Today I'd like to go over an anomaly I've detected mostly in T.V show adaptations of comic books and other things, though I should note that it isn't just a comic book issue but seems to occur in lots of shows.
The problem is one of unnecessary recurring characters, when a member of the cast, the actor his or herself and not the character being portrayed become perceived by the writers as somehow integral to the show even if the characters actual value to the plot is much lower.
Let's take Gotham for an example.
The case of Oswald Cobblepot the character destined to become Batman villain Penguin, played brilliantly by Robin Taylor and I understand the temptation to continually use him and make him a main character but unfortunately using a character like that too often actually lowered his value, in the first episode the Penguin character blended seamlessly a future part of the Batman universe who was for now just a piece of the background.
In this scene Gordon has to prove himself loyal to the mob which runs the GCPD by killing Penguin, he lets him live because that's just how Gordon roles telling him to "never come back to Gotham".
Of course we know that Penguin will come back to Gotham, eventually, unfortunately he comes back in the very next episode and becomes the first, and most likable member of Gotham's unnecessary ensemble of characters.
I don't want to focus on Gotham too much, but it is one of the chief committers of this crime, Fish Moonies survival in a mad scientists basement coupled with this seasons rumors of her survival which give me chills. Instead of simply having Gordon brake up with Barbra she devolves into an unstable psychopathic killer, instead of dying for his semi-admirable loyalty to Fish he's hypnotized and given a fake hand, why the hell would cat-girl join the mob at the end of the first season? There's one reason for all of this; the characters were contracted for a certain amount of episodes.
The Flash, though a great T.V series suffers from cast abuse as well, the first season villain, Harrison Wells the Reverse Flash was great but now I'd like to see them move on, they went through great pains to defeat him and though I'd understand if this villain returned eventually I really don't want to see him taking over the show for the entire second season, let the show move forward and allow the characters to develop instead of just quickly cashing in on the shock value of an "I'm back baby" moment.
(Also I think it's awesome how they were willing to use a less realistic villain like King Shark, it shows the show isn't afraid of its comic book roots)
The most famous anti-example of course is the perhaps overly brutal Game of Thrones show which has no problem killing off characters who in any other show would become endlessly recurring and we would have to put up with them for all of eternity wheter they were still relevant to the plot or not.
Now I'm not saying that the writers should become axe-crazy and start murdering their characters, that wouldn't really fit shows like this (though in Gotham it would make more sense for not Bat-characters) but I think it's apparent that these shows allow their cast members too much power.
I should close with the note that I'm not saying that these are bad shows, their not, in fact these are good generally well written shows that I recommend, but they are strong examples of this anomaly that I've noticed that tends to erode the quality of the writing.
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