Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Gargoyles: "Enter Macbeth"



Lets get Shakespearean!

Whew! As excellent as "Deadly Force" was, it's nice to sit down and watch an episode that doesn't remind me of somewhat traumatic incidents from childhood. Too bad "Enter Macbeth" is so damn boring.

That seems odd to say, considering that a lot happened. The gargoyles finally move out of the castle and into the Clocktower. Xanatos gets out of prison. There are nice continuity touches - Elisa's on crutches and Broadway still hates guns. And oh yeah, there's the plot, wherein we meet That Scottish Guy and catch an intriguing glimpse of his obsession with Demona. But that's mostly board-setting, that will pay off later (Demona and Macbeth get married at some point, right? I swear I remember that. I guess I'll find out!) Taken on its own, "Enter Macbeth" left me with an overall feeling of "meh." It's not terrible, but I just don't have much to say about it.

I could talk about the animation, I guess. I don't generally do that, because - much like the direction in live-action TV - I don't actively notice animation unless it's really good or really bad. Apparently the original animation of this episode was SO bad that Weisman and Co. had to have it re-done, forcing the still-new show into reruns and changing up their approach to episode continuity in the second season. And while watching, I did notice that some of the characters looked kind of weird at times, especially Goliath. Maybe that contributed to my lack of enthusiasm, I dunno.

I could talk about the voice cast! Here I can be complimentary - the cast is uniformly excellent. I talked about David Keith a little bit before (speaking of which, where is the opening narration? Is that a second season thing? I miss it - one of my favorite parts of watching as a kid was saying, "AND WE LIVE AGAIN!" right along with him.), but let me show some love for Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Elisa), Ed Asner (Hudson), Bill Fagerbakke (Broadway), Thom Adcox (Lex), Jeff Bennett (Brooklyn, Owen). As a kid, I wouldn't have recognized any of these actors from any other roles - except maybe Fagerbakke as "the dumb guy in that show my dad likes" - but they are all great. And then there are the two my wee Trekkie self did recognize; Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis (Imzadi!...oh shut up, I loved them) who are freakin' awesome. And only the first of many Trek actors to show up on Gargoyles. (Nichelle Nichols as Elisa's mom! I love it.) Plus, here we have John Rhys-Davies as Macbeth.

Hmm. Maybe I'll like "The Edge" better. It appears Xanatos-heavy, which will probably help.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, the opening narration is a second-season thing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I figured that was it. Something to look forward to!

    ReplyDelete