Tag Archives: Ash v Evil Dead (2016)

TV

Ash v Evil Dead Season 2 (2016), redux

Yesterday I wrote about the finale of season 2 of Ash v Evil Dead and how the showrunner of the series up to this point, Craig DiGregorio, left the show after that second season and allowed himself to be interviewed as to why.  It turned out there were strong creative differences between one of the show’s producers, strongly hinted as being Robert Tapert, and he.  The end result of these differences was a season 2 finale that was very different from what Mr. DiGregorio intended (you can read about all that, including how he wanted to end the season, here).

In my original writings linked to above, I noted that I wasn’t all that impressed with the season 2 finale though I really liked all the stuff that happened before it.  Overall I felt season 2 was even better than season 1 of Ash v Evil Dead, though each suffered from rather lame (IMHO!) finales.

After reading Mr. DiGregorio’s interview and how he intended to finish off season 2, I was left incredibly conflicted.  On the one hand, Mr. DiGregorio steered the show through two very fun and enjoyable seasons and he clearly steered the show, story-wise, in a certain direction which was leading up to his version of the season 2 finale.  As detailed in his interview, the character of Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo) was to be revealed, because of the time traveling shenanigans of the leads, to be the daughter of Ash (Bruce Campbell).

In retrospect, this was set up almost from the show’s very beginning!  Please note this, the season 1 trailer, and particularly the lines of dialogue at the 2:47 minute mark:

Bear in mind, this trailer was released before even one episode of the first season aired.  The line of dialogue in which Ash states he feels Kelly is a younger version of him, is the first of many hints given through the first and second seasons of the show that Ash and she share some kind of commonality.

What is so damn perplexing in my mind is: How could the people behind the show go through almost two full seasons giving us these little hints and setting up this big reveal… and then at what appears to be the very last second scuttling it and going in a completely different (and for my money, far lamer) conclusion?!

But as I said above, I felt conflicted by learning this information.  The fact is that as much control as Mr. DiGregorio had over the first two seasons of the Ash v Evil Dead, he was not one of the three people who actually control the characters and concepts.  Robert Tapert, who was implied as being the one responsible for nixing Mr. DiGregorio’s original concept for the season 2 finale is, for better or worse, one of the people who has been with the Evil Dead series since the very first film was released back in 1981.  He is one of the owners of the franchise and he certainly has every right in the world to demand things be done to his standards.

The big question is: Why did it take so long for him to realize he didn’t want to go in this particular direction?

I get from Mr. DiGregorio’s interview that the season finale as presented was a rush job as the original script and his concepts were scuttled at the very last minute.  That certainly explains why many of the hints of Kelly’s background remain sprinkled throughout the show’s two seasons.

So I have to ask: What happened?

Was Mr. Tapert not aware of the direction Mr. DiGregorio was going in?  If so, was Mr. Tapert not as hands on as he should have been and only now decided to flex his creative muscles?  Or could it be that Mr. DiGregorio failed in fully briefing his bosses and didn’t give him sufficient “heads up” about his ideas for the Kelly character?

Either way it seems communication was an issue between the two and, sadly, it resulted in Mr. DiGregorio not only walking away from a series he had done some damn good work on, but also removing what could have been a far more exciting conclusion to this second season that what was made.

Like everyone else, I have no idea how Ash v Evil Dead will be next season.  The show will have a new creative overseer and, I’m assuming, he will be more compliant to Mr. Tapert’s ideas of where the show should go.

I’m trying to be optimistic but these revelations have shaken my faith -at least a little- in what to expect in the final product.

We’ll see.

Movies, TV

On Writing… and the season two finale of Ash vs. Evil Dead

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I’m not alone in loving most of the Evil Dead series.  What started as a low budget movie released in 1981…

…was “rebooted” into a satisfying horror/comedy mix which absolutely worked in 1987’s Evil Dead II.

So successful was this film that in 1992 we were treated with a third movie, Army of Darkness.  In this movie’s case, we moved farther away from horror and more into straight up comedy…

Like Evil Dead II, I loved it.  Audiences, however, didn’t.  Not at that time.  In fact, Army of Darkness was a flop when it was initially released though subsequent home video releases made plenty for the studios.  However, that initial failure is the reason it took many years, twenty one in fact, before we had another Evil Dead feature.  2013’s reboot, entitled Evil Dead, was a straight up horror movie which, IMHO, wasn’t all that great, though I do think the trailer is creepy as hell…

This film did well at the box office and, with the realization that perhaps there was a demand for more Bruce Campbell starring Evil Dead, the wheels were in motion.  It would come to be.  Not as a new movie but rather a series from Starz titled Ash vs Evil Dead…

The first season of this series, IMHO, was quite good and took the same blend of horror and comedy that worked so well in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness.  I loved the new show though I thought its finale wasn’t all that great.  Still, it was a very entertaining ride and I very much looked forward to season 2.

The second season, IMHO, was absolutely glorious, better than the quite good season 1.  Last Sunday, December 11th, the season finale of season 2 of Ash vs Evil Dead was played and…I’m sad to report history repeated itself.  As good as the second season was, I found the final episode/resolution, like season 1’s, also disappointing

Turns out, there might be a reason for that.

Craig DiGregorio, Ash v Evil Dead’s showrunner, left the series after season 2 and, following the presentation of the season finale, was interviewed on why he left the show.  As it turns out, there were considerable creative differences between he and producer Robert Tapert (who has been with the Evil Dead series since its inception) which resulted in a last minute rewrite/reworking of the season 2’s finale.

If you have seen season 2 of the show and are curious as to what the original plans for the finale were, check out this interview with Mr. DiGregorio…

Craig DiGregorio on leaving Ash v Evil Dead and the original season two finale

Read it?

Seen it?

Good.

I won’t go into all the details presented in the interview as they speak for themselves, but the ending Mr. DiGregorio was working at sure sounds a lot better than what we were given.  Again, the season itself was a complete blast and therefore I can’t be too unhappy by the fact that the final episode didn’t work for me as well as it should have.

I am, however, concerned about what will come.

Mr. DiGregorio, whether you agree with his opinions or not (or feel he shouldn’t have spoken out as he did, biting the hand that feeds you and all that), was behind two for the most part delightful seasons of the show.  While Ash v Evil Dead tended to lean toward comedy and some felt there should have been more of a balance between that and horror, I loved it…well, again, except for the end of season 1 and now the end of season 2.

Would Mr. DiGregorio’s original ideas have worked better?  We’ll never really know though the ideas he presents are certainly far more ambitious and, to my mind, interesting than (SPOILERS!) the bland celebratory festival we were given in the season 2 finale, which played out like -of all things- the ending of Return of the Jedi, complete with ghostly apparitions giving our heroes the “thumbs up”.

I point all this out -and if you’ve paid attention to the headline of this blog entry- because we’re dealing with the job of writing here.

When I was considerably younger, I dreamed of one day being the writer of Batman.  I loved, loved, loved the character and having a hand in his stories was my ultimate writer’s dream.  Mind you, this was before Batman became BATMAN, the character everyone now knows and loves.  Back when I had this dream, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Tim Burton’s Batman movie was still to be and the multi-billion dollar franchise megalith the character has become wasn’t quite there.

Yes, people knew the character, if only from the Adam West TV series, but he was far from the character everyone knows and loves today.

Which means if you are the writer of Batman today you have to deal with the suits behind the character.  You have to please them as much -probably even more!- than the readers.  You have to heed their advice even if it means cutting story ideas you may love to pursue what the people who own the character want you to do.

In the case of Mr. DiGregorio, it feels like he was in a similar situation.  He spent two years devoted to Ash v Evil Dead and, for the most part, delivered a pretty damn great product.  If his interview reveals anything it is that some of his concepts and ideas -and most certainly his ending to season 2 of the series- clashed with producer Robert Tapert’s vision.  Clearly these clashes were too much and he left the show.  Equally clearly, he’s not all that happy with the “new” ending which was imposed upon the season.

Yet he’s also sanguine enough to note that Mr. Tapert, being one of the people behind the Evil Dead from its inception, rightfully had the power and right to exercise control over the product and impose his ideas over Mr. DiGregorio’s.

Some have said this interview was a hatchet job directed at Mr. Tapert, a one-sided low blow from a disgruntled writer who thinks himself bigger than those who created the series to begin with.

I suppose it is possible but what I read was an interview with a man who clearly put in a great deal of effort into a product he was proud of but ultimately had to leave it over creative differences.  Then again, as I writer, I have sympathy for someone who works hard on a creative idea only to see it scuttled for something they may feel is inferior.

Think about that: Mr. DiGregorio is a writer.  His profession offers almost no guarantees of a steady paycheck, yet he lands a plum job working on a successful series.  He could have swallowed his pride and “gone with the flow” and continued his job but felt that his vision and the producers clashed so much that he decided to walk away.

From a well paying, high profile job.

There was rancor in the interview, certainly, and Mr. DiGregorio is clearly nursing a bruised ego.  But I didn’t read the same levels of rancor some have said there was.  He appeared sanguine about the situation and noted he had to go because he simply didn’t have the power over the product and didn’t want to continue clashing with the producer who clearly wasn’t into his ideas.

This, to me, is the adult way of going about things.

I suppose the big question becomes: How will the show do without Mr. DiGregorio?  If he was responsible for many of the good things the series presented in its first 2 seasons, how will things go with season 3?

As with so many things, we’ll see next year…