TV Series Thread

[Hydra009]

I finally got around to watching The Mighty Nein, and I'm really enjoying it.

*narrator voice* Enter a fantasy world of make-believe with magic swords, sorcery, and people speaking German.  Meet the heroes (anti-heroes?) protagonists:

Knot, the Brave - a street urchin goblin girl who's drunk and penniless despite being a klepto and her whole backstory is a real tear-jerker if you think about it...

Caleb, Herr Hexenmeister, a wizard from the imaginary realm of Germany who takes waaay too long to cast his spells (metamagic feats, my guy) and also has a really sad, tragic backstory.  Moving on...

Ford Stone, a green seaman (no jokes) who has a sick-ass magic sword and jeez, that's a really sad, tragic backstory.  Man, I'm gonna need a barrel of Prozac to finish...

Beauregard Lionett, a fit muscle-mommy monk who's also a detective and a bit of an asshole.  And William Riker is on her shit list.  She likes books just as much as she likes getting swole.  Cool blue-teal outfit.  Headcanon: she's Rainbow Dash's D&D character.

Molly Tealeaf, a bisexual twink circus performer and pinkish violet Tiefling (who designed this character, Elton John?) who will shuffle his deck to reveal his trap card right before unleashing a devastating X-shaped slash with two swords.  Gets merchant discounts during the month of June.

Jester Lavorre, a genki girl blue Tiefling who is dangerously genre-savy, cracks jokes constantly, and constantly talks to her imaginary god just like Nightcrawler from the X-Men.  Notable for being more utility than DPS - and the only non-DPS in the party so far.  Heals!  I need heals here!  We all need heals!!

Watch as this daring party of humans and hellspawn (and goblin) separately make their way to a magical carnival where nothing out of the ordinary happens at all.  *narrator crawls into a fetal position while sobbing*

And...cut.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anybody watched "Secret Level" yet?

[Blackleaf]

Anybody watched "Secret Level" yet?

I've seen some of it, but they made an AI ad for Coca-Cola, so they're on my shit list now.

[Blackleaf]

New TADC episode is out! And hoo boy, what a ride. Also, there's a cameo from someone with a very recognizable voice.

[Hydra009]

I saw it last night.

Let's just say that when they said it'd "piss off the right kind of people" and when Michael Kovach told the episode's plotline to a friend and got a negative reaction, I now fully understand what they meant.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've seen some of it, but that  made an AI ad for Coca-Cola, so they're on my shit list now.

EH?

[Blackleaf]

EH?

The company that animated Secret Level made an AI ad for Coke.

[Hydra009]

Okay, so I think enough time has passed for me to give my review without spoiling anyone.  If you haven't seen the episode yet, stop reading and click the video.

-----

Let me start by saying that I really, really like The Amazing Digital Circus.  It had a good first episode and they have consistently gotten better from there.

I like it especially because it works on two levels.  There's the surface level - adventures in the crapsaccharine 90s VR world, complete the oddball humor, mostly from Bubble but occasionally from Caine.  Then there's the deeper level - the characters' existential horror and attempts to get over their different trauma.  And at the bottom of the deep level, there's an allegory about mental health - about being kind to yourself and others - about the need for friendship and belonging and purpose.

This is also a show well-suited for theorycrafting.  We don't know a lot of things - so it's fun to speculate on why this digital world exists, how these characters wound up in this digital world, what they can do to escape (if possible), what's Caine's deal, what is abstraction exactly and what causes people to abstract.  We can even speculate about if the Circus is The Bad Place, if Pomni is some sort of Jesus allegory, is Jax is an NPC, did Kinger create the circus, what's the deal with the mannequin spying on the cast, if there's a Cain is there an Able, etc.  Lots and lots of questions just begging for some sort of answer, and we don't have much time left.

So imagine my shock when in the lead-up to the latest episode, the writer and cast promised some sort of mind-blowing revelation, and in the beach episode no less.  Personally, I expected Caine to snap and almost certainly take out his frustration on Zooble, the digital world to suddenly become a much more unstable and scarier place (reflecting Caine's instability) and maybe for Jax to either abstract or start to do so as a cliff-hanger ending.  So I eagerly grabbed a seat and watched...

I watched Bubbles suggest doing a beach episode again, apparently to remind the audience that it said that before.

I watched the mildly amusing part with the Sun.  I watched a thoroughly not amusing part with the fish (and why did Pomni go up for air?  I thought they made a big deal about that not being necessary back in episode 3)

And then the beach part was done.  That's weird, normally the adventures dovetail more with the show's deeper aspects.  Whatever.

So imagine my shock when the mannequin character came out of the woodwork with a treasure trove of theories.  Able, Kinger's past, the true nature of the circus, how to escape - all of it was tantalizingly close.  Not quite what I expected, but finally, some answers!

And the big reveal?  Nada.  Nothing.  Rien.  Nichts.  Just a ruse for Caine to troll the cast.  It was basically a Rick Roll episode.  And what's worse, it felt very much like the author trolling the audience in a mean-spirited way, like that terrible Boner joke from Wandavision.  "Hey, eagle-eyed viewers who dissect every frame of this show?  Wanna see something cool?  Here's every single theory you have and I'm gonna use them all as toilet paper!"  If there was some sort of payoff, I'd be okay with just about anything, but there was no payoff.

The only things we got out of this episode are Kinger saying that Scratch was the first abstraction (okay???  what's the significance of that?) and flashbacks of Jax driving, but it lacks any context, so you're guess is as good as anyone's and you already know how guessing is rewarded here, so why bother.  Needless to say, it's important in writing to reward readers/viewers paying close attention to detail and encourage that sort of behavior - actively discouraging it is a terrible thing to do.  I know Gooseworx likes to have a little fun at the audience's expense, but this crossed a line.

This episode absolutely killed any theorycrafting or speculation of any kind, which is one of the show's main draws.  Without that, it really takes the wind out of my sails. 

And almost as bad, it turns Caine into a much more malicious character.  Because now we know that Caine was plotting some really messed up and intentionally scarring stuff from much earlier in the show, before it was obvious that he was unwell.  Instead of being a well-meaning but inept adventure-crafter, now we know that he deliberately torments his players, perhaps even messing with their heads and possibly causing them to abstract.  Like with Jax at the dinner table, Caine deliberately plays dumb.  So it stands to reason that he's playing dumb at other things, like not being aware of Kaufmo's abstraction.  You know Jax's speech about wanting others to suffer?  "You are my playthings, and I get joy out of making you suffer! I'm the one who causes pain for fun!"  That might actually be true, but not with Jax as the tormentor, but Caine.

Needless to say, I vastly preferred the Ringmaster who unintentionally inflicts torment, like any good war criminal, compared to the calculating, malicious bully we get.  (Here I note that in episode 3 - if Zooble had actually gone on the super scary part, Zooble wouldn't be able to hold her breath and walk at the same time, since she becomes stiff while holding her breath - meaning she would've been trapped there and Caine likely knew that ahead of time)  At this point, this show might actually become very similar - perhaps too similar - to I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.  Also, the Soma Theory (the theory that the characters are all just digital copies and therefore, escape is physically impossible) is now the lead theory, and I'm not exactly thrilled with that, either.

I can't say I'm enjoying where this is heading.  But they still have two more episodes, so it's not too late to turn it around, but it's a lot more difficult now than it would have been.