An interview with Justin Marks: Part II - Assignments and SUPERMAX

Part 1 - Breaking in and the road to STREET FIGHTER

My talk with THE JUNGLE BOOK screenwriter Justin Marks continues.


Well you’ve talked about STREET FIGHTER in so many other interviews that I don’t want to linger on that production, but that’s your most recent produced feature credit until THE JUNGLE BOOK. And it’s my understanding you were supporting yourself entirely on your writing in between those two, is that right?

Entirely.

So explain to my audience what a working writer does when they’re not making movies in that interregnum.

Basically, for every ten jobs you get, one of them gets produced. I know that batting average is different for some people. I would say you average two or three, maybe four jobs a year. Those can be anything from a quick rewrite or a weekly or a polish to a pilot that you sell, a blind script deal or a straight two-step assignment. You’re always working on something, and then every writer should be doing a spec once a year.

So you’re always just generating new material, and I think that’s the hardest thing to see from the outside. And I wish I could say there’s something extraordinary about working four or five jobs a year – every writer does it. Some do even more.

When you’re working on these assignments, it’s probably easy to know when you’re done because they tell you you’re done. When you’re working on a spec, when do you know to give up on a spec?

Yeah, I’ve given up on some things. It’s a conversation you have with your reps and at a certain point we may stop, or we may float it out to a couple producers who we trust and ask, “What do you think? Think we can get anywhere with this?” And if they say no, you’ve gotta be willing to let it go.

It sounds like bullshit but it’s true – you don’t write to make money. You write because it’s a compulsion, that’s what makes you happy. And the ones you get money on, well that just helps you get even more happy.You write because you have to, so those scripts you abandon, maybe you just take them as a tax write-off on time that you’re making money on other things.

And when you’re coming up with ideas, are you working with your management team, like “Hey I’ve got three ideas, which one do you think I should write?”

It’s not even like that with me. It’s like “Hey, I’ve had this idea for a while.” Maybe I’ll share the first ten pages with them, and if they think there’s something there, we do it. If not, we don’t. Most of the time, once you’ve started to create a career as a writer, no matter what level you’re at, specs become something you do to expand on your “brand.” I’m using air-quotes when I say “brand” because it sounds so awful.

As an example, I speced an early 20th Century espionage script for Ron Howard and we worked on it together. I did all the research because it was something I loved and because I knew no one was gonna pay me to write that.

Because at that point, you’re “the HE-MAN guy,” you’re “the STREET FIGHTER guy.”

Exactly. So I decided to do this on it’s own just to see if I can write a movie like that and see if I enjoy it and in that case I did. We never sold it, but I took all that research and I put it into my TV show. You always win, but you do that to prove to people you can do something different.

With SUPERMAX, I want to say it was roughly around the time of BATMAN BEGINS when it became known?

It was soon after BATMAN BEGINS, like within a year that I set up HE-MAN and SUPERMAX at Warners, and they were within a month of each other. It happened very fast, and that was with David Goyer producing that.

And how did you get hooked up with him?

I met David because his wife at the time was an executive on STREET FIGHTER. Jessika Borsiczky, she’s now a writer in her own right and works on HOUSE OF LIES. She introduced me to David just for coffee because I’d mentioned – not knowing that they were about to get married – how David has always been such an influence on me. Then she brought us out to meet at the Chateau Marmont and just over the course of a coffee I pitched this idea that I had for years, sort of a Count of Monte Cristo prison-break story in the world of supervillains.

That was how we first got started together and we’ve worked together a couple times since as well.

And did that become Green Arrow because he’s the most Batman-like character who isn’t Batman?

No, actually when that was conceived, David was adamant that we should pitch it as any hero, probably someone who didn’t have superpowers.

And that cuts it down pretty fast in this universe.

So we pitched it to DC. I gave the whole story from beginning to end. After I finished the pitch, it was Greg Novak at DC who said, “Why don’t you put Green Arrow into that?” Then we brought it to Warner Bros with Green Arrow and they bought it as a Green Arrow movie.

And I think at the time, this is before even SMALLVILLE was using that character. It was like “Green Arrow? Who’s pulling Green Arrow for a movie? They’ve spent almost ten years trying to do Batman and Superman again!”

And I think to this day that might be still one of the biggest problems with it. I want to see it, but maybe the perception is, “Who wants to see a sequel to the Green Arrow story when we haven’t even seen the first one?” That may be what always slowed it down.

Part III - Making THE JUNGLE BOOK
Part IV - Showrunning COUNTERPART for Starz

An interview with Justin Marks: Part I - Breaking in and the road to STREET FIGHTER

Despite being a working screenwriter for over 10 years, this Friday brings the release of only the second produced feature film from Justin Marks, THE JUNGLE BOOK. The writer's only previous credit was the critically-despised 2009 film STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI. If one were to assess a screenwriter based only on their credits, that might appear to be an unusual career trajectory, but IMDb pages never tell anywhere close to the complete story when it comes to screenwriting.

A few years ago, Justin chronicled some of his career and a few of the two-dozen scripts he's written in a piece for The Hollywood Reporter called "My Life as a Screenwriter You've Never Heard Of." Fans of geek properties might find his name familiar, as he was the writer behind the never-produced VOLTRON, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, and Green Arrow spec SUPERMAX.

I recently sat down with Justin to discuss how he got his start, how one maintains a career as a writer between produced projects, and of course, the unusual process behind writing THE JUNGLE BOOK.

I wanted to reach back and touch on how you first broke in and first got repped.

I moved out here from New York and I’d been interning a lot, so I made some contacts through an internship and my first summer after graduating college I got an assistant job through those contacts and worked for a producer for three and a half years, Michael Stipe and Sandy Stern, who at that time had done Being John Malkovich. When I was working with them it was on the movie Saved!

I was just answering phones at that time and going home and writing every night, getting my scripts together. I was collaborating with a directing friend who has also carved out a career in his own right, Brad Fuhrman. But it was through my boss, Sandy, who introduced me to my first agent at William Morris. Sandy had read a script after I’d worked for him for about two years, which is about right.

Yeah! You didn’t ask on the first week, “Hey, read my script.”

I knew I had a lot of craft to work on and I had a job that was paying me while I could work on it, and I could be exposed to the process of filmmaking from production to post-production to releasing a movie and looking for new material so I had the perfect job.

Sandy read one of my scripts and passed it to a young agent who he’d been working with on some other clients. This agent read it and liked it, so I went in for a meeting with him and we just hit off. I think one of the things that agent said to me was, “It’s not about that script, or even the next script you write or the next three scripts you write. What’s important is we work on not just your craft and getting scripts that the marketplace is going to like, but these meetings and how you self-identify as a writer – what you like, what you don’t like, how you’re going to differentiate yourself from other writers.” He’d say, “you’re building a version of yourself that you want the industry to see, so you need to make conscious choices about who you are and what you’re going to sell about your life experience and point of view.

They’re not hiring a writer, they’re hiring a best friend, someone who’s going to go in and solve the problem for them or just listen to their problems about the script. They have to trust you. This is where the old “Don’t be an asshole, don’t be crazy” thing comes in. Yes, it’s about the work, but it’s about the process too, and the trust you’re building with your collaborators. That’s studio screenwriting. That’s just the job.

To go back for a second, you said it was a newly-minted agent. Did you have any hesitation about his lack of experience?

No, not for a second. You just hit it off with someone. In fact at that time I had a young manager who’s still my manager today, Adam Kohlbrenner, who when I started with him, had just left his assistant job to strike out on his own. Especially at that young age, I felt that if someone was a very successful agent, they wouldn’t pay attention to me because to be honest, I had a lot to learn. This manager had gotten some interest from other agents who’d been working for several years, and [they were trying to sell me on them]. And I said I’d rather go with the other guy. He represent the kind of writer I want to be and that’s what I think is most important. More than the big agent, it should be the person you like.

Having said that, I do think the agent or person you like should at least be at a reputable place. Which is to say, don’t go with that agent who isn’t even in L.A.

So you’re repped, you’re writing specs, I think VOLTRON is the first one—

Which is about a year and a half after I started my relationship with my agent.

That was it! That was where I was going with that! Now, was that a spec or an assignment?

In the time that I was working with my agent and manager, I generated a spec called STRAW MEN that was sort of a calling card script. It was DOG DAY AFTERNOON in a deli. It got me meetings and Craig and Adam would send me out to meet execs. I met one who worked for the Mark Gordon Company and they’d recently gotten the rights to Voltron. This was a time before TRANSFORMERS, when no one really knew what these properties may or may not be.

So this is about 2005?

Yeah, 2005. And remember, at this time I was still an assistant so I was still working my day job and after two and a half years, my boss was – it’s kind of like that Ben Affleck thing in GOOD WILL HUNTING, “I look forward to the day when I call into the office and you don’t pick up anymore.” My boss was so great about letting me go on those meetings. Provided work still got done at the office, I could leave once a day for a general.

I met this exec in a general who said “We’re looking for a take for VOLTRON.” We worked together for months. I came in with something he liked, we reworked it, brought it in to his boss, who said “Sure, go with it.” We had a pitch that we took out to every studio in town and ever studio passed on it, whether it was because my pitch was terrible, or no one really knew what to do with it… it’s probably a combination of the two.

Also, now we’re at the point where everybody who grew up on VOLTRON is at the executive level, but in 2005 you have to figure those people were lower on the totem pole.

Exactly. You had to educate people about VOLTRON. So what Mark and this exec did was find independent financing, this guy who would pay me guild minimum to write the script. That was enough to get me out of my day job and write for a living and go to more meetings than I ever went to, and be ready for it. A year later, after a few rewrites we took it out as a spec and New Regency bought, and by that point it had kinda started my career. I knew enough people that I could start going in on other pitches and building on it.

Did this brand you as sort of the toy-adaptation franchises guy, because MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE was soon after this?

These weren’t franchises at the time, they were just toys that no one what to do with. They still are. Look at HE-MAN. We’re talking about movies that never got made. And also I liked this stuff like anyone our age who grew up on it. It seemed like they wanted young people to write it because the older, more experienced writers weren’t taking those jobs. So I was just getting the leftovers of the leftovers of the leftovers and doing whatever I could to keep making a living as a writer so I could keep writing other specs and doing other, more serious things on the side.

And were your other specs different from HE-MAN or VOLTRON?

Oh my god, yeah! One I wrote was called BORDERLINE, which is now called COME SUNDOWN, which is one I’m still working on with a great director named Elgin James. It’s set in New Hampshire and it’s just about a family taken hostage in a car by fugitives trying to get across the Canadian border. It’s a battle of wills between this doctor and this criminal who find they actually share more in common than they ever knew. I wanted to do a story where basically the villain is the character you cried for at the end of the movie.

So I would do that stuff on that time and I think that would continue to boost what I was doing for money which was getting a job to write HE-MAN for Warner Bros and doing that kind of thing.

And then STREET FIGHTER came along.

STREET FIGHTER was in the middle of that. STREET FIGHTER was a job I got after VOLTRON. I wrote it for Hyde Park. It was something that Capcom was really keen on making and I think they financed half of it. So they had a lot to say about the story so I think they just wanted a writer who’d maybe say “yes” to everything. I was a 25 year-old kid - you say “yes” to everything. Today I look back on that as a mistake, but honestly—

“What else could you have done?”

And I don’t have any regrets. It kept me going. It gave me another year’s pay that would keep me looking for the next job, so in spite of the creative regrets that one might have with it, I still look back on that one fondly.

And just to underline this, how long from when you got repped to your first produced movie in STREET FIGHTER?

I got repped when I was maybe 24 or 25 and I visited the set on when I was just shy of my 28th birthday so..

So probably around four years from repped to produced? That’s actually a pretty good rate in this town!

Yeah, very fast!

And probably many specs in between there too.

A lot of them. Every year, doing a spec. And it’s fast to the point of being too good to be true, as STREET FIGHTER is evidence. The kind of first movie a guy would write within a couple years of being repped is gonna be something like that. You take the good with the bad.

We'll continue my chat with Justin tomorrow, with a discussion of assignment work and SUPERMAX.

Part II - Assignments and SUPERMAX
Part III - Making THE JUNGLE BOOK
Part IV - Showrunning COUNTERPART for Starz

The People vs. O.J. Simpson is peak television and we will be poorer for its absence

I can't believe it's been more than 20 years.

I remember the shock as the murders were reported. "His ex-wife's dead? They don't think he was involved, do they?" I remember returning from a Friday evening screening of CITY SLICKERS 2: THE LEGEND OF CURLY'S GOLD and being mesmerized at the hours-long slow-speed chase unfolding on an LA freeway.

The speculation about if a sealed envelope held a murder weapon, the "gavel-to-gavel" coverage that was so insatiable that even the E! network carried the trial live each day, Jay Leno being interviewed by Extra about how "It was 'bald detective theater' for a while there" until Kato's testimony was made for entertaining viewing, Marcia Clark making fun of F. Lee Bailey's hand size, the case nearly reducing Judge Ito to tears, the glove demonstration, "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit,"watching the verdict live in school.

I remember it all.

The O.J. Simpson murder trial is a circus that is on the verge of being 22 years old. Even if you're graduating college, you're not old enough to remember this as it happened. That's astonishing to me. Something so far shouldn't feel so fresh. Even trial soundbites that haven't passed into popular culture are still crystal clear in my memory, right down to the angles from the locked down in-court camera.

Which is not to say I haven't revisited the trial since it ended in 1995. Quite the opposite. Here's how much of a fascination the case was to me - when Kim Kardashian's sex tape put her on the map, my association with her was not "Who?" or "Paris Hilton's friend?" It was, "Is she related to Bob Kardashian, O.J.'s close friend?"

To the best of my memory, I've read at least eight, probably more, books about the trial: Christopher Darden's book, Robert Shapiro's book, a book written by a booted juror, Vincent Bugliosi's Outrage: The Five Reasons O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder, Mark Fuhrman's book, Lawrence Schiller's incomparable American Tragedy, O.J.'s self-serving account If I Did It, and Jeffrey Toobin's The Run of his Life. The latter forms the basis for what is possibly the best show currently on television: American Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson.

Between my memory and my own reading, I'm pretty well-equipped to call bullshit on the miniseries, or at least the elements that occurred in public view. For all the younger viewers whose first real exposure to the case is ACS, let me assure you - this is how it happened. There are occasional concessions to dramatic license but this is remarkably faithful to the trial narrative, with the added benefit of taking us inside the heads of the people who lived it. It's an effect not unlike that of reading all of those books, an individual who seems harsh and unlikable when you're following one thread of the narrative gains new dimensions and empathy when we see what they're dealing with behind the scenes.

I don't know if it's possible to oversell the degree of difficulty that series creators Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are playing at here. Hell, I don't even know if it's possible to put into words how Herculean a task they've set for themselves here. This is a miniseries where every major character is fleshed out - with a pretty deep bench on each side of the trial. This isn't the case where they picked one specific protagonist and attempted to filter everything through that perspective. This is not "Marcia Clark's story of the trial" or "Johnnie Cochran's story," or "Bob Shapiro's story" or "Chris Darden's" or "Bob Kardashian's." It's ALL of theirs. At any point, each one of those players can be called from the bench to headline an episode as if it was their show all along - and for those moments, they are the lead character.

True ensemble writing like that is rare. Most network shows today are built around a single complex protagonists, maybe a close second lead, and a lot of supporting characters. (think THE BLACKLIST or BLIND SPOT. On cable, imagine BREAKING BAD, BETTER CALL SAUL and that ilk) In the instances where there is an ensemble cast, if you don't have someone who's first among equals (Mariska Hargitay on L&O: SVU), you're likely to have a show that feels full of supporting players taking turns in the spotlght.

My general point is that with 90% of TV writing, there tends to be one star that all the other players orbit. The gravity from that star tends to pull in the lion's share of story space and screen time. They're the focus. TPVOJS doesn't disperse its story that way. One week, the coaches might throw Marcia Clark in to start the game. The next week it's "Cochran! You're up!" And even as I'm laying this out, I still feel like I'm making it sound easy. Consider for a moment how few series are capable of that. Now imagine trying to write it. Have you ever written a script with more than a half-dozen fleshed out agendas? Pretty easy to crash that plane, isn't it?

I can't forget the performers who've done an exceptional job of channeling their real-life counterparts. I remember well all the criticisms that Marcia Clark faced while the trial was ongoing. Some were fair - I think she and Darden made some serious mistakes. Other attacks were less warrented. As silly as it probably seems to younger viewers, yes, her hair really was that big of a deal. More than a few writers covering the trial made a point of referring to Clark as harsh. There's a focus group scene in an early ep where participants say that they think Clark is "a bitch." I don't know if that specific event happened that particular way, but it absolutely encapsulates the media portrayal of Clark and the conversation that surrounded her.

Watching the series gave me a bit more empathy for Clark than I had before. We're allowed to see a more vulnerable side of her than the trial presented and the result is a little more understanding for the strain of trying this case while the media and even the judge seem to be handing every advantage to the defendant. Maybe because of the larger contexts that surrounded this trial there really was no way to win. That doesn't totally excuse some prosecution blunders for me, but it does make them understandable. Sarah Paulson does incredible work in really making the audience feel for Clark.

(Their big mistake always seemed to be hanging Fuhrman out to dry, because once they did, it compromised so much of their case. I get that Clark was concerned that defending him could make the prosecution look like apologists for an allegedly racist cop, but I'd rather go down swinging rather than hand the defense an easy "See? Even the prosecutors think the guy who found most of their evidence is toxic!" narrative. Vincent Bugliosi's book definitely has the benefit of being the Monday Morning Quarterback, but he makes a lot of compelling arguments about where the prosecution let the defense control this case.)

No conversation about the acting on this show would be complete without discussing Courtney B. Vance, whose performance as Johnnie Cochran is uncanny. Coming at it from the perspective that O.J.'s guilt isn't really in question, I found a lot of Cochran's theatrics disingenuous and offensive. He and F. Lee Bailey were the two slickest snakes in a complete pack of them and one reason I never read either of their books is that I had zero interest in hearing them justify their slimy gameplay.

Vance finds a humanity in Johnnie Cochran that I wasn't sure was there. He looks like him, he sounds like him and he immediately becomes the strongest presence in the room. You totally understand how this guy could command a courtroom and how he makes his story sound like the better story, especially contrasted with Clark's energy. Maybe it's the fact that watching this as a TV drama makes it easier to process the case purely in terms of winning or losing rather than being about punishing the guilty, but you find yourself respecting the lengths he goes to to do his job, which is getting his client off.

Here's a small example: at one point in the trial Cochran smears all the police detectives and accuses them of taking part in an elaborate, racially driven conspiracy to frame O.J. Simpson. It's an absurd and outrageous accusation for many reason - many of which Clark outlines better in a barroom debate than she does in court. Shapiro is incensed at Cochran for making the cops out to be bad guys. You can attribute that to him having relationships with some in the police department, or you could take it as an example of contrasting attitudes that blacks and whites have towards the police.

And so, as in real life, Shapiro wears a Fraternal Order of Police lapel pin to court for at least one day, possibly more. It didn't go unnoticed by the media back then, and the episode shows us that that Cochran didn't let it slide either. Here's the funny thing - when this happened in real life, I remember respecting the hell out of Shapiro for doing it. The defense seemed to be living down to every sleazy stereotype of defense attorneys by putting forth this ridiculous conspiracy theory.

But in the world of the show? I had a brief moment of "Shapiro, what the hell are you doing?! You've completely stabbed your team in the back!" That's how good the writing is - it gets you caught up in both agendas, to the point where you start thinking about it like the defense - just in terms of winning at all costs. Then, when the focus shifts back to the prosecution, you find yourself pulled into their plight.

Central to that plight in the last couple of episodes is Chris Darden. As the lone black face on the prosecution team, Darden had to deal with the unfairness of being branded a race traitor by helping bring the case against O.J. Simpson. Cochran never missed a chance to fan those flames either. As a trial watcher, I didn't have much respect for Darden. His highest-profile moments were strategic blunders and he was easily baited by Cochran into either losing his cool or making tactically foolish moves.

Sterling K. Brown's performance has turned Darden into the one of the most quietly sympathetic people in the courtroom. You find yourself trying to will him to not fall into the latest defense trap, or for Marcia to heed his words when he's bringing her an unwanted truth. Brown's handed some really excellent writing and he runs it into the endzone every time. The previous few weeks have seen him become a volcano of frustration on the verge of erupting, and the explosion finally comes when Cochran pushes him too far in open court. It's a bit like seeing a bullied kid snap and try to bludgeon his attacker's face - you don't know whether to cheer or be horrified.

The other memorable moment in that episode comes when he takes Clark to task for not listening to his misgivings about Fuhrman. He doesn't pull any punches, saying "You wanted a black face, but the truth is you never wanted a black voice." The nine episodes that led up to that moment have given Darden so much depth, and so much justification for that perspective that those few words hit like a body blow.

Another quiet storm has been David Schwimmer's Robert Kardashian. Kardashian was a close friend of Simpson's. In fact, if the show is to be believed, his kids called O.J. "Uncle Juice." Kardashian early on finds it impossible to entertain the idea that O.J. could have killed Nicole. He's the best friend we all hope to have if we're accused of murder. He's utterly certain that O.J. is innocent... But Kardashian also has the misfortune of being part of the defense team and the front row seat to the strategy meetings soon expose an uncomfortable truth. The defense might have plenty of elaborate stories to undermine the evidence, but what they lack is any real evidence of another killer.

At one point he wonders, when are they going to figure out who really did it? His naivete would be pathetic if it wasn't so heartbreaking. He believed in O.J. and each day he's in there he's got a front row seat to how there is no other credible explanation that fits the facts. One beautifully suspenseful moment underlines where his faith is shaken. Realizing a bag O.J. gave him to keep could conceivably hold the murder weapon or bloody clothes, Kardashian decides he has to know the truth. He calls up O.J.'s friend Al Cowlings to bear witness as he opens the bag. He does so and finds.... nothing.

Cowlings gives a laugh of relief, one that gives us the sense that he feared they MIGHT find incriminating evidence and is now convinced O.J. didn't do it. Kardashian looks sick, though. For him, it's not about what he did or didn't find - it's the admission to himself that the emotions he felt mean he's no longer sure that "Uncle Juice is a good man." I didn't know Schwimmer had it in him.

I'm rather at a loss for how to adequately describe John Travolta's interpretation of Robert Shapiro. The guy he's playing on-screen doesn't really look like or feel like the Robert Shapiro we saw in interviews and trial coverage. While virtually the entire rest of the cast has tried to channel their real-life counterparts, Travolta is some sort of bizarro, pompous avatar of the man who formed the Dream Team. I don't even know how to explain it, but it works. There are the occasional moments where the show indulges in a sort of campier tone (don't get me started on Connie Britton), and in the hands of less capable creators, these would be discordant notes. Perhaps it's because he's up against characters who were already flamboyant and larger-than-life in reality, but Travolta's voice blends perfectly into the chorus. The few moments when he sticks out like a sore thumb then work because of the oddity, ala Peter Brady's cracking singing voice, not in spite of them.

Maybe the next most gonzo casting is Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey. I was fully prepared for Lane to make Bailey a caricature, but I neglected to realize how much of a pompous echo of his glory days that Bailey already was during the trial. Lane modulates his performance, but his stage theatrics fit the role of this former courtroom showman, well, like a glove.

There's no other way to put it than to say that THE PEOPLE VS. O.J. SIMPSON is a master class in writing compelling television. I'm finding I have to stop myself from rambling further and describing even more of my favorite scenes. Virtually every scene on this show is built from the stuff that all writers should strive to write. I'd kill to write scenes that are so dense with human drama and conflict. If I had the time, I could probably do four weeks worth of posts just on this show. I can't imagine we'll see a better written, better acted, better directed series on television this season, and certainly not one at this degree of difficulty.

A spoiler-filled discussion of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

Because at least one person demanded* it! My spoiler discussion of Batman v. Superman!

*asked politely

I don't want to repeat too many points from my original review, so if there's something here you're disappointed I didn't touch on, you might want to check the older post out. You've been warned - venture beyond here and you're gonna get spoiled.

The Senate explosion - I already talked about how confusing the whole Africa subplot was, and that storyline comes to an abrupt halt with the explosion in the Senate chamber. It felt completely false that there was zero fallout in the rest of the story. It feels like there's not any urgency at all to finding out who blew up the legislative branch of the government. At a minimum, a dozen Senators and a whole mess of spectators had to have been killed there. You mean to tell me no one cares? Why isn't Batman trying to piece together what happened? Why isn't Clark Kent, investigative reporter on the trail?

Superman's inaction after the blast really bugs me too. I can accept him being caught flatfooted by the bomb, but why isn't he zooming through the wreckage, rushing to help survivors? Or maybe he could at least put out the fire? Check to make sure there's not another bomb?

"Martha" - This is already becoming a much-mocked point in the film. Batman is about to kill Superman with a kryptonite spear when Superman starts begging him to save his mother, Martha. This gives Bruce pause, and several critics have mocked the idea that Batman can't kill him just because their mothers share the same name. I'm a little torn on this point. It does feel a little like the writer is impressed with their own cleverness in noting that the characters have mothers of the same name.

But stepping back, I think the real intent here is that Batman is surprised that this alien has a mother with a human name. It's the first real indication he has that this all-powerful being has some kind of genuine tie to humanity. It's a beat that would have worked better if we sensed real conflict in him about taking another life. Batman's moral code is usually against killing. In this film, he's faced with a threat that he believes MUST be killed or else the entire human race is at stake. (Really, it parallels the same dilemma that Superman was faced with in the earlier film when it came to stopping Zod.) But if he really believes there's no other way to save mankind, what else can he do?

If we believe he can only rationalize this by seeing Superman as some kind of otherworldly being, then the moment that humanizes Superman would complicate that. It might even make him see Superman for what he really is rather than what he fears him to be. All the pieces are there for this, but the execution is only about 50% successful.

The Justice League files - This didn't bug me as much as it did some viewers, but it's still annoying that the film stops dead for three minutes so that Wonder Woman can watch video files that amount to being short teasers for other DC films. Within the context of the film, the idea that Luthor has been gathering intel on other super beings isn't a bad idea, it's the execution that's lacking. I don't think this ties enough back into the main plot, but the greater sin is that none of these teasers are especially interesting.

Too many dreams! - I struggle to see what purpose was served by the nightmare Bruce has inside his parents tomb. Was someone afraid we'd forget his parents were murdered.

That Flash scene -  You know that guy who appears to Bruce in the Bat Cave in what appears to be a dream? That's the Flash. I know he doesn't look much like any version who's appeared before, but the scene itself is a riff on a similar moment in Crisis on Infinite Earths. That moment was a case where Flash - in his final moments of life - is running so fast that he starts popping in and out of the timeline. He appears to Batman at a point just before the crisis starts and offers a warning of what's to come.

So why would they cast this moment as a dream inside the film? It might have been more straight-forward to make it clear to the audience that we're dealing with some kind of time travel. Of course, there's also the problem that this beat doesn't have any relevance beyond teasing JUSTICE LEAGUE. At the very least, Flash's warning should have had some bearing on Batman's actions within this film. As it stands now, it's completely gratuitous and it has the benefit of being incomprehensible to any of the audience not familiar with the comics.

Batman's nightmare - Here's the big one. At first blush, it seems to just be a paranoid nightmare about what Bruce fears Superman could become unchecked. That's a point that's made so many places elsewhere that we don't really need to burn valuable screentime on it here. However, there are indications something MUCH more is going on with this dream. The Omega symbol Batman sees is an icon often used to represent the villainous New God Darkseid, and the flying creatures that attack Bruce bear a not inconsiderable resemblance to Darkseid's parademons. All of this relies on information Bruce doesn't have, so it's likely some kind of premonition.

I don't like the concept of giving Batman psychic dreams, no matter how artfully shot. It seems like an easy way to give him information he couldn't get otherwise. It's even more annoying since this thread isn't really resolved in this film. It's the "Thor takes a bath" sequence from AGE OF ULTRON. It looks great on screen, but it's also kind of a momentum killer.

This is also the sequence that gives me serious misgivings about JUSTICE LEAGUE. One of the very first Darkseid stories I read involved him capturing Superman and attempting to brainwash him into being one of his minions. It's a storyline that's been revisited a number of times, including a storyline on the animated series where Darkseid actually succeeded and a mind-controlled Superman led his conquest of Earth. I really, really hope that we're not teed up to get a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie where Superman is the bad guy. BvS already gives Superman short-shrift, and turning him evil, even temporarily would be an even more gross mishandling of the character.

The Death of Superman - *sigh* Ever since the comic book storyline of Superman's death and return broke sales records, WB has had an itch to retell it onscreen somehow. The death and return of Superman was central to the aborted SUPERMAN LIVES (the 90s project that had Tim Burton, Nicholas Cage and Kevin Smith attached), it was an element in the J.J. Abrams script that was killed to make room for Superman Returns, and it was the first DC Animated film.

The comic book storyline is actually a trilogy and it's pretty great. "Doomsday" is mostly a slugfest that culminates in Superman's death, but the next chapter, "Funeral for a Friend" is a well-crafted, emotional series of stories about how the world copes with Superman's death. It's a high point of that era of comics and it leads into "Reign of the Superman," where four Supermen show up, each one claiming to be the real deal.

Those are some my favorite Superman stories, but they're virtually unadaptable. The animated movie makes the problems abundantly clear. Killing Superman is a major climax. If you put it at the end of a film, with the intent to follow up in the next chapter, your movie ends on a major downer. But if you place it earlier in the story, you run the risk of creating an anticlimax. On top of that, for his death to have ANY weight at all, you're now stuck with a story where your lead character has to be inert for a decent amount of time so you can build up to his return. And if you want to give his return the same kind of triumphant buildup as in the comic storyline, you'll have to jam a lot of story into a two-hour period.

But this is the situation that JUSTICE LEAGUE now has to deal with. We open with a dead Superman, probably who will be resurrected by Darkseid to act as his herald on Earth. Batman v. Superman closes with a funeral (and a small hint of resurrection), thereby killing any feel-good buzz that might have drawn audiences back to theatres for a second viewing.

Worse, they don't just kill Superman - they kill Clark Kent. In the comics, Clark was merely missing and presumed dead during the period Superman was deceased. It forced Clark to be creative in explaining his absence once he was revived, but ultimately it was no real problem for him to resume his life. Right now, the world not only knows Clark is dead, but they've seen the body! It completely screws over any solo Superman stories in the franchise later.

Reporter Clark Kent didn't emerge until the final scene of MAN OF STEEL, and even in BVS, it feels like the script doesn't have much to give Clark to do in his day job. The scenes of him at the Daily Planet feel perfunctory, and Cavill seems robbed of the chance to create a true alter ego in the way that Christopher Reeve did. Clark Kent is a vital part of the mythos and I can't imagine a Superman film where he's a full-time Superhero, with no day job for Kent.

If we're being brutally honest here, even if I focus on the positive elements in Batman v. Superman, almost every moment that was there to set up later films made me actively dread what awaits us down the line. The sole exception to this is Wonder Woman. I don't think that's the reaction WB was trying to foster with all the franchise foreshadowing.

What kind of ignorant fool thinks Batman HAS to be R-rated?

A few weeks back it was announced that when Batman v. Superman hits bluray, it will be with a special R-rated cut that's 30 minutes longer. On the surface, there's optimism that the additional 30 minutes of footage could restore some coherence to story threads I found flawed in my original review. But as a matter of principle, I find it troubling that we've reached the point of an R-rated Superman & Batman film.

I expressed that perspective on Twitter and among the responses was someone who said, "Have you ever read a Batman comic? They're dark! Batman NEEDS to be R-Rated!"

You, sir, are an idiot.

If it was one isolated ignoramus spouting this, I'd be inclined to let it roll off of my back, but in the last week or so, I've seen this attitude displayed with more frequency. Couple that with the rather angry defensiveness of fans defending this film from its detractors, and we have symptoms of a much larger problem within the audience for comic book films.

One of my earliest exposures to Batman comics was a hardcover collection available in my library: Batman from the 30s to the 70s. The volume collected representative tales from the character's first forty years in print, the noir-ish stories of the 30s, the capers of the 40s, the goofy sci-fi of the 50s and 60s, and the more serious takes of the 70s. Shockingly, all of them were all-ages appropriate, even the more maturely written entries from the Denny O'Neil era that concluded the compilation. Concurrent with this, I discovered reruns of the Adam West Batman TV series, which takes a far campier approach to its subject. At the time, my interests veered towards the goofier and light-hearted stories, but there was nothing that made the more mature era off-limits for me, even at the age of seven or eight.

And then came 1989. I watched the Joker savagely beat Robin with a crowbar in a sequence that felt excessively violent for its time, but today feels practically quaint.

This was also the year that Tim Burton's BATMAN film came out. Post-Nolan, the film feels infused with a fair amount of goofiness, but at the time, this felt like a dark, grim interpretation of the Caped Crusader. For every silly Joker antic that threatened to pull the film towards camp, there was a brutal act of violence. The Batmobile is equipped with machine guns, and there are several instances of Batman committing murder - or at least attempted murder. There's nastiness like the Joker frying a guy alive on-screen, the facial scars he gives to his girlfriend, and the intensity of the moment where the Joker (but not us) becomes aware of his transformation.

Somehow my brother and I convinced our parents to take us to see it in the theater. I was nine. He was seven. That was probably just up against the age of being appropriate for the film, but the tone still felt mostly within bounds of what you'd expect in a Batman comic. It wasn't until after that I read Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Up to that point, it was possibly the most violent and most grim Batman story told. Owing to my age, I really didn't "get" the story. In fact, I'm sure I "read" it six or seven times as a kid and I'd still struggle to come up with a coherent synopsis. I just liked the art. The stuff I wasn't ready to get, I just ignored. And by the time I was old enough to "get" it, I decided I really didn't like Frank Miller's take on the character. (YEAR ONE notwithstanding.)

And you know what? Still not R-rated.

My biggest period of collecting Batman comics was a five year range from 1989-1994. A Death in the Family. Year Three. A Lonely Place of Dying. Robin, The Joker's Wild, Cry of the Huntress, Knightfall, KnightQuest, KnightsEnd, Prodigal. All of these were defining Batman tales of that era, and in their worst moments they're probably a tame PG-13.

The Knight saga even ends up being a criticism of those who wanted their Batman to be a brutal take-no-prisoners type. In short, Batman's back is broken and he ends up yielding the mantle of the Bat to Azrael. Eventually Azrael goes further and further over the edge, culminating in a moment where he leaves a criminal to die and indirectly results in the death of an innocent. By that point, the fans were ready for Bruce Wayne to regain his title, and the third act of that storyline saw that indeed happen. It was a clever move during an era where comics seemed to be becoming more bloodthirsty and unrelentingly violent. The creators answered the call for a more brutal Batman by giving the fans exactly what they wanted... and showed them how much they'd hate it.

From that point on, I checked in on Batman sporadically, enough to know that as late as just before the 2011 relaunch New 52, Batman was not a book where you'd regularly find disturbing, lurid violence. Violent things would happen, but only in rare cases would they be depicted in a fashion that went beyond good taste. I can only think of

I'm aware of a few instances in the New 52 storyline where good taste has taken a holiday. But even if everything since that relaunch was drenched in blood and guts, we'd be talking about less than a five-year span in a 77 year history.

I read and purchased comics regularly from 1986 up to 2011 and I can count on one hand the number of moments that demanded to be translated to screen in an R-rated fashion. I completely reject the notion that even if we're limiting our range to the "modern" era of Batman where most current readers grew up, the only good Batman story is an R-rated one.

A good Batman/Superman story is the sort of thing that REALLY doesn't need to be ultra-violent. It just needs to understand the characters. One of the more regrettable failings of Batman v. Superman is that for all the time they spend in conflict, the resolution of that conflict is lacking and without real resonance.  I went in expecting the movie might adapt one of my favorite moments involving those two.

In the Post-Crisis continuity, there was tension early on between the two heroes, most of it coming from Superman, who disliked Batman's methods of operating outside the law. That soon turned to a grudging respect of each other, even if there was an undercurrent of mistrust. The storyline "Dark Knight Over Metropolis" resolved that as the two of them worked a case together and Superman gained a new respect for Batman's abilities.

The MacGuffin that brought Batman to Metropolis was a kryptonite ring, though Batman kept that detail private while he and Superman worked to bring down an evil organization called Intergang. At the end of the case, Batman gave the ring to Superman, revealing he had it the entire time. Impressed, Superman later pays a call to Batman in the Batcave in this wonderfully written moment by Roger Stern, art by Bob McLeod.

By entrusting Batman with the ring, all the tension between the two was put aside. It established there was no one more than the Dark Knight whom Superman trusted to get the job done in the name of justice. It also showed Batman that Superman was wise enough to understand his own power could not go unchecked, and that he saw the pragmatic need for countermeasures. This moment would be called back to in stories over the next several years.

That's the moment that Batman v. Superman should have built towards, the connection and resolution between these opposing forces. It even plays into the themes of power and accountability that already permeate the film. And you know what? It doesn't require a single bullet to the head, or snapped neck or barrage of bullets. It doesn't even require a thrown punch.

I'm sure a great many Batman fans would agree with me. No matter how vocal the contingent of the uninformed is, I'd like to think they represent a minority. And yet, there's this weird notion that the more violent something is, the more mature it is. Is it strange to root for the fact that a film is R-rated when you haven't even seen it to know if the PG-13 cut feels neutered?

Even at PG-13, there are moments that feel like they have more of a nasty edge than Nolan's trilogy. An early scene shows terrorists executing a man. Even though the killshot isn't shown, the moment feels ugly in a way that, say, a similar execution of a bank robber in The Dark Knight doesn't.

An audience that cheers an R-rated cut, sight unseen, is the sort of bloodthirsty arrested adolescent that I don't want my entertainment pandering to. I want you to understand I'm not decrying the very concept of graphic violence. I shudder to think of what a PG-13 cut of Saving Private Ryan would look like. Reducing Pulp Fiction to a PG-13 would distort and eviscerate Tarantino's voice. That material demands a certain willingness to push boundaries.

But if you're coming to me with the argument that the only good Batman story can be R-rated, you're an idiot. Seriously, go fuck yourself and educate yourself about the topic. Those glorious blood-soaked violence fests that you DEMAND be reproduced in all their gratuitous fashion? They're aberrations. Just because they're aggressive doesn't make them mature.

In fact, the same goes for you.

My spoiler-free review of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

Note: I've taken pains not to directly spoil anything that hasn't been exposed in the trailers. Even when discussing the ending, I've done so in terms that shouldn't blow any of the many, many surprises for viewers. I suspect the comments will be rife with spoilers and if you want, you can find spoiler-heavy follow-up post here.

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN is a complicated film to review for a lot of reasons. There are incredible moments that land with strong visual impact, coupled with some decisions that I struggle to justify. It's not as simple as it being a rip-roaring crowdpleaser or a total off-the-rails mess. Director Zack Snyder and credited screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer clearly mounted this film with a lot of ambition. There are some weightier themes here than are usually dealt with in superhero films (though the comics have long covered similar ground.) The risk of flying so high is that now and then, you're gonna glide too close to the sun.

The casting of Ben Affleck was one of the earliest sources of fanboy rage on this project. As I suspected then, the results seem poised to make those detractors eat their words. Affleck's Batman owes a lot to the Frank Miller Batman - for both better and worse - but he's very recognizably Bruce Wayne. His outfit might be the best Bat-costume on film and Affleck looks equally at home in a tux and beating the ever-loving snot out of gun wielding nutcases. There will be rioting from the "Batman doesn't kill" crowd as the Batmobile's machine guns are decidedly not non-lethal, but anyone who rationalized Burton's Batman won't have to reach any further than that here.

Continuing the tradition of casting announcements setting of fanboy rage, Gal Gadot got her share of attacks, and again, Snyder knew what he was doing. Gadot's role is small, but when she unleashes the lasso and bracelets, the result is nothing short of crowd-pleasing. There's a glorious moment mid-battle where she's battered back by her opponent and for a moment, almost seems to relish being able to cut loose. Owing to the film's more mature target audience, we'll probably still see more little girls dressed as Rey than Wonder Woman this Halloween, but her solo film next year is going to open HUGE. Seeding her in here was smart, despite the flak the filmmakers got for not jumping straight to a solo film. Most audiences are going to walk out of this movie hungry for more, and a great victory of BVS is how it is an excellent springboard for solo films featuring Batman and Wonder Woman.

I wish I could say that it does the same for future standalone Superman films.

Longtime readers of this site know that I've been a lifelong Superman fan, and so I'm accustomed to vastly different interpretations of the mythos. Generally even if there's an interpretation I don't like, I find it pretty easy to ignore. I'm less concerned with 100% fidelity to the comics I loved than I am in just getting a good story revolving around the character. You can poke around all my old Superman posts for evidence of that, but the fact that I loved both SUPERMAN RETURNS and MAN OF STEEL for very different reasons probably speaks to the diversity of incarnations I can enjoy.

Three years on, the destruction of Metropolis and the killing of Zod is still very much a sore point for a segment of Superman fans. In this film, they find an ally - Batman. Bruce Wayne's been stoking a deep mistrust of the all-powerful being ever since that day in Metropolis. In one of the film's most effective scenes, we experience the Battle of Metropolis from a street-level perspective through Bruce Wayne's eyes. Some see a savior in their visitor from the stars, he sees only a destructive alien who we need a countermeasure against.

Lex Luthor shares that view, though he's decidedly less motivated by the greater good, than by his own power-hungry nature. (And possibly... something else, as the ending suggests.) Jesse Eisenberg proves to be the right man for the job of embodying this interpretation of Lex. He's brilliant, he's dangerous and is possibly insane. There are a couple holes in the logic of his plan. (He claims credit for having masterminded a long-game clash of these titans, but some of that isn't entirely borne out on screen. Also, when he unleashes Doomsday, one wonders how in the world he planned to stop the beast from destroying Metropolis after it took out Superman.)

I like that the film attempts to grapple with the impact a powerful being like Superman would have on the world. When you've got a demi-god who can act unilaterally, there's understandably going to be a concern about whose interests he represents. Superman's entrance into the film comes rescuing Lois Lane from an African terrorist camp. Inexplicably, he's blamed for a loss of life there. The culprit might be either unclear writing or the result of editing, but this plot is unfurled so confusingly it's hard to understand how he's considered culpable. (I'm not even sure exactly who was killed by the actual bad guys in that scene, and considering the only innocent is the reporter ON SCENE who's saved by Superman, I don't get at all how this incident ends up a black mark against Superman.) There's also a big turn in this story about midway through that gets amazing little follow up.

As we see in montage, Superman has done a lot of good for the world too. Most of these gorgeous shots have been revealed in trailers, and I had assumed some of these incidents - like Superman aiding flood victims, Superman intervening in a rocket explosion - would have been awesome set piece sequences. Instead they're a montage and it puts us at a remove from Superman's own internal perspective.

The first half of the film makes a deliberate decision to stage most of Superman's heroics from a street-level vantage point. The flood moment is a good example. We see the victims looking up to their savior, and while Snyder's shot composition is gorgeous, it projects Superman as a god hovering above the peasants. He's not rushing to the rescue, he's floating above them, observing. There's an emotional distance between him and us.

Contrast that with the best sequence in MAN OF STEEL, the moment when Clark first takes flight. There's genuine elation and joy in that moment. We see Clark's face at every step. We feel his exhilaration at being finally able to cut loose. It's a WOW moment that invites the audience to experience that own power fantasy and wish fulfillment. We relate to the guy who feels the wind in his hair. It's harder to feel anything for the cold demi-god who's seemingly staging his own Messiah imagery.

And that's why despite the presence of a lot of a lot of elements of the Superman mythos - Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Perry White, the Daily Planet, Ma Kent - this feels very much like a Batman story with special guest stars from another franchise. The movie doesn't give Clark Kent's perspective quite the same emotional identification as it does Bruce Wayne's. This is not to say that we don't get scenes that try to let us in to Superman's thought process, but the overall tone and imagery tips the balance to the Bat agenda.

Particularly in the first half, it's troubling how alienated the film is from Superman's inner arc. The angst mined here doesn't land as successfully as it did in MAN OF STEEL, and even though Superman's arc eventually comes around to a place where I felt more positively towards him, that's not without its own problems. This isn't entirely the sacrilege committed upon the character within Frank Miller's work, but the film misses an opportunity to make the clash of champions more effective by playing Superman in the same tone as Batman.

There's a brutality to some of the violence here that exceeds even the Nolan Batman films - and I'm not talking about the superhero feats. Snyder doesn't quite drag things all the way into WATCHMAN levels of bleakness, but he gets a little too close for my comfort. Surely that's Snyder's prerogative but it would have been great to walk out of this movie with a little more of an uplifting sense. A film need not be as weightless as some of the weaker Marvel installments to achieve this.

As I exited the theater, I found myself wishing that Snyder and his collaborators had attended one of The Black List's talks with renowned "script whisperer" Lindsay Doran. I hope I don't mangle her point, but the focus of her talk is how positive psychology can help craft a more satisfying viewing experience. One example she uses is ROCKY. The hero loses the big fight there, but few remember that because the emotion of that moment is still uplifting. Rocky "goes the distance" and he shares that achievement with Adrian.

Not to get too far afield, but I encourage anyone interested in writing to check out this NYT article focusing on Ms. Doran.


"Ms. Doran’s second 'aha!' moment came when she consulted a veteran market researcher who oversees hundreds of previews annually. 'I listed the five elements of well-being, and he said, 'I can already tell you one thing: Audiences don’t care about accomplishments.'' She was thunderstruck. Wasn’t the Hollywood ending about accomplishment?

"No, he said, adding: 'Audiences don’t care about an accomplishment unless it’s shared with someone else. What makes an audience happy is not the moment of victory but the moment afterwards when the winners shares that victory with someone they love.' So she mentally rewound the concluding scenes of these 'accomplishment' films. Ms. Grey leaps into the arms of Patrick Swayze at the end of 'Dirty Dancing,' and after that she reconciles with her father. Jaden Smith performs that impossible kick at the end of 'The Karate Kid,' but afterward makes peace with his opponent and shares the moment with his mother and trainer. Colin Firth conquers his stammer at the end of 'The King’s Speech,' and then shares his victory with his wife, daughters and the crowds cheering outside the palace. The film closes with a title card that reads that the king and his speech therapist remained friends for the rest of their lives."

That element is missing in BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. The film very deftly sets up other pieces of WB/DC's cinematic universe, including a completely surprising dream sequence/vision that appears to homage a major storyline familiar to longtime fans. (This is NOT the dream that has been teased in the trailers, by the way.) But any anticipation for future installments comes from those, not the ending, which left me more emotionally unengaged than I wanted to be.

It's also an ending that complicates any future solo Superman films, as some key elements to the mythos have been taken off the table in a way that will be hard to reverse without massive contrivance. Doors are opened for Batman and Wonder Woman, but I'm left with the concern that no one will walk out of this movie craving a return of the Henry Cavill Superman. Candidly, that might even be acceptable if I felt this film dealt with Superman in a way that satisfied at least within the constraints of this installment. Alas, I don't.

The R-Rated cut is supposedly 30 minutes longer, so perhaps there are sequences that restore the balance to Superman's story there. I can only judge the movie in release. Despite the presence of a lot of awesome, the big miss on Superman mars it. I don't think it's a bad movie, and I respect its ambition. When I'm hungry for superhero battles, I'll probably turn to it before THE AVENGERS, but when I'm hungry for a great Superman film... it won't be my first choice.

This is not a film that invites passive viewing. More than likely viewers will walk out with plenty to process and certainly elements to argue about. I wish I looked forward to that conversation, but after three years of seeing fighting about MAN OF STEEL, I lack faith in substantive discourse.

"It gets really good 7 episodes in"

TV shows evolve over time. Certainly if you were to watch the first couple episodes of Seinfeld, you'd find them to be strange, slightly stilted and slow affairs, lacking the complex structure and quotable dialogue that made the show one of the last true mega-hits of the TV boom. And yet, you can still see the germs of genius, the voice that was unlike anything else on TV at the time. It's not honed or polished yet, but it is distinct.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another show that took a season and a half to evolve into its ideal form. The moment "shit got real" is when Buffy lost her virginity to Angel, triggering his reversion to his evil personality and completely upending any sense of safety within the show. For that matter, the spinoff show starring Angel himself took at least 11 episodes to truly find its footing. It needed that time before its voice emerged and it found where it was going to fit into the Buffy-verse. Still, I'd argue that if you watch the first season of Buffy, it might be a little campier, cheaper and less ambitious than what followed, it still is distinct and unique in a way that draws you in. Joss Whedon's voice is there - he's just still finding his best keys.

One of my problems with the way network TV is run today is that programmers seem to have itchy trigger fingers. A new series could find itself canceled after two or three airings, which hardly seems like a fair amount of data on which to judge a series. Of course, it's important to realize that by the time most network shows have had their premiere, the series has probably shot six or seven episodes and may be working on the script for the 9th or 10th episode. At that point, the studio and the network have a pretty good sense of what they've got creatively, and if that's not working for them, a limp debut isn't going to convince them to throw good money after bad. (Though streaming figures and the Live+3 and Live+7 viewing numbers can end up extending a show's life just by virtue of the fact they take longer to compile.)

I bring all this up as a way of saying "yes, I get it. A show won't always be a home run right out of the gate."

That said, it's really exhausting hear a particular phrase with increasing frequency - "It gets really good six episodes in."

Look, back in the 90s the vast balance of our original programming was limited to 4 broadcast networks, sometimes 6 when The WB and UPN were in play. The idea that FX, TNT, TBS, and AMC would be major content providers really wasn't there. Today there are so many outlets for original narratives and there's already an abundance of good stuff on TV and all the various streaming channels. I feel like I watch a TON of excellent original programming and there's still probably an almost equal amount of excellent series that I don't watch.

So when I'm presented with a new show to fit into my already crowded life, I don't have time to give it a quarter of a season to figure itself out. This is especially true if the early episodes of the show seem devoid of anything compelling. I don't want to keep beating up on AGENTS OF SHIELD, but its first season was the epitome of a series that didn't know at all what its identity was supposed to be. The fallout of THE WINTER SOLDIER gave it a stronger mission statement and forced to show to redefine itself some 17 or 18 episodes in, but even then, I can't say I found it to be all that great. I gave it another half-season due to the addition of Reed Diamond as a bad guy, but to me it never felt like it got any better than the kinds of shows that would have been canceled by The WB and UPN back when Buffy was breaking new ground.

I'll give the show this - they had loyal fans. Their fans were so loyal that after the first half-dozen episodes I saw a LOT of angry responses to reviews pointing out the emperor seemed to be bereft of garb. When they weren't arguing the judgment was wrong, they seemed to be willing it to be a better show, convinced it was building to something. The makeover that followed THE WINTER SOLDIER allowed them to feel vindicated, leading to a rallying cry that translated to: "It got really good 17 episodes in."

When you say it like that, it almost sounds silly, right?

And if I'm being honest, this "give it 7 episodes" plea feels even more ridiculous in an era where streaming services are dropping an entire season's worth of content on us at once. I'm supposed to hand over seven hours - fully half of the season's running time - just to wait for something that feels like it's being delivered in its final form?

Apply the same patience the Marvel geeks gave SHIELD to the Warner Bros DC Comics film universe. Can you even imagine it being acceptable to tell someone, "Just keep watching until AQUAMAN. Then it gets really good." Can you imagine if the first Marvel film to be REALLY good was CAPTAIN AMERIC--

Okay, I kinda walked into that one.

(Before you send me angry comments, allow me to disclaim that the first hour of IRON MAN is one of the strongest things Marvel's ever done. Robert Downey Jr. is brilliant in the role, and most of my issues with the film come from the rather weak second hour, and Obadiah Stain is a pretty uncompelling villain.)

Daredevil just released its second season on Netflix. I rather enjoyed the first season, so I was interested in checking it out, even though I'm generally more of a DC guy. So far, I've watched the first three episodes and... it's not really my thing. Maybe I can attribute some of that to the fact that I find The Punisher profoundly uncompelling as a character, but I can weather the punishment of a disconnected story arc.

The larger problem - and this is one that I'm really noticing with streaming series - is many shows are now doing the TV equivalent of "writing for the trade." That's a comic book phrase, based on the premise that it's far more common for publishers to collect storyarcs that spanned several issues into trade paperbacks. What results is often a decompression of the story, padding out what might have once been a two or three issue arc into six or seven stories. A result is often that each issue feels less like it tells a complete story and more like something completely dependent on the other parts.

I felt it in Jessica Jones, where we got maybe two too many episodes early on where Jessica seemed to do little but follow Kilgrave. I've felt it in several seasons of House of Cards, particularly season two. It's a curious side effect of television drama becoming more strict in its serialization - we get fewer stories that standalone, even though in a long-running series, those are often the plot threads that allow creators to build out the world. In practice, it means that one, or perhaps two stories are told across the 13 episodes.

I understand how the standalone episode is anathema to the streaming model of cliffhanger-after-cliffhanger. A self-contained chapter completely halts that momentum, but there must be an alternative to a structure that demands several episodes of buildup while holding the compelling moments for much later in the run. There might be different causes for this malady - possibly plot constipation, or alternately, it's the natural result of a show finding itself.

So many of these streaming services are championed for how they give much more creative control to the writers. I bring this up because I don't think we can blame "executive interference" for things that displease us on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I do think that what might be more valuable is time. Give the creators more time to develop before they shoot. I can't remember the figure but there's some interview out there with Vince Gilligan where he reveals the final seasons of Breaking Bad spent much more time than is typical breaking story. It gave them the freedom to find ideas that they never would have hit on with tighter constraints. "More time" won't be a popular option, as it means the writers are entitled to additional weeks on the payroll, but maybe it can keep a third of the season or more from feeling like a throwaway.

The second change is one I'll address to the showrunners. Don't assume you have a patient audience. I know when you're launching a network show, you're under extreme pressure to spew plot twists. Every pilot season, that's more than clear than ever as pilot scripts spend only 50ish pages burning through twists that would have been stretched across as many as 6 episodes in the old days. The last couple of years it's been easy to perceive the flop sweat within the scripts, and that serves neither you, nor the audience very well.

And you, dear reader, should you pass this rant forward for others to read and they complain about how long it is, just assure them -

"It gets really good eight paragraphs in."