2x04 Only Human

[5.2/10] This episode is profoundly dumb. It centers on a bizarrely Luddite and trite comment on man vs. machine via Cyborg, and it manages to be nonsensical without the decency of trying to be funny about it.

Let’s start with the basics. Cyborg wants to give more than 100%, like he did before he was turned into...well...a cyborg. But he can’t, because his bodily machinery has mechanical limits, and that bothers him. That’s all well and good, except that human muscles and other biological systems also have mechanical limits! There’s nothing magically stronger about human sinew, and if anything, Cyborg’s technological enhancements increase those limits rather than cabin them. It’s a bizarre misreading of an admittedly fantastical situation to have him lament that he’s somehow more limited by having mechanized super strength.

Then, there's the utter randomness of Atlas, the villain of the piece, who appears out of nowhere to challenge Cyborg to a fight after losing to him in a video game. It’s not clear how that even happens. Also, Atlas just has a stadium lair where he fights people? I’m not one to nitpick superhero shows. Contrivance is part of the game. But the whole thing is just out of nowhere, and a waste of Keith David’s considerable vocal talents. (Oddly enough, I’m watching Teen Titans in conjunction with Gargoyles, so this turned out to be a Keith David power hour for me!)

I do like the secondary dramatization of the “humanity over machinery” idea here, with the rest of the Titans convincing Atlas’s trainer and mechanic that he’s the real power here, not Atlas. It’s a simple story, but a roundly functional one, with the put-upon grunt finding his backbone and discovering that he’s much more useful, even vital, than his oppressor would let him believe.

But the whole episode crescendos to a clichéd moment where Cyborg does in fact push past his mechanical limits (somehow?) vindicating that his human side is still just as valid and present, if not more so. It makes no sense, but whatever. I guess it’s a decent message about the indomitable nature of the human spirit or something.

Overall, though, this is a very basic story executed in as dumb and nonsensical a fashion as Teen Titans has ever done, which is a minor miracle for a thoroughly silly and exaggerated show. An early nadir.

[5.2/10] This episode is profoundly dumb. It centers on a bizarrely Luddite and trite comment on man vs. machine via Cyborg, and it manages to be nonsensical without the decency of trying to be funny about it.

Let’s start with the basics. Cyborg wants to give more than 100%, like he did before he was turned into...well...a cyborg. But he can’t, because his bodily machinery has mechanical limits, and that bothers him. That’s all well and good, except that human muscles and other biological systems also have mechanical limits! There’s nothing magically stronger about human sinew, and if anything, Cyborg’s technological enhancements increase those limits rather than cabin them. It’s a bizarre misreading of an admittedly fantastical situation to have him lament that he’s somehow more limited by having mechanized super strength.

Then, there's the utter randomness of Atlas, the villain of the piece, who appears out of nowhere to challenge Cyborg to a fight after losing to him in a video game. It’s not clear how that even happens. Also, Atlas just has a stadium lair where he fights people? I’m not one to nitpick superhero shows. Contrivance is part of the game. But the whole thing is just out of nowhere, and a waste of Keith David’s considerable vocal talents. (Oddly enough, I’m watching Teen Titans in conjunction with Gargoyles, so this turned out to be a Keith David power hour for me!)

I do like the secondary dramatization of the “humanity over machinery” idea here, with the rest of the Titans convincing Atlas’s trainer and mechanic that he’s the real power here, not Atlas. It’s a simple story, but a roundly functional one, with the put-upon grunt finding his backbone and discovering that he’s much more useful, even vital, than his oppressor would let him believe.

But the whole episode crescendos to a clichéd moment where Cyborg does in fact push past his mechanical limits (somehow?) vindicating that his human side is still just as valid and present, if not more so. It makes no sense, but whatever. I guess it’s a decent message about the indomitable nature of the human spirit or something.

Overall, though, this is a very basic story executed in as dumb and nonsensical a fashion as Teen Titans has ever done, which is a minor miracle for a thoroughly silly and exaggerated show. An early nadir.