I'm gonna be honest here, the S3 cast fucking sucked aside from Burt and Alex. I think S4 had the best overall cast, if you had a cast like that but they weren't cringe fans that's the best possible FT cast imo. Again Freddy is a great example, he didn't really know much about Fishtank so he didn't try to be meta, soy or cringe. In many ways Freddy is the perfect example of the ideal fishtank contestant, he's entertaining, unique, can be easily fucked with but also easily fucks with other people, and doesn't try to metagame because he doesn't really know the show deeply.
I’ll bite. A cast’s quality isn’t just determined by fish as individuals, but how they mesh together. Every season has fish that stick out, perhaps even thrive when by themselves, and fish who struggle outside of social dynamics.
Fishtank at its core is reality tv, a genre built upon social dynamics and interaction. So while a season can get by on a talent-by-talent basis with Fish like Burt, Alex, Freddy, Jimmy, Jon, etc, it can get old real quick. These fish create content as naturally as you or I breathe, but without a larger cast to react to it they’re just doing wacky things in a vacuum, one disjointed piece of content after the other with no greater impact.
Freddy was a good fish, there’s no question. But unlike past seasons, season 4 never established itself with a strong social web. It tried to a few times, but fish were usually kicked out too fast. It didn’t help that production refused to nurture any growing social dynamics among the fish due to how checked out they were. So while Freddy was an entertaining drunk and drug addict, his content was no more than that. Repetition of drunk hijinks, pill popping, and the occasional conflict being resolved within a few hours.
Individually season three fish like smaack, Alexis, and Laron
do suck comparatively. But they’re not meant to carry the season. They’re meant to provide reactions, valued for their dynamic with the heavy-hitting content producers. Production can occasionally shift their attention to them in order to keep the audience guessing. These fish sucked, but the overarching narrative of the Hulu gaslight elevated them. We could anticipate how they would react when their worldview crumbled, and the kind of content that would flow from such a reaction.
All this is to say that a season with fans or non-fans can get by so long as it accounts for content in the long-term. Interspersed mediocre fish are needed for this outcome. Season one was able to do this with Jon (central fish) and a few mediocre fish like Vance, Daniel, Sylvia and pre-camping arc Letty. Their content output was lesser in comparison, to Jon, but most things they did had impact because they revolved around Jon’s status in the house. Season two struggled after Cole’s elimination because the fish were bonded to the point of opposing conflict outright. Season 3’s narrative made every fish a key player because all fish were being gaslit.
But wtf did season 4 have? I mean Jin had plans to stir shit up I guess? But he was eliminated on like Day 4. Maybe Rachel? But that was more of a mini famous house, a gaslight solely focused on an individual fish. And she was also eliminated early on. The season had no identity, and was already in a downward spiral by week 2.
Season 4 was given a mercy killing.
Edit: grammar
