as one does, i've been watching The Spectacular Spider-Man, the children's TV show from the late 2000s. fortunately, it's quite good. then, as i do, i started writing out tiny little review-type thoughts on each individual episode. here's the first 3 from season 1!
Episode 1: Survival of the Fittest
The pilot episode kicks us off directly into the action, which I like. They make the smart decision to skip over directly rehashing the Spider-Man origin that was old news even in 2008. Instead, we get right to it, setting up a lot of things, and keeping it pacy. This show is EXTREMELY pacy: 20 minute episodes can do that to you, and The Spectacular Spider-Man (wow they really put that definite article in there huh) is determined to wring every ounce of character, setup, and fight scene from its 22-minute runtimes. And it really sets up so much! Peter's high school life, Harry and Norman Osborn, Gwen Stacy, Flash Thompson, working at Kurt Connors' Lab with Eddie Brock, the Vulture (and don't think I didn't notice that round-spectacled scientist buddy), the Daily Bugle, the Big Man and the Enforcers! They're doing the Big Man and the Enforcers!!! AUGH I'm so excited for that. This is a show that's based largely off of the 60s and 70s comics, and one of the recurring groups of antagonists there were a goofy group of mobsters (including the likes of Fancy Dan the acrobat and Montana, who had a lasso) led by the mysterious Big Man. I'm seriously so psyched about this, you have no idea. I've read so many 60s and 70s Spider-Man comics! This is my time!!!
Some of the second-hand embarrassment stuff was a little hard for me to take, but fortunately it gets glossed over pretty fast. Everyone's pretty charmingly written in this show, especially Spider-Man himself, which is great, because he talks constantly. And that's a good Spider-Man.
Overall I like this one! Pretty solid, very fun, could see myself coming back to it. A solid 7/10.
Episode 2: Interactions

I don't think this one is as strong as the first episode, but it's by no means bad. I like both the Peter Parker and the Spider-Man sides of the story okay, but part of what kept the episode from clicking for me was the extreme speed at which they took everything, especially Max/Electro's origin—it's SO fast that it barely has time to land on the pathos of the character, and it doesn't help that the narrative doesn't treat him super sympathetically, especially with Spider-Man being a cop for part of it. Fortunately he evens out.
What I do really like is the building stuff with the Connors Lab! It lets us see a lot of our main cast—Eddie, Gwen, Kurt Connors and his wife whose name I didn't catch (but who is great)—and lays some excellent groundwork for where we're headed. A solid 6/10.
Episode 3: Natural Selection

Oh, NOW we're talking! I don't think this episode does a single thing wrong.
This whole time I'm really struck by how efficiently this show manages to use its time: every time it pays something off, it's also setting something else up. We get the Doctor Connors payoff at last in a really strong way, and we get some truly heartwarming (and -wrenching) emotional moments, especially after Kurt gets his arm back and between Peter and young Billy Connors. Shoutouts to the Connors' very autistic son. Also shoutouts to the blue-haired punk girl in the subway.
TRAIN FIGHT! Peter is Losing, and it is Rough. We get more of Eddie being a real solid all-around guy, which is great! And which makes it hurt all the more when he and Peter have a (completely understandable) disagreement/rivalry building: to everyone else, it really does look like Peter skipped out on trying to save the day in order to go take some photos, like a scumbag. And while this does successfully pull him out of the financial difficulties he's been having thanks to getting his photos in the Bugle, it also leads to him being fired from his internship and legitimately considering giving up being Spider-Man for good. Nothing like that Parker Luck. I'm sure that vial of Gene Serum (love the DNA bullshitting) won't come back later. All in all, I think this is a 10/10 episode.
