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WreathedLamp
10 stars - Masterpiece and/or personal favorite
9 stars - Awesome premium television
8 stars - Great stand out show
7 stars - Good. Regular good.
6 stars - Fine, inspires no strong feelings (affectionate)
5 stars - Mediocre, inspires no strong feelings (derogatory)
4 stars - Bad or incredibly mixed
3 stars - Really bad
2 stars - Terrible (can be so bad it's funny as well)
1 star - A truly miserable experience that has no value or enjoyment to be had (thanks schaffrillas)
I often have mixed feelings about a show (like Steven Universe) where some of it might mean a lot to me but at the same time a lot of it is not that good in which case I try to rate it based off of a balance between the objective qualities of the show and my enjoyment. Anything I rate 7 or above is something I genuinely enjoy. Half or in-between ratings (like 7.5) will typically get rounded up. Not every show with the same rating is equal.
I try to be objective but my personal feelings can knock a show up or down a star or two (for example I have 2016 cartoon reviewer brain so I have personal visceral hatred for TTG, and half of the things in 10 stars probably shouldn't be as highly rated as they are.) The line between 7 and 8 stars is somewhat blurry and oftentimes more dependent on how strong my feelings are about a show rather than its actual quality. Some of these ratings are ironic enjoyment.
Ratings
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An error has ocurred. Please try again10 stars - my favorites amazing masterpiece 9 stars - really great music 8 stars - noteworthy and special 7 stars - I like it but I probably won't remember what it sounds like 6 stars - just okay there's nothing majorly wrong with it 5 stars - mediocre, there probably is something wrong with it 4 stars - dumb and lame 3 stars - notably bad 2 stars - awful 1 star - unlistenable sewage
Reviews
Megamind Rules! (2024)
This is horrible, do not listen to the 10 star reviews
I have never seen the original Megamind (although I have heard great things about it), but I do not need to to recognize this is a bad show. The animation looks like Paw Patrol. There is no excuse for a show released in 2024 to look like it came out in 2009. The characters are poorly written, I doubt any effort was placed into writing them (even though I've never seen the original movie, I am 100% certain that this was not how Megamind acted in it.) Plots are terrible and execution is the same, nothing interesting is ever accomplished to spice up how bad the premises are. It's hard to believe these are the original writers of a beloved classic. I'm pretty sure the idea of Megamind discovering the internet and trying to become internet famous makes fans cry in agony. The writing is the worst part. The jokes feel AI written, and by and by and AI that has never heard a funny joke in its life. The show beats you down with cringe one liners and 2014 internet jokes with no room to breathe. It is actually shocking the amount of ways the show manages to write something stupid. It is every bad part of every cheap baby show ever wrapped into a gross mass.
Zig & Sharko (2010)
Not bad at all
This is one of those baby shows that is free on YouTube with episodes posted every week that you have probably never seen air on actual TV. You would expect it to be bad based off of that, but it's actually a really good baby show. The visual style is... okay. It does what it needs to. It is probably the best animation you can get out of a show with this level of obscurity and disposability. Xilam, the studio responsible for it, seems to specialize in taking shows with passionate creators that aren't quite working with the big names yet and giving them a good and just treatment.
This show is about a mermaid, her shark boyfriend, and an animal that attempts to eat her. It is reminiscent of slapstick comedy like The Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry. Humor wise, it is surprisingly funny. Sometimes it can get a good laugh out of you and have unexpected (and somewhat offbeat) turns. It has a handful of creative bones in it, and you can tell at least a few of the people making it cared about it at least little bit. There is a sharp increase in general show quality in season 2, and season 2 and 3 are the best of the show.
It is very hyperactive and attention grabby, though. The constant, FOP style of music use and sound effects can be a turn off for some. Also, I'm not sure what was trying to be achieved with the theme song.
It is a show for very small children, but it has a certain simplistic charm, and I ended up admittedly liking it after watching. Compared to the sludge that's on YouTube nowadays, it is one of the best things your kid could mindlessly click on.
Midsommar (2019)
Terribly misunderstood film
This film is beautiful and immersive. It is not as deep as some make it out to be, one mustn't go in expecting it to have any more meaning than most other horror films. It is easy say that those who misunderstand the film are easy to indoctrinate into cults like the one shown in the movie, but it is more likely that the film has a very niche demographic and will only be appreciated by those with specific tastes.
Its strongest strength is the direction, editing, and soundtrack. It is a very slowly paced kind of horror that operates on quiet psychological dread rather than jump scares or real horror. It is quite good at that, but also makes the film boring for many people. I think fans of movies like Perfect Blue and those who like to learn about cults will get the most enjoyment out of this movie.
There is a common misconception that the ending of this movie is supposed to be a happy one, or that Dani has won in some way or made some feminist statement. Just because Dani is smiling does not make it a happy ending. Several people are burning to death in a cabin, that is not a good thing, even if her boyfriend was mean to her. She is in a cult, they are not her friends. She is fully indoctrinated by the end of the movie, she may feel as if she has found happiness, but this is not true. It is not a metaphor for grief, I don't think it's a metaphor for anything. The process where they break her down and build her up again and again is intentional, her smiling at any point does not mean she's found her family, it means the brainwashing is working. The smile at the end shows that the cult has won.
Little reviews appreciate the indoctrination process shown in this movie. Lots of indoctrination techniques are shown that are not talked about. Many gloss over the way that Pelle lures Dani into the cult. He scouts out a vulnerable person, tries to break the relationship between her and Christian (even worse because Pelle is technically not wrong about him), and provides his cult village as the only family that will accept her. The way he tries to empathize with her struggle and offers her comfort just so that he can lead her into the cult is insidious.
There is a lot of mindbending psychological oddity, of which for some people it is too much or too confusing. This is not the typical horror film, this is either for better or for worse depending on the viewer. I think it is for the better.
Moral Orel (2005)
Beautifully Written "Comedy"
Don't believe the label religious satire, it's much more than that. Yes it is very funny in the first two seasons, it lays the ground work for all the story aspects. The comedy has a bite to it but (unlike what others will tell you) shouldn't theoretically be very offensive to most sane christians. The hilarity is how it gets you watching at first. I don't want to downplay the foundation of the show, but it shouldn't just be boiled down to that. Both parts are what make the show amazing.
In season 2, the show takes on a lot more character depth without losing the comedy, expanding on the formula. The season finale of nature is something of a downer for the season, but it marks the point of no return for the show. It is in season three it reveals its true nature.
This show may start out in the usual spirit of Adult Swim satire, but one the course of the show reveals itself to be more of a deconstruction of the twisted layers of trauma and depravity hidden behind a smiling community. Through one of the strongest cases of Cerberus syndrome ever probably, this series drops the comedy angle almost entirely and reveals how almost every single person in the show is messed up in their own special way. It probably has some of the best, most complex character writing I've ever seen.
The animation is hugely improved in season 3 and is really expressive oftentimes, the voice acting is amazing, Scott Adsit really gave it his all. The soundtrack is very nice, I think.
It starts out with a repeatable formula, but slowly breaks away from it. It gets VERY dark and funnily enough it was cancelled for going "too far" when they were asked to make it more dark. You end up feeling super sorry for Orel and everything he has to put up with. Every episode in season three is designed to break you in a new way every time, and the show only barely gets to end happily, showing that Orel was at least able to have a good life as an adult. The episodes Alone and Nature brought me to tears. Definitely not for the faint of heart or anyone not in the right mental state.
Invader ZIM: Germs/Dark Harvest (2001)
Dark Harvest is peak television
As someone who really wanted to like this show but after about 5 episodes found myself somewhat let down, this episode is what really turned me into a fan and finally let me see what everyone else was seeing. I already really found myself into the Germs episode and when I read the plot synopsis for this one I was really excited because it's the kind of thing that's right up my alley.
The episode leans into the horror aspects in a way that really scratches an itch in my brain. Legitimately scarier than most horror movies. The animation is always great but stood out to me particularly in this episode. The sound design and music are also great (it helps that the show has a really good soundtrack.) I usually dislike the use of horror cues because often times it can be like compensation, like a laugh track telling the audience when to laugh, but here I think it really enhanced the episode. It was also a noticeably funnier episode than the others, as well. The others before (other than Germs) had a few laughs here and there but were mostly a :/ kind of watch. Comedy wise and probably in general as well I think the show is finding it's footing a bit in these episodes. If you were going into the show for the first time, try to make it to THESE episodes before dropping it. I think Dark Harvest is an experience everyone should have at least once in their life.
Now most people would recommend having a strong stomach and nothing to eat before this, but I disagree. As someone who has an incredibly weak stomach that can't even tolerate Planet of the Jellyfish Spongebob season 8 episode 17b (31), I did just fine watching this episode and was not disgusted much at all. The part where Zim chokes on intestines is funny to me.
The Powerpuff Girls: See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey (2003)
Really liked it as a kid but nowadays this is really bad
This is possibly one of the most confusing episodes of television I have ever seen. It's done entirely in song, all of them bleeding into each other yet at the same time seeming to come out of nowhere. The fact that there's no dialogue in between and the songs are rather shorts completely destroys any coherent sense of pacing or tension in the plot. This also leaves the message rather vague and muddled as to what exactly it's supposed to be.
It starts out as a song of all of the villains coming together to destroy the city in an shockingly awful song. A good portion of the songs in this special sound like discordant cats being dragged painfully down an alleyway. Freedom Beef and You Wanna Make Me Feel Good are the only two good songs and everything else is either hilariously forgettable elevator music or downright unlistenable.
Then the Powerpuff Girls come in and for some reason they decide to be insistent on giving Tara Strong ridiculously high notes so that even though she's Tara Strong, she can sing, it sounds as bad as everyone else. The girls cannot harmonize well, I think it was attempt by the actors to make them sound younger but there are songs from other episodes where their vocals don't sound as bad even in trying to achieve that affect.
And then out of nowhere after getting defeated they become all sad and dramatic and it's pretty goofy. Then their tears cause a gnome to come from the ground and trades them their powers for world peace. Then the townspeople start becoming a cult around the gnome for some reason? I'm pretty sure the gnome is the villain but other than taking the powers from the main characters I'm unsure as exactly how he's evil other than they say that. Then out of nowhere, with no buildup at all, with almost zero implications that this is in anyway a bad situation, the professor comes out talking about freedom beef or something. He says that the town has given up what they used to have for freedom, but this doesn't actually show other than the town visually looking like a cult. There's not even really any demonstration, despite it being a pretty cliche and easy to follow line of logic, that losing their powers has any affect on the main characters or the world.
The professor makes the girls go fight the gnome, and somehow taoism has come into this as a main part of the moral? And for some reason the gnome loses his powers and gets intimidated into falling off a vine and dies and then another bad song and then it's over. There's definitely a political message to it but I can't discern what it is because I do not know enough about politics.
It feels like everybody writing the episode needs to lay off the psychedelics and actually come together to figure out what exactly it is because it felt like a jumbled mess. I was constantly questioning if they had just cut something out of the episode because I was so confused. Bad episode, kind of a disaster.
Bluey (2018)
Uncannily good baby show
There's a reason that this show is on the Disney Channel instead of just Disney junior and your mother is obsessed with it. For whatever reason the creators of this show decided to write it so well it's almost scary. The baby race episode actually made me feel emotion. I've yet to see a lot of the other more acclaimed episodes but based on the ones I've already seen I might have to break out the tissue boxes.
The animation is very pleasant with sometimes gorgeous backgrounds. The way it's paced is nice and slow and compared to some other shows for the same demographic it's quite quiet. It's also shockingly funny for a baby show. Like there are real genuine laughs to be had from those over the age of 5. Very wholesome and nice with extremely well told lessons.