@Roz said:
@Arkandel Certainly the Marvel Netflix shows are the best superhero TV happening right now, but the nature of Netflix programming almost makes it seem like an entirely different medium. Like, they're really more like extended movies or miniseries. I imagine they also have much bigger budgets available to them.
But why? Let's break it down.
Budget - I'd say Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. probably uses way more special effects than Daredevil does. Most of its budget must be going to fight choreography, it's not like they need to depict people shooting lasers out of their eyes on a regular basis.
The format... I don't know why monster-of-the-week is still a thing - and I can't imagine I'd watch Daredevil less if its episodes were being released on the traditional weekly schedule, for example. Dedicated nerd tastes however might not apply to a regular viewer who might not tune in every single week... but I don't see it. It's not like ultra successful action-based shows like The Walking Dead don't rely on a very strong continuity (I won't mention more cerebral shows like Breaking Bad since we'd be comparing very different things).
Which isn't to say that someone probably couldn't make a similar type of show in a more traditional TV setting, or that you can't make TV of that quality outside of Netflix. Not at all; we're in a Golden Age of Television. But I do think that the various variables of Daredevil's situation allow it to be more focused and tell a more cohesive story. The closest equivalent on traditional TV, IMO, is Agent Carter: totally different tone and style, obviously, but the fact that it's a shorter season run means that it's a lot tighter and more focused and avoids the issues of filler.
I wonder if it's just that regular TV stations are still partially stuck on the customary model, the filler episodes... all of those trappings that perhaps aren't needed any more. Maybe in the 80s you needed self-contained stories where the main character beats up some bad guy of the week but after many shows succeeded on the strength of those cohesive stories you mention maybe there's been a paradigm shift while they weren't (?) looking.
Something else that offends my own sensibilities in superhero shows is when they try to promote spin-offs a bit too aggressively and in ways that don't fit the overall arc. For example Arrow and Flash got caught up for several weeks in their Legends of Tomorrow launch which derailed their regular direction. There were mentions of say, Jessica Jones in Daredevil (and vice versa) but they were subtle and not intrusive... they hinted at a wider world but it didn't feel like shameless promotion, you know?
