We Bare Bears Review: "Losing Ice"

They can’t all be winners

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Not only was this episode bad, it was pretty much the pinnacle of everything that could go wrong with a We Bare Bears episode. A lousy plot, awful side characters, unfunny jokes, and just general annoying behaviour by the bears were all out in full force, leaving us with what may very well be the worst 11 minutes this show’s put out.

          Where to start? Firstly, let’s go over the plot. Ice Bear leaves home and takes a job at an Asian food restaurant because Grizz and Panda were late to dinner. Feeling dejected, the other bears decide to replace him, but things go awry and they try to get their brother back. If it feels like you’ve heard this story before, it’s because you probably have.

          Now here are my main problems with this plot. Firstly, this entire episode could’ve been avoided if Ice Bear waited another 30 seconds. Grizz and Panda didn’t take that long to finish their show, certainly not long enough for him to feel justified to run away from home.

          Secondly, and the biggest problem, this conflict doesn’t feel earned. As I’ve said before, We Bare Bears does an excellent job of showing that these brothers will go through thick and thin for each other, even if they butt heads once in a while. But now you’re telling me that Ice Bear will abandon the people he’s been with since he was a cub because they were a few minutes late for dinner!? That just doesn’t add up!

          And finally, there’s the fact that the other bears decide to replace their brother. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think that they could come up with a side character worse than Charlie, but somehow, Darryl accomplished it. Whenever he was onscreen, he was a complete nuisance, and I’m glad that the ending implied that we won’t be seeing him again.

          Only two jokes made me even chuckle throughout the whole episode: a cute Lion King reference towards the end, and a joke about kobe beef. That’s it. The rest was just annoying. Even the visuals seemed like they didn’t even try this episode. There was one scene where the bears were running along, and the background trees looked like flat cardboard cut outs. They didn’t even try to hide it.

          Every show inevitably will have bad episodes, but at least they usually try. Losing Ice feels like what happens if you put as little effort as possible into putting out an episode. But still, a little effort is better than no effort at all.

FINAL SCORE

3/10

Bad