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The Rift Between Good & Bad...
🕑 Added 2024-09-23 06:31:25 +0000 UTC
Aw crap…
I already wrote this script.
Well, there's at least one major difference. The quality shift in question here is in reverse order, and took place in the same show rather than the same studio.
Earlier this week I recommended Harley Quinn because it's really good! Season's 1&2 are a comedic tight-rope the show rarely stumbles over the edge of… and even when it does, usually comes back to stand on the center with even more confidence. I was surprised to catch myself laughing really hard through every episode because I generally prefer seeing an absurd world be taken completely seriously, leaving the audience free to laugh at what they want to laugh at rather than mugging for the camera on their behalf.
Thing is though… Harley Quinn does kinda do that?
It's tongue in cheek… in BOLD ITALIC UNDERLINE text, but Harley Quinn really is trapped in Gotham until The Ridder ate an Orange, Lex Luthor's Legion of DOOM really do boot one of their villains for saying the word cunt because it "does not fit our brand of evil", and Poison Ivy really does get kicked from her high-rise Apartment.
The world of Harley Quinn is delightfully absurd, and as a result, leads to a constant stream of scenarios that are hilarious to watch.
So it was really strange to start Episode 1 of Season 4 and not laugh one time.
Not even a chuckle.
It's not because I was going in with low expectations. Not because I have anything against its basic premise. Maybe because I was a little burned out on the show's admittedly fast-paced storytelling but, I can't imagine my appetite for the show's humor would've eroded over the course an episode.
It seems more likely that just something about the show changed, and what immediately made me think of this topic again, one that I covered many years ago, is that the differences between S1&2 vs S4 of Harley Quinn, are even more minor compared to the differences in Deadfall Adventures vs Get Even.
Obviously, it's the same cast and studio, most of the same leads, editing, music, even some of the gags. It's still got the same animation style and general quality. The editing is still fast and furious. Even Bayne is still here, how could this Season not work!?
There's many points I've seen many make. That the show doesn't really have a story anymore, going from each Season giving Harley Quinn a clear objective to both her and Ivy Meandering around for ten episodes.
That its ensemble cast has been broken apart to the point of irrelevance, in place of a new dynamic for both leads with the Bat Family and Legion of DOOM that viewers don't have nearly the same reverence for.
Or that the world itself has become so ridiculous to the point of only serving to facilitate jokes at the expense of everything else.
And these, I think all have some validity.
One of the characters in Season One transforms into a car that does a Hot Wheels pursuit on Harley Quinn's personal highway, so I think maybe the third's a little questionable, but everything else certainly has an impact. While not every second of the show was spent with Harley Quinn pursuing a personal goal, it was always the glue that the writers came back to on regular intervals.
However… I think perhaps we're all overthinking this.
Having a clear objective for the character to achieve at the end of a Season is a good way to hook the viewer, but it's not the only one. The Sopranos doesn't open with Tony promising to take over New York.
Keeping your lovable cast of characters is a safe way to keep viewers on-board… but it's not the only way. The Wire practically makes Jimmy Mcnulty a guest appearance in Season Four, overshadowed by a group of school kids, and it's argued by many as the show's peak.
And I already don't put much weight into the world's absurdity because again…
Ivy's roommate is a talking plant.
No, I think Harley Quinn Season Four just doesn't work because its writing, the meat of what people are here for, just isn't as good, and weirdly, one scene from Season Four is my example of quality.
The one clip I saw of the show over a year ago just happened to be from Season Four, I didn't have that context back then, it was just a Youtube Short of Harley Quinn holding a baseball bat to Alfred saying "I've finished my chores; step aside… or I'll have to fuck you up!"
To which Alfred responds…
"I wish a bitch would try."
This to me is what Harley Quinn is all about.
Could you imagine Michael Caine saying these words in The Dark Knight? Or a sociopath's greatest obstacle stopping her from reigning chaos on a metropolis is an aging butler with a bottle of all-surface cleaner? It's delightfully absurd, and hugely entertaining to watch.
These reactions, lines of dialogue, and animations all fit the characters in this world, yet still are a novelty, and it's a formula the show balances, but I've been calling it a tight-rope because all it takes is one thing to be off about the dialogue, delivery, editing, or premise, to fall apart, and that's what happens in Season Four.
It opens with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy committing huge crimes to drop off each other's forgotten lunches.
I see the potential, I'm not opposed to the concept… but the dialogue just reinforces a couple's status we're already aware of, and there's no payoff or event spawned from either's crime. We just go straight to the next batch of scenes like "Lex bowed to the woke mob", Harley talking about salad's at a Magazine stand, Nightwing's butt, Ivy willingly booting up Tiktok, Nightwing's butt, gossiping about Grimes, and luring out a serial killer with Nightwing's butt.
The writing is no longer about remixing DC's wacky world to reflect its own absurdity, it's now just about a random assortment of references to hopefully make the audience laugh, aka, Family Guy.
I've heard that the show apparently changed Showrunners on Season Four and it's certainly felt, but apparently, Season Five will have the original Showrunner return… but with none of the former writing staff?
God only knows what's going on at the studio, but ironically, hearing all of this, and seeing its rather poor end result, actually makes me appreciate the show's earlier quality more. Seeing the margin between Harley Quinn being a show I'd recommend to one I'd turn-off be so thin gives me inspiration to work harder on projects of my own, improve feedback to friends on theirs, and respect even more the ones who take those small extra of steps to make something truly great.
[This was supposed to go up Friday but then I stayed up to 5am playing Backbreaker on 360... don't ask.]
