KsMIRT=Kent's Month In Reviewing Television, where each month (or whenever) Kent steps through the TV series he completed watching recently-ish as relayed in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format, you know, for kids!
This Month:
Police Squad! (1982, dvd - 6/6 episodes)
G.I. Joe: Operation: Dragonfire (1989, youtube - 5/5 episodes)/G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Season 1 (1990, 18/19 episodes)
Duster Season 1 (2025, HBO - 4/10 episodes)
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(1 Great) "Turns out it was one of those 24 hour wicker joints...". Never a more random and absurd statement then punctuated by the visualization of said all-night wicker spot that will just live in my memory palace to be recalled whenever I need a lift or a chuckle.
(1 Good) Police Squad! found its footing and formula from the first episode. The opening credits - full of gunfire - always featured a "special guest" that was then killed in the opening credits. At the end of the credits, the title of the episode is shown on screen, but the title the announcer presents is completely different. After the precipitating incident was shown, Drebin would always be in his car, en route, providing voice over with some hilarious, irrelevant backstory about where he'd been. It also sets up the gag of Drebin always crashing his car into something when he parks that would carry on into The Naked Gun series. Each episode has a sequence where Drebin consults with his forensics expert Ted Olson (Ed Williams) who is always teaching some kid science when Frank walks in. Drebin also every episode consults with the shoeshine guy Johnny the Snitch (William Duell) who gives him some special dirt, which is always then followed up with some professional asking Johnny for help, like a surgeon asking how to approach a triple bypass. Each episode always ends with Frank and Ed wrapping up, with Drebin recounting all the previous episodes bad guys whom the latest bad guy is getting locked up in, and then freeze framing. Except it's just everyone standing still, with, maybe, one person perplexed by the freeze frame. The formulaic elements are of the sort that they build upon each other and get funnier the more they are used, especially as by episode six they already seemed to be itching to subvert their own formula.
(1 Bad) Out of 6 episodes, only one is a dud, with the comedy just not hitting. The production was obviously having an off week that week. As well, it's annoying that the DVD presents the episodes in the order in which they aired (or didn't air, as the case may be) but you can tell by the wrap-up at the end of each episode that episodes 3 and 4 have been switched
META: The Zucker-Abrams-Zucker mode of comedy had just been forged with Airplane! and it was with Police Squad! that they started to hone the edge of that sword. While not always as rapid-fire as their work would later become, Police Squad! was still loaded with jokes and gags that ranged from sharp wordplay, stupid characters, visual gags, upending genre conventions and so much more. It's so remarkably successful at achieving what it set out to be (funny!) that it is shocking the series only lasted 6 episodes, of which only four actually aired. Old school television is fascinating Nielsen opined that the TV viewing audience of the time didn't have the attention span the show needed, and their kind of rapid fire, visual comedy needed the devoted attention of a theatrical audience. It's such a modern argument, that the home-viewing audience isn't actually paying attention to what's on their television, it's remarkable to hear it be said decades ago.
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(1 Great) Let's be real here, when Canadian animation company DIC took over animation duties from Sunbow, the G.I. Joe series took a nosedive in quality, in terms of storytelling, voice acting and visual animation. Where the Sunbow series was ridiculous, it was a knowing sort of ludicrousness that emphasized the fun the writers were having with the series, while still being pretty focussed on character building. In this DIC series, the episodes are quite juvenile and lacking in anything that could be called character development. But, amidst the poorly drafted characters are some idiotic stories that are stupidly entertaining, such as "Granny Dearest", where Cobra's resident mad bomber/idiot Metal-Head's grandmother pays him a visit on Cobra's latest debacle. Or the two-part |Victory at Volcania" where General Hawk (in his radical 90's-styled Jim Lee-esque superhero costume) is age-shamed repeatedly and bumbles around like an old man when he's, what? 50? Or the Christy Marx-written two-parter "The Mind Mangler/BIOK" where fears of AI (how prescient) are muted when Cobra's artificial intelligence BIOK runs rogue from its world conquering duties and instead hyperfixates on its petty grudge towards Skydive.
(1 Good) The point of the G.I. Joe cartoon was not really entertainment, but to sell toys, and much, much more than the Sunbow series, the DIC series really got them toys in the cartoon, constantly adding new characters and vehicles and playsets to the show. When I was a kid watching cartoons, that's what I wanted, to see more of the toys on screen and in action. The story didn't concern me as much. I still love to see the toys up on screen, but, moof, good stories are needed.
(X Bad) DIC's first stab at Joe was a direct follow-up to 1987's G.I. Joe: The Movie with the middling 5-part Operation: Dragonfire. I had heard legend about how bad the DIC animation was, but Operation: Dragonfire, by and large, looks pretty good (kind of up to DIC's Inspector Gadget standards, if a little more rushed) but the story centered around Sargeant Slaughter -- a ridiculous "real life" character from professional wrestling, and a terrible voice actor -- as he squares off against Serpentor who is also dealing with an internal conflict with a revived Cobra Commander. It's passably watchable but the step down in storytelling quality from Sunbow is evident from the start.
DIC's first full season, however finds the animation quality continually degrading. By the time the series reaches its season finale, the lack of movement and continuity in the animation moves beyond the point of being kitschy and funny and into "embarrassed for your" territory (even though the animation is at its worst, "The Mind Mangler/BIOK" is about as close to the Sunbow series as the storytelling gets with Marx's script fitting much more in the classic mould of the series).
Though the Sunbow series did have an expansive cast of characters, they were also a largely stable, rotating cast, both on the hero and villains side. DIC pretty much abandons all the characters from Sunbow in favour of the 1989/1990/1991 wave of figures (for obvious reasons) but, again, Sunbow's show runners really defined their characters and personalities, while the roster on the DIC series were basically reduced to, at best, a single personality quirk. Only Cobra Commander is still voiced by his original actor Christopher Collins, and is one of few carry-over characters from Sunbow. The Cobra team shrank to a standard roster of Cobra Commander, Destro, Metal-Head and Gnawgahyde with a host of nameless vipers filling in the background (and even Gnawgahyde disappeared mid-season).
The worst offense of the DIC G.I. Joe series was the demotion of its female characters. On the Joe team, only Lady Jaye was still around and frequently one hair away from "damsel in distress" territory. Gone was her status as, basically, third-in command (in one episode, she's the object of fixation for a resurrected pharaoh who kidnaps her with intent to marry her...sigh). In Operation: Dragonfire Baroness and Zarana are effectively arm candy for Serpentor and Cobra Commander, without much initiative of their own. They stay out of the fight for the most part. In the first season, you can bet that pretty much any new female character is Zarana or Baroness in disguise. The Sunbow series put its female characters just as much in the center of the action as their male counterparts (even if they were vastly outnumbered) so it's awful to see almost no representation in the DIC series.
META: Lady Kent has long been the G.I. Joe fan in the Kent household, but when the G.I. Joe Classified Series of action figures released in 2020, I started really getting into G.I. Joe, more and more so with each year passing. We did the watch/rewatch of the Sunbow series last year and the DIC series started to feel more and more like a gap in my Joe awareness. It was only recently that Tubi had the DIC series also available to stream (unless I've just missed it all this time). Every time I put this series on, it would elicit groans from Lady Kent, it's a real tarnish on the Joe series that she loves. But every time that new, oh so 80's rawk "Got To Get Tough, Yo Joe!" theme crops up I start ironically bopping by head to it, and getting in the spirit of its full-blown jankiness. It is a terrible cartoon, full stop, but even worse when put in comparison to what came before. But I really do think it has its genuinely fun moments that are actually intentional and not accidental, though they are far fewer and further between that its predecessor series. I'm keen to jump into Season 2.
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(1 Great) I will love Josh Holloway forever, but he isn't the bright spot of this series. That goes to Keith David who is charming, menacing, funny, caring and brutal whenever he needs to be. David plays it all so well, even if the show finds itself backed against the wall trying to rationalize his character. Eventually it's clear that everything is a game to Saxton and he controls all the pieces...he's good at keeping secrets and manipulation, but he has flaws and that's both his trust and his family.
(1 Good) The opening credits features a rollicking 70's-styled horn-heavy adventure theme by JJ Abrams, with animations by Meat Dept. which is basically a high speed chase through city and desert but the cars are basically Hot Wheels-style and everything is in miniature. It's a delightful, fun, entertaining intro to a show that just doesn't match its energy or vivaciousness.
(1 Bad) The stunt driving isn't exciting. It's not shot nor edited in a manner that wowed me ever. For a show whose center premise is about a bad-ass driver, it doesn't present the badass driver with enough badass driving opportunity. I was hoping for a TV-ified Baby Driver but the needle drops feel like afterthoughts, and the action doesn't match.
META: I want Duster to be so much better than it is. I was hoping it would sink into the 1970's style of production and storytelling, instead it's trying to be very modern, with heaps of backstory and character complications and multifaceted dynamics. The themes around family and doing right by them are at the show's core, but it doesn't know how to tie them all together, and it doesn't know the tone it's trying to set. Nina and her associate agent Awan Bitsui (Asivak Koostachin) are the only non-white people in this Agency office and the show gets weighed down by that, even as they both prove themselves over and over to eyes unwilling to see. I expected a peppier, poppier show, one that lives up to its credits sequence and it is just too dramatic to be fun, and the fun it does try to have seems out of place in its own narrative.
Despite my delight at having Josh Holloway back on TV, this show really didn't work for me, and this character really didn't work for Holloway. Worst of all,Coming from co-creator JJ Abrams (with LaToya Morgan), I was expecting something bolder, and perhaps bigger from the show.
This show did Lady Jaye so wrong, and I can't get over that. And the colour palette (or lack thereof) drives me bonkers.
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