Big Hero 6

"A Fresh Sparkles" was fine. It was neat to squeeze in another Honey Lemon appearance, even if her plot wasn't that compelling. I kind of guessed Mr. Sparkles's redemption would stick, since this show has been redeeming a lot of villains, even off-screen. I didn't expect Yama again, and I think he worked as a short-episode foe. I keep wondering if this episode would've worked as full one or not, since they haven't really done this type of story in the show, but Sparkles also isn't really that strong of a character to carry it forward.

I'm surprised Globby wasn't even mentioned considering the plot, his connection to Honey Lemon, and even a Felony Carl appearance.

"Noodle Burger Ploy" was sure an episode that happened. I liked Go Go birdwatching again. That's all I got to say.

It's pretty weird that the preview for next week's finale actually called it the "series finale", even if it's just the same commercial from the past few weeks.

I'll be honest, this Season 3 was so far a major letdown. The Lighter and Softer, more comedic tone with the lower stakes does a disservice to the characters; I miss the grand story arcs the first two seasons had.

I liked season 1's tone the most and lament the change in direction as well. The world already has a lot of 11 min. comedic cartoons right now. I think the only action-oriented superhero cartoon out there is Young Justice (with Invincible on the way), and there's pretty much nothing for kids in that genre anymore. The genre that got me into animation in the first place.

EDIT: I also just realized that the plot for "Noodle Burger Ploy" shouldn't have worked at all. NBB's personality wasn't contained solely in the Obake chip. It only corrupted it. I think that plothole also occurred in the chip switch episode, so I feel bad I didn't notice that until now.

Edited by GamerSlyRatchet on Feb 9th 2021 at 10:01:32 AM

Here's a clip from Monday's episode.

Excellent, Disney NOW actually allowed me to see these episodes. They usually block me from doing so even though my cable subscription includes Disney XD.

"Krei-Oke Night" was just an okay episode. Most of the musical numbers were either kind of bland or even downright cringey (Honey Lemon). I think the only ones I liked were Aunt Cass's and Granville's. At least the latter also got a better send-off than the child neglect in "The Mi SFIT". Kind of annoyed that they chose the mascots to be villains in this episode because it means they've been the villains for three episodes in a row (counting the next one). Honestly, I don't think this episode even needed villains, just make it a fun night off for the heroes.

Globby and Felony Carl got a romantic song together. I guess that's the closest we'll get to them being confirmed as a couple. It was cute.

"The Mascot Upshot" is the finale and it's...not a bad episode either. I mean, it focused on the mascots and Mini-Max, two points of annoyance of mine. I enjoyed the surprise appearance by Momakase. I assume she was paying him back for helping her get her family swords, since neither episode makes that clear. It makes sense that the mascots were repurposed into helping Aunt Cass since I doubt their original venues would want them any more.

As a finale, though, it was kind of weak. They did the same thing some shows like Turbo FAST do where they just do a regular episode for their finale and then they acknowledge so in the last few minutes. Some loose ends were tied, but not all. It's not bad, but it is underwhelming.

It's a shame the series had to end like this, since I think it had potential and it realized it during season one and parts of season two. Even when it had a different set of flaws (jerky animation and the heroes constantly losing battles within seconds to make Hiro look competent) there was still a greater adventure, humor, and even some mystery to enjoy. A shame it never really evolved from that and just ended up becoming another 11-min. episode comedy. I think the idea of the Baymax! series is cute, but I'm not interested in it. I'm looking forward to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, at least.

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that the E Ps got word that this would be the last season and had to wrap things up a little bit.

But yeah, the format change, while having pretty good episodes, didn't work as a whole. And now we're left with a "finale" that is not really that.

Maybe down the road they can have a TV-movie or something that will wrap things up a little bit more. Probably wishful thinking, though.

Yeah, I kind of got that vibe between the way they handled Hardlight and how a lot of the villains were either redeemed or jailed off-screen. At least they got enough notice to wrap SOME stuff up.

With the Baymax show coming, it's safe to say the only way this incarnation of the franchise has a future is if fans start climbing out of the woodwork to make noise and change Disney's mind (a la Kim Possible itself).

Which... well... this show is good and fun and all, but I don't see its fanbase drumming up that much support.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 16th 2021 at 12:46:19 PM

I'm wondering if there should be a Seasonal Rot entry given that season 3 hasn't gotten the best reception due to being so different from seasons 1-2, among other things.

I think it qualifies, though I'm not in-tune with the fanbase on the whole enough to write it.

Isn't seasonal rot a much more gradual process than what happened here ? It's not a slow decline in quality, it's a brusque change in formula between seasons...

I think it could qualify here. I mean, there were some complaints on the show going down in quality during the second half of season 2, which is seen in a less positive light compared to season 1 and the first half of season 2.

I would say it qualifies as well. Season 3 was the turning point, but the cracks were showing in the later half of season 2.

x4 Yeah, even in the earlier seasons, this show was nowhere as popular as Duck Tales or the later shows coming out. I thought the reception to "Countdown to Catastrophe" would've changed that, but I guess not.

Season 3 comes to Disney Plus on March 19.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/decider.com/2021/02/16/new-on-disney-plus-march-2021/amp/

(x7) Honestly Disney themselves didn't even do that much to promote the show with most of the social media posts of Disney TVA last year generally just focusing on Ducktales, Big City Greens, Amphibia, and Owl House without Big Hero 6 The Series. The low ratings it got during season 2 on Disney Channel surely didn't help.

I'd say the long hiatus after the pilot movie killed any momentum of the show getting notable attention by the company. When shows like Sofia the First and The Lion Guard had pilot movies in November, they rolled out regular episodes in January, less than 2 months later. With Big Hero 6 The Series, regular episodes rolled out over 6 months later.

Edited by jessicadicicco610 on Feb 16th 2021 at 1:01:33 AM

I'd also say that what doesn't help is that the show hardly ever gave us any human moments for the characters beside Hiro. In contrast, Tangled the Series would give us quite a number of episodes focusing on a variety of characters and giving them depth. Even beyond the main characters, I still found myself liking and wanting to see more of the side characters, because they looked interesting and had interesting personalities. Or were just funny to watch.

But here, I don't feel like we know any of the characters better then what we did in the movie. I don't even feel like we know Hiro that much better. And we didn't even find out any of the other character's real names beside that of Krei's assistant, Judy. I also admit that I didn't find Obake or Di Amara to be all that interesting villains. And strangely enough, it was the more annoying characters that appeared more often and who were more frequently plot relevant then the characters I actually liked.

Honestly, for me, the most memorable new character was Momakase. In hindsight, I feel like she was wasted on this show and would have done well in some other work.

Edited by Bornstellar on Feb 16th 2021 at 4:15:46 AM

Honestly, it kind of feels like the show forgot Wasabi, GoGo, and Honey Lemon weren't their real names.

For sure. A lot of season 3's flaws were created (or amplified) by Disney mandates, but the underdevelopment of the rest of the titular cast wasn't one of them. It felt like they were afraid to step on the toes of any potential sequel, which makes no sense since Disney doesn't seem interested in one. I would've liked to known more about their relationship to Tadashi, at the very least.

Looks like the series finale did very bad in ratings with only 0.07 million views.

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-monday-cable-originals-network-finals-2-15-2021.html

It's surprising how Muppet Babies (2018) got the highest ratings in the weekend.

https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/disney-ratings-thread.5459741/page-79#post-87754314

Off-topic, but I was looking at the ratings that iCarly and Victorious used to carry, and man those ratings really dwarf what a lot of kids shows get nowadays.

I dislike that this series ended up this way... It had so much potential and we got this joke of a finale season.

I don't know if this is too early to call, but Season 3 deserves a Seasonal Rot entry. Cutting episodes down isn't the problem. The problem that it seemed to neglect everyone. I got more fulfillment from the Kingdom Hearts 3 world than I did this season. It's serviceable at best. Interesting developments like Sycorax getting the shaft because of Di's dumb dumbs(TM) were interesting.

I guess there is always Karmi's domain: fanfiction.

I feel like the most redeemable thing about Season 3 for me was Gogo's episode. Also, anyone else notice how there's been a bunch of redemptions for villains in this season, and in the show general?