Willow, the series; streaming on Disney+

[pengbuzz]

10 minutes ago, Thom said:

That's disappointing, but not a surprise, sadly. It was 'ho-hum' for most of it's run, but those last few episodes were really good, IMO. It was a bit of a slog for what I felt was a good pay-out. Was really hoping to see more!

And yes, Netflix is cancelling too many good shows. Stranger Things or Cobra Kai are your Top Tier shows, but that doesn't mean you should cancel mid-level performers. I was really liking Warrior Nun and Paper Girls, Wynx Saga. Again, not the Top Tier, but they were entertaining and I was liking their stories.

I think anyone with a show on Netflix should plan on one season, open strong, finish it out even stronger and don't worry about a second season. A number of these shows I would have been alright with ending early if they had not left their main characters literally in limbo!

Agreed; start strong, finish strong, then if the ratings support it, do a season 2.

[Duke Togo]

2 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

The Dark Crystal was great. I wish it would have had a proper finale.

 

This I 100% agree with. Small audience for it though, unfortunately.

[Duke Togo]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Next franchise for them to vandalize adapt: Voyagers!

I would be totally on board for this.

[jenius]

They need to figure out less expensive ways to make the shows so it's easier to keep them going. 

[Mog]

I thought that’s why they went with so many young and/or unknown actors.

But yeah, the special effects and location filming were probably pricy.

[Briandmd]

28 minutes ago, Mog said:

I thought that’s why they went with so many young and/or unknown actors.

But yeah, the special effects and location filming were probably pricy.

Well, they could have tried to write and show that enough people would want to watch.   Maybe just writing a good show would be the answer?

[azrael]

No surprise Disney+ is culling their herd since streaming services appear to be cutting back on production thanks to the current economy. I'm still waiting to see what big shows Netflix or Amazon are going to cut after this year.

VFX is always expensive and another season's budget would likely raise the VFX costs. Coupled with (likely) no substantial change to subscriptions numbers probably placed the nail on the coffin.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Briandmd said:

Well, they could have tried to write and show that enough people would want to watch.   Maybe just writing a good show would be the answer?

I definitely think that poor writing was a big part of the problem with this show and a few others out there. Acting has been pretty good in a lot of recent shows and visuals are definitely better than many shows of the past, but the writing has been lacking. Although the show was written slightly better than Rings of Power or She Hulk and the Obi show it also didn’t carry a huge fandom. 
 I do feel that if this show had some great writing, then there’d be a bigger word of mouth for it to pick up an audience, especially among those with a D+ subscription hoping for a show to fill the gap between Star Wars and Marvel entries that have had some letdowns recently 

[Dynaman]

11 hours ago, technoblue said:

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point since most streaming data is held in confidence. I would say they’re cancelling shows that don’t perform better or on par with shows like Stranger Things or Cobra Kai.

Willow is a high budget show on par with Stranger Things.  Cobra Kai, being based in current times, can get by with a lower budget.  Long story short, high budget shows have to do well to stick around and Willow was not doing well enough.  From all the reviews I have seen it probably cratered in viewership after a couple episodes.

[Mog]

I wonder if the week by week release schedule screws the pooch with some of these versus just releasing a whole season all at once.

Lot easier to keep watching a show, if you can jump right into the next episode.  As opposed to stewing over a bleh episode for a week and then losing motivation to keep watching.

[technoblue]

18 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

Willow is a high budget show on par with Stranger Things.  Cobra Kai, being based in current times, can get by with a lower budget.  Long story short, high budget shows have to do well to stick around and Willow was not doing well enough.  From all the reviews I have seen it probably cratered in viewership after a couple episodes.

Reviews can become an echo chamber, though, if one isn’t careful. This is why I like giving shows a chance of a few episodes myself in spite of what the reviews say. 

I agree about how there is more of a built-in dependency on larger budgets. All it takes is for a contract negotiation to go sideways to cause good streaming shows to die on the vine too. Three Pines falls into this category. Amazon reportedly said the show had the viewer numbers but the second-season budget fell apart when it came time to extend it. I expect to see more of these shenanigans as well. 

Edited March 16, 2023 by technoblue

[Dynaman]

57 minutes ago, technoblue said:

Reviews can become an echo chamber, though, if one isn’t careful. This is why I like giving shows a chance of a few episodes myself in spite of what the reviews say. 

Corporate budgets (especially now) can not afford to give a show a chance, beyond the entire first season Willow got.  In Willow's case it may have been even worse, there is a chance it had a fairly decent first episode or two based on name recognition and tanked from there.  

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Mog said:

I wonder if the week by week release schedule screws the pooch with some of these versus just releasing a whole season all at once.

Lot easier to keep watching a show, if you can jump right into the next episode.  As opposed to stewing over a bleh episode for a week and then losing motivation to keep watching.

Probably no difference. If anything, a weekly release prolongs the initial viewership. Regardless, if the numbers aren’t there, it makes it harder to justify its existence. It’s easy to do the initial investment (1st season), but gets harder from there (bigger the risk, bigger or smaller the reward) because you’ll want to do more given another chance.

[Bolt]

I'm surprised season 2 isn't happening (yet), the reviews were not bad. And it did 6th most viewed streaming, at its worst. Personally I thought it was not nearly as good as it could have been. But I still would have checked out a second season, in the hopes that it would redeem itself. 
But it's not news that Disney is cutting back their expenses and setting money aside for another wave of Star Wars movies, games , and series'. Merchandising rights alone make SW a cash cow. Even if their meh.

[Thom]

I think a big problem is no one wants to give a show a chance to 'mature' anymore. It has to be perfect from the first scene and first word, otherwise the aforementioned 'echo chamber' comes into effect. Yes, Willow had some lackluster episodes, but it ended in a strong way. There's more reason to think that trend would have continued into a second season than not.

[Duke Togo]

Jon Kasdan has released a statement saying the show is essentially on an indefinite hiatus. He doesn't use the term canceled.

[technoblue]

27 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

Jon Kasdan has released a statement saying the show is essentially on an indefinite hiatus. He doesn't use the term canceled.

I hope Kasdan gets to do more with the franchise, personally. And I don’t mind waiting if, like @Thom notes above, it means we get a much stronger second act. Avoiding the MCU-style churn might be a good thing for Willow.

[Thom]

That is certainly encouraging news.

https://www.empireonline.com/tv/news/willow-series-isnt-cancelled-volume-2-planned-jon-kasdan/

I'd have no problem giving it a year or two if they need it. 

[Bolt]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

That is certainly encouraging news.

https://www.empireonline.com/tv/news/willow-series-isnt-cancelled-volume-2-planned-jon-kasdan/

I'd have no problem giving it a year or two if they need it. 

Quite encouraging, yes. I'm good with time being taken between seasons. If it never happens, ok. But better to do the second season right , rather than auto rush into mediocrity.

[Thom]

53 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Quite encouraging, yes. I'm good with time being taken between seasons. If it never happens, ok. But better to do the second season right , rather than auto rush into mediocrity.

Very true, though here's hoping it does not suffer a quiet death...

[Big s]

If they can do a good second season, I’ll watch for sure

[pengbuzz]

While I wasn't hot on this, I'd like to see what they'd do with a season 2! Game on!

[renegadeleader1]

19 hours ago, technoblue said:

I hope Kasdan gets to do more with the franchise, personally. And I don’t mind waiting if, like @Thom notes above, it means we get a much stronger second act. Avoiding the MCU-style churn might be a good thing for Willow.

Kasdan is a hack writer and only got to where he is due to sheer nepotism. Nothing he has ever worked on has ever risen above mediocrity. His biggest success was writing for Dawson's Creek, the prototypical "CW" whiny angst teen melodrama  show which is basically what the Willow tv series became instead of the light hearted medieval adventure series it should have been. It needed more swords and sorcery adventure like the original movie and less talking about feelings in dark hallways.

 

If you think Jon Kasdan is going to improve in a hypothetical season 2 just because he gave us a couple decent episodes at the tail end of Willow's first season you'll be sadly mistaken.

[mechaninac]

3 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Kasdan is a hack writer and only got to where he is due to sheer nepotism. Nothing he has ever worked on has ever risen above mediocrity. His biggest success was writing for Dawson's Creek, the prototypical "CW" whiny angst teen melodrama  show which is basically what the Willow tv series became instead of the light hearted medieval adventure series it should have been. It needed more swords and sorcery adventure like the original movie and less talking about feelings in dark hallways.

 

If you think Jon Kasdan is going to improve in a hypothetical season 2 just because he gave us a couple decent episodes at the tail end of Willow's first season you'll be sadly mistaken.

100% This!  He was also one of the duo (double the hackery) who wrote Solo, and we all know how that money losing stinker turned out.  His parsing of the cancellation as an extended, pie in the sky hiatus, just strikes of heavy doses of copium and hopium being injected directly into the bloodstream... lots of that going around.

Edited March 18, 2023 by mechaninac

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Kasdan is a hack writer and only got to where he is due to sheer nepotism. Nothing he has ever worked on has ever risen above mediocrity. His biggest success was writing for Dawson's Creek, the prototypical "CW" whiny angst teen melodrama  show which is basically what the Willow tv series became instead of the light hearted medieval adventure series it should have been. It needed more swords and sorcery adventure like the original movie and less talking about feelings in dark hallways.

 

If you think Jon Kasdan is going to improve in a hypothetical season 2 just because he gave us a couple decent episodes at the tail end of Willow's first season you'll be sadly mistaken.

Okay... I'm not a big fan of how they did this either, but that said: if you feel Kasdan has no talent, then let's see him sink or swim on this. Let him have his season 2 and see what happens; just like Picard and Discovery under Kurtzman, anything rotten can simply be ignored in favor of the main canon that was already established. Let's see if he can learn from what worked in the last 2 episodes of S1 and capitalize on it, or not. If not, no skin off our backs as far as I'm concerned.

[technoblue]

8 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

If you think Jon Kasdan is going to improve in a hypothetical season 2 just because he gave us a couple decent episodes at the tail end of Willow's first season you'll be sadly mistaken.

I’m with @pengbuzz on this. I mean, all I can fairly critique is what I’ve seen from Kasdan’s body of work.

No, I didn’t see Dawson’s Creek. It wasn’t what I was into years ago when it was broadcast. I did see Solo. And with Kasdan’s SW attempt, I did my best to look at it without blanketing it in the doubts I had after watching Johnson’s TLJ. In that respect, it was all right. Not franchise-changing but all right.

I think season 1 of Willow was all right too. The anachronisms with the film are certainly worth pointing out: the language, the music, randomly breaking character. Otherwise, I wish there had been more exposition around the Crone and how her essence survived the events of the first film. The Wyrm…What can I say? The final reveal was silly. It could have been kept a mysterious disembodied thing or some dark dragon lurking in the background. Instead we get a mismatched monster left by some rogue Bene Gesserit.

The in-universe fan service and easter eggs could use some work too. But this is more of a general comment about all the shows I’ve seen recently. I hope the industry turns to more grounded nods instead of all the fluff service. IMO, it feels better when these events lift the main story and carry it forward. Oh well.

But even with my criticisms, I can still find things that I enjoy. I liked the pull Kit had to find her father Madmartigan. I wish Kilmer had been well enough for them to develop that side quest. I liked seeing an older, somewhat wiser Willow. I wish we had seen more of his daughter and his apprentice. It would have been cool if those two had joined the party. Seeing Elora’s journey was fun too, even though there are parts still left untold.

Edited March 18, 2023 by technoblue

[Mog]

Graydon too actually went from being like a useless spoony bard to actually being an interesting and useful character.

Boorman had a fun charm to him and worked as the fun side character.

[jenius]

Graydon is the perfect example that the writing was subpar. He could have been interesting as the betrothed... but never was. They didn't work that whole betrothed angle at all, it was immediately forgotten. It seemed like they were setting him up to turn against the team by giving hints to a dark past.... but that went no where. Then they let him languish in this puppy love state for a while which made zero sense since he was part of a team working to reunite the girl with her love. He could have been interesting as a fledgling magician... but he wasn't until like the last two episodes and then it was introduced with absolutely no lead up... like one day they were like "this guy sucks as a character, we should do something to make him interesting." Turning the bonereavers into sympathetic good guys was also... bizarre and handled so weakly... like "hey, let's drop a reveal, and then they're all friends" ignoring all the history and repercussions that go along with that. So yeah, count me in the group that says poor writing really hindered this show. 

[Big s]

8 hours ago, jenius said:

Graydon is the perfect example that the writing was subpar. He could have been interesting as the betrothed... but never was. They didn't work that whole betrothed angle at all, it was immediately forgotten. It seemed like they were setting him up to turn against the team by giving hints to a dark past.... but that went no where. Then they let him languish in this puppy love state for a while which made zero sense since he was part of a team working to reunite the girl with her love. He could have been interesting as a fledgling magician... but he wasn't until like the last two episodes and then it was introduced with absolutely no lead up... like one day they were like "this guy sucks as a character, we should do something to make him interesting." Turning the bonereavers into sympathetic good guys was also... bizarre and handled so weakly... like "hey, let's drop a reveal, and then they're all friends" ignoring all the history and repercussions that go along with that. So yeah, count me in the group that says poor writing really hindered this show. 

I totally agree. If they just gave his character focus, the actor was actually good enough to have made him feel important, but it felt like he was given five different characters to play and no one could figure out what to do with him as far as the writing team.

[Mog]

The funny thing is that I just viewed him as the nerdy, bookish character that’s more into magic and old stories.

Not the standard charming or high-strung royal person.  Just a guy forced by his family into roles he’s not suited for. <shrugs>

[mechaninac]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2023/05/25/its-your-last-chance-to-see-how-bad-the-new-disney-willow-show-is-before-its-gone-for-good/?sh=5625eb8c21b7  

  

[pengbuzz]

[Big s]

2 hours ago, mechaninac said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2023/05/25/its-your-last-chance-to-see-how-bad-the-new-disney-willow-show-is-before-its-gone-for-good/?sh=5625eb8c21b7  

  

I heard it was leaving the other day, and still a bit thrown off that they would just remove one of the few original shows they have, even if it sucked.

[Thom]

Again, it was disjointed in the beginning but I felt it really hit a stride in the last few episodes. Shame it won't be allowed to mature.

[mechaninac]

23 minutes ago, Big s said:

...just remove one of the few original shows they have, even if it sucked.

For the exact same reason Netflix nixed Cowboy Bebop after one laughably bad cringe inducing season, only this went one step further since D+ is hemorrhaging both subs and money, and taking up storage, even if only ones and zeros in a server, costs money, especially for a product that bombed super hard and has no hope of EVER making a profit.  They are cutting their losses, from every division except parks, to shake some loose change out of the couch since Disney has fallen so hard in almost everything they've put out for several years that they are down to about 3 months worth of operating expenses in liquid assets.