Supernerd

Knights of Guinevere. Yet another A+ for Glitch Productions, for starters! I’ve never watched The Amazing Digital Circus, mostly due to lack of interest personally, but this… this is going to be a masterpiece, I’m sure.

First, let’s talk about the obvious. Dana Terrace getting to tell the story she so badly wanted, free of executive interference. Obviously massive amounts of potential there, and it also leads into my next point: Disney. In one episode, she reminded us why we all used to love Disney. What it was, and what it could be. She could’ve chosen to make it a satire, to ruthlessly mock the company that spat on her and repeatedly sold out its audiences for profit. Instead, she chose to go for a theme of nostalgia and lost innocence. In a world like today, I admire that so much. Frankie being who she is, means so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely do hope this blows Disney out of the water. Their behavior as of late is unacceptable. I could go on a very long-winded rant, but I won’t, because I shouldn’t. So instead I’ll don’t want Disney to go under. I want them to look at KOG and remember who they used to be, because that’s what Dana is trying to show. What she’s trying to get back for us.

Now that we’ve covered my thoughts on the concept itself, let’s talk about the pilot itself. We’ll start with the animation. Gorgeous, clean, and so impressively intentional in every single frame! There’s not a moment that hasn’t been thought about in the entire pilot. Not one second that exists to fill a space. Everything is there to tell you something. That is so insanely cool, and unfortunately something that is often overlooked in studio animation.

Next, let’s talk about the audio. Not only is it very clear that this was all professionally recorded-not necessarily the VA’s, but the quality of the recordings themselves-but the music is gorgeous too! It’s ethereal and faintly digital, and perfectly captures the theme of the story. You can tell just how much thought was put into the orchestrations; every moment feels immersive.

Finally, let’s go on about the setting, Park Planet. Clearly not a whole planet. In fact, the crater lake and rough, rocky terrain would suggest a moon that was given an artificial atmosphere of some kind, but heavily industrialized before any biodiversity-artificial or otherwise-could form. Additionally, the hovering parks, on top of the whole ‘ruling class’ metaphor, seem to have some sort of set trajectory, given they hover close together. The lights from the initial overview of the planet would also suggest high habitation, seemingly despite the biome indicating zero brush or fauna. Meaning, where does the food come from? This is important, too, because of what we see later. Namely, the people.

The only people we actually see living in the Park are The Parks. Everyone else lives on the surface. And everyone works for the park, in one way or another-and whether or not they like it admit it. Their lives and incomes are dependent on the Park, and on ‘crownies’, who work for it. They live in a cyberpunk society that is not a dystopia. Let me repeat, this is not a dystopia. A dystopia is a story that pretends to be a utopia but has a shadowy element underneath. This setting isn’t hiding the horror and suffering, and that’s important, because it means the people in power have no need to hide their behavior. Instead, they poison the planet with technological waste and force everyone to live in a surveillance state. In fact, it’s so bad that the air itself is poisonous-likely why no organic life can sustain itself on the surface without human intervention-and is killing the inhabitants, infecting them with the blue blood-and isn’t that poetic-that the robots have. Blue blood that seems to be some sort of organic substitute, in fact. It’s unclear exactly what it is, so let’s call it one of the three big mysteries of the season. The other two, fittingly, are why the park was made in the first place, and who Gwen really is. That being said, for the most part we have covered the setting now. A disenfranchised future society living in a cyberpunk world that doesn’t care about them. Cliche on the cover, maybe, but once you open it up…

Now, though, we can move on to the characters themselves. Warnings! Warnings! Spoiler territory ahead! Read at your own risk.

I REPEAT, MAJOR SPOILERS, THEORIZING, DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN UNSPOILED

Alright, I warned you. Can’t say I didn’t!

First, Andi: She definitely feels the most ‘real’, though there’s more to this I’ll go into later. Andi is, ultimately, all of us. A tired corporate wage slave who’s disillusioned with the state of the world and is painfully torn between trying to fight it and trying to escape, but trapped in the knowledge that she’s powerless to do either, because the system is designed to keep her down. She’s just trying to get by, thinking that nothing she does really matters and trying to justify her existence in a world that feels like it wouldn’t miss her if she was gone. It’s frustrating, but be it from stubbornness, love, or something else-I doubt even she knows-she persevered. She keeps going another day. And another important thing to note: She’s not sick. In fact, she is the only character with any dialogue we’ve seen who doesn’t appear to be sick-yes, I’m including Frankie in that, once again we’ll go more into it later. Yes, Andi is tired, and yes, she’s pretty much in the same position as everybody else, but she’s a ‘crownie’. She’s the only one we see with a gas mask. She’s visibly aware of the sickness. That stands out, for obvious reasons, and makes it clear that it is a privilege of her position, one she likely has internalized but refuses to voice, be it out of guilt, shame, or denial. Despite all this, though, she’s a wonderful character, and even though it’s cliche, she is absolutely the moon to Frankie’s sun.

Now. I know you’re all expecting me to talk about Frankie next, but I’m sorry, I’m skipping over her for now. Instead, we’re going to Sparky. Sick, elderly, smoking from a pipe that looks like if a flash drive and a ballpoint pen had a mutant baby that was screaming in agony every second of its miserable existence, all while bleeding profusely from the face. Sparky is also much more like Ando than he is Frankie, but seems to care about Frankie for the exact same reason: Her youthful optimism, bright personality, and perseverance. All things one can easily assume are sorely lacking in a society like the Park’s. So much so that a man who is seemingly without morals-or at least, he likely tells himself that-has such a soft spot he’ll compromise pretty much every value he has for her. For all that Sparky is jaded and cruel, he clearly cares deeply about Frankie, and is willing to make compromises for her that he wouldn’t anybody else. That being said… he’s also clearly dying. His infection with the blue blood isn’t as bad as the man who accosted Andi, but it’s bad enough to have permanently stained his smoking apparatus. It seems to me that the reason he’s so forceful about this is because he wants Frankie to take over when he’s gone, so she can get by and have a decent life. Better than the one he lived.

Now let’s talk about Orville Park. Clearly implied to be some kind of industrialist, dreamer, inventor type. But is he? Is he actually Olivia’s father, or is he something else? Sure, he’s the face, but could there be more? …honestly? I doubt it. In this case, him being a foil to Walt Disney wouldn’t land as well if he weren’t genuinely well-intentioned. Perhaps he’s not truly Olivia’s father-perhaps they have some other relation-but I truly believe he is well-intentioned, or at least believes himself to be. That being said, he also clearly overlooked Olivia’s treatment of Gwen, despite panicking when she jumped-which implies a number of things about him versus Olivia as well, given her lack of reaction. But overall, I think he’s going to be played straight. Whatever it was he was talking about with Olivia, I think that was him trying to brush it off because Olivia likely doesn’t want to address whatever it was.

So let’s talk about Olivia. She exhibits empathy in a very unusual fashion, having an extreme attachment to Gwen, but showing zero remorse in treating her cruelly. She doesn’t see Gwen as a person, or even an object. Children are far kinder to their possessions than she is to Gwen. To me, this implies that she sees Gwen as something she needs to control. Hurting Gwen is teaching her not to disobey. Caging her is keeping her safe. And when Olivia is older-senescent, even, based on her appearance in that bed-she shows far more panic, yet still cunning. Clearly she was the brains behind Park Planet, and likely responsible for the cruelties it began to inflict as well. Not to mention the horrors. If the failed projects were all in the lab wreckage, I can only imagine what secret nightmares she was getting up to behind the scenes. But what was that incident that Orville was talking about?? Well… I’d imagine it was what took her life.

Let me explain by moving into Gwen. Gwen is biotechnology. Very overtly so, in fact. She wears a skin facsimile, bleeds blue blood, and even has very distinct internal organs. She is not human. I doubt she ever was human. She is a hive mind between all of her copies, yet an entirely sentient being, seemingly trapped in a sort of ‘main body/consciousness’. Which appears to be the Gwen Frankie found. There’s so much we don’t know about her. Why was she built? How was she built? What is her blue blood? And how does it relate to Olivia and the cyborgs? The knight creature she absolutely demolished bled red, yet was distinctly less human in appearance than she was. And why is it that she seems simultaneously violent and empathetic? That teaser and her scream suggested erratic behavior, combined with the ability for incredible destruction. Yet she seemed genuinely kind, caring for Frankie, and even Andi, deeply. Was that just programming? Or was it something else? More specifically… why does it seem that Gwen’s existence is directly tied to whatever happened to Olivia in the past? Was it Orville’s attempt at perfecting biotech to revive Olivia from some sort of horrible accident that took her life? Or was it perhaps the other way around? Did his attempts at biotech fix whatever happened to her, and then he decided to continue with it, either out of penance for what he did to her, or so she wouldn’t feel alone?

That brings me to Frankie. Such a clever name. So kind, so innocent, so idealistic. Frankie, who constantly sees the best in the world. Who has full on imaginary conversations with her toys, and even Gwen-oh wait. That wasn’t imaginary, was it? And neither were the conversations with the toys. Because on top of Frankie being so sweet and kind… I think there’s a reason someone as smart as her isn’t an engineer. I think Andi somehow prevented her from becoming an engineer. More specifically, I think Andi is afraid of what would happen if Frankie was exposed to the Park Planet staff. Because I think Frankie is also biotech of some kind. She died when she and Andi were kids, and Andi somehow found a way-maybe the same way Orville did-to bring her back. ‘But Jep, she bleeds red and lost teeth, remember?’ Oh, trust me, I do. But Frankie was having whole conversations with digital toys, and even Gwen, that no one else could perceive. Even her name is a hint. Frankie, like Frankenstein. As in, Frankenstein’s monster. And I think it’s going to be revealed that Franky is technologically augmented because of what I said above. Her character is fascinating, and I especially love how she’s kept her optimism despite everything.

END OF SPOILERS!

END OF SPOILERS!

Spoiler free zone is now back in place!

Well I just found out that Valerie Gray and Danny Fenton’s ship name is Gray Ghost. I do love that, super clever, AND! It instantly gave me an idea:

Every Batman fan knows Bruce loved The Gray Ghost as a kid. It is famously a series he greatly enjoyed as a kid, and one that had a major impact on his career as Batman (as of the wildly successful Batman animated series from the DCAU, which I could do a whole spiel on). And while the series was fictitious, the ship name opens up an opportunity. Namely, it opens up a very fun opportunity where the Gray Ghost was *not* in fact fiction, and instead based on Danny and Valerie’s relationship. Cue Bruce meeting Danny and Valerie at some point after becoming Batman and learning that, not only were they the real life inspirations for his favorite tv show, but they are former heroes themselves!

Take it and run as you will, I just think it’s a fun idea.

Adam still hasn’t taken off his helmet. Not even when Lute had hers off.

I want to talk about Dead End Paranormal Park.

And no, contrary to what my previous posts may suggest, I’m actually not going to be focusing on the-frankly awesome-rep of all kinds. Still, it’s worth a mention! I mean, come on! Our main characters are a trans gay jew and an autistic bi pakistani girl!!

But that’s not what I’m going to focus on here. Instead, I want to take the chance to focus on how well Hamish Steele uses highly underutilized tropes in an absolutely brilliant manner.

Spoilers ahead! Be warned, if you see anything you regret, just keep it to yourself darling!

Now for the big stuff: The usage of a Lawful Good antagonist and the morality shift of a protagonist whose ideals have been so challenged and so hurt by those they thought they could trust, that they instead turn on the so-called ‘good’ to fight with ‘evil’.

Now, before I get into details on that last one, let’s start strong with the Lawful Good Antagonist! Like I said, very underutilized, and very hard to do well. The problem with the concept of a ‘lawful good’ antagonist is that they genuinely have to have no ulterior motives to their good; their only goal is to achieve a ‘good’ thing, at any cost. In this case, that’s eradicating the Demons, even at the cost of Humanity, whom they have sworn to protect—after all, what cost is the Neutral Plane if it means the threat of Demons is eliminated? Absolute order must be maintained, and the demons’ very existence threatens to break that order with their Chaos and Evil.

We have seen, too, that it’s not so simple, hence why Hamish Steele does such a good job with this concept. After all, Fingers has selfish motivation, doesn’t he? He’s not Lawful Good. But he is a servant of it, which ultimately means that his actions are meant not to show that the Angels aren’t as good as they seem, but instead to show the lengths they will go to in a character who isn’t as pure as the rest. He, like the Watcher, serves as a foil to the Angels as a whole, showing their sinister side—whereas the Watcher shows their absolute devotion to their cause, and the lengths they will go to to achieve it.

Seeing how well it was done inspires me, because it shows that it can be done, and it can be great. I mean, Angels?? As the villains?? Let’s face it, we can all probably count on one hand how frequently that works out.

And now, for the second trope done well. Or, rather, possibly done well. We haven’t seen it play out yet! But I will say, this is not only a new trope, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it executed before: A protagonist on the side of good turning to ‘evil’ in order to get justice. And I’m not taking Red Hood style evil, or justice. Norma turning to the Demonic Royal Family is a smart move, and totally in character for her. More than that, it makes sense. While it’s true that it could be viewed as her becoming evil, that’s not actually the case. She’s become an anti-hero by siding with dark forces with potentially terrible goals, because she knows that the Angels need to be stopped. And more than that, she wants to hurt them like they hurt her. So, a little Red Hood I guess! But still, if we do get season 3-and I’m really hoping we do-we have a chance to see a massive reversal in a manner I can genuinely say that, in all my years as a film and tv studies major, I have never seen executed well.

If done right, Hamish Steele could create an entirely new genre of storytelling, and I for one truly hope that we can see it in all its glory.