Weird at last, weird at last.

Was The Show Ever Actually Good?

So long-time followers will probably know I always had issues with the writing. Not ALL of the writing.

But. Some of the writing.

Enough that I think there are some clear patterns you can point to, in terms of what this writing team is good at. And what they are not.

I have to be very honest and say that while I thought the flashback part of the show has always been the best handled, and I think the first season is definitely the best constructed overall? I do think the writing in the modern scenes always felt a little clunky, lacking in nuance and direction. In a similar way to what more people are noticing in s3 now. The dialogue in the present scenes always felt a bit too smug, sure that it was very clever modern dialogue. But it never quite hit its own mark well enough for me.

I think that it was easier to forget that when Assad and Jacob were doing their thing, because they are both extremely good actors. More than good enough that they could make what was often odd or unnecessary dialogue choices work for them, rather than against them. They also were contained in a kind of bubble, so they could carry a lot of the energy in a scene without many other, less capable people being more of an eyesore. Ear-sore? Whatever. (This is where everyone cancels me to fuck when I say that, while I typically have nothing but praise for Bogosian in other roles? I don't think he was up to the challenge of this particular writing team's dialogue. But people suspended disbelief, I think, because he was playing a bitter old guy, and no one really expects an old guy to be using more modern, younger slang/concepts without it being a little awkward or missing the mark sometimes.)

I've always said the show was at its best when it was focused on rich character development and leaning into its own emotional sincerity. (Pause to say that I'm not a sincerity truther; I don't actually agree that every piece of media needs to lean into sincerity and away from self-aware quips and snappy dialogue that takes big risks with modern pop culture references. My issue is that IN THIS SHOW sincerity is this writing teams particular strength. While meta cynicism is not. At all.) So yeah, I've always thought the show was at its worst and most nonsensical whenever it was trying to be surprising, shocking, or to come across as self-indulgently clever. Which was typically the modern plotlines.

It's also a weird one for me, because while I thought s1 was structured very well s2 was the season that got me personally a lot more emotionally invested. Even while I think it needed a LOT of structural work from a plot perspective. But it goes to show, sometimes you get obsessed with things, and that doesn't have anything to do with quality.

Diving a bit deeper, I think the reason s1 is a better show in terms of writing quality, the best season in terms of writing quality so far (and that we're probably going to get) likely comes down to a few things:

Season One Privilege

Season 1's are usually the best for a lot of tentpole shows nowadays. That wasn't always true. Like when I was a teen/young adult, it was a pretty normal thing to tell people you recced a show to that they would just "need to get past the first season, and then it gets really good." It was usually only once a story had the time to find its footing, figure out what its own strengths and weaknesses were in the execution, that a show started to find itself and get a lot better.

Nowadays though, networks spend tons of money on s1's if they expect something might become their big new tentpole (almost always a sequel, prequel, spinoff, or adaptation of a known commodity). The hope is that it will gain them a bunch of new subscribers, and hopefully stay just popular enough that it will continue to bring in more.

So it's clear that the first season is often when the creative teams get the most support, and the longest leash.

It's not just IWTV. A LOT of big tentpole hopefuls have a high-quality 1st season... and then start turning into kind of a bad mush in s2 and beyond. Because they want to keep people coming back, and keep online buzz high so it will make more people curious or feel fomo. In future seasons there's a lot more listening to what the loudest subset of fans are saying online, and then just trying to either give them what they want, or give them something viral to post about. The writing starts trying to respond much more to the audience, be in conversation with audience expectations, demands, ways they think they can continue to appeal to that audience. Rather than just making a good show that's in conversation with itself and its own vision. Whether this is all driven by writers, studios, or both? Might be different, show to show. Might be all one or the other. I don't have enough actual data to say. I just know it's a clear trend.

Nuance, Identity, Race, & Character Studies

Another thing is that the first season seemed to be very aware and willing to grapple with race/other aspects of identity. And how those things affected the characters and their actions. (Was identity always portrayed in a great way? No, not always. But it at least felt like an attempt was made. That they weren't scared of trying. Of talking about identity/systemic injustices by name.)

At the very least, the show gave the functional appearance of being aware of race, gender, and sexual orientation in the first season. And the complications that would cause characters to have when interacting with each other. They seemed committed to making Lestat look bad, for example, but in a way that was more human, less cartoonishly villainous than in the book. The recognition of things like identity, privilege, and how that would all affect the characters differently, made them feel a lot more like real people. Everyone felt believably flawed and connected/disconnected from each other in ways that could make you think, "oh I know this person. I've met someone who thinks just like this. Who's blind to their own flaws or the flaws of their lover just like this. Who desperately wants out of a situation just like this." Everyone had the right amount of agency for the situation they found themselves in. And what was interesting was what they did what that. What they did within the knowledge they had, and the constraints that they had, and the privilege they did or didn't have.

It was a new take on vampirism. It complicated the idea of vampirism, gave it a fresh coat of paint. And in so doing, reflected back the realities of our own world in powerful ways.

I think there was a very clear pulling back from portraying identity as a real thing that materially informs character in s2. Whether that was the studio giving them very explicit notes, or the writers realizing they like... accidentally bit off more than they expected when it came to the audience's responses? Possibly regarding race in particular? I just don't know. I really go back and forth on it, because I do think there were some warning signs even back in s1. But there were also some really good choices that seem so unlikely to have even been made, had they not been aware of the racial dynamics within the books. And then chosen to directly engage with them in, imho, smart, pointed ways.

But I just don't know what is true.

In part because they've been very cagey and very specific in terms of what information gets out or doesn't. Interviews do not bring up race, for example, and the rumor is because they basically told reporters to stop asking.

I will also say that it has felt very weird from Day 1 that that producer guy sits in on so many interviews. It's not entirely unheard of, but... it is not terribly common. He has almost nothing to say in most interviews, too; it just feels like he's like... I don't know. Watching them. Babysitting them? I'm not sure.

I'm not saying Rolin and co are perfect, I don't think they really are, and plenty of the writing issues I think can be laid down to Rolin and co at least not being skilled enough to do certain kind of writing, as I've mentioned above.

But that producer guy being there all the time is just giving me the weirdest vibes.

Twists Versus Character Moments

I would also say that in s1, all of the performances were great.

But more importantly, the show didn't really rely much on the concept of a twist ending to build momentum. Which is good because twists are what this show is just... not very good at. At ALL.

Instead of relying on the concept of a future revelation and consciously teasing a mystery that would hopefully be engaging to the reddit crowd, s1 focused much more on constructing believable internal emotional states for the characters. So that you would understand and believe why they did all the stuff they did.

Not to say even then that they didn't rely too heavily on twists. They kinda did, imo. But the emotional moments are what still stick out in people's memories and outweigh any memory of any "twist."

For example, people remember The Drop and its fallout more than they remember the moment it was revealed that "Rashid" was actually Armand, and that Louis and he were together in the present timeline. They remember the scene where Lestat begs for his life while Louis can barely bring himself to kill him, more than they remember Daniel calling him out on being dishonest + the "reveal" that he couldn't really burn the body in the end. The emotional moments that were earned by the buildup of conflict/tension throughout the entire season resulted in the actual most memorable payoffs. The highest levels of emotional engagement for the audience. Those are our takeaways, and what we tend to think of when we remember s1.

Once you get to s2, though, the show begins relying MUUUUCH more heavily on the idea, the tension, that there will be a Big Forthcoming Event Or Reveal. Suddenly people are much less engaged in what's actually happening onscreen, than they are in trying to guess what the next big twist is going to be. And on top of that, the writers seem to be intentionally trying to create tension over when shippers' favorite ship are going to have their next scene together. Rather than making sure those scenes feel earned by the characterization/relationship development.

But since Rolin and co are good at character development and terrible at constructing meaningful twists, this creates a much louder dissonance in the viewer's perception of what's really going on. What aspect of the show they're even supposed to be enjoying, expecting, rooting for. It's why there's such a fandom split in perception of s2.

Now we've gotten to s3, which is doing breakneck pacing while almost entirely relying on attempts to be cheeky and self-aware. Plus trying to do empty shock-twists again with things like the reveal of the incest. Suddenly we're getting the cliffnotes version of Lestat and Gabriella's past; now we're relying much more on being TOLD about character development, rather than allowed to EXPERIENCE the development as a character study. The writers in s3 are either being forced to or choosing (I can't entirely tell which yet) to rely on all the writing tricks they've never actually been good at. And to dump all the writing strengths they are actually good at.