The one thing you can say about the constant "E--n P-x" chanting was that it did give some believability to Goliath going after the guy in a murderous rage. Look at the effect it had on the audience!

From a dramatic point of view, the main problem with keeping the "anti-gargoyle bigotry" going after "Angels in the Night" would be to find new spokespeople for it to replace Margot and Castaway (who wouldn't feel like desperate copies of them).
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Sun, May 8, 2016 9:16:36 pm EDT from 68.231.85.113

"think they could have gone for an open ended finale that let the Clan have some kinda big victory without destroying all prejudice and bigotry in one fell swoop."

Who's to say they did? I guess I get confused why people interpret "a few people on a train accept the gargoyles" as "destroying all prejudice and bigotry." They won over their most prominent critic, Margot Yale, and defeated the leader of the Quarreymen, but who says there wouldn't still be prejudice against them in the future?
Jurgan - [jurgan6 at yahoo dot com]
posted @ Sun, May 8, 2016 8:10:11 pm EDT from 75.166.68.229

To my mind, the only objectively awful episode of TGC was "To Serve Mankind." The endless chanting of "Egon Pax" was either painful or laughable or both. Most of the others are okay, just badly out-of-character. And the lack of character development and "status quo is God" was a problem, especially since one of the most unusual things about Gargoyles was how things changed over time.
Jurgan - [jurgan6 at yahoo dot com]
posted @ Sun, May 8, 2016 8:01:14 pm EDT from 75.166.68.229

Greg Weisman indicated that "The Goliath Chronicles" was a desperate close-to-last-moment scheduling for ABC, which would certainly explain a lot.

At least they didn't end it by killing off the clan (though, as I mentioned before, Standards and Practices would have protested too much against that if they'd tried it).
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Sat, May 7, 2016 10:23:09 pm EDT from 68.231.85.113

Honestly even as an independent 13 episode series I thought that Goliath chronicles was kind of clumsy. Basic things like proper story structure and direction were just ignored. Like you don't even need to go into the deeper character stuff to criticize TGC. There are way more basic problems.

Granted it feels like a show that was made cheaply and quickly. So there were probably other factors.
Aldrius
posted @ Sat, May 7, 2016 2:39:00 am EDT from 99.241.183.248

<<though I suspect that the new production team weren't as passionate about the series as Greg Weisman>>

That's a given.
Greg Bishansky
posted @ Fri, May 6, 2016 10:06:29 am EDT from 73.253.198.139

It was probably one of those "I think I read somewhere" cases - though the person who mentioned that did so long before the comment room archives began, so we can't check up on his or her statement now.

It's a pity we don't know more about the "behind-the-scenes" details of "The Goliath Chronicles", though I suspect that the new production team weren't as passionate about the series as Greg Weisman was, and wouldn't have bothered remembering as much.
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Fri, May 6, 2016 8:40:56 am EDT from 68.231.85.113

TODD> <<I've wondered about that as well. Some years ago, somebody in the comment room (I forget who) mentioned a rumor that they were originally going to do more with Demona, but some higher-up at Disney forbade it, arguing that the character was too violent.>>

I remember that rumor and I don't believe it. Didn't believe it then, don't believe it now. Were it the case, one of two things would have happened.

1. They wouldn't have been allowed to use her at all.
2. She'd have been toned down.

It's been a while since I've seen the episode, so maybe she was toned down. I don't recall her using an firearms in the episode. But I don't think laser guns were taboo for TGC.
Greg Bishansky
posted @ Fri, May 6, 2016 2:17:16 am EDT from 73.253.198.139

ALGERNON - That's one possibility. ("The Journey" might have fallen in that category with Vinnie - though that's not on the same scale as Senator Kelly's change of heart.) Maybe that's how the ending of "Angels in the Night" should have been done.
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Thu, May 5, 2016 8:30:59 pm EDT from 68.231.85.113

TODD> I think they could have gone for an open ended finale that let the Clan have somekinda big victory without destroying all prejudice and bigotry in one fell swoop.

Closest analogy I can think is how the first season of the '90s X-Men toon ended with Senator Kelly going from anti to pro mutant rights. Obviously we know from later seasons it didn't do away broader mutophobia by a long shot, but it let the first season end on a hopeful note at least.
Algernon
"I die reconciled to God and to man." ~Cayetano Ripoll
posted @ Thu, May 5, 2016 2:38:17 pm EDT from 93.107.253.232

BISHANSKY - Thank you.

MATTHEW - Yes - a problem which meant that there was no lasting progress in the human/gargoyle relations until the end of the series (making its conclusion all the more unlikely).

I suspect that the new production team changed the approach out of fear that the episodes might be aired out of order (and they might indeed have done; I saw a "press release" document giving summaries of the "Goliath Chronicles" episodes that placed them in a different order than the airing order) and that it would be safer to avoid any permanent changes as a result. (An understandable fear, in light of the problems the original production team had with "Enter Macbeth"'s scheduling in the first season.)
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 8:24:12 pm EDT from 68.231.85.113

Artemis didn't exactly cut her hair. She's always had it in a long ponytail. But people use the term "hair cut" for any slightest change in a hair style even if it hasn't. http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?qid=20872
Green Lantern's Nightlight
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 7:09:34 pm EDT from 92.233.93.177

TGC was a horrifying mistake. End of story.
Green Lantern's Nightlight
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 7:08:01 pm EDT from 92.233.93.177

Truthfully, Todd, I've always felt that you put more thought into TGC than the people who actually made TGC.
Greg Bishansky
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 4:36:11 pm EDT from 73.253.198.139

The main problem with the Goliath Chronicles is that it runs smack dab into the "Status Quo is God" trope when everything is set back to normal by the beginning of the next episode. Leaving the big lasting changes for the season finales.
The simple truth is that Gargoyles never had a status quo to begin with, every episode brought something new or elaborated on the preexisting. This is what made it different from most shows made at the time and most shows made today, they feel less like episodes in a season and more like chapters in a book.
Matthew
"Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!"-Puck
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 2:24:30 pm EDT from 71.202.80.122

I've wondered about that as well. Some years ago, somebody in the comment room (I forget who) mentioned a rumor that they were originally going to do more with Demona, but some higher-up at Disney forbade it, arguing that the character was too violent. (Though the same criticism could be made of the Quarrymen as portrayed in "The Goliath Chronicles".)

But, yes, the situation demanded a more prominent role for Demona - who, I imagine, would be confronting Goliath with a tone of "We wouldn't have to be worrying about all those humans trying to kill us if *somebody* hadn't smashed the Praying Gargoyle and ruined my plan to deliver us from them."

And I still think that one of the biggest flaws of "Generations" was having all the humans in that episode (the man in the invisibility suit, the Quarrymen, the woman pretending to be robbed as a bait for a trap) be anti-gargoyle - and not even honestly mistaken, but scheming and treacherous - without even a hint of Elisa or any other human who's accepted the gargoyles. It makes Demona, for all her own duplicity, seem to have a more realistic perception of humans than Goliath - which is obviously not the impression you want to give the audience.
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 8:46:20 am EDT from 68.231.85.113

Ultimately, if you were going to do a third season in which gargoyle-human relations were as much a focal point as TGC did, with the Quarrymen as the main villain, then the missing element was Demona. I will never understand why she was only in one episode. The whole thing baffles me. She's a natural fit for a story line like that. She wouldn't have been forced in to the thing, not in the same way as, say, Proteus would have been.

If I could ask the TGC production team one question about the story they chose to tell that season, that would be it.
Greg Bishansky
posted @ Wed, May 4, 2016 1:47:37 am EDT from 73.253.198.139

Something that's I've been thinking of for a while - and please forgive me for a post on "The Goliath Chronicles".

We've discussed the contrived feeling of "Angels in the Night" before, and also the original proposed ending (the gargoyles giving up and leaving Manhattan), which we were grateful was not used (even if the ending they did use had its own problems). Both were clearly poor ways of concluding the "Goliath Chronicles". But it occurred to me that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a convincing ending to "The Goliath Chronicles" - that its production team was caught in a trap of its own making.

The new production team made the whole season revolve almost exclusively around the gargoyles being hated and feared by the human New Yorkers, hunted by the Quarrymen, etc. Furthermore, they never seemed to be making any progress. Even if they moved forward in one episode, in the next, almost everyone in Manhattan would have gone back to hating them again without a word of explanation (not to mention the Quarrymen never suffering the likely public image problems that should have realistically ensued from such acts as firing off heavy artillery downtown). The season was made to revolve around a specific goal that could not be achieved until the season ended, because its achievement would end the story. (A bit like one of those series where someone - or a group of people - is trapped in another world or time period and trying to get back home; they always have to fail because their return home would end the series.)

Under those circumstances, the season finale was going to have problems. The production team had clearly guessed (correctly) that there wasn't likely to be another season after this one, so they'd have to resolve the story in this one. And so that doesn't leave them with too many options.

The way that the public kept backsliding into racial hatred between episodes would have to mean that these people (with one or two exceptions, who'd always be heavily outnumbered) were never going to accept the truth about the gargoyles, would keep on hating them, making the ending we got in "Angels in the Night" feel forced. But having the gargoyles give up and run away would not only not fit their character (certainly not Goliath's - we saw how stubborn he was leaving their original protectorate when it was just an old stone castle; think of how even more unwilling he'd be to abandon a protectorate that was a living community), but feel dramatically unsatisfying - the heroes just desert Manhattan, leaving it to the mercy of their rogues' gallery. (Granted, DC's animation did have Batman do something similar a year or two later, but to begin a series rather than to end it.) Having the gargoyles get killed (even a heroic death, sacrificing themselves to save the city) would have never made it past Standards and Practices, though it might have been the most realistic outcome. (Well, maybe it could have been accepted by Standards and Practices if the gargoyles weren't killed so much as trapped in stone sleep again, with the possibility of being awakened again in another thousand years.)

So no matter what the production team came up with, the season finale would be unsatisfactory - because of the direction they'd chosen for the season. It was a problem forced upon them by their original misjudgement - make the season revolve around the gargoyles' quest for acceptance.

From what we've seen of Greg Weisman's own plans (including the glimpse in "Clan-Building"), we know that he'd intended much more variety for the third season, with the Quarryman problem being just one of several threads (and even the Quarryman thread would have been more complex, I suspect, than it wound up being, in light of such matters as Castaway's true identity and the Illuminati's involvement) - which would mean that the season finale under him (whatever it would have been) would have been more open-ended, maybe making significant changes to the gargoyles' lives (as both "Re-Awakening" and "Hunter's Moon" did), but in a more convincing way, and not a case of "series goal achieved, so now it's over".

Indeed, the way that Greg ended "The Journey", with Goliath telling Elisa about how he'd been "waiting for my clan to arrive at some kind of final destination", but had come to understand that it was the journey that was most important, proclaimed that "Gargoyles" was meant to be an ongoing series with no concrete goal which, once fulfilled, would end the story. If only the new production team had paid more attention to those words....
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Tue, May 3, 2016 8:51:08 pm EDT from 68.231.85.113

Agnimon, Lobomon, Blitzmon, Fairymon, Chakmon, Lowemon, Grottemon, Ranamon, Arbormon, and Mercuremon!
Masterdramon - [kmc12009 at mymail dot pomona dot edu]
"If man won't kill God...THE DEVIL WILL DO IT!" - Lex Luthor
posted @ Tue, May 3, 2016 1:32:59 pm EDT from 75.85.71.80

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die.
Algernon
"I die reconciled to God and to man." ~Cayetano Ripoll
posted @ Tue, May 3, 2016 12:50:09 pm EDT from 109.79.197.132

lnx/ln2=3. Find x.
Paul - [nampahcfluap at yahoo dot com]
posted @ Tue, May 3, 2016 7:48:28 am EDT from 73.176.251.27

Seventh!
Chip - [Sir_Griff723 at yahoo dot com]
If you've ever taken a road trip through the Pacific northwest, you've probably seen a bumper sticker for a place called Gravity Falls. It's not on any maps, and most people have never heard of it. Some people think it's a myth. But if you're curious, don't wait. Find it. It's out there somewhere in the woods. Waiting.
posted @ Tue, May 3, 2016 2:53:18 am EDT from 97.91.211.217

SIXTH!

Any word/sign that this Wednesday is still the day we're expecting the Gargoyles Cinestory to be released?
Phoenician
"The suspense is terrible, I hope it lasts" -- Willy Wonka
posted @ Tue, May 3, 2016 12:38:02 am EDT from 68.231.102.71

I on the other hand will NOT plead the fifth.
Matthew
"Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!"-Puck
posted @ Mon, May 2, 2016 9:08:13 pm EDT from 71.202.80.122

Fourth!
Matt - [Saint Louis, Missouri, USA]
posted @ Mon, May 2, 2016 6:09:27 pm EDT from 99.153.193.91

Three, three, the rivals
Todd Jensen
Hufflepuffs are really good finders
posted @ Mon, May 2, 2016 9:50:49 am EDT from 68.231.85.113

I'll second that.
Brainiac - [OSUBrainiac at gmail dot com]
There is balance in all things. Live in symmetry with the world around you. If you must blow things up and steal from those around you, THAT'S WHAT RPGS ARE FOR!
posted @ Mon, May 2, 2016 9:36:30 am EDT from 104.129.196.116

One(1st)First!
Vinnie - [tpeano29 at hotmail dot com]
posted @ Mon, May 2, 2016 1:08:20 am EDT from 108.198.141.173