Fall of the Titans | Is Teen Titans Go! Underrated?

I loved Teen Titans. I have very fond memories of spending hot summer days watching the show on Cartoon Network and then hopping on the computer to play a Mortal Kombat style beat-em-up, starring the heroes and villains of the show, on cartoonnetwork.com. Then, in 2007, after airing for four years, the show finally came to an end. I wanted more, but I was happy with what we got and I always had the option of catching reruns. Six years later, in 2013, we got the unnecessary reboot Teen Titans Go! which is now almost 200 episodes deep. The show is basically the opposite of the original Teen Titans in every-way. Where the original show was an anime styled action cartoon, the reboot has a style that I can only describe as "unoffensive" and one that seems to be used in every mass produced show currently airing on Cartoon Network. Where the first was tonally dark and deeply imbedded in the DC Universe while being able to stand on it's own, the second is a self referential Seinfeld-for-kids in which the Titans rarely leave the tower. Teen Titans Go! is also not that popular with a whopping 4.8/10 on IMDb and a "51% liked this TV show" on Google, (if you're wondering, Teen Titans has a 7.8/10) and it seems that no matter where you go on the internet, there's someone talking about how Teen Titans Go! is terrible and that it's leading to the death of Cartoon Network. So (because I have nothing better to do) I wanted to find out if Teen Titans Go! was actually bad or if nostalgia was blinding us from the true greatness of this gem.

Teen Titans Go!

For the past few weeks my days have started and ended with a binge of Teen Titans Go!, which acted as colorfully repetitive end caps to my days. Luckily, Teen Titans Go! is almost always playing on Cartoon Network so it wasn't that hard to turn on the TV and go into a vegetative state ripe for media consumption. Since the last published article, I've watched enough Teen Titans Go! to where I could very well write an in-depth response to every single episode of the show, but, for the sake of this review (and my sanity), I'll make my point using four main episodes. So without further delay let's talk about Teen Titans Go!.

For those unfamiliar with the story and characters, Teen Titans Go! is pretty straight forward. A group of teenagers who are in some way, shape or form related to the members of the Justice League are tasked with solving smaller crimes, while the Justice League is busy saving the universe and whatnot. Occasionally, there are plots that grow far larger in scope than a simple warehouse break in, and the members of the Justice League step in, to aid the next generation of heroes, to save the day. But for the most part, the group stays in the vicinity of their "T" tower and their villainous rival team does the same. (It seems even superheroes have curfews.)

A great way to show the drastic change of both the old show and the new one are the episodes revolving around Tara. Both episodes tell pretty much the same story: Tara is an evil sidekick who infiltrates the Team in order to get valuable information from the Titan's tower. She convinces everyone in the group, except Raven, to trust and like her. Meanwhile, Beast Boy actually ends up falling for Tara and makes desperate attempts to get her attention. This same story is tackled very differently by both shows. In Teen Titans, as Tara is getting valuable information she starts to develop feelings for Beast Boy and this all builds to the end, where she invites him to go out. Together, they go around town and simply hang out. However, the more time they spend together, the more paranoid Tara gets, and she starts to worry for Beast Boy's safety. Compared to this, the Teen Titans Go! ending is random and just feels like lazy writing. There is not build up of any conflict whatsoever, and it ends with Tara dropping a rock on Beast Boy's head. I'm not looking for a deep understanding of a character that only makes infrequent appearances on the show, but I do solemnly believe that even a silly cartoon show can make you care for it's characters in some small degree. (Just look at Gravity Falls, for example.) Also catching this rerun of Teen Titans really helped solidify my belief that the original show is as good as I remembered, and not just great thanks to my rose-tinted retrospective goggles.

Now some may make the point that the show is entirely for kids, and that Teen Titans Go! is dumbed down to simple emotions and interactions in order to teach kids basic lessons. To that I present evidence 2, your honor. In this particular episode Kid Flash makes a guest appearance and, after winning the hearts of all the members of the Team, takes Robin's place as leader. Having faced defeat, Robin goes through a phase in which he tries to figure out what he has to do to get his team back. This setup is great for several would-be lessons. You could use it as a demonstration of getting over a defeat, or working together, even with someone, you may now like, in order to achieve a common goal. If the episode did either of those things I would not be using it to make my point. Instead, the show ends with Robin challenging Kid Flash to a race. As the countdown to the race begins and everyone starts to wonder what trick or move Robin has to beat Kid Flash....Robin takes out his rod and breaks Kid Flash's legs before running to the finish line. And as helpful as the "when all else fails, cripple your competition" life advice is, it mostly feels like, you guessed it, bad writing. This isn't to say that the show is "poisoning young minds" because that would be pretty hypocritical coming from someone who played Call of Duty well before the box stated. But if the show isn't good at developing characters and it's not there for some sort of "sharing is caring" lesson learning, than what niche or role does it serve other than filling a bunch of empty time slots on Cartoon Network?

A still from the Night Begins to Shine special episode from Teen Titans Go!

As much as I seem to be hating on the show, my final thoughts are still quite contrary. By the end of my "research period", in some Stockholm Syndrome-esque way, I actually grew fond of Teen Titans Go!. (Something I did not notice until my roommates pointed it out to me one morning.) Also I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming the creators of the show entirely, because you can definitely get an idea that they are working under harsh time tables to pump out episodes. This didn't even cross my mind as a reason until one episode aptly named "The Fourth Wall" in which the Titans break the fourth wall to talk about how there could be better episodes and animation if they weren't working on tight schedules and budgets. And occasionally a bit of brilliance shines through and we get something like The Night Begins to Shine. (click the name to watch it) The episode does not only feature a cool song, it is also accompanied by one of the most bad ass depictions the Titans since the original show. The cyberpunk meets Mad Max style is just super interesting and I would love to see more episodes in that aesthetic and vibe.

In the end, Teen Titans Go! is not a bad show, but an unnecessary one. A show that is made with good intentions, but lacks the foundation to get that message across. There are fleeting moments of greatness, but with so many episodes, it's hard for people to sort through it all for a small 22 minute hit of amusement. As for all the DC fan boys and girls out there, hope is not lost. While browsing for some information on IMDb, I somehow stumbled onto the page for the Titans, a 2018 series with very few details regarding the plot and cast. But it will be interesting to see what that show becomes after taking all the backlash from Teen Titans Go! into consideration. There's also Young Justice, which is getting it's long awaited third season in 2018, so if you haven't watched it yet then you have some time. Speaking from personal experience, it's a perfect show to binge watch during senior-year study hall in high school. And we can't not talk about Justice League, which is just around the corner at this point.

Finally, I have to confess that as often as I was disappointed with Teen Titans Go! there was still fun to be had in writing this article. There's a lot more content, that I didn't include in this piece, which puts even more episodes under thorough examination. (Who knew writing about a kids show would be a great release valve?) As an added bonus, any show that rivals the great filler episodes of shows like Naruto is great for background noise if, like me, you can't work in silence. And, hey, if you enjoy this and want to see more, then I will endure my way through another unnecessary reboot on Cartoon Network of a show I once enjoyed: Ben 10.