You know how, sometimes, there is a conclusion you’ve reached but are trying to avoid at all costs.  I’m not sure you try to avoid your newly realized opinion, maybe it has something to do with letting go of the past or simply trying to deny reality from setting in, but in the end there is just no getting away from it.  I’ve hit that point with the Venture Bros.

When Adult Swim launched the series very few watched, but as the story developed so did the fan base.  By the end of the first season the cult following pushed [AS] to order a second season which was, by far, the best in terms of story writing. Season three attempted to explore some of the secondary characters and move them into larger roles within the story. In my mind, S3 was a disaster of season that just didn’t flow with Season two…. and now Season 4 is continuing the same disastrous path.

Ok, here are my big issue:

• Sergeant Hatred replacing Brock was just, well, stupid. Don’t know where the Brock story line is going but the lack of him significantly takes away from the show.
• Now they “boys” no longer have clones they are mortal… I don’t want to watch them grow up, I want to see the stupid stuff they did in season 1 and 2. When shows seem to “age” their characters the story always seems to suffer to me.
• I really don’t care about the secondary characters though there is a bit of humor with henchman #21 talking to his dead friends head as if he was still alive
• There stories don’t seem to mesh and the series does not feel like it is moving forward.  Now it almost feels like 30 mins of “how much secondary crap can we fit in and call it an episode”
• The humor seems to be lacking. While there are a few one liners that have popped up the make you think humor that I loved so much about the show seems to be gone as well

I think the Venture Brothers, the show I loved so dearly, has gone in a different direction – one that I’m not willing to follow with. I wish that wasn’t the case but it is.  Thank you for the good times but you’ve lost me as a dedicated fan.

This past weekend was the 6^th season finale for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the often bizarre and crass animated show on Adult Swim. You may have never watched the show but I’m sure you’ll remember how Boston shut down years ago because of a “bomb” threat that ended up being nothing more than a modified Light Bright for the show. Anyway…

Sunday was the much lauded “live action” season finale for the show – cool concept, horrible execution.

Let’s face it, ATHF is not Shakespeare. Never will be. The humor is very basic, but quite funny, and in no way does the show take itself seriously. So, the concept of a one off, live action, version episode seemed like the prefect chance to continue the humor but they truly missed the mark.

The two things the animated version has that the live action missed are the character voices and the actor flexibility. One of the reasons people tune in are because the actor voices fit the part – they are funny. Having a live person, who is not that voice, try to deliver lines in their normal voice just doesn’t work. It’s like Mike Rowe playing Pee Wee Herman in his normal voice… just not going to work.

The second thing that just didn’t fit was the limitation the actors faced. The character “moves” just cannot be pulled off by a human, and if they were to try it would look worse than a 70’s exploitation film that was attempted to pass itself off as a real movie.

The very basic aside, the show also lacked the very fundamental concept of humor. Actually, most of this season lacked the humor. A number of times this season I felt as if the production crew was simply throwing something down and saying “here you go” and it magically went to air.

No quality check. No testing. Just “here you go”

In many ways, then, the season finale was the perfect way to end a bad season. Why change at this point? Really, think about it. The core mentality that made the show what it was seemed to be lacking all year, why would one have a moment of brilliance if you couldn’t provide that during all other episodes.

I fear this is a sign of things to come for ATHF. Please, [AS], get your act back together. Things have been suffering for some time now and it is getting very obvious that programming is going down.

Just a reminder to everyone, the Family Guy episode “Not All Dogs Go To Heaven” is playing tonight on Adult Swim (11e/10c and 3e/2c).  

This ep. was pulled from Hulu over Star Trek TNG licensing issues, so make sure to catch it this evening if  you can.