Streaminations

This is a fascinating show to discuss. There’s a reason I don’t usually recommend people start with The Original Series, and it’s because (ignoring the age of the show) it bounces up and down in quality wildly throughout. There’s no consistency in any direction. There are still some great character and thematic pieces here, and several legitimately tense plots, if you can swim around the awful, the cringe, and the boring. The good is worth the price of admission.

Final Series Score: 35.23%
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Pound for pound this is still probably one of the best shows I’ve covered. Managing the level of quality The Next Generation does across 7 seasons is crazy, especially given how much pressure and how many constraints were placed upon the creators. An excellent cast that gels well with each other, some great plots, amazing thematic pieces, generally excellent sets and effects that have aged well, and fantastic writing all mark the highlights. That’s not to dismiss the drek of course; This show can be boring, awful, and downright offensive. There’s a reason I recommend people start this show with Season 3, and see if you like that, before trying to go through the whole thing. Still a big recommend.

Final Series Score: 48.68%
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This was an absolutely wild show to cover. The first season started a bit rough (and the framerate in season 1 is literally headache inducing) but then it got good, and then it got great. By mid season 2 I was hooked, and by season 3 I couldn’t wait to see where it was going. …so for those unaware, seasons 1 – 3 were one package, then 4 – 7 were made years later. And BOY does it show. While the animation quality remains good (until season 7) and there’s occasional moments of excellence (Season 6 still has my favorite moment in the entire show), the fact is the last four seasons did not know what they were doing or where they were going. Inconsistent character presentation, confused central messages, awkward plot beats, LOTS of filler and padding. I highly recommend watching the first three seasons, and skipping the rest.

Final Series Score: 33.33%
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I was gob-smacked by how good this show is. Season 1 starts off… pretty rough honestly (which show doesn’t?) but it finds itself pretty hard in Season 2 and never really stops increasing in quality the whole series. Excellent animation, voice acting, characters (except for Catra), proper escalation of scope and stakes, some genuinely horrifying plot beats, all wrapped in a show that is unafraid to touch on legitimately dark topics. My biggest complaints early on were that the show was trapped in the ‘kids show’ mentality, and that Catra is actually two distinct characters depending on which scene she’s in which really hampers her effectiveness (worth noting this went away, finally, in season 5). Hugely recommended.

Final Series Score: 65.38%
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My goodness, was this an eye opener. Covering this show was both painful and informative. For years I’ve mentioned this show in a positive light, something I will not be doing again. To be clear this is not about the animation (which is not only not bad ‘for the time’ but noticeably improves over the show’s tenure), but rather the content. Awkward, weird pacing, bad camera angles, awful jokes, awful characters, irritating catch phrases, all of this makes this unpleasant to me… but what really pushes it over the line is how persistently mean-spirited the show is, both to itself, other fictions, and the audience watching. This show desperately needed people who knew how to direct and write and had neither. Other than for historical significance I adamantly do not recommend watching this show.

Final Series Score: 15.25%
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Honestly I like this show better than the movie, despite its issues. It starts VERY rough but evens out very quickly, and while it suffers from some pretty clear structural issues (which I fully blame on behind the scenes stuff), all of that just lowers the quality from ‘amazing’ to ‘good’. The animation is bonkers good, the voice work is excellent, and several characters are consistently high quality. And even the characters that aren’t vary, having their moments here and there. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the amazing musical numbers. But I should also mention the negatives, for there’s this… insistence upon one of the characters that could have worked really well if it was done properly and… doesn’t work very well. And it’s the central plot of half the show so it sort of drags down a lot of otherwise excellent television. Still a solid recommend.

Final Series Score: 48.61%
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Okay so in fairness we didn’t cover the entire show. Yet. But this nonsense, this absolute drivel, this monster… People meme, people joke, but this show is absolute trash. It’s the worst show I’ve ever seen. It’s free on Youtube and I highly recommend stomaching one episode just for the experience of it.

Final Series Score: 0.00%
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I wasn’t sure what to expect walking into this one. I’m not a big anime fan in general, but the art style was legit, the voice work was solid, and they really crafted a show to fit within the game (note: Due to some small but significant changes between the setting and the video game, it’s worth noting this show firmly follows the game’s continuity and not the books). While the arc was somewhat expected, it was still competently executed, and I really liked several of the characters. Definite recommend.

Final Series Score: 56.67%
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This… was a weird show to cover. It could be argued I was spoiled by other, better Star Wars shows, but I was expecting this to knock it out of the park. Don’t mistake me, I really like Mandalorian. In fact I’d say it’s solidly above average for shows in general. Mando himself is great, the world building is fascinating, the movement through the timeline is interesting, several episodes are just really solid and fun in a vacuum, and I really appreciate the western vibe most of the show has. Solid recommend.

Final Series Score: 55.21%
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I should mention that this only covers season 1, with no plans to expand that to season 2. Despite that, season 1 of Arcane is… silly good. I like to call this (and another show we’ll talk about later) mutant freak shows, because of all the television I’ve covered for over a decade, it’s unlikely that a show is just this frickin’ good. Artwork, camerawork, pacing, editing, voice acting, animation, characters, plot, world building. It has it all and is honestly some of the best television I have ever seen. Extremely recommend.

Final Series Score: 90.74%
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I try, very hard, not to drift into extreme statements because they sound too much like hyperbole to someone who doesn’t know you. So I say without exaggeration or excess that this is the best season of television I have ever experience. It is shockingly good. As in I was legitimately surprised by the nuance, craft, and detail on display. I cannot recommend it enough.

Final Series Score: 94.44%
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