End Of Season - Discontinued

I'm going to do the usual here and cram three shows into one post when really I ought to give each of  them a post of their own. At least I'm not going to attempt to blend them all together in one half-baked critical pie, so there's that...

Disenchantment Season Five

Last night I watched the fiftieth and final episode of Matt Groening's Disenchantment, which for some reason I always want to call "Disenchanted". The fifth season was mostly satisfying with a soupcon of disappointing to taste. Episode L as a closer, though, (They count off in Roman numerals for some reason.) really did the job.

The best thing about the series coming to an end after five ten-episode seasons is that at least the writers knew this was going be the last. I don't believe the whole thing was plotted as a five season arc because if it had been it surely would have made a lot more sense but these days you have to learn to be happy with the endings you get and this was about as tidy a wrap as I've seen for a while. Where Titans and The Owl House both left a number of options intentionally open for possible future storylines, Disenchantment seemed determined to not just to close every door but firmly lock them all and throw away the keys.

The finale was written by Groening himself, his only episode in the entire series and the only one in the entire run credited to him alone. In fact, his only other writing credit on the whole series was the Season One opener, which he co-wrote with Josh Weinstein. Weinstein also wrote the penultimate and pre-penultimate episodes, giving the climax something of the feel of parents coming back to tidy up the old family home before moving out for good.

The show debuted on Netflix in 2018 but I didn't start watching until I subbed to the streaming service a couple of years later. In 2021 I mentioned it here for the first time with great enthusiasm: "The writing is subtle, the characters convincing, the stories compelling and the animation supple...I like it so much, for my birthday I asked for three different t-shirts featuring various characters". I'm wearing one of them as I type this.

By 2022, though, I'd cooled off a little: "We're on Season Four now and I'm not quite convinced it's as strong as the previous three". At the time I wrote that I'd only seen the first three episodes and I was prepared to reserve judgment but by the time I'd seen them all I found I didn't need to revise my opinion all that much. I still enjoyed the show a lot but it definitely didn't seem to have either the focus or the bite it once had.

Season Five does little to reverse that trend. I still loved it but I loved it as a fan. As a critic, I'd say it felt a little baggy in places. There were a lot of fight scenes. Visually it remains a treat, filled with fleeting gags that demand heavy use of pause and rewind. The voice acting was on point as always although I felt the dialog wasn't always quite as sharp as I remember from the early years.

The characters remain as loveable as ever, many of them even more so, with the show's unusual but extremely welcome habit of remaining ever-open to genuine emotional growth and personal redemption. The show has a vast cast of recurring characters, some of whom, like Mop Girl, graduate from background artiste to starring role. Others shift from villain to hero or at least become the kind of people who try to do the right thing once in a while.

The central characters, Bean herself, Luci, Elfo and King Zog especially, show so much personal growth across the five seasons they're scarcely recognizeable as the venal, vicious, stupid, selfish people we were introduced to back in Season One. Without spoiling any of the details, I will at least reveal that all of them, along with quite a few more, get very happy endings indeed; endings which, I have to say, seem entirely merited.

The overwhelming sense I got from the final episode was one of closure, which is what you want from something like this, I guess. I almost never let the credits play all the way through but for once I waited until the very end. I had the feeling there would be a final word of some kind and there was: the drawbridge to the castle winches up and the entire castle vanishes, just as if it had never existed at all. 

You can't really make it plainer than that. I guess we won't be getting any more Disenchantment. In a way I'm disappointed because I've spent a lot of time with these characters and I'd happily spend a lot more. In another way, though, the show began to amble a while ago. If you're the sort of viewer who needs these things to be going somewhere in a fairly obvious and definable way, you'd probably say it went on a little too long.

On balance, I'm happy to let it rest where it landed. Whenever I think of Disenchanted now, the images that come to mind will mostly be of people I liked being happy. Maybe not for ever after but at least for a while. It's a pretty good way to end a show.

Carole & Tuesday Season One

A couple of nights before I came to the end of my run with Disenchantment, I wrapped up the first Season of what's quite possibly my favorite show of the year so far, Carole & Tuesday. 

Not that it came out in 2023. It originally debuted in Japan in 2019 and appeared on Netflix almost immediately afterwards. For some reason, Netflix didn't choose to flag it up as something I might want to watch until a few weeks ago. That was the first I heard of it.

The extremely brief description looked interesting: "Part-timer Carole meets rich girl Tuesday, and each realizes they've found the musical partner they need. Together they just might make it." I like shows about bands trying to make it. There aren't nearly enough of them for my liking. I'm always up for another. I added it to my watch list and as chance had it a space opened up almost right away.

When I started watching I got a bit of a surprise. The thing that thumbnail neglects to mention is that the whole thing takes place in the future. And not just any future - the future on Mars! Oh, and it's directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop (The anime version, not the live-action remake.) which makes it more of a big deal than I realised.

These are the sort of things you think someone might think to mention when attempting to lure viewers in but I'm glad Netflix marketing department were slacking for once. The science-fiction setting, which is marvelously eliptical and utterly lacking in any form of exposition, as all the best SciFi ought to be, set all my expectations spinning as I settled down to watch what I thought was going to be a relatively mainstream, contemporary show. 

As for the presence of the director of one of my favorite animated series, I didn't even discover he was involved until I started researching the show for this post. It made me feel all kinds of pleased with myself when I found out. I'd been debating in my mind whether to mention all the ways the show reminded me of Cowboy Bebop, something I was a little concerned might reveal more about my very limited exposure to anime than demonstrate any perceptive critical analysis on my part. Apparently all those years studying practical criticism in college weren't wasted after all.

I have a lot of things to say about Carole & Tuesday but I think I'm going to save most of them for another post, after I've seen the next Season. There are only two. I haven't started the second because I enjoyed the first so much I want to come to Part Two as a true sequel, not barrel right into it as if I was watching a soap opera.

I would like to mention the structure of Season One, which I thought was exemplary. Despite the fantastical setting and the melodramatic narrative, there's an inarguable authenticity to the whole thing. The show steers remarkably clear of those "Well, that would never happen" moments. Instead, the destinies of the two young singer-songwriters from opposite sides of the wealth divide intertwine in a wholly believable, even logical fashion.

Everything that happens could happen. Most of it probably wouldn't but that's why we're hearing these girls' stories and not someone else's. Mere credibility wouldn't run an engine as powerful as the one that drives this show, though; for that kind of traction you need a more formal structure, the kind with its own internal consistency, along wit the sort of architectonics that make everything hang just so.

What's a better platform for a tale of musical rags to riches than a talent competition? And what's more hackneyed and cliched? To turn that coat inside out and make it look like new without even showing the seams is some trick yet they pull it off with seeming ease.

The keys to the trope's success as it plays out in Carole  & Tuesday are first the way it creeps up, unflagged and unexpected and then the way it entirely takes over. It's almost like a show within a show... until suddenly it's not.

Shows about talent competitions are generally just that; shows about talent competitions. They can be fine but we know what we're going to get, going in. Carole & Tuesday upends all of that. The show uses the formality of the competition as a scaffold, not a framework; it's not there to prop the narrative up; it's there to let us get closer to the story.

It's also about the third or fourth way the duo search for some kind of way in to a music industry even more closed to outsiders than our own. In their world, AIs write the songs; humans merely perform them. Social media creates buzz but buzz doesn't necessarily translate to interest from anyone that matters. Except sometimes the people that matter aren't always those you think.

The overwhelming impression I got, watching Carole & Tuesday, was that it was just that; overwhelming. That's mostly why I found myself thinking of Cowboy Bebop early on. There's so much subtext you can scarcely see the story for it sometimes. Nothing ever seems unfreighted with meaning, from a street scene to a sunset to a freeze-frame. It's a rich mix.

I watched the show with the English-language dub. I'm a subtitles guy when it comes to live action but for animation I'm happy to use my ears. The voice acting is mesmeric and odd. Carole is normality itself; Tuesday sounds like one of the companion characters in a video game. There's a wide mix of accents and timbres, all of which work towards making Mars seem not like Earth, which is as well because it looks like Earth, most of the time.

The script itself I find absolutely fascinating. It has that hyper-real quality so familiar from the best translated games. Everything is impeccably correct, grammatically, and yet much of it sounds heightened, somehow. There's an indefinable formality about the way people speak that I find quite delicious. 

It's a very specific register that no-one I ever heard naturally uses and I love it. I particularly love the codas that append themselves seemingly uninvited to the end of simple, declarative sentences, as if saying just exactly what you mean isn't quite always enough, somehow, but always needs qualification, preferably with a conjuctive adverb.

In a show for which music plays such a central part, none of this might be enough if the songs didn't come across so it's a blessing that they do. It's also a mystery that they work so very, very well in context, when most of them sound somewhat less impressive, heard alone. I had the soundtrack playing while I wrote some of this post and although it's all good stuff and nice to listent to in the background, there's littlesense of the kind of emotional impact it packs in the show itself.

And that, of course, is exactly as it should be. Carole & Tuesday isn't a concert movie. It's not the animated video of some actual band's greatest hits. It's a story in which music plays an important part but it's important the music doesn't take over entirely. Like Carole and Tuesday themselves, the songs and the images need to work in harmony to become more together than they could be apart and that's just what they do.

I've said more than I was going to say. I'll leave it at that for now. Obviously, I recommend this one highly but I imagine most people reading this, those who'd be interested, anyway, will already have seen it, long before I did. You won't need me to point the way.

Cannon Busters Season One (And Only.)

And finally in this trilogy, a show I finished watching months ago but never got around to reviewing. Cannon Busters is yet another anime that premiered on Netflix back in 2019 but which I didn't discover until this year. Although it was produced in Japan it's an adaptation not of a manga but of an American comic-book from the early aughts. 

The comic, however, was written and drawn by LeSean Thomas, an animator who for at least the last fecade and a half has mainly worked in Korea and Japan. I gave up worrying about authenticity years ago so I'm just going to go ahead and consider it in the same bracket as all the other shows it reminds me of, which would be Cowboy Bebop (Again.) Edgerunners and Edens Zero.

I liked Cannon Busters a lot but I wouldn't claim it was a great show let alone one that makes a whole lot of sense. It's more of a picaresque romp in which a crew of very disparate characters careen off each other like lightning bugs in a mason jar. 

The animation, as I'm coming to understand seems to be the norm with these things, is both kinetic and engaging. A big part of the pleasure in animation, whatever the style, comes from just watching, something I always knew but had forgotten. When your eyes are having fun your brain doesn't always need to be getting in the way.

Much the same can be said for the ears. Cannon Busters opens and closes with a couple of really great themes. The music througout is top class. 

As for the acting, once again, the English dub is entrancing. SAM, played by Kamali Minter, is incessantly upbeat in the way only a robot could be. Stephanie Sheh, playing Casey, inevitably my favorite character, makes SAM sound downbeat. Philly the Kid (Kenny Blank) is almost permanently outraged or manic, frequently both at once, something which ought to make listening to him exhausting. It does, only in a good way. 

I found all of them and the rest of the cast a joy to spend time with. The plot, such as it is, rambles like a drunken Eagle Scout through a series of settings that throws the Old West and the Old East into some kind of retro-futuristic steampunk blender to make a fizzing cocktail of tropes that ought never to fit together except when, like this, they do.

The whole farrago is shot through which such an exuberant sense of innocent self-indulgence you just can't help but love it. Well, I did, anyway. 

Unlike the first two shows in this post, however, Cannon Busters does not come all tied up with a neat bow around the final episode. It stops resolutely in mid-climax in the clear expectation of a second season which, so far, has not appeared. Since it's been four years now, it seems unlikely it ever will.

If you can stomach a show that ends in the middle and you don't hate enjoying yourself more than you know you should, I'd recommend Cannon Busters wholeheartedly. If a lack of resolution makes you itch or you believe plots always ought to make sense, well this is probably not going to be your kind of thing...

Forthcoming Attractions

I had a post almost ready for today but then I happened across something I felt I just had to share. I also had a couple of other things I've been waiting for a chance to mention and so...

Here we are!

I heard about it from NME, where I get most of my non-MMORPG gaming news these days. As it says in both the news report and the video, there's a demo out in a few days. Next Tuesday, to be precise. August 15 to be even more precise still.

Although I could scarcely be happier about the existence of this thing, I confess I'm somewhat puzzled by the format and the provenance. It's in the style of a first-generation Playstation game but the demo will be available on PC only, through itch.io. 

Since it's a fan-made project, I'm guessing it will only ever be available that way but who knows? I'm more interested in whether it's going to go on being available at all. 

As the developers hasten to make clear, "Blue Rose Team does not own the rights of the series." I'm not sure how far that disclaimer will take them, especially when they haven't even managed to get Mark Frost's name right: "Neither David Lynch nor Mark Forst are affiliatied with this project".

Proof-reading shortcomings aside, the video looks tone-perfect so I hope Messrs. Lynch and Forst .. er, Frost... are willing to let it slide. I'm looking forward to playing the demo and I'll no doubt have more to say about that when I'm done.

Speaking of looking forward to things... it's been a while but it's (almost) here!

It's the final season of Disenchantment, perhaps the least-loved of Matt Groening's creations but my own personal favorite. I'm very sorry this is going to be the last we see of Bean and the gang but at least they're getting a proper ending.

Season 5 Episode 1 debuts on Netflix on 1 September. There are ten episodes, the same as in all previous seasons, making a nice, round fifty in all. 

Other than that I have nothing to add because I've deliberately avoided finding out anything else about it. The last thing I want to do is spoilerize my own fun.

And finally...

I spotted a mention of this yesterday in one of the comic-related blogs I follow. I thought at first it must be a joke but it's not! It's real!

Sometimes I feel like a while back, around the turn of the millennium maybe, someone or something started tapping into my subconscious for tv and movie ideas. I mean, there's no other rational explanation, right? Otherwise, how do you explain something like that? 

It may not be great but it's sure to be a lot better than this. I mean, how could it not be?

At this point, I'd like to say "And that's all I got, folks!" Except it's not. But it is all I'm giving you. 

For now...

My Favorite Demons

How many of you reading this have a favorite demon? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? 

I know someone put their hand up. There's always one.

Okay, doubling down, who has more than one favorite demon and can rank them?

Yeah! Now those hands are going down.

I guess it's pretty obvious I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't going to tell you that, yes, I do have favorite demons, plural. And I'm going to tell you who they are. And which I like best. In order.

Better. Which I like better. Grammar matters. Don't make me show you that Reese Lasangan video again. 

Too late!

So, two demons, then. I was hoping you'd think it was more but I was never going to get away with it.

Let's do this like they do at the Oscars. No, wait, not the Oscars... where is it they announce the results in reverse order? Don't say Miss World. This isn't the nineteen-seventies. Oh, never mind. We all know how it works.

Coming in at #2 (Of two...) the formerly unchallenged champion and still the only demon whose likeness I both own and wear on a T-shirt...

Luci!

The T-shirt in question features Luci's catchphrase. Can you guess what it is? Have a go. Go on. Do it. You know you want to.

So, Luci. Short for Lucifer, obviously. Although that's never confirmed. Could as easily be Lucille. 

And even as I write this, it occurs to me I'm selling myself short here. I just thought of two more demons I could add to the list. 

Do it! Do it!

Shut up, Luci. But okay, I will.

New, improved list of Bhagpuss's Favorite Demons. Now twice as long! (Still in reverse order).

#4 - Jack Kirby's Etrigan the Demon. I'm not the world's greatest Kirby fan although, as with the Beatles, I've come around to the general opinion of his genius as I've grown older. 

I'm not at all sure I ever read a whole Demon comic. If I did, I don''t remember anything about it. The character turned up in plenty of DC comics of a certain era that I did read, though. I always quite enjoyed his guest shots and cameos. 

A character that only speaks in rhyme is always going to make for interesting reading when handled by writers who aren't comfortable with verse. Although calling the doggerel Etrigan spouted "verse" is pushing it.

#3 - Lucifer. It seems a tad disrespectful to rank the actual Devil, Lord of Hell, etc etc. in third place and it does undersell just how much I enjoyed Tom Ellis's performance in the Netflix series of the same name ("Lucifer" it's called, that is, not "Tom Ellis", although frankly it might as well have been.)

I watched all 90+ episodes, following the show from Prime to Netflix when it switched. The quality was up and down and tonally it was all over the place. I preferred the earlier seasons to the later ones although I suspect when I re-watch it a few years from now that opinion will reverse.

The thing I find most curious about Lucifer is that he's a Neil Gaiman creation. I've never really seen Gaiman as much of a humorist. I probably ought to read one of the comics some day, see how many jokes he puts in.

#2 Luci from Disenchantment. We covered this already. Surely you can't have forgotten? It was like three minutes ago!

And now... the moment you've all been waiting for... the winner! Give it up for

#1 - Courtney from Dead End Paranormal Park!

In case you missed it, Dead End Paranormal Park is a ten episode animated series new to Netflix this month. Well, new to the UK version of Netflix, anyway. Not sure if it's been out before in other territories. Probably has. We get everything late. (Not really but sometimes it feels like it.)

Described on IMDB as "Two teens and a talking pug team up to battle demons at a haunted theme park", it's a show in which two teens and a talking pug team up to battle demons at a haunted theme park. No, wait, that's not it at all.

It's a show about friendship, acceptance, loyalty and honor. It made me tear up a couple of times and want to knock the leads heads together once. Slap them? Give them a sound telling off? Sit them down and discuss the implications of their actions with them in a safe and supportive environment? That last one, I guess, only with more shouting and hand gestures.

Courtney is a supporting character with a powerful redemptive arc, to which she refers at least once in a not at all fourth-wall-breaking metaside. (I just made that one up. Good, isn't it? Try to use it if you can. Let's see if we can get it to catch on). 

We meet her in Episode One as the lackey of a powerful demon lord, who's trying to steal the souls of Our Heroes, and leave her at the end of Episode Ten, happily crushed in a group hug by the self-same trio she tried to annihilate back at the start (Spoiler, but you'll thank me later.). Along the way she gets all the best lines and throws some welcome grit into the sugar.

The show itself is rated PG, which suggests to me that whoever rated it knows some very liberal and hip parents. Either that or they really weren't paying attention. 

Also, not all shows are rated equally.  Or even using the same process, as far as I can tell.

DEPP (Ooh! I just realised what the acronym is!)  has just a single warning, for "Threat". Umbrella Academy, has a whole bunch of advisories as you'd expect, including one for "Discrimination", something that's a major plot point and a core story element in several episodes of Dead End, where it doesn't get a mention. 

Hmm. We seem to be straying from the point, always assuming I had one. Wait! I did!

All I really wanted to do was draw attention to a good show that I imagine most people reading this won't have noticed yet. Although I could be wrong. Maybe I'm the last to know. Wouldn't be the hundredth time. It's kind of buried in the "Netflix After School" sub-basement but if you enjoyed Final Space or Kid Cosmic or Kipo you deffo might want to give it a try.

Dead End is based on a comic, just like pretty much every show I like these days. Think that means anything? As soon as I'd watched the final episode I went to Amazon to see about buying some of the Deadendia graphic novels but they're "Currently Unavailable". Seems like a missed opportunity. Anyone mentioned it to marketing?

The last episode concludes with an obvious set-up for a second season. Here's hoping they get one. Better yet, give Courtney a spin-off series of her own!

They Rot Your Brain. You Know It's True.

I mentioned a while ago how I'd been watching some animated shows on Netflix, mostly Western-style animations but also some anime, about which I know next to nothing. Xyzzysqrl gave me some great suggestions on how to improve on my ignorance and I did follow some of them up but the sheer effort of having to go to a different platform to watch was enough to make me drop off the back of that particular wagon pretty darn fast. I am lazy and easily dissuaded by anything that feels like work.

A couple of days ago I was having a mini-discussion with Tyler F.M. Edwards in the comments at Superior Realities over the merits of the Star Trek spin-off cartoon Lower Decks (I think it has some, Tyler disagrees.) and it occured to me that over the last year or so I have at least tried to watch more animated TV shows than at any time since the mid-90s. I don't always stick with them but it gives me the flavor, at least.

As I may have mentioned about a hundred times, I like making lists. I also like writing capsule reviews or, if you prefer, making so-called smart remarks that I think are funny, even if no-one else does. Despite having my own blog, on which I ought to be able to write anything I want, I still don't seem to be able to come up with as many excuses to indulge myself along those lines as you'd think. This is one of them.

I thought about trying to do something serious and insightful with all of this but then I thought why bother? So here they are, all the cartoons (Do we still use that word? I don't seem to see it much any more.) that I've watched or tried to watch since the last time I did this. Not in any order, unless there's some shape or form to the Netflix algorithm that's passed me by, something that seems quite likely now I come to think of it.

Currently watching:

The Hollow - (Season One) - "Three teen strangers awaken in a dangerous world and try to make sense of what connection they have to each other as they attempt to make it out alive." - I had no idea this was Canadian until I looked it up on IMDB. Amazing how many things I like turn out to be from Canada. I've always quite fancied living there although not just so I could watch Canadian TV. I can do that from here. 

The Hollow has likeable characters. I took to them from the start. It also has a good, albeit well-worn, premise that made me want to keep watching, if only to find out what the hell was going on. Supposed to be "for kids" but seems equally suitable for immature adults. I get the feeling it might remind me of Lost if I'd ever seen it, which I have not. I also realize as I write this that I'm almost at the end of the first season and I still don't have the slightest idea why it's called "The Hollow"...

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - (Season One) - "A girl explores the possibilities in a post-apocalyptic world." Produced by Dreamworks and about as good as that would suggest. Excellent characterization, very good voice acting, smart dialog, funny lines, solid, well-constructed plot. The animation is good but the background art is even better. The story has a moral dimension that doesn't feel forced because it grows organically out of the characters and their developing relationships. Really enjoyable and highly recommended.

Disenchantment  (Season Four) - "Princess Tiabeanie, 'Bean', is annoyed at her imminent arranged marriage to Prince Merkimer. Then she meets Luci, a demon, and Elfo, an elf, and things get rather exciting, and dangerous." - That's the Season One blurb. It seems so long ago. I'd actually forgotten Bean was called Tiabeanie until I copy-pasted that from IMDB. I love this show so much I literally bought the tee-shirt. Tee shirts, plural. Three different designs, no less. We're on Season Four now and I'm not quite convinced it's as strong as the previous three. I can't quite see what the season arc is this time around but I still have several episodes to watch so I mustn't pre-judge. Still superior to anything else in its class, anyway.

Watched all the way to the end:

Lower Decks (Seasons One and Two) - "The support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, have to keep up with their duties, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies." - I'm no kind of Star Trek fan. I wasn't going to watch this at all even though Amazon seemed determined I should. It's the only Amazon Prime show on this list, Netflix having hoovered up every other animated series since the dawn of time, which is possibly why they were so insistent on me seeing it. 

I was resisting, staunchly, when I read a passing comment in a post at the (Now sadly dormant) Legion of Super Bloggers. One of the writers was bemoaning yet another ruinous version of the LSH, contrasting it with Lower Decks as an example of a spin-off that gave due respect to the original IP. Since I've found myself to be in general agreement with the opinions expressed there, I thought I'd give it a go after all. Nothing like a personal recommendation. Honestly, though, I have such a vague understanding of what Star Trek is supposed to be I doubt I'd be able to tell if any given iteration was "true to the spirit" of Gene Roddenberry's vision. With that noted, I can say that Lower Decks is a great animated show in its own right. 

It's smart, funny, intelligent, well-observed and has some thoroughly likeable characters, who grow and change visibly throughout the course of the two seasons. The stories manage to be both complete and satisfying in the individual episodes and also fit convincingly into larger arcs that feel organic and unforced. It's certainly the tightest, most focused, most satisfying Star Trek show I've seen, although as I said I'm anything but a fan of the IP, let alone an expert on it. I'd recommend Lower Decks to people who previously haven't thought all that much of Star Trek. Whether actual Trek fans would enjoy it or not is a different question.

Kid Cosmic (Season Three) - "A young boy who dreams of becoming a hero, stumbles across some cosmic stones of power. His dreams appear to have come true". - Sadly, this was the final season. I could have watched more. At least it all came to a very satisfying conclusion with no loose ends and everything wrapped up convincingly. The whole Season Three arc was very cleverly handled. To say more would be to give too much away. A really top-class show throughout; great characters, great animation, consistently funny and with some of the best music of any cartoon I've ever seen. There was a different, original song at the end of every show and I watched to the end of the credits every time just to hear it. I'd buy a soundtrack album.

Saturday Morning All Star Hits! - A live action/cartoon hybrid with some connection to Saturday Night Live that I was totally unaware of until I wrote this post. Paul Rudd and Emma Stone feature in the voice acting. Didn't know that either. It's a very specific, I want to say loving, parody of eighties and nineties Saturday Morning TV and when I say specific I mean actual shows (Care Bears, Thundercats...) not just the genre as a whole. 

Given how American the context is supposed to be, I found it extremely familiar. Not only did we get most of the same shows (Maybe not Denver the Last Dinosaur - never heard of that one and I can't say I'm sorry I missed it, based on this.) but we had presenters with much the same attitude and appearance as Skip and Treybor. When I started watching, I thought it was going to be too annoying to stick with but it's very skilfully paced. Everything changes just subtly enough and just soon enough to keep you invested in the story and the characters, both the live action and the animated segments.

The Polygon review makes a point of stressing just how age-critical SMASH is and I suspect they have a point. If you didn't watch this stuff growing up it probably won't have quite the intended effect. That said, I was a grown adult when I watched the Saturday Morning cartooms in the eighties, usually with a hangover from the Friday night and it worked for me. Recommended to anyone of a certain age and anyone who likes scabrous parodies.

Started but didn't finish:

Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese - "Following the adventures of two families as they come together under one roof." Is it? Is it really? Can't say I got that from the one episode I watched. It was the title that hooked me, obviously. I watched the first episode and enjoyed it but I haven't watched another. It's about as manic as you'd expect from that title. The characters seemed not just anarchic but quite unpleasant at times although you can't really judge from a single episode. Often they soften. It's some kind of international production and it was first aired on the BBC. Probably not going to watch any more.

Johnny Test - "The adventures of average suburban boy Johnny Test, who wittingly plays test subject for his genius twin sisters' various experiments, reluctantly fighting evil villains in the process." Nice use of "wittingly" there. Respect! This one's really old, like more than fifteen years old. Prehistoric, even. Once again, the title lured me in with its obvious reference to Johnny Quest, another even more ancient show I never really watched, so why that worked I have no clue... Once again, one episode was enough. Nothing wrong with it but you probably need to be about nine years old and stuck in the past.

Aggretsuko - "Frustrated with her thankless office job, the 25-year-old red panda copes with her daily struggles by belting out heavy metal karaoke after work." Come on, you'd watch that! It's anime, it's metal and I was really out of my comfort zone not to mention my depth. I did like it, kind of, but boy was it loud. And spiky. Can't say I wasn't warned. I managed three episodes: there are four seasons. I don't think I can cope with much more but I'll probably try anyway. It was pretty good.

Super Crooks - "Johnny Bolt recruits a group of ragtag supervillains for one last heist. Their target: A ruthless super-powered crime boss. What can go wrong?" Anime again, although this felt much more like a traditional American Saturday morning cartoon, if you ignore the death count. It was perfectly comfortable to watch. I just didn't think it was very interesting. Or good. I managed a couple of episodes and that was probably one too many.

And that's about it. I've looked at many, many more - Netflix is stuffed like a sausage with these kinds of shows - but so far nothing's sucked me in. Something will, though, you can bet on it. When it does, I'll be sure to come back and tell you about it.

It's The End Of The Month And We Know It.

So, we finally have a firm launch date for the third Guild Wars 2 expansion, End of Dragons: the 28th of February. That's a Monday, which I thought was odd at first, but according to my research Path of Fire released on a Friday and Heart of Thorns on a Saturday, so unless you were expecting it'd be a Sunday this time, it doesn't look like there's much of a pattern. I'm guessing they picked the date because it was the latest they could possibly go and not contradict something they'd already said but honestly, I haven't been paying enough attention to know for sure.

It's quite convenient for me, anyway, in that I never work Mondays or Tuesdays now, so I'll get a decent run at it from the start. If I can summon up the interest, that is.

I watched the "Features Trailer" yesterday. That didn't get my blood pumping. I wouldn't say it's the weakest promotional video I've ever seen for an expansion to a major mmorpg but it has to be right up there. Take a look and see what you think:

Normally, if I was writing one of these posts, I'd go through all the listed features one by one and say something about each of them but this time there really wouldn't be any point. The whole package is literally "more of the same". It's the most by-the-numbers presentation imagineable.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Fan service gets a bad press but there's also knowing who your customers are and giving them what they want. 

Case in point: there's something else happening in February (On the 9th, in fact.) that also got a trailer yesterday: the fourth season of Disenchantment. I love that show. I'm all the excited for it that I'm not for EoD and the trailer (Which, bizarrely, also opens with a dirigible going down in flames.) just made me want to watch it even more!

Whether it would affect non-fans the same way is another matter. NME's review of the previous season concluded "You will know by now whether you like Disenchantment, and if you do, here’s five hours of fun for you. The problem is that season three can hope only to retain the interest of that group. Casual viewers will find it more frustrating than funny." I think much the same can be said about End of Dragons. Except for the "funny" part, obviously.

The one thing that did surprise me about the EoD trailer was the apparent lack of anything even vaguely approximating a central villain. Heart of Thorns had an Elder Dragon, Mordremoth and Path of Fire had no fewer than three, Kralkatorrik (Dragon), Balthazar (God) and Palawa Joko (Irritating Joker knock-off.) What does End of Dragons have?

Hmm. Let's think. There's a lack of trust between Cantha, Tyria's most powerful nation (Thanks to their Jade tech.) and the Pact nations, which is causing some kind of political tension. Apparently we need to make the appropriate diplomatic moves to gain their trust. 

Then there are the Aetherblades. You may remember them. They're a bunch of also-ran air pirates who keep cropping up to little effect. They're back with some kind of unspecified plan for "something big in Cantha". If we don't stop them they'll plunge Tyria into war. (That's a direct quote, too, by the way. I wouldn't want anyone thinking I've come over all patriotic.)

Excited yet? No, I didn't think so. Well, how about this?

"The secrets of Cantha. The secrets of the Dragons. We have to uncover them all - before its too late". 

Uh...which secrets would those be? And too late for what, exactly? 

Now, I'm not saying it won't turn out to be a really great storyline. Maybe all of this is so numbingly generic and vague because to say anything more specific would reveal too much. I'm not saying they should put the plot twist or the ending in the trailer like it was a blockbuster movie.

I really hope that's what it is because if the idea was to get everyone all fired up I can't say it's working. Not on me, anyway. Is anyone else excited?  

Well, yes, apparently they are. Just have a look at the comment thread that follows the trailer on YouTube. Here are a few entirely representative samples:

This was the best trailer Anet has ever produced.

This is waaaay better than I expected, really hyped to play soon!

This is what I’ve been wanting to see for months, finally something that makes me want to buy the expansion again

YES. THIS is what I've been hoping for! Awesome work on the trailer! I'm super excited now!

Oh man, this is such an amazing trailer!

And so on and on and on for nearly 800 comments (No, I didn't read them all but I read about fifty and they were all like that.) So, what do I know? I've only been playing the game every day since 2012. And yet, I thought it was a very poor trailer indeed.

Sometimes I think I might be expecting too much or maybe these things just aren't made for me. I'm too old or too jaded or too cynical or too something. I'm never going to be moved or thrilled by a trailer for a video game. Then again...