Whoa there! Thanks for responding! I haven't seen the commentary because I don't have the DVDs, but I'll explain myself here. I think the moment passed for Matt and Kris to be together because by mid-Season 3, there hadn't been much Matt/Kris romantic moments. The writers should have given them a shot back in Season 2, but by Season 2, they had gone too far down the road with Junior/Kris. I don't buy the whole 'the fandom wanted it' thing either, because they went hard and fast on Kris/Junior before halfway into Season 1, leaving Matt in the dust. I suspect there was some personal reasons behind this - either Genevieve and Ryan were seeing each other and the writers picked up on it, or Ryan just hit it off better with the writers than Micah did. Whatever the reason, the writers were very pro-Kris/Junior, as evidenced in Season 1 and Season 2.
If the writers wanted Matt and Kris to have a shot, they wouldn't have installed so many subtle and unsubtle romantic gestures for Kris and Junior in those Seasons. *ducks* I really enjoyed a scene in Season 1 when Kris had a decision to make, called Junior and they sat there on the highway talking about it. It was awkwardly cute and casual, no interference and very intimate. I felt like I got to see the characters being natural, and only when Kris was with Junior did she really let her guard down (which did make sense because she wanted to live with the Ritters which made Matt off limits and she also told Matt that she dated guys like Junior and knew how to handle them). Matt and Kris didn't get moments like that, it was always too much pressure when it came to them. Even when they had the funny incident with the squirt guns in Season 3, it was great until Gillian came and dumped a bucket of ice water on it, then told Junior in a way to make things more awkward.
When Kris was in trouble or had something on her mind, she went straight to Junior, not Matt. She and Matt didn't get moments for him to be her knight in shining armor, it was usually Junior in the end who had the solution, be it the first time Kris almost got sent back to Lagrange, the mob, putting away hay while Matt was on an errand for Dani (and the giant unsubtle gesture of Flame's conception), or helping with the birth of Flame (again Matt fails, Junior to the rescue), etc, etc. The writers never gave Matt a chance, they never let him have Kris with her guard down or have some pure fun moments with her, or add layers to their relationship.
I facepalmed that Matt went out of his way to get her back to Raintree, and she decided that it was open season on Junior again. At that point, Kris's 'boo-hoo, why does everyone hate me for nothing?' stuff got old, as she seemed to only focus on what she wanted, to hell with what it did to everyone else. It's then that you have to realize that she and Junior function on the same level of selfish, single-minded behavior and they deserve each other. That's why I'm not offended that Matt didn't have much time with Kris, considering the wringer she put Junior through, but he was a glutton for it. Matt deserved someone better than the people the writers stuck him with. He needed better plotlines and stronger characterization, which he lost as the series went on. I think he went along with the dude ranch because the horses were gone and they were about to lose the ranch and Kris was gone, so he decided to roll with it to get them back on their feet, plus it made his mother's life easier.
Don't get me started on the trainwreck that we call Season 4... we can make an entire thread of 1,001 things wrong with Season 4.
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9 years ago
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9 years ago
Season 4 was confusing because they went from age 17 in Season 1 to age 27 (in a span of 3-4 years) in Season 4 without any explanation or consistency. If they decided to retcon the ages one time and been consistent on it, it would have been understandable. Also, almost everything that happened in Season 4 was stuff that occurs over years, not days and weeks. Looking back, it felt like two timeframes crashed into each other, one with them at 21 and one with them at 27.
Kris never did change, if anything she got more and more selfish and immature as the series went on. I mean in the series finale they have her try to break into a barn! WTF?
Girl tried to break up Junior's wedding the day before it was scheduled to happen, and had zero consideration for him or Laura (about as much as she had for Gillian), or what rehashing things with Junior would mean for both of them, then she wanted to cry on Matt's shoulder. At no point did Kris seem to understand why her actions were selfish, nor did she consider how she'd wrecked Matt's life and used him so many times. In Season 3, it felt like she chose Matt because she was trying to cement her place at Raintree. Matt should have been more angry at Kris in Season 4 than Junior, who actually tried to get Kris out of his life, but she couldn't let go.
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9 years ago
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9 years ago
I'm not sure what the writers were thinking but here's what I made me think that:
1) Laura was a practicing lawyer. To practice law, it's 4 years college + 3 years of law school, meaning that Laura was at least 26 unless she was some kind of child genius that got to skip straight to college.
2) Junior was COO of the family business. He wouldn't have that position without a college degree and some work experience.
3) Calvin went to high school with Junior and Matt, and he was supposed to have graduated from MIT, then spent 6 years working on his wind turbines before meeting Junior.
4) Dani was running and managing a clinic, which would have taken some educational and professional background that a 20 year old wouldn't have.
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9 years ago
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9 years ago
Part of the reason things got confusing was that the writers should have picked an age for them by Season 1 and stuck to it. Instead, the plot ended up all over the place to the point where between the pilot and the finale, almost 10 years should have passed based on how old they were supposed to be in the last season (when the show began, Kris, Matt and Junior were 17 and Dani would've been 16, but in the last few episodes, Junior said that in 2050 they would qualify for Medicare, meaning they had to be 23-25 years old). The events of Season 4 should have been over the course of one year, instead in seemed like less than a few months.
I was re-watching the series, and Season 2 was really a mess and a half. However, the show lost its creator Mark Piller, plus the actor who played Henry in quick succession after getting the green light. That probably played a big part in why things went astray.
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9 years ago
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9 years ago
It sucks that the webisodes just ended on a cliffhanger. By then, we were so involved in Jace and Wynn's stories, it was a shame that it was not the focus of Season 3 or Season 4. I agree, the writers really set things in motion to deal with Kris's back story, and failed to deliver.
1) Who I wanted to see again: Where did Wynn go? He appeared in Season 1, then reappeared for Season 3 webisodes. It was a waste to not even have a passing comment on him. Also, what happened to Kris's mom? Where did Jace go? What happened with those chop shop guys? Why didn't the writers bring their dad into the picture? Did they have other siblings? Where did Tina Sharp vanish off to? Todd had the potential to be an interesting character, but his screen time was wasted.
2) Season 3 shouldn't have done the "Kerry stole all the money/everything goes wrong to make Raintree broke" plot. It was lazily recycling the Raintree money problems ad nauseum. It should have been noted that one big purse/win wasn't going to magically be enough to save the whole place. That's it. Also, if Jean spent most of the Breeder's Cup money, how was the ranch still falling apart? Either she owed the money and was getting all the things for the ranch, or she canceled the orders, which should've been enough to float the ranch.
3) Season 3 should have involved Kris's history coming back to her as the central conflict, then feeling pulled in three different directions - her original friends and family, the Ritters, and Junior. It would have been interesting to see her mature as she received new jockey offers and how she managed her career taking off. There was better material than her trying to manage her guilt, feeling left out at Raintree, and fooling around with Matt. The way that Kris handled the whole situation with Matt and Gillian made her completely unsympathetic.
4) Season 4 was when they knew they were likely to get canceled, then tried to cram in all sorts of scenarios for drama. The Laura subplot made little sense in terms of everything, and added no value to the characters' development. Matt needed more going on in his life than horses, and it would've been nice to see him with a girl that he deserved, but screwed it up because of who he was, not because of Kris. Season 4 easily could have been about redemption, but in a way that developed the characters to their conclusion.
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9 years ago
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9 years ago
How did we leave Gillian off the list? She got a one line mention in the beginning of Season 4, then that was it. I would have rather seen her try to marry Junior than Laura.
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9 years ago
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9 years ago
The Junior/Ken plot that needed to happen (but didn't) was for Junior to become competitive and ruthless like Ken and Dani. It would have been interesting to see him slowly become like his family because of his working at the company. Then he would cross a line that he didn't imagine he could, causing him to pause and reassess who he had become. It was annoying that he'd just half ass everything and get away with it, while Dani actually worked hard to prove herself.
Dani needed a better plot than the failed romance/Greek chorus commentary bit she had.
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