Originally posted at the DL August 2016
You can definitely tell this is a Hanna-Barbara production. The use of color, their signature animation saving techniques, and the basic construction of the main party fit their particular quirks.
But there's two major things that stand out about the show:
1. It's very conscious that it's starting as a cross section of stock early 70s sci-fantasy tropes and Hanna-Barbara character tropes, and makes a very conscious effort to add nuance into those tropes. Ren is your stock kindly, noble, somewhat naive prince, but they make of point of showing that this can both help and hinder him. Tula is The Chick, but she always hold her own when push comes to shove. Niddler is a coward and glutton, but he makes sure to be useful on the edge of the action and it makes sense since he's much more support than fighter anyway. That sort of thing.
More broadly-
2. This feels like a hail mary "this'll either spark a new golden age or bankrupt the studio" play. Yeah, there's a lot of amorphous animation with plenty of errors here and there, but there's also clearly a lot of effort into putting a lot of effort into the scenes that most demand it, and the core designs are all amazingly evocative. The voice cast is largely seasoned actors even in 1991 (Tim Curry? Hector Elizondo? Frank Welker? These dudes had extensive credits by then. The least experienced one there was Jodi Benson, and she was just off the smash hit movie of 1989). They establish a damn ambitious plot on the outset. They're about 10 years ahead of the curve in terms of continuity. Someone at Hanna-Barbara seems to have decided they needed to let their most creative people cut loose if they were going to last. I feel bad for not watching the show more when it came out (I was 7 or 8, I definitely remember this show's original run getting airtime) because the fact it didn't finish is sad.
Hell, they tried every avenue to get this thing out there. 5 episode pilot on a major network establishing it's Saturday morning chops. Another 6-7 episodes to make a full season on another major network when Fox didn't pick them up. A second season in syndication with other Hanna-Barbara fare to because they knew it was the best anchor they had for their other output. They were already owned by Turner at this time, but I feel like this failing played a part in their talent and IP being splintered off into the Cartoon Network brand and other loss of autonomy. Still, there's something to be said for failing for the right reasons.
Best Episode- Mmm. This is one of those shows with a fairly steady quality level that spreads out its key moments a bit, but I'm honestly partial to Andorus. Tula being an Ecomancer was never quite played up like it could have been, but it's introduction here and her struggling with the responsibilities of it come across really well. It's honestly the only episode that felt like the evolution of a character than than a lesson for a character, if that makes sense. And I'll admit, plot points about reclaiming a lost land from the darkness give me a tickle, and I like this one just a teensy more than Dark Disciples.
Weakest Episode- The Beast and the Bell. People being dumb and failing to communicate get city destroyed. Yawn.
One thing I will say is that sometimes they played a little too safe. They worked hard to try and keep Bloth in every episode, presumably because he's mentioned in the opening ramble and they didn't want to change that, but truth is it'd have probably worked better to hold him back once in a while to stem the tide of repeats on "Ren gets captured, has to escape the Maelstrom. Again." plots. It also made his part in the plot feel a lot more impotent after Dark Dweller since there's clearly another big bad out there but he still tries to shoehorn himself in. Probably the biggest misstep in the series, although I feel like the second-to-last episode was an admission of this and, had they gotten a third season, they'd probably have tweaked his role in the show a bit to reflect that. They were that kinda show.
Rating- 7/10. For all it's definitely ahead of its time, the episode-to-episode sameness at times holds it back as well.
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