I polished off the last of Young Justice
recently, and was happily impressed. Once it found its feet, the show had a
strong arc, and improved immensely post-timeskip.
Finishing the second part of season two, I couldn't
avoid the debate over the series not being renewed, and, having deliberately avoided
any interviews or anything over at Greg Weisman's personal site, Ask Greg, I
didn't know what to expect.
Fortunately, the ending wrapped up what it promised
to, just with an opener for a new storyline tacked on to the very end. Could
have been worse; could have been a lot worse. Many television series and films
end with the "Or IS it?" moment, and I walked away satisfied.
But leading up to this finale, I saw many people on
the Internet who blamed any theoretical failure to achieve closure on Greg
Weisman. Weisman was trying too hard, they said. He shouldn't have come up with
in-depth plans for his series, because they always get cancelled after two seasons.
Television is fickle—can't he just dial it back? Make something smaller so it
doesn't suffer when the axe falls?
Which is a terrible way to look at things. It's
basically asking artists to hold back and not put effort into anything because—oops!—things
might get cancelled. Asking artists to do this, especially on the basis
of what-ifs, is asking everyone to be content with never pushing their
boundaries, never planning for the future of their stories.
No.
Being cancelled/not renewed isn't the fault of Greg
Weisman trying to "do too much", especially since whatever plans he
had would have had no impact on what actually made it to air. Young Justice was a perfectly good
series that had some bad luck, and asking for less effort wouldn't have changed
that luck.
The problem with Young Justice disappearing
is more about the principle than the loss of a definitive conclusion. As I said
above, I'm fine with the ending we got. The problem is that it means dramatic,
serialized animation keeps losing. I love many other current cartoons, but YJ
was in a special category that needs more love.
