by Dub » Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:34 am
Reading the whole article, I think the writer mainly just wrote things they (or Google) didn't like about the shows.
I personally think some of the things in there such as Skinner and Pickle Rick are just one off episodes that can be ignored and don't impact the whole idea of the show. The character but certainly not the show. They don't fit the article title or take into account the nature of the shows.
The Family Guy point, that whole episode is not a lesson how to portray domestic abuse. There are so many episodes of Family Guy that are not there to be lessons on a topic, they bring the topic front and centre to play on the audiences uncomfortable laughter. Its dark comedy but presented Family Guy style, that doesn't sit well with everyone and understandably so. If the audience gets thinking about the topic, great however no viewer should be taking what Peter and the gang do as serious ways to take on the situation. I can think of two or three episodes/cutaways off the top of my head that are worse than the Brenda episode. None of them ruin the show, most are Quagmire episodes.
Saying Game of Thrones was ruined in series 5 is highly controversial among its fanbase. I think the article would have sat better if the went with series 7 because it was the ending of the show, meaning there was some clause there for the writer to say it ruined the show.
Because the writer leaves the two Buffyverse series to last, it makes it more impactful (Plus it's what we are looking for) however there are bold claims with zero facts here. They use the now known information about Whedon which wasn't known at the time. It is big on hindsight but no of the time information. It fails to take into account that Buffy was cancelled on its seventh series (second on a new network). This means it was expensive. Having a show go into the seventh series is rare let alone have a spin off of that series get to five series. There's no mention of viewing figures or the Zeitgeist of the new millennium and America post 9/11 and how that was impacting the channels demographic and direction in broadcasting.
To say it ruined the whole show matches the entire article in the stand point of it's scenes the writer didn't like opposed to ruining the show. If the shows were ruined then we wouldn't know about/ rewatch and talk about them today. We would only talk about those scenes.
Yay for recognition of the impact of the scene (it is side saddled to Spike too so it's not a stand alone point about the event that never happened) but at the same time, 100% that is not why the show got cancelled. Certainly ruined the show for me going forward and I'm happy to ignore all other facts like the writer has, to make that point but erm, no. It's an opinion and nothing else. then again that's all the press is now.
Got there with the writer. Small victories!
