Board Thread:Young Justice News/@comment-47881-20130128165351/@comment-5624498-20130130052258

Quite a bit of discussion... I'll just toss out a few random thoughts.


 * I remember watching the commentary about the Justice League series and how the creators originally believed they were going to get a two-season run, 26 episodes per season, so they wrote it as such. And like YJ, I thought JL got better from its first to its second season and it was a show that got darker as it went along, clearly with an older audience in mind. Don't know what spurned CN to say they wanted two more seasons' worth of shows, others are free to comment on that. But considering that JL was originally set to get a two-season run, it's not surprising to me that YJ looks like it's getting the same.


 * The biggest issue with any animated series aimed at an older audience is for the network to find a way to make money off it through merchandising. The DVDs and iTunes episodes sell well but, as has been mentioned, the YJ toys didn't last long. Really, any older person is going to be more interested in a collector's action figure, not a simple toy.


 * What I like about YJ is how its story arcs through an entire season progress and how so many details are right before you about where the story will go, but you don't realize it immediately. With that being said, it can be one of those shows that's harder for people to jump right into midway through a season, particulary when it changes time slots or goes on a sudden hiatus. Two shows that come to mind in this vein: Firefly and Max Headroom -- both shows that I bought the DVD sets and both which followed a similar pattern as YJ.


 * Don't know if reruns would ever end up on the Hub, which airs past WB shows, including the "Animated Series" of Batman and Superman. I wouldn't say that means new episodes of YJ would run there... but given that Hub is not owned by Time Warner, who knows what might be possible.

But it isn't surprising that an animated series aimed at an older audience is a tougher sell to CN, who wants to appeal to the 6 to 11 demographic. Thundercats has been mentioned already, the new He-Man show that aired on CN got yanked just as it was getting into its groove (and entering a storyline clearly with an older audience in mind), Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. is another one aimed at older fans and it's been getting yanked around. Honestly, I'm surprised CN still has an interest in Total Drama, although I guess they are content with a show aimed at an older audience when it's only aired briefly, then off the air for a while (granted, CN doesn't own Total Drama, just the broadcast rights in the United States). And while it didn't air on CN, Wolverine and the X-Men didn't get the second season it was promised, and that's another series that had an older audience in mind.

Anyway... unless CN is simply keeping YJ as a fallback option should New Teen Titans and Beware the Batman fail to generate audiences, the best hope may be for Greg, Brandon and company to get into producing direct-to-DVD movies, as the DCAU crew has been doing... and that's where Time Warner is more than happy to go after the older audience, given that those movies deal with darker, more mature themes and it's easy to make a profit there.

If it really is over, it's been a fun ride... and if it really isn't over, we'll see what develops.