Idk, it just felt very...unfinished and anticlimactic in my opinion. I know that it's more realistic to leave things open-ended and all that jazz, but I didn't sign up for a realistic show, I signed up for a fluffy cheesefest!
I adored Abigail's ending!!!!, didn't care about Ben or Ollie or Grace the sociopath, and found Tara's ending mehhh since I firmly believe the injury thing was a total cop-out. However, it was Kat and Christian's endings that truly bothered me.
Kat because literally what even was the point of season 2 if she decided to pursue acting? Why have her on-again off-again relationship with dance in s2 where she fights to return to the school if she just ultimately decides that it's not for her? The message of s2 was very much ~Kat can't escape dancing no matter how hard she tries because it's a part of her~ so s3 pretty much contradicts that. Or why even have her still fighting to play Swanhilda in s3 after she gets a taste of acting? Once again she returns to dancing, even after she's been in a movie. We see her going for acting in the end but it doesn't feel true. Like I could see her doing acting for 2 months and then being drawn back into dancing because she misses it. It just seemed a bit too ephemeral and underdeveloped for my liking.
Speaking of underdeveloped, Christian's ending!!! I feel like he made no freaking character progress from the very first season (and might have even regressed, in fact). His natural proclivity for teaching was gradually built upon throughout the show, which I liked, but it still felt unfinished to me to have him just have an 'I want to be a teacher!!!' epiphany 10 minutes into the very last episode ever. Just like with Kat with acting, I feel like it [teaching] is something he might do for a while, perhaps a year or two, and then freak out because everything is going well, flake, and run away, like he always does. Christian's commitment issues and self-hatred are never freaking resolved and it drives me nuts because the writers had a perfect opportunity in s3 to have Sammy's death be the catalyst to Christian's personality revolution (i.e. having him face his commitment issues; spending more than one episode deciding what he wants in life; and tackling the root of the issue as to why he feels he is never good enough, doesn't deserve happiness, and why he itches to self-sabotage every good thing in his life).
Instead, he once again reverts to his old ways where he runs from his problems and lashes out at people who care about him and changes his mind every 2 minutes. Like how are we, as an audience, supposed to believe that Christian has actually changed for the better and will want to stick with teaching, or won't be the same old flaky, indecisive boyfriend if he gets back with Tara? It's very boy who cries wolf because we've seen his character development and then his subsequent reversion to his old tendencies whenever something goes slightly awry. We've seen this pattern of his for three freaking seasons. And I understand that bad habits like Christian's are hard to break and it's probably more realistic to have the show end with him still struggling with those internal issues, but why even have episode upon episode centering around Christian's problems if his character didn't develop? All this terrible shit constantly happens to him and all character growth and progress he makes as a result of it is undone by like the next episode when he starts acting like a jerk again and hurting those around him. He doesn't even BEGIN to accept that he has problems until freaking episode 3x10!!! And when he does, it seems so random! There's literally no driving force behind his spontaneous decision to change and become the "born again Christian", and there's no evidence to say he'll actually change for the better since history very much says otherwise. Tara being skeptical about his overnight transformation was smart because he's undergone this ~new Christian~ thing multiple times and it's never stuck before, so why would it stick now, completely out of the blue? I really just think the writers dropped the ball with Christian's character development in s3 :/ So much potential there, too.
Knowing now that they're making a Dance Academy movie makes a lot of sense as to why there were so many loose ends, but some of the actual characters' development was really lacking imo.
Edit: I'm SO sorry for my essay. I just love character studies haha.
Don't apologize, I've been waiting AGES for someone to actually SAY something in this spot! =D
First off, YES on Tara's lack of character growth. She was an whiny brat at the beginning, and never changed at all. (Well, she tried for like half a second every now and then.) Second, YES on Grace being a sociopath. Yikes, what a character.
I was also very happy with Abigail getting the contract. She was my favorite, and happy Abigail leads to happy me. That's all I really needed out of the finale. ;)
Maybe Kat will land some movies that require her to dance. Save The Last Dance 7, starring Katrina Karamakov! That's the kind of thing I imagined her eventually doing. *shrug*
You make some very good points about Christian. I never paid him or his future much thought, because to be honest, I didn't really care. I loved Abigail and I loved Kat and everybody else was pretty much background noise.
We're supposedly getting a movie, so maybe Christian and Kat will have figured out what they want and how to deal with their issues by the time that comes out.
Yeah, for a main character she basically had zero character growth ever lol. Honestly, without the dancing aspect of her, who is she? She seriously lacks a personality. Love or hate the other characters, at least I had a stronger sense of their personalities. Dancing was the main part of Tara, and without it she's just this uptight, judgmental person with absurd expectations. The only progress she made over the course of three seasons was to become a little more outspoken and cutthroat, which is pathetic.
YES YES to Abigail. She was my fav character as well so her ending was everything I could've ever wanted. She got the ending she truly deserved. My Dance Academy OTP was Abigail/Happiness <3
You make a good point about Kat doing dance movies (one that I stupidly didn't even consider despite Step Up being one of my favs lol), I just wish they would've said it more explicitly. Like spell it out that dancing is going to continue to be a part of her, because the group dance at the end seemed more like a present for Tara than a confirmation of Kat's continued love of dance.
Lmao, I can respect that. Christian certainly wasn't one of my favorite characters by the show's end, and I pretty much gave up on him after he HOMEWRECKED the Tara/Kat friendship (and then later had the nerve to bitch that Tara was ruining his friendship with Ben, the little hypocrite), but I swear I didn't suffer through all those Christian-centric manpain episodes just for him to make no damn progress!
And let us hope. Also hoping that Tara will be getting a personality makeover.
My biggest problem with Tara was that she claimed to be all about dance, and yet, how many times did Miss Raine have to reprimand her for putting all her focus on boys? I mean, I guess that's a major part of being a teenage girl, and the show was very relationship-driven, but REIGN IT IN TARA. You're there on scholarship, you keep claiming dance is the most important part of your life, but you're constantly being a clingy little fucknugget.
My OTP was Abigail/Unhappy!Tara. The link scene is probably my favorite thing in the entire series. Abigail just gets this unbelievably evil look on in her eyes whenever bad things happen to Tara, and I love it so much. XD (I made an Abigail link, btw, if you'd like to join!)
I think even if Kat didn't dance in movies, she would have continued doing it in her free time. (She didn't hate dancing, she hated being forced to do it.) All her training would also make her great at choreographing fights and such for action movies - either for acting in herself, or for teaching others. And she's pretty and blonde, so that probably would've helped her career a little. ;)
Ugh, the Kat/Christian/Tara thing. *eyeroll* Friggin' teenagers... (she complains about a teen show.)
Sorry for the late response! But yes about Tara sucking at managing priorities in her life. I feel like the only time she cared about dance was when she was in a relationship. Then she'd focus so much on dancing that she'd neglect the relationship, get dumped, and then focus on the ex bf/getting a new bf instead of dance. It was just this vicious cycle with zero balance.
Omg that whole tan storyline killed me. Abigail enjoying Tara's suffering was all of us enjoying her suffering lmao. And as much as I disliked Tara by that point, I did like how much they focused on self-esteem issues. Like Tara worrying she's not hot enough for Christian, or Kat and Abigail struggling with their EDs. Very realistic and very well-handled. Not enough teen shows tackle touchy subjects like those, so I applaud this show for doing it justice.
That love triangle mess ruined most of season 2 for me :/ I like to pretend that whole storyline never happened (mainly because Kat was too good for Christian, lbr. such a cringey couple imo)
I adored Abigail's ending!!!!, didn't care about Ben or Ollie or Grace the sociopath, and found Tara's ending mehhh since I firmly believe the injury thing was a total cop-out. However, it was Kat and Christian's endings that truly bothered me.
Kat because literally what even was the point of season 2 if she decided to pursue acting? Why have her on-again off-again relationship with dance in s2 where she fights to return to the school if she just ultimately decides that it's not for her? The message of s2 was very much ~Kat can't escape dancing no matter how hard she tries because it's a part of her~ so s3 pretty much contradicts that. Or why even have her still fighting to play Swanhilda in s3 after she gets a taste of acting? Once again she returns to dancing, even after she's been in a movie. We see her going for acting in the end but it doesn't feel true. Like I could see her doing acting for 2 months and then being drawn back into dancing because she misses it. It just seemed a bit too ephemeral and underdeveloped for my liking.
Speaking of underdeveloped, Christian's ending!!! I feel like he made no freaking character progress from the very first season (and might have even regressed, in fact). His natural proclivity for teaching was gradually built upon throughout the show, which I liked, but it still felt unfinished to me to have him just have an 'I want to be a teacher!!!' epiphany 10 minutes into the very last episode ever. Just like with Kat with acting, I feel like it [teaching] is something he might do for a while, perhaps a year or two, and then freak out because everything is going well, flake, and run away, like he always does. Christian's commitment issues and self-hatred are never freaking resolved and it drives me nuts because the writers had a perfect opportunity in s3 to have Sammy's death be the catalyst to Christian's personality revolution (i.e. having him face his commitment issues; spending more than one episode deciding what he wants in life; and tackling the root of the issue as to why he feels he is never good enough, doesn't deserve happiness, and why he itches to self-sabotage every good thing in his life).
Instead, he once again reverts to his old ways where he runs from his problems and lashes out at people who care about him and changes his mind every 2 minutes. Like how are we, as an audience, supposed to believe that Christian has actually changed for the better and will want to stick with teaching, or won't be the same old flaky, indecisive boyfriend if he gets back with Tara? It's very boy who cries wolf because we've seen his character development and then his subsequent reversion to his old tendencies whenever something goes slightly awry. We've seen this pattern of his for three freaking seasons. And I understand that bad habits like Christian's are hard to break and it's probably more realistic to have the show end with him still struggling with those internal issues, but why even have episode upon episode centering around Christian's problems if his character didn't develop? All this terrible shit constantly happens to him and all character growth and progress he makes as a result of it is undone by like the next episode when he starts acting like a jerk again and hurting those around him. He doesn't even BEGIN to accept that he has problems until freaking episode 3x10!!! And when he does, it seems so random! There's literally no driving force behind his spontaneous decision to change and become the "born again Christian", and there's no evidence to say he'll actually change for the better since history very much says otherwise. Tara being skeptical about his overnight transformation was smart because he's undergone this ~new Christian~ thing multiple times and it's never stuck before, so why would it stick now, completely out of the blue? I really just think the writers dropped the ball with Christian's character development in s3 :/ So much potential there, too.
Knowing now that they're making a Dance Academy movie makes a lot of sense as to why there were so many loose ends, but some of the actual characters' development was really lacking imo.
Edit: I'm SO sorry for my essay. I just love character studies haha.
First off, YES on Tara's lack of character growth. She was an whiny brat at the beginning, and never changed at all. (Well, she tried for like half a second every now and then.) Second, YES on Grace being a sociopath. Yikes, what a character.
I was also very happy with Abigail getting the contract. She was my favorite, and happy Abigail leads to happy me. That's all I really needed out of the finale. ;)
Maybe Kat will land some movies that require her to dance. Save The Last Dance 7, starring Katrina Karamakov! That's the kind of thing I imagined her eventually doing. *shrug*
You make some very good points about Christian. I never paid him or his future much thought, because to be honest, I didn't really care. I loved Abigail and I loved Kat and everybody else was pretty much background noise.
We're supposedly getting a movie, so maybe Christian and Kat will have figured out what they want and how to deal with their issues by the time that comes out.
YES YES to Abigail. She was my fav character as well so her ending was everything I could've ever wanted. She got the ending she truly deserved. My Dance Academy OTP was Abigail/Happiness <3
You make a good point about Kat doing dance movies (one that I stupidly didn't even consider despite Step Up being one of my favs lol), I just wish they would've said it more explicitly. Like spell it out that dancing is going to continue to be a part of her, because the group dance at the end seemed more like a present for Tara than a confirmation of Kat's continued love of dance.
Lmao, I can respect that. Christian certainly wasn't one of my favorite characters by the show's end, and I pretty much gave up on him after he HOMEWRECKED the Tara/Kat friendship (and then later had the nerve to bitch that Tara was ruining his friendship with Ben, the little hypocrite), but I swear I didn't suffer through all those Christian-centric manpain episodes just for him to make no damn progress!
And let us hope. Also hoping that Tara will be getting a personality makeover.
My OTP was Abigail/Unhappy!Tara. The link scene is probably my favorite thing in the entire series. Abigail just gets this unbelievably evil look on in her eyes whenever bad things happen to Tara, and I love it so much. XD (I made an Abigail link, btw, if you'd like to join!)
I think even if Kat didn't dance in movies, she would have continued doing it in her free time. (She didn't hate dancing, she hated being forced to do it.) All her training would also make her great at choreographing fights and such for action movies - either for acting in herself, or for teaching others. And she's pretty and blonde, so that probably would've helped her career a little. ;)
Ugh, the Kat/Christian/Tara thing. *eyeroll* Friggin' teenagers... (she complains about a teen show.)
Omg that whole tan storyline killed me. Abigail enjoying Tara's suffering was all of us enjoying her suffering lmao. And as much as I disliked Tara by that point, I did like how much they focused on self-esteem issues. Like Tara worrying she's not hot enough for Christian, or Kat and Abigail struggling with their EDs. Very realistic and very well-handled. Not enough teen shows tackle touchy subjects like those, so I applaud this show for doing it justice.
That love triangle mess ruined most of season 2 for me :/ I like to pretend that whole storyline never happened (mainly because Kat was too good for Christian, lbr. such a cringey couple imo)
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