6d ago

What's the worst example of a TV series or character within that series being flanderised as the seasons went on?

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The entire cast of family guy.
Dwight Schrute in the office.

I'm gunna go ahead and actually, in a way, say Severance. Despite its amazing acting, ending, cinematography and unique premise. Spoilers (general below) - the organisation behind it seems to be suffering from a kind of villain decay.
Severance S02 had a great and impactful ending that set the stage for S03, but Lumon itself as an organisation is still bizarre and barely explained. It got all the personal arcs of the main 4 right, but not the purpose behind Lumon (beyond them just being some dysfunctional cult). And I don't mean Lumon is shrouded in mystery in the sense of leaving the user to wonder after being fed shreds, but the whole meta behind that organisation just seems like a complete mess. They're global and powerful yet seem to exclusively reside in this single building with a management that consists of a half-dozen people purely circling around experimenting on two people. I could go on here if pressed. I want to know more about Lumon but it seems the writers are just focusing on "haha weirdo cult", "milchick epic dancer" etc.
It's set up as a weird combination and criticism of cults (it's very scientology coded) and work culture in general but hasn't really progressed much there.
- I feel like they really messed up with Lumon in Season 2. In the first season of Severance the fact that the innies worshiped the company, quote the manuals as religious texts and worship the CEO was interesting take on corporate culture. If you don't have any external culture every company would basically look like that. Every office I have been in has this is a small extent (at least in official company documents and very corporately meeting). So it makes sense if you only have company culture it goes to the extreme we see in the first season.
  The fact that EVERYONE at the company does that really loses that message. Of course the innies all follow this company religion since everyone else does. So this "culture" is forced on them instead of a natural extension of seeing only "company culture" or business etiquette. What a waste since it is less of a satire of all company cultures and its about this strange company. It would be much more interesting Harmony Cobol was a promoted "innie" who now runs the persons entire life with the outie being hidden away forever. Now that is an interesting twist and a better satire.
  
  It would be much more interesting Harmony Cobol was a promoted “innie” who now runs the persons entire life with the outie being hidden away forever. Now that is an interesting twist and a better satire.
  I thought of this. Or at least for Milchick as a 'self-made innie' for someone who might not have grown up in Lumon.
  It makes sense that Lumon would offer that kind of incentive ultimately for innies: take over your outties life.
- What you’ve wrote reminds me of Dharma from Lost. I’ve yet to watch Severance (only 3 episodes in).
- In a similar vein Neolution / Dyad in Orphan Black. It started as a shady transhumanist group willing to break legal and ethical boundaries to control human evolution.
  The clones seemed like just one of their experiments and not a major one. But because the clones are the focus of the show they become the core mission of Dyad.

Lisa Simpson.

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