#bc plot in s5 was pretty good not gonna lie

[jacquesthepigeon]

how would u rank the miraculous seasons. just curious cuz i tried to rewatch some episodes and was surprised to find stuff from seasons 2 and 3 were more watchable to me, a bunch of s1 is fine ig but so boring i can’t do it, s5 is unbearable, and s4 is so annoying on rewatch. idk

I only watched most of the eps at the time of release and I’ve only rewatched a couple I enjoyed but I think mine aligns somewhat with yours

S1 is more about the wonder of endless possible directions the show could take than it is about the actual quality of the content. The episodes were entertaining enough but left a lot to be desired in terms of the overarching plot, something I was willing to forgive knowing they were just getting started and foolishly believing that they would follow through on the points the season finale set up. You had to be there to truly appreciate it y’know?

S2-S3 are blurred together for me but I think it’s where the most fun episodes episodes come from. However, it also introduced the never ending trend of disappointing writing decisions and spawned some of the most glaring issues with the series that have since then snowballed into S4-S5’s big issues. It was an era of simultaneous confusion and realization. Confusion over wtf they’re doing and Realization that the crew doesn’t know either.

S4 was bad in pretty much every aspect except for maybe entertainment value. It has fun episodes but the overarching storyline is exhausting and convoluted and makes no sense. I think at this point a lot of us were just sticking around over sunk-cost rather than bc we were expecting a good conclusion to the story.

S5 broke me. It’s so bad. Legit I owe so much to serhat for saving me the time and investment of forcing myself to see it through to the end. It’s rushed, nothing makes sense, nothing matters, plot, characters, setting, pacing, continuity, nothing. I’m not gonna lie and say it didn’t have it’s moments, but the moments were only enjoyable if you divorced them from their context completely. It’d at least be Iconically Bad if it’d been that guy’s last hurrah before leaving the series and fucking over the rest of the crew by leaving them to clean up his mess but, for some reason beyond me, he not only decided to stay on the show and live with the consequences of S5’s terrible writing, he’s actually proud of it?

[ratbutmakeitfyodor]

Watch me going crazy over byler at the same time hating mike with burning passion

[anicocat]

Ignoring sobbe? I'm sorry but what part of 'sobbe has a plot in the second part of the season' you don't understand? They're gonna appear later. Considering herbots was filming Ritueel all this time it's not that surprising they are so sparse in the first part.

Hello anon :) Idk I don’t care about actors’ personal lives that much so I didn’t even know he was busy filming other stuff while filming S5, thanks for the info anyway :) Haha. BUT I’m not even talking about wanting to see the Sobbe subplot right away!!!! I’m talking about all the Sobbe potential scenes they’ve been ignoring, scenes we actually saw in Skam OG in EP1-2 like Evak moving together, Isak and Sana interacting in their biology class, Evak birthday video.... wtFOCK it’s an SKAM adaptation... is wondering what happened to that content that unreasonable? 🧐 Is it? I guess Sobbe will eventually have their subplot, but wtFOCK production team keeps missing lots of good opportunities, like they always do. They can write Kato in the scenes and even give her some dialogues but when it’s about giving Sobbe the scenes they were supposed to have it’s impossible for some reason, huh? Maybe they want to keep Sander’s potential connection with Yasmina as a secret, but Kato’s season showed they’re not really good in keeping all the juicy stuff for later episodes. Anyways, like I said, I’ll just have to think that there’s a good reason for this and that we’ll see something that give us a clue in friday’s clip. I just hope all those Evak scenes we haven’t seen yet in wtFOCK weren’t cut for good :(

I guess wished we saw something like SKAM Italy S4, they did such a good job building Sana and Martino friendship since EP1 and also developing Niccotino subplot. All the characters, girl and boy squad, were always there without taking Sana’s protagonism away. SKAM Italy was pretty consistent in always giving depth to their central, main and side characters. Won’t lie to you, I really hope Robbe and Yasmina can develop a stronger friendship bcs I feel their interactions since S3 have been extremely limited.

[psi-psina]

AND ALSO

series 2 was BY FAR the best. it was soooOOOooOOo good and the following seasons just couldn’t quite...get there. it’s a real shame that all the following series revolve almost entirely around morgana trying to take camelot from arthur. it just can’t compare to the gorgeous pathos that series 2 has being centred around merlin’s struggle to deny his true self to everyone around him and live what feels like a lie for the sake of some destiny he doesn’t understand :( 

merlin’s whole character being built around this theme of having to hide your true nature from everyone around you and basically being forced to live a double-life, and they work this into series 1 & 2 in a way that is TOTALLY analogous to the gay experience while ALSO leaving merlin of HIGHLY ambiguous sexuality was causing me EXQUISITE PAIN. (btw im not saying this was an intentional analogy on the writers part, just that it’s analogous lmao). i wonder if it would be SO HARD for writers to THINK for 5 seconds how this shit can affect the lonely LGB’s in their audience!! that ep where they go back to merlin’s village and he reunites with his childhood friend? who dies for him??? DEATH. the freya episode??? DEATH. 

honestly it would have been so much better if they’d had the nerve to either kill arthur off earlier (like at the end of s3 or something) or to allow merlin to reveal himself to arthur MUCH earlier to refresh the dynamic/take things in a new direction bc as it is the formula they stick to gets stale in s4 and s5 and those are a lot weaker than the first few series. :(

i totally get all the fuss about merlin/arthur but i don’t ship it. the dynamic is basically “hey arthur just wanted to let you know i’m worried this person is trying to kill you and everyone you love and i think we should do something about this oh and btw i would do literally anything for you and i’ve saved your life about 1000 times” “oh fuck off merlin you piece of shit when have you ever been right about anything? you are the most fucking useless person i know and a coward to boot, god why the fuck do i even put up with you? shut up and wash my boots and bedsheets” like? and it never changes? and yeah sometimes it’s played for laughs but most of the time it genuinely...isn’t funny. like merlin will be plainly upset or on the verge of TEARS about something and arthur will still be just taunting him. it’s so...sad. it’s also frustrating bc aside from merlin and gaius (I LOVE YOU GAIUS), merlin and arthur are the only really meaningful relationship on the show lol. and it’s sad, but i can’t believe anyone thought there’d be any romantic revelation between them in the finale. :( they brozone merlin and arthur SO HARD in the latter series lmao. i understand WANTING it to be there, but looking at it objectively they were clearly never even unwittingly encouraging a gay reading between them past season 1, which imho has some light-hearted subtext. in the latter seasons (especially s4 and s5) they were actively discouraging it tbh.

but due to merlin’s ambiguity and his sole attachment being to arthur you can still read merlin as being completely in love with arthur the whole freaking time if you want to which is just the absolute worst because it is so painfully unrequited lmao. it’s so alarmingly easy to read merlin as having a huge crush on him in s1 i sort of can’t stop it so that doesn’t HELP MATTERS.

arthur is literally too stupid for life and even though i detest uther i liked his presence in the show and it was weird after he died. also his death was extremely anticlimactic and contained no catharsis for his character. :/ why would u waste all that.

i could not BELIEVE the way lancelot just up and fucking DIED the way he did, but then he got necromanced back for that contrived nonsense with gwen (not one of their better plots tbh) and i was like “oh so i guess that’s why that had to happen” lame. that brings me to...gwen. 😩 ugh god, i mean she’s lovely and i don’t dislike her or anything they just do a crap job with her. she’s just very limited in this role as a peripheral love interest who is just so...bland. :/ like...she’s kind and sweet and caring and good and beyond that she basically has no personality or memorable traits and no role outside of helper or damsel in distress. at first i wondered if she was gonna be a love interest with merlin, then she’s a love interest with lancelot and then she’s the love interest for arthur and it’s just like...whatevs. i’m guessing another reason merlin/arthur was such a big deal is because arthur and gwen are so boring and in such a limited role gwen really can’t compete with merlin, who gets to be riddled with pathos and a deeply affecting internal struggle lmao. also doesn’t help that gwen and arthur have no chemistry and their romance comes out of nowhere and is basically irrelevant to the story. they literally don’t even have any kind of farewell or meaningful final scene together lmao. but y’know...arthur is basically just a ken doll most of the time soooo :/ which is ALSO annoying because when they actually get bradley james to EMOTE instead of being a macho dickhead he is fuckin’ AMAZING

one of the worst things about s4, apart from the dumbass evil uncle, was the knights of the round table suddenly turning into the douchetool bro club 😩 gwaine especially. i really liked him in s3, y’know, he was a charming rogue, but then he get’s fuckin flanderised in s4 and just turns into a total fucking moron. and i can’t believe perceval survived everything. why the hell did gwaine die instead of perceval. UNbelievable. (they literally killed off every actor that had ANY chemistry with merlin lmao...i’m just sayin)

i loved morgana as a character, and liked morgause. morgana is deeply tragic and i really felt for her tbh. she had a great deal of potential and it’s such a shame that a connection/relationship between her and merlin was never explored or developed in any way. they are the two most compelling characters and imo the ‘two sides of the same coin’ analogy fits them far better than than it does merlin and arthur lmao. exploring them would have been a way better direction for the show to go in than just setting them at odds the way it did. she got shafted for arthur tbh. (no one is surprised lol)

the final season was a bit...too serious for me. it made everything feel quite nihilistic in a weird and unpleasant way. the tone is darker but it lacks any poignancy because the storytelling is so rote at that point. it didn’t work with the show’s formula and seeing merlin kind of jaded and so utterly Done and Tired of all the shit he has to put up with and being taken for granted by everyone endlessly was...sad and made it all feel pretty empty at times. i missed the trolls and goblins and fairies :( the finale legit got the emotions going again though ;_;

anyway i fucking LOVED this terrible fantasy sitcom-y drama i LOVED it i GOBBLED it up 9/10