Steven Universe Reviews: Season 1 (Bubble Buddies/Serious Steven)

Clearly I’m doing a great job with getting these out more quickly.

This episode is our first introduction to Connie, this little cutie:

Seriously, she is so adorable. And Steven has a huge crush on her, which is also pretty adorable. After a bad attempt at trying to impress her, Steven runs into the house embarrassed. The Gems realize that Steven has a crush and Pearl and Amethyst are all for setting up a playdate (Pearl says they need to find out what Connie’s favorite tea is, bless Pearl) but Garnet says Steven should just talk to Connie. Steven takes a bracelet out of the fridge (we’ll find out why later) and then goes over to where Connie is. As he approaches her, the cliffs behind her start to crumble. He jumps to rescue her and his gem activates, creating a pink bubble shield around them. Unfortunately, Steven doesn’t know how to deactivate the bubble, nor does he want to ask the Gems for help, so he and Connie try to find another way of breaking it.

After hitting the bubble with a chair and shooting a harpoon at it doesn’t work, Steven comes up with a new idea. He takes Connie to the amusement park, thinking that something there can pop the bubble.

• Steven: Yeah! Tons of horrible accidents happen here everyday! There’s gotta be something to break this bubble. We just gotta find the right ride. Yeah, the kiddy coaster! Alright, we just roll down this ramp as the carts are coming at us, and the crash will break us free!
• Connie: What happens after the bubble pops?
• Steven: We’ll be free!

Steven, NO

Right, so the two of them end up being launched into the middle of the ocean. And while trying to roll themselves back to shore, they fall into a trench created by a sea monster. Connie finally snaps at Steven that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and that she’s probably going to die without ever having made a single friend. Aw, Connie! As Connie cries Steven pulls out the glowing bracelet from before. He says that he saw her drop it at a parade one day and that he’d been waiting for an opportunity to return it to her. He even kept it in the fridge so it would last longer. This whole scene is really cute, if you can ignore the nonsensical transition of Connie crying about dying to saying “It’s okay, I’m having fun!” Just then the bubble pops and Steven and Connie immediately swim back to shore. They’re attacked once again by the sea monster, which is attracted to the bracelet, but they manage to defeat it. When the Gems show up, Connie tells them how incredible Steven was.

So, something I find notable about this show in general but haven’t had a chance to mention yet. The animation is pretty… muted? For the backgrounds and colors in particular. I mean, if you actually look at the way the backgrounds are drawn in this show, they tend to not be very detailed.

They almost look like they’re unfinished, and even the colors tend to be sort of faded and muted, at least compared to Adventure Time, where everything about the animation was vibrant and colorful and in-your-face. I’m not saying this is a bad thing for Steven Universe, though. Quite the opposite, I find the backgrounds quite pretty, and the fact that they’re more subtle pulls your focus to the characters, who are more vibrantly animated.

Anyway, on to Bubble Buddies. Which unfortunately has a name very similar to a SpongeBob episode and that may get confusing. Connie, as mentioned earlier, is adorable, and she seems like she’ll make a good friendly foil to Steven. She’s calmer and more logical than he is, and she’s already being set up as the voice of reason when she’s with him.

Connie is cute, Steven is cute, the bracelet scene is cute, the whole episode is cute.

Rating: 7.5/10

The episode begins with Steven in Funland, the amusement park. The teacups ride has apparently had an accident, with the teacups having flown out of position with riders still in them. The episode then moves forward to two weeks later. Odd. Steven is with the Gems on a mission, apparently a very serious one. They come to their destination, an upside down pyramid, and head inside. Steven finds a strange, smaller pyramid and touches it, causing it to flip over, and causing everyone inside to gravitate towards a hole in the ceiling. They fall into a room with many doors, and Pearl suggests they split up. Pearl wants to stay with Steven, but Garnet insists on taking him with her while Pearl and Amethyst go together.

Each of the rooms has a dangerous trap in them, and it quickly becomes apparent that Steven is in over his head. Garnet does most of the work while Steven is in constant need of saving. In one room, Steven has a flashback to his time at Funland, where Steven had gotten sick on the teacup ride and fallen out, breaking the lever of the ride and thus accidentally destroying it. In the present, the Gems find themselves in the same room they started in. Pearl says that she and Amethyst have tried multiple doors, but they all end up leading back here. At this point Steven, who is obviously terrified, has a breakdown and says “You were all right about me. I wanted to do this so bad, but now I feel like I’m gonna throw up. This is just like the teacups!” While the Gems reassure him that he’s doing fine, Steven realizes that this is like the teacups ride, with all of the rooms spinning around so they always end up in the same place. Garnet breaks through the floor and they all fall into a large mechanism that causes the temple’s rooms to rotate. Garnet throws Steven at the center and he removes the gem controlling it, which causes the temple to explode. Once freed, the Gems compliment Steven on his ingenuity.

So, Steven obviously isn’t as experienced or as skilled as Pearl, Garnet or Amethyst, hence why Pearl didn’t want to take him along at all and also why Garnet spent most of this episode making sure he didn’t die. It doesn’t help that Steven is still immature and a kid. I mean, Amethyst acts pretty childish, but at least she is an adult (technically? I’m assuming?) and she’s powerful and has control over her abilities. Steven doesn’t have any of that. What he does have is ingenuity. He mind works differently from the Gems, and that’s usually what ends up saving him in past episodes as well as this one. He just needs to learn to actually use his abilities.

This episode got me thinking about Steven’s relationship with each of the Gems. They all have very different approaches in how they deal with him. Pearl is constantly anxious and worried when it comes to Steven, always wanting to protect him from everything and not really trusting him. Amethyst likes playing and having fun with Steven, but doesn’t seem to take him very seriously and can be irresponsible where he’s involved. Garnet seems to be more supportive of Steven, but she also seems very detached from… well, everything. The three of them together kind of balance each other out, but being with only one of them for too long could end up being disastrous.

This is a really enjoyable episode. The temple is an interesting place, it’s pretty exciting, and we get to see Garnet being both a total bad ass and an absolutely adorable mom to Steven.

Rating: 8.5/10

SpongeBob Reviews: Season 6 (Boating Buddies/The Krabby Kronicle)

Squidward is trying to get away from SpongeBob. Hey, that’s new. Anyway, he gets into a boat and drives away from him, but he runs through a stop sign and gets a ticket. The only way to preserve his perfect driving record is to go to boating school. Yeah, we all know where this is going. SpongeBob annoys him, Squidward gets mad, blah blah blah. Mrs. Puff tells them that they will be practicing driving in partners, and guess who’s paired with Squidward? Mrs. Puff, SpongeBob and Squidward get into the boat and SpongeBob is the one driving. Of course chaos ensues, and I’m not going to bother explaining what happens because it’s all really strange and doesn’t make much sense, but all you need to know is that it ends with Squidward breaking every bone in his body, which means he isn’t able to take the written test. He’s forced to ask SpongeBob to help him with the test, but time runs out before SpongeBob can help him. Both of them fail the test, which means both of them will have to come back next week.

The problems with this episode should be obvious. SpongeBob is annoying as Hell, Squid Abuse, you know the drill. Both of those are things I’ve ranted about so many times throughout these reviews and I’m really sick of repeating myself. You might as well go read my review of Good Neighbors again. Yeah, I know that’s lazy of me, in fact this entire review so far has been lazy, but I’m tired of talking about the same things over and over again. (As a side note, that Good Neighbors review is kind of funny to me now.  I was so mad, hehe.)

There is one thing about this episode I’d like to talk about though…

First of all, LOL at the last two lines from Squidward and Mrs. Puff. Those two should hang out more often. Second of all, WHAT IS WITH SPONGEBOB’S CREEPY BREATHING. You know, in the same way that the writers have started taking Squidward’s hatred for SpongeBob too far, I think they’re also taking SpongeBob’s adoration for Squidward too far. What with the “I like Squidward” thing in 20,000 Patties Under the Sea, the weird breathing in Boating Buddies, his occasionally stalker-like behavior, and his weird new habit of calling Squidward handsome at random times (in one episode he calls Squidward beautiful, I’m not kidding), it seems like they’re implying that SpongeBob has a crush on Squidward. Not that there would be anything wrong with that, I just wonder why they’re suddenly going that route.

You know, despite everything I just said, I actually don’t hate Boating Buddies. To be clear, I don’t like it, I barely think it’s watchable, but I definitely don’t hate it as much as I hate Good Neighbors or other episodes of that sort. There were enough things that I found amusing to keep me from disliking Boating Buddies too much. Plus, I like the idea of Squidward and SpongeBob being in boating school together, even if it wasn’t executed that well.

By the way, has anyone noticed that Squidward’s voice has been slowly changing over the past couple of seasons? It’s getting lower and he’s sounding more and more congested. Squilliam’s voice sounded a little bit off in House Fancy, too. Oh well.

Rating: 3.5/10

Mr. Krabs starts a newspaper to make more money, and he makes SpongeBob the lead reporter. The stories SpongeBob writes aren’t very interesting, so Krabs starts taking his stories and “embellishing” them. In other words, he makes up mean lies about people and ruins their lives. He makes up a story about Mrs. Puff being in a high speed chase, which puts her job in jeopardy; he makes up a story about Larry being beaten up by a wimp, so Larry loses his tough reputation and gets kicked out of the gym; he makes up a story about Plankton making chum out of fish, which causes the Chum Bucket to be closed down; he makes up a story about how Sandy is actually an idiot, so she loses all of her science awards. SpongeBob feels guilty about how the stories are ruining people’s lives, but whenever he tries to tell Mr. Krabs that, Krabs tells him that the stories aren’t doing any harm. SpongeBob prints a story about how Krabs mistreats his employees and about how he’s made up lies about everyone in The Krabby Kronicle. Everyone is furious and demands their money back. Krabs is upset about losing all of his profits, but then he realizes that he can use the printing press to print himself more money.

There are two problems with this episode:

1. Plots like this have been done to death.

2. The ending. I thought Krabs was going to get what he deserved, but he found a way out of it by doing something illegal. It seems that Krabs, much like SpongeBob and Patrick, is some kind of Karma Houdini.

A common complaint about this episode is that it has SpongeBob Abuse. Uh, where? I didn’t see any. Yeah, Krabs was working him hard, but when does he not do that? There was nothing in this episode that seemed out of the ordinary or particularly mean to me. Well, except for the stories Krabs was making up, but those were supposed to be mean. There’s nothing in this episode that I would consider character abuse.

Despite the two problems that I mentioned, I quite liked this episode. It’s funny, entertaining, and it’s one of very few episodes where SpongeBob rebels against Mr. Krabs. I like seeing that.

Rating: 8.5/10

SpongeBob Reviews: Season 5 (Spy Buddies/Boat Smarts/Good ol’ Whatshisname)

Wow, three sister episodes again!

Mr. Krabs is getting paranoid because Plankton hasn’t tried to steal the Krabby Patty formula in over a month. He gets SpongeBob and Patrick to spy on Plankton to figure out what he’s up to. They follow Plankton around town but don’t catch him doing anything suspicious. That night, they sneak into the Chum Bucket and are caught by Plankton. SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally destroy the Chum Bucket and let it slip that they were spying on Plankton. Plankton is angered by this and attacks the Krusty Krab in a big red blimp. Mr. Krabs pops the blimp by firing Patrick out of a cannon at it, but Plankton still manages to get the formula. That’s not even the weird part. We then find out that Plankton and Mr. Krabs were actually disguised as each other (we get another reference to Imitation Krabs after this reveal). The two had made a bet after Mr. Krabs teased Plankton for always failing to steal the formula. The bet was that Mr. Krabs wouldn’t be able to steal his own formula. Krabs won the bet, however, so Plankton gives him his prize: one dollar. After that things get really confusing because it turns out everyone was disguised as someone else (except Squidward) and I couldn’t even keep up so I’m not going to bother explaining it.

Okay, first of all, this:

Was that a joke about periods? That was totally a joke about periods. I’m not even that surprised after the “Don’t drop the soap” joke in Gary Takes a Bath. Not to mention all of the other, um, questionable content in other pre-movie episodes.

Anyway, despite the confusing ending, this episode was decent. It’s pretty funny, though probably not one I’d revisit.

Rating: 6.5/10

This episode is similar to Krusty Krab Training Video. It’s not really a story, it’s just a parody of instructional videos. This one is about driving, with Squidward being the example of a good driver and SpongeBob being the example of a bad driver. Mrs. Puff is the narrator.

SpongeBob is pretty annoying in this one and there’s some Squid Abuse, but it’s pretty mild compared to other episodes. Luckily this episode is extremely short (less than four minutes) so I don’t have time to get too mad about anything. There are a few funny moments, but nothing that really stands out.

Rating: 4.5/10

Mr. Krabs has SpongeBob and Squidward compete to learn the names of all of the customers in the Krusty Krab. Whoever wins gets a prize: a vacation cruise. Squidward wants to win, but he and SpongeBob tie, and there is only one fish left that neither of them knows the name of. Squidward approaches the fish and asks him what his name is. The fish replies “What’s it to ya?” Squidward keeps trying to get his name and eventually resorts to stealing his wallet to read his driver’s license. Yes, really. When he checks the driver’s license, it says the fish’s name is What Zit Tooya. Yes, really. Squidward is arrested and Krabs and SpongeBob come to visit him in jail. Squidward is pleased that he won the contest, but then he finds out that Krabs wasn’t offering a cruise for the prize, he was offering a brochure for the cruise. Yes, really. Oh, and Patrick is in Squidward’s jail cell too because why not rip off the ending of SpongeBob Meets the Strangler?

This episode is stupid. It isn’t funny and I can’t decide if I should get mad at it for having Squid Abuse or I should be mad at Squidward for being so stupid and doing this to himself. What the fuck.

Thank God this episode is short.

Rating: 0/10