I think they disappeared from YouTube for a while, around the time they surfaced on Netflix. I was delighted to find them on Youtube again.
I've seen all of The Mercury Men, but that was back when it first came out. The look is great. It starts strong, but the story degenerated into absurdity towards the end, IIRC.
I might argue that the entire concept was borderline absurd, that's one of the things that I thought made it interesting, but anyway... It's interesting that talented producers can let a storyline get away from them. I remember reading a book on writing where the author described a phenomenon he described as "spaghetiing out". His suggestion for avoiding that messy situation was to develop an outline for the beginning, middle and end. It would seem to make sense that you know the ending before you begin. JM Stracynski had his whole story arc laid out before he started shooting Babylon 5.
I dunno if Mercury Men "spaghetti"ed out. The story is pretty simple: a nobody office guy has to find the strength and courage to help save the day. It just wasn't very interesting as a story, but mostly made up for by the production. I'm surprised anyone has to recommend outlining the beginning, middle and end. I mean. I get not knowing the end if you're doing a series that will run for years, but for 10 6–7 minute shorts that are effectively an hour?
Yeah, that advice was more for aspiring novelists than writers of serial tv writers. That said, I think the idea of at least having an idea of what the ending will be before you start shooting is a good idea. Of course, in the case of some fan films there's no real story anyway, so how do you satisfactorily wrap it up? By the way, that guy's book gave me a real pain in the ass. People who claim to have "the" answer to how to approach anything strike me as pompous and pretentious. This guy started off his book by saying that every great writer, including Mark Twain used that method. I'm sure a lot of writers did (and do) use that method, but I know that some don't. Whether they started off using that method and got to where they didn't need to do it is another issue...sorry...I digress...
No two writers I know use the exact same approach. So people who say there's one right way to do it are spewing nonsense.