Yeah, let's just make sure Disney doesn't hire Michael Bay to make a movie!
Anybody remember "Gargoyles"?
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^I think the reason they didn't release Volume 2 of Season 2 was because Volume 1 didn't sell as well as they'd hoped. A lot of animated series have had incomplete releases because of the practice of releasing half-season sets instead of full-season sets. I'm not sure why they've decided to finish releasing it now, though.
20th anniversary coming up?
I finished watching the first season and all of season two tonight!
I thought the first season with its 13 episodes made a great miniseries. The five part Awakening pilot felt like a really good movie. The first season did its job introducing things that would become important to the rest of the series like Xanatos, Demona, MacBeth, The Pack, Eye of Odin, and Coldstone. I need to say Frakes and Sirtis were perfect as Xanatos and Demona on this show, even better than their more popular Trek characters.
The second season continued the streak of good episodes, but I can't believe the studio ordered a 52 episode second season. Thankfully, Greg Weisman is a masterful producer/writer and was somehow able to make it work. All the episodes before the World Tour and afterward in season 2 were very well written, especially for something aimed at children. I really appreciated all the kickass women on the show like Elisa, Demona, Fox and Angela. I can't help but notice the very strong continuity for the series, character arcs, and how well it handled story lines taking place in both the past and the future.
My favorite episodes were the multiple part episodes "City of Stone" for its MacBeth and Demona origins, and the pure kickassness of the "Avalon" episodes that that brought everything together that had been building up for so many episodes. The Hunter's Moon made a good the series finale.
The only negative I can say is that the whole World Tour episodes went on for too long, it could have been 10 episodes instead of 20. I badly missed the Gargoyles back in New York and stories that could have taken place there. The World Tour episodes were okay, but in the end it did feel like a lesser show.
It felt like the show ended at the right time. I noticed it was 65 episodes long, ignoring the season 3 that I doubt I will ever be able to watch. Is 65 episodes the standard for cartoons to become successful in rerun syndication?
I'm glad Disney finally decided to release the second half of season 2 on dvd. It made me finally go watch the show, I had watched it as a kid when it aired but had forgotten everything so the show was completely new to me. It was an amazing marathon these last few days. Thank god for the "Play All" option on the dvd menus!
I thought the first season with its 13 episodes made a great miniseries. The five part Awakening pilot felt like a really good movie. The first season did its job introducing things that would become important to the rest of the series like Xanatos, Demona, MacBeth, The Pack, Eye of Odin, and Coldstone. I need to say Frakes and Sirtis were perfect as Xanatos and Demona on this show, even better than their more popular Trek characters.
The second season continued the streak of good episodes, but I can't believe the studio ordered a 52 episode second season. Thankfully, Greg Weisman is a masterful producer/writer and was somehow able to make it work. All the episodes before the World Tour and afterward in season 2 were very well written, especially for something aimed at children. I really appreciated all the kickass women on the show like Elisa, Demona, Fox and Angela. I can't help but notice the very strong continuity for the series, character arcs, and how well it handled story lines taking place in both the past and the future.
My favorite episodes were the multiple part episodes "City of Stone" for its MacBeth and Demona origins, and the pure kickassness of the "Avalon" episodes that that brought everything together that had been building up for so many episodes. The Hunter's Moon made a good the series finale.
The only negative I can say is that the whole World Tour episodes went on for too long, it could have been 10 episodes instead of 20. I badly missed the Gargoyles back in New York and stories that could have taken place there. The World Tour episodes were okay, but in the end it did feel like a lesser show.
It felt like the show ended at the right time. I noticed it was 65 episodes long, ignoring the season 3 that I doubt I will ever be able to watch. Is 65 episodes the standard for cartoons to become successful in rerun syndication?
I'm glad Disney finally decided to release the second half of season 2 on dvd. It made me finally go watch the show, I had watched it as a kid when it aired but had forgotten everything so the show was completely new to me. It was an amazing marathon these last few days. Thank god for the "Play All" option on the dvd menus!
65 was the standard back then, yeah. I really really loved Gargoyles. I was obsessed with that show in high school. It's too bad Weisman didn't get to move forward because he had oodles of plans for future episodes and spinoffs.
My favorite character was Oberon so "The Gathering" was my favorite. I'm really sad we didn't get to see more of that invincible blowhard
"City of Stone" and "Avalon" are also the best of course.
I do wish they'd done more than two 'meanwhile back in NYC' episodes during the World Tour, but I found the Children of Oberon to be the most interesting aspect of the series.
My favorite character was Oberon so "The Gathering" was my favorite. I'm really sad we didn't get to see more of that invincible blowhard
"City of Stone" and "Avalon" are also the best of course.I do wish they'd done more than two 'meanwhile back in NYC' episodes during the World Tour, but I found the Children of Oberon to be the most interesting aspect of the series.
Back then, animation seasons were generally 13 weeks long, and that meant 13 episodes for a once-a-week show (i.e. a Saturday morning cartoon, or occasionally Sunday morning) and 65 episodes for a show in stripped syndication (i.e. a weekday afternoon cartoon airing 5 days a week). You'd often see similar patterns on shows that had both Saturday-morning and stripped seasons. For instance, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon started out with a 5-part miniseries that aired daily for one week; then made 8 more episodes to complete a 13-episode season that was aired on weekends; then made 52 more (I think) to fill out a 65-episode season for daily stripping. Similarly, The Real Ghostbusters had a 13-episode first season on ABC Saturday morning, then ran those plus another 52 episodes in daily syndication; then later seasons on ABC were shorter again.
They stuck with the 65 episode series so religiously that when the show was popular and they wished to make more episode, the series would be retitled, with the intent to fill out another block of 65. Thus the third season of Gargoyles was titled originally Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles.
But since that series didn't last, those episodes have been retitled Gargoyles and are combined into the same syndication package.
But since that series didn't last, those episodes have been retitled Gargoyles and are combined into the same syndication package.
The first two seasons had such a rich story and background to it, while season 3 was for lack of a better word, simple. To me, it just felt like something was missing when compared to what came before.
I don't think that's quite right. The show moved from daily syndication to Saturday morning network airings after season 2, and it was retooling by the network that led to the changes in story and title. There was no reason to retitle a series if it got another 65-episode season; that was simply the length of a single season (13 weeks x 5 days a week), and if a series got renewed for a second season, it would get new episodes without a title change (see He-Man, She-Ra, DuckTales, The Real Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, and countless more). I think you're confusing the '80s/'90s practices with the modern policy of Cartoon Network, which seems unwilling to let a series go more than 65 episodes without either cancellation or retooling. But under modern cable practices, with weekly rather than daily airings being the norm, 65 episodes means 2.5 to 5 seasons, when back in the day it would've just been one season (or two seasons, if the show started with a 13-episode weekly run and then got 52 more to fill out a strip-syndicated schedule block).
As I said, the show moved to Saturday morning network airings for season 3, so it fell under tighter restrictions and pressure to target a younger demographic. It's much the same thing that happened to The Real Ghostbusters when it moved from syndication back to network -- the episodes got less adult, less sophisticated, more juvenile. Also, Greg Weisman, the showrunner and principal creator of Gargoyles, left the series after writing the first episode of The Goliath Chronicles. The writers who took his place abandoned his plans for the series, telling simpler, younger-skewing, more episodic stories that didn't handle the characters or the world very well. It just wasn't very good, certainly not in comparison to the brilliance of the first two seasons.
As far as Weisman, the fanbase, and the series Wiki are concerned, the canonical continuation of the series from season 2 is contained in the short-lived comics from Slave Labor Graphics, which were written by Weisman and continued his planned storyline from the show. Unfortunately the comics didn't run for very long, and are contained in only three trade paperbacks, Clan-Building Volumes 1 & 2 and the spinoff Bad Guys: Redemption. The first two issues of Clan-Building are based on Weisman's script for the first Goliath Chronicles episode, but without the revisions and errors that ended up in the episode after Weisman's involvement ended. (Most notably, the main adversary's identity was changed from a pseudonym of a Season 2 character to a completely unrelated character.) So the comic version is considered canonical and the episode apocryphal.
The people involved just didn't get the show. Their idea of an original ending for Gargoyles was Elisa moving to Chicago with Goliath and the Trio going off on a World Tour essentially the Gargoyles losing. It might have been interesting if they wanted to show how hateful and prejudiced humans are, but I think that is unlikely.
Well, so far Rebels seems closer in maturity and complexity to The Goliath Chronicles than to seasons 1-2, although it's early yet.
^^^
That immediately made me think of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Man#mediaviewer/File:Buffy_4x12.jpg
That immediately made me think of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Man#mediaviewer/File:Buffy_4x12.jpg
^Oh, I get it. Gar-Giles.
Gargoyles was a great show. I haven't seen it in a long time though, so not sure if it holds up.
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