Thoughts on Season 3 *Spoilers*
About a week and a half ago, I finished Season 3; loved every moment of it. Then just a short while ago I watched the DVD commentary, and a couple of things struck me as odd.
1) Sybil - The commentary in episode 5 seemed to indicate that people either didn't like Sybil overall, or that the people making the games thought she was a boring character, and this is why she came off as so obnoxious or something like that. This surprised me because Sybil was one of my favourite characters and I loved seeing how she'd be involved with the episodes in Season 1 and 2, even if she was largely in the background most of the time.
I remember hearing her voice in the beginning of episode 5 and I'm all "OMG yes, they brought back Sybil!" and then I'm all "OMG what the hell did they do to Sybil?!" partly cause I thought she looked very little like she had in the first two seasons. Her hair seemed really glossy and fake (like she was wearing a plastic wig), and the fact that she suddenly had huge breasts was kinda disturbing. Oddly enough, the fact she was huge from being pregnant didn't bother me so much cause she's petite and I've seen what happen to women like that who get pregnant.
Sorry, off track there. I was basically confused as to why the developers would have thought that people didn't like Sybil or why her puzzle seemed to have, in their words "overly misogynistic" undertones. Maybe I'm having a bit of a kneejerk reaction cause I liked her character, although I certainly found some of the jokes about her size (and the bit with the pennies) to be quite amusing.
2) Killed Off - It seems to me that they went out of their way to kill off or remove many characters over the season. Stinky, Sal, Bosco, Bluster Blaster, and Grandpa Stinky (or at least his body). I really liked Sal and was sad to see him go. Likewise, why was Bluster Blaster back to his shouting personality? That was never explained and feels like an oversight. It also seemed to indicate that he was going to end up trapped in space, too. Obviously Stinky, Grandpa Stinky's body, and Skunkape were all on the ship when Max blew it up, so they're all most likely dead. Oh, and Bosco went to Vegas, which I was fine with, at least they explained that. Momma Bosco was a wonderful replacement as I liked her sassy attitude.
I'm not saying these are all necessarily bad, or that it was poorly written. In fact I had little issue with what was going on at the time I was playing cause I was too engrossed and caught up in the story and the characters. It wasn't until afterwards that the "fridge logic" would start kicking in and I'd begin to think and pick apart stuff to fill in cracks of details or simply to let everything settle into place so I could fully appreciate what I'd seen.
It simply seemed a bit of a waste to kill off or write-out some of the characters. I do understand that when you can't think of something else for them to do, or they've outlived their usefulness, characters are typically written out or relegated to the background. I just don't always agree with the methodology I've seen employed by people.
3) Sameth & Maximus - All right, I KNOW why they went with those names, but gods do they sound inappropriate for the era the episode is supposed to be taking place in. I hear those names and I think of Rome or Greece. I kept thinking the entire episode that Samual & Maximillian would have been better cause they'd fit the time and place. However, I do realize they're several syllables longer and that's not always acceptable to have lengthy names. It's just something that's bugged me, and I thought I'd mention it.
4) Mandatory Commentary - Kind of unrelated to the game itself, but I was very disappointed to see that you couldn't choose to watch the episodes on the DVD without commentary. I liked that I could pop in Seasons 1 & 2, and watch the episodes' cutscenes while say.. eating lunch, or picking up around the house. It was also fun for my mother who can't exactly sit around and play the games, but found the characters and storylines interesting.
With Season 3, this is no longer possible as you cannot disable commentary. As I'd mentioned in another thread (the lack of TDP on Xbox) I cannot play this at home and therefore have limited access to replay the game. If I want to sit down and enjoy the story, I have to play the DVD on my DVD player. With commentary always over the scenes, however, I cannot get the same enjoyment that I did previously.
I dunno, it just.. kind of sits wrong with me to not include it.
Anyways, yeah, these were just some thoughts I had. By and large I loved season 3 and had very few issues with it. I'd love to see more seasons, but I know that's either up in the air or being put aside until current projects are finished.
1) Sybil - The commentary in episode 5 seemed to indicate that people either didn't like Sybil overall, or that the people making the games thought she was a boring character, and this is why she came off as so obnoxious or something like that. This surprised me because Sybil was one of my favourite characters and I loved seeing how she'd be involved with the episodes in Season 1 and 2, even if she was largely in the background most of the time.
I remember hearing her voice in the beginning of episode 5 and I'm all "OMG yes, they brought back Sybil!" and then I'm all "OMG what the hell did they do to Sybil?!" partly cause I thought she looked very little like she had in the first two seasons. Her hair seemed really glossy and fake (like she was wearing a plastic wig), and the fact that she suddenly had huge breasts was kinda disturbing. Oddly enough, the fact she was huge from being pregnant didn't bother me so much cause she's petite and I've seen what happen to women like that who get pregnant.
Sorry, off track there. I was basically confused as to why the developers would have thought that people didn't like Sybil or why her puzzle seemed to have, in their words "overly misogynistic" undertones. Maybe I'm having a bit of a kneejerk reaction cause I liked her character, although I certainly found some of the jokes about her size (and the bit with the pennies) to be quite amusing.
2) Killed Off - It seems to me that they went out of their way to kill off or remove many characters over the season. Stinky, Sal, Bosco, Bluster Blaster, and Grandpa Stinky (or at least his body). I really liked Sal and was sad to see him go. Likewise, why was Bluster Blaster back to his shouting personality? That was never explained and feels like an oversight. It also seemed to indicate that he was going to end up trapped in space, too. Obviously Stinky, Grandpa Stinky's body, and Skunkape were all on the ship when Max blew it up, so they're all most likely dead. Oh, and Bosco went to Vegas, which I was fine with, at least they explained that. Momma Bosco was a wonderful replacement as I liked her sassy attitude.
I'm not saying these are all necessarily bad, or that it was poorly written. In fact I had little issue with what was going on at the time I was playing cause I was too engrossed and caught up in the story and the characters. It wasn't until afterwards that the "fridge logic" would start kicking in and I'd begin to think and pick apart stuff to fill in cracks of details or simply to let everything settle into place so I could fully appreciate what I'd seen.
It simply seemed a bit of a waste to kill off or write-out some of the characters. I do understand that when you can't think of something else for them to do, or they've outlived their usefulness, characters are typically written out or relegated to the background. I just don't always agree with the methodology I've seen employed by people.
3) Sameth & Maximus - All right, I KNOW why they went with those names, but gods do they sound inappropriate for the era the episode is supposed to be taking place in. I hear those names and I think of Rome or Greece. I kept thinking the entire episode that Samual & Maximillian would have been better cause they'd fit the time and place. However, I do realize they're several syllables longer and that's not always acceptable to have lengthy names. It's just something that's bugged me, and I thought I'd mention it.
4) Mandatory Commentary - Kind of unrelated to the game itself, but I was very disappointed to see that you couldn't choose to watch the episodes on the DVD without commentary. I liked that I could pop in Seasons 1 & 2, and watch the episodes' cutscenes while say.. eating lunch, or picking up around the house. It was also fun for my mother who can't exactly sit around and play the games, but found the characters and storylines interesting.
With Season 3, this is no longer possible as you cannot disable commentary. As I'd mentioned in another thread (the lack of TDP on Xbox) I cannot play this at home and therefore have limited access to replay the game. If I want to sit down and enjoy the story, I have to play the DVD on my DVD player. With commentary always over the scenes, however, I cannot get the same enjoyment that I did previously.
I dunno, it just.. kind of sits wrong with me to not include it.
Anyways, yeah, these were just some thoughts I had. By and large I loved season 3 and had very few issues with it. I'd love to see more seasons, but I know that's either up in the air or being put aside until current projects are finished.
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Comments
Say what you want but I love Sameth and Maximus
You might occasionally see or hear about a person being killed, and the way they handled it in Season 2 with characters showing up in Hell was a nice touch, I even saw Chuckles from Season 1 at some point. But that was a lot of people that went blammo in the last episode, so I suppose I was a bit taken aback.
And there's really nothing wrong with a few reoccurring characters, especially if you're hesitant to make new ones on account of budget and/or time. I liked that Sybil constantly popped up, or that they kept Max as president, or that Bosco's paranoia would actually pay off and we'd also learn the cause.
I dunno, a reoccurring character is something you can work with and play around with. There's nothing wrong with writing them out cause that means you could always bring them back someday if you're struggling with an idea or a concept. I've never been a fan of killing off a character just cause they're not useful anymore, and have always docked points for shows and series that've done that in the past. Unless it's done in a way that doesn't seem convoluted or pandering to the audience.
DeSinge in episode 4, for instance, made sense because we were going to have the true villain show up and needed to do something about the current one. Twilight Princess, on the other hand, should've left Ganon out of it and continued to use Zant until the end.
1. The new method of moving around makes no sense to me at all. Holding and dragging the mouse to move is needlessly cumbersome and doesn't work very well in some screen changes. For example, in the museum when you are walking down the stairs, the scene changes and now the direction you were using points in the opposite direction. On top of the needless difficulty of moving around, this method puts extra strain on the mouse. Can someone tell me how making it more difficult to move improves a game? I noticed that Telltale uses this silly drag method in their Monkey Island games. This is why I decided not to buy them. I noticed that Randy Tudor who had programmed the first two seasons was "demoted" in the third season. Bad idea.
2. The writing is inferior to the first two seasons. Chris Jordan is the only accredited writer whereas in the first two seasons he was part of a team of writers. The humor was much better the first two seasons. Also the plot twists were more clever and mature. The whole business of a space ape is just an immature and hackneyed cliche. I felt the the third season targeted a much younger audience for some reason. Very few of the jokes had anything resembling subtlety or irony. Most of them were reworked cliches.
1: Grandpa Stinky's body may have not been inside the flagship when it exploded. I don't remember seeing him inside at the end. You can even go bacvk to the ship and he won't be there.
2: Bluster Blaster isn't in space but we can see him in space right... so what if he is sent in space in season 4? I mean, season 2 and 3 have references about past season, why couldn't have that has a reference?