[5.8/10] Woof. It’s funny, part of what made me want to go back and fill in this blindspot was the discourse around Teen Titans’s successor series being too light and cartoony. Well, the old expression, “For everyone who won’t eat in your kitchen, there’s someone who won’t eat in theirs” holds true here. I’m mostly comparing Teen Titans to the D.C. Animated Universe shepherded by overlapping producer Bruce Timm. Compared to those shows, which had their share of comedy episodes, Teen Titans is a wacky romp completely untethered to reality, at least in its opening episode.
I didn’t think much of that episode. Frankly, it had real tonal problems. It wants to make a big deal out of Robin potentially being lost and the team learning to work together, but it also has wacky anime expressions, the team searching for lost remotes and whining about music collections, and hero and villain alike chowing down on comically moldy food. It’s totally OK for T.V. shows to be for kids, but the humor and storytelling is definitely pitched to that level here, and it makes it hard for me to warm to the show as a crusty bitter old grown-up.
I’m also not a big fan of the character designs or animation. Once again, you can see the folks in the world of D.C. Animation taking their cues from anime, and it’s just never clicked with me. In certain moments, the characters resemble standard DCAU designs, and I don’t even mind the more stylized look in a lot of places. But the characters’ expressions, the way their fights and big moves often take place on random abstract backgrounds, and the simplified style makes this feel more like a manga-inspired take on Fairly Oddparents stylistically than something more visually appealing and suited for a superhero show. (And that’s before that corny theme song.)
The story isn’t much to write home about either. The Titans squabble. They get their butts kicked by a more coordinated villain trio...twice. Robin returns to rally the troops. And they work together to defeat the baddies. Pretty simple stuff, with uninvolving action and little in the way of cleverness when it comes to their methods of defeat. The only interesting element here is the introduction of Deathstroke and his potential as a season-length big bad.
Overall, I was hoping for something better in the debut of a series that’s so well-loved by so many, but hopefully these are just some opening night jitters, and the show will settle into something more enjoyable.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-06-15T20:16:48Z
[5.8/10] Woof. It’s funny, part of what made me want to go back and fill in this blindspot was the discourse around Teen Titans’s successor series being too light and cartoony. Well, the old expression, “For everyone who won’t eat in your kitchen, there’s someone who won’t eat in theirs” holds true here. I’m mostly comparing Teen Titans to the D.C. Animated Universe shepherded by overlapping producer Bruce Timm. Compared to those shows, which had their share of comedy episodes, Teen Titans is a wacky romp completely untethered to reality, at least in its opening episode.
I didn’t think much of that episode. Frankly, it had real tonal problems. It wants to make a big deal out of Robin potentially being lost and the team learning to work together, but it also has wacky anime expressions, the team searching for lost remotes and whining about music collections, and hero and villain alike chowing down on comically moldy food. It’s totally OK for T.V. shows to be for kids, but the humor and storytelling is definitely pitched to that level here, and it makes it hard for me to warm to the show as a crusty bitter old grown-up.
I’m also not a big fan of the character designs or animation. Once again, you can see the folks in the world of D.C. Animation taking their cues from anime, and it’s just never clicked with me. In certain moments, the characters resemble standard DCAU designs, and I don’t even mind the more stylized look in a lot of places. But the characters’ expressions, the way their fights and big moves often take place on random abstract backgrounds, and the simplified style makes this feel more like a manga-inspired take on Fairly Oddparents stylistically than something more visually appealing and suited for a superhero show. (And that’s before that corny theme song.)
The story isn’t much to write home about either. The Titans squabble. They get their butts kicked by a more coordinated villain trio...twice. Robin returns to rally the troops. And they work together to defeat the baddies. Pretty simple stuff, with uninvolving action and little in the way of cleverness when it comes to their methods of defeat. The only interesting element here is the introduction of Deathstroke and his potential as a season-length big bad.
Overall, I was hoping for something better in the debut of a series that’s so well-loved by so many, but hopefully these are just some opening night jitters, and the show will settle into something more enjoyable.