by Sam H.
There’s no way to sugarcoat this: Titans is an awful show. Of course, I’m not the first to say this. I think the majority of people who have watched Titans have issues with the show; even the fans have their critiques. However, HBO still renewed the show for a fourth season, which is currently filming, most likely due to the massive demand for the show.
Before I continue, I would like to say that I recognize that the cast, writers, and crew worked incredibly hard on this show and that none of these criticisms are intended to discredit their effort.
Some people hope that after three shaky seasons, Titans will finally find its footing in the upcoming season. Unfortunately, I am one of those people. However, I also want to investigate the show’s flaws and see if any of them are addressed in the upcoming season. So, I will be using some of the points I brought up in my article comparing my favorite DC shows and my least favorite Marvel shows to analyze Titans. Again, I will approach the show from the perspective of a TV-show watcher rather than a comics or DC fan. (Be warned: there will be spoilers for all three seasons of the show below.)
Character Development
I still firmly believe that superhero shows should focus heavily on character development considering that the show is usually named after the hero or, in this case, the superhero team. Having solid character development is essential for viewers to empathize with the heroes and weaving complete arcs for the characters that are intertwined with the plotline is what elevates a good show to a great show.
Although the show introduces Rachel Roth (Raven) first, it mostly focuses on Dick Grayson, specifically his journey from leaving the mantle of Robin behind and becoming Nightwing. It takes him until the end of season two to achieve this, which wouldn’t be an issue if he hadn’t continuously denounced the title of Robin and expressed how much he loathed Batman in the first season, only to continue to engage in the violent tactics Bruce had taught him. And in the second season, he talks to Bruce without really expressing any frustration with him, even though the first season’s finale concluded with Dick brutally murdering Bruce Wayne in his Trigon-induced dreamscape.
Season two concludes with Dick giving a speech to the team about why they need to stick together. He even goes so far as to call them a family. But at the beginning of season three, Dick abandons everyone to chase after Red Hood because… of guilt? He even goes so far as to knock out Conner Kent, Superboy and the only person who had been with him after the Scarecrow put a bounty on the Titans’ heads, by blowing Kryptonite dust in his face (yes, apparently that’s a thing) so he can talk to Jason alone.
Even though season one centered on Rachel and how she had discovered her powers, she was heavily sidelined in later seasons, though there have been rumors that this was a result of some behind-the-scenes conflicts. Though her transition from one of the main characters to a recurring character in season three was gradual, her absence for the majority of season three was a dramatic, noticeable downgrade from her involvement in the series. The character development she went through in season one seemed to
Kory Anders (Starfire) is actually pretty interesting, considering that her journey of self-discovery involves literally finding out who she is and what her life was like before coming to Earth. But as with every other character’s arc, the show fumbles and fails to realize the full potential of her story, and her lackluster development leaves viewers wishing that she was
While he often provides much-needed comedic relief to alleviate the unnecessarily grungy tone of the series, Gar Logan (Beast Boy) often is tacked onto other plotlines. His character growth is so stunted that he’s unable to shift into a non-tiger animal until halfway through season three (he morphs into a snake in “Trigon” briefly but isn’t able to change into another non-tiger animal consciously until later on). He’s also constantly being mistreated by the Titans, whether consciously (such as Dick leaving him alone in the Titans’ base to take care of Conner alone) or unconsciously (all the Titans took turns beating him up when Trigon had controlled them), and barely has time to process the traumatic events he gets put through (for example, getting his brain cut open and being reprogrammed to kill people).
Jason Todd’s journey from being Robin to turning into Red Hood doesn’t feel like a journey at all, considering that his anger and resentment seems to have always been present when he was Robin and breaking the backs of policemen.
The size of the cast doesn’t help either. Hawk and Dove are interesting characters, but they really don’t contribute much to the show as a whole. Their stories would have been better served as a spin-off instead of being thrown in the mix of the already convoluted plot and inconsistent character development in the series. I adore Donna Troy, but her character would have worked better if she wasn’t on screen as much. She would have been better off as a recurring character who pops up for a few episodes per season as her character is barely developed despite the fact that she has been considered as part of the main cast.
And as much as I love Conner Kent and Tim Drake, they also were both shoehorned into the show and the opportunity to expand on their intriguing characters – especially Tim since the Titans version of Tim is completely different from the comics – but since the show tries to simultaneously focus on too many characters at once, they barely get the screen time they deserve.
I actually don’t mind semi-standalone episodes such as “Jericho”, “Conner”, and “Hank & Dove”, which are actually a few of the highest-rated episodes of the show on IMDB, most likely because they are able to accomplish effective and meaningful characterization better than in other episodes. Of course, the show can’t only be comprised of this kind of episode, but these episodes demonstrate that the show can portray characters, without the interference of a confusing plot, in a way that allows the audience to sympathize with the heroes, which actually brings me to my next point:
Plotlines
Drama shows often grapple with the issue of stretching out the plot for an unnecessarily long time or adding more plot points for the sake of keeping the show alive, and Titans has struggled with this since its inception. It’s hard to keep track of the plot, especially when dispensable events are thrown into the mix (for example, the random guy stealing Hawk’s suit in “Faux-Hawk” was never even mentioned again after the episode).
Even though there’s an overarching plot for each season, defeating the villains, it’s needlessly dragged out to the point where the villains start getting tiresome. The show’s first season doesn’t even introduce the villain, Trigon, until the later few episodes and he gets killed off rather quickly, wasting hours of buildup. The second season focuses on Deathstroke and the third focuses on the Scarecrow – both villains have promising potential at the beginning but their presence starts feeling tedious as the plot progresses.
But out of all the seasons, season three, the most recent season, is arguably the biggest mess. Four characters died (Hank, Tim, Dick, and Jason), and four characters were brought back to life (Donna, Tim, Dick, and Jason). Reviving characters is the TV show equivalent of “it was all a dream” endings in stories — it’s eye-rollingly tiring, especially when it’s done not only once, but four times in one season. Bringing characters back to life is extremely frustrating because it disqualifies the impact of their deaths. Killing off so many characters for the sake of evoking an emotional response from the audience is also a terrible tactic, especially when the deaths are ridiculous.
Donna Troy, Wonder Girl, has fought off supervillains ever since she was a child and gets killed by an electrical tower. Even though Rachel went to Themyscira to see if she could revive her, it seemed like an obvious ploy to sideline her character by giving her something to kill time with. Dick Grayson, the main character of the show, gets shot and killed by a nameless extra. Tim Drake meets the Titans and gets killed in the very same episode. Jason’s offscreen death and revival, which is later elaborated on in “Lazarus”, falls flat and fails to achieve any emotional effect despite the several scenes of the team reflecting on his death. The only meaningful death is Hank’s because he actually stays dead.
Honestly, after having watched so many seasons of the show, I’ve learned to basically ignore the plot of the show, which is never a good sign for a show that’s considered a drama. But it’s impossible to make it through all three seasons of Titans by actively thinking about the convoluted plot that I haven’t even bothered to completely explain in this section as doing so would give me a pounding headache, which seems unavoidable considering that the next section explores:
Consistency
Titans has some consistency in that it starts every season with a promising episode that sets up the chance for the series to improve as the season progresses. But every time, without fail, the quality of the show peters out with every new episode, ending with a disappointing finale that leaves people gaping at their TV or computer screens wondering why they sat through over ten hours of an entire season just to watch it accumulate to a disappointing conclusion.
The consistency between seasons is a nightmare. The season one finale is a disaster within itself as the second season’s first episode was actually meant to be the first season’s finale. But more generally, the show is terrible at mentioning one-season recurring characters. Though Rose and Jericho had played a massive role in season two, they aren’t mentioned at all in season three, seemingly having randomly disappeared without so much of an explanation or throwaway line.
Still, the most noticeable issue with consistency is the decline in the quality of episodes within each season. Season three had a promising start as the team had actually fought together and there were promises that they might actually work together, but they eventually split up and barely interact during the rest of the season. In fact, the lack of teamwork is a glaring issue that contributes to this problem.
The show is called Titans, but the characters rarely fight together as the Titans, often getting involved in their own sidequests, the show’s obvious and failed attempts at building up the characters, that only waste opportunities to focus on the team dynamics. In fact, the team probably spends more time running away from each other and arguing than they do bonding and fighting alongside each other.
That’s why Titans attempting to follow a traditional drama TV show format, which mostly focuses on characters’ development separate from each other and rarely delves deep into team dynamics to the depth that workplace sitcoms often do, doesn’t work. The show is at its best when the Titans are working together and when characters have enough space to develop without overlapping with another character’s self-discovery journey for the sake of the plot, but the moments that the show achieves this are often in the beginning episodes of the seasons before the characters branch off and the plot declines in quality rapidly as it tries to keep up with all the characters’ different storylines.
Though I mainly explored the show through these three main points, there are many issues that I did not address, such as the blue filter that darkens the coloring of the show so much that even when I have maximum brightness on my laptop screen, I still can’t tell what’s happening in a fight scene – there’s also the issue of the offputting CGI that’s so jarringly unrealistic that it pulls audiences out of the story and ruins the viewing experience.
But, like every other Titans fan who has complained about the show, I will be seated for season four, excitedly waiting to see what this shitshow has to offer next. All this is to say that if Titans is good for anything, it serves as the perfect example of a show with great potential maimed by terrible execution.
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