Sonic Prime, Episode 1.6: Situation: Grim

Sonic Prime, Episode 1.6: Situation: Grim

Original Release Date: December 15th, 2022

At the end of “Barking Up the Wrong Tree,” Sonic was launched back into New Yolk City and into the middle of a fight between the Resistance and the Chaos Council’s forces. He’s quickly informed that he’s been gone several weeks. In that time, the Resistance has grown into a proper army, waging a full-on guerrilla war against the doctors. The blue hedgehog also learns that Nine disappeared with the Prism Shard moments after it teleported him away. Nine makes a dramatic reappearance, in an aircraft he’s built around the shard that can travel between dimensions. Sonic has to talk him into staying and fighting, which unfortunately hands the Eggmen their most dangerous weapon yet. 

When it seemed like “Prime” was finally finding its rhythm with me, the show immediately swings back into being frustrating. “Situation: Grim” suggests a much more interesting show was going on in-between episodes. Instead of showing us the Resistance fighting an underground war against the Chaos Council’s oppressive regime, it’s all explained to us during a montage. We even learn, early on, that Rusty Rose has been a sleeper agent for the bad guys this whole time, having reverted back to her original programing shortly after the last time we saw her. Imagine the suspense that could’ve been built by that idea, wondering when the heroes will discover the traitor in their midst or if she’ll accidentally reveal herself. It seems like this show’s commitment to the multiverse premise has really kept it from developing the good ideas already available to it. 

The relationship between Sonic and Nine seems to be the sole cornel of heart “Prime” really has. Before the program can get to that, it has to explain a bunch of shit. When the cyborg fox appears in his ship – an ugly, industrial piece of machinery that isn’t anywhere near as appealing as the Tornado – he plucks Sonic up and drops a heaping load of exposition on the viewer. A whole row of phrases, like Shatter Space (Nine’s term for the different dimensions) and Shatter-Verse (Nine’s term for the space between worlds), are quickly explained. The fox has discovered a totally empty world he calls the Grim and it's further confirmed that Sonic’s shoes change properties every time he lands in a new world.

It’s simple to understand, if you’ve ever seen another multiverse story before this one, but it still takes precious time away from what might’ve made this a good episode. Nine sees the emptiness of the Grim as a chance to start over, to build the idyllic home he was denied. Sonic, however, is eager to return to New Yolk City and help the rebels fight their battle. This shows a pretty interesting divide between the two characters. Nine is a nihilist, who thinks things are too bad to fix. Clean-slating everything and starting over is the only chance for peace. Sonic, however, always believes that there’s something to fight for. That, as long as you’ve got friends, a situation can be improved. 

It’s an interesting idea… Which mean it’s one that the show clearly doesn’t have time for. Nine sends Sonic back to the city so that he can continue the fight. A few minutes later, the fox returns in his spaceship and joins the battle. What made him change his mind? I don’t know! There’s a brief line of dialogue between Sonic and Nine where the fox makes it clear he’s returning to the Grim after this battle is over. And that’s it as far as justification goes. It seems clear to me that the writers painted themselves into a corner, with the Resistance being crushed by the Chaos Council’s power, and a saving throw from Nine was the only logical way out of it… It’s just that this, once again, pushes the character development off-screen. 

At this point, I can only conclude that the makers of “Prime” don’t care that much about character development or shit like that. Once again, the only thing this show really excels at are the action sequences. Don’t get me wrong, some of these are fun. Knuckles spindashing through a horde of machines or Sonic bouncing across several Eggforcer robots, in a manner that should be familiar to fans of the game, are entertaining sights. Yet it’s hard to be too invested in the butt-kicking when the people involved are kept at a distance like this. The episode devoted several minutes to the Chaos Council’s fortress transforming into some sort of flying saucer. It seems to consider shit like that more important than whether we care about any of these characters. 

And one more thing about the Chaos Council… I had assumed these guys where aware of the alternate universes. That they were a bunch of different Eggmen from across multiple worlds, who pooled their resources together to totally conquer one dimension. Basically, an interdimensional alliance of Eggmen coming together to do what none of them could alone.  Instead, this episode makes it clear that these guys were not aware of the Shatter Spaces before this moment. So… What are the Council of Chaos then? Are they a family? Is Dr. Done-It the grandfather? Is Dr. Babble the child of one of them? Does that mean Eggman fucks? Or are they all brothers in a very long-lasting lineage? Identical cousins? I can only conclude that it’s something like this, though the fact that they talk to each other more like co-workers than family members further muddies things. 

I’m nearly done with the first batch of “Prime” episodes and the show still feels frustratingly half-formed to me. Any time there’s a nugget of something genuinely compelling here, the show barrels ahead onto something else. Even some of the central parts of its zone-hopping premise that it’s married to remain frustratingly underexplained. Am I the pretentious one here, with unrealistic expectations for a children’s show? Has years of reading the comics, which have the time to explore things more, ruined me for TV? Those are questions for you to answer, not me. As for “Situation: Grim,” it’s another episode that snatches victory away from itself at every turn. [5/10]