worth continuing and it's failed at its job to reel me in. Obviously there's always the possibility that I WOULD change my mind if I kept reading, or that I would even like the first chapter in the future if I tried it again, or that after reading the whole thing I would see it in a different light, but that possibility isn't a guarantee, and I don't owe anything to a piece of media, or its creators, or its fans.
This argument reminds me of when people talk about a piece of media and say things like 'it gets good eventually, just keep going.' And honestly if I'm not being entertained or intrigued on some level, I don't care how good it gets. Similarly if the story makes decisions I strongly dislike, I wouldn't automatically be satisfied if they later went back on or recontextualized those decisions, because that doesn't automatically make it better. I fully agree with your point that even if, for example, a potential character death is undone or revealed as a trick, it doesn't erase the feelings of shock and dismay at that character dying. And I would further say that it doesn't erase or undo all the narrative consequences and implications either. I enjoyed Agatha All Along overall, but I think the deaths you referenced and how they were handled were a weak point of the show.
In general I think people will use all kinds of arguments to dismiss other's opinions and media criticism, just because it makes them uncomfortable. Personally, I don't think there's limits to when you're allowed to have an opinion on something. There's some media I've never properly engaged with at all that I nevertheless know I would not like and I can name issues I have with it that turn me off from even giving it a chance because I've heard the criticism of others, seen promotional material and excerpts, and generally gotten enough information to generate a pretty good impression of what it is and how it'd effect me. Do I know for sure? No! Are there nuances I won't discover if I keep ignoring it? Yes. But I've accurately determined that at this point in time, I am not interested, and I find what I know about the subject off-putting. This obviously isn't the same as an informed criticism, but it's still a valid opinion.
Gosh I love your point about just knowing sometimes that you're not going to like something. That's how I feel about the Saw movies (not a shocking example cos those are what they are-). Sure, I haven't seen them, and there might be something there, but the concept (and certain graphic details I've heard) turn me off it.
It depends. Southland Tales, Sucker Punch, Scary Movie - those are movies that I gave a chance despite not enjoying the beginning, and they validated my initial impression that they were bad at every step. Starfield was a game that I invested 3 hours in, and hated every second of it. Which is why I did something I've never done before, and requested a refund. And when that was denied, I did something I've never even thought of doing and posted a chargeback. So I do think that if you're really not enjoying it, don't keep investing in it.
That said, Star Trek: Prodigy was a show that I didn't like at the beginning. The first several episodes didn't click with me. But after that it quickly became one of my favorite series. I had almost reached the point where I was going to give up on it, before it turned around for me.
So basically it's a case by case basis. Is there enough potential in there to see it through, or is it completely irredeemable. Ideally a good work will capture my attention from the start, but I know sometimes they need time to cook before they get really good. But if they aren't providing anything enjoyable at all, there's no reason to keep going.
"Ah, you judged my story early! But it turns out that, for the purposes of a final episode twist, I undid all of that characterization and development that you were criticizing, so your argument is invalid! Mwahahaha!"
Yeah, I'm definitely with you on these criticisms. Just because something happens later that undoes or changes the context of an event in a story doesn't mean it can't be judged in the moment or as a culmination of only the things up to that point, as well as the other examples you gave. But the point that stuck for me is the release format one, and it makes me wonder if that was a factor in the release schedules for stuff like the Disney Plus shows.
Letting the public know the low number of episodes and being fairly up front that the whole season has already been shot gives it the "you gotta watch it til the end!" defense that has reached prominence most recently with the rise of bingeable shows, while also having the weekly release schedule to have time to actually build anticipation and get multiple bumps in the media and staying in the public consciousness. Whether the protection from criticism part was fully deliberate or not, it really does feel like the perfect midpoint to allow you to take advantage of both sides of that coin.
“You can’t say The Nutshack is bad! You’ve only seen 4 episodes! You have to watch the whole 2-season run of the show first!”
Always here for your interesting, sensible and reasoned-out reports. Thanks, Vera!
I mean if anything is so bad that it makes you lose interest, you can judge it. With film, I figure if it wasn't so bad that I turned it off after 15 minutes, then I'll stay till the end, barring the exceptions listed in the video like serious triggers.
But with a series, if I don't like even the first episode, and I haven't been warned by fans that the first episode or season is something you have to "just get through," I'll give it one more episode, then I'll quit it if I'm still not into it. My time is precious, and there is always so much else to see.
And yes, I'll voice judgment of what I saw up to the point I quit, as it's the creative team's job to make me stay invested from one plot point to the next, and a critic's (and even audience's) job to analyze why the creators may have failed to do so. I won't say, "It's a bad show." But I will say, "It failed to keep me invested and here's why."
I've decided to wait and watching Agatha over a week period for some of the reasons you mention here. It made for a better experience. I regret not having done that for the Accolyte. I have the feeling I would have loved it more.
(I like both series, I don't have the same problems with Agatha you have) but these are my thoughts
I also think rewatch can help. 4 5? years in I think I appreciating the Timeless Child for what it is for the first time.
So in the anime community there was, for a long time, the shared idea of the "3 Episode Rule" Where, as long as it's not offensive, you generally give it three episodes for something about it to hook you and if not, drop it.
Years ago a friend and went to see Moulin Rouge. This was the only time I’ve walked out of a movie. But it was only because my friend wasn’t enjoying it. I would have stayed though I wasn’t getting much out of the show.
Hi Vera, Love your Content. I may not always agree with all your opinions, but I value and look forward to whenever you do a critique on shows I'm interested In (Doctor Who, Agatha, etc.). That being said - I think what you're saying is quite fair. We all have opinions on pieces of entertainment and critiques are simply an opinion discussing what works, what doesn't work, or underlying themes and messages. With TV shows, books etc. if I'm not pulled in early on I lose motivation to continue the thing (no matter how good it seems to anyone else). It just doesn't speak to me or work for me, or maybe I find it uninteresting in certain ways. With that, if it's not connecting person I don't think they need to watch it to the end to gain understanding of why it does not work them. I also say this knowing that I have strongly encouraged friends I like to try to finish certain series for ending, or the eventual plot twists I already know are coming (ex: Steven Universe, Battlestar Galactica, among others). I just don't get why it's a problem. For instance, I liked Agatha All Along, and you didn't like the main character. That's fine - Hell, your critique helped me realize that there were aspects of the main character *I* actually didn't like...and when you think about it there really wasn't any growth for her, personally. So yeah, you're not obligated to continue watching something you don't like even if everyone else thinks you should "Watch to the end."
Thank you for the video, Vera!
When analyzing any piece of media, both angles of judging in its entirety, and its individual parts are important. If the beginning and the middle of a story are bad, it is really unlikely that a good ending (quality-wise, not necessarily a happy one) will make the earlier parts good. A good story must always aim to be good when considering both its individual parts and the entire work.
Personally, if an entire story cannot be at least good across the board, I will usually prefer to deal with a bad ending. Even if the ending was disappointing or not worthy, at least, the journey towards it was good.
So people can't just watch a pilot and decide something isn't for them, and quit? They can only form an opinion if they've consumed all of it? This just makes it sound like people are obligated to consume a lot of media they don't even like. It's ridiculous.
I agree with all of your points. On the subject of how sometimes the ending can change a story for the better, I've wondered how many people have experienced the opposite? More than once I've had a movie or series I was really enjoying, and then an absolutely terrible ending ruins the whole thing for me.
For me, It depends on the type of show. For example...
Like Sitcoms get one episode to pull me in, Drama gets maybe two depending on the tropes used. My ADHD doesn't let me see how predictable story telling lol.
Another thing if a story is dependant on a surprised twist it's not a good story because it becomes unable to surprise you after the first time.
I have the exception that may prove the rule. There are people in the world who love Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place but think that Parks and Rec is just a The Office clone because they gave up in the first season. Those poor, poor people missing out on something that they would likely adore (as it was the template for Michael Schur’s later shows that they love.) if they skipped ahead some or stuck it out.
Absolutely. I think there are plenty of shows which really do pick up, at least in my opinion, later on in their run. Good examples I have would probably include even Brooklyn 99. While the earliest series aren’t bad, it does pick up for me in later episodes. The same for the show Gotham, where the first season isn’t really indicative of how good later episodes are. Some things are just slow burns.
Skipping ahead to where the good parts start (and reading info about what they missed) is usually the wisest choice.
This is why I always advocate for skipping ahead. I never would have watched Bojack Horseman the whole way through if I didn't skip to season 5, then get impressed by the writing enough to want to watch the whole thing. I've watched plenty of shows where I just skipped episodes I didn't care about and I enjoy them all the more for it
Thank you, you are also beautiful valid and loved! I think it's perfectly valid to judge a series by the first couple of episodes, first episode if it does something like fridging, "it gets better in the end" is no justification for wasting our time.
As someone who was one of the people saying "wait until the whole series is done before passing judgment" during Flux, I agree with everything in this video. If it isn't working, you aren't obligated to finish watching it. If you don't like something, you aren't obligated to finish it. I rarely drop books in the middle, but I'll drop shows and such, sometimes without realizing that's what I'm doing until way later when I realize it's been X amount of time since I watched the last thing. I think where, for me, it becomes something that I'm going to comment on, like I did with Flux, is that while you aren't obligated to finish it, you do anyway, and continue to criticize in a public forum. Which, I know, is the entire point of being a critique channel. One I very much enjoy even when I disagree with the critique, and sometimes because I disagree, because your critiques highlight something I missed out on when I watched/read a thing. When something is talked about week after week, and week after week I hear primarily negative comments, I wonder why you continue watching when it's clear you don't like the thing. It starts to feel like a hate-watch, which is a phenomenon I only sort-of get. Watching something you know can be good in the hopes that it does get there is one thing. Watching it knowing it's going to be a trainwreck and then commenting on how much of a trainwreck it is as you do is another.
And while I agree with you that the ending of a show doesn't necessarily save it from having been bad in places, I also thing failing to stick the landing on an otherwise good show can absolutely ruin that show. See: Game of Thrones. My brother ADORED that show up until the final season, and then, like many, he watched that season, and never went back to rewatch it again, even though he'd rewatched the whole series on streaming before each new season. The ending ruined the experience for him, and took something he'd considered amazing, something that was dear to him, and turned it into garbage, because he knew what was coming in the end.
I think your opinion is extremely valid. Like i don't like to finish stuff I'm not really enjoying and i probably have never finished a show/movie/anime/novel etc that at some moment started bothering me for some reason or another. You can totally judge a thing by just a part of it and decide if it's good or bad FOR YOU. And honestly no one can have a 100% objective opinions on art especially.
I have had exactly one case where knowing the ending/knowing what comes next kept me from quitting a show and it was because the introduction of Gus Fring and the end of Breaking Bad addressed/fixed the problem I had. This is the ONLY time yhis has happened.
I mostly agree with your main point, but I noticed something in how you discussed the topic that I think highlighted where I do disagree with you. In the section about how whether you liked an individual episode is meaningful (which I wholeheartedly agree with), you sometimes referred to whether or not the episode "worked" as if it meant the same thing, and to me it doesn't. I wouldn't say you could judge whether a single episode successfully accomplished it's planned role at all without knowing what that purpose was, which may not be clear in the moment. To me, that seems like a difference that is significant to effect whether you should be doing it.
I was much more surprised by your take on trailers. Your opinion seemed so plainly wrong to me that it made me wonder if we're even considering the same question. I'll have to go check your video, but the idea that you expressed that a trailer's purpose is to help you accurately judge a movie does not match my lived experience. I'm much more familiar with trailers made to sell tickets.
I have got out of the movie theatre mid-film twice in my life, basically triggered:
- Bitter Moon (Roman Polanski)
- Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
Otherwise, I usually stay to the end.
I watched a friend tell another friend that the show she was not enjoying would be better if she just waited until the second half of the second season of an animated show. So 39+ half hour long episodes so that they could begin to enjoy the show. My friend said “Life is too short for me to spend that much time on something I am not enjoying and don’t have to do.”
I have told people to just skip the first season of a show when it's too different and weird compared to the rest of the show (some older shows needed a season to find their footing), but telling someone to slog through the shitty parts when a plot synopsis until the shitty parts end is good enough, is confusing
@ Yeah, I am on board for that kind of recommendation! Some things do essentially restart in their second season
Fabulous intro, Vera! While an ending can't save a show or book for me, it certainly can ruin everything that came before it. Time to watch the rest of this vid. Love you, and love your work. Parasocial hugs here if you want them. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤
Absolutely agree an ending can totally ruin a work that was enjoyable up to that moment. I find that usually happens when the creator seemingly had a particular ending in mind when they started then allowed the story to develop in such a way that the planned ending no longer fit but still used that ending anyway. It’s somewhat less annoying when you know the series was canceled and they have only a couple of episodes to wrap it all up, but it drives me crazy in books when it feels like the author just gave up and slapped an ending on that makes no sense.
One thing too is the whole "it gets good at X point" where if you take it at point value is like did they not think it was "good" before "X point?" They probably liked it enough to keep reading or watching it beforehand.
I do believe there is merit to the whole "judge the whole" with Mystery being the easiest to argue for. And to an extent books which (should) tell a complete story from cover to cover. Tho I strongly believe individual chapters should be able to work "on their own" and should be judged whole. The author has control where chapters start and end, and books are rarely read in 1 sitting so the author creates chapters which convey where the author is "comfortable" you stop reading. I've read books where if a chapter break happened at x point (usually where a "negative" cliffhanger would be) I probably would have hated it and soured my experience, even if everything else was the same, but in the example I'm thinking, the author didn't have a chapter break there.
Side note I consider "negative cliffhanger" as something thats instantly resolved next ep/ch and it's certain there'll be little to no consequences. So if a series does it, it sours my experience. At bare minimum I believe it should take at least an entire chapter to resolve the previous chapter's cliffhanger, even more if it's supposed to be impactful (like Ned's death in GoT is felt throughout the series).
perhaps my only counterexample to this is Peter Capaldi as the 12th doctor - judging by even the first series I wouldn't have predicted that he'd become my favourite. but the thing is 12 was still quite inticing even before his first series ended.
I feel the same way about Doom Patrol. It bored me to tears, jokes were annoying and I never finished it.
As an avid reader, this is something constantly brought up in the reading space. I myself think it’s perfectly fine to judge something if you haven’t finished it but especially when it comes to books I like to be transparent and say I did not finish the book and to what point I got (40%,60%, etc).
reminds me of the opposite effect of liking the guts of killing off a main character in attack on titan and thinking oh cool we are going to shift over to the sisters story then they undid the impactful death
I was thinking about this recently since I usually start my letterboxd reviews at about the 2/3 mark of the film when I can. I do take into account any twists or added context that the ending might provide, but there's usually something that i've felt or notices throughout the film that i can already articulate by the third act. like you said about providing that feedback earlier on in a piece, i think it can help contextualize my thoughts better if i include my initial reactions. i do try to keep things spoiler free so sometimes i have to be a bit vague lol. i found that when i go back to my review later, it's nice to know if parts were confusing or if the ending didn't fully answer my questions. in the unlikely event someone else reads my review, i hope it gives them a better picture of the experience or opens a discussion
i totally agree with you, Vera, there have been dozens of movies that if i could not get into them within the first 15 minutes or i feel offended and icky at the begining....then i stop watching
First of all, a positive comment: you are an excellent researcher and a fantastic presenter of that research even when I don't necessarily agree with your opinions - that's REAL commentary and criticism that you offer and not whiny infantile tantrums a lot of YTuber "influencers" go about spouting ad nauseam.
Death seems to mean nothing in the superhero genre. It's always up in the air if said death is permanent.
This is wonderful! I have agreed with Vera on most of her takes on a series but we disagree on Agatha. Why is that wonderful? Because I understand and respect where she is coming from. But the show works for me. I like that her expressing her opinions in no way changes that view.
Great video and I agree with the point. I have been on the other side of this with The Acolyte. I watched, didn’t enjoy and kept being told “to watch until the end.” The end was my least favorite part of the series. The fans who enjoyed it are absolutely valid. But it didn’t work for me. And that’s fine. Art is wonderful and subjective.
That's a cool point you made about keeping earlier annotations when revising your friend's stories. That's is super useful To use your dinner analogy, I'm somebody who pushes through a mediocre dinner because I've heard the dessert course is awesome, lol. I'm on book 10 of a 13 book series I dislike cuz I like some of the side plots & have to see it through.
I feel like reading a book series you dislike for the good bits is much easier than watching a show for the good bits. I started watching The Blacklist and I like many parts of the show just not the sum, it's frustrating and I have been trying to slog through it while multitasking, but books are so much faster and easier to consume. I keep wishing I could just read the show instead, I gave up on trying to finish it like two months ago
This is the same thought I had with SGU... initially thought it was dull and boring and actually thought about binning it however as the show started to actually get good around episode 10 and I absolutely love it.
Overall SGU is not a show for the faint of heart because it's a show that requires patience.
Negative comment. Mwah ha ha ha! Edit: Also agree that it's a silly argument I doubt anyone is going to sit down and tell me to watch all 21 seasons of grays anatomy before I can say it's a bad show. If your hook into a product is weak why should I commit to reading/watching the whole thing?
I've pushed myself through pieces of media I didn't like very much, because I want to see how they turn out, and sometimes there are shows that hardly anyone talks about online, so if nobody is watching it, why can't I? (Sometimes a show might get a bad rep, but when I watch it, I really don't see anything wrong with it. Recently I managed to watch Series 11 & 12 of Doctor Who and I actually liked watching them. I have my own criticisms regarding certain eps, but I can say I liked S12 more than S11).
I think there is dangers in both approaches. I was a big fan of Lost before it ended and think both Lost and Game of Thrones are fine examples of the “Cascade Failure” where the story feels bad when it ends but then when you sit with it and have moments come to mind you just see more and more examples of how this thread was left hanging or this piece of info never worked. So as we know we have them you can have the opposite the Cascade Success where you enjoy the end of the story and as you think about it over the next few weeks you see more and more points where a characters early motivation made on of their actions obvious or a line paid of or an action even in an early season of a show finished off having such effects. In these days of binging and on demand many great shows are not given the time to grow and can not make us care about characters or have them behave in a sensible way as they have to shoot out story as fast as possible to stop someone from just giving up on the show and moving to another.
Other way round mind you are the shows that only care for the end, I think there is a big difference between not getting a thing and not enjoying it. If you do not understand a thing then latter you pick it up and are like oh wow that makes sense thats cool that happens all the time someone says a thing that feels off and you not sure why then maybe years of decades latter you hear a fact and boom you now know why that one comment made you know something was up their, not knowing it all is fine story’s unfold but relying on you enjoying that unfold to the level of making the story only good is a modern danger. Feel the Prequal Star War and Fantasic Beast where all about that hearing everyone’s therorys online and then coming up with a loverly twist that none saw coming to make those who have been watching therory videos for weeks before gasp in shock, but userly making a story that has no clues to what’s coming including people’s behaviour so everyone has to have very little personality or feeling of self interest or rational behaviour the plans often made by someone are so complex you ask why they did not just do one way similar option and any future generations coming to it will have no idea what therory they skill fully took down with that comment it will just feel like a person saying some wired stuff out of character.
In short I wish more shows had the space to grow characters and build plots and feel that the curse of having to grab attention fast is breaking modern TV, but also feel its being broken by writers hearing the ideas of their biggest fans and reacting too if you give a person space to make a vision it has to be one of their own not just feel like the films are reaction videos to the UA-cam reviews.
The funny thing is, good shows never get comments like this. I've just rewatched the first season of Arcane and a lot of videos about it, including the ones which were coming out while the season was airing, and no one has ever said "wait! You can't judge it before you've seen the end". Or Game of Thrones. Or Breaking Bad. Or many other wondeful shows. But people will say it a lot with other shows, and then it mostly always ends with time proving that yeah, the show was bad. Now, of course, it can also be not one's cup of tea, and if the show is not for you right of the bat, it will not become more for you by the end, but that is usually easily identified straight away, mostly by the concept itself.
It goes the other way as well. No matter how good, or how bad season 2 of Arcane will be, it will have no bearance on season 1 - it will still remain a masterpiece. Even the first 4 seasons of GoT are still fantastic, though the end ruined the show. So yes, we can and should judge the thing as we are presented. And hey, if suddenly the ending makes a show super good, you can always say, aha, I was wrong, I understand now. But let's be honest - how often does that really happen? In my case - pretty much never.
And with Agatha specifically, as an example. The death of Sharon was terrible, and the characters caused it because they didn't care for her well-being. Even if she did come back from the dead, who cares? That will not change how she was handled by the others. The issue is not that she died. The issue is how she died and how others behaved. They still behaved that way. So yes, that absolutely is deserved of critisism.
They would have done if anyone said it was bad. Here’s a small correction for you. It doesn’t happen when something is universally regarded as good. Because art is subjective. Not objective.
And the first season of Game of Thrones was not universally beloved. Breaking Bad was nearly dropped after its first season. They both did not become truly successful until later seasons. By all accounts the sentiment of not judging until x point is more relevant for these shows. We all agree they were great now, but that wasn’t always the case at the time.
Arcane is slightly unusual in striking gold immediately, it normally takes a season or two for a show to figure itself out. But I am left to wonder if it really is as successful as that. It’s certainly highly regarded, and everyone who has seen it says it’s good, but it feels like its success is only in cult spaces. Has the mainstream picked up on it? It was out for at least a year before I ever got round to watching it, and I never had to dodge spoilers at any point, whereas I always have to be careful online whenever a new Star Wars or marvel show drops.
Arcane is good (correction: great) but it hasn’t been as culturally significant as Stranger Things or Squid Game.
No. Where it actually happens is when it’s related to a big IP, thus big mass appeal, big audience, big range of viewers, big range of opinions, big opportunity for discourse. It’s no coincidence that Stranger Things has conjured more discourse as it became more culturally relevant.
@@intergalactic92Are you sure that isn't culturally significant? Just because you personally didn't find about show, that doesn't mean that people don't talk about it.
The only caveat I have is that (almost) *nothing* can excuse a bad character death. The only thing that can make a character death better is contextualisation of *that character's* motivation to make the death seem like their choice or the result of their choices or somehow morally fitting in the story. The first character that comes to mind is from the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini. **Spoilers incoming.** If you like dragons and fantasy worlds, you should give the series a try. I'm about to spoil some really important character moments for the protagonist.
Brom is introduced as this slightly crazy grizzly guy in the village the protagonist, Eragon, grew up in. When some events that confuse Eragon happen, he goes to Brom for help because the guy mentioned stuff once that seemed related to his conundrum. An inciting incident happens and then the pair are on the road, Brom mentoring Eragon. Later, Eragon does a dumb thing and nearly dies, but Brom gets in the way and dies for him. At the time, this is kinda just a mentor death for a character doing something very stupid, so like it enotionally sucks but what can you do.
Later, Eragon has realised that he's the son of someone not quite the big bad, but the next worst thing. He goes to another mentor he has found by this point very emotional about that fact. Then, it is revealed to him that Brom was his father. Thus, the presence of the character and his death is recontextualised. It isn't just some grouchy guy who feels guilty for not being able to stop the BBEG, but a father who's staying near his son to watch over him the best he can, scared of getting attached because all he lost. Now the death is an act of love.
So, that's one instance where a death is improved later, but even then you could still take a character's initial circumstances and judge them, especially if the reveals happen in later books. For all you know the author mightn't have even planned those extra layers. But in 99% of cases, a death isn't fixed by bringing the character back. All that changes is that the author is now using that character as a crutch, killing and bringing them back to suit the plot and in my opinion that makes it worse. **Spoilers for Agatha All Along incoming.**
I didn't like pretty much any of the deaths in the series, apart from Lilia. Sharon was just needless, Alice was literally killed in her prime which feels tragic in a bad way to me. Agatha's death then return as a ghost has me torn. I just don't like it when a series kills a character it isn't willing to keep dead, but being a ghost is very in character for her. So in a way it is developing her character. I think I've settled on giving it a pass because apparently her ghostly status comes from the comics.
Anyway, TL;DR: The only way to improve a character death after it happens is by developing the now-dead character's motivations. So, that can be the reasons why they died, or MAYBE the reasons why they came back (Dean's return from purgatory in Supernatural is my best example of that, its a time when death in the show actually works). Bringing a character back through another character's hard work or even without any will feel cheap because it doesn't consider the dead character at all and suggests the author only cares about them as a tool for the protagonist's development
An example of something being saved by its ending (for me) is The Batman. If they had ended that film saturated in the same darkness, depression and pessimism as most of that film lived in, I would have wanted nothing to do with the franchise from there out and would have hated that film, but because they pivoted the tone of the character at the end I do enjoy it and want to see where they go with him. Even so, I don't blame anyone for bailing on something midway if they don't like it. The audience isn't obligated to stick with something just because it's not done yet.
I don’t know how to look forward to anything anymore. But this is as close as I can get at the moment. Thank you.
I stopped watching Sherlock after about 2 1/2 episodes because I was fed up with waiting for it to get good.
I think it would depend on the style of the show. Some shows need to be judged by their seasons, as they are serialised - like Game of Thrones. The last season of Dr Who, however, was mostly stand-alone episodes, so you can love Rogue but hate Space Babies.
I process as i watch, its why ppl don't really watch tv or movies with me, bc I'm a person who literally comments as something happens like you said you did with your friends writings. I'll sit there and pasue and be like whoa wait that makes no sense and then rewind and see if i was taking it right.
I definitely agree with this take, i do like to push through, though, bc I don't want to not finish things, but when it gets too much, i have to leave, and i leave for good. But i am definitely all about the process, even though i'll binge something, i will still pause and be like omg whoa, its why i love tv more than movies, Television gives mw time to process and collect my thoughts
The most you can ever say is.
I like it so far.
or
I don't like what i've seen so far.
Or
I'm not impressed but its watchable and i'm curious.
No one can ever say anything more that under any circumstances. EX: endings can tie up loose ends that you didn't realize could be tied up. or they can make things worse with a bad twist.
Apparently this “you have to watch/play the whole thing before critiquing it!” dictate doesn’t apply to Hogwarts Legacy. Bc I’m 98% finished on a secondhand copy and everyone claiming to be a gaming journalist who made a HogLeg video has a LOT of explaining to do.
You make some very valid points here. I'm the type to watch an entire show like "Agatha" before judging it for the most part. If I'm not enjoying it, I won't finish it, period. I remember years ago when "Queer As Folk" was on Showtime. It came on every Sunday and my friends and I would gather to watch it every week. Some episodes were great, some were awful, but usually the end of each season would make up for the bad stuff. We would then have a discussion about that week's episode and then hit up the local gay bar, lol. I think it really depends on what kind of viewer you are, or even the type of media you're watching. Regardless, it's the viewers opinion, which they have every right to. Thanks for opening up this discussion :) -- Constance
I personally feel like there's two parts to this process. The first is that, if you start something [reading a book, watching a movie, playing a game, ectc], you are 100% not obligated to either finish it, or even enjoy it. I feel like there's a bit of a discourse around 'you have to read/watch until *insert arbitrary number*, then it gets good!' kinds of suggestions. I believe that no one should have to, or feel pushed to, do anything that is meant as enjoyment, when they aren't enjoying it. I wish that more people would accept 'I didn't like this, and that's okay' as an answer.
However, the second part consequently means that attempting to say 'this was the worst thing ever' when you've only seen part of it, doesn't quite work, doesn't quite make sense. At least, I think so.
Yeah. If I didn't enjoy 70% of something, the ending won't change that. Now, I enjoy mysteries and don't need to understand everything from the start, but each section of a book or series needs to earn its keep. Episodic narratives get a little more leeway. Still, the good episodes don't improve the bad ones.
Anime has the 3 episode rule. Generally, the idea is, if an anime wasn't caught you by the end of the third episode drop it because it's unlikely episode 6 or even 12 will grab you. Now, there are a few anime that need more than 3 episode to really get into the meat of things, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb.
The only piece of media where I give a caveat of "you WILL need to commit to watching the two seasons" is a mystery anime, Higurashi. In full, my caveat is "you will need to commit to two seasons if you decide to watch it, cos unless you see the answers at the end of season two you will have no clue what is going on".
My love of Books and My Dyslexia has taught me a long time ago that it is Completely ok to Judge a piece of media you are consuming in your pastime. One only has so many hours in a day, week, month or even year. Question what makes you uncomfortable and decide if it's worthwhile continuing to the end or just stop. Unless an opinion actively seeks to harm yourself or others, Your feelings on something are valid.
5:35 I will say that I often caveat my favourable opinions on ongoing serialized shows as "so far, it's been _____, but maybe they'll mess it up" - in fact, I recall making similar comments early on for both Agatha All Along and The Penguin, though moreso for AAA because the MCU shows have had difficulty landing the ending.
I think the best way is to emphasize the source of the issue: if it's how a character death occurred, say it's *how this went down* and emphasize that, and maybe acknowledge "even if they came back, this bit will still bother me, but maybe in hindsight I won't be so angry", just as I've sometimes had the opposite, noting in hindsight "oh, they really didn't land that payoff and that retroactively made this thing worse". Will it stop people on the internet criticizing/arguing? No, that's impossible.