Update Time (and commentary on Teen Wolf's ending)

Welcome to the October update! I was away for much of the month, so Daymon once again rescued the blog, and is responsible for a majority of the posts. And many of them were suggested by our readers, whose contributions were of the highest value. Thank you all! Many of items this month are werewolf related, but hey, it's October, so why not? Feel free to scroll down to them now, instead of reading the long-winded commentary that begins in the next paragraph...

Teen Wolf has finally ended its long run, which began in 2011. Unlike many naysayers I was confident the show would be a success, since MTV was bringing in outside talent. Not only was I right, but the show's first three seasons were genuinely good TV (its quality began faltering afterward, thanks to continual cast changes, sloppy writing, and indiscriminate use of mythology). But I disappointed in one crucial area: Teen Wolf never gave us a good transformation scene, despite casting so many gorgeous actors as werewolves.

Nor did it give us a good series finale. The final episode was choppy, predictable, and unsatisfying, stuffed with forced fanservice and visual cliches like the final shot. Old cast members were brought back but not given memorable things to do, while the loose ends of the plot were shrugged aside. And of course the damn thing ended with Scott repeating his most stupid line of dialogue, "You're not a monster, you're a werewolf."

That was the fundamental flaw of Teen Wolf--it perpetually denied the monsterhood of its werewolves. That's why Scott, despite being the Alpha, never transformed into anything that looked much like a wolf. That's why Jeff Davis, despite promising that the werewolves would have three forms, dropped the most interesting--and most monstrous--form after the first season.

The dramatic interest in a werewolf is that it's a monster AND human at the same time: a human who can change into a monster and a monster whose true form is human. Remove the danger from a werewolf--the danger of losing control and giving in to bestial desires--and it becomes boring;  lycanthropy becomes just another superpower. The British Being Human, which couldn't afford CGI, proved you could fill a TV show with excellent transformation scenes created by practical effects. I had hoped Teen Wolf would take advantage of this breakthrough, given its subject matter. It never did, and I'm starting to fear no other shows will either.