Nostalgic Rewatch: The Underground
Jun. 22nd, 2013 10:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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animorphsljOver a year ago, I made this post about the Animorphs TV show. As you can tell by the edits, my memories were a bit... disillusioned when it came to the old show. I decided that I wanted to rewatch the whole series from start to finish with fresh eyes and share my thoughts. Well, it took me a whole year but here I am, ready to share my thoughts with you, if you care to read them.
I found all of the episodes to rewatch on YouTube, so you may find them there if you wish to follow along that way, or just enjoy my reviews on their own. I'm just here to have a little fun and a bit of a laugh at the expense of the show, so I welcome all comments and discussion on this very silly show. Let's rediscover Animorphs, the TV series!
Disclaimer: I am aware of similar nostalgic reviews of the TV show floating around the Internet, like Pop Arena's recent Opinionated Animorphs Guide. However I deliberately avoided watching/reading any of those prior to my own viewings. All thoughts, jokes, comments, and complaints I write down are my own and any overlap with anyone else is pure coincidence, I promise.
This episode starts with Marco walking and narrating. He’s talking about wishing he could have a normal life but, rather than sounding wistful and a little sad, he just sounds really tired and bored. You’d think talking about alien slugs and turning into animals would be a little more exciting! He meets up with the others at Jake’s house where they’re trying to figure out what the disc is with no success. At this point, I can’t remember what its purpose is so I’m still wondering why the show added it. A mystery even for book readers is nice. Curious to see if it pays off but my foggy memories think it turns out to be very lame.
We’re introduced to Tom for the first time. Geez, Tom, haven’t you ever heard of knocking? Clearly he’s a Controller, he doesn’t respect the privacy of a closed door! But this also means we’re introduced to the ridiculous ear rubbing thing that will become a nearly concrete way of picking out a Controller for the TV show. That still gets on my nerves. Why does the signal a Controller? Why would the Yeerk even do it when it’s such an obvious giveaway? Is it making sure its slimy tail isn’t sticking out the ear? Just weird that they wanted to add that as a sign someone is a Controller.
As the group goes their separate ways, Tom starts showing off the little odd quirks that make Marco suspect he’s a Controller, like quitting basketball. I do love one little moment in the confrontation between Jake and his brother’s Yeerk. When Jake calls him out on quitting the basketball team, Tom has his back to him and you can see this look of annoyance cross over his face before he regains his composure to respond with a casual smile. It’s a small moment but I like it. Marco voices his suspicion and Jake is furious, the pair parting ways angry.
Marco heads home to see his dad watching TV, having blown off a job interview. It was nice they kept in the bits with the death of Marco’s mom. Another element the show wouldn’t have time to reach but it was nice they kept it in there.
We see Rachel and Tobias sharing a scene together… be still my shipper heart! Nothing of importance happens, just the two having a little moment together. Though also establishing the possibility that Tobias was using his hawk morph to spy on Rachel through her window, which she seems to think is sweet rather than really freaking creepy.
School the next day, where Jake and Marco make up really quickly from their fight. They hear Chapman talking to another Controller and both morph lizards to follow and listen. Chapman leads them to a closet where Tom was lurking. “Hello, Chapman. I’ve been standing in the corner of this closet for an hour just so I could do this dramatic reveal turn.” Jake has little reaction to the reveal other than a small ‘No’ but, then again, he didn’t react all that much externally in the books either.
The two Controllers chat in the small closet and all I can think is ‘not weird at all for a student and a principle to be sharing the tiny space of a closet together… nope, not weird at all!’ Then they reveal the entrance to the Yeerk pool, and the two Animorphs run after being discovered, with neither Tom or Chapman ever thinking out loud that the lizards might be Andalites in morph.
The Animorphs head to the unnamed Gardens to gather more morphs, which leads to another moment I just love. Jake and Marco debating about how to get over the fence while Tobias and the girls just use the key. Love it!
However, once inside, we only see Jake and Rachel get morphs. Marco will later have a wolf morph so maybe we can just assume they got more off camera but he won’t morph it for a few episodes. If Marco, Tobias, and Cassie weren’t going to acquire any animals, why did they even come along? I’ll forgive them changing the morphs (a tamed lion was probably easier to obtain than a trained bear), but why did Marco not even acquire a morph? He just wasn’t planning on doing anything useful in their first big battle? Also Cassie mentions the acquiring trance but we never see it all in the show. I think they just left it in there for Marco’s one joke.
They head to the Yeerk pool, which I think is nicely creepy. They obviously didn’t have a big budget to work with so it’s not huge like I imagined and there aren’t a ton of Controllers running around or locked up. But the background screams are nice and the pool looks good. The Kandrona even looks pretty close to my image of it.
We see Tom down there and Cassie gets pulled into line with the other Controllers, where she fakes a Yeerk leaving her head with a stone. A nice idea but, seriously, how did the guards standing right behind her not notice that? Jake, Rachel, and Tobias all morph to cause chaos and Marco breaks free a cage of hosts. We actually see a fair number of free hosts get away from the pool, rather than the only one that gets saved in the book. All those free hosts are never brought up again so I’m just going to assume the Yeerks got them back or killed them.
Chapman chases after Jake who morphs to escape. When confronted with Visser Three, he whimpers “We did our best.” Sadly, I don’t think Visser Three’s motto is ‘Let’s do our best’. The kids meet up and realize Tobias is missing.
Final Thoughts: This episode and the two-part pilot were on the one Animorphs VHS I owned as a kid. I watched these three episodes over and over again and still love them. Along with the pilot, this episode continued the excellent set up for the start of the show. It worked pretty well for sticking close to the book. I liked the humor that showed through in this episode, that the show didn’t always have to take itself too seriously. The action wasn't horrible, even if only half the group morphing seemed out of place, though will quickly become the norm for the show.
Basically, a good episode that made me smile, still not into the horrible almost-unwatchable territory.
I found all of the episodes to rewatch on YouTube, so you may find them there if you wish to follow along that way, or just enjoy my reviews on their own. I'm just here to have a little fun and a bit of a laugh at the expense of the show, so I welcome all comments and discussion on this very silly show. Let's rediscover Animorphs, the TV series!
Disclaimer: I am aware of similar nostalgic reviews of the TV show floating around the Internet, like Pop Arena's recent Opinionated Animorphs Guide. However I deliberately avoided watching/reading any of those prior to my own viewings. All thoughts, jokes, comments, and complaints I write down are my own and any overlap with anyone else is pure coincidence, I promise.
This episode starts with Marco walking and narrating. He’s talking about wishing he could have a normal life but, rather than sounding wistful and a little sad, he just sounds really tired and bored. You’d think talking about alien slugs and turning into animals would be a little more exciting! He meets up with the others at Jake’s house where they’re trying to figure out what the disc is with no success. At this point, I can’t remember what its purpose is so I’m still wondering why the show added it. A mystery even for book readers is nice. Curious to see if it pays off but my foggy memories think it turns out to be very lame.
We’re introduced to Tom for the first time. Geez, Tom, haven’t you ever heard of knocking? Clearly he’s a Controller, he doesn’t respect the privacy of a closed door! But this also means we’re introduced to the ridiculous ear rubbing thing that will become a nearly concrete way of picking out a Controller for the TV show. That still gets on my nerves. Why does the signal a Controller? Why would the Yeerk even do it when it’s such an obvious giveaway? Is it making sure its slimy tail isn’t sticking out the ear? Just weird that they wanted to add that as a sign someone is a Controller.
As the group goes their separate ways, Tom starts showing off the little odd quirks that make Marco suspect he’s a Controller, like quitting basketball. I do love one little moment in the confrontation between Jake and his brother’s Yeerk. When Jake calls him out on quitting the basketball team, Tom has his back to him and you can see this look of annoyance cross over his face before he regains his composure to respond with a casual smile. It’s a small moment but I like it. Marco voices his suspicion and Jake is furious, the pair parting ways angry.
Marco heads home to see his dad watching TV, having blown off a job interview. It was nice they kept in the bits with the death of Marco’s mom. Another element the show wouldn’t have time to reach but it was nice they kept it in there.
We see Rachel and Tobias sharing a scene together… be still my shipper heart! Nothing of importance happens, just the two having a little moment together. Though also establishing the possibility that Tobias was using his hawk morph to spy on Rachel through her window, which she seems to think is sweet rather than really freaking creepy.
School the next day, where Jake and Marco make up really quickly from their fight. They hear Chapman talking to another Controller and both morph lizards to follow and listen. Chapman leads them to a closet where Tom was lurking. “Hello, Chapman. I’ve been standing in the corner of this closet for an hour just so I could do this dramatic reveal turn.” Jake has little reaction to the reveal other than a small ‘No’ but, then again, he didn’t react all that much externally in the books either.
The two Controllers chat in the small closet and all I can think is ‘not weird at all for a student and a principle to be sharing the tiny space of a closet together… nope, not weird at all!’ Then they reveal the entrance to the Yeerk pool, and the two Animorphs run after being discovered, with neither Tom or Chapman ever thinking out loud that the lizards might be Andalites in morph.
The Animorphs head to the unnamed Gardens to gather more morphs, which leads to another moment I just love. Jake and Marco debating about how to get over the fence while Tobias and the girls just use the key. Love it!
However, once inside, we only see Jake and Rachel get morphs. Marco will later have a wolf morph so maybe we can just assume they got more off camera but he won’t morph it for a few episodes. If Marco, Tobias, and Cassie weren’t going to acquire any animals, why did they even come along? I’ll forgive them changing the morphs (a tamed lion was probably easier to obtain than a trained bear), but why did Marco not even acquire a morph? He just wasn’t planning on doing anything useful in their first big battle? Also Cassie mentions the acquiring trance but we never see it all in the show. I think they just left it in there for Marco’s one joke.
They head to the Yeerk pool, which I think is nicely creepy. They obviously didn’t have a big budget to work with so it’s not huge like I imagined and there aren’t a ton of Controllers running around or locked up. But the background screams are nice and the pool looks good. The Kandrona even looks pretty close to my image of it.
We see Tom down there and Cassie gets pulled into line with the other Controllers, where she fakes a Yeerk leaving her head with a stone. A nice idea but, seriously, how did the guards standing right behind her not notice that? Jake, Rachel, and Tobias all morph to cause chaos and Marco breaks free a cage of hosts. We actually see a fair number of free hosts get away from the pool, rather than the only one that gets saved in the book. All those free hosts are never brought up again so I’m just going to assume the Yeerks got them back or killed them.
Chapman chases after Jake who morphs to escape. When confronted with Visser Three, he whimpers “We did our best.” Sadly, I don’t think Visser Three’s motto is ‘Let’s do our best’. The kids meet up and realize Tobias is missing.
Final Thoughts: This episode and the two-part pilot were on the one Animorphs VHS I owned as a kid. I watched these three episodes over and over again and still love them. Along with the pilot, this episode continued the excellent set up for the start of the show. It worked pretty well for sticking close to the book. I liked the humor that showed through in this episode, that the show didn’t always have to take itself too seriously. The action wasn't horrible, even if only half the group morphing seemed out of place, though will quickly become the norm for the show.
Basically, a good episode that made me smile, still not into the horrible almost-unwatchable territory.
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