This week’s episode of The Flash (and have you listened to Flashback yet?) brought into focus one of the key problems that I’ve had with the show: The character of Iris West. Having been forced into the “perfect love interest” role, she hasn’t really had much to do, but this week she actually gets to be a part of the central villain plot, and acquits herself pretty well. (Why does she carry handcuffs? I’ll tell you when you’re older.) More importantly, Candace Patton gets some solid acting (and a pretty decent fight scene) in, making me wish that this Iris West was as important to the plot as the comic book version, who eventually became a bad-@$$ investigative reporter supporting her speedster hubby, and later became an elder statesman character in her nephew’s run as the third Flash, which leads us to today’s underutilized query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) always thought that the tragedy of ‘Firefly’ getting cancelled was in not getting more backstory of Ron Glass’ Sheperd Book, asking: What character from anywhere in pop culture do you wish was given more to do in the hopes of fulfilling their breakout potential?
4 Comments
DekaGold from one of the Dekaranger movies. She showed up exclusively in the movie, barely had a minute in her Dekaranger suit, then we never saw her again. But I think it might be less that I thought she was interesting and more that I thought she was gorgeous (as pretty much every Super Sentai heroine is).
Osgood, the super-cute nerdy fangirl from Doctor Who. Honestly, she was such a funny (and cute!) character that I was super upset with what happened to her in only her second appearance. I think she would have been great in a semi recurring role (maybe even getting a shot at being a proper companion for an adventure or two in the TARDIS), and it is a shame that we will never see her again when we’ve seen very little of her in the first place.
Star Wars bounty hunters and mercenaries. Does it always have to jedi? Boba Fett already took off without doing anything other than standing around looking cool, so others can too if given good stories. I’d like to see some T-shaped visors to balance all the light sabers.
This is one of the biggest reasons I’ve always been a big fan of the Expanded Universe and many episodes of Clone Wars, and have hopes that some of the upcoming stand-alone spinoff films will feature something other than Jedi/Sith/etc. I’d love to see something that is like a crime drama focusing on one of the criminal empires (Hutts, Black Sun, etc) or about bounty hunters tracking a dangerous bounty. Or a film from the perspective of the Imperials that do not think they are the bad guys (because it is technically the legal military of the Empire and the Rebels are technically terrorists after all).
Don’t get me wrong, I love a little Force sensitive story here and there, but it gets tiresome to read about or watch the same kind of characters over and over in a setting with such a diverse mythology.
Wesley Crusher.