#344: The crew talks about shows canceled too soon (or too late), the interplay of expectations, and the emotional impact of not getting a story conclusion.

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, here at Geek Therapy we believe the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And I’m joined by Marc Cuiriz.

Marc Cuiriz 0:21
Hello,

Josué Cardona 0:22
Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:23
Hi.

Josué Cardona 0:25
And Lara, I love clam-o-naise Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:31
clam-o-naise. I will not eat the clam-o-naise But I did get the Cards Against Humanity pack for Hanukkah and had to fish it out of a jar of clam-o-naise.

Josué Cardona 0:47
Can confirm. And that’s why you were canceled. And so now today we’re talking about canceled shows,

Lara Taylor 0:54
cancelled shows cancelled shows

Josué Cardona 0:56
why Lara?

Lara Taylor 0:57
Well, I mean, I think a lot of shows have been cancelled in the fairly recent past. And I just saw an article quoting like the head of Netflix saying they’ve never canceled a successful show.

Link Keller 1:13
booo

Lara Taylor 1:13
And I kind of don’t, like their definition of success is probably way different than most people that enjoy the shows that got canceled. But I don’t know, we’ve talked before about, like, shows that we enjoy ending. And I think we touched on cancellation there too. But mostly it was like, the story gets to come to like this beautiful end. And you get to imagine what the characters are doing and they in like the epilogue of their lives. But at Thanksgiving, my niece’s boyfriend suggested I watch the Netflix show 1899. And I started watching like one episode. And then I heard it got canceled. I stopped watching it. I didn’t wanna get disappointed. I didn’t want to get fall in love with the story and then have it be like just this constant cliffhanger. And I think there’s, I don’t know, some stuff to dig into there. Like, I know people who with books will not read a series until the series is over. Because you never know you could end up in love with the Song of Ice and Fire and still waiting for the last two books. Never gonna happen. So I don’t know. I don’t know. I just It’s this feeling of I don’t want to get attached to something that’s going to be ripped away from me in a way. That’s not that doesn’t feel good. I don’t know. What do y’all think about canceled shows?

Link Keller 3:01
I mean, depending on the show? bad?

Lara Taylor 3:05
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Link Keller 3:08
I I made a list of canceled shows that I was disappointed that they got canceled and then had a real moment to myself realizing how many of them had queer main characters or queer storylines, and then getting really mad about that.

Lara Taylor 3:30
I agree. Almost every show now almost every show, but like there are at least three Shows that Kayla has, like recommended to me and told me you need to watch this. And I started watching and then it got canceled leaving some very serious cliffhangers at the end. So it doesn’t feel good. Like, I don’t know humans like a beginning middle and an end. And a lot of sometimes you get the beginning in the middle but a lot of these shows only get a beginning or sometimes not even that like discovery, Warner Brothers canceling movies that were completely made and not put on their on their streaming services. I’m talking about Batgirl. So yeah, I don’t know. The queer character thing is is also I think important, because representation. There’s more now but we need even more than the more that we have.

Link Keller 4:40
Yeah. Okay, I’m going to talk about Buffy adjacent things, but I don’t want to talk about Joss Whedon shows so I’m just putting that one out there. Last year, there were two shows about vampires featuring female main characters, queer storylines. First kiss on Netflix,

Lara Taylor 5:06
one of the ones Kayla suggested to me,

Link Keller 5:09
which, you know, it wasn’t amazing. But it

Lara Taylor 5:12
it was a good fun

Link Keller 5:12
felt the way that Buffy felt along the more dramatic romantic side of Buffy that I enjoyed when I was younger. And then the other show is called Astrid and Lilly save the world. And that was a Syfy show. And that was on like the other side of the like silly campy monster of the week side of Buffy. And I was so stoked that I was like, Oh my gosh, we’re getting two shows that are like scratching that Buffy itch. I’m loving it. The characters are fun and funny and cute and first kiss, but the main characters are both queer in Astrid and Lilly. Lilly is queer, and is just really great. Had a really fun time, both of those cancelled and I was so disappointed because I was like, I want that kind of like, more angled towards younger audiences, but still being like, fantasy vampire stuff. Like I like I like that. I liked that when I was younger. I wish that there was more stuff like that. And I really thought we were getting somewhere with it. And then they both got cancelled. I was like, wow, that. That sucks. I’m really disappointed. Yeah, that was that was a real bummer for me.

Lara Taylor 6:29
Yeah, there was another show that Kayla suggested to me warrior nun, I watched a couple episodes and then found out that was also cancelled. And that has more than one season. I didn’t even get to any queer stuff. Because I’m assuming there’s queer stuff because if Kayla is sending me recommendations. It’s gonna have queer storylines. And I thought it was cool. But again, I think I’ll finish a show. If it gets cancelled early if I’m far enough into it. But if I’m only an episode or two, and I really don’t want to go through that disappointment,

Link Keller 7:01
warrior nun was was okay, in that it did like get an ending, they left it open. So it’s like we could like there’s more story to tell. But like, this is a satisfying conclusion to the main story arc, we have setup, which was good. And I do appreciate when you can at least get that much. But then, like other shows, don’t don’t get any like cliffhanger like unresolved main setup stuff is like, that’s so disappointing is you get invested in the story. And then it’s just over and it’s like, Well, I gotta I gotta hope that someone’s writing good fanfiction out there. Or, I guess I’ll go write my own like, Oh, man. It’s like, I want to know, I want to know the story. These stories matter to me. I want to I want to hear it. I want to see it

Lara Taylor 7:48
well, and the way that they do, especially if we’re talking about Netflix shows getting cancelled the way that they’re done now is to I know we don’t want to talk too much about Joss Whedon shows but angel had enough time when it was canceled to try to scramble for something that might seem like an ending. But these shows they put out a whole season and if the wrong number of people watch it, it’s just gone.

Link Keller 8:13
Yeah, I think I think Sense8 is a good example of that, where it’s like, they absolutely should have had more seasons, but then it’s like, no, you’re getting axed, and they were like, Okay, well, let us try and finish up this story in a satisfying way. At least.

Lara Taylor 8:28
Got a movie. Yeah

Link Keller 8:32
Yeah, I’m I’m pretty bummed that raised by wolves got canceled because I was enjoying that meaty sci fi.

Lara Taylor 8:43
Yeah. And I was thinking about how one day the time was canceled, and peo...