The first four seasons of She-Ra, making up 75% of the show due to the second season being split into seasons 2 and 3 by Netflix, are excellent. It handles complex topics well, the ensemble cast is amazing, the art, animation, acting, and writing are all very good, and it's got a good balance of humour and seriousness. I'd hold seasons 1-4 up as really good TV.
Unfortunately, the final season is deeply underwhelming, to the point where I would describe the midpoint as the last good episode of the show.
The biggest issue is that it's built around a relationship that spends the entire show with huge issues of tone, structure, theme and pacing: they spend much of the show trying to portray it as both a fun enemies-to-lovers arc where actions don't have huge consequences, and an abusive mess where Catra is extremely cruel to Adora in an attempt to punish her for caring about anyone but her, which does have consequences...and then making the latter much better written and having it take up a larger portion of the show, so you can hear the gears grinding as it tries to shift to the former in season 5.
These issues with writing and pacing then leads to knock-on effects in S5. The show's compelling themes about moving on from abusive relationships and toxic friendships are ditched in favour of instant forgiveness as a panacea, a theme which is totally out of place given the show's prior focus on abuse and the obvious red flags surrounding Catra's actions specifically.
Nor do the characters feel like themselves. Adora picks up a mile-wide forgiving streak that she didn't have in S4 and the show was stronger for it; Catra gets a rushed redemption arc that doesn't address her resentment or her unhealthy fixation on Adora, or have her meaningfully deal with the consequences of her actions. Moreover, the ensemble cast is neglected to the point of irrelevance; the show's beating heart, the Best Friends Squad, barely gets to do anything because Adora suddenly only cares about Catra, the Princesses of Power get it even worse, and I don't even know why they brought back Micah if they didn't have any ideas about what to actually do with him. It's just a mess.
That being said, it's nice that we live in a world where a children's cartoon can end in a lesbian kiss, even if the actual process of getting there from the S4 finale felt less like an organic outgrowth of the show's events and more like checking items off a to-do list with limited time while frantically drawing heart outlines on the red flags. It's a pity, too, because I actually love enemies-to-lovers arcs and LBGT rep in kid's shows; I just think it was terribly written in this case, and it not only ruined the final season, it retroactively harmed the good bits by having a lot of the good buildup from earlier in the show ultimately go nowhere and mean nothing.
It was just a big letdown from a show that had seemed to be going from strength to strength.
A good show with a disappointing final season
Contains spoilers.
The first four seasons of She-Ra, making up 75% of the show due to the second season being split into seasons 2 and 3 by Netflix, are excellent. It handles complex topics well, the ensemble cast is amazing, the art, animation, acting, and writing are all very good, and it's got a good balance of humour and seriousness. I'd hold seasons 1-4 up as really good TV.
Unfortunately, the final season is deeply underwhelming, to the point where I would describe the midpoint as the last good episode of the show.
The biggest issue is that it's built around a relationship that spends the entire show with huge issues of tone, structure, theme and pacing: they spend much of the show trying to portray it as both a fun enemies-to-lovers arc where actions don't have huge consequences, and an abusive mess where Catra is extremely cruel to Adora in an attempt to punish her for caring about anyone but her, which does have consequences...and then making the latter much better written and having it take up a larger portion of the show, so you can hear the gears grinding as it tries to shift to the former in season 5.
These issues with writing and pacing then leads to knock-on effects in S5. The show's compelling themes about moving on from abusive relationships and toxic friendships are ditched in favour of instant forgiveness as a panacea, a theme which is totally out of place given the show's prior focus on abuse and the obvious red flags surrounding Catra's actions specifically.
Nor do the characters feel like themselves. Adora picks up a mile-wide forgiving streak that she didn't have in S4 and the show was stronger for it; Catra gets a rushed redemption arc that doesn't address her resentment or her unhealthy fixation on Adora, or have her meaningfully deal with the consequences of her actions. Moreover, the ensemble cast is neglected to the point of irrelevance; the show's beating heart, the Best Friends Squad, barely gets to do anything because Adora suddenly only cares about Catra, the Princesses of Power get it even worse, and I don't even know why they brought back Micah if they didn't have any ideas about what to actually do with him. It's just a mess.
That being said, it's nice that we live in a world where a children's cartoon can end in a lesbian kiss, even if the actual process of getting there from the S4 finale felt less like an organic outgrowth of the show's events and more like checking items off a to-do list with limited time while frantically drawing heart outlines on the red flags. It's a pity, too, because I actually love enemies-to-lovers arcs and LBGT rep in kid's shows; I just think it was terribly written in this case, and it not only ruined the final season, it retroactively harmed the good bits by having a lot of the good buildup from earlier in the show ultimately go nowhere and mean nothing.
It was just a big letdown from a show that had seemed to be going from strength to strength.