Final Space 2×10
This is the episode of Final Space I found most frustrating. It had a lot to live up to, what with the previous episode being so dramatic and heartbreaking, but instead we got… well, we got more of Sheryl being awful, which was good, a heartwarming moment between the Final Space family, and… Clarence. Most of this episode, three away from the end of the series, just after we lost a major character to something awful for the second time, just as Gary and Little Cato were supposed to be navigating new territory seemed to be about Clarence doing gross stuff with an alien squid lady. That was completely inexplicable to me until I found out why:
Everything your frustrated about is the network. We had just those two story lines and the network wanted us to cram more jokes and more Clarence in. Sorry. We actually at one point had sooooo much more Sheryl and they made us strip it down. Frustrating yes. But that’s TV, TBS wants American Dad but we’re fighting to make something very different. You’ll find out early in doing TV pick your battles. This one battle I tried to fight and we lost. Which is way it’s not one of my favorites. -Olan
That… explains a lot. Explains why unfunny Tribore stuff has been taking up valuable time the past couple of episodes, for a start. But wait. Sorry, they want this show to be American Dad? They want this beautiful, creative, passionate story about love and life and death to be the pile of racist, misogynist crap that is American Dad? The fuck. The absolute fuck. No other words, sorry. Surely the network execs can’t be that stu-
I mean the network hates episode 4 of Season 2. I thought they were going to pull the plug after seeing it.
I’M SORRY, WHAT? (For context, that episode is the third highest-rated of the whole show and the highest of season two.) I can’t get over this.
Man. As frustrating as this is for me, as a fan, it must be a million times more frustrating for Olan. I’m just relieved he was still able to make some of this episode geniunely emotional. Sheryl turning to baby Gary in his crib and saying “I wish you were never born”punched me right in the gut. And Gary’s little speech at the end made me want to run into the TV screen and just hug everyone, these lovely characters I’ve spent almost a year with now.
Final Space will never, ever, EVER be American Dad, no matter how much the executives fuck about with it.