Teen Wolf: S03 - Part 1.

Teen Wolf have split their third season in half, picking it back up in January, over my days off I've caught up with the first half of the third season and decided to share my thoughts for all those whom it may interest. Sorry about the immensely poor quality of the images, none of the grabs looked that bad before uploading, so I have no idea what happened there.

One of the most pleasant things about watching these twelve episodes, is how all in everyone feels, you think Teen Wolf would be losing some steam but at least where the characters are concerned, they are as emotionally engaging, wonderfully acted and beautifully written as ever. This show has a pretty modest budget, the action is usually more clunky than exciting, but the show picks up the slack almost completely in the fantastic characters. I still believe in Dylan and Scott's friendship, I still believe just how much Scott and Allison love each other, I still believe in how good a person Isaac is. There are some more crucial character arcs as well, like Stiles' Dad finally believing in what he knew all along. They did a great job with his character, even when he was right on the fringe, so now he's right in the middle of it all, it'll be interesting to see if it betters his character or worsens it.

Perhaps the star of the the season though, is Stiles. In a show filled with badass teen archers and grown men with the power to throw you through the wall, you would think a comic relief human sidekick would be worse than a splinter in the eyeball. In reality the show uses him fantastically, his uselessness is actually a driving force in shaping his character, rather than a burden on the rest of the cast. For the last two seasons almost, his character arc has almost been entirely defined by his strength of character, he battles with his irrelevancy at every moment and yet, in his own way, Stiles is the glue that holds everything together when the shit hits the fan, quite a lot of the time, he is the one who saves the day and he may have no powers at all but he isn't afraid of staring an alpha right in their glowing red eyes. He doesn't need claws, or guns, to be a total and utter badass. And that is why I love him and it is also what makes him a fantastic window into the world for the audience who really can't relate to anyone else, for obvious reasons.

I love how careful this show is, with its continuity, at least in comparison to the utter mess that is Supernatural. The whole flashback part of this season is quite confusing in where exactly in time it takes place, as it doesn't all add up properly, but even with that in mind, the show still does a damn good job in holding everything together. The emissaries may well have been made up in the last moment, but them never being mentioned, is actually turned into a plot point, as them being 'forgotten' is a driving part of the darach's motivations.

There are some fairly huge changes to the show here as well, that actually mix up the show in a way I thought would fuck it up. What I loved about the show, is the mythology, namely that they picked one and stuck with it. It helped make the show stand out, and stopped it just blurring into the sea of mediocrity like most Urban Fantasy on TV that want to be the next Supernatural, which wanted to be the next Buffy. So when the show started throwing in darach's and banshees I was ready for the show to start fucking up, badly. Despite my pessimism however, both inclusions to the world of Teen Wolf are good ones. Neither choices are obvious choices, because we certainly didn't need any more 'quirky' reimaginings of witches and vampires, which certainly helps but both choices are insanely interesting as well. I don't really know how she works, but I love the idea of the darach, who is basically a zombie who sacrifices people and picks up their traits as superpowers and Lydia describes her banshee powers as 'a Geiger counter for death', awesome. 

Still perhaps the greatest aspect of Season Three so far, is the idea of change. Most of what I watch is Japanese Superhero shows, each series tells a single story over fifty episodes, so although change happens, things grow and evolve, it's normally only once before the show ends. So as the finale showed us just how far our characters have come over the course of these seasons, and how far they still have to go, it really took my breath away. We've watched Scott fall in love with Allison, we've watched it all break apart and burn around them, and we've watched as she moved into the arms of someone else. We've seen Derek go from monster, to someone very human, to grow from beta, to alpha and back again, to grow into a father figure, take his sister and leave for a new life. We've watched as one by one, the list of characters in the know grows. And we've both seen the cast grow, age and become greater actors. It's all a little magical, if you're passionate about the show.

Okay, maybe not losing steam isn't exactly true. There has always been a certain level of melodrama to Teen Wolf, it's always been one slip away from becoming Twilight, but it also kinda worked. It worked because these guys are teenagers and when you're a teenager everything is always an end of the world scenario, so coupling hormonal teenagers with stuff that really does threaten their whole town made the melodrama work. But somewhere along the way, the show seems to have lost a certain amount of conviction, there are some aspects to the show so ridiculous the show just doesn't seem to know how to sell it, so it doesn't even try. One of Supernatural's only strengths is how damn hilarious it is, but its self parody never feels like a defence, it never feels like the show isn't proud of itself but the self parody in Teen Wolf lacks the same strength of heart, the self parody here feels like a shield for its insecurities, its fear of being ridiculed and called stupid. And what does that say about the audience, if the show itself seems embarrassed by itself?

There are some other missteps as well, I'm not entirely pleased with what they are doing with Derek this season, he seems awfully all over the place as they give him this random 'is he dead?' mini-arc which comes and goes so quickly you forget it ever happened, they are also trying to show a more human side to him which works in the specific context but I don't think it works for Derek's character. Other disappointments are Boyd and Erica, who both turned out to be largely, completely pointless, despite how much of the second season was centred on them. Bye, you won't be missed.

The fight scenes though, really may be the main problem. Whenever the werewolves do finally clash, it's usually for the most part happening off screen, with the stuff on screen largely superfluous like them doing flips, or falling over in slow motion. I just don't understand it, since like the 70s, with shoestring budgets Japan has been creating epic superhero TV shows, sure the effects were cheap and hokey but they did it and for the last decade or so those fight scenes have been beautifully refined and challenged even what Hollywood was doing, so there is no excuse for how crappy the fight scenes are in this show.

The people who suffer most from this, are the Alpha Pack. The show constantly bigs up the concept of an Alpha, making it sound like this big, epic...thing but the Alpha Pack spent a majority of the series doing absolutely nothing. Despite Ennis' importance to the story, he died fairly early on, and there was no glory in his death, he died rather pathetically. It may well have been the point, but it didn't make for satisfying watching. Then to establish the darach's power, they had to make the remaining Alpha's look like little bitches so in a finale of greatly improved action sequences, they failed to impress in any sense even there, and ended up simply being hyped far beyond the shows budget. Even the Demon Wolf, who was absolutely awesome, was included in the finale so briefly before the eclipse landed him on his ass, all the hype around him just felt like an insanely large waste of my time.

The other problem with this show, is that death works in Teen Wolf very much like how it works in comics. I know it's kinda an injoke with the show anyway, but throwing the characters in front of death at every single turn, takes the meaning away from their circumstances, it takes away the danger, the sense of purpose and stops us forming any kind of emotional engagement in what is happening to them.

Overall then, I really think Part One of Season Three was for the fans, an obvious verdict perhaps but with how much the show flexes its maturity, with how much it seems to beg to be appreciated not just as a guilty pleasure but a legitimate piece of entertainment, Season Three seems to be aiming for as mass a market it can without getting in the way of the story. In reality, it fails at this, almost brutally, largely because the one thing that makes Teen Wolf truly great is the characters. And a huge amount of this season, despite the inclusion of the Alpha Pack and all the rest, rests on the growth these characters have had, something that new watchers can't appreciate in any sense beyond good storytelling. So if you're a fan of the series already, you'll love this, but if you're a confirmed hater, this is unlikely to change your minds. Which is a shame, honestly.

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate season three, so far?