"Well that sucked," said John, a young boy and frequent viewer of Animalia Ambassadoria.
"Yeah, it is always the same thing, over and over, repeated ad nauseam. They spend hours talking about some location, describing it in great detail. Then they drop in some characters to explore it. They walk around the location, discovering nothing really significant. Then they introduce some new animal to be uplifted and spend even more time describing how it found a mate. When it is all over, they zip over to a new location and begin the same routine all over again. It is really getting kind of repetitive and formulaic," said his friend Rick.
"Yeah. And boring. Nothing ever happens. Even a children's cartoon has some kind of villain or at least a conflict that must be resolved. Where is the drama? Where is the suspense? Where is the danger or excitement?" asked John. "I feel like I am just watching a nature documentary or something."
"More like one of those bad teen dramas. Will Sally get to mate with her true love? Will she be converted to the animal of her choice? Will her parents approve of her choice? Blah!" said Rick. "The answer is always positive. There is never any doubt and it kills any suspense. Nothing ever seems to go wrong in Animalia. It's just too perfect."
"What about the births? The babies were kind of cute," said their goofy friend Sam.
"Yeah, but that's part of the problem. There was never any doubt that the babies would be born without complications. That's just how things are in Animalia - perfect. Everyone just wanted to see how adorable they turned out. If I wanted to see that stuff I could just watch my family's home movies. Or maybe some tabloid TV show that featured celebrity babies," said Rick. "No, I need a good storyline with compelling three-dimensional characters with realistic motivations and some kind of risk. It was much more interesting in the beginning when the outbreak first started. It's really gotten dull since then and it is slowly getting less interesting every day."
"Oh, I totally get it," said Sam. "It's like what happened with me and this kid. I went over to his house to play Legos. It was fun at first, watching him slowly create something from nothing. I spent hours watching him assemble the building exactly like it was written in the instructions. After a while I got anxious and tried to help, but he wouldn't let me. Everything had to be laid out specifically like he had pictured it in his mind. Then when it was done, he wouldn't let anyone play with it. We were all just supposed to admire the intricate diorama as he began to assemble another building to place the cardboard figures in. He wouldn't even let us add the stuff we built on our own."
"What in the world are you talking about?" asked John.
"I get what you are saying, Sam. He spent all his time world-building and then never created a story to go with it. Well, other than the story of the characters continuing to explore and build up the world. But, it was your friend's toy. He can play with it how he likes, especially if everybody else likes to play with it that way, " said Rick.
"Yeah, but I stopped hanging out with him after that," said Sam. "It wasn't fun anymore."
"Whatever. All this griping is even more boring than the show. Let's just stop following it and watch something else," said John.
They flipped through the channels, looking for a new story to follow.