Thou Shalt Not Cliffhang and then Cancel

With the ending of another year in TV, cancellations are about to occur. And there should be a few rules about cliffhanging and storylines that serve no real purpose. I know. The writers of TV land are really concerned about what I think. Still, one can try.

Rule 1: Any television series in its first three seasons should not have a season ending cliffhanger.

Let's face it any television series is a gamble at the beginning. It doesn't really reach any real security until it passes that magical third year when a series finally has enough episodes to be syndicated on a regular basis. Any series can be cancelled, but we know that most will have it happen especially in the first three years. Cliffhangers in that time is unfair to the few fans a series may garner, and a cliffhanger does not guarantee a next season. People are roaming around wondering what happened the next season in Alphas. It was serious enough, The Big Bang Theory actually included it in an episode.

Rule 2.: Any television series that has a cliffhanger and is cancelled, must be given one episode after its cancellation to resolve the cliffhanger.

If you are going to allow a cheap trick like cliffhangers, you should at least give the fans the opportunity to see it settled. If the studio wants to make money, I suppose they could include a final episode on the digital or DVD release. It is only fair to those people who sit through all the advertisements and other crappy shows that should have been cancelled after episode 2. Take for example the last episode of Castle. When the show received its notice that there would not be a next season, the writers had an end scene ready to shoot to solve the obvious cliffhanger they'd planned. Was it a good conclusion? Not really, but the fans got closure albeit a bit trite.

Rule 3: Cliffhangers are cheap and lazy writing and should be avoided.

I hate the cliffhanger as a season end grabber. It's cheap. If a show is so bad or melodramatic that it has to get its viewers to watch by cliffhanging episodes, especially to try and get to the next season, the writers of the show need to rethink their life choices. Cliffhangers in TV, movies, and books is quite simply poor writing and a gimmick to sell more. In writing, if every chapter of the book is a cliffhanger, then the book is plot driven and just dragging the reader along. I've had this problem with cliffhangers in books and shows for a long time. Climactic writing at the end of a chapter should make the reader want to go to the next chapter. It differs from cliffhangers which more or less forces the reader to the next chapter. It's one of the reasons I still despise The Stand. It uses a cheap and lazy plotting technique. The same is true with cliffhangers at the end of a season. It's cheap and lazy. It means you don't care enough about the characters to stay with the series.

The best example of true climatic writing on TV was the Star Trek Next Generation episode called "Best of Both Worlds." That's the episode where Picard is turned into a Borg. It works because fans care and are invested in the characters of the show. The other reason is that the season ender wasn't a gimmick that was used every single season up to that point. True all seasons following used the technique and unfortunately, it was an occasional gimmick used even by one of my favorite shows that I could've lived without.

Rule 4: If a series is a crime solving series, it should solve crimes. If it is a law series, it should have a trial with an outcome. If it is a super hero series, it should have a battle between the hero and the villain.

Not staying with the series premise is known as "jumping the shark." When I watch Elementary or Monk, I want them to solve a mystery. That's the premise. Any series that doesn't stay in its premise or genre, is jumping the shark. I really don't care what so and so's home life is like. It's time filler. Backstory is an important part of developing character, but only as it relates to the premise. If writing never ties that backstory, then it's poor writing.

Rule 5: Additional scenes which give other characters depth (and actors something to do in the episode) but have nothing to do with the plot or central premise of the show is cheap and lazy writing and should be avoided.

Along the same line as Rule 4, we don't really need to add to supporting characters extraneous storylines. I really don't care about Supergirl's human sister’s love life unless that love life has direct bearing on a storyline which is related to the premise or genre of the show. I get that actors have been hired and they want to work. Adding stories that have nothing to do with the central story is wasted film. If a show doesn't have enough plot to support an hour (actually 42 minutes) of story, then maybe the show be thirty minutes long. I don't know how many times shows like Criminal Minds have five minutes of show following the resolution that has nothing to do with premise. "Oh look, they've run out of plot again."

And I still want to know the resolution to season 2 of Alphas.

Avengers: Infinity War Is Darker

After seeing Avengers: Infinity War, I thought about running home and tapping out my review, but I must pause because trying to do this with as few of spoilers as possible requires thought. So, I am going to not list who died, who lived, and great lines. I am also not going to spend a lot of time listing actors and roles. If you are going in to this movie not ever having seen any of the Super Hero movies from the past 10 years, it's would simply take too much time to explain it. I do, however, want to react to the end of the movie so for those who have not seen Infinity War, I will warn you at that point. The rest of the review should be pretty much spoiler free. 

Infinity War is the third installment of the Avenger movies. If the Avengers were a true trilogy, this would be the second movie. It is dark, and dangerous in tone but unlike the DC movie world, it still manages to work in the gags, quick one-liners and funny visuals that are a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie opens aboard one of the ships from Asgard that were at the end of Thor: Ragnarok. While other movies have had cameos by the Mad Titan, Thanos. This is the first time we get to see why galaxies live in fear of him. We also get to meet his henchmen who he sends out on his bidding which is his search for the Infinity Stones. The stones were originally called Infinity gems in the comics, but the movies changed their names. We have in the previous movies seen five of the six stones. Each of the stones controls one aspect important to the survival of the known universe. The stones are: Time (The Eye of Agamotto in Doctor Strange), Space (The Tesseract, Captain America, the First Avenger) Power (The Orb, Guardians of the Galaxy), Reality (Aether, Thor: The Dark World), Mind (Chitauri Scepter, The Avengers giving life to Vision in that movie), and last but not least the missing Soul Stone which is revealed in this movie.

If Thanos can take control of all six stones, he can destroy the universe or reshape it in his image. Thanos is a megalomaniac who believes that in order for the universe to be in balance at least half of the universe must die so that finite resources can support life longer.  The Avengers must try and stop him. And so, we see the full Avenger team which includes Earth Avengers absent Hawkeye and Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier, Spider Man, and The Guardian of the Galaxies join forces. The original comic book series actually had a few more that Marvel has not yet introduced. The movie is wide ranging with battles in space involving Iron Man, Spider Man, Strange and the Guardians. On a side note, we do get to see teen Groot which is pretty entertaining. On Earth, the war rages with Earth's Avengers plus Black Panther and the Winter Soldier. Yep, the MCU has gotten pretty big in characters. 

The movie is vast in scope and effects. It still relies on plotting that you really shouldn't think too hard about. But given the scope of the movie. like its predecessors, the underlying themes are about loyalty, power and belonging. I really liked Infinity War. Is it the best of the movies? No. But the sheer magnitude of the movie, I am willing to forgive the thinner character driven plot that has appeared in other movies. The movie has some great moments both emotional and funny. I will buy the DVD.

And now....the ending and a few other problems .....SPOILERS.....SPOILERS.....SPOILERS....SPOILERS

I wanted to take a moment to talk about all the deaths at the end. I know a few folks seem to be greatly upset about losing half the Avengers. 

1. It is a comic book movie. super heroes are resurrected more than Star Trek characters and have more iterations of existence than Star Wars has Jedi ghosts. Spider Man has died at least fifteen times in the comics. As for the deaths at the end of the movie. I have two words: Infinity Stones. 

2. It is and has been clear that just because the Avengers movie in 2019 is untitled that it was obviously set for the continuation of the War. Even the comic books version of Infinity War is printed in five volumes: Thanos Rising, The Infinity Gauntlet, The Infinity War, and two volumes of Infinity Crusade. 

3. The after credits scene has a very clear Easter egg for the upcoming Captain Marvel plus we have Adam (Warlock?) who has yet to make appearance from the end of the second Guardians movie. And yes, both were involved in the original comics. 

4. Josh Brolin was contracted for another movie.

So, while the carnage at the end is a lot, going in we knew that something was up. If you should be upset about anything was the advertising campaign asking where you will be when it all ends. The answer, at least another year older.

The two things that bothered me most was Star Lord going off on Thanos as they are about to get the Gauntlet. As my wife put it, Star Lord is a bit unpredictable, but even he would not destroy the plan that would prevent the death of billions. It was completely out of character.

And

Will the MCU really kill off one of its most popular characters in Loki?

Really fun stuff includes Peter Dinklage as the master weapons maker, Drax moving so slowly he thinks he's invisible, teen Groot and his video game, and the stellar performance of Tom Holland as Spider Man.