One person’s filler is another’s plot point…

As we continue in the pages of the comic with our first ever rendition of the Zombie Ranch opening credits, the question did roil in my brain of if whether it still just represented needless redundancy. The audience knows all these characters already, right?

Well, maybe. And then again as an avowed audience member of things myself, I often find myself forgetting names and other character details even for my favorite shows. Agents of SHIELD is on its fifth season and, although it does its best with its “Previously…” segments in terms of bringing up elements from its past that might resurface in the episode to come, those segments are brief enough that more often than not, I end up consulting Dawn with endearing questions such as “What was the astronaut about?”

They didn’t bother to explain in the show, probably because it was kind of an important part of Season 3. Integral, even. And yet there I was completely blanking on things until Dawn jumpstarted my synapses by pointing out I was forgetting an entire character who was something of a big deal.

In a sense going over “known” information can be annoying and seem pointless to those who have been keeping up, and there are certainly recent examples where I would argue it was a good call. Spider-Man is one of the most popular superheroes on Earth and that was even before he starred in five Sony movies, two of which spent time retelling an origin story. So by the time he was recast for the third time to appear in the MCU’s Captain America: Civil War they just decided to skip it and get on with things.

But with lesser known properties and people, an introduction or re-introduction is sometimes sorely needed, and there’s still the hope that if I hammer it in enough people might at least stop mixing up Frank and Chuck. As noted above though, that may be a case of glass houses and stones…

And hey, now I get why in reality shows they’ll always put the person’s name on the screen during “interview” bits, sometimes even with a reminder of their job or position. And perhaps something I should think about adopting for Season 3.