Television as a medium of entertainment is in a state of continuous evolution, especially with the arrival of streaming services earlier on this decade. The shows produced specifically for these streaming services have changed the landscape of entertainment on the small screen. Marvel’s Daredevil, the flagship show in the media juggernaut’s franchise on Netflix is one example of this. Whatever Daredevil was doing was surely a success, as it spawned at least five other series with all but one reaching renewals for second (and third) and most releasing to glowing reviews. Daredevil itself is still the head of the pack with its third season set for release in early 2019, four years after its initial release in 2015.
I am to compare and contrast the Netflix produced Daredevil to a more traditional cable produced television show, Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk, which ran from 2012 to 2014 on Cartoon Network. Interestingly enough, the show moved to Netflix for at least six more seasons, and is still on the air today. While each show undoubtedly caters to a different target audience, I aim to compare and contrast the shows based on their structure, character development and world building.
What stands out from Riders of Berk is its stand-alone structure in terms of its episodes and narrative. We see this is especially apparent its first season, with most of the episodes centered around Hiccup, a character viewers should have already been well acquainted with from the first movie How To Train Your Dragon, and the village chief who is also Hiccup’s father, Stoick. Each episode focuses on Hiccup as he solves problems usually associated with the push-pull adjustments that the island of Berk has to undergo with the arrival of the dragons into the community. Of course, the island community itself is a major character, as it is at the center of most of the problems and developments, but the way the story unfolds is from Hiccup’s perspective. This perspective centered on Hiccup’s, and his status as a relatively static character throughout most of the first two seasons, allows viewers to jump in and out of the series at any chosen time.
In contrast, what moves Daredevil forward in terms of structure is not necessarily its characters, but the plot itself. The narrative is always in motion, thus, making it difficult for viewers to stay on board with the series, unless they had been watching from the very beginning. I noticed this when on a binge, my parents would have me constantly pause the television to explain to them what was happening currently in the show. It’s very easy to get lost, as each episode is filled to the brim with plot, with a single episode having the capability to make long lasting changes for the characters and the world they live in.
Watching both shows has also shed light on the nature of binging and how streaming services has taken advantage of the structure of a show in order to maximize on this behavior. Naturally with a show like Daredevil, I’d be inclined to watch multiple episodes of the show at once. As the several plot threads are being juggled around, I’d want to immediately watch the next episode right away so as to not lose focus. This increased level of suspense and complexity felt while watching the show is compounded when you realize that almost every episode is bookended with a cliffhanger at the end. Contrasting this to the problem-solution structure of Dreamworks Dragons’ episodes which ties things up nicely with a bow at the end, we see that Netflix designs its shows to heighten suspense through structure, serialization and the use of cliffhangers to increase binging viewership.
This characteristic of serialization and binging for me is something more common with Netflix released shows like Daredevil. Comparing its first season to the second season of Dreamworks Dragons, which was much more serialized than its first, major changes in plot and narrative only happen at the start and at and the end of the season. Unlike Daredevil, you could still jump in and out of episodes during Defenders of Berk as easily as you could in Riders of Berk despite the more serialized nature of the show. The key mover I was able to notice in terms of the change of a show’s status quo was the development of its characters and world building.
What keeps Daredevil’s characters in a constant state of fluidity and development is the fact that they’re constantly adjusting to each other and the world around them. I felt like all of the protagonist’s decisions were based on whatever happened around him. This happens in both of Daredevil’s seasons in different ways. The first season focusing more on how the Matt Murdock’s world is changing him as a character, and the second, more on how a deconstructed Murdock impacts the world around him.
Undoubtedly, Wilson Fisk AKA the Kingpin is the major mover of plot in Daredevil’s first season. While he does not know Matt Murdock’s secret identity, the feud between the two is a deeply ideological, and almost personal one. A clear foil to Murdock’s moral code rooted in Catholicism, Fisk’s Machiavellian attitude and devotion to his cause and others, is a clear counterpoint to Matt’s beliefs. What shows the depth of Daredevil’s character development is that one can easily sympathize with Fisk’s character almost even more so than Murdock’s. There is a clear longing from the audience for Fisk to reach his bride-to-be, Vanessa, in the season one finale, but also a huge sigh of relief to see him finally put behind bars thanks to a fully-formed Daredevil.
The conflict in season 2, while expansive to the world of Hell’s Kitchen is centered on Matt Murdock and deconstructs his dual identities as Matt Murdock and the Devil of Hell’s kitchen. Each of these identities are challenged, as two new antagonists, Frank Castle AKA The Punisher and Elektra stretch the definition of each of identities in new and compelling ways. Frank Castle, while not Wilson Fisk, stands at an ideological impasse to Daredevil’s philosophy of not killing, while Elektra finds no shortage of ways for Matt to prove his convictions and understand fully what it means to become the Daredevil. The serialized nature of season two capitalizes on Matt’s journey throughout the season and culminates in the sad, yet understandable decision for Matt to push away his friends in pursuit of the greater good (and his own happiness).
Things are turned on their head even more in the second season wherein Matt’s fully formed character takes center stage. Matt’s ideological conflicts with Frank Castle, Elektra, Foggy Nelson and Karen Page have real consequences, both to existing character relationships and the larger world of Hell’s Kitchen. For once, we see that Matt’s choice of a “will they” in a “will-they-won’t-they” scenario inexplicably results in a “won’t they” for another set of characters. The heartbreaking dissolution of Nelson and Murdock in the second season wasn’t just upsetting, but a logical move I don’t expect to see reversed any time soon. The constant tension of real consequences with any two set of characters experience make for easily compelling television.
Dreamworks Dragons’ approach to character development is different in that it develops its characters not in the context of their relationships of other characters, but rather exemplifies or breaks down certain character traits in a bubble, in ways that are much easier to understand for Berk’s target audience. For much of season one, we see the spotlight on Hiccup and Stoick, with each of the problem-solution episodes highlighting a certain aspect of their character.
For Hiccup’s character, it is evident that he is the one making the decisions, while everyone just follows. In the episode “Thawfest Games”, Hiccup shows a big character change, showing that he is big headed, conceited, and willing to put his friends down. But with some wise words from his best friend, Astrid, he put his pride down and did what he had to do for his friends Snotlout, even though it meant him losing something that was important to him. As a protagonist, Hiccup is very helpful and always there to save the day, which he probably picked up from his father, the village chief. Meanwhile, in the episode “How To Pick Your Dragon,” Stoick shows that he is somewhat stubborn, as he does not want to do things his son’s way AKA the dragon way, due to the very traditional aspect of him that wants to only follow the viking way. He did not really want to ride dragons, but he eventually saw Berk in a different perspective when he started flying with Toothless. Stoick realized that he could do his job more efficiently with a dragon. His willingness to break traditions and to change his values are a clear showcase of him always wanting the best for the people of Berk. Eventually, in episode “Bing! Bang! Boom!,” he even gave up his own dragon just for the safety of his people.
This trend is continued in season two, where the rest of the dragon academy receives an ample set of episodes for development. I found the second season very apt in this regard considering Dreamworks Dragons is a companion piece to the How to Train your Dragon film series. With limited screen time for each character for a feature length film, I’m happy that they can focus more on minor characters for an extended number of episodes. Snotlout in particular received a huge amount of episodes dedicated for his character throughout both seasons. In the entirety of Riders of Berk, he shows how he always wants to be regarded as the best and the strongest. However, come Defenders of Berk, he slowly shows some character development. In the episode “Race To Fireworm Island,” he originally could not accept that his dragon was ill, and would cover up how he was feeling by giving excuses like his dragon just being stubborn. As the episode progressed, he showed some emotions, while still being in denial. When he finally understands that his dragon, Hookfang, really is sick, he reveals a new side of him. In one scene, he even breaks into tears, and shows that he really is willing to do anything to keep Hookfang alive. This was a big change especially because there have been prior episodes wherein Snotlout shows how much he puts importance to the values taught to him by his father and their clan. In the episode, his father even indirectly tells Snotlout to get rid of Hookfang, just because Hookfang probably won’t be of good use to him anymore. What I once thought as a throwaway arrogant archetype as seen in the first How To Train Your Dragon movie is now a deeply layered character with a personality that can complete with Matthew Murdock’s several shades of grey.
The downside of using single episodes to develop characters are that antagonists of these series often get the short end of the stick. Berk itself has no shortage of antagonists, with Mildew, Dagger, and Alvin each opposing a different facet of life on Berk. Alvin as a main antagonist appears onenote for many of his appearances on the show, only receiving trickles of real development at the end of the second season. Sadly, this has much to do with how the show structures and builds character development. Since entire episodes are usually used to developing characters, so antagonists are usually pushed to the side and used as plot-devices, until such a moment like episodes “Cast Out Part 1 and 2” arise once in a blue moon.
While Alvin may be no Wilson Fisk, he, along with both Mildew and Dagger do their fair share in revealing more regarding the island of Berk. Instead of functioning as ideological counterpoints in the skin of the Kingpin and the Punisher, the pressure they put on Berk goes a long way in building its world. I don’t really think there’s one antagonist in Dreamworks Dragons, because it could be Dagur and Alvin, separately, or possibly even Mildew. These characters are all different from Wilson Fisk in a sense that they aren’t really developing and remain static throughout most of the season. It is sort of predictable with what they plan, because they all seem like they just don’t want dragons, which is what Berk prides itself for. Mildew just wants to stay traditional and live like how he did in the past, Dagur just wants to slay dragons, and Alvin just wants to do whatever he can to retrieve his power on Berk. Although most of them are static, Alvin’s character somehow develops in the last two episodes of Defenders of Berk. I feel like the three antagonists from Dreamworks Dragons show what their world is, instead of being an ideological deep enemy of Hiccup, which is the opposite of the Kingpin and Murdock dynamic.
The fact that two shows that differ in so many ways in terms of structure, characters and design, can still succeed as television shows proves how much the medium has matured in the last decade. Innovations like streaming services, and animation can push the envelope on entertainment to continue keeping a target audience hooked on a show. The strategies each show takes are vastly different, thus showing the effort that was put into understand each shows target audience and making changes in to fit those needs. Dreamworks Dragons prides itself in stand-alone episodes that are light and easy to understand while entertaining with familiar franchise fanfare with fluid and bright animation. The children aimed to watch Dreamworks Dragons were probably entertained, as the series has lasted over eight seasons over different networks. In contrast, the teens and young adults aimed at by Daredevil take pleasure in the comic book roots, philosophical battles, complex plot and beautifully choreographed action the show provides. Each show has its own merits complementing the needs and wants of their target audience. It are shows like these that keep the future of entertainment of the small screen in good hands.
Throughout the show, we also see a development in the relationships of Jake-Captain Holt and Hiccup-Stoick. Both these characters help navigate where the show is going next.
Viewers of Berk 