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American TV will probably never evolve past the dialogue of the Ninja Turtles.

Hey, don’t forget that the US makes new shows too, and some of them are actually worth watching. Even though SpecSpidey’s all but buried now (Weisman was confirmed as working on an adaptation of Young Justice, which is certainly promising), Cartoon Network’s rolled out this last night and Tartakovsky’s Sym-bionic Titan is coming in the summer. Of course, for some godforsaken reason, there’s also more reboots of Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes, but let’s just leave our memories as the unspoiled wastelands that they are.

Impressions:

First off, and the sin of so many many many of these Cartoon Network shows… it is trying so very hard to be a teenage show that it is painful. Very painful. They may as well have a flashing neon sign pasted to Rex’s head with the scrolling message of "TWITTER AND FACEBOOK AND SKATEBOARDS AND MY LITTLE PONIES AND COWABUNGA TO THE MAX DUDES." The wisecracking monkey in a fez does absolutely nothing to help this either. It is also rather irritating that his kryptonite is getting angsty. So when the villains need to get to him, they just need to hurt his feelings. That’s… awful. But all that isn’t to say that Rex is completely unlikeable. The way he hits on his scientist nanny is… curious for starters, but at least it’s refreshing. I suppose if that’s the only female you see while the hormones are running wild, you’d probably quickly develop a Mrs. Robinson complex too. He also seems to not really care too much about the whole amnesia bit nor has any concern about his powers and the monstrous side of stuff either… yet. The angst is there, and there’s potentially for soooooooooo much more, but it’s not overbearing yet.

However, the show is surprisingly dark, particularly for Cartoon Network’s usual faire. I know they’ve been pushing the envelope a little bit lately with the Clone Wars series, but this episode has all manner of twisted monsters, Rex getting stabbed in the gut, Rex kicking Van Kleiss so hard that his head gets twisted backwards, slicing Kleiss in half, a mountain of bodies of soldiers that came to save him, etc… and then we move to the psychological side where every just about every single person in the show, including his new ‘best friend’ is in manipulating him in some manner. The damn chimp may be the only one without an agenda.

Like most American made stuff, it’s very well produced all around, mostly as a factor of an entirely different production model, but it’s still nice to see well animated action, even if the art is never going to be breathtaking. The soundtrack is a little too on the "WE’RE SO TEEN!" level for my tastes, but it’s certainly not bad. I may certainly be looking at this through the lens of what a disappointment Heroman ended up being, but so far, I’m pretty pleased with this first episode, especially given the recent dearth of other solid superhero action shows. It’s definitely well worth at least a look, although the desperate attempts to appeal to 15 year olds may very well be more than you can bear. At least there’s Six wandering around with laser swords to kick ass when needed.