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Anonymous writes...
Hi Greg - YJ is a great show that obviously resonates with a lot of people. But sometimes I feel like the writers don't realize why people love the show so much.
I think most people got hooked on the character development and world-building of Season 1. Seeing our favorite comic characters reimagined in this unique universe you've created. The rest of the seasons have been more focused on driving the plot forward, at the expense of character. The time skip disappointed a lot of people because years of character development and interactions happened off screen. And as the cast got bigger, it became clear that only some characters were going to get screentime while others were basically scenery. This was also disappointing for the fans of characters that were introduced in later seasons; especially for characters that have never been properly portrayed in DC media like Cassie, Tim, Cissie, Cassandra, Stephanie, etc. I wanted to see all of them get the same type of treatment the Season 1 cast got, but there are so many characters that we barely know anything about. And with the time skips, we may never get to know them because the writers have decided they're not important for the plot.
I remember lots of fans gave you this type of feedback during Season 2, and you tbh you were kind of dismissive about it and then doubled down on the approach in Season 3. I know this is ultimately your show, but I wish you would take the feedback from the fans who fell in love with it.
Greg responds...
Hi, Anonymous. I don't mean to be dismissive. But at the end of the day, I don't see HOW we could possibly satisfy your criteria.
I mean think about it. If this were a quote-unquote "normal show," we'd have stuck with our original six characters with no time skips. You'd never have even SEEN Cassie, Tim, Cissie, Cassandra and Stephanie, let alone gotten any character development for them. By season four, we'd still be in the middle of the first time skip. You'd have Raquel. Zatanna. Maybe Troia and Garth. Maybe Jason. But we wouldn't have even touched on the names on your list.
And I don't agree that we sacrificed character development in Seasons Two and Three for plot. Those seasons were indeed plot driven, in the sense that who we focused on was driven by plot. Hence, S2 gave Jaime a lot of focus that he hasn't had since. And S3 gave Garfield a lot of focus. Etc. But each season was, I think, objectively rich in character development. But just not for the characters that you personally were most interested in seeing developed. And I am 100% sure that there are many, many fans who would chose the exact same characters as you for their development preferences. But there are also many, many fans who would only pick some of the characters you listed and substitute other choices for the ones they don't care so much about. And many, many fans who would have an entirely different list from yours. There's literally no way to satisfy everyone. And so when you say we should listen to fan feedback, whose should we listen to? Yours? Some other fan who has a different set of priorities?
In the end, we can't listen to anyone except ourselves. We have to be passionate about the show, or else we can't expect anyone else to be passionate about it. We just have to cross our fingers and hope that our preferences resonate with as many fans as possible. So far, that's worked out pretty well for us. Though there have been plenty of fans who haven't been thrilled, and many who are downright disgruntled with us. Such is life. Again, that's not me being dismissive. It's me being realistic.
And, in any case, with the obvious exception of Wally, if your primary interest was in the original group (i.e. Dick, Kaldur, Conner, M'gann and Artemis), then I think the time skips have aided us in developing these five characters to a greater degree than we could have done without them. Again, without them, you'd have never seen Kaldur go from Aqualad to Aquaman. You'd have never seen him go undercover with Black Manta. You'd have never seen him with Wynnde, etc. We'd still be stuck in a perennial Season One mode. There'd be some character development of course, but nothing near the level we've been able to bring to you across our four seasons.
And in any case, season four is extremely character focused and on the seven characters shown in the season's main title: Dick, Kaldur, Conner, M'gann, Artemis, Raquel and Zatanna. Those seven might not be your first choice for development, and I can understand that. But five of those seven have been our leads since the beginning, so per your own argument, that's who we SHOULD be focused on.