Boys and girls something truly astonishing has happened! I have been accused of not loving Teen Wolf! I know what you’re thinking, “there’s no way any one could possibly love this show more than you do Undie”. But alas I have received some complaints about the critical nature of my analysis (mainly as a result of this blog). Instead of spending this week’s Talking Teen Wolf (the last one for at least a couple of months) defending myself I am just going to use this opportunity to talk about how much I genuinely do love this show!
WARNING: unapologetic adoration of problematic things under the
cut.
Teen Wolf is the show that no one expects to love. Its sneaks up on
you when you least it expect it. It’s not something I was actively looking for
but it turned out to be exactly what I needed.
It seems that most people have a
similar experience with Teen Wolf. At
first they avoid it, I mean why would anyone want to watch a silly MTV show
about teenage werewolves? You watch as everyone around you succumbs to this
show like a highly infectious disease (or possible the zombie apocalypse… at
least that’s what it felt like for me) until you can’t take it anymore. Then in
a moment of weakness you decide to watch one episode, mostly just to prove
everyone wrong.
Then you watch Teen Wolf and it’s somehow exactly what
you expected and at the same time nothing like you expected. There is
incredibly sappy dialogue, kids that are way to attractive to be real,
hilariously blatant product placement and completely ridiculous prosthetics.
Sometimes there is nothing you can do but laugh at the silliness yet underneath
that there is something more, something indescribable. A spark of brilliance
that missing from so many contemporary teen dramas (and television in general).
It sounds kind of lame but this
show has heart. That’s not something I ever thought I would say considering my
cynical nature but it’s the only way I can think to describe it. The best part
is that Teen Wolf just got better as
it went on. Throughout the first season and into the second Teen Wolf evolved from a silly little
show with a lot of heart into one of the best supernatural dramas in recent
years.
Teen Wolf is not without it’s problems – my head often falls into
my hands as I cry ‘oh no’ when watching – but the thing is that most of the
problems come out of an effort to try something different or be something more
than just another supernatural teen drama carbon copy. That’s what I will
always love about this show; it tries. Sure sometimes it fails – spectacularly
– but the mistake are never irredeemable and I am constantly blown away by the
sheer tenacity of this silly little MTV show about teenage werewolves.
Early on the fandom started
referring Jeff Davis as a gift – kind of a play on “the bite is gift”.
Personally I think that’s a bit of a double-edged sword because on the show the
bite isn’t really a gift, in fact the only person who seems to think so is
Derek and that says a lot. I guess it kind of works though because sometimes
people are not so happy with Jeff’s choices – myself included. But like I said
above even though Jeff sometimes gets it very wrong I always feel like he’s
trying.
Jeff Davis is not deliberately problematic
or arrogantly ignorant (unlike some other popular
writers), he’s just a product of our society and he seems to try to fix
things when he receives criticisms (see Lydia and Stiles). I genuinely believe in
and appreciate the fact that he is trying to present a world that is free from
racism and homophobia and sometimes he even succeeds – Danny is an out gay man
that showers regularly with the straight male characters like it’s no big deal
(take a moment to appreciate that please).
For me Jeff Davis is a gift
because he seems to care about these characters as much as I do and despite
what you might think that is not a prerequisite for a showrunner (cough Glee cough). He doesn’t get it
right all the time (in fact he’s written some seriously questionable things)
but he tries and that’s enough to keep me watching.
On top of all that the cast are
phenomenal. Bless TPTB for taking a chance on an unknown kid called Dylan
O’Brien because that was the find of the decade. Holland Roden (who is both
beautiful and intelligent) took what could have been a horrible cliché and
helped make her one of my all time favourite characters. I will always been
impressed by the way Crystal Reed shifts from sweet girl next door to hard
hunter. I still have trouble comprehending that Derek Hale and Tyler Hoechlin
are the same person. And Tyler Posey exudes likability, which is invaluable in
a leading man (seriously even when Scott is being super annoying in Season 1
it’s impossible not to love him). I could go on about this cast all day – in
fact I often do on Twitter.
This cast also does an amazing
job of interacting with the fans even though we all know that sometimes fans
are awful people (special love to Melissa Ponzio who is not only a fantastic
actress but also seems like a lovely person that is always willing to have a
bit of fun with the fans). And if you know me at all you will know that my love
for the Teen Wolf social media team
knows no bounds. I will probably still be writing odes to their awesome when I
am on my deathbed.
There are just so many things to
love about this show like the fact that it’s pretty much the physical
manifestation of my thesis (which was about fangirls attempts to reverse the
male gaze by identifying with the gay male gaze). Also the characters are just
so intriguing – not to mention heartbreaking, I just love me some broken cuties.
And this show is a shippers dream because everyone has chemistry with everyone
and there is legitimate subtext for almost every pairing (personally I’m hoping for one
giant polyamorous relationship).
I know some of you are wondering
why I’m sometimes rather critical of this show if I love it so much. Well you
kind of answered your own question. I’m critical of this show because I care.
If I didn’t care, if I didn’t love this show, I wouldn’t bother. The reason I
complain is because when Teen Wolf is
good it’s amazing. It makes me laugh and cry and it’s entertaining as hell. So
when it falls short I get a little disappointed because I believe it can do
better – I’ve seen it do better.
Despite my complaints I love this
show warts and all and over all I loved Season 3A. The parts I hated, I really
fucking hated (cough Visionary cough).
But like I said above Teen Wolf is
constantly pushing the boundaries of the show people expect it to be and it
continued to do that this season. Actually 3A had some of my favourite episodes
of Teen Wolf ever - “Chaos Rising”,
“Frayed” and “The Overlooked”. Even the episodes I didn’t love had great
moments (yes even “Fireflies” and “Visionary”).
Look Teen Wolf isn’t perfect (what is?) but there is just something
about this show that burrows under your skin and carves out a place in your
heart. Before you know it you’re trying to understand the rules of lacrosse (I
still don’t get it, I gather it’s like field hockey but the sticks have nets),
crying over semi-functional single parent families and wondering why people
keep going outside at night considering the number of mysterious deaths in that
town.
Anyway just to put the nail into
the coffin of this sap-fest I wanted to thank you guys for joining me on this
journey through Teen Wolf Season 3A.
It’s been great fun having so many awesome people to share this silly little
MTV show about werewolves with. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one that succumbed
to its charms. We’re all in this together as we scream: “this was just supposed
to be a trashy show about werewolves”.
As I said at the beginning this
will be the last Talking
Teen Wolf for a while (it will probably be back mid December when
preparations for 3B are in full swing). I’ll still be blogging, so feel free to
stop by, I’m just taking a break from Teen
Wolf so I’m fully recharged and refreshed when the new episodes begin. But
because I am a lovely person I’m going to post a guide to surviving the hiatus later
this week in the hopes that all of you will make it through the break and be
back with me in January.
Till then, keep howling Teen Wolf fans.
