Apologies for the lengthy absence — I’ve been moving, so the blog had to take the back seat for a while. And, for now, just a quick stub, as a way of embedding an amusing clip about franchising, adaptation, and extratextuals related to The Watchmen. Tip of the hat to Chuck Tryon for pointing to it.
Last night marked the penultimate airing of ABC’s Boston Legal. Before its finale next week, I thought I’d offer some thoughts about the end of a series that has proved so compelling yet also incredibly frustrating to me over the past five years. Though I’ve never missed an episode (see my earlier comments about commitment viewing), the formulaic repetitiveness of the last three seasons long ago led me to believe that Boston Legal had run out of creative terrain to explore–”outrageous” and “shocking” (to quote Henry Gibson’s Judge Brown), but content to be predictably so. In moving towards a definitive end, however (ABC made it clear at the beginning of the season it would not go beyond its initial 13-episode order), this final season has shown growth, giving me a picture of what Boston Legal could have been all along.
Recently, I saw both Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (funny how a sequel allows you the right to such a long title, eh?) and Iron Man. I was interested by how both dealt with the prospect of a sequel, and it got me thinking about how films announce a forthcoming sequel, and how sequels work. (NO SPOILERS YET, BUT I’LL WARN YOU LATER OF A COUPLE, IN CAPS).
To start, I’d argue that if sequels so often stink, or are at least very silly and fluffy, it’s because many sequels aren’t really about the hero who supposedly started the franchise.
More after the fold
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