Sonic Prime, Episode 1.3: Escape from New Yoke
Original Release Date: December 15th, 2022
The third episode of "Sonic Prime" does not immediately pick up with the cliffhanger we were left on last time. It flashes back to Green Hill Zone, before the Paradox Prism was shattered. This leads to further scenes of Shadow being grouchy before we return to New Yoke City. Nine manages to reprogram Rusty Rose before she crushes Sonic. Immediately, Sonic and the others get to work fighting their way through the Chaos Council’s defense as they approach the Paradox Prism deep within the forest… Or a shard of it anyway, as Sonic uncovers that he’s more responsible for the shattering dimensions than his enemy is.
There’s a moment in “Escape from New Yoke,” after Sonic and these edgy versions of his old pals escape the room they were trapped in. The group is strutting down a hallway, with lots of fancy editing and slow motion emphasizing the heroes walking together as a group. It seems to be “Sonic Prime” saying to its viewer: The wait is over! The band is back together! The gang is all here! Avengers assembled! It’s suppose to be a big fan pleasing moment.
Yet there’s an obvious problem here: We don’t actually know who these characters are. Okay, yes, we know who Amy and Knuckles and the rest are. Yet these specific versions of Sonic’s friends remain thinly sketched archetypes at best. We don’t know why the New Yolk version of Amy is a cyborg under control of the Eggmen. We don’t even know what Route and Knuckles’ underground resistance is fighting for exactly, outside of some vague notion of restoring freedom. It really seems to me that “Prime” is counting entirely on the audience’s built-in fondness for Sonic’s supporting cast to do a lot of the heavy lifting here.
What’s most frustrating about this approach is that the script itself acknowledges that these characters are totally different from Sonic’s friends as he knows them. There’s a scene where he introduces each member of the squad under the persona he’s familiar with, only for each one to correct. This isn’t happy-go-lucky Amy Rose but grim, robotic Rusty Rose. Rebel and Knucks, not Rouge and Knuckles. A better strategy than randomly introducing these alternate versions of familiar characters, and running headlong into the action scenes, would’ve been… Ya know… Actually taking some time to get us invested in these guys.
That’s the sad facts of the case here: I don’t really care about these characters, not yet anyway. We’ve learned a bit about Nine, and his background was intriguing, but he’s still kind of a prickly jerk to everyone. Rusty Rose, being a cold and logical cyborg, is almost designed to be free of personality. All it takes to flip her from evil to good is Nine reprogramming her, which really emphasizes that there’s not much depth to her. I like what I’ve seen of Rouge and Knuckles, or Rebel and Knocks’ rather, banter. Yet there’s almost none of that here.
In addition to making it hard to be invested in the story, the characters being so vague makes it hard to care about the outcome of the action scenes. And that's a major issue, as "Escape from New Yolk" is almost entirely made up of action scenes. It's one elaborate scrap after another. The heroes fight off the robots in the laboratory before being chased down a spiraling staircase. Dr. Deep – otherwise known as Hipster Eggman – slips on a samurai inspired robotic armor and leads another squadron of robots after the gang. There's even a chase around the building between Sonic and Dr. Babbles. (That's Baby Eggman.)
It's not that I can't enjoy these scenes on a surface level. They are well animated and cool to watch. The fight in the staircase, that has Sonic and the gang leaping up and down the various levels, is very well orchestrated. The animators clearly had fun with Rusty Rose's telescoping robot limbs, engineering a number of neat action beats around them. But it's hard to be too engrossed in any of this when we barely know the people doing the fighting. What is Dr. Deep's deal? Why does he put on a samurai-inspired armor? What are these people fighting? Why does any of this matter? And it doesn't help that the good guys don't seem to struggle much with the endless supplies of robotic mooks they have to fight off. Nine shoots a few over his shoulder without even looking.
Three episodes into “Sonic Prime” and I can’t escape this feeling that the show’s priorities are all mixed-up. You see that in the show’s continued focus on an oblong story structure. What is the point of the opening flashback here? It shows the tail end of Sonic’s fight with Shadow, the so-called ultimate lifeform racing off in pursuit of his blue counterpart. It shows Sonic’s friends fighting Badniks and being annoyed that their hero is late. Other than that, this clip of the "Before Prism Shatter" dimension doesn't really establish much. It's almost as if "Prime" wants to tease fans by giving us these little tastes of "normal" Sonic content before racing back to the alternate universe shenanigans the show is actually about.
The only hints at a deeper personality we get for the supporting cast come through in frankly intrusive comedy. The old man Eggman – I think he's called Dr. Done-It – hobbled after his counterparts. Dr. Deep does a dance number as he puts in his armor, to the annoyance of the other villains. Sonic's enthusiasm annoys the grimdark heroes. All of this stuff feels like a desperate attempt to distract us from how shallow everything feels. Only two jokes made me laugh here. That would be everyone having the duck under a giant laser as it continues to rotate around the room and Nine's exasperated reaction to a comment Sonic makes. Otherwise, the gags here are lame and distracting.
What's especially irritating about the mood-pausing jokes and one-liners is that... I think "Sonic Prime" wants to be a serious TV show. In the last third, Sonic finally reaches the Paradox Prism only to see that it's a shard, not a full crystal. He regains his memory of the universe shattering event and realizes he's responsible. Sonic shattering the Prism is what caused all these alternate universes. Now, he's determined to fix this and put everything back to how it was. This is presumably what the "journey of self-discovery and redemption" line in the Netflix plot synopsis was about.
That's what driving Sonic in this narrative: A desire to bring back the friends he knows and loves and undo the mess he caused. This episode ends with him grabbing the shard and presumably getting zapped to another alternate universe. Does that mean this is the last we've seen of the New Yolk City heroes? Is the crumbs of characterization we've gotten for them all we're going to get? Leaping through "zones" to grab shards of a bigger plot device is very much in-keeping with the "Sonic" video games... But that's a gameplay device, not a narrative one. If every dimension Sonic visits is just going to be a short trip, we probably won't get a chance to familiarize ourselves with any of these mixed-up cast members.
Three episodes into "Sonic Prime" and I'm still feeling the frustration I felt in the debut. There's certainly still time for the show to establish itself yet, considering there's only eight episodes in the first half of this season, time is running out for this show to get its grounding. "Sonic Prime" looks cool and has its fair share of interesting idea but the entire affair has been seriously lacking in heart so far. [5/10]
The problem is that if you look at this show as it's own separate incarnation of the Sonic universe and it's characters, this show doesn't really work for the reasons you explained. But if you look at it as an extension of the game canon... it's even worse. There is too many inconsistencies.
ReplyDeleteSonic acts like he never stepped outside of Green Hill before.
His characterisation here is a lot more dense and immature compared to his current game counterpart aswell.
He also says Eggman always uses animals to fuel his machines, which he hasn't done since Adventure 1, but this has to take place after the Shadow The Hedgehog game at the earliest because Shadow is here (And alive) and seems to have his memory restored. Eggman was way past using animals by that point.
Even though I still think this show is OK, a solid 6/10 (The animation, voice cast and some really charming moments are carrying the whole thing for me so far), the story and characters here don't work, neither as a standalone adaptation, or an extension of the game canon and that is quite the bummer.