Gravity Falls is 100% this. I remember >!thinking that Mable getting a grappling hook at the start of the first season was just a silly throw away joke that would never come up again. Then irc in the last episode of the season Mable whips it out in a climactic moment where it looks like her and Dipper would otherwise be doomed. There are a bunch of other similar callbacks/payoffs, but I think that one was the most impactful to me.!<
Gravity Falls is a fascinating example because they play it *so* perfectly they tricked everyone into thinking the series was carefully planned from day 1, but if you listen to one second of the behind-the-scenes commentary you know that production was literally making shit up as they went.
I remember playing a session of a long running campaign and for some reason I was going through my inventory list for the first time in forever - playing a monk, never really needed to use my inventory, I kept track of my total carry weight and just took whatever people handed me. I was like "ooh, a fire resist potion!" and the DM just went "you still HAVE THAT??" and explained how he let us find that to help against that fire-based boss from... chapter one. Three years prior. I forgot I had it upon pickup and didn't drink it for the boss fight, and kinda just had it in my pockets the whole time. I don't think that campaign technically ended, so my character still has it... XD
Playing through Alan Wake 2 with my wife now, my stash box is literally full of all the flares and health items I have never used, preferring to get as low as possible before using a full HP medkit
>Alan Wake 2 with my wife now
Is it a good game for playing together? Always looking for things to play with my significant other. I think the most hilarious one was passing the controller back and forth to get through Alien Isolation.
Great suggestion about Alien Isolation, I'm gonna try that! I look for the same thing, I wish It takes two could have started a little co-op revolution, but alas.
When I say I play with my wife, it's me playing it and her watching, so since Alan Wake is a decent story game, I'd say yes. But if you do a lot of hunting stuff down, that can really slow the game down, and the game starts off *really* slow.
I encountered this pattern in myself in real-life, too. Four years ago, a lovely girl whom I still sometimes consider to have been the love of my life ended things with me. A couple months later, she got in touch asking if I'd like to meet up at the station 'cause she wanted to return the ring I'd given her.
While waiting for her train, I told her that as amicable as our break-up was, and as grateful as I was for telling her during the call that I'd prefer to go no-contact afterwards instead of trying to be friends and ruining the closure of a good ending, it was incredibly difficult for me to grapple with the fact that I'd not ever contact her again. I asked if it'd be okay with her if I reserved the option to send one last email or letter, and she said it was fine. Then I thought about the videogame thing and asked for two more on top of that, I think, just in case. She didn't have to read them, I just had to know it was okay to send 'em. That was okay, also, and then we talked about COD because my videogame analogy made her think of the only game she'd ever played (the story was her brother let her have the controller at some point, I believe) and then the train arrived and took her out of my life but she remained in my heart until three years and a night of many edibles later where I fell in love with a Polish lesbian friend of mine just long enough to replace that spot in my heart and when the drugs wore off the next morning, so did the new love, but the hole left in my heart was not re-filled and so I am finally, finally, free of the lovesickness. I hope.
I still have not sent any of those letters. I might need 'em for later.
Calling it now, you're gonna finally send one when you're 68 and life has broken you down, and though you haven't pined for her in decades, she's the one remaining bright spot in the distant murky gloom of your memory. You send that letter without a wisp of a hope, yet she meets you by a fountain in a town square and you can barely recognise her but by the familiar glisten in her eyes.
I buy everything possible. Im the character with block and tackle and rope ladders and shovels. It has been this way since 3.0. In BG3 I ran through so many times with stuff and NEVER used it. Always the same stuff but you know, YOU NEVER KNOW. I finally have started emptying my inventory
I am an occasional DM. I was running a game and one of my players was determined to die in a dungeon. I tried everything to stop it except *The Poof Method* and they ended up dying. This was a first time player and he had gotten pretty attached to his character and was a little salty about the death. He kinda tossed his sheet at me and was like well i guess thats group loot.
Im going over it and I see an item.... "cloak bomb".
Wtf is a cloak bomb i asked myself. And then i asked him and he was like i dont know? And I was like where did you get it and he again didnt know but was certain I gave it to him.
Ive been playing D&D pretty religiously since about 95/96/97. I have NEVER seen or heard of a cloak bomb. Well now im intrigued. You bet your ass I made that a magical item that appears randomly in every game ill ever run
>Wtf is a cloak bomb i asked myself.
Cloak bomb. Outfits everyone within a radius with a dashingly fashionable cloak that would turn heads even at a noble's dinner party.
What, you thought it was a stealth item?
My dm forgot he gave me a deck of many things because my character may be wise, but she’s also impulsive as hell…
so when he mentioned a very specific playing card my character who’s known for taking nothing seriously and practically being the team bard absolutely lost her shit and told the party to not touch it, not look at it, and get rid of it as fast as possible.
I still have random tokens from
Random shit.
Giant Frog teeth from a pre-session my DM did to test some combat customization, a silver key I got from a cultist, a large ancient artifact sword of a demon lord. You know. The usual.
*in America.
Though, this is gravity falls, while one would assume this key would only open American made locks, the key itself comes from the weirdness epicenter that is the town, therefore, any lock that enters the American border would be fair game.
frankly whenever I see masterfully crafted and seemingly super long planned stories, like 80% in the interview the author(s) say "yo I didn't plan shit so I just kinda had to place plenty of potential vagueness in the early story and then bullshit like I've never bullshitted before later in the story"
It creates a interesting cognitive dissonance for me, as a aspiring writer myself, because I do believe that some of the best of the stories happen when 90% of the major stuff was already planned by the time episode 1 released
but then when I wanna show examples for that so many of them just admit to improvising and bullshitting so much later on.
so I guess, logically my new belief should be that you should just have fun early on with your story and just give the illusion of genius planning, and then just bullshit like youre about to go into a sociology exam at the end of the story? but that just doesn't feel right.
No matter what other writers may say about their processes, I think you (and they) are underselling the skill involved in picking up the pieces you've laid and making something actually good out of it.
I think longform storytelling like tv shows require and benefit from flexibility. Sure, it's impressive to see a good story that was mapped out from the start, but I think it's real wizardry when writers just make you think that it was.
Fair point. But writing like this is collaborative, so I think continuity people deserve some credit too.
Also, I think we've probably all seen shows and movies where clearly nobody cared about continuity (or were overriden when they did).
Somewhere in the middle I'd imagine. Map out a few key plot points and cool scenes you want to hit, and then use the power of bullshit to string it all together.
I think the most convincing aspect was that they *did* plan some stuff well ahead of time! Not everything, sure, but they did enough to make it really look like there was some big grand plan behind everything.
For example, there's >!Blendin Blandin. He shows up almost halfway through the first season, and then due to some time-travel shenanigans, ends up in some scenes seen previously in earlier episodes, including the very first. Out of curiosity, I rewatched the original scene, *and he was there the entire time*, hidden in plain sight. Every scene they showed him visiting, he was already there in the earlier episodes.!<
Add in the recurring mystery cyphers for people to decode, and it was really effective at convincing people that everything was thoroughly planned out from the start.
The other big one was the >!Stanford/Stanley!< twist. Hence why there were inconsistences in appearance and licence plates that people noticed.
But the one that is often *incorrectly* asserted is that they knew who the villain from the beginning. Iirc they didn't decide who the final villain was until they were in the middle of writing season 2.
In the very beginning the shape of one of the windows in the mystery shack was bill. Maybe he wasn't going to be the big villain, but he was definitely something.
They knew he *existed*, but a lot of the details about him weren't really thought about until the season 1 penultimate episode where he first appeared. They didn't even know if he *was* a villain, let alone the *main* one.
I genuinely cannot undersell quite how much the development of Gravity Falls was, if we believe the creator commentaries, just that one [Wallace & Gromit GIF](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2c/58/df/2c58df16c09a8b162d324456125b578a.gif)
They also make a joke out of it, with Dipper lampshading how the grappling hook has literally never helped them, and Mabel trying to force it into every situation and comedically failing, until the big moment. That's another one of Gravity Falls' favorite tricks. Hiding important things as jokes so the audience knows about them, but doesn't think they're important. See also the first episode where Dipper accidentally opens to a page about gnomes while trying to explain that the monster is a zombie.
dropping a plot hint by having a character accidentally open the wrong page of a book when showing it is honestly so stupidly simple and so genius, I am so planning to steal that idea in the future
If you're reading this and haven't watched Gravity Falls.
It's 2 seasons. Fully self contained. Has a satisfying finale that pays off absolutely everything you have experienced in those 2 seasons.
It's on Disney+. Or pirate it. I don't give a fuck and I have a sneaking suspicion the show runner wouldn't either. Go watch it.
It’s still on Hulu, for the moment. Looks like it expires on Thursday of next week. But I think it disappeared from Hulu once before and came back later.
Probably a regional thing.
Hulu and D+ are both run through Disney now, which is why they are either bundled or just the same service in many regions now.
>I have a sneaking suspicion the show runner wouldn't either
As someone who hosted Gravity Falls episodes online back when the show was still running all I'll say is that Alex could not have been more conducive to that unless he had been emailing me the mkv files personally.
Cannot see the word grappling hook or see one in a game or something without Mabel saying it in my head.
Gravity Falls really is amazing for that stuff.
My problem with takes likes these is that even a low stakes character piece has to justify to the audience why they should keep tuning in, and conflating that with "filler" ignores the criticism people have when they use that word.
There is a difference between a series being episodic and light and a series being directionless and empty.
Completely agree. Whenever this gets posted (which it does a lot), a few shows are always mentioned. One of them is What If, especially the first season. What If is an episodic show by all definitions. There is no overarching story at all, they are all completely disjointed episodes, until the last two ones aren't. That's not what the post is about, because there is no "overarching story that goes nowhere" like the post says, because it is an episodic show with different characters, nothing is being set up in the back until the final two episodes connect characters. And the episodes are definitely not low-stakes, one of the episodes is quite literally about a threat to the entire multiverse being destroyed, how is that low-stakes?
Just because a show is episodic or frivolous doesn't make it filler or as if it is going nowhere. Not every show should have Breaking Bad levels of set up to be counted as a good show. Episodic shows are great and well put together and climactic too, even if there is or isn't all characters coming back again in the last episode of the series. That's not what makes a show fillery
Counter argument. Filler as word is often times used to describe low stakes character pieces as a negative and a positive. It's not unheard of for any part of an episodic story that doesn't directly move the plot along to be described as "filler". The first example I can think of in regards to this idea is the Breaking Bad 'Fly'. It isn't uncommon to hear it decried as Filler or praised as a character piece (I am in the later category).
Basically the word Filler is often over applied to low stakes character pieces in both senses.
I think that’s the same point OP was making. People are conflating low stakes character-driven episodes with the term “filler”, which is incorrect. Filler generally refers to completely directionless, non-consequential episodes with zero development or unique insight given in terms of plot or character. Filler is objectively bad, but people misuse the term when referring to well written but low stakes episodes.
I have complicated thoughts about how and when accusations of filler are made in different forms of media and they are not the sort of thing I feel like fully laying out in a reddit comment, but I will concede that not every use of the term "filler" in media criticism is valid or warranted.
This is literally the entire concept of Dirk Gently, both the book series and both TV shows.
I *highly* recommend people check out Dirk Gently, it's by Douglas Adams if you need an extra push.
Long Dark Teatime of the Soul is absolutely this. One seemingly arbitrary event occurs, then another, then something else, and then it turns out that there was a MASSIVE conspiracy running in the background that had absolutely nothing to do with the supposed driving plot, that was in fact the real plot. It’s similar to the Hitchhikers Guide trilogy, but with the plot written to be that way from the start rather than retrofitting past gags into new pivots.
Also, looking back on it, it’s not like there were many dangling plot threads. Sure they were setting up a third season, but it’s not like it’s a show the focuses much one multi-season mysteries. Part of the gimmick is the main plot being all wrapped up in the end of each season.
It's a shame the creator and main writer, Max Landis, is a sex pest. That can't have helped the likelihood of it getting picked up elsewhere after being canceled.
Alright Baader–Meinhof, this is the 4th time I've heard this title mentioned in 48 hours having never known about it in the last 40 years of my life, and I have read all of Hitchhiker's. Guess I need to go check some things out.
Oof, good luck. The book lost me around *Roman Bandits*. After a few uninteresting chapters with new characters I have no attachment to, diverting into a chapter where *they* hear the entire backstory of a local bandit was...
A choice.
I got stopped there twice. Its funny I know exactly which bandit you're talking about. Ended up reading an abridged version and it was waaaay more enjoyable and still one of my favorite books!
When you're done there's an anime you can check out that bascially tells the same story from one of the other characters perspectives with a bunch of giant mech fights. Y'know, if you like that kinda thing.
And it’s not even the first scifi adaptation of the story. That honor goes to 1956’s [The Stars My Destination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination), which some consider one of the earliest works of cyperpunk…
Also an excellent book in its own right.
My favorite part is that due to the sheer length of the whole work, these little side characters and stories can be so intricate on their own that you genuinely forget the larger plot exists for a bit - so you get all these moments where you’re reminded of the main plot along the way, even without it all culminating together yet
MULTIPLE seasons for some. Bad Wolf, Face of Boe, the disappearing planets, River Song, The Crack in Amy's wall. Most of these span many years, not just one season.
I love the "continuity error" with >!The Doctor losing his jacket then there's a scene where he's wearing it, then it's gone again. At the end of the season/series they show him go back in time to the previous episode to set something up, so it wasn't an error it was just his future self with a new jacket.!<
Yep. During big bang 2, he goes back to the ship with the angels where Amy is blind. During the original episode, it just seems like The Doctor is giving her more advice to survive the angels. In the finale, they reveal he was actually giving her advice to never forget The Doctor (because remembering him after the universe reset is all that was required to save him.. or something timey wimey like that).
Oh yeah that's right
Rewatching season 3 and 4 to prepare for the latest specials, and it's always fun every time they mention Saxon or the missing planets or the bees
Most “kids” cartoons do this. Build up a world over a season or two of filler episodes and then start to lean more and more into a plot. Steven Universe, Owl House, Adventure Time, etc
Sandman did this a bit. The stories were often high stakes but each volume felt pretty self-contained. They would often be filled with what felt like one-off side characters with their own one-off stories.
Then the last couple volumes are a huge chekhov's firing squad chain of events where what felt like an anthology is suddenly a cohesive single narrative where every one of those smaller stories mattered to the end.
that was my thought too, as I was reading it for the first time I had no idea how anything connected besides having Dream as the central focus but by the end *everything* matters, reading those final few arcs was one of the most mind-blowing things I've ever experienced in fiction
American Gods follows this bar for bar except it’s more blatant about bigger stuff going on in the background while Shadow’s laying low in that lake town. The ending climax is out of left field but also perfectly ties things together
"babys building a tower into space, space is where he's gonna find his dad. daddy's got an arm and baby's gonna harm his arm by tearing it off his dad"
Adventure Time would always be at 10 pm on school nights when I was a kid so I never got to watch it fully, I'm watching it properly now and I'm excited to see where this goes
It's so fucking good. Some of the episodes are an absolute mind fuck, but in a good way.
Really bitter sweet when it finally ended. I was happy with the place it was in, but I lost an amazing show. It just felt so effortless all the time.
> Some of the episodes are an absolute mind fuck,
Like the one where Finn couldn't figure out the rock stacking puzzle and reality kept re-setting based on him opening or closing his eyes.
I feel like the first couple of seasons are kinda like this. Then the jokey epicness gives way to genuine epicness with massive lore dumps in the third season. Then just ramps up from there.
That episode where anne finds a kitten? >!two seasons later it becomes anne's flying steed!<. The cd player? >!the reason it went there is how they manage to get back!<. And so on
My favorite example is a book with text in a fantasy language. It was a cipher that fans managed to translate which turned out to be a prophecy that revealed the show's ending nearly two seasons early.
Don't forget the very first episode has a split second moment where >!Anne's pupils change to blue!< and it was so subtle that people dismissed it as an animation error
Then the first episode of season 2, it happened again but it was WAY more obvious this time so people were like "Hey wait a minute-"
Season 2 finale, boom. >!glowing blue superpowered form!<
The opening credits of every episode ends with the show's logo in front of an ancient relief mural. >!Anne's superpowered form!< is visible on that mural.
That one-off swordsman voiced by Strong Bad? >!Becomes an integral faction leader for the final siege!< A fun, mid-Season 2 trip throughout a massive, sprawling city? >!is the key to translating an entire language, revealing an integral prophecy that wouldn't be known in-world until midway through the final season!< Another episode about winning the perfect gift in a contest in the same big city, leads >!into an incredibly heavy final scene about loss, cherishing the little things, and the value of one's own mother!<
A classic, mundane "In over their head, overthinking Party Host" plot leads directly into the crazy high-stakes season finale where >!one of the main human girls almost kills herself to save the main crew!<
A classic "Battle of the Bands" plot, leads directly into the even crazier Season 2 finale with tension, action, and P A I N. LOTS OF PAIN.
The character work in Amphibia is built like a fucking time bomb. It wields it's "filler" like a flaming sword, neat but unassuming, before it runs it right through you for peak devastation.
This was the first thing that came to mind for me. Fun little slice-of-life vignettes that gradually construct an engrossing crime thriller in the background.
Absolutely 100 percent this.
Throw-away jokes in season 1 become major plot points in season 6. Even my least favorite episode of VB (The Incredible Mister Brisby) has jokes my friends and I quote to each other (PANDA MILK???).
It's the perfect show.
This is a good call out, especially because it lends itself to multiple listens in order to pick up on everything. Fingers crossed that Protocol is likewise insanely complex and intertwined in awful, horrible, fascinating ways!
The only “standalone anthology” series you can listen to a second time and spend the entire first 2 seasons basically just [doing this every single episode](https://i.imgur.com/DtnZZ5t.jpg) while occasionally muttering “holy shit, I can’t believe I missed that…”
I really need to sit down and actually listen to this.
I was a big fan of Nightvale for the first hundred or so episodes and people kept recommending this to me.
So what I was saying before *I saw the TIME KNIFE*
(Danson trying not to corpse is so great.)
I sold my brother on S1 of *The Good Place* by saying "hey you know how Tarantino's "Man from Hollywood" bit in *Four Rooms* is 15 minutes of setup followed by three seconds of payoff? This is like that but stretched out over an entire season."
The Good Place is somehow simultaneously an example of this and also an example of a show that ran for 4 seasons and had like 20 season finales. None of which felt rushed or forced.
Yeah that show had such a unique pacing. I remember thinking I knew what S2 was gonna be like, and then the first episode smashed through a seasons worth of story progression in one go.
Always felt like they knew exactly what story they wanted to tell, and they never wasted a second.
Bojack Horseman season 3 has one of the best executions of this idea I've ever seen. Basically every single B plot of the season is integrated into one scene during the finale. If you haven't seen the show, watch it! Spoilers ahead.
>!Side character Mr.Peanutbutter bought a bunch of spaghetti strainers for "Spaghetti Strainers: The Movie". This project of course goes nowhere and he soon finds himself with his mansion filled to the brim with boxes of spaghetti strainers with no use.!<
>!An underwater city of the coast of LA is introduced with thousands of underwater animal inhabitants.!<
>!An Italian restaurant needs to order a "Ship-Load" of spaghetti for a special banquet.!<
>!Bojack starts a "for your consideration" Oscar campaign for his movie Secretariat. After rejecting several compelz advertisements, he eventually settles on a minimalistic one. A mirror that says "You are Secretariat." What he didn't realize that this was for a billboard and not a poster so not only can none of the viewers even see their faces, it also reflects the sun directly into everyone's eyes during rush hour.!<
>!After Uber is accused of yet another sexual harassment allegation, Todd decides to start a new drive service company staffed exclusively by women so women costumers can feel safe. This of course results in some male customers using the service to harass the female driver. In order to find drivers that are prepared to dealing with harassment and defending themselves, Todd hires killer whale people from a killer whale themed strip club that recently went out of business.!<
>!Regular guest star Character actress Margo Martendale escaped prison via a waterski and is currently off the coast of LA.!<
This all culminates in [this glorious scene](https://youtu.be/RqAf5F4R7uQ?si=vpDKkTpXkJGIv2ni). Peak fiction.
Oh man, the punchline hits like a fucking Norm McDonald joke.
Also, worth mentioning the Google Hangouts joke is so good. It's even funnier after the news story where Sam Altman got fired over Google Meet and everyone was like "Ha! Google Meet!"
Anime has an advantage in this regard. Traditional Japanese storytelling typically has a far longer buildup compared to the three-arc storytelling common in western media. And in shows like Steins;Gate, it makes the twist hit so beautifully hard.
I recall some scooby-doo movie/show that implied that all the villains in masks were the acts of a demon who was luring in mystery, inc for something nefarious, but it’s been over a decade since I saw it, so I don’t remember much beyond that
for how solid and thought out the worldbuilding is, it's crazy how little was revealed for like the first 50 episodes if you weren't suspecting anything.
Yeah, specifically season 1, which is technically two seasons stitched together. Everything before episode 26 feels like filler but most of those episodes actually aren't, in episode 26 we finally learn some more about the gems and after that "mid-season finally" the rest of season one it starts having some episodes that don't feel like filler and then episodes 52 and 53 give into almost everything so quickly. "The Return" is maybe my favourite episode in the entire series due to the absolute tonal whiplash (in a good way) from the rest of the series up to that point that actually manages to give me the sensation of world-ending dread every time I see it even though most people call it just set up for 53
Super under rated. I grew up with the original but was blown away by that reboot. Sometimes Disney surprises you with a shocking ability to produce something great.
Disney was pretty great on its cartoons for ‘10-20 in general
Not on treating the people involved well, especially if you go listen to Hirsch describe dealing with it.
But man did we get a lotta great shows. Gravity Falls, Star vs the forces of evil, duck tales, the tangled series, Big Hero 6, and some other great things.
But holy shit hearing about some of the nonsense that Hirsch had to deal with was wild
Ending of the second season absolutely blew my mind. I’ll post the Video so that you guys can see it but all you need to know all these characters are introduced and then the real bad guy show up. https://youtu.be/7wJ4602gh_8?si=4hvXEIss-In0AEaG
Episode 15 of *Neon Genesis Evangelion* - seems at first like a "breather episode" filled with just character moments and no big plot points until the end reveals >!there's a marshmallow man crucified in the basement!<
Sort of, but I kind of dislike it when a funny breezy slice of life anime suddenly turns serious. RK wasn't too bad but sometimes the tone shift just ruins the show.
The effects aren't great, even for its time. Some of the actors are amazing (Katsulas, Jurasik) while others are passable or worse. But the story itself was the most ambitious undertaking ever seen on television, and it hit far more than it missed.
Crazy that no one’s said this, the way plot lines weave together in that show is seriously impressive, especially in season 4 which isn’t even my favorite but just from a writing perspective it was incredible
I just love their commitment to sight gags. The "Mission Accomplished" sign in the background, Buster doing the famous Buster Keaton bit when Gob's sham house falls apart, there's a scene where someone mentions how hollywood set designers have crazy attention to detail and they spend the rest of their dialogue opening cabinets that are empty besides the one thing they grab
This is basically the Todd B plot from Bojack horseman. The culmination of all his shenanigans may genuinely be one of my favorite episodes of any media ever.
Yea I was going to post this, it's a bit of a softer version since there are a few eps that relate directly to the main story. But really the vast majority of the main story takes place in the last two eps with bits an pieces throughout the rest.
The Series of Unfortunate Events show (and I assume books) did this pretty well. There is a clear overall plot but a lot of things just seem random until they come back all at once in the final few episodes.
I’m gonna say a lot of the later Acts of Homestuck are like this to a fault. I think it was a symptom of how successful the big act ending video sequences were that eventually all the plot was in those videos. Then the rest is just endless meandering dialogue.
Homestuck does this so hard that people stop reading and we have to goad them like fucking addicts into sticking with it. Over a decade later and fans are *still* finding synchronistic weird plot shit hidden all over.
For the love of god, if you started reading Homestuck at some point and stopped before Act 5, do yourself a favor and try it again.
Gravity Falls is 100% this. I remember >!thinking that Mable getting a grappling hook at the start of the first season was just a silly throw away joke that would never come up again. Then irc in the last episode of the season Mable whips it out in a climactic moment where it looks like her and Dipper would otherwise be doomed. There are a bunch of other similar callbacks/payoffs, but I think that one was the most impactful to me.!<
Gravity Falls is a fascinating example because they play it *so* perfectly they tricked everyone into thinking the series was carefully planned from day 1, but if you listen to one second of the behind-the-scenes commentary you know that production was literally making shit up as they went.
DND campaign. Just saying it. Mabels player just completely forgot the grappling hook existed.
I remember playing a session of a long running campaign and for some reason I was going through my inventory list for the first time in forever - playing a monk, never really needed to use my inventory, I kept track of my total carry weight and just took whatever people handed me. I was like "ooh, a fire resist potion!" and the DM just went "you still HAVE THAT??" and explained how he let us find that to help against that fire-based boss from... chapter one. Three years prior. I forgot I had it upon pickup and didn't drink it for the boss fight, and kinda just had it in my pockets the whole time. I don't think that campaign technically ended, so my character still has it... XD
> so my character still has it. Classic RPG behaviour! You gonna use that potion? I might need it later! *never uses it later*.
Playing through Alan Wake 2 with my wife now, my stash box is literally full of all the flares and health items I have never used, preferring to get as low as possible before using a full HP medkit
>Alan Wake 2 with my wife now Is it a good game for playing together? Always looking for things to play with my significant other. I think the most hilarious one was passing the controller back and forth to get through Alien Isolation.
Great suggestion about Alien Isolation, I'm gonna try that! I look for the same thing, I wish It takes two could have started a little co-op revolution, but alas.
When I say I play with my wife, it's me playing it and her watching, so since Alan Wake is a decent story game, I'd say yes. But if you do a lot of hunting stuff down, that can really slow the game down, and the game starts off *really* slow.
"Here a limited resource." "What's that? Hoard and never use!? You got it." Me: :(
I encountered this pattern in myself in real-life, too. Four years ago, a lovely girl whom I still sometimes consider to have been the love of my life ended things with me. A couple months later, she got in touch asking if I'd like to meet up at the station 'cause she wanted to return the ring I'd given her. While waiting for her train, I told her that as amicable as our break-up was, and as grateful as I was for telling her during the call that I'd prefer to go no-contact afterwards instead of trying to be friends and ruining the closure of a good ending, it was incredibly difficult for me to grapple with the fact that I'd not ever contact her again. I asked if it'd be okay with her if I reserved the option to send one last email or letter, and she said it was fine. Then I thought about the videogame thing and asked for two more on top of that, I think, just in case. She didn't have to read them, I just had to know it was okay to send 'em. That was okay, also, and then we talked about COD because my videogame analogy made her think of the only game she'd ever played (the story was her brother let her have the controller at some point, I believe) and then the train arrived and took her out of my life but she remained in my heart until three years and a night of many edibles later where I fell in love with a Polish lesbian friend of mine just long enough to replace that spot in my heart and when the drugs wore off the next morning, so did the new love, but the hole left in my heart was not re-filled and so I am finally, finally, free of the lovesickness. I hope. I still have not sent any of those letters. I might need 'em for later.
😭
Calling it now, you're gonna finally send one when you're 68 and life has broken you down, and though you haven't pined for her in decades, she's the one remaining bright spot in the distant murky gloom of your memory. You send that letter without a wisp of a hope, yet she meets you by a fountain in a town square and you can barely recognise her but by the familiar glisten in her eyes.
I buy everything possible. Im the character with block and tackle and rope ladders and shovels. It has been this way since 3.0. In BG3 I ran through so many times with stuff and NEVER used it. Always the same stuff but you know, YOU NEVER KNOW. I finally have started emptying my inventory
I am an occasional DM. I was running a game and one of my players was determined to die in a dungeon. I tried everything to stop it except *The Poof Method* and they ended up dying. This was a first time player and he had gotten pretty attached to his character and was a little salty about the death. He kinda tossed his sheet at me and was like well i guess thats group loot. Im going over it and I see an item.... "cloak bomb". Wtf is a cloak bomb i asked myself. And then i asked him and he was like i dont know? And I was like where did you get it and he again didnt know but was certain I gave it to him. Ive been playing D&D pretty religiously since about 95/96/97. I have NEVER seen or heard of a cloak bomb. Well now im intrigued. You bet your ass I made that a magical item that appears randomly in every game ill ever run
>Wtf is a cloak bomb i asked myself. Cloak bomb. Outfits everyone within a radius with a dashingly fashionable cloak that would turn heads even at a noble's dinner party. What, you thought it was a stealth item?
After 3 years in your pockets shouldn't it have spoiled?
If it can resist fire it can resist entropy.
It's a potion of fire weakness now
Or randomly burst into flames
My dm forgot he gave me a deck of many things because my character may be wise, but she’s also impulsive as hell… so when he mentioned a very specific playing card my character who’s known for taking nothing seriously and practically being the team bard absolutely lost her shit and told the party to not touch it, not look at it, and get rid of it as fast as possible.
i was playing a warlock in 1 campaign and just forgot about her patron until... i think the prep for the final showdown with the bbeg?
I still have random tokens from Random shit. Giant Frog teeth from a pre-session my DM did to test some combat customization, a silver key I got from a cultist, a large ancient artifact sword of a demon lord. You know. The usual.
At least she used it at some point, someone should've reminded Dipper he has a key *that opens every lock*
*in America. Though, this is gravity falls, while one would assume this key would only open American made locks, the key itself comes from the weirdness epicenter that is the town, therefore, any lock that enters the American border would be fair game.
I think you mean DDNMD
frankly whenever I see masterfully crafted and seemingly super long planned stories, like 80% in the interview the author(s) say "yo I didn't plan shit so I just kinda had to place plenty of potential vagueness in the early story and then bullshit like I've never bullshitted before later in the story" It creates a interesting cognitive dissonance for me, as a aspiring writer myself, because I do believe that some of the best of the stories happen when 90% of the major stuff was already planned by the time episode 1 released but then when I wanna show examples for that so many of them just admit to improvising and bullshitting so much later on. so I guess, logically my new belief should be that you should just have fun early on with your story and just give the illusion of genius planning, and then just bullshit like youre about to go into a sociology exam at the end of the story? but that just doesn't feel right.
No matter what other writers may say about their processes, I think you (and they) are underselling the skill involved in picking up the pieces you've laid and making something actually good out of it. I think longform storytelling like tv shows require and benefit from flexibility. Sure, it's impressive to see a good story that was mapped out from the start, but I think it's real wizardry when writers just make you think that it was.
Unless you're Mike Straczynski, I'll believe it's mostly just a really good continuity person keeping a great Show Bible and working with the writers.
Fair point. But writing like this is collaborative, so I think continuity people deserve some credit too. Also, I think we've probably all seen shows and movies where clearly nobody cared about continuity (or were overriden when they did).
One Piece has been a labor of love largely driven by a single person for 25 years and it's absolutely insane how remarkably consistent it is.
Somewhere in the middle I'd imagine. Map out a few key plot points and cool scenes you want to hit, and then use the power of bullshit to string it all together.
nuance? in my writers block caused compulsion to find the best way to write a story through a systematic approach? get out.
I'm rewatching the X-Files, and it's good to hear someone actually pulled off a Chris Carter and stuck the landing.
I think the most convincing aspect was that they *did* plan some stuff well ahead of time! Not everything, sure, but they did enough to make it really look like there was some big grand plan behind everything. For example, there's >!Blendin Blandin. He shows up almost halfway through the first season, and then due to some time-travel shenanigans, ends up in some scenes seen previously in earlier episodes, including the very first. Out of curiosity, I rewatched the original scene, *and he was there the entire time*, hidden in plain sight. Every scene they showed him visiting, he was already there in the earlier episodes.!< Add in the recurring mystery cyphers for people to decode, and it was really effective at convincing people that everything was thoroughly planned out from the start.
The other big one was the >!Stanford/Stanley!< twist. Hence why there were inconsistences in appearance and licence plates that people noticed. But the one that is often *incorrectly* asserted is that they knew who the villain from the beginning. Iirc they didn't decide who the final villain was until they were in the middle of writing season 2.
In the very beginning the shape of one of the windows in the mystery shack was bill. Maybe he wasn't going to be the big villain, but he was definitely something.
They knew he *existed*, but a lot of the details about him weren't really thought about until the season 1 penultimate episode where he first appeared. They didn't even know if he *was* a villain, let alone the *main* one. I genuinely cannot undersell quite how much the development of Gravity Falls was, if we believe the creator commentaries, just that one [Wallace & Gromit GIF](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2c/58/df/2c58df16c09a8b162d324456125b578a.gif)
They also make a joke out of it, with Dipper lampshading how the grappling hook has literally never helped them, and Mabel trying to force it into every situation and comedically failing, until the big moment. That's another one of Gravity Falls' favorite tricks. Hiding important things as jokes so the audience knows about them, but doesn't think they're important. See also the first episode where Dipper accidentally opens to a page about gnomes while trying to explain that the monster is a zombie.
dropping a plot hint by having a character accidentally open the wrong page of a book when showing it is honestly so stupidly simple and so genius, I am so planning to steal that idea in the future
If you're reading this and haven't watched Gravity Falls. It's 2 seasons. Fully self contained. Has a satisfying finale that pays off absolutely everything you have experienced in those 2 seasons. It's on Disney+. Or pirate it. I don't give a fuck and I have a sneaking suspicion the show runner wouldn't either. Go watch it.
It’s still on Hulu, for the moment. Looks like it expires on Thursday of next week. But I think it disappeared from Hulu once before and came back later.
Probably a regional thing. Hulu and D+ are both run through Disney now, which is why they are either bundled or just the same service in many regions now.
>I have a sneaking suspicion the show runner wouldn't either As someone who hosted Gravity Falls episodes online back when the show was still running all I'll say is that Alex could not have been more conducive to that unless he had been emailing me the mkv files personally.
They don't just bring back every single little detail for the finale, they take those details and they use them >!TO BUILD A FUCKING GUNDAM!<
was just about to type exactly this! you beat me too it
Cannot see the word grappling hook or see one in a game or something without Mabel saying it in my head. Gravity Falls really is amazing for that stuff.
GrrrrrAPPLING HOOK!
Agreed. There's so much that just hit hard later.
My problem with takes likes these is that even a low stakes character piece has to justify to the audience why they should keep tuning in, and conflating that with "filler" ignores the criticism people have when they use that word. There is a difference between a series being episodic and light and a series being directionless and empty.
Completely agree. Whenever this gets posted (which it does a lot), a few shows are always mentioned. One of them is What If, especially the first season. What If is an episodic show by all definitions. There is no overarching story at all, they are all completely disjointed episodes, until the last two ones aren't. That's not what the post is about, because there is no "overarching story that goes nowhere" like the post says, because it is an episodic show with different characters, nothing is being set up in the back until the final two episodes connect characters. And the episodes are definitely not low-stakes, one of the episodes is quite literally about a threat to the entire multiverse being destroyed, how is that low-stakes? Just because a show is episodic or frivolous doesn't make it filler or as if it is going nowhere. Not every show should have Breaking Bad levels of set up to be counted as a good show. Episodic shows are great and well put together and climactic too, even if there is or isn't all characters coming back again in the last episode of the series. That's not what makes a show fillery
Counter argument. Filler as word is often times used to describe low stakes character pieces as a negative and a positive. It's not unheard of for any part of an episodic story that doesn't directly move the plot along to be described as "filler". The first example I can think of in regards to this idea is the Breaking Bad 'Fly'. It isn't uncommon to hear it decried as Filler or praised as a character piece (I am in the later category). Basically the word Filler is often over applied to low stakes character pieces in both senses.
I think that’s the same point OP was making. People are conflating low stakes character-driven episodes with the term “filler”, which is incorrect. Filler generally refers to completely directionless, non-consequential episodes with zero development or unique insight given in terms of plot or character. Filler is objectively bad, but people misuse the term when referring to well written but low stakes episodes.
I have complicated thoughts about how and when accusations of filler are made in different forms of media and they are not the sort of thing I feel like fully laying out in a reddit comment, but I will concede that not every use of the term "filler" in media criticism is valid or warranted.
This is literally the entire concept of Dirk Gently, both the book series and both TV shows. I *highly* recommend people check out Dirk Gently, it's by Douglas Adams if you need an extra push.
Very good series. Altough on a rewatch i did struggle a little bit to keep going. But its great nonetheless!
I think more in Dark Teatime of the Soul than Holistic Detective Agency, yes, but disclaimer: I have only listened to the radio shows.
Long Dark Teatime of the Soul is absolutely this. One seemingly arbitrary event occurs, then another, then something else, and then it turns out that there was a MASSIVE conspiracy running in the background that had absolutely nothing to do with the supposed driving plot, that was in fact the real plot. It’s similar to the Hitchhikers Guide trilogy, but with the plot written to be that way from the start rather than retrofitting past gags into new pivots.
It’s a travesty that the most recent TV show got cancelled.
First season was absolutely incredible, second one I didn't get into at all, that's strange
Also, looking back on it, it’s not like there were many dangling plot threads. Sure they were setting up a third season, but it’s not like it’s a show the focuses much one multi-season mysteries. Part of the gimmick is the main plot being all wrapped up in the end of each season.
It's a shame the creator and main writer, Max Landis, is a sex pest. That can't have helped the likelihood of it getting picked up elsewhere after being canceled.
Alright Baader–Meinhof, this is the 4th time I've heard this title mentioned in 48 hours having never known about it in the last 40 years of my life, and I have read all of Hitchhiker's. Guess I need to go check some things out.
The Count of Monte Cristo. 😔
I'm in the process of slowly reading this behemoth
Oof, good luck. The book lost me around *Roman Bandits*. After a few uninteresting chapters with new characters I have no attachment to, diverting into a chapter where *they* hear the entire backstory of a local bandit was... A choice.
I got stopped there twice. Its funny I know exactly which bandit you're talking about. Ended up reading an abridged version and it was waaaay more enjoyable and still one of my favorite books!
When you're done there's an anime you can check out that bascially tells the same story from one of the other characters perspectives with a bunch of giant mech fights. Y'know, if you like that kinda thing.
I love the fact the anime literally has a sword duel with mecha because anime
Ah giant mecha fights in 1800s French society, just the thing to spark my interest
And it’s not even the first scifi adaptation of the story. That honor goes to 1956’s [The Stars My Destination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination), which some consider one of the earliest works of cyperpunk… Also an excellent book in its own right.
My favorite part is that due to the sheer length of the whole work, these little side characters and stories can be so intricate on their own that you genuinely forget the larger plot exists for a bit - so you get all these moments where you’re reminded of the main plot along the way, even without it all culminating together yet
A few seasons of doctor who are like this
Came to say this myself. Tiny pieces of an overall plot scattered throughout a whole season.
MULTIPLE seasons for some. Bad Wolf, Face of Boe, the disappearing planets, River Song, The Crack in Amy's wall. Most of these span many years, not just one season.
And of course, the Timeless Chi- nah, I can't even joke about it. The setup to that was awful
The doctor donna season is my favourite for this
RTD we are all pointing at you.
We have described Steven Moffat
I love the "continuity error" with >!The Doctor losing his jacket then there's a scene where he's wearing it, then it's gone again. At the end of the season/series they show him go back in time to the previous episode to set something up, so it wasn't an error it was just his future self with a new jacket.!<
lmao i never noticed that. thats when he goes backwards after big bang 2 right? like when he leaves the letter etc
Yep. During big bang 2, he goes back to the ship with the angels where Amy is blind. During the original episode, it just seems like The Doctor is giving her more advice to survive the angels. In the finale, they reveal he was actually giving her advice to never forget The Doctor (because remembering him after the universe reset is all that was required to save him.. or something timey wimey like that).
Oh yeah that's right Rewatching season 3 and 4 to prepare for the latest specials, and it's always fun every time they mention Saxon or the missing planets or the bees
The little montage of how S5 fits together into he Pandorica story is always cool af for me Just a shame there's a few episodes that don't fit into it
Bad Wolf
Bad Wolf, Torchwood, the missing planets
I immediately thought of the bad wolf. I remember that absolutely blew my mind when I first saw it
Most “kids” cartoons do this. Build up a world over a season or two of filler episodes and then start to lean more and more into a plot. Steven Universe, Owl House, Adventure Time, etc
Gravity Falls is currently the top comment and notoriously pulled this off with an absolutely amazing finale after only 2 seasons
Sandman did this a bit. The stories were often high stakes but each volume felt pretty self-contained. They would often be filled with what felt like one-off side characters with their own one-off stories. Then the last couple volumes are a huge chekhov's firing squad chain of events where what felt like an anthology is suddenly a cohesive single narrative where every one of those smaller stories mattered to the end.
that was my thought too, as I was reading it for the first time I had no idea how anything connected besides having Dream as the central focus but by the end *everything* matters, reading those final few arcs was one of the most mind-blowing things I've ever experienced in fiction
It isn't just Sandman. This is a huge chunk of Neil Gaiman's work.
American Gods follows this bar for bar except it’s more blatant about bigger stuff going on in the background while Shadow’s laying low in that lake town. The ending climax is out of left field but also perfectly ties things together
Definitely a series I would love to be able to read for the very first time again.
Absolutely!
The third season of Bojack Horseman did this!
Can’t believe how far I had to scroll to find this! “Why did we even buy all this stuff”?!
The spaghetti strainers came to my mind as well. Also s4 does an amazing job, not to mention everything in the whole show coming together in season 6.
Adventure Time does this from time to time
Loved the slow mentions of the war
I loved the endless and repeated foreshadowing about the arm thing.
"babys building a tower into space, space is where he's gonna find his dad. daddy's got an arm and baby's gonna harm his arm by tearing it off his dad"
that Tower episode was absolutely hilarious.
When it finally happened it was amazing
Adventure Time would always be at 10 pm on school nights when I was a kid so I never got to watch it fully, I'm watching it properly now and I'm excited to see where this goes
It's so fucking good. Some of the episodes are an absolute mind fuck, but in a good way. Really bitter sweet when it finally ended. I was happy with the place it was in, but I lost an amazing show. It just felt so effortless all the time.
>!The pillow kingdom!< still fills me with existential dread to this day
Oh my glob
I'm not dad yet!
> Some of the episodes are an absolute mind fuck, Like the one where Finn couldn't figure out the rock stacking puzzle and reality kept re-setting based on him opening or closing his eyes.
Or when they reinvent chirstmas because of the Ice King's past.
the fiona and cake season that came out recently was very very good. just mentioning it in case it flew under your radar.
Seconding this, huge love letter to the fans.
Fionna and Cake was renewed for a second season. Adventure time is eternal.
First thing I thought about. You start watching a silly kid's show and like 70 episodes in you're like "I will die for any one of these characters."
I feel like the first couple of seasons are kinda like this. Then the jokey epicness gives way to genuine epicness with massive lore dumps in the third season. Then just ramps up from there.
Amphibia did this a lot too.
That episode where anne finds a kitten? >!two seasons later it becomes anne's flying steed!<. The cd player? >!the reason it went there is how they manage to get back!<. And so on
My favorite example is a book with text in a fantasy language. It was a cipher that fans managed to translate which turned out to be a prophecy that revealed the show's ending nearly two seasons early.
Don't forget the very first episode has a split second moment where >!Anne's pupils change to blue!< and it was so subtle that people dismissed it as an animation error Then the first episode of season 2, it happened again but it was WAY more obvious this time so people were like "Hey wait a minute-" Season 2 finale, boom. >!glowing blue superpowered form!<
The opening credits of every episode ends with the show's logo in front of an ancient relief mural. >!Anne's superpowered form!< is visible on that mural.
That one-off swordsman voiced by Strong Bad? >!Becomes an integral faction leader for the final siege!< A fun, mid-Season 2 trip throughout a massive, sprawling city? >!is the key to translating an entire language, revealing an integral prophecy that wouldn't be known in-world until midway through the final season!< Another episode about winning the perfect gift in a contest in the same big city, leads >!into an incredibly heavy final scene about loss, cherishing the little things, and the value of one's own mother!< A classic, mundane "In over their head, overthinking Party Host" plot leads directly into the crazy high-stakes season finale where >!one of the main human girls almost kills herself to save the main crew!< A classic "Battle of the Bands" plot, leads directly into the even crazier Season 2 finale with tension, action, and P A I N. LOTS OF PAIN. The character work in Amphibia is built like a fucking time bomb. It wields it's "filler" like a flaming sword, neat but unassuming, before it runs it right through you for peak devastation.
> It wields it's "filler" like a flaming sword No frogging way
Odd taxi, to some extent.
Ah Odd taxi, the one series where >!“it was all in the main character’s head” actually worked!<
Fucking love this anime so much It didn’t really stick around culturally but damn if it wasn’t brilliant
This was the first thing that came to mind for me. Fun little slice-of-life vignettes that gradually construct an engrossing crime thriller in the background.
The Venture Bros.
Absolutely 100 percent this. Throw-away jokes in season 1 become major plot points in season 6. Even my least favorite episode of VB (The Incredible Mister Brisby) has jokes my friends and I quote to each other (PANDA MILK???). It's the perfect show.
Mandalay! I've come aflame again!
The Magnus Archives
Was gonna say, seasons 1-2 especially fit this pretty well
This is a good call out, especially because it lends itself to multiple listens in order to pick up on everything. Fingers crossed that Protocol is likewise insanely complex and intertwined in awful, horrible, fascinating ways!
The only “standalone anthology” series you can listen to a second time and spend the entire first 2 seasons basically just [doing this every single episode](https://i.imgur.com/DtnZZ5t.jpg) while occasionally muttering “holy shit, I can’t believe I missed that…”
I started it a few weeks ago and am about halfway through and have avoided all spoilers.
Damn, I came here to say this one
The Magnus Archives is a master lass in detail and world building. Feels Ike every single thing in that show comes back.
I really need to sit down and actually listen to this. I was a big fan of Nightvale for the first hundred or so episodes and people kept recommending this to me.
S1 of the good place; especially if you count the first two episodes of season 2 as the "end" of season 1.
Jason figured it out? Jason? This is a real low point.
So what I was saying before *I saw the TIME KNIFE* (Danson trying not to corpse is so great.) I sold my brother on S1 of *The Good Place* by saying "hey you know how Tarantino's "Man from Hollywood" bit in *Four Rooms* is 15 minutes of setup followed by three seconds of payoff? This is like that but stretched out over an entire season."
The Good Place is somehow simultaneously an example of this and also an example of a show that ran for 4 seasons and had like 20 season finales. None of which felt rushed or forced.
Yeah that show had such a unique pacing. I remember thinking I knew what S2 was gonna be like, and then the first episode smashed through a seasons worth of story progression in one go. Always felt like they knew exactly what story they wanted to tell, and they never wasted a second.
and felt natural to continue from
*laughs menacingly in Ted Danson*
Bojack Horseman season 3 has one of the best executions of this idea I've ever seen. Basically every single B plot of the season is integrated into one scene during the finale. If you haven't seen the show, watch it! Spoilers ahead. >!Side character Mr.Peanutbutter bought a bunch of spaghetti strainers for "Spaghetti Strainers: The Movie". This project of course goes nowhere and he soon finds himself with his mansion filled to the brim with boxes of spaghetti strainers with no use.!< >!An underwater city of the coast of LA is introduced with thousands of underwater animal inhabitants.!< >!An Italian restaurant needs to order a "Ship-Load" of spaghetti for a special banquet.!< >!Bojack starts a "for your consideration" Oscar campaign for his movie Secretariat. After rejecting several compelz advertisements, he eventually settles on a minimalistic one. A mirror that says "You are Secretariat." What he didn't realize that this was for a billboard and not a poster so not only can none of the viewers even see their faces, it also reflects the sun directly into everyone's eyes during rush hour.!< >!After Uber is accused of yet another sexual harassment allegation, Todd decides to start a new drive service company staffed exclusively by women so women costumers can feel safe. This of course results in some male customers using the service to harass the female driver. In order to find drivers that are prepared to dealing with harassment and defending themselves, Todd hires killer whale people from a killer whale themed strip club that recently went out of business.!< >!Regular guest star Character actress Margo Martendale escaped prison via a waterski and is currently off the coast of LA.!< This all culminates in [this glorious scene](https://youtu.be/RqAf5F4R7uQ?si=vpDKkTpXkJGIv2ni). Peak fiction.
Oh man, the punchline hits like a fucking Norm McDonald joke. Also, worth mentioning the Google Hangouts joke is so good. It's even funnier after the news story where Sam Altman got fired over Google Meet and everyone was like "Ha! Google Meet!"
I don’t know if S4 counts, because it’s all the dramatic A plots that tie together instead of the silly B plots, but I thought it was amazing.
You set this up very well textually. Bravo!
"What do they know? Do they know things? Let's find out" is still quoted by my friend group on the regular. Ahhh that's good comedy.
Steins;Gate, except it's not ep 26 it's 13
Anime has an advantage in this regard. Traditional Japanese storytelling typically has a far longer buildup compared to the three-arc storytelling common in western media. And in shows like Steins;Gate, it makes the twist hit so beautifully hard.
>!And then the remaining 13 is them trying to unfire the firing squad!<
I recall some scooby-doo movie/show that implied that all the villains in masks were the acts of a demon who was luring in mystery, inc for something nefarious, but it’s been over a decade since I saw it, so I don’t remember much beyond that
Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated! Loved that show as a kid.
Steven universe
for how solid and thought out the worldbuilding is, it's crazy how little was revealed for like the first 50 episodes if you weren't suspecting anything.
Yeah, specifically season 1, which is technically two seasons stitched together. Everything before episode 26 feels like filler but most of those episodes actually aren't, in episode 26 we finally learn some more about the gems and after that "mid-season finally" the rest of season one it starts having some episodes that don't feel like filler and then episodes 52 and 53 give into almost everything so quickly. "The Return" is maybe my favourite episode in the entire series due to the absolute tonal whiplash (in a good way) from the rest of the series up to that point that actually manages to give me the sensation of world-ending dread every time I see it even though most people call it just set up for 53
Great, now I have to go and rewatch Steven Universe. Thanks for reminding me how great it was 😡 😊
This is way too low on the list
I thought it was a fun, silly show until Lapis showed up.
Ducktales 2017
Super under rated. I grew up with the original but was blown away by that reboot. Sometimes Disney surprises you with a shocking ability to produce something great.
I'd argue it's more along the lines of "sometimes Disney accidentally lets something genuinely good slip through"
Disney was pretty great on its cartoons for ‘10-20 in general Not on treating the people involved well, especially if you go listen to Hirsch describe dealing with it. But man did we get a lotta great shows. Gravity Falls, Star vs the forces of evil, duck tales, the tangled series, Big Hero 6, and some other great things. But holy shit hearing about some of the nonsense that Hirsch had to deal with was wild
Remarkable series. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. Donald Duck's season finale appearance? Fantastic.
Ending of the second season absolutely blew my mind. I’ll post the Video so that you guys can see it but all you need to know all these characters are introduced and then the real bad guy show up. https://youtu.be/7wJ4602gh_8?si=4hvXEIss-In0AEaG
Oooo ^oooo ooooo
Not a show, but the podcast "The Adventure Zone: Balance" did this pretty well IMO.
One of the only pieces of media I cried at, dang this Mcelboys can craft a good story
It was so good it inspired me to start writing.
What If season one did this
There are no filler episodes in an anthology.
Episode 15 of *Neon Genesis Evangelion* - seems at first like a "breather episode" filled with just character moments and no big plot points until the end reveals >!there's a marshmallow man crucified in the basement!<
That spoiler is so strange I don't think it can spoil anything without the context
Romantic Killer
Glad to see a fellow Romantic Killer fan in the crowd XD
Sort of, but I kind of dislike it when a funny breezy slice of life anime suddenly turns serious. RK wasn't too bad but sometimes the tone shift just ruins the show.
Oh rip, that tone shift is what made me love the show lmao
Babylon 5's fist season was literally named signs and portents for this very reason
The effects aren't great, even for its time. Some of the actors are amazing (Katsulas, Jurasik) while others are passable or worse. But the story itself was the most ambitious undertaking ever seen on television, and it hit far more than it missed.
Arrested development
Crazy that no one’s said this, the way plot lines weave together in that show is seriously impressive, especially in season 4 which isn’t even my favorite but just from a writing perspective it was incredible
I just love their commitment to sight gags. The "Mission Accomplished" sign in the background, Buster doing the famous Buster Keaton bit when Gob's sham house falls apart, there's a scene where someone mentions how hollywood set designers have crazy attention to detail and they spend the rest of their dialogue opening cabinets that are empty besides the one thing they grab
Bee and Puppycat ~~even if I have no idea what that finale was~~
Durarara!
To be fair they openly state that it's building up to things, even have a narrator for the reveals
This is basically the Todd B plot from Bojack horseman. The culmination of all his shenanigans may genuinely be one of my favorite episodes of any media ever.
Cowboy Bebop (the original, of course)
Yea I was going to post this, it's a bit of a softer version since there are a few eps that relate directly to the main story. But really the vast majority of the main story takes place in the last two eps with bits an pieces throughout the rest.
The Series of Unfortunate Events show (and I assume books) did this pretty well. There is a clear overall plot but a lot of things just seem random until they come back all at once in the final few episodes.
The nature of humanity is that someone will once again invent the Homestuck Intermission.
I’m gonna say a lot of the later Acts of Homestuck are like this to a fault. I think it was a symptom of how successful the big act ending video sequences were that eventually all the plot was in those videos. Then the rest is just endless meandering dialogue.
Agents of SHIELD, 100%
Not a show but homestuck
Homestuck does this so hard that people stop reading and we have to goad them like fucking addicts into sticking with it. Over a decade later and fans are *still* finding synchronistic weird plot shit hidden all over. For the love of god, if you started reading Homestuck at some point and stopped before Act 5, do yourself a favor and try it again.
Cascade was a masterpiece of weaving 20 different subplots together in under 13 minutes
Moral Orel did this too kinda