girl under the floor

Must be
I have a hard time understanding as well

ollibear

I have a difficult time understanding, too.

If it's truly laziness on their part, then that is so sad. Sometimes I wonder if the people in the driver's seat, on their writing team, didn't push everyone to go darker and more gritty and realistic than they really needed to go.

I keep remembering how our school librarian said that during World War II, everyone took a break from creating horror fiction. No horror was published during that time period, because what was happening in the world was horrific enough.

Well, we've got some pretty big horrors going on in the world today, too. And since I found Switched at Birth in August of 2012, I have needed the show to provide some uplifting moments.

It's not that I disagree with the writers' decision to allow some bad things to happen. But I do disagree with the writers choosing to go to such dark places and make nearly all of the characters unlikable.

Daphne went from a character I admired to someone I cannot respect. She used Bay, when she allowed Bay to take the fall for her crimes. She disregarded her best friend Emmett. She treated her mother with contempt and broke the law numerous times.

Emmett cheated on Bay and then coldly abandoned her at the lowest moment of her life. And he made a movie about it. I adore Emmett, and it's difficult for me to accept that.

Regina lied about the switch for 13 years and then never made an effort with Bay, once others discovered it. Even when Bay begs her, in tears, Regina remains blind.

John and Kathryn are not bad human beings, but I do not admire them as individuals. I appreciate that John provides for a family, although the money seems to come easy to him, and he hasn't always gone about accumulating it in the most legal way. I appreciate that Kathryn has been a good parent. Other than that, John and Kathryn both seem self-absorbed.

Toby is written to be weak and ineffectual.

Bay is written to be an admirable character, but the writers continually turn her into a martyr and a victim. I wish Bay would have found some power after the situation with Tank, but instead, she remains powerless.

I wish each of these characters (or at least one or two of these characters) had a side that I could love and respect. Not perfection, by any means. I just want to see their humaneness, their kindness, their benevolence appear in some places.

To me, the only character that does appear to have any humanity is Bay, and she is a perpetual victim of others on the show.

I find the writers' ultimate message in that truth to be so sad.

~AnastasiaGrey~

Yeah these writers just don't think about any of that

ollibear

I'd love to see an interview or a panel discussion with the writers, in which they discuss their decisions over the years. There is so much to be admired about Switched at Birth. It has tremendous depth, and yet, the writers seem absolutely blind to what they were doing to their audience overall.

When writers do not remember that they are writing for real, live, breathing human beings, with hearts and souls, then there's a problem. We are not robots. We do not switch gears, like machines.

So much about Switched at Birth hurts me and instead of the writers creating an environment where healing can take place, they choose to slap a cheap band-aid over the wound. That decision is insincere and insulting to the audience. I'd rather the writers leave the gaping wound than to try to cover it with something so flimsy.

Travis's story is no substitute for Emmett's story. No matter what the writers do this upcoming season, it never will be. I could have been interested in Travis's story alongside Emmett's journey, but the writers' decision to pull the old bait-and-switch on viewers is disgraceful and abusive.

~AnastasiaGrey~

I think they drove away the heart of the show as well

ollibear

Me, too.

And it's insulting that the writers chose to make the show so heartbreaking for viewers, and now, they seem to think that some superficial relationship between Bay and Daphne or between Toby and Lily is going to make that heartbreak satisfying for their audience.

It's not.

Bay and Daphne's relationship could have depth, so could Toby and Lily's relationship for that matter. The writers could heal my heartbreak with depth in either of those two relationships. But the writers have not chosen to write either relationship that way. The writers have written a story where all relationships appear shallow and meaningless. There is no depth to any relationship on this show, with the way it is currently being written.

When I look at connections between characters, the most depth I can find is between Bay and Kathryn. But the two of them don't share all that much with each other anymore (totally normal, by the way--kudos to the writers for that). So as audience members, we do not experience that depth with those characters.

We start to look for that depth in other places, and I cannot find it anymore.

I miss the depth of the relationships in Season 1. I remember how close Bay and Kathryn seemed to be in the pilot. Ditto for Bay and Toby. And while it is normal that these characters grew apart (because that is part of the growing-up process), I'd still like to see some depth in the relationships that take their place.

Remember how close Daphne and Emmett were in Season 1?

Now, all of that closeness is gone. So okay, I can accept that friends do grow apart, but then, the writers need to show viewers another relationship with depth. Where did they all go? What happened to all of the multi-layered relationships that once existed on this show? They all vanished. Vamoose!

I don't even know how the writers were able to accomplish such a feat. They took a show with tremendous depth and heart in Season 1 and turned it into one that is a parody of itself by Season 4.

Although the showrunner Lizzy Weiss likes to compare Daphne and Bay to Frozen's Elsa and Anna, the two relationships are NOT similar.

Daphne allowing Bay to take the fall for her without taking any responsibility for her crimes is NOT the same as Elsa removing herself from Anna's life to protect her, in Frozen. Bay taking the fall for Daphne is not the same as Elsa's choice to remove herself either. Nor is it similar to Anna's choice to throw herself between Elsa and Hans, to shield Elsa.

In that case, I understood Anna's loyalty to Elsa. Both sisters had always loved each other. That has not been the case for Bay and Daphne. They have never even been shown to like each other, until the day of Bay's sacrifice. What caused Bay's sudden and intense loyalty to Daphne? Watching Bay risk her future for someone who has done nothing but resent her existence is a far cry from watching Anna risk her life for a sister who has always loved her.

The writers needed to humanize Daphne more, before allowing Bay to make such a sacrifice for her. Viewers never got to see Daphne's heart, whereas we always saw Elsa's heart. Both Elsa and Daphne do villainous things, but I could always understand Elsa's choices. I have never been able to relate to Daphne's choices.

In a critical review of Frozen, Donna Dickens, entertainment editor, explains what the Frozen writers attempted to do with Elsa's character. Switched at Birth writers may have been attempting something similar with the character of Daphne, but they fell short. Daphne was not given a strong enough point of view to allow me to see her as the sum total of her personality and experiences. Daphne remains unrelatable.

Here's what Disney did with Elsa, according to Dickens:

Daphne could have been presented to viewers in much the same way. We were not given enough of Daphne's point of view to see that, though.

On Wikipedia, I found these comments from critics about Elsa and Anna's relationship:

Daphne and Bay could have had the same sort of depth, but they don't. It hasn't been created by the writers. Their relationship has never been a focus, even now. Maybe their experience in China will allow viewers to sense some depth to their relationship. We should have seen more interaction between Daphne and Bay in Mexico, if this is the story the writers are attempting to tell.

It doesn't seem the Switched at Birth writers know what story they want to tell. They have too many irons in the fire, and as soon as one gets hot, like Bay and Emmett (and viewers start to like it), then, the writers drop that story. Why?

~AnastasiaGrey~

Yeah I agree I mean this show shouldn't end this way at all.

ollibear

At the very least, the writers needed to nail down the character of Daphne. There are several directions the writers could have gone:

• Daphne could be a hero who makes mistakes, and then, works to make amends.
• Daphne could be a flawed hero, like Elsa, warped by her upbringing (in this case, the switch), aloof, scared, insecure, and full of guilt.
• Daphne could be an anti-hero, a villain who viewers love to hate.

But the writers didn't settle on any of those directions with the character of Daphne. Instead, Daphne is some sort of odd concoction of all three directions, and that decision, by the writers, keeps me from connecting with Daphne as a character.

It's frustrating. I want the writers to fix that in Season 5, but I don't have much hope.

~AnastasiaGrey~

Very true but I gues we are going to have see what happens

ollibear

If you could choose one of these things for Daphne to be, which one would you choose?

• Daphne could be a hero who makes mistakes, and then, works to make amends.
  
• Daphne could be a flawed hero, like Elsa, warped by her upbringing (in this case, the switch), aloof, scared, insecure, and full of guilt, but still trying to get it right.
  
• Daphne could be an anti-hero, a villain, who viewers love to hate.

~AnastasiaGrey~

Probably the first one because I think she could try to make amends for all the mistakes that he has made.

ollibear

I could go for any one of them. I'd just like the writers to choose one and stick to it.

If I was choosing, I'd probably select the second one. I'd like the writers to explore how the switch has warped Daphne, but still make the character human and one with whom viewers can identify.

~AnastasiaGrey~

Yeah I agree

ollibear

For a show called "Switched at Birth," it is interesting how the writers have never shown the families dealing with the emotional fallout from the switch. I can see how the switch caused both girls to have emotional problems, but no one has sought counseling for them or even had a discussion with them about their feelings. Both Bay and Daphne have experienced meltdowns at different points, since the switch was discovered, and the emotional ramifications have been completely ignored by the writers.

I guess "Switched at Birth" isn't a character study at all. It's a plot driven drama, and that's all that there is to it. In Season 1, I envisioned more exploration of the characters' internal lives. It's not there.

~AnastasiaGrey~

I know I mean shouldnt there be still underlying issues there like the worlds that both Daphne and Bay were brought up in. They just swept it under the rug