Books & Movies, Writing

Class of the Titans, Horizons, and Conclusions that Don’t Conclude

August 25, 2021

Today I’ll be talking about two obscure shows that practically no one knows about, and why their conclusions work/don’t work. It’ll be fun : )

*There will be some spoilers*

Class of the Titans

Class of the Titans (CotT) is a Canadian animated series surrounding seven kids: Jay, Atlanta, Herry, Archie, Theresa, Odie, and Neil. The hook: they just so happen to be descendants of Greek heroes. (And before you ask, the show came out before Heroes of Olympus.) With two seasons comprised of fifty-two episodes, it’s a fun monster-of-the-week show. For me, the highlights stem from the series’ focus on friendship and found family.

Setting up promises but not paying them off

To begin with, the very first episode reveals that the seven heroes are prophesied to defeat Cronus, the main antagonist. This is the setup of the whole series. Yet this promise isn’t fulfilled in a satisfactory way. This is why the last episode of CotT, “Phantom Rising”, is not a good series finale.

Instead of returning Cronus to Tarturus — the main goal — the teenagers only defeat him in battle (and it was mostly Theresa’s work). Since so much of the focus was placed on Theresa, it leaves the audience feeling like there should have been a more conclusive final battle between the kids and Cronus — one that was more evenly matched. An additional season would likely have provided room for this.

Rushed writing leads to a messy conclusion

To add to this, while it’s really not a bad episode, there are too many things that feel rushed or overshadowed. This is likely due to the studio knowing they weren’t going to be able to renew the series for another season. Theresa’s main conflict in “Phantom Rising” is out of character, and there’s a lot going on in the episode as it switches from Theresa’s perspective, to the rest of the heroes, and to the Greek gods.

Plus, many previously established storylines and character arcs were cut short or underdeveloped. It felt like there should have been room for the audience to see how Neil has begun to take his role more seriously, or how the Archie/Atlanta dynamic has changed after its development in “The Deep End”.

All in all: good season finale, not a good series finale. CotT deserved to have more time to finish well, but I’m happy with how much we got in the end.

Horizons

Horizons is a sci-fi webseries set in a dystopian future. Humanity, struggling with overpopulation after a massive disaster, has split up into several surviving cities. One particular city, Horizon, is divided into two groups: Daylighters and Nocturnes. While Daylighters work during the day, Nocturnes come out at night. Because of a strict curfew on the two groups, Daylighters and Nocturnes don’t tend to interact. But when a Daylighter misses curfew and is forced to rely on a Nocturne to get home, things begin to get interesting.

Some nice things about Horizons

Horizons is in no way a perfect webseries. The romance plot is a little insta-lovey, for example, but aside from that, it does do a number of things right. The costuming and set design are great, the plot makes sense and is driven by the main characters, and the limitations of the video format are used well.

What Horizons also gets right is its conclusion. The final episodes tie up most of the important things that have been set up in the series, but leaves ample room for a sequel. The characters are all in place to act or react according to the new situation, and while the situation is tense, everything fits together in the story. In a way, it acts like the end of the first book/movie in a series. While the ending is satisfactory enough, it leaves enough questions behind in case the producers want to continue with a sequel.

Conclusions

I think a main reason why Class of the Titans felt more unsatisfactory than Horizons is time. While I only invested about two hours in Horizons, CotT in all its fifty-two episode glory took me over eighteen hours to get through.

Additionally, these conclusions tend to happen more often with stories that don’t know if they’re going to be able to continue. There are a number of reasons for this: studios close, there’s not enough funding, or not enough audience investment to keep the story going. Sometimes, with children’s animation, series may be canceled due to a lack of toy sales and merchandising.

With all these factors in the mix, producers often end up having to cut off series with cliffhangers and hope for the best. For the audience, they tie up a few loose ends (often culminating in a kissing scene and/or an episode involving as many characters as possible), but it’s not the same as the ending they would have wanted.