Titans: Season 4 (Final)

 

Based on: Based on: DC's Teen Titans comics by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani

Developed by: Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns, & Greg Berlanti

Starring: Brenton Thwaites (Dick Grayson/Nightwing), Anna Diop (Koriand'r), Teagan Croft (Rachel Roth/Raven), Ryan Potter (Gar Logan/Beast Boy), Joshua Orpin (Conner Kent/Superboy), Jay Lycurgo (Tim Drake/Robin), Franka Potente (Mother Mayhem), Joseph Morgan (Brother Blood)

Titans season 4 trailer: 

Being a live-action adaptation of many of my very favorite DC characters, I really wanted to love this show.... 

It started out quite promising. I gave season 1 a glowing review on Facebook (before this blog's time, I think) because it set up a lot of awesome stuff, and my hopes at that time were sky high. But I'm very sad to say that... upon the season 2 premiere, and onward for the remainder of the entire series, it was just... not great. 

Before I talk about what I didn't like about the series, I'll focus on what I did. The acting and visuals were all great. Every character looked more or less how I imagined them. (With the exception of some season 1 odd costuming.) Every character maintained the spirit of how they were in the 2000s Teen Titans animated series from my childhood. Starfire traded a bit of her excitable optimism for sass, but I thought that worked. Major events, locations, and characters seemed to be taken from the comics too, and that was great. It was especially great when major side characters came in for major roles in different seasons, like Superboy and Wonder Girl (Conor Leslie). Of course, I'm referring to the series as a whole. 

Beast Boy, Starfire/ Nightwing, Robin, and white Raven gearing up to attack

The team deals with a Superboy who is increasingly influenced by his Luthor DNA

But for me what really hurt the show was.... the writing. At the end of season 1, the producers decided to leave us on a cliffhanger and instead wrap up season 1's plot in season 2's premiere. It sounded like a super cool idea, but I thought it was executed.... terribly. It had the effect of making the season 1 finale feel rushed, anticlimactic, and unearned, with no real emotional sacrifice, resolution, or gain. Then the big battle was pushed aside in favor of ushering in season 2's plots. 

Although that kind of plot move--shifting one season's finale into another's premiere--only happened the one time, the emotional stakes (and the lack thereof) remained consistent, in my opinion, over the entire series. I'll try not to delve too much into other seasons with the interest of staying focused on the fourth and final. But I'll just say that all throughout, I never felt a strong emotional connection to any one character or what they were going through. The stakes never felt major or personal. Villains came and went, and worse, major characters (Wonder Girl, Rose Wilson (Chelsea Zhang)) came and went without much fanfare or explanation. There were even multiple plot-points that felt... abandoned. A friend of Raven's from a shelter was introduced and made to feel significant, then never seen again. A stranger approached Dove (Minka Kelly) in one scene and threatened violence against her--but neither the stranger nor her threat was referenced again. 

Season 4 didn't have any unaddressed plot points, but it certainly didn't resolve any from earlier seasons, either. But it still maintained the flaws of the previous seasons: Mother Mayhem and Brother Blood were introduced as our primary antagonists, though I never felt a strong reason to fear or hate what they represented, neither to the show nor its characters. I knew the Titans would defeat them, but the show never brought me to care exactly how. And true to my lack of care, they were indeed defeated--and nothing was really lost or gained by any Titan, to my understanding. The plot also brought back Trigon, Raven's father, who she defeated rather easily in season 2's premiere. It felt fairly laughable that this world-ending Trigon, a character who easily defeated all Titans (except Raven) and dominated the world in the animated series. was fairly easily defeated by Raven in season 2 and then killed even more easily by Brother Blood in this season. It made me really unsure how to feel about these characters and what the show wanted me to consider was a challenge or deadly. 

Mother Mayhem, whose goal is to bring back Trigon

Raven bonding with Brother Blood at the beginning of the season, when they believe he's an ally

So with these issues, why even write about this show? Why keep watching and why write a review in a blog that's meant to be full of compliments? Because I still enjoyed it. As a writer myself, I want to be clear about the show's unfortunately significant flaws, but I still watch these shows for enjoyment and entertainment, and it brought me both. 

Almost entirely, it was for the characters. Raven and Starfire are two of my most favorite characters in all of DC and this show was my first (and only) chance to see them in live action. Teagan Croft and Anna Diop portrayed them excellently, and I loved every moment of that. I still have complaints about how they were written, mostly in terms of their power and feeling nerfed--but I think I've done quite enough complaining. I loved almost every character, and the ones I didn't, I wasn't supposed to. I loved watching them grow in the ways that they did, especially Nightwing and Raven gaining confidence in who they were. I loved seeing them tackle different situations and bring on new people into their team. 

To me, watching these characters in live action and the great performances by all their actors made everything else worth it.