[Locke]

I dunno. I really haven't enjoyed W's lead up, or the pay off either. It isn't quite as terrible as Fourze was by the end, but it's no OOO.

"had lots of build up and it be something that didn't happen an episode later." this piece of sentence, kinda sums up my feelings of W in general. I liked W, more often than I didn't, but I find the show this feels closest too is Wizard and I'm just a little more attached to Wizard than I am this.

Both were shows that weren't defined by having one strong half, one weak half as both shows were ultimately mediocre but a sort of admirably consistent mediocrity that at least meant you always knew what you'd get, which means you could never really be disappointed - I guess sorta like McDonalds.

The problem is though, when W did things well it did it SO FUCKING WELL that the mediocrity of everything else became frustrating because it showed how good this show could be, if it actually wanted to be. But instead it was just tripping over piles upon piles of terrible creative decisions.

Ultimately, like a lot of shows, W's problem was pace. W knew how to create good pay off, but the show never seemed to have a clear idea of how to get to it and was often tripping over itself to provide pay off, forgetting these things are all in the build up. And when the build up is bad, we lose investment in the proceedings and then even good pay off falls flat because we just don't care.

And that is kinda the thing. We had a few filler arcs, the Sonozaki's started dropping like flies without putting up any kind of fight, not that it mattered as they were a mixture of never being relevant in the whole show, or not being relevant for a long time and then there was this stuck on with masking tape final arc, which was bound so tightly in contrived storytelling that the regular good moments were strangled to the point of lifelessness.

I think it's best if I just pretend this show ended when Weather was defeated.