I have a few things sitting on my chest about the state of entertainment right now, and I figured instead of complaining into the void, I would just write it all down here. None of this is a rage post, it is just a collection of things that have been quietly annoying me for a while now, so let's get into it.
Some of this is about waiting, some of it is about how things actually look and sound once they finally arrive, some of it is about who gets hired to voice what, and one of it is honestly just me admitting I am finally coming around to something I avoided for years. Let's go section by section.
Why does one season take three years now?
Severance is the one that broke me on this. Season 1 ended in April 2022, and season 2 did not premiere until January 2025. That is nearly three years for ten more episodes of a show that had already hooked everyone. Part of that gap came down to the 2023 writers' and actors' strikes, but even accounting for that, three years is a long time to keep an audience's attention on a show built around mystery and momentum.
Blue Eye Samurai might actually be worse. Season 1 dropped in November 2023, and as of now, season 2 is not expected until 2027. That is closer to four years, and the creators themselves have said the animation process alone takes an enormous amount of time to get right. I get that quality takes time, animation especially, but at some point the wait starts working against the show instead of for it. People move on. Hype fades. And when the new season finally shows up, you are basically starting from scratch trying to remember who everyone was and why you cared.
Where did all the lighting go?
Somebody needs to explain to me when it became normal for entire scenes to be so dark you cannot tell what is happening. I understand mood lighting has its place, a horror scene should feel tense, a dramatic confrontation can benefit from shadows, but there is a difference between intentional darkness and just not lighting a scene properly. Too many shows and movies lately lean on darkness as a substitute for atmosphere instead of building it, and it ends up just looking murky and cheap rather than moody.
It is frustrating because older films managed tension and atmosphere without turning the whole frame into a black screen with faint outlines moving around in it. Good lighting is a skill, and it feels like fewer productions are treating it like one these days.
And the sound dubbing has gotten worse too
This one goes hand in hand with the lighting complaint. I have noticed more and more that dialogue in movies and shows sounds muffled, or the mixing is off in a way that makes you strain to hear what characters are saying, especially during action scenes where the score and sound effects drown out the actual conversation. It should not be a struggle to understand basic dialogue in a professionally produced show. This is not a new problem exactly, but it does feel like it has gotten more common recently, and paired with the lighting issue, it makes some productions feel less polished than they actually are behind the scenes.
Celebrities need to stop voicing animated characters
Leave it to the real voice actors. I say this with my whole chest. Too many big name celebrities get cast in animated projects purely for the marquee value of their name, and most of them do not even try to shape their voice into the character, they just sound like themselves reading lines. It takes you right out of the experience.
J.K. Simmons gets a pass from me though. He voices Omni-Man in Invincible, and yes, he sounds like himself, but his voice actually carries the weight the character needs. There is a difference between an actor who sounds like themselves because their natural register happens to fit the role perfectly, and an actor who sounds like themselves because they clearly did not put in any real effort. Simmons has also voiced Kai in Kung Fu Panda 3, Mayor Lionheart in Zootopia, and the lead in Klaus, and every one of those performances actually sounds distinct from the last.
Awkwafina should never voice anything ever again, and honestly, I do not want to see her in general right now. She has voiced Sisu in Raya and the Last Dragon, Scuttle in The Little Mermaid, Chump in Migration, and Zhen in Kung Fu Panda 4, and every single one of them sounds exactly like her doing her regular voice with zero attempt at differentiation. That is the whole problem I am talking about. Give the role to someone who actually trained for voice work, someone who can disappear into a character instead of just showing up as themselves with a different name on the poster.
Okay fine, I am finally watching the MCU shows
I am putting this in writing so I actually follow through. I have avoided most of the MCU shows for years, the only ones I have actually watched are WandaVision, She-Hulk, and more recently Wonder Man. Everything else I just never cared enough to start. But something has shifted in me lately, and I am genuinely in the mood for superhero content right now, so I am finally going to work through the ones I skipped.
No real strategy yet on where I am starting, I just know the mood has hit and I am not going to fight it this time. Consider this my public commitment to actually finishing what I keep saying I will get to eventually.
Which MCU show should I actually start with, and which one should I brace myself for skipping again?
Drop your recommendation below, I am taking this seriously this time.
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