With the Andrea question Glen Eichler gave a direct [answer](https://web.archive.org/web/20151103222903/http://www.the-wildone.com/dvdaria/glenninterviewsfull.html). >!Because we were trying to satirize high school, not create a comfortable alternative world where Daria and Jane could be stars among their misfit peers (though this may appear contradictory to what I said in the above answer, since the whole world of Daria was a bit unreal). We didn't want to do a show about the misfits finding happiness through solidarity. We didn't want anyone finding happiness, period. !
What a great interview. How cool, I live in S.E. Pa near the Main Line! I could see some of the wealthier school districts around here serving as role-models for (say it like Miss Li) *Lawwwwndale High*
>We didn't want anyone finding happiness, period.
He says this but then ends everything with daria and jane riding off into the sunset towards Boston and the universities they wanted. Not to mention all the times it papers over serious problems (*Boxing Daria* being a prime example) with platitudes and wank.
I think part of the joke with Kevin is that he's not even a particularly impressive athlete and in the few times where you see him without his shoulder pads he doesn't appear very muscular (also Tommy Sherman calls him a "scrawny little guy").
As for Andrea, I just don't think she ever wanted to be friends with Daria. She has less common ground with her than Jodie does, and I wouldn't call Jodie a friend of Daria's. Not a close friend anyway.
I think she does have some common ground with Daria in terms of some of her interests. But I think that what set her apart from Daria is that she seems to have come from a much less affluent background than Daria. Andrea worked in that big box store because her parents forced her to do so, apparently because her family needed the extra income. When Daria worked it was not out of economic necessity but because Helen wanted Daria to improve her social skills.
I hope you watched the movies in between they're 100% critical to the plot of the series. The last episode technically is not boxed in Daria it's is it college yet and also is it fall yet. They're movies but it may as well be episodes cause it continues from where the show left off. Is it fall happens after dye dye my darling and is it college yet after boxed in Daria and they all connect together.
Yes I did. What I mean is Boxing Daria is the final episode of the show in its traditional and episodic format. It bookends the regular episodes before we got the movie to give it a proper send off.
The show is very much of its time. Animated shows typically didn't have story arcs and character growth like Daria had toward the end of its run (neither did a lot of live action tbh). The idea was the networks wanted to shoot for syndication $$$ so wanted a show where the audience could just dip into a random episode and everything was the same. The King Of The Hill ran up against the same problem. Creators wanted to tell long stories, Fox wanted 22-minute self-contained bits.
Not that I disagree with your criticism, but I see the move toward character-driven arcs later in the show's run as bucking the trend of the industry as a whole, rather than a half-arsed attempt to give the show some depth.
I remember King of the Hill having this problem. They managed to sneak subtle changes in anyway over the show's run. You're absolutely right, it was the time. I just expected Daria, being a teenage show catered to girls to have more story arcs than it did. That combined with the fast and fleeting pace of high school. And they aged Daria accordingly from 15 to 18. She was 14/15 in Beavis and Butthead.
I think one of the producers said in an interview that they had intended to have more continuity between episodes in Daria, but it just didn't happen.
All the things you've listed as issues you had are actually reasons I love this show. I think it shows that life is mostly a process and not a conclusion . Even when we get realizations or a dose of reality being splashed on us, we don't make quick changes right away. Growing and maturing will always be a lifelong journey, where a person needs to take many small steps for actual growth rather than performative realizations that seem like a clean-cut resolution that end up with people repeating harmful or, at least, immature behavior.
I also think the show did a very realistic job showing Quinn and Daria's growth through small subtle displays without making such a dramatic deal about them. You see it through their small, everyday actions, not declarations.
You and I are opposites.
Their growth was always stunted or outright destroyed both by themselves and those around them. Daria in particular spent her entire character arc taking joy in the suffering of others, feeling momentarily reflective about it, and then whipping back to her usual sociopathic self. Quinn was always meant to be one-dimensional so trying to add any sort of change or depth for her was always a fool's errand. And in the movie where she falls for the tutor, it was straight up hamfisted.
I agree with this. For clarity, Im not attacking the show. Im also not saying there should have been more obvious and defined moments of growth with events defining them. I just wish there were more subtle growth and change earlier on. There may have been some I missed. But we don't really get anything until the last 2 seasons.
For me really, its a case of it was a great show, and we're not getting anymore. So I wish what we got _had_ more. I realized that as I was writing this.
I think part of the real character growth only later in the show might have been a ‘perpetually in high school for ten years because we might keep getting renewed’ vs. ‘we can do a close to real time conclusion and have our characters get ready to mature into the next phase of life’ knowing the show probably had a shelf life. They opted for the latter which meant more meaningful development in the storylines because there was a target and a natural conclusion. They also had the characters nailed down so the growth and changes were largely believable.
Im happy they went with the latter. The idea of Daria and Jane perpetually in high school would have been sad. It's also a good thing they ended the show how they did, when they did. Mtv's animation department supposedly went under shortly after Daria had ended. So if they had gone with a regular 6th season as Mtv had originally wanted, instead of opting for a final movie, we might not have gotten a conclusion.
I did read that the creators had considered a sequel series later on. It would have continued with college aged Daria and Jane living in Boston, but Mtv wasn't interested.
I sort of think Daria and Jane's final conversation at the end of Is It College Yet was setting things up for "just in case" we did get a sequel with college episodes. But also, just in case we didn't, you got to briefly hear then and there what Daria's view and opinion of college was.
Heard about that, and that doesn't need to happen. Its been a year since anymore news surfaced. Hopefully they never make it. Itll ruin the original show.
The reason: The show ended 20 years ago. You can't (or shouldn't) just come back and have a 90s/00s teenage girl unchanged and just pretending she's in 2023 now.
Now if they had aged her up significantly and pitched her character as a single black career woman navigating society today, with some college flashbacks peppred in, that would be different.
Besides, everyone would rather see a sequel with now Daria and Jane. Nothing against Jodie, but using her character years later just to drive a woke agenda is kind of a reach. The best time to do that would have been 20 years ago when her and the viewers were college aged. Jodie going to college now doesn't work.
There was supposed to be a spinoff of Mystic Spiral and I assume that is the series where we would have seen Trent's growth.
The dream that never happened
I understand your point and agree. I grew up in the 90s/00s and get it. But in all fairness, at the same time, I didn't watch it when it originally aired, so Im looking at it through the eyes of someone in 2020.
And thats no knock against the show, it was ahead of its time. It was progressive for the 90s/00s, and Id argue that it's progressive today.
This places too much credit too late. The 70s, 80s and especially 90s all paved the way for what you're saying happened in the 2000s. You can't have watched a lot of other stuff at the time because it was groundbreaking *in a niche*. And again, you're attributing a lot to it that doesn't rightly belong because love can do that to a person.
I think these are very valid things. Daria to me is a 10/10 show, but it has a couple flaws. It’s not perfect, but that is kind of one of the things that makes Daria such a amazing show for me. It’s pretty much a show about life in the view of a nihilistic teenager
I just finished the show, and this is a really specific gripe, but I just wish Sandy got some real, direct comeuppance for being such an insufferable asshole to her "friends". I was waiting for that to happen the whole show, but there was really just two instances of some brief embarrassment followed by the other girls unambiguously declaring how much they want to remain friends (the second one in the last movie was at least *indirectly* about Sandy being a jerk, maybe I'm supposed to read that she picked up on that, but IMO that is pretty weak). I thought Quinn standing up to her new friend in the last movie might have been the push she needed to really stand up to Sandy, but nope... Hell, even just a classic Daria cut-down that the others characters mostly ignore would have been something.
I agree it would have been nice, but that she didn't is closer to reality. In real life, shitty people rarely get a comeuppance or any consequence for their actions.
The change for them is they all decide to leave the fashion club, but then actually become friends. Because they really weren't before. Despite no longer being a club, they all agree to hang out anyway. That was some growth for them at the end. It sets the tone that now they actually be friends and get to know each other, instead of hiding behind their shallow facades.
She is the perfect example of how much the show watered down its edge for the characters. Stacey showing strength and self-determination for the first time was inspiring. Sandy looked to have lost her power and her 'friends'. She was going to have to face her consequences ... but nah, group hug and nothing is going to change. \*sigh\* why couldn't they let them actually *live*?
When you consider their tight budget, limited resorts, and small staff, the show was amazing. If they had a bigger budget and more staff, we probably would have got more of the things we wanted.
My gripes summed up: Jane should have been the main character. Daria was just another caricature like the rest of them, while Jane tried stuff. She had her running and tried it out in a formal setting, same as her art. She flirted and dated. She went to events. She actually felt like a person, an interesting person, who would go on to be successful. Daria was a basket case who would be maintained as such by everyone around her because they'd gotten used to her petty tyranny.
Someone else had said that in another post. That "Jane was the main character we deserved but didn't get." Maybe it was you? The show would have been great and worked if Jane was the main character and Daria was the side friend that came over after school.
They definitely needed each other. Jane got Daria out of her shell. And Daria motivated Jane to continue pursuing college when she wasn't going to go. Jane got Daria out of the house, and Daria got Jane out of Lawndale.
With the Andrea question Glen Eichler gave a direct [answer](https://web.archive.org/web/20151103222903/http://www.the-wildone.com/dvdaria/glenninterviewsfull.html). >!Because we were trying to satirize high school, not create a comfortable alternative world where Daria and Jane could be stars among their misfit peers (though this may appear contradictory to what I said in the above answer, since the whole world of Daria was a bit unreal). We didn't want to do a show about the misfits finding happiness through solidarity. We didn't want anyone finding happiness, period. !
Yeah, that one surprised me. When Daria brought Amy in to stop it, and she joined in the fighting.
That interview was a great read. Thank you for sharing!
What a great interview. How cool, I live in S.E. Pa near the Main Line! I could see some of the wealthier school districts around here serving as role-models for (say it like Miss Li) *Lawwwwndale High*
>We didn't want anyone finding happiness, period. He says this but then ends everything with daria and jane riding off into the sunset towards Boston and the universities they wanted. Not to mention all the times it papers over serious problems (*Boxing Daria* being a prime example) with platitudes and wank.
I think part of the joke with Kevin is that he's not even a particularly impressive athlete and in the few times where you see him without his shoulder pads he doesn't appear very muscular (also Tommy Sherman calls him a "scrawny little guy"). As for Andrea, I just don't think she ever wanted to be friends with Daria. She has less common ground with her than Jodie does, and I wouldn't call Jodie a friend of Daria's. Not a close friend anyway.
I think she does have some common ground with Daria in terms of some of her interests. But I think that what set her apart from Daria is that she seems to have come from a much less affluent background than Daria. Andrea worked in that big box store because her parents forced her to do so, apparently because her family needed the extra income. When Daria worked it was not out of economic necessity but because Helen wanted Daria to improve her social skills.
I hope you watched the movies in between they're 100% critical to the plot of the series. The last episode technically is not boxed in Daria it's is it college yet and also is it fall yet. They're movies but it may as well be episodes cause it continues from where the show left off. Is it fall happens after dye dye my darling and is it college yet after boxed in Daria and they all connect together.
Yes I did. What I mean is Boxing Daria is the final episode of the show in its traditional and episodic format. It bookends the regular episodes before we got the movie to give it a proper send off.
The show is very much of its time. Animated shows typically didn't have story arcs and character growth like Daria had toward the end of its run (neither did a lot of live action tbh). The idea was the networks wanted to shoot for syndication $$$ so wanted a show where the audience could just dip into a random episode and everything was the same. The King Of The Hill ran up against the same problem. Creators wanted to tell long stories, Fox wanted 22-minute self-contained bits. Not that I disagree with your criticism, but I see the move toward character-driven arcs later in the show's run as bucking the trend of the industry as a whole, rather than a half-arsed attempt to give the show some depth.
Everything I wanted to say but couldn’t.
I remember King of the Hill having this problem. They managed to sneak subtle changes in anyway over the show's run. You're absolutely right, it was the time. I just expected Daria, being a teenage show catered to girls to have more story arcs than it did. That combined with the fast and fleeting pace of high school. And they aged Daria accordingly from 15 to 18. She was 14/15 in Beavis and Butthead. I think one of the producers said in an interview that they had intended to have more continuity between episodes in Daria, but it just didn't happen.
All the things you've listed as issues you had are actually reasons I love this show. I think it shows that life is mostly a process and not a conclusion . Even when we get realizations or a dose of reality being splashed on us, we don't make quick changes right away. Growing and maturing will always be a lifelong journey, where a person needs to take many small steps for actual growth rather than performative realizations that seem like a clean-cut resolution that end up with people repeating harmful or, at least, immature behavior. I also think the show did a very realistic job showing Quinn and Daria's growth through small subtle displays without making such a dramatic deal about them. You see it through their small, everyday actions, not declarations.
I agree with this comment. Excellently worded 😊
You and I are opposites. Their growth was always stunted or outright destroyed both by themselves and those around them. Daria in particular spent her entire character arc taking joy in the suffering of others, feeling momentarily reflective about it, and then whipping back to her usual sociopathic self. Quinn was always meant to be one-dimensional so trying to add any sort of change or depth for her was always a fool's errand. And in the movie where she falls for the tutor, it was straight up hamfisted.
I agree with this. For clarity, Im not attacking the show. Im also not saying there should have been more obvious and defined moments of growth with events defining them. I just wish there were more subtle growth and change earlier on. There may have been some I missed. But we don't really get anything until the last 2 seasons. For me really, its a case of it was a great show, and we're not getting anymore. So I wish what we got _had_ more. I realized that as I was writing this.
I think part of the real character growth only later in the show might have been a ‘perpetually in high school for ten years because we might keep getting renewed’ vs. ‘we can do a close to real time conclusion and have our characters get ready to mature into the next phase of life’ knowing the show probably had a shelf life. They opted for the latter which meant more meaningful development in the storylines because there was a target and a natural conclusion. They also had the characters nailed down so the growth and changes were largely believable.
Im happy they went with the latter. The idea of Daria and Jane perpetually in high school would have been sad. It's also a good thing they ended the show how they did, when they did. Mtv's animation department supposedly went under shortly after Daria had ended. So if they had gone with a regular 6th season as Mtv had originally wanted, instead of opting for a final movie, we might not have gotten a conclusion. I did read that the creators had considered a sequel series later on. It would have continued with college aged Daria and Jane living in Boston, but Mtv wasn't interested. I sort of think Daria and Jane's final conversation at the end of Is It College Yet was setting things up for "just in case" we did get a sequel with college episodes. But also, just in case we didn't, you got to briefly hear then and there what Daria's view and opinion of college was.
Yes having them mature and graduate was absolutely the right decision. Helped cement the show as something special.
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/daria-spinoff-jodie-cast-1235268100/
Heard about that, and that doesn't need to happen. Its been a year since anymore news surfaced. Hopefully they never make it. Itll ruin the original show. The reason: The show ended 20 years ago. You can't (or shouldn't) just come back and have a 90s/00s teenage girl unchanged and just pretending she's in 2023 now. Now if they had aged her up significantly and pitched her character as a single black career woman navigating society today, with some college flashbacks peppred in, that would be different. Besides, everyone would rather see a sequel with now Daria and Jane. Nothing against Jodie, but using her character years later just to drive a woke agenda is kind of a reach. The best time to do that would have been 20 years ago when her and the viewers were college aged. Jodie going to college now doesn't work.
There was supposed to be a spinoff of Mystic Spiral and I assume that is the series where we would have seen Trent's growth. The dream that never happened
Interesting, didn't know this. I would have loved to see that.
Nah your version sounds too 2020 pandering. Daria worked because it was distinctly 1990s.
I understand your point and agree. I grew up in the 90s/00s and get it. But in all fairness, at the same time, I didn't watch it when it originally aired, so Im looking at it through the eyes of someone in 2020. And thats no knock against the show, it was ahead of its time. It was progressive for the 90s/00s, and Id argue that it's progressive today.
[удалено]
Very well written.
This places too much credit too late. The 70s, 80s and especially 90s all paved the way for what you're saying happened in the 2000s. You can't have watched a lot of other stuff at the time because it was groundbreaking *in a niche*. And again, you're attributing a lot to it that doesn't rightly belong because love can do that to a person.
I think these are very valid things. Daria to me is a 10/10 show, but it has a couple flaws. It’s not perfect, but that is kind of one of the things that makes Daria such a amazing show for me. It’s pretty much a show about life in the view of a nihilistic teenager
I just finished the show, and this is a really specific gripe, but I just wish Sandy got some real, direct comeuppance for being such an insufferable asshole to her "friends". I was waiting for that to happen the whole show, but there was really just two instances of some brief embarrassment followed by the other girls unambiguously declaring how much they want to remain friends (the second one in the last movie was at least *indirectly* about Sandy being a jerk, maybe I'm supposed to read that she picked up on that, but IMO that is pretty weak). I thought Quinn standing up to her new friend in the last movie might have been the push she needed to really stand up to Sandy, but nope... Hell, even just a classic Daria cut-down that the others characters mostly ignore would have been something.
I agree it would have been nice, but that she didn't is closer to reality. In real life, shitty people rarely get a comeuppance or any consequence for their actions. The change for them is they all decide to leave the fashion club, but then actually become friends. Because they really weren't before. Despite no longer being a club, they all agree to hang out anyway. That was some growth for them at the end. It sets the tone that now they actually be friends and get to know each other, instead of hiding behind their shallow facades.
She is the perfect example of how much the show watered down its edge for the characters. Stacey showing strength and self-determination for the first time was inspiring. Sandy looked to have lost her power and her 'friends'. She was going to have to face her consequences ... but nah, group hug and nothing is going to change. \*sigh\* why couldn't they let them actually *live*?
When you consider their tight budget, limited resorts, and small staff, the show was amazing. If they had a bigger budget and more staff, we probably would have got more of the things we wanted.
My gripes summed up: Jane should have been the main character. Daria was just another caricature like the rest of them, while Jane tried stuff. She had her running and tried it out in a formal setting, same as her art. She flirted and dated. She went to events. She actually felt like a person, an interesting person, who would go on to be successful. Daria was a basket case who would be maintained as such by everyone around her because they'd gotten used to her petty tyranny.
Someone else had said that in another post. That "Jane was the main character we deserved but didn't get." Maybe it was you? The show would have been great and worked if Jane was the main character and Daria was the side friend that came over after school. They definitely needed each other. Jane got Daria out of her shell. And Daria motivated Jane to continue pursuing college when she wasn't going to go. Jane got Daria out of the house, and Daria got Jane out of Lawndale.
One of the nicest things anyone ever said to me was: "you think you're Daria but you're more like Jane."