WesternAnimation Time Squad: Surprisingly Mediocre
Okay, so, Time Squad isn't all that great.
Coming in, I expected a pretty good series filled with Ho Yay that mocked historical fact in favor of telling a good story. So far...no dice. Yes, it's a decent show, and I'd probably tune into it if there was nothing else on, but it really doesn't seem that memorable to me. In fact, as you can tell by the title, it's surprisingly mediocre.
Sure, there are some interesting ideas here, like Eli Whitney creating flesh-eating robots rather than inventing the cotton gin, or Beethoven being a professional wrestler instead of composing great music, and there are some funny episodes like the one with Confucius, but largely the jokes fall flat and the ideas don't blossom. And that's not even including the ideas that just plain aren't that interesting, like Abe Lincoln pulling pranks or the Wright Bros. being stuntmen. I mean, sure, those two are plausible, and they could lead to humor...but they don't. They just end up largely being not that funny.
This doesn't even take into account that the plots are pretty much Strictly Formula. Essentially, what happens is: bickering between Larry and Tundrussel at the start of the show, followed by the alarm going off, followed by a trip into the past where they discover that some historical figure is misbehaving, followed by them correcting the behavior, followed by them going back to the ship. It's pretty much never played with, and it gets boring after a bit–even more so when they switch from doing a 15-minute short followed by a 7-minute short to doing typical Two Shorts format.
In short, while the series did have a decent amount of potential, it was pretty much mediocre, with a plot that was Strictly Formula, no Character Development, and in the end, not much interest to this viewer.
WesternAnimation Started out okay, in the end it had great moments
The thing about Time Squad is that it started off pretty slow. If anyone tells you that the show stayed Strictly Formula, then they're probably right. Truth be told, the writers had no idea of what to do during the first half of the first season, and it shows at times. Some episodes are very much lacking in story quality, with my personal candidate for worst episode being Robin n' Stealin' with Mr. Hood. It's a stupid, contrived episode that had no business being made into a cartoon. Yes, some stories that had potential, such as the Wright Brothers episode mentioned below me, but for whatever reason, wether it be time constraints or writing inexperience or censorship problems: just fell flat into mediocre territory.
But coming from a fan, I realize that this show is not perfect. Time Squad is definitely not what it's cracked up to be around here as a "gold mine for Ho Yay", and I refuse to be the fan to claim that it is, when in fact it's not. Did it provide some eyebrow raising content? Sure, but what cartoon from the late 20th/early 21st century DIDN'T? But that's not what Time Squad was about, and if you're going to watch this show and expect a mecca of homoerotic innuendo, then you're going to be very disappointed.
What you can expect is a show that found its place a little too late. Later on as the show progressed, Time Squad branched out of it's Formula state. You have many episodes that involve our heroes interacting with each-other on the satellite, and a few episodes that hinted at upcoming interactions with the show's bigger universe itself, an example being the episode involving JT Lazer. Also I enjoy the second season more based on these two facts; the writers got more creative, and successful with mining humor out of the historical figures. And the character development output was impressive. Larry, Otto, and Tuddrussel stopped being one-note characters, with actual personalities and believable relationships with each other and that's why people continue to keep watching this show despite its issues.
Finally, this show is supposed to be ridiculous. Some of the jokes fail, yeah. But a lot of the jokes are great. I believe that all things humor is very subjective to taste- some people enjoy the show's sense of humor, some don't understand it's appeal. It all depends on what you find funny.