Gus Hanson wrote:I hate Cowboy Bebop!!! Yes, I know it's a very unpopular opinion but when I want to watch something good, I want it to be relevant to a flowing development, not just one random, interchangeable plotline after another. Plus the dub doesn't help matters one bit, particularly Steve Blum as Spike gets really grating on my ears.
Hmm...
I see where you're coming from. I tend to dislike American television for similar reasons. Well, almost similar reasons. I just don't like it when TV shows don't have a planned ending in mind. The show itself, to me anyway, can be as episodic or as serially entwined as it feels that it needs to be, but only if the end of the show pays off these elements of the story. To be fair, Cowboy Bebop does adopt a lot of story-telling techniques from episodic American television, which can raise all sorts of red flags to someone who generally hates most American television because of their terrible endings. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that American television tends to try to run a show for as long as it is profitable with little to no regard for telling a good story.
Oddly enough, I think that, if one were to make a show run for as long as possible, that it should be as episodic as possible, with absolutely no attention given to narrative flow. I consider The Twilight Zone to be one of the best American television shows for this very reason. But, if a producer is interested in telling a good overarching story with his TV show, then he should keep it as short as possible. Get to the point and don't waste anyone's time. Thankfully, for as much as Cowboy Bebop is concerned, it does tell a good overarching story despite its episodic nature. There is some continuity kept between episodes, but most of it is slight and subtle. The filmmakers also show that they did have an ending in mind the whole time, and each episode pointed towards that ending either directly or with background thematics. And, best of all, the whole show is only 26 episodes and a movie in length. So, it does get to the point relatively quickly.
Also, watch the Japanese dub. Some people, myself included, find the English dub more than tolerable, but the Japanese dub is objectively better simply because it features Koichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara as Spike and Faye respectively, who have worked together several times in titles like Evangelion, Paprika, Anno's Animator Expo, Insufficient Direction, ect.