Ladies and gents if you'll recall I once gave a really solid review to the Infinity Train pilot but what you don't know is I also signed every petition in the small hope that it would get Cartoon Network to green light a full series. Well now the time has come I have to admit tho I wasn't expecting this to land as early as it did like the rest of the world I was expecting this to land a few weeks before it's broadcast but CN uploaded the full episode to their app and so here are my thoughts on the first episode of Infinity Train.
The plot of the episode is thirteen year old Tulip finds out from her divorced parents that she can't go to a coding camp and so out of anger runs away where she then comes across a train. Yeah the plot of this episode is basically that of any super hero origin story and it honestly really does work for this show since the original pilot episode explained nothing so it was nice to finally get some things explained.
Starring in this episode is Ashley Johnson as Tulip Olsen , Jeremy Crutchley as Glad-One , creator Owen Dennis as Sad-One , Reagan Gomez-Preston as Mikayla and Audrey Wasilewski as Tulip's mother Megan Olsen. I have to say that I like the fact that there expanding the world of Infinity Train since it would have been super easy to just have it be the characters we saw in the pilot episode but since they are expanding the world it means that we get to see more of Tulip's life prior to the train and as this pilots shows us her reason for first jumping on the train.
In terms of what i thought about the acting for this first episode it was fine it wasn't as great as the acting in other debut episodes but it worked here. I'm glad that they stuck with the cast from the pilot since just based of the trailer it looks like there going to be including the original pilot so it would have been weird if they replaced every actor and then when it came to that episode and they kept the original voices even tho the chances of them keeping the original voices for that episode would have been slim anyway but it still would have been weird.
The animation for this episode and this show is I believe being done by Cartoon Network Studios but there's a huge chance that i'm wrong about that their just the only company I can find on the shows IMDB page. The quality of the animation tho is alot better then what the trailers led us to believe just by going of the trailers it looked like the animation was just going to be a bog standerd TV affair and nothing more.
The animation seen in this episode alone looked liked it belonged in a movie it was that stunning to see. Adding to that is the incredible backgrounds I have no idea what the budget is for this show but it must have been huge to be able to afford this good quality animation and backgrounds and I hope to god that it continues with the rest of the series and if so then we are truly in for a treat at least when it comes to the animation.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One of the things that I really didn't like and that's the fact that they made Tulip a little bit of brat in this episode. Her parents made a legit honest mistake and they have legit reasons for not being able to take her to camp and she overreacts and i'm sat here thinking "girl you need to chill out you can always go to camp next year" and instead of being a reasonable person her first idea is to run away and I hope that they tone down her brattiness over the course of the show.
There's a bit of a mystery starting in the show since you straight up see another passenger get killed well they don't outright say the passenger was killed but given what they show us it's pretty clear the passenger was killed. So we now have to wonder why was that person killed and more importantly who was the passenger so i'm now expecting alot of people to make theories just about that one passenger.
I honestly like the fact that the show is featuring parents who are divorced since it's not really something that is seen in the realm of animation not only Cartoon Network but other networks. It's a great way to create drama and it adds to the arc of Tulip since she has to find a way to get of the train anyway but now she has to come to terms with her parents divorce and that's something that alot of kids have to come to terms with as well.
Rather oddly we don't get to see The Steward there's a chance that the character appears when Tulip first steps onto the train but I couldn't get that good of a luck to say for sure. If it's not The Steward tho i'm surprised that they didn't have the character appear since they were a key plot point in the original pilot so I thought that maybe they'd start to explain some things about that character but nope they haven't done yet.
For those wondering why Tulip doesn't just jump of the train they straight up answer why that's a bad idea in this episode. I'm glad that they took the time to answer that question because it would have been super easy for them just to not answer that question in this episode but at the same time it would have been against Tulip's character and I was honestly shocked when they did it because I thought that they wouldn't answer that question at all and i'm not going to spoil it because I want to you guys to find out why that's a bad idea by watching the episode.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall this was a fantastic pilot episode even with all the faults that I personally had with the episode it's still a solid pilot and so it gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me and you can bet i'm not only going to watch this show but also review it at some point.
