Just observing the disaster of Suicide Squad game, the calamity of the current Doctor Who and many other franchises along the way, it feels like we are on the eve of a purge in western media where a lot of franchises are going to die or at the very least, be put on a very long hiatus.
In my opinion, a lot of these survive off habit, you get used to enjoying a certain thing, you regularly consume certain thing and never think about it. Until they make something that breaks that habit it won't die so thought I'd list off some of those bits of media that killed off a franchise:
Command and Conquer= C&C4: This one singlehandedly killed the franchise, even before they used it's corpse for a mobile game. The complete removal of bases from the game itself was the dumbest decision ever made, but not the first time EA would remove a core mechanic from a major franchise..
Battlefield: Battlefield 2042: the other example by removing classes for 'operators' in the game probably damaged it more than just how much it was a buggy unplayable mess. It was such a bad decision that they put the classes back in but with talk of the next being a live service and even the return of operators, I can hear the death chimes for this franchise just like honourable mention the Medal of Honour series.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: it's amazing how this single film started this franchise tanking that was bought for billions and even had people appreciating the prequels more. From the bad writing, stale acting and stupid plot, this killed the enthusiasm for a decades long series.
The potential new ones: AC Shadows and GTA6: these two in the future have the possibility to kill their respective franchises. We are finding more and more on AC that it's looking like every wrong move has been taken and with how lackluster Mirage was received, it ain't looking good. GTA6 however, there's a possibility it'll simply be another Cyberpunk in just not meeting expectations which IS recoverable.
Just thought this was interesting to discuss seeing franchises both established and barely formed (cough Trench Crusade) killing themselves in a single release especially around our current time.
For me it was the last season of House of Cards on Netflix. The series was already becoming increasing unbelievable to me by that point with holes in some plots and lack of satisfying closure in others, but the last season went warp speed ahead on it. Spoiler alert: It ended with the entire U.S. cabinet becoming 100% female and standing in a line breaking the fourth wall looking right into the camera all smug and arrogantly. It couldn't be more obvious of a statement if someone in the background held up a sign reading "Women are better than men in every way possible."
Before that the messaging was more subtle but still noticeable. Like in the climate change movie (The Day After Tomorrow, I think)...in it was a very important government official who looked just like Dick Cheney denying that anything was going to happen when one of the climatologists kept warning him about the major weather disturbances.
House of Cards went to shit because Spacey got canned. Any series losing the lead will inevitably suffer.
I soured on House of Cards US quite early. Bitchqueen was too much.
I still rewatch S1 and S2 as I find them to be the best of the show. That being said, I still skip through most of the Claire sideplots. She goes full Skylar White enough to annoy the crap out of me.
House of Cards was an Obama-era show that immediately felt incredibly dated the moment Trump took office.
The show would (eg.) make a big deal about needing to have someone go on CNN to defend some policy decision, and whenever that happened I'd ask myself "Why does CNN need to be involved? Why doesn't he just tweet what he wants to say the way Trump does?"
Yea I noticed that too. I need to watch the original British version
Unless you are in it for the 'art form' don't go in expecting anything spectacular after having had the plot spoiled by the US version.
At least it had the good sense to not milk itself for multiple zombie seasons.
Oh hell no. House of Cards was already ruined by Season 2. Written by pre-Trump-era Democrats, the show runners of a series about political backstabbing didn't understand a single thing about politics.
Sin #1 -They had the Bernie-Socialist recoiling from freezing the government too much?? Any self-respecting Commie-dipshit would be jerking off to how much damage their strike was doing, not clutching their pearls in horror. These writers fundamentally didn't understand how progressive activists think.
Sin #2 -The Putin-Dictator being a metoo-rapist and anti-feminist makes him a hero to the 2014-2016 viewers. The writers had the big bad Russians on one side, the super oppressed Feminists on the other, and backed the wrong horse. Anyone with a clue would have been neutral to the Russians and made the Feminsits a joke.
Sin #3 -The Main Character gets away with everything, all his enemies are retarded. Doesn't this take place in Washington DC? Shouldn't that place be infested with completely insincere backstabbing Democrats? The fact that every other character in the story other than Frank claims to be "one of the good ones" and "doing the right thing" is a clear misunderstanding of how corrupt that place is. The entire city is crawling with Frank Underwoods. He shouldn't be able to open his mouth without being interrupted by three or four knives being thrown at his back.
I always laugh at the Liberal fantasy of the Cowboy-Doctor, or the Hero-Lawyer, who is the Director of some multi-culti-corporate institute or firm that can stand firm against the rabble when his principles demand it. LOL. That's NOT possible. You rise up the ranks by bending over and taking it up the ass and never taking risks. You don't also get to be the individualistic maverick when you want to. The action requires a Right wing personality to perform. The Cowboy Doctor is like the Anti-Racist Frank Underwood - it's a joke.