Candy_Van

Agree with you! Lux became so boring. I stopped watch a lots episodes ago

CW is a shtty network. That is a fact! But I don't think CW is the only one to blame. IMO the writers also helped to make the show kinda suck this season.

~*Sonia E.*~

Word! I've seen it before in the past on The WB.

ana julia

I haven't said she carried it on her own...., I said she was the typicall romantic heroine that worked perfectly in a couple and had the power of making her partners looks much more appealing than they really were, but that I believed she couldn't lead a show on her own, like TLAD.

Crystaline

It's pretty much identical to what happened with Roswell. The first season was stellar. The show isn't a monster hit ratings wise, but it has a passionate fanbase and the network renews it. Then the network gets heavily involved and the writers let them. The show inevitably crumbles because the core appeal is gone. In Roswell's case, it was the Max/Liz relationship and for LUX, it's the family dynamic of Cate/Baze/Lux. Show runners will just never learn.

BBBoBBB

I don't know how much you can blame the networks for a show getting ruined. As with Roswell I would think that the network told the show runners to change some things to try to increase viewers. I'm pretty sure that the CW didn't tell Liz to have Lux start a relationship with a teacher, probably didn't tell Liz to make Ryan an ass, and probably didn't tell Liz to cut the Cate/Baze scenes to a minimum. Those were things the writers came up with.

The writers have to bend somewhat to the network's wishes or the show is gone.

In the case of Roswell they brought in Ron Moore to help with the scifi aspect of the show since that wasn't Katims' strong suit. I remember the fans blaming the WB for the crap storylines that Katims and company came up with. It was interesting when Season 3 started and there was the OMG moment when people realised that The WB really saved the fans from some truly terrible story ideas that Katims dusted off and used when the show moved to UPN.

Used to love it when Katims and Moore would complain to the media that the fans weren't bright enough to follow the stories. Classic stuff.

At least Liz hasn't attacked her viewers.

Crystaline

I didn't place the blame squarely on the CW. I mentioned the show runners as well. But from Liz's own confession, it was the CW that suggested she broaden the show with all these new characters. It was also the CW that suggested the crossover episode with One Tree Hill. To me, it all sounded like something she was reluctant to do. I understand that because LUX was at the mercy of the CW that they have to do what they're told to a certain extent, but as the show is her creation, she should've fought harder to keep its integrity.

And the same goes for Roswell. The WB intervened and imposed their ideas and Katims followed suit. Not to say he didn't have some wacked out storylines of his own (as seen in the third season), but at that point, I don't think Katims cared much about Roswell anymore. He's running FNL right now and it's still pretty solid in its 5th season. It boggles my mind how he allowed Roswell to get as bad as it did.

*Coccy*

in remember from the commentaries that in the second season the WB basically "blackmailed" the writers. If they didn't follow their "requests" then they wouldn't get a full second season.
same goes for Lux. They renewed it but they also told them that they had to follow some "requests"

thumper1944

It has happened many times over the years but the network suits never learn.

I remember Mork and Mindy. MONSTER first season. Then the suits decided to tinker with it and it was downhill from that point on. That was back in the 70's.

LUX was doing OK. NOT great but OK. Instead of sticking with what worked they tinkered with it and killed it. For one the wedding should NOT have happened. Credibility with Cate's charactor started to go from that point on. Then they start to make her unlikeable. Really smart. That always works. way to get more viewers dummies.

Now its clear that CW network suits are heavily involved in this disaster. I can only hope that Liz was given a ultimatum and that othewise she would not have gone this route but I wonder. I think she had some leeway and still screwed the pooch. In the end the blame lands on the suits and Liz both; who has more blame is up in the air but does it really matter? Another good show that was killed by treason instead of being beaten.

I would have done this: called off the wedding. Have cate admit to Ryan that she is still attracted to Baze. Have him say "FIne. If I have to fight for you then lets get it on."

Then they could have billed this season as the battle for Cate.

ana julia

EXACTLY. Perfectly said!!!!
And that's why I was pretty worried when I knew this show would be on the CW. Because the network and a big part of the audience suck. Sorry.

Obviusly some writing decisions weren't very clever. They should have preserved the family part and given us more than 2 minutes per episode of the 3 leading characters in the same room.
And I wouldn't compare Katims with Tigelaar.
As mad as I was with her sometimes she was a goddess wtih the viewers if I have to compare her with Jason Katims.

GrhmLz

WORD to this! It so sucks that history had to repeat itself and with Shiri twice, on both of these shows.

Katims!!! Grrr!!! He will forever be on the *blank* list in my book!

I still remember when one of them told us, the fans, if we didn't like what we were watching, we could always turn the channel (back during the MT/baby fiasco). Who was that again?! Moore or some guy, Brown?! (KKB)

Crystaline

Agreed. But they went through with the wedding, then inserted a bunch of contrived drama right off the bat to make CR interesting. And they still aren't. Meanwhile, Baze is off to the side in a new setting with new people. Lux is entangled with a teacher at her school. The three of them as a family unit is barely visible anymore. I don't know what the heck season two is about, tbh. It's just a lot of random sht.

ana julia

Exactly!
I've stated that in FB and a lot of people feel the same. They lost the family. And people watched because of the family.

The only thing I disagree is that, for me, Cate and Ryan's angsty scenes are the only thing interesting to watch right now. Maybe it's because I love watching Shiri and she's doing an amazing job here, but it's the only part I can rescue.

*Coccy*

the thing that i appreciated in the first season was that both Baze and Ryan made sense with her and both of them had concrete chances for different reasons. I felt that you could appreciate both of them. The triangle wasn't nasty like usual triangles because both guys could work with her so it really was a matter of who she really loved in the end and not a matter of who was "bad"
now although i have no preference i think that they're making CR and Ryan bad to pimp C&B while in my opinion it was better if Ryan remained a valid rival to Baze because in the end she has to choose and love Baze because she really loves him not because Ryan and her relationship with him sucks.
Not to mention that R&C are flawed but i still see C&B as this two people who didn't give a damn about each others for.. how many years? (and they lived in the same city no? He knew where she lived) and they're suddenly together because they are parents.. parents after a one night stand when they were teenagers. So i feel that their full potential can't be reached if instead of giving them believability they lose time with useless drama with Ryan and they make her say things that make her appear lunatic (at least for me.)

and of course making her marry him was a big mistake especially if they intended to make C&B the end game.


ps: it seems that i'm the only Katims fan here not that he didn't make me angry at times but call me naive i really believe that he loved his show.. i feel it in his commentaries especially and i don't think that every bad thing that happened was his fault.

BBBoBBB

And then there was Season 3 of Roswell when he had a free hand and look what we got.

Katims is an excellent writer but a lousy show runner. Some of the best episodes of Roswell were written by him but after David Nutter and Thania St. James left the show it was all down hill. I don't think he liked or disliked the show, it was a job to him. And I really felt he started to dislike the fans of the show, there were plotlines that the fans hated, that the other writers tried to ditch, and he insisted be pursued.

And how do you claim to be a Dreamer and take the star of the show and basically make her wallpaper for an entire season??

I don't know how good or bad Liz will be in the future but some of the things fans complain about on LU were things that she planned.

*Coccy*

well i like season 3 it was mediocre no less than the second season and it surely wasn't the best season overall but i don't despise it (apart from the episodes about Isabel's marriage)
sometimes it's a matter of perception not all the fans hate it just like not all the dreamers hate the second season (especially the ones who recently watched the show for the first time and they didn't have to endure all the drama that old fans had to endure back when the show firstly aired.)

we can't know for sure who wanted this or that, i think. I never got the impression that he or the other writers hated the fans. It's just that.. the writers (of roswell, of any other show or movie/books) always have a different way to see the story compared to the fans. We're more emotionally invested, probably. They see the story as a whole, they know how they want to end it while the fans can't know it so they "live" every little bit of it more intensely. Some things aren't such a big deal for the writers while they are for the fans. And of course they're people like all of us and this means that they can make stupid choices