Drawn Together Review

Animation fans you know me I love to talk about shows that people either A) have forgotten about or B) didn't watch and well since I just reviewed the movie I figure why not take a look at the series that spawned the movie and I have to say it was a freaking chore getting through season three so here it is my review of Drawn Together.

The basic set up of the show is eight cartoon characters take part in a reality show. Honestly the best way I can describe this show is Big Brother but with cartoons and incase you couldn't work out by my summery the show has no plot line so you can watch the show from any episode and you'll know exactly who's who , what there meant to be spoofing and what kind of jokes you can expect from them. 

Starring in the show was Jess Harnell as Captain Hero , James Arnold Taylor as Wooldoor , Tara Strong as Princess Clara and Toot Braunstein , Cree Summer as Foxxy Love , Jack Plotnick as Xandir , Adam Carolla as Spanky Ham , and Abbey DiGregorio as Ling-Ling. The actors in the show i'd say do the best with what there given it's just a shame that alot of the time what there given isn't that good. You can throw character development out of the window because there's very little to none of it in this show.

As you might have been able to work out from the character designs all of the characters are parodies of other cartoon characters. For example Toot is a 20's sex symbol who looks alot like Betty Boop , Clara is a spoof of every single Disney princess and ling-ling is a Pikachu spoof and in this regard the show works well because you can imagine famous cartoon characters in this series but I have to ask why didn't they just try and get permission to use the actual characters that would have made the set up and the jokes alot more funnier in my opinion.

The animation for the show was done by Rough Draft Studios who also did the animation for The Drawn Together Movie and I have to say that the animation in the movie is far better then what's seen in the show. Yes I know that the movie most likely had a higher budget then the show but still i'm not saying that the animation in the show is bad in fact for a cartoon show airing in the early 2000's it's actually pretty decent but it could and should have been so much better.

In total this show had thirty six episodes spread out over three seasons heck the first season is so short that it's taken me less then a day to get through it all. Each episode is around twenty two minuets and unlike the movie where you don't feel every single one of those minuets you feel it alot here I get that the makers of the show were trying to emulate reality TV shows but those shows are on for over an hour and thus they can afford to have several storylines going on. This show is on for twenty two minuets so at most you should have two storylines going on and they should move pretty freaking quickly.

Remember when I said the first season was short I wasn't kidding it's only seven episodes and it's the only season of the show i've seen all the way through which even then was by coincidence. The other two seasons have sixteen (season 2) and fourteen (season three) episodes respectfully and I think that was when Comedy Central starting acting a little greedy because this show works best with smaller season orders so to me they were going more for quantity over quality.

Like I just said I didn't watch all of the seasons two and three but even I could tell that the writing in season three wasn't as good as in the other seasons. I have no idea what caused the writing to take such a nose dive maybe the creators were running out of ideas or what the deal was there but they should have tried to make the writing as good as it was in that first season and it seems I wasn't the only one who thought that because even the fans of the show hated the third season.

The show ran for three seasons starting on October 27th 2004 and ending on November 14th 2007 something really odd happend in the third season tho. Since that particular season started on October 5th 2006 and it went on a nearly year long hiatus after episode seven I can't think of a single show animated or not that's taken that long of a break during the broadcast of a season and I can't really think of any reason why they went on that break so maybe there was some trouble behind the scenes that we don't know about.

One of the things i'd say the show was well known for is it's cameos because yeah there's a lot of cameos from other cartoon characters even tho the are coloured differently to avoid copyright. It was honestly shocking at how many cameos they had in the show and the cameos weren't from little known characters either they were really known cartoon characters so it's a wonder how they managed to get away with having these characters in the show.

Now many people would say that the show is more well known for it's adult humour and I can certainly see there point of view. Since there's a lot of it heck even in the first episode of the show a female character goes topless and two of the other female characters make out but here's the thing to me alot of those jokes just weren't funny since they were just there for no real reason but at least in that first season there was some jokes that made me laugh and that's something I cannot say for the third season.

I've just mentioned this but i'm going to say it again this is a an extremely adult show with a more adult jokes then you'd know what to do with. The only thing that makes this show adult is just that it's adult jokes there's nothing here that's mature on a deeper level and I think that for this show that does work and I know that's weird since I just criticised it for having adult jokes but here's the thing I wouldn't expect anything else from a show like this. 

Overall I thought that this was a very enjoyable but deeply flawed series and it's one that I would recommend to people who can stomach alot of gross out humour and i'd also say don't watch this show with any parents or grandparents around either this show gets a modest but fair 5 out of 10 from me.

Doctor Who "Resolution" SPOILERISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Review

Doctor Who fans I know that I didn't review the last few episodes of the series but that was because I was busy with other things but tho I promised my self that come hell or high water I would review the New Years Day special and well here I am. Also of note is that even tho this is the only new episode we're getting this year there will be at least one more Doctor Who review from me this year and it's of a classic episode that's just been animated.

The plot of this special is pure and simply an old enemy is back and it's up to the Doctor to put a stop to it's latest evil scheme. I'm not going to lie I really enjoyed the story for this years special to me it felt like a story that best suited these villains and incase you haven't noticed i'm trying to keep this bit as spoiler free as possible and I will say that a storyline from series 11 i'd say gets resolved which was something that I never thought they'd do.

The guest cast for this weeks episode is Charlotte Ritchie as Lin , Nikesh Patel as Mitch and Daniel Adegboyega as Aaron. For me the acting from the guest cast wasn't as strong as it perhaps could have been but for a special episode it was serviceable at best it certainly wasn't the worst acting in this current run of episodes but it's up there and if you've seen the episode i've left one name of here because it would be a give away as to who the villains are.

Returning for the special is Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor , Bradley Walsh as Graham , Tosin Cole as Ryan and Mandip Gill  as Yaz. The acting from the main cast I thought was pretty spot on Jodie and Bradley killed it in every episode in the last series and the same is true for this special and I know that not alot of people like Jodie but for me she's solid as The Doctor. It's just a shame that yet again Yaz is left with practically nothing to do and when the show comes back on next year I wouldn't be surprised if they got rid of her character.

Like a lot of you I was pretty shocked when the BBC announced that instead of getting the traditional Christmas special we'd be getting a New Years Day special. Which if the setting for this episode took place on New Years Day to me it would have made sense but it doesn't so there was no real reason as to why this episode couldn't have aired on Christmas day. To me it seems that this was only made a New Years day episode because the BBC wanted an episode of Doctor Who released in 2019 which I do see why they would want that but at the same time if that's what they did want then why not make two special episodes instead of the one.

OK boys and girls from this point onwards there will be some spoilers but if you want to skip the spoilers section then just go right to the end of the review for my final thoughts and overall rating of the episode. The one actor I left of the credited guest list was the great Nick Briggs who is back voicing The Daleks and I cannot believe how could it was to hear his voice again the man is just so freaking good at playing The Daleks.

If you couldn't tell by how many times i've just mentioned them the villains of this episode are the iconic Daleks and I have to say it felt good seeing them again after about a year or two break it was right that they return in a special episode. However I will say that they just weren't scary at least in my opinion in this episode if anything they felt like the type of villain that you'd see in an action film and not like the villains you'd see in a classic Doctor Who story.

I will say that I loved the new design for them for some reason they look a lot more physical and like they could actually beat you up. What did interest me about the story tho was seeing this one lone Dalek rebuild it self almost from scratch I don't think we've seen that in any Doctor Who Dalek episode before so it was really interesting to see that play out and it's a shame that the episode didn't do more with that idea.

The one storyline from series 11 that didn't get resolved i'd say does in this episode and that's Ryan's dad shows up i'm not going to lie from how he was filmed in his introduction scene I knew it was him before Ryan said who it was. Just because you wouldn't have tried to hide his face if it wasn't his dad so that was a pretty obvious reveal and I like how that storyline got resolved it was a fitting way to end the storyline and really the only way they could have done.

There was a lot more action in this episode then I was expecting I think that when we all found out that the daleks were coming back we knew that there'd be some action but alot of the third act is just pure action. I'm not honestly sure how I feel about that to be honest because to me Doctor Who isn't about the action and things blowing up but at the same time for a dalek story it kind of makes sense that The Doctor would go that extra mile to try and defeat them.

Now for the last few episodes of series 11 I was saying all over twitter that Jodie has yet to have that big I am the doctor type of speech. Well I think she gets it in this episode and it's a pretty good well written speech it's no where near as good as the one that the doctor gives about war from series nine but it's still a really good speech in my opinion.

Overall I thought that this episode was really good like all later episodes of the show it has it's ups and it's downs and like I said I saw no reason why this had to be a New Years Day special rather then a Christmas Day episode so overall i'm giving this episode a solid 7.5 out of 10 from me.