Mason Barge wrote:
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
news:2fced64b-7c5d-45b3-9e3c-1ee9f72eff83@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >A reminder: If these threads ain't dead, I'm gonna kill them.
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > Season Four, Episode 2: "Ground State"
> > Writer: Mere Smith
> > Director: Michael Grossman
> >
> > The final entrant in the series' big run of Good-to-Excellent
> > episodes, and few will accuse it of being on the same level as the
> > others. Electro-Gwen has never really worked for me as a character,
> > especially given how erratically she drops in and out of the show.
>
> My sense is that she was provisional as a long-term guest character, but
was
> dropped because Angel was starting to look like a superhero team ala
> "Justice League of America". They certainly invested a few bucks in the
set
> for her apartment and her back-story.
She has some good lines in "Ground State," but so does everyone who's
on these shows. You're probably right that there were plans of some
kind - "Long Day's Journey" gives her, as you say, her own set, and
certainly makes it seem like she'll be hanging out with the team
during this arc. There may also have been plans to play up the
attraction to her fellow monster, given the screen time that got.
Then in the next episode she's written out with one line. It still
throws me. And I won't even try to get into what the hell they were
attempting with "Players," although those on the NG who like that one
better than I do may be able to come up with something.
To me, a show like ATS demands rich characters, and the writers seem
to find that easier to do with the broody tortured ones than the more
outwardly comedic ones. Besides being maybe a little too explicitly
like a superhero comic character, she's too much like a cartoon
archetype of a femme fatale. She's also profoundly amoral, which
instead of making her more interesting, tends to be brushed over and
treated as cute - ooh, she's a hot chick with emotional pain, so
everything's cool. I don't particularly dislike the character or
anything (except in "Players," where she's quite unpleasant), and her
presence in LDJ helped lighten the mood at a time when the show needed
it, but I simply don't like her, at least in her role as an erratic
guest star.
-AOQ
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