X-Men "Gifted" TV show discussion and speculation

[Divine Spark]

Saw it coming with the ratings but it’s still saddens me.

[Killerbee911]

This sucks but this show made two BIG mistakes imo

1. The Strucker family was just a momentum killer of storylines and most of characters were generally unlikable most of time. When you are rooting for one of them(or all of them) die pretty much every show you know the show had a problem. They need to sideline one or more them for awhile. One of need to die way sooner to change their dynamic.

2. The mutant Underground sucked in Season 2. They were never competent enough to make a difference therefore they had no direction. So the show had no direction. It was a simple fix. Make them the X-men .Give them a good base, Give them a little resources,Have them go out of missions. That is all. Reeva freed a bunch of mutants that was an easy out. The show would have a simple direction "Mutant of the week" where the team either finds helps a mutant or fights a mutant. With mix up coming from the Inner Circle, Purifiers and Government adding complications.The Mutant of the Week is the format and larger season theme would be the Inner Circle plan. Supernatural skated to gazillion seasons with this format, Every CW show is basically this format. It works.

Also I think the move to Disney made it harder to justify coming back. Everything is getting clean slated. I am going to miss the show but the show should have been Eclipse, Polaris, Thunderbird, Blink,1 Stepford Cuckoo and 1 Strucker kid as the main characters doing X-men stuff.

[salarta]

I agree on the Strucker family remarks, and what I heard of how season 2 was handled. Regarding Stuckers, retrospectively their use and heavy focus felt way too much like thinking that emphasizing a white family was needed to get people on board. Then after season 1, I think the family stuck around mainly cause people running the show thought they had to "stick to their guns" same as how Heroes kept bending over backwards to keep its main roster.

Which, of course, brings me to how I think handling of character death was a much bigger problem for this show than people here, heavily steeped in the way comics have always done it, will think it was. People generally don't like getting into a character only for them to die out of nowhere with no good sendoff. Worse when it's clearly for shock and awe only, or to boost the remaining characters. Gifted should've learned from Heroes' mistake in this regard instead of repeating history.

[Heroine Addict]

Agree that too much focus on the Struckers--especially the parents--was ultimately a major detriment, overall. Found Reed in particular, such a bore.

... Also I think the move to Disney made it harder to justify coming back. Everything is getting clean slated. ...

Yeah, I think they're lookin' to completely eXpunge any preeXisting, live action Mutant related content. Out of sight, out of mind.

That said, thought this article provided a fairly objective POV, on things:

‘The Gifted’ Canceled By Fox After 2 Seasons; Marvel Drama Could Potentially Find New Home At Disney - Deadline

Fox has opted not to renew its sophomore drama series The Gifted for a third season. The family adventure series, set in Marvel’s X-Men universe, comes from 20th Century Fox TV, which now is part of Disney.

I hear that there have been no real conversations but there is a chance for The Gifted to find a new home within the Disney family. The show is produced by Marvel Television, which currently has series on Disney-owned Freeform and Disney-controlled Hulu. (Disney+’s Marvel series come from the company’s movie division.)

The Gifted was well received by critics, with its second season scoring even higher on Rotten Tomatoes (85% vs. 74% for Season 1.) But the drama was a soft performer in linear ratings for Fox in its second season, which wrapped in February. The Gifted‘s second season averaged a 1.1 adults 18-49 rating in Live+7, about half of its Season 1 average (2.0), and 3.3 million viewers.

Because Fox no longer has ownership in the series, linear ratings play a bigger role in the broadcast network’s renewal decisions. (Like most genre series, The Gifted does well in online viewing). ...

[khrisdrummond]

Would FX be a good home for the show??

[chamber-music]

I don't see Disney trying to save The Gifted to be honest.

The show doesn't seem to have the devoted fan base of Marvel properties such as Daredevil or Agent's Of Shield and it doesn't seem like a cheap show to make given the special effects it requires.

This sucks but this show made two BIG mistakes imo

1. The Strucker family was just a momentum killer of storylines and most of characters were generally unlikable most of time. When you are rooting for one of them(or all of them) die pretty much every show you know the show had a problem. They need to sideline one or more them for awhile. One of need to die way sooner to change their dynamic.

2. The mutant Underground sucked in Season 2. They were never competent enough to make a difference therefore they had no direction. So the show had no direction. It was a simple fix. Make them the X-men .Give them a good base, Give them a little resources,Have them go out of missions. That is all. Reeva freed a bunch of mutants that was an easy out. The show would have a simple direction "Mutant of the week" where the team either finds helps a mutant or fights a mutant. With mix up coming from the Inner Circle, Purifiers and Government adding complications.The Mutant of the Week is the format and larger season theme would be the Inner Circle plan. Supernatural skated to gazillion seasons with this format, Every CW show is basically this format. It works.

Also I think the move to Disney made it harder to justify coming back. Everything is getting clean slated. I am going to miss the show but the show should have been Eclipse, Polaris, Thunderbird, Blink,1 Stepford Cuckoo and 1 Strucker kid as the main characters doing X-men stuff.

I could understand the Struckers motivations but it did make it hard for me to root for them.

Helping a mutant of the week sounds like old school X-Factor. I don't think a formulaic approach would of lasted long either though as audiences probably would of become bored by it. CW shows have a far lower ratings bar than the big networks like Fox so it isn't really comparable.

I agree that The Mutant Underground seemed barley competent. A show killing characters occasionally to demonstrate that there are stakes and a cost to actions is fine but I feel like the Gifted went on a murder overkill in season 2. Most of the supporting cast got wiped out.

[Killerbee911]

Helping a mutant of the week sounds like old school X-Factor. I don't think a formulaic approach would of lasted long either though as audiences probably would of become bored by it. CW shows have a far lower ratings bar than the big networks like Fox so it isn't really comparable.

I agree that The Mutant Underground seemed barley competent. A show killing characters occasionally to demonstrate that there are stakes and a cost to actions is fine but I feel like the Gifted went on a murder overkill in season 2. Most of the supporting cast got wiped out.

I was just suggesting the simplest direction,I believe the subject matter of the X-men even doing formulaic approach could elevate the subject matter. Let's say they capture a mutant it is becomes whether do they turn them into the government, let them go, kill them, etc. There was clearly no small direction for the underground imo which hurt the show. The season had a perfectly fine overall season arc with Reeva and inner circle her big plan but small goal of what everyone was doing day to day wasn't there for the underground.

They wanted to show them up against the ropes but they did such a good job that the underground look inept. After the lowest point they could build them back up and they could have given us exactly what everyone came for they could have stick them in Mansion(or base), have them go on missions to save mutants and stop evil mutants, give them costumes and goofy codenames. It is was clear that they where the "X-men" even if they were just calling them the Mutant Underground. All the had to was give us X-men like stuff and we would be happy and the ratings would have been higher. I mean they drop the ball horribly we got no definitive showdown with Purifiers just a weird skirmish. We got no definitive showdown with Inner Circle. And it is not a issue of budget because the episode they rescued John was awesome with special effects, The Inner Circle had some good moments with special effects earlier as well. They could have swapped around some episode budgets and fights and we would have gotten more satisfying last couple of episodes. Wasn't everyone waiting for Polaris, Eclipse, The Strucker Twins, Thunderbird,Blink vs Reeva,The Cuckoos, Fade,The 3 recruits that brought in ?


Also I forgot the Jace storyline sucked you can't really have a sympathetic villain in a hate group and while his descent made sense he was never likable enough to connect with imo. A Black man in basically a version of the "KKK" angle was horrible. That was another story focus that wasted space imo

[MarvelMaster616]

'The Gifted' Canceled at FOX, No Season 3 Coming

Sad, but expected.

I really liked this show. It had the potential to be on the level of the Arrowverse shows. But I understand why it was canceled. The Disney/Fox merger means that Disney and Marvel are taking over all things X-Men. They're going to want to take things in a new direction, start fresh, and rebuild the brand in the Disney image. This show just wasn't going to fit that. It's disappointing, but I really enjoyed the two seasons we got. I hope we see more shows like this in the future.

[Heroine Addict]

I don't see Disney trying to save The Gifted to be honest.

The show doesn't seem to have the devoted fan base of Marvel properties such as Daredevil or Agent's Of Shield...

AoS? Wasn't it said that Disney/Marvel TV had to pressure ABC into keeping it on the air? And wasn't its poor ratings performance the reason its upcoming season was shunted to this summer, with a more limited run of reduced episodes? I mean most recently, I thought that it didn't do much better than the Inhumans, in the same time slot.

... the episode they rescued John was awesome with special effects...

... Jace storyline sucked... wasted space imo

That was the last ep I remember in any detail, pretty much.

YES, even worse than the Struckers, and that's sayin' somethin' - SO monotonous!

[pandafarmer]

I don't know, maybe if they actually made a X-Men tv show that had more roots in the comic books/animated series we'd see some viewers show up. I watched Legion because it was weird as hell, not because it actually had anything to do with actual Legion. Gifted I couldn't get past the horribly forced acting (Warpath aside). There was no one on that show I found myself caring about in the slightest.

[Jokerz79]

Agree that too much focus on the Struckers--especially the parents--was ultimately a major detriment, overall. Found Reed in particular, such a bore.



Yeah, I think they're lookin' to completely eXpunge any preeXisting, live action Mutant related content. Out of sight, out of mind.

That said, thought this article provided a fairly objective POV, on things:

‘The Gifted’ Canceled By Fox After 2 Seasons; Marvel Drama Could Potentially Find New Home At Disney - Deadline

Gifted and Agents of Shield are Apples and Oranges and I'm not a AoS fan only enjoying the latter half of Season 1 from Sif episode to finale and season 4 but while AoS was low rated it's also MCU.

Disney+ is adding Fox films and the Simpsons yet the only Marvel content is MCU related no X-Men, no FF, no DD, or Elektra. So building the episode count for a show you own that is part of a valuable property while your planning to launch a new streaming service was smart.

Gifted is a low rated show from a property about to be rebooted there is no incentive to save it for Disney especially if they're excluding non MCU Marvel films from Disney+.

[Divine Spark]

Gifted and Agents of Shield are Apples and Oranges and I'm not a AoS fan only enjoying the latter half of Season 1 from Sif episode to finale and season 4 but while AoS was low rated it's also MCU.

Disney+ is adding Fox films and the Simpsons yet the only Marvel content is MCU related no X-Men, no FF, no DD, or Elektra. So building the episode count for a show you own that is part of a valuable property while your planning to launch a new streaming service was smart.

Gifted is a low rated show from a property about to be rebooted there is no incentive to save it for Disney especially if they're excluding non MCU Marvel films from Disney+.

Gifted is not a part of the X-Men film series and Disney co-produced the show.

[Jokerz79]

Gifted is not a part of the X-Men film series and Disney co-produced the show.

One it's never been clearly stated where this series takes place with fans on this very board wondering what timeline it could be in. Two and most importantly it's not MCU the only reason to save this show would be for Disney+ and Disney+ looks to be strictly MCU when it comes to Marvel content.

I liked Gifted it had issues but could had been salvaged with some minor changes and and definitely had potential and good cast but Disney saving it makes no sense IMO.

[Theleviathan]

Why would Disney save a show that the audience was steadily bailing on?

The show stopped being reviewed by major outlets, its RT score only went up because the number of people voting went down (implying die-hards were all that was left), and none of the ways we measure viewership were positive. That's not worth investing in, they'd do just as well coming up with their own version of this concept.

[salarta]

If I was the showrunner, my pitch to get one more season or limited run would involve huge changes that effectively reset the show back to before season 1 episode 9. That's where things started derailing. I'd also try to throw in something to explain why Lorna was written as badly as I heard she was in season 2, like her mind being affected by some external factor we didn't see before to try to keep her from realizing her true potential (which also fits most of her comics history, frankly). And of course, some of shifting the Struckers to the background.

Doing all this would require some admittance that the past season and a half were full of missteps that caused viewership numbers to drop. It would be extremely unlikely for anyone to greenlight a new season if the person running it acted like everything they did was perfect and they just had the misfortune of low ratings. A powerful and sensible case would need to be made that the viewership numbers can be leagues better if given one more shot. That means acknowledging there are areas for vast improvement that have been highlighted and would be pursued with one more season.

There was a lot of promise for the show in its early to mid season 1 episodes. It's all about recapturing that promise and going a better way with it.

But, there's also the thorny issue that Disney/Marvel want to hard reset everything and wipe the slate clean. This case comes down between whether people on the show want to make waves to keep the show going, or stay quiet because they think it'll increase their chances of working on future projects. It's a gamble for them which is better. If people on the show go the former route, they'll need to do a lot of campaigning (or a fan/fan group needs to, but I don't think any exist that would do this work to the level and spread needed). This includes getting fans to be more vocal, but also convincing non-fans and people who dropped the show to join in. Non-fans and lapsed fans would be a necessity to prove that numbers can rise.