The Librarians season 4 - Literally getting married to your work

[random11]

Well, the story for this season seems to be around a ritual to connect them to the library, or something like that.
Isn't the entire point that they are already connected?

Oh well, doesn't really matter.
The Librarians strong point was never the main story as much as the fun they have during the season, and judging by the first four episodes they are having fun.

So what did we have so far?

(minor spoilers only)

Spoiler: Episode 1

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Yet another organization trying to destroy the library (get in line and take a number please)
Their excuse is to prevent the spread of knowledge and literacy, which doesn't make sense considering the secretive state of the library.
So far my least favorite episode of the season.

Spoiler: Episode 2

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Pretty much from the start you know what you are going to get, and that's fine.
Luck magic is not the most original story line, but the way they beat the curse was original

Spoiler: Episode 3

Show

As far as Christmas episodes go, it was far better than any other show I've seen in a long time.

Spoiler: Episode 4

Show

Currently my favorite of this season.
Good mix of humor, mystery and suspense.

[Zeb]

Have to check my DVR I didn't realize it had started back up.

The Librarians strong point was never the main story as much as the fun they have during the season

So much of this.

[Reddish Mage]

This season may be my favorite. Their style of corny plots work much better as single self-contained episodes, while the season-long world-changing plots do not.

What we just saw was four episodes of The Librarians at their best in a world that is basically at peace with the occasional new artifacts arising that need to be contained.

Still, I don't know how long they can keep this up, by the end of the season (or if it is renewed) something is going to have to threaten the world in epic new ways.

The anchoring to the library I predict isn't going to happen for some reason, or, perhaps most likely, it is going to be interrupted and then will happen under some threat to the library.

Am I alone in thinking it may be time to retire Flynn and Eve Baird?

[random11]

Am I alone in thinking it may be time to retire Flynn and Eve Baird?

I'm with you on Flynn, but I like Eve.

Flynn annoys me because his only character trait seems to be "quirky".
It's bearable on episodes when he is alone and has to do stuff other than that, but with the full team where everyone has a role? Being quirky is all he has left.

Eve is almost the opposite of this.
Both in episodes in which she is the focus and episodes with everybody else, she has her own way of doing things and well defined character traits.

[random11]

Recent episode gripe:

Spoiler

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Did she predict that they will use the scroll, causing Jenkin's death and the retirement of all librarians at once?
May I ask HOW?!

Not to mention that she predicted Jenkins will give up him immortality on the risk of her own death.
That makes her plan pretty stupid when you think about it

Like I said earlier in the thread, the strength of the series is in the standalone episodes, the weakest parts are when the writers try to force everything we've seen so far into one conflict and resolution.
Can we get this season over with so we can go back to having fun?

[Reddish Mage]

Recent episode gripe:

Spoiler

Show

Did she predict that they will use the scroll, causing Jenkin's death and the retirement of all librarians at once?
May I ask HOW?!

Not to mention that she predicted Jenkins will give up him immortality on the risk of her own death.
That makes her plan pretty stupid when you think about it

Like I said earlier in the thread, the strength of the series is in the standalone episodes, the weakest parts are when the writers try to force everything we've seen so far into one conflict and resolution.
Can we get this season over with so we can go back to having fun?

I have to agree the plot holes in this episode alone is big enough to contain the Library.

I’m not sure about the standalone episodes. The Libriarians just doesn’t make a lot of sense viewed at any angle.

The magic and historical stuff is not only fictional, its completely untethered from history. Maybe some people can’t tell the difference, but I can see clearly they are just name dropping famous people, locations and artifacts here and there and using the things in completely random ways. Other series at least try to organically tie the fiction with real history or at least robustly popular myths.

The magic system too is lazy. Symbolism? Things work by pure association? There’s no implication that there are any rules what effect magic has and how to tie things together. I can see straight through what they are doing.

Episodes frequently show the laziness of the writers in dealing with history and the related disciplines they bring up. Stone complained this episode that “Ancient Greek” was rusty and it was hard talking in a dead language. Give me a break, he’s told us (and supposedly demonstrated) he is fluent in dozens of dead languages, and spoke such obscure languages as Ancient Sumerian perfectly just a few episodes ago (for the immortality transference) but the language that Ancient studies will START with (Greek), certainly well known to every linguist that knows Sumerian, he’s embarrassed about?

With a set up like this, plot holes should (and do) abound with great frequency.

[random11]

I’m not sure about the standalone episodes. The Libriarians just doesn’t make a lot of sense viewed at any angle.
...

I tend to be more forgiving toward problems like these in less serious shows when it feels like the participants (writers, actors and characters) are just having fun with the idea.
This is why I manage to ignore problems in Legends of Tomorrow, but can't do the same in Arrow or Flash.
I tend to get frustrated by magic rules in Harry Potter, but disregard the same problems in Magicians (especially in the later seasons)

Can't argue with you about the facts.
I agree with everything you said about the mythology, magic system and plot holes.
But since the tone in most standalone episodes of librarians is light, I SEE the problems, but manage to have fun with the show regardless of them.
It's harder to do the same with the "main plot" episodes, which take themselves more seriously, and fail miserably because the foundation cannot support stories like that.

[Reddish Mage]

I SEE the problems, but manage to have fun with the show regardless of them.
It's harder to do the same with the "main plot" episodes, which take themselves more seriously, and fail miserably because the foundation cannot support stories like that.

The show really camps it up, but you can clearly see even in this episode that it really camps it up.

Spoiler: Death by Big Red Button

Show

The show starts that the tethering day has come without any resolution of their problem (a start that suggests everybody is just winging it), and so Jenkins brings out an artifact to save everybody and says don't open it.

Of course they ignore him and open it and cast the spell..gee that couldn't possibly go wrong. Then Jenkins gets pulled into the mirror in slapstick manner as everyone gets tempted to push the big large red button.

Eve saves everybody whose instantly back to normal no sweat. Everything gets wrapped up and then Jenkins is killed.

Up until Jenkins death things were pretty much played for camp even if the subject of the episode was the 77th Annual Hunger Games.

The serious moment when surprise, villainess was behind everything all along and we learn her fiendish plan to get rid of the Library was put in motion.

This sort of back and forth to raise the stakes is what drama does, and TNT dramas are notorious for being very loud and obvious.

Maybe having serious moments in campy shows (ever watch Doctor Who?) isn't your cup of tea, but really her plan isn't that far out there. Nicole was the one behind Jenkins death at the end of the episode, taking the opportunity. She could have known that Jenkins would bring out that scroll to tether the Library if a successor wasn't found.

She could also know what a sap Jenkins was and would give up his immortality to save Nicole.

Its not going that far

Also, I find Arrow and Flash to be pretty campy if not quite to the absurd extent of Legends of Tomorrow. Both Arrow and Flash do try to be serious about their major themes, however, and there I can agree that this hinders those shows.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Surprising probably no one who' seen the steady withering of the ratings numbers (it's literally been all downhill since the season one premiere), but the series has been axed. It sounds like TNT wanted to cancel it at the end of each season, but it was just a little better than other series and survived. Not any more.

[Reddish Mage]

It was time really. Season 3 was the big “we save the world from ancient prophecy” and now they were trying their hand at doing a new kind of story and turning inward and asking deep questions about the Library and the Librarians and the setup. Only the answer was extremely shallow, “yeah, none of that stuff matters, let’s go right back to what we are doing after beating the bad guys that made us question what we are doing, the Library and our team is awesome. In fact, none of that stuff ever actually happened.”

I’d have really liked to find out the library might not be perfect and things needed to change, or alternatively to find out deep truths about the library itself, but I’m still left with whiplash.

Does the library really only care about protecting magic or not? If the library is less than a caring protector of humanity how is tethering this great joyous thing about spending eternity as a part of a thing you love? Why is it a thing one must have faith in and how is it so beautiful when its basically not about being a bastion of knowledge and virtue and goodness, but about locking up all the dangerous stuff out there?

I felt there was a lot of truth to the criticism of the library but it was all hand-waved away in the ending.