2001: A Steven Odyssey
(This review contains
spoilers!)
This was an…interesting episode, to
say the least. I feel like the crew didn’t quite have enough content for the
entire 5 episode arc, so this episode was sort of them shuffling their feet for
a while before the good stuff started. What resulted was an episode mostly
reliant on visual gags to keep viewers engaged.
After realizing that Greg is likely
being kept at Pink Diamond’s human zoo far out in space, the Gems take off in
the Ruby Ship, leaving Lapis and Peridot in charge of defending Beach City (I
can only hope we get an episode later on where we see how that goes). But the
ship travels far too slow to get to the zoo in less than 70 years, so Steven
turns on the warp drive. This results in the Gems’ bodies becoming all
distorted, and…that’s basically it.
Most of the episode is based on having
the gems grow to wacky shapes and sizes, and unsurprisingly it grows old really
fast. I imagine it’d be funny for young kids, but for me it just felt kind of
silly and a waste of time. The animation is nice and all, but this silliness
just kind of feels out of place after the more serious Steven’s Dream.
But, this being Steven Universe, there’s of course a moment where everything goes
horribly wrong and Steven is sent into mortal peril. The Gems’ physical forms
are launched out of the ship as it goes faster than the speed of light, and
Steven has to turn of the hyperspeed before he crashes into the zoo. This leads
to another moment similar to those in Bubbled
and Mindful Education where
Steven breaks down due to all the pressure put on him. Say what you will about Steven Universe’s reliance on character
development through crying, but you can’t deny that Steven himself may be the
most realistic kid in cartoons, right down to how he handles all the pressure
put on him constantly. Needless to say everything turns out alright in the end,
and the Gems arrive at the zoo ready to continue this mission.
As I said early on, this episode feels
more or less than a bit of filler content to pad out the arc. While the
beginning and ending are both decent, the good chunk of episode spent on the
Gems being distorted is really uninteresting. While Adventures in Light Distortion is necessary to the overall story,
it’s definitely not an episode that’ll be remembered.
FINAL SCORE
5/10
Average
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