13 June 2012

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Super Friends Recap



If brevity is the soul of wit, Super Friends was completely witless. Not only was I bored watching most of the episodes, even the characters seemed bored in them. Wendy and Marvin spent large portions of each episode just trying to kill time and I found myself wishing I was doing what they were doing rather than watching them do it. It is interesting that the series got the axe after a single season, but was brought back a few years later as a response to the success of the live action Wonder Woman series. For its second go around, episodes were edited in half and the half-length episodes were successful enough to pave the way for a revival. After having watched the series, that totally makes sense. Most of the episodes had decent parts, but often the bad outweighed the good. So, I don't think I can in good conscience recommend five episodes.

Instead, I am going to pick the essential one and offer two runners-up. After that, the rest of the episodes are all pretty much about the same.

Essential One:

1. Gulliver's Gigantic Goof was easily the best episode of the series. It was fun, it had a well used guest star in Green Arrow (even if they over did the Robin Hood puns), it was memorable. If this is the only episode you see, you might be left with a good impression of the series.

Runners-up:

1. The Planet Splitter was not a great episode but it did contain a substantial sequence presenting Superman's origin. For that alone, the episode may be worth watching.

2. Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C. was probably no worse than the remaining episodes so I half heartily endorse it for two reasons. It was pretty representative of the series overall, more so than the other two episodes listed above. Also, it had Plastic Man - though this is almost a negative because of how he was used. Rather than involving him in the story, he showed up very briefly to reach into a hole. Why not just use a broomstick and save him the trouble.

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