darklydreaming

This show only gets better with time. I wasn't a huge fan of them taking on Frozen so quickly, but it ended up not being as hokey and ridiculous as I imagined. Now if we could just delve more into serious character development for Emma, all would be well. She's come a long way, but I feel like they take steps forward and then go backward again. Also I miss Henry. I know he's there, but he used to be so much more central to the story than he is now.

I've watched every season of this show so many times, and while I have always loved it (and it is certainly a classic), the more I watch it, the more I come to realize how this show could never be made again as it was, now–and I am grateful for that. Completely lacking in diversity (racial, sexual, ethnic), filled to the brim with homophobic jokes and jabs at any sort of hint that someone doesn't follow stereotypical gender roles (what comes to mind is Ross' infuriating attitude toward Sandy, the male nanny, and Chandler's insistence that Joey "be a man" and stop letting his female roommate assert her presence in her own apartment), transphobia, heterosexism, fatshaming, sexism...this show wouldn't last in 2015 if brought to a network as a new show. This show is firmly 90s for how entrenched it was in perpetuating societal restrictions dictated by Hollywood itself. There was nothing remarkable, uplifting, or moving about Friends, only that it was charming, funny, and the actors all had great chemistry because they were truly friends offscreen. It pushed no boundaries and rested comfortably where it laid; it had no aspirations for being a commentary. Which is fine, I guess. I just don't find it to be great TV anymore. Television really does represent the current attitudes of the culture in which it's created, which thankfully has progressed. I am glad that this show exists, if only to be predictably entertaining when I need to be cheered up, and also as evidence of how far we have come and how far we need to continue to go. Also, having seen every episode so many times, I now get really distracted by inconsistencies and how terrible the "outdoor" sets were.

When I first started watching this show about three years ago (I started watching right before the premiere of season 2), I was instantly hooked. I was addicted and I counted time at school and work as time wasted because I wasn't watching TVD. The writing was good, the characters were interesting, the story, despite being yet another vampire-centric tale wasn't trite and had some fresh twists. Exit Kevin Williamson about two years later, leaving Julie Plec alone at the helm, and that all goes down the hole. This show annoys me. It caters to fans far too much instead of being a good show with a good story that allows the story to progress in a believable and natural manner. It panders to the crowd instead of developing independently. I don't just say this as an embittered Stefan and Elena shipper. I say this because the show has taken some dangerous attitudes towards things like abusive relationships and toxic people. Damon is a good character because he gets you to hate him so much, but romanticizing homicidal, manipulative, sociopaths who want to control everything and everyone isn't so great. Damon consistently has refused to listen to anyone around him, even when they were making their own choices for themselves. He's manipulated people. He's taken advantage of people. He's harmed the loved ones of people he claims to care for. I wouldn't get rid of Damon because he is a good CHARACTER, but as a character he is not a good PERSON. This is an important message to the show's key demographics that gets lost, and it's dangerous. Young girls sit around pining over Damon and insisting he isn't terrible, instead of Stefan–Stefan, who is kind, thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and yes, flawed, but humanly so. He cares about others, even when they aren't the show's central characters. He is a solid character, and worthy of love, and yet Plec's treatment of Stefan...it's truly abominable, and I think that is mostly to do with the fact that a lot of the female viewers love Damon. Which shows again a catering to fans. Not to mention Plec's complete character assassination of Elena. That was tough to watch, and was about the time that I started to give up on TVD. This show once had a good direction and it is now scattered twenty different ways. Half the time I can't even remember what happened earlier in the season because it has absolutely no tie to what's happening now and I think, "Wait, was that LAST season?" I think truly the only great thing that has come out of this mess is Caroline. Her character development has been flawlessly executed. And her platonic (!!!!) friendship with Stefan gave me so much hope, but it seems that even that isn't sacred anymore and has seemingly become entangled in romantic nonsense. I continue watching because I love Stefan as a character. He is remarkable. Other than that, I've basically given up. I care very little for anything else happening on this show anymore.