I finally watched it!
Jun. 17th, 2011 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brendalaWell, I finally got around to finishing the illegal Canadian run of Mystery Incorporated and....well...I'm having trouble expressing my thoughts succinctly. So I asked the gang to help me out!
Fred? Daphne? Velma? How do you feel about this series overall?
...okay. But what about Shaggy and Scooby Doo?
Hmmm, looks like Shaggy is a bit more forgiving than the rest of them. That, or he awarded the show a point solely because it allowed him to touch Velma's boobs on camera.
OK, seriously...
This show is, by far, the biggest example of wasted potential I have EVER seen! On paper, it had everything going for it (good writers, actors, cool Hanna-Barbera throwbacks, beautiful design and atmosphere) and the first episode was amazing. But it slowly degraded in quality with each successive episode until it was just a badly written, sexist, plot hole ridden, childhood-memory-destroying mess.
First off, the over-arching storyline (the thing that was supposed to be this series' main draw) has dozens of plot holes that were left hanging. Just off the top of my head...
1) Mr E was omniscient/powerful enough to pass messages to the gang wherever they were, control half the town without anyone finding out who he was, rope Angel into helping him even though she didn't want to, etc, etc. And yet, he couldn't solve the Big Mystery and unmask The Freak of Crystal Cove without the aid of a bunch of dumbass, hormonal teenagers!? This makes no sense!
2) If the original Mystery Inc was just as good at mystery solving as the current one; shouldn't they have been able to figure this case out themselves within the past 20 years? I know their families were threatened; but being threatened by psychos is a daily occurrence for the current gang and it never phased them! Heck, both Fred and Velma saw family members get attacked by suspects in the mysteries they were solving, and they never once thought of quitting the team. Then again, Fred and Velma are also huge assholes in this show; so maybe that explains why.
3) If the gang's safety was the only thing Angel/Cassidy cared about; why wasn't she straight with them from the get go? It's clear she no longer has any love for Ricky/Mr E; so she wasn't blindly following his orders out of love/trust for him. I suppose Mr E had something on her that he was able to use to blackmail her into cooperating (some old copies of her gag-inducing love poems to him, perhaps?), but that's never confirmed. So we're left to assume that Angel is merely an idiot who blindly follows the man in her life just like every other woman in the show (with the exception of Velma's mother).
The writers for this show have no idea how to write romance
None of the characters act believably or consistently when it comes to the romances in this show...
1) Fred: He starts out with the perfectly reasonable fear that entering a romantic relationship with Daphne will screw up their friendship and that he should love all his friends and family equally. Then, toward the end of the series, he says that Daphne is the only one who has always been there for him (I guess Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma are chopped liver on account of the fact that they refuse to hump his leg 24/7 like Daphne does) and he impulsively decides that he and Daphne should get married after a whopping two months of dating in High School! That's a pretty big leap to make in a ridiculously short amount of time!
2) Daphne: Early on in the Fred/Daphne relationship; she showed some assertiveness and insisted that Fred make compromises on her behalf to make their relationship work. Then once he admits that he loves her, she goes into full doormat mode and tolerates behavior from him that, in real life, would get a man arrested. I'm honestly surprised that Daphne's parents never issued a restraining order against him. God knows they had more than enough evidence to make their case!
3) Velma: She constantly jumps between being madly in love with Shaggy, hating Shaggy's guts, and wanting to salvage a platonic friendship with him. I had hope for her when Shaggy said he wanted her back and she appeared to do the dignified thing and say that maybe they're better off as friends. But those hopes were dashed when the following episode showed her bitterly telling Daphne that she only did that as a "Fuck You!" to Shaggy for choosing Scooby and nothing more.
4) Shaggy: He told Velma he broke up with her because of the Scooby thing and also because he wasn't ready for a girlfriend. He then proceeded to kick Scooby to the curb and try and climb into the panties of a girl Velma had befriended (presumably to fill the hole that was left when Daphne decided that Fred was the only person who mattered in her life) and seemed to really like. Thus making himself one of the biggest douchebags in this show! And then, after Velma's gal pal dumps him, he realizes that he still loves Velma when he lands on top of her in the backseat of the Mystery Machine (I'm not kidding!).
The Shaggy/Velma/Scooby thing was ENTIRELY POINTLESS in the end!!!
Back in the Renaissance Faire episode (and in other episodes, too), it was heavily implied that Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma's issues were integral to the overarching plot because they mirrored Ricky, Pericles, and Cassidy's issues (and said issues played a role in dooming the original Mystery Inc.). Well, the show is over now. And aside from that old diary full of bad poetry, we never see any signs that Cassidy and Ricky (aka Angel and Mr E) ever liked each other at all! We don't see them show affection to each other in the modern day scenes nor the flashbacks to their youth. And we also find out that the old gang disappearing was all Mayor Jones' doing anyway.
Sure, you could theorize that Pericles decided to screw his friends over because Ricky chose Cassidy over him. But that's just a theory because the show itself doesn't tell us squat!
...so, basically, Velma's character was dragged through the dirt (and, to a lesser extent, so were Shaggy and Scooby's), transformed into an unrecognizable shrew, stripped of the character traits that made her lovable and unique lo these 40 years (i.e. her intelligence, confidence, and sweet demeanor), and used as this show's token emotional punching bag just so the writers for this show could amp up the angst and the drama on a whim. The main plot would have been COMPLETELY unaffected if Velma and Shaggy had remained platonic friends for the duration of the series. So why did the writers bother changing this beloved character so drastically in a way that all but guaranteed the audience would hate her? Do they hate this character because they can't fap to her the way they do with Daphne? Did Mindy Cohn do something to piss them off and this show was just an elaborate attempt to punish her?
The thing that gets to me the most - both as a feminist and a person who grew up loving and relating to Velma's "classic" characterization - is the fact that her character was twisted and warped into a crazy, vindictive, boy-crazy, bunny-boiler twit who tolerated being treated like shit by a boy she was crushing on in the hopes that said boy would make her life complete by sticking his penis in her. We very rarely got to see her acting smart (and, no, typing on a computer while vomiting up exposition doesn't count. Even Shaggy was able to do that!) or showing interest in things that weren't connected to Shaggy's dick. Even after he broke up with her; she constantly whined about how not having a date on Saturdays made her a loser. As if a girl is NOTHING without a boyfriend on her arm!
And the cherry on top was the fact that Velma's appearance was regularly the butt of jokes (for example: Fred teasing her about her ugly skin) despite the fact that Mystery Incorporated's Velma design is by far the slimmest one to date (outside of the live-action movies, of course). The show made it very clear that Velma has severe body image issues (i.e. confirming that she wears her trademark turtleneck to cover up her "neck waddle"). And then it all but confirmed Velma's belief that she's a hideous she-beast by making her this show's butt-monkey while Daphne obtained the perfect, Twilight-style love life she always wanted simply by wearing slutty outfits in front of Fred until he realized he loved her (and her skinny Asian friend won Shaggy away from Scooby by virtue of being...skinny and Asian, I guess).
Honestly, the treatment of females in general in this show bothered me. But I can go on about that forever, so that's a rant I'm saving for another day.
Long story short, there's no way I'm touching season 2 of this show unless they get a team of writers who are self-aware enough to know their limitations. And, if they insist on staying with the romance angle, they'd damn well better hire some new writers who can handle a simple romance without reducing all the female characters into either desperate shrews or doormats. Though I doubt even the best writer can salvage the mess that's already been made unless they open with a Dallas-style "last season was just a dream" ret-con.
Fred? Daphne? Velma? How do you feel about this series overall?
...okay. But what about Shaggy and Scooby Doo?
Hmmm, looks like Shaggy is a bit more forgiving than the rest of them. That, or he awarded the show a point solely because it allowed him to touch Velma's boobs on camera.
OK, seriously...
This show is, by far, the biggest example of wasted potential I have EVER seen! On paper, it had everything going for it (good writers, actors, cool Hanna-Barbera throwbacks, beautiful design and atmosphere) and the first episode was amazing. But it slowly degraded in quality with each successive episode until it was just a badly written, sexist, plot hole ridden, childhood-memory-destroying mess.
First off, the over-arching storyline (the thing that was supposed to be this series' main draw) has dozens of plot holes that were left hanging. Just off the top of my head...
1) Mr E was omniscient/powerful enough to pass messages to the gang wherever they were, control half the town without anyone finding out who he was, rope Angel into helping him even though she didn't want to, etc, etc. And yet, he couldn't solve the Big Mystery and unmask The Freak of Crystal Cove without the aid of a bunch of dumbass, hormonal teenagers!? This makes no sense!
2) If the original Mystery Inc was just as good at mystery solving as the current one; shouldn't they have been able to figure this case out themselves within the past 20 years? I know their families were threatened; but being threatened by psychos is a daily occurrence for the current gang and it never phased them! Heck, both Fred and Velma saw family members get attacked by suspects in the mysteries they were solving, and they never once thought of quitting the team. Then again, Fred and Velma are also huge assholes in this show; so maybe that explains why.
3) If the gang's safety was the only thing Angel/Cassidy cared about; why wasn't she straight with them from the get go? It's clear she no longer has any love for Ricky/Mr E; so she wasn't blindly following his orders out of love/trust for him. I suppose Mr E had something on her that he was able to use to blackmail her into cooperating (some old copies of her gag-inducing love poems to him, perhaps?), but that's never confirmed. So we're left to assume that Angel is merely an idiot who blindly follows the man in her life just like every other woman in the show (with the exception of Velma's mother).
The writers for this show have no idea how to write romance
None of the characters act believably or consistently when it comes to the romances in this show...
1) Fred: He starts out with the perfectly reasonable fear that entering a romantic relationship with Daphne will screw up their friendship and that he should love all his friends and family equally. Then, toward the end of the series, he says that Daphne is the only one who has always been there for him (I guess Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma are chopped liver on account of the fact that they refuse to hump his leg 24/7 like Daphne does) and he impulsively decides that he and Daphne should get married after a whopping two months of dating in High School! That's a pretty big leap to make in a ridiculously short amount of time!
2) Daphne: Early on in the Fred/Daphne relationship; she showed some assertiveness and insisted that Fred make compromises on her behalf to make their relationship work. Then once he admits that he loves her, she goes into full doormat mode and tolerates behavior from him that, in real life, would get a man arrested. I'm honestly surprised that Daphne's parents never issued a restraining order against him. God knows they had more than enough evidence to make their case!
3) Velma: She constantly jumps between being madly in love with Shaggy, hating Shaggy's guts, and wanting to salvage a platonic friendship with him. I had hope for her when Shaggy said he wanted her back and she appeared to do the dignified thing and say that maybe they're better off as friends. But those hopes were dashed when the following episode showed her bitterly telling Daphne that she only did that as a "Fuck You!" to Shaggy for choosing Scooby and nothing more.
4) Shaggy: He told Velma he broke up with her because of the Scooby thing and also because he wasn't ready for a girlfriend. He then proceeded to kick Scooby to the curb and try and climb into the panties of a girl Velma had befriended (presumably to fill the hole that was left when Daphne decided that Fred was the only person who mattered in her life) and seemed to really like. Thus making himself one of the biggest douchebags in this show! And then, after Velma's gal pal dumps him, he realizes that he still loves Velma when he lands on top of her in the backseat of the Mystery Machine (I'm not kidding!).
The Shaggy/Velma/Scooby thing was ENTIRELY POINTLESS in the end!!!
Back in the Renaissance Faire episode (and in other episodes, too), it was heavily implied that Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma's issues were integral to the overarching plot because they mirrored Ricky, Pericles, and Cassidy's issues (and said issues played a role in dooming the original Mystery Inc.). Well, the show is over now. And aside from that old diary full of bad poetry, we never see any signs that Cassidy and Ricky (aka Angel and Mr E) ever liked each other at all! We don't see them show affection to each other in the modern day scenes nor the flashbacks to their youth. And we also find out that the old gang disappearing was all Mayor Jones' doing anyway.
Sure, you could theorize that Pericles decided to screw his friends over because Ricky chose Cassidy over him. But that's just a theory because the show itself doesn't tell us squat!
...so, basically, Velma's character was dragged through the dirt (and, to a lesser extent, so were Shaggy and Scooby's), transformed into an unrecognizable shrew, stripped of the character traits that made her lovable and unique lo these 40 years (i.e. her intelligence, confidence, and sweet demeanor), and used as this show's token emotional punching bag just so the writers for this show could amp up the angst and the drama on a whim. The main plot would have been COMPLETELY unaffected if Velma and Shaggy had remained platonic friends for the duration of the series. So why did the writers bother changing this beloved character so drastically in a way that all but guaranteed the audience would hate her? Do they hate this character because they can't fap to her the way they do with Daphne? Did Mindy Cohn do something to piss them off and this show was just an elaborate attempt to punish her?
The thing that gets to me the most - both as a feminist and a person who grew up loving and relating to Velma's "classic" characterization - is the fact that her character was twisted and warped into a crazy, vindictive, boy-crazy, bunny-boiler twit who tolerated being treated like shit by a boy she was crushing on in the hopes that said boy would make her life complete by sticking his penis in her. We very rarely got to see her acting smart (and, no, typing on a computer while vomiting up exposition doesn't count. Even Shaggy was able to do that!) or showing interest in things that weren't connected to Shaggy's dick. Even after he broke up with her; she constantly whined about how not having a date on Saturdays made her a loser. As if a girl is NOTHING without a boyfriend on her arm!
And the cherry on top was the fact that Velma's appearance was regularly the butt of jokes (for example: Fred teasing her about her ugly skin) despite the fact that Mystery Incorporated's Velma design is by far the slimmest one to date (outside of the live-action movies, of course). The show made it very clear that Velma has severe body image issues (i.e. confirming that she wears her trademark turtleneck to cover up her "neck waddle"). And then it all but confirmed Velma's belief that she's a hideous she-beast by making her this show's butt-monkey while Daphne obtained the perfect, Twilight-style love life she always wanted simply by wearing slutty outfits in front of Fred until he realized he loved her (and her skinny Asian friend won Shaggy away from Scooby by virtue of being...skinny and Asian, I guess).
Honestly, the treatment of females in general in this show bothered me. But I can go on about that forever, so that's a rant I'm saving for another day.
Long story short, there's no way I'm touching season 2 of this show unless they get a team of writers who are self-aware enough to know their limitations. And, if they insist on staying with the romance angle, they'd damn well better hire some new writers who can handle a simple romance without reducing all the female characters into either desperate shrews or doormats. Though I doubt even the best writer can salvage the mess that's already been made unless they open with a Dallas-style "last season was just a dream" ret-con.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 07:52 pm (UTC)I'm not normally one to pass judgement without actually watching or reading something first, but in this case screencaps and reviews and spoilers are enough to tell me "this is not the Scooby gang you grew up with".
People who claim original!Daphne was too damselly and girly? At least that one didn't need to dress up in skimpy outfits to get Fred's attention, nor would she WANT to. Likewise, the original Fred might not have been blatantly slobbering over her, but he was likely attracted to her for who she was. (And MI!Fred proposing to a girl after 2 months of dating is just WTF.)
I remember pouting over a Wikipedia article that said "Daphne is the only one who was ever very nice to Shaggy, Fred and Velma aren't kind to him" because it messed with my pre-conceived notion of them as real Nakama. Compared to what the show did to them, well...that article is nothing to fuss over.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 08:33 pm (UTC)The fact that the original Scooby show (which premiered in 1969) is more progressive in it's treatment of the female characters than MI (which premiered in 2010) just boggles my mind! Original!Daphne may have only existed to get captured and trigger booby traps; but at least her entire personality wasn't defined by her feelings for a man.
The thing about this show is that it reeled a lot of people in with an awesome first episode. And then it just blindsided us all with TONS of angst midway through the series.
I was also disappointed in how the "Nakama" aspect of the franchise was sacrificied in favor of more badly written romance. Friendship has always been a big theme in Scooby Doo and I believe that aspect is what kept it going all this time (kids who watched it loved the characters and wanted to grow up to have a close knit group like that).
*sigh* It's like the writers for this show don't realize that even dumb, hormonal teenagers don't stop caring about their friends once they fall in love.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 08:43 pm (UTC)Definitely. At least she still had a cute and fun personality even if she was the designated victim. (Plus, even if she was a damsel, the token scaredy-cat role was given to a guy. XD So it balances out.)
I watched the first episode on YouTube and thought it'd be a badass show. Then I found out via a friend that they'd really fucked up with Velma's character, and reading TVTropes spoilers, well...
I was also disappointed in how the "Nakama" aspect of the franchise was sacrificied in favor of more badly written romance. Friendship has always been a big theme in Scooby Doo and I believe that aspect is what kept it going all this time (kids who watched it loved the characters and wanted to grow up to have a close knit group like that).
Definitely. Anyone who still claims ATLA "cannot do romance" has obviously never seen this show. At least the Gaang was still tight and happy and close even if Aang and Katara were in love.
*sigh* It's like the writers for this show don't realize that even dumb, hormonal teenagers don't stop caring about their friends once they fall in love.
Definitely. I find it hard to trust a lot of writers for teen-focused shows lately. :/
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 09:01 pm (UTC)...at least that's how I saw it. :)
And, like you, I was happy with how Aang's crush on Katara didn't preclude him from showing affection, concern, and attention to his other friends. And even after she rejected him; he didn't wallow in angst and act like nothing else mattered.
Definitely. I find it hard to trust a lot of writers for teen-focused shows lately. :/
There seems to be a scary trend of modern, teen-focused dramas having romances that are unhealthy at best and outright abusive at worst (hello, Twilight!).
And the Scooby girls aren't the only ones who got screwed by a reboot. I hear tell that a recent Nancy Drew reboot turned Nancy into a boy-crazy twit, too.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 09:10 pm (UTC)Yeah, definitely. Sokka, Toph and the others still meant the world to him.
And the Scooby girls aren't the only ones who got screwed by a reboot. I hear tell that a recent Nancy Drew reboot turned Nancy into a boy-crazy twit, too.
:/ I never was a big Nancy Drew fan, but that doesn't sound good.
Suddenly I'm glad The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan isn't likely to get a reboot. I shudder to think of Suzie becoming a simpering fanservice toy, Anne becoming a boy-obsessed twit who whined about her looks, Nancy and Mimi becoming insipid "tweens"...even the boys might suffer (Stanley becoming an insensitive moron, Tom turning into a stereotypical unpopular dweeb who had a million embarrassing allergies and got shoved into lockers).
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 09:38 pm (UTC)...or was SHE the skinny Asian friend of Velma's?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 10:24 pm (UTC)They really screwed up the plot here, to me if almost felt like the writers wanted to have Shaggy and Velma date just to prove why they shouldn't be together. @_@ I know they did that in the Lake Monster movie, but at least Velma and Shaggy were still the characters we knew and love.
The tie between the supposed two love triangles was confusing. Was that suppose to be a sub plot the writers just forgot about? And I find it hard to believe the members of the original mystery club weren't able to figure out that Mayor was just trying to scare them or Mr. E for that matter?
And just how exactly did he convince Fred's parents to give him their baby? Why? If they left town with baby Fred, he still would have been fine, right? How does leaving your baby in the town where you know the supposed monster lives makes it safer for Fred? Also, wouldn't that just give Fred's parents more motivation to solve the mystery to get him back?
Also, the engaged plot bugged me a lot too. This is why I was thinking this would make more sense if this was in college because at least Daphne and Fred being engaged would make more sense. (Although, asking that after dating for two months is still pushing it.) @_@ I don't like the show planting the idea in young teens heads that they would get married as soon as they graduate high school. You need to experience the real world before you jump into that.
The only thing I liked in the episode was the sheriff saying to Mayor Jones "Say it isn't so"at the end because I could at least always count on that character to make me. laugh. That was it. You can see why I've been wanting to rant this with you right?
Now, I'm going to watch Friendship is magic, because at least the writers know how to handle female characters in that show.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 07:44 am (UTC)If that was their intention then they failed. If anything, changing the characters this much only bolsters the shippers claim that Classic Shaggy and Velma would work well together.
And I find it hard to believe the members of the original mystery club weren't able to figure out that Mayor was just trying to scare them or Mr. E for that matter?
The only explanation that I can think of is that the original gang were just really, REALLY crappy detectives.
And just how exactly did he convince Fred's parents to give him their baby?
I suppose he could have told them that the life of a fugitive is no life for a child. But, yeah, I don't know how Mayor Jones convinced them that dropping their kid off in ground zero was a good idea. And why did Mayor Jones even want baby Fred? It's not like Brad&Judy's spawn was destined to be a magical, treasure-finding wizard or something.
Here's another problem I just thought of...now that Fred knows that Mayor Jones isn't his real father, is he gonna change his name? He hates the Mayor and wants to connect with his real parents. So changing his name seems like the natural thing to do.
Speaking of Mayor Jones, one of the only things I liked about the finale were the scenes that subtly showed the audience that he really did love Fred. Even though the Mayor was a jerk, I felt a little bad for him in the end.
Now, I'm going to watch Friendship is magic, because at least the writers know how to handle female characters in that show.
Speaking of FiM; Lauren Faust is on my short list of people I'd love to see stage a coup and take over this show. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 07:20 am (UTC)I totally prefer the nakama/friendship types of shows: romance is okay, but the world doesn't revolve around it, even in fiction (that's what plotlines are for, even if Stephanie Meyer hasn't figured that out yet...)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 05:53 pm (UTC)It sounds like whoever was working on the show didn't take the time to really flesh things out. Whether this was by choice, or because they were on a tight schedule, I don't know, but it doesn't sound like things were thought out very well at all.
Lastly, who were they hoping to target with this series? I'd be curious if a person within the targeted age group would have left with the same impressions. (Really, I would. There have been more than a few revivals of series I loved as a child, but I don't watch them because even if I might have enjoyed the series as a kid, it'll just make me upset that they destroyed my childhood memories.)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 06:34 pm (UTC)Lastly, who were they hoping to target with this series?
I honestly don't know what the target audience for this show is. Little kids (especially little boys) would likely be grossed out and bored by the soap opera aspect of the show. And older fans of classic Scooby would be angry at what they did to the characters (mainly poor Velma).
I suppose they were aiming for the tween/teenage girls who go gaga for junk like Twilight and/or people who haven't watched Scooby since they were little and therefore don't remember that Daphne and Velma had personalities and interests that didn't involve Fred and Shaggy's penises.
I mean, I dunno about you, but when I was a toddler and I watched Scooby, I never once thought...
"Y'know what this show is missing? Velma laying in her bedroom sobbing because she believes she's a monstrous fat-ass and no man will ever have sex with her"
no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 06:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 02:00 pm (UTC)