This season felt more like a return to the first season quality. Enjoying the series but I feel the whole Vietnam snake pit fight in season 3 undermined the Kreese character’s backstory (he is an over the top bad guy but the Vietnam background always felt like it grounded that in something real: and the snake pit sidestepped the real horrors of war with something cartoonish (which is Ashland because a lot of the Vietnam backstory was working for me). I also think sometimes the fight choreography gets a little too new school stuntman-ey. I liked how the first fight in season one felt like old school karate used in a practical way. Still quite like the show. I think season one is my favorite, followed by 4, then 3 and 2
I do think the show runs a risk of getting too soap opera. What works about it is it made these larger than life characters from the movies more real. But if it gets too soap opera or WWE, I think having those characters go from good guy to bad guy to good guy (rather than more and more sympathetic shades of gray), will start to lose me. I don’t mind it as much when they do that with the young cast because they are kids. But if they do something like make Daniel the main bad guy in a season, or make Johnny go back to evil, wouldn’t be a fan if that (done if the things the writers have said about soap opera and Star Wars in interviews makes me think they could go that direction). You can sort of feel this tension in the show between a soap opera impulse and an impulse to make characters more real and grounded. You probably need a bit of soap opera. I just think it would be a mistake for the show to lose itself in that with characters like Johnny and Daniel
have to say I loved the return of Silver. Always loved that character, and like that the actor knows martial arts. Makes a big difference. Also explaining his behavior in III as a product of cocaine and addiction, was a very clever way to have an outlandish character like that but also ground him in something that helped explain the behavior (and it was done with a touch of humor which I think worked)