how much do you want to bet Hooper quits the project or just walks away, gets her check, and bows out of season 3 due to 'commitments elsewhere'.

I'll just throw random theories here.

I think a reason why a lot of shows suck today is because even when they've added more token characters, they're a still getting the same superficial treatment. It's just an ensemble cast where everyone has the depth of an extra plus. No one cares what happens to them and random external features that align with the viewer just aren't enough to create any kind of connection.

And then there's the part about shit arcs with nonexistent stakes. There's not that much growth when the starting point is omnipotent from the start to the end. You obv can work around the fact that the white hat isn't likely to die, but if that's given why waste everyone's time pretending like that's on the table. That's why traditional heroes are "punished" by going after their loved ones. It's how serialized shows functioned forever.

For random theories I don't know why AAA titles fall short with everything related to audiovisual media. The other side of the aisle believes some combination of propaganda and variation of coastal elite stuff. My best guess is just nepotism and lazy FOTM type of a thingie. Sort of access, virtue signaling, shit market research and the incompetence that follows when creatives only tick the first 3 boxes. Obv funding needs to believe that ticking few of those boxes is enough for profit. For the most part that's gone now. It takes a few years to get through the backlog, but after that once excess capital has evaporated, funding will return back to expecting returns.

To a degree pandemic was the perfect storm for this. Who would have guessed, that when more people are stuck indoors, more people would be interested in streaming services. Combine that with mildly retarded economic policy that mostly increases excess capital with limited non retarded investment opportunities and here we are. The positive spin being that maybe we got through this phase faster than it would have "naturally" taken?

Still no idea how RoP was released to the masses in the state it was. It's just weird to me when the source material is giving you everything that would appease fans, tards focused with diversity and enough things to attract toddlers, you would just decide to not do that and instead a studio would let you go for random virtue signaling with subpar community theater execution. $1b is just enough to cover maybe the first two seasons. Amazon paid for 5 seasons and it could be cost effective to do 3 seasons depending on the contracts, but the show is looking to towards breaking even or just taking a small loss. The first season was enough to paint it to a corner. I can't think of anything they could do to get to black.

yeah not enough has been said about how RoP really is a child of the lockdown. there was probably a literal single phone call where the lockdown was lifted, netflix stock started to wither, and bezos just exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose and said 'you know what, fuck it, just do it' and that was that. there really is a point where so much money and so much ego have polluted a project that its unredeemable but if you have bezos money, you just let the chips fall where they may.

i think about bezos' only real comment on the state of the show being 'they ignored my suggestions' a lot.

so season 2 rings of power already has a bodycount; a horse dropped dead on set. apparently was in full battle gear etc.

noteworthy because im old enough to remember hbo's "Luck".

ok a few things

im rewatching sandman. its still fucking great.

season 2 is well under way and should air in fall of 2024. they switched to a 'volume' style of production as opposed to seasons so expect like 5 to 6 episode volumes moving forward.

its funny how season 1's eps 1-6 are basically a mini-season and then 7 on are clearly part of another mini-season.

holy shit i forgot how awful episode 7 was.