Why does this show have so much filler?

those are actual fanatics that see no flaws in the show. You won't get real discussion from them you'll just get "wow you're so ignorant haha let me just sidestep anything you post haha :^)"

The problem is, the gem stories are much more interesting than the townie episodes.

Filler, by definition, cannot occur in the source material.

Because CN wants certain things to happen with this show.
Is Sugar had total control of the show, the Gems would be the stars of the show and Steven would never have been a thing.

I saw a few episodes of this for the first time the other day. I don't really get why it's praised so much. It's essentially just Adventure Time.

He's the whole point of the show. She based him on her brother. The gems are aspects of her personality.

/thread
call it what you guys actually mean: "episodes i don't like"

she fused with her brother? no wonder he's such a whiny faggot. Sexual abuse will do that to you

I believe the correct word is padding.

Because children's shows require stuff that could be aired over and over again without prior knowledge to other things. You simply can't play Jailbreak again and again as it wouldn't make sense. Try to remember those old shows, they were simply episodic thus making it easier to broadcast.

more like "superfluous things that can be completely ignore and no one would notice"

Filler is any episode that doesn't advance the main plot

Will you fucking retards stop using "filler" to mean
"I don't find interesting"?

Filler means that it was put there for the sole purpose of filling up space. It's not filler if it makes up 95% of the content in the entire fucking show.

What nimrod told you that nonsense? Filler refers to content in an ADAPTATION. The word doesn't apply to the source material at all.

>townie episodes
>95%

Townies are fine, but when you have useless shit like BCD, RT/CS, and Onion Gang, it's just obvious its there for padding

What complete retard made you think that? Filler is something added to increase size. The word wholly and fully.

The term that should be used is padding. Useless content that coems after a good episode that can easily be forgotten and has no correlation with the overarching story.

Look at FBZ. It comes right after Steven has a mental breakdown, which he is now all of a sudden 100% over and will likely never be mentioned again.

Even if I didn't like Mindful Education's mesdsage of "If you don't have anyone in your life to talk to, you're fucked" it still beats out FBZ, RT/CS and Onion Gang.

>muh semantics

seriously fuck off

They aren't filler, they just aren't lore episodes. SU is at least partially a SoL show

>filler
>outside anime adaptations
Time to hide this thread, my friend.

It's a mix of serialization and story arcs by design. Don't misuse the term filler.

So answer my question.
What's the filler?

Look no one really cares what the correct terminology is for "filler" all I know is, bullshit like saddie's song and the goddamn onion gang need to stop. Admittedly the pearl episode was great, but that was more for fun and slight character development. But the most recent? What the fuck, its hard to recommend this show to people who weren't already on the ride because of its painfully slow burn. Its great and I enjoy the characters but it suffers from its inconsistencies, in when it airs, and the quality of episode. Like fuck man I was excited to hear that studio trigger was helping animate an episode, but all they did was some bullshit talk about feelings and butterfly's. I don't want that if it means I have to wait a couple weeks for the next one. Otherwise i feel disappointed and less likely to tune into the next.

>Arguing about the definition of made up words

>>Endear the viewer to the people of Beach City
They don't do a very good job if you ask me

All words are made up.

CN in my country tends to air SU in pairs of episodes and whenever they air Jailbreak it's along either the previous or next episode

It's the eternal conundrum of Steven Universe. Is it paced poorly because Rebecca Sugar doesn't know any better? Or is it paced poorly because Cartoon Network is scared that its target audience won't be able to keep up with a series that relentlessly drives forward to the eventual confrontation with Gem Homeworld?

I keep on coming back to that one soccer episode in Eureka Seven, and how that was such a perfect filler episode because it was sandwiched between two very intense arcs.

Here Comes a Thought really showed how burdened Steven had become, and should have been followed up by some more meaningful resolution, instead of lol Beach City.

Because its enjoyable and actually well written most of the time

>Well written
Let's not get crazy. The writing is average at best.

i have never watched the show, but from what i could tell, they never intended it to be a story focused show, it's just what some writers tried out and fans seemed to like it. But in the end it's an episodic show

>I keep on coming back to that one soccer episode in Eureka Seven, and how that was such a perfect filler episode
Lmao Renton was in tears from not being able to pass a ball.

>Writers block?

>half townie episodes, half gem episodes
>not progressively less townie episodes and more build up to gem episodes and homeworld drama
Why go on living?

>I will continue to misuse terms because i am a retard

sure ok buddy

> it's semantics because you bore me when you use words correctly

might you be more comfortable back on Cred Forums

>It varies from episode to episode how well it's done.

Yeah. It varies from being painfully mediocre to being complete shit.

>show has obvious filler
>SU fans try to argue the exact technicality of the word because they have no legitimate argument to sit on

loving every laugh

Punishment for Zuke deleting her twitter, the episodes originally intended to air were replaced

That is just my theory and there is no basis for it, though.

Onion is a dumb shitty side character, too. They play him off like some big bad mystery who has comical power levels but why the fuck should I honestly care when the real threat, Yellow Diamond, is out there and coming for the gang? Why the fuck should Onion and his friends ganging up on Steven even REMOTELY compare to a real fight with Jasper? At that point it's like, just kick his fucking ass, Steven.

But the problem is the one time the alien invasion showed up, the entire town evacuated. So nothing was at stake personally for Beach City. And whenever there are worldwide threats, like Lapis draining the oceans or the Cluster, I don't need fucking Townie episodes to convince me that "DESTROYING THE EARTH IS BAD, HERE'S WHY". I could never have a single Townie episode and still root for Steven to save the Earth because it's the fucking Earth.

It can't have filler becaues it's not an adaption of a previous work. You fucks need to stop using words you don't understand, or spend more than a fucking day on Cred Forums before trying to appropriate words used for anime in a different context.

>I read only the OP and none of the posts in this thread that talk about the semantics of filler vs. padding and how it doesn't fucking matter what word we're using because everyone is conveying the same message of: Why does it take so goddamn long for the main plot of SU to advance.

People like you literally have nothing to add to the discussion other than frustrating debates on usage of terms. Everyone here uses the word filler, so get fucking used to the word filler instead of padding and your life will be better.

I am rooting for HW in general, but wouldn't be so strongly inclined if there weren't so many townie episodes. Ronaldo, Mr. Smiley and Mr. Pizza all suck.

Sour Cream is the only good townie. And his shit is still completely irrelevant to anything people might be interested in at this point of the story.

Because no substance

It's tumblr rotting their brains user
They act like real grown adults but they are still little girl's giggling at you from the lockers

How about I call it the single worst show in cartoon network in a really long time?

You are real life filler
You artificially inflated posts in shitty threads about bad shows by baiting people by being your horrible self

Opression means shitposting plus power
Stop opressing me cis sug scum I'm a minority that gets pushed around here too long this can't not stand anymore
Nonfandom posts matter

The problem with SU's stupid townie episodes is pretty simple. The entire pitch of the show is the strangeness of gems, how they work, where they came from, what happened to the planet, etc. As well as how they learn about earth, humans and discover what it means to be a person. Even Pearl admits that they're sticking around guarding Earth mainly because that's what Rose believed in. None of them really know all that much about humanity, and even hold them in contempt sometimes. Steven himself is Rose's attempt to have a gem BE human, to bridge the gap between gems that can barely change and humans, which change constantly.

A townie episode doesn't incorporate ANY of that. It, at best, is Steven following side characters around as they have borish slice of life episodes happen to them. There's no dynamic between alien vs human, knowledge vs experience. They're episodes that could be completely planted in an unrelated series and still be exactly the same, as long as you change the appropriate names.

The only townies that work, unsurprisingly, are ones in which the gems are involved in some way. The best ones are ones in which the characters are learning something about the past, one another, or the world around them. When you remove all of that and replace it with "quirky characters," the entire series grinds to a halt because it's apparent someone on the staff is trying to live out a writing fetish that has no place in the series.

My fucking issue with the human episodes (and hell, a lot of the show in general) is that they always build up to some moment where it feels like I'm going to get to know the humans better and see how they relate to each other.

And then the episode ends. And it's never brought up or referenced again. All the humans aside from Greg end up feeling super fucking shallow and static because of it. Hard to develop any sort of attachment to them when they don't seem to ever put any sort of focus on them as characters.

Outside of the fat guy that obsessed with conspiracy I don't like a single one of the they could have honestly thought better supporting characters, at least season one had them caught in between exciting action stuff not just Steven dressing like a girl and singing
It feels like 3 or 4 different shows and I'm struggling to find enough reasons to like a single one

It's a pretty harsh bait-and-switch. They lure you in with promises of delicious chocolate ice cream cake, but every now and again they just drop a slice of dry storebought poundcake in front of you.

>There's still no toy line for SU

Action figures when? and not some dumb looking bobble head shit figures.

Most of the townies IMO feel like flat, unfunny cartoon characters (or downright alien, in the case of Onion and his friends), compared to the gems who feel well rounded and human. They operate by cartoon logic in a lot of the episodes focused on them. Their reactions to magic stuff are weird. Other than Ronaldo who's also really cartoonish none of them ever show any distrust towards Steven and the gems over stuff like Steven possessing Lars or attracting monsters or blowing up a spaceship over the town. I guess the crew wants to avoid the distrust issue since it's a cliche but it makes sense - don't the townies value their privacy/property/lives?

It's not filler, that's just the way the show has always been structured.

I mean, first thing is that it seems like a lot of the folks there have been there for multiple generations. Combine that with the fact that the Gems were there before even humans were and you have to wonder how used to "weird" shit the townsfolk are. It's likely only become an issue recently with the return of the conflict with Homeworld.

It's a lot easier to write off weird shit when its what you, your parents, and your grandparents all grew up with and it doesn't really impact your day to day life.

So have we figured out which episodes are filler/padding yet or we just gunna keep going with "fuck townie episodes"?

Action figures of what? Steven crying? They never fight and when they do it looks horrible

As a general rule if they don't bother to call a single gem voice actor except Steven for the episode it's filler

Even if they're used to supernatural stuff, it's still putting their lives in danger and destroying their property, and the threat is only escalating. You'd expect it to at least come up in conversations.
Even if you can explain it, It's still one of the things that make the humans feel flat and unrelateable compared to the gems, whose reactions and behavior feel a lot more logical.

Drop Beat Dad doesn't have gems and if you don't watch it you'll never know how Greg became a millionaire. Is that episode filler?

Guess it depends on how important Greg being a millionaire is. It hasn't even really been important to much of the series so far, other than one episode with Pearl. And even then you could replace the entire episode with a single line of dialogue. "He had to finally pay me back my royalties!"

Yes
It's followed by an episode that tells us he is rich, the way he got rich has 0 impact on the plot and he only got rich so the writers. An bullshit a bit around the plot

He still cleans cars for tips
Hell he clean cars for free now

You could replace the dialogue, and shorten the experience, but life doesn't happen that way; and while it's a newer episode that hasn't influenced much it still has the influence there.
Also, if you take away that episode you take away Peri's interaction with her tablet and that story explaining how she learned about her powers. You take away the Dondai, and any episodes that they influence. You take away Pearl's character growth.
The point I'm trying to make is your rule about "no gems = filler" is flawed

The statement was
Any episode without a gem that isn't Steven talking is filler
I guess I could go as far as to claim you could cram 6 filled episodes into one and they wouldn't suffer, hell it would make them better

The point of a tv show is to focus on the important and/or entertaining bits that's why we never see a character spend five minutes in the bathroom trying to read some shampoo bottles because he forgot to bring something to distract himself from the fact it's taking a while and some effort to pass a bug dry turd

The main plot of Steven Universe isn't the defeat of gem society, it's Steven's maturation. Steven Universe is a coming of age story. Every townie episode has to do with Steven growing up, ergo, it advances the main plot. They're not all good episodes, but they're not filler. Everyone just wants the show to be about something it isn't, and mistakes that for understanding the flaws in the show, which is primarily episodes that are way too fucking jokey.

How about you acknowledge any of the anons who already refuted this?
Oh right denial doesnt work like that does itif it's a slice of life show then why do you complain about no action figures and people calling it a girl show?

Plus Steven grows up even slower than the war plot moves so that isn't an excuse either
Any way you see it the show is lacking

I find it hillarious when fans call town episodes "filler". It's called world building and having your main cast interact with others besides one another. If the entire show was set in the temple and mission with only a few glimpses of the town of Beach City and it's citizens, then everyone would want to see more insight on them. Kind of hypocritical don't you think.

>Any episode without a gem that isn't Steven talking is filler
Yes, I understand that was your statement, and I was providing an example and counterpoint that challenged that statement.
Drop Beat Dad fits your criteria as filler, but it's not filler because Greg becomes a millionaire and that action affects the subsequent episodes.

Instead of making erroneous rules about episodes, you are allowed to say you just don't like them because you don't find them interesting.

So you're complaining the pace of the show is slow? That sounds like your problem not the show's. The issue I have with it is that many of the townies are caricatures or revert to caricatures, and sometimes so does steven, undermining the drama and sometimes wasting time. They're not filler episodes because they're not the Crewniverse using ten minutes to fuck around. They are always actively building setting up as something for Steven to have as reference or to react to.

Also neither of those things are things I care about.

>Hurrrrd hurt I'm angry so I'm going to miss represent you and bring the same point over and over again and pretend you never answered it
>Oops did I do that?
>Now I'm going to play stupid
>Now I'm going to argue semantics
>Now I'm going to talk about some other random shit but it's still about Steven universe I'm just trying to distract you
>Oops did I do that?
>Now I'm going to make fun of you you stupid stupid face
There i saved two hours of arguing with you

Same goes for you
I'm too good to waste my time with fandom shit, everyone who has a working brain has heard my point and understand that criticism of the show isn't personal criticism of them

It's not really filler. Episodes are supposed to either advance character or advance overarching story, a story that doesn't do both is often shit. People shit on advancing chatacter, but its damn necesarry. Only if a stoey doesnt advance charactet or stoey and nothing advances at all is it really filler.

Advancing character is just as important as story. You need to get to know the people,get to know the characters

SU us a character driven story, not a plot driven one

I don't think the "filler" episodes really advance the main characters all that much. They advance the townies but what's the point? Why should I care about Onion or mr. Frowney?
I also think there's a lot of seemingly non-filler episodes that seem to advance the characters but really just hammer in the same points again and again (like the multitude of "Pearl can't get over Rose" episodes) but they're at least interesting to watch since the gems are actually good characters unlike the townies.

Why do we have to be having an argument? Why can't it just be a discussion?

I asked what episodes are filler. You made the statement "if they don't bother to call a single gem voice actor except for Steven... it's filler". I provided an example that has no gem voice actors other than Steven and said why it's not filler. You said it hasn't been important except for maybe that one episode with Pearl.
>It hasn't even really been important to much of the series so far, other than one episode with Pearl.
That in itself invalidates your previous and later statement
>Any episode without a gem that isn't Steven talking is filler

Now the ball's in your court. You can disagree with me and defend your statement, agree with me and admit the statement is flawed, make more greentext meme shitposts, or not reply.

well you're wrong, when you watch filler episodes it may seem that way but later on the things they feature become relevant.

Most peeps are upset with townies, not the lack of lore. Nobody minded Mr. Greg or Last One Out of Beach City cause they had rock waifus

Because despite its adult fanbase, it's still a kid's show

Kid's dont fully understand the show the way adults do, so naturally they have to comply with cartoon guidelines

If you ask me they established it well enough in s1, then failed to balance it well after jailbreak. We don't need 4 townie episodes for every 1 gem/lore/plot episode anymore. We already know the characters and are already "attached" to them

>I'm going to base my arguments entirely on hypotheticals then call people out because they MIGHT act hypocritical!

And fucking no people would love it if we got to have a show mostly about the Gems. It's been two fucking years and we're only just now finding out Jasper belonged to PD.

I wish they'd show CGs beside Steven interacting with the townies though. It'd make for some interesting new dynamics instead of the same ol' stuff with Steven and the townies.

yeah, it's supposed to show the human side of Steven, he's meant to grow up with humans as well as the gems. My main issue is that the townie episodes seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the gem stuff, which is clearly the main plot aspect of the show. I don't know how this could be handled but I guess I expect there to be more interactions between gems and humans, sure we're getting that with Connie and her training and all, but I feel like the other townies could start to pull some of their own weight too. Imagine if all of Beach City helped with the war against homeworld.

Because it's shit and the writers are making it up as they go along. Also limited budget and other constraints.
>le anyone who shares a different opinion than me is bait meme

Projecting your bait onto other people's bait? Baitcception?

What the fuck does Townie even mean? There's been tons of shows that take place in one town but are fairly eventful with lots of twists and stuff.

Like, this is seriously being "This"ed and viewed as a valid argument? Lol.

Townie basically means non-gem local who is not part of the main cast. So Connie and Greg are not technically townie, but pretty much every other human is.

And yeah, I know, Connie and Greg by any definition should be townies, but this is just what people mean when they say townie.

Have there been any episodes where the Crystal Gems interacted with the townies and Steven wasn't involved with the episode's events at all?

I didn't know steven universe was based on a comic OP.

The show follows Steven's PoV, so unless that changes this would be impossible unless it was a story being told to Steven or Steven had some way of understanding the events of the episode after they happened like in Log Date.

Are there any "townie' episodes that are widely regarded as good?

Ugh. So it's not even an actual term, the SU fandom just made it up to make up for a whole group of characters being essentially less important, despite being front and center in a number of filler episodes? Damn you guys sure are oblivious when you're blinded by what makes you feel good or comfy. I love me some comfy shows too but at least just call it that instead of making excuses for filler.

Like, I'll admit Loud House is pretty much all filler, but that's sorta because the show isn't supposed to have an overarching plot. Its just an episodic family shenanigans type thing. SU comes off trying to be a cartoon space opera with lesbians but falls hard.

Did /sug/ get sent to /trash/, I mean where is it?

>today's google animation

Yep
official hiatus

Nope, but there's Beach Party where the gems share a meal with the Pizza family.

The problem is that the townies feel so irrelevant to the current lore. It was better in S1 where the townies were usually mixed with corrupt gem stuff, but since they don't do that anymore, the townies are just shoe horned. Onion Gang was particularly bad. Sure there's some vague, vague connection I'm sure the writers have. No writer ever admits that it's a filler episode. But realistically, the recent townies are filler. And without any of the townies doing something relevant to the gems, their personal lives (like Mr. Smiley) just is not as interesting as the main characters' personal lives or their side mains (like Peridot and Lapis). Nobody cares, even if Smiley is gay, about his relation, in comparison to Lapis' and Peridot's off-screen rekindling.

>So it's not even an actual term,

Yes it is.

It's mostly known as a subculture in the UK but has also grown to mean the equivalent of "locals", "city-slickers", or as a derogatory term for the kind of people who live out their whole lives in their home towns.

Down home.

I'm pretty sure most SU fans hate the filler too. Townie episodes are commonly considered the worst wastes of the shows time. The only people who like them are SoL fags.

There's a need for them, it prevents Steven from becoming an angsty super hero who is constantly having personal issues, but the writing in them is typically abysmal. If they had better writing or meshed the townie characters with the world a bit better, people it'd be a different story, but as is, it's a massive waste of air time that only serves to break up the plot and generally break up the pacing of the show.

I feel like the writers themselves don't put that much effort into townie episodes anymore, like they're more doing them out of obligation rather than thinking they have good ideas

>We don't need 4 townie episodes for every 1 gem/lore/plot episode anymore.
The ratio like a bowl of lucky charms these days. Lots of bland cardboard tasting shit sprinkled with sweet marshmallow bits

Onion a shit, dude.

Widely regarded? Probably not, nothing is "widely regarded" on the internet anymore.

But Shirt Club and Joy Ride are fantastic because Buck.

Also I was trying to research which episodes I'd call townie episodes, and season 1 doesn't actually have that many townie episodes despite being 52 episodes and all but the last two being before the Jasper-Peridot touchdown on earth.

What Season 1 had were more just episodes about Steven being in the town. Shit like Cat Fingers and Steven and the Stevens, where Steven is doing shenanigans and he doesn't like being cooped up inside.

There are still Townie episodes, like Frybo, Horror Club and the such, and there's also Island Adventure which is not in the town but is Lars and Sadie.

Season 1 just had more variation in its townie time, as opposed to, say, season 3, where it feels like a formula (I even like Kiki's Pizza Delivery Service and I was tired of it).

>SU comes off trying to be a cartoon space opera with lesbians but falls hard.
But it's good when it's actually about that

>constantly having personal issues
But then when they want to give him angst issues, they pop it out of nowhere. Steven, post Bubbled was showing no signs of anxiety until Mindful Education, where he must've hid it so well that he was rendered useless.

Some signs of Steven being triggered or occasionally hesitant in previous episodes would've helped, but no...

Same reason DBZ had so much filler: The head creator is still making the story as the show is going. There are general directions or plot points set, like how Frieza is mentioned before they arrive on Namek, but they can't move the plot forward yet without knowing what exactly comes next.

Before someone goes nuts, I'm not saying SU is as good as DBZ, I'm just comparing story structure.

He looked like he had some shit bubbling under the surface in Kindergarten Kid when he was throwing marshmallows at Peridot

>I'm not saying SU is as good as DBZ,
But most things are better than DBZ

That's a faulty analogy, though. DBZ was running concurrently with the source material, and as such was constantly at risk of overtaking it.
This isn't the case with Steven Universe though, which IS the original material. There's nothing to adapt, there's no risk of overtaking anything. The faults of this show as far as pacing goes are entirely on the staff's own incompetence.

While I disagree, he clearly had many issues with the fact that he had poofed Bismuth at the end of her episode just by the reactions he was having to the situation alone, it would make sense he would repress his feelings on the matter shortly afterwards and wouldn't think about it, thus not showing any affects until he flooded himself and had no choice but to open up.

As for his reaction to Jasper and Eyeball, while he did have some clear worry about his affects on them, I feel like their fates not having a clear affect on Steven is the fault of the transition from season 3 to 4, which was really poorly done. It went from a very tense, emotional scene at the end of Bubbled, straight into a Wile e Coyote tribute. There was no episode like Full Disclosure or Joy Ride like in season 2, or the short barn arc we had with Lapis in season 3. Hell, even House Guest was a better transitional episode than Kindergarten Kid. It wasn't just Steven that was cheated out of a good moment from this either. All we got to conclude the entire 4 part episode was a nice emotional scene with him rejoining the others in the ship, which while I'm grateful for, I don't quite like how it jarring the transition was into the next episode, and it definitely robbed some contemplation time from all of the whole cast.

This 100%.

>ITT: Wanting the show to be something it isn't

Watch any other cartoon for action with no exploration of the character's real life outside of action episodes.

>>ITT: Wanting the show to be something it isn't

While some people are arguing that, which is dumb, there is a real problem with the poor writing and effort that goes into townie episodes. Especially when compared to the plot based episodes.

I think the show needs the townie episodes to be there because they ground the show and remind us that Steven is, for the most part, a normal kid, he just happens to have an extraordinary life when he's busy. But right now, townie episodes tend to be a very lackluster watching experience. They rarely have any lasting effect on the story of the show. Usually, the only ones affected by the events of the episodes are the townies directly involved in the episode, meaning the only reason the episode matters is for the next time said townie has a dedicated episode, which typically takes a full season.

It leaves the viewer with a lot of apathy for the townie characters because the characters involved in the main plot are typically much better fleshed out and explored, and their episode's plots tend to be more involved with the world afflicted by gems, something which is considered a large draw of the show. So fans end up feeling like the townie characters only serve to take up air time that could have been given to the characters they actually care about.

It's not that we need the show to have an overhaul on it's structure, we just need better writing so the "filler" episodes don't end up feeling like a complete waste of time.

eeeeeeeexactly

You don't need to fight to have action figures, it's all about character design

>That sounds like your problem not the show's
No, no it doesn't

>Kid's dont fully understand the show the way adults do
If they're above the age of 6 they probably do. It's really not that deep

>SU and Berserk at the same time
Double whammy

It was pointed that Steven tends to bottle up his problems and try to not to think about sad stuff until it blows in his face or flat out can't escape from it. Which is why he seems fine after such gruesome stuff until its brought up or has to face it again.

Dude, it's a children's show. Get over it you pussy

>another fucking hiatus
I thought we were actually supposed to have a regular schedule now. What happened?

>"hey yo sugar Ima let you finish but I gotta rerun these Christmas specials first real fast" - Cartoon Network