The Writings

It is very hard to watch a television show that mocks itself. It’s even harder to watch a television show that mocks the viewer for watching it. This week (and for far too many weeks in 2015) the WWE committed both of those sins at the same time. While I doubt Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn sit in an underground lair twiddling mustaches and ominously petting white cats while thinking, “How can we insult everyone watching our show” it’s very difficult to not feel that way for many WWE viewers. It’s far likelier the reason a great episode of RAW (like last week’s) is consistently followed by an abysmal episode of RAW (like this week’s) is due to a self-fulfilling prophecy many storytellers & television producers fall prey to; we can’t top that, so let’s try something different, or just accept this won’t be as good.