Dragon's Dogma

This is a parody of a dark fantasy, simplified and boiled down to a script children could perform on a stage. Caveman-like, basic dialogue with crude, ill-defined small stories of human depravity while the MC descends into hell himself. It's lifeless and devoid of character. Basically, a studio exec decided to make a dark fantasy following a cookie cutter formula. 1. It needs to be dark, so no happy endings and people need to kill each other for the sole sake of earning that "dark" badge, no matter how pointless. 2. It's medieval fantasy so we need a forgettable boss battle every episode. 3. Much ... like how broadcast execs whine they can't compete with cable because they can't pump their shows full of profanity and nudity in lieu of actual substance and plot, mindless sex scenes will really help sell that adult rating here. But unlike a humorous and satirical parody, there are no jokes, and they are dead serious in it's gravity. It shares many similarities with Castlevania, including the same spotty voice acting, sombre atmosphere, and even some copied set pieces. The 3D animation is laughably bad. Not only do they talk at half speed, they also move with the same robotic inertia. I started wishing for a 2x speed button on Netflix, and started pushing the 10 second fast forward habitually to skip long expanses of nothingness, which is an indictment unto itself since I'm usually meticulous about watching whole episodes. My last pet peeve is how much slow, agonizing dialogue the dragon gets, prattling on about the sins of man, and constantly misusing thine (which only goes before a vowel) instead of thy. If you are going to make the effort to give him a booming, self-important voice full of thous, thees, and thines, do the basic research to understand their usage.

I think I fell asleep three times watching this show. If I had one word to describe this show it would be this: yikes. Netflix originals are very hit or miss, and this is as big of a swing and a miss and you will get. There are 7 episodes, each tackling a different sin (cool concept not gonna lie). But wow was this done badly. The characters in this show meant nothing to me, every death in this show was boring, and the CG was close to Arifureta bad. You need to watch this show with friends to laugh at it together. Do not ... take it seriously. Better yet, just watch something better.

Watching Dragon's Dogma felt as if I was watching unrendered CGI. The characters seemed emotionless and the show does a poor job at creating strong relationships with the characters and viewers. The voice acting is poor, the story is poor, and the characters are poor. So what is good about Dragon's Dogma? Everything that comes out of the dragon's mouth is quite enjoyable (He do be preaching tho). Episode 1 does a good job of telling viewers that Dragons are not the ones to f*ck with. They are evil sinister creatures and Dragons Dogma does well in making the dragon feel menacing and intimidating.

Ultimately, Dragon's ... Dogma is a show you can live without watching.

Netflix just can’t have a rest can they? They air or license good (Little Witch Academia, Great Pretender) or at least popular (Nanatsu no Taizai, Naruto) anime from time to time but when it comes to their originals, it looks like they are cursed to make crude CGI snorefests that almost nobody bothers to watch, and when they do, they usually don’t like them because of very good reasons.

One of them being that their products are based on popular and cherished IPs and leave a bad mark on them, it happened before with Saint Seiya, which almost nobody liked, it also happened with Ghost in ... the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2045 which had a better reception because apparently the GitS’ fandom is not as critical as I thought, and it happens again with Dragon’s Dogma.

Based on an action rpg game by Capcom which I never played, I normally wouldn’t watch it because videogames anime adaptations are never a good sing, yet this time I did for the next three reasons:

1-Is so rare to get a dark fantasy anime set in a classical medieval setting instead of an edgy magical girls show these days and that alone is a reason to check it out for me.

2-It’s very short meaning that even if it’s crap it can be finished in just one day.

3-THE OPENING THEME IS AWESOME, it was probably taken from the videogame for all I know but it was enough to get my attention, especially after the pleasant surprise I got from Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst, another rpg based anime with an amazing opening.

The series suffers from the exact same issue as almost all the other videogame anime adaptations that I watched suffer from, the transition from one medium to another is not well done. Although videogames can have a good story, they ultimately rely mostly on gameplay thus their writing is rarely that good and when it comes to rpgs it’s almost a necessity for them to have lots of sidequests (good sidequests that is) to justify their duration and prices.

When you translate that to a series or a movie, where the focus is in the plot, it doesn’t work either because:

-The story was never good such as the case with every 90s fighting game which had anime adaptations and they were mediocre at best;

-Reading exposition at your own pace when playing a videogame is not the same than having to sit and watch people talk on a series and it gets tiresome and boring very fast as it happened many times before but lets use the currently airing King’s Raid as an example, the first three episodes were abysmal because of all the talking and for how generic it is to the point of making people drop the show after rating in low.

-A single cour series or a single movie is just not enough time to adapt properly the whole plot of a videogame which lasts for at least thrice the duration and thus contains a lot more lore, twists and characterization, that was the case with Xenosaga, which was also badly animated and thus it didn’t do justice to its supossed epic space war premise;

-Is just boring when you have to follow a series where the makers clearly took an avatar protagonist and slapped him in the adaptation without giving him a proper characterization, as was the case with Granblue Fantasy or Princess Connect: Re Dive! and we can use King’s Raid as an example in here as well.

-Or finally, throwing too much content from the sidequests in the adaptation drags the pacing and makes it a chore to watch, while at the same time forces the makers to rush the ending in order to finish the series.

In the case of Dragon’s Dogma, almost all of these points are present, the story is very simple, is just a guy trying to get revenge on a single dragon, which hardly excuses the duration of a full series.

Yet it plays out in an almost completely episodic manner exactly because it includes side monsters placed randomly in order to have epic battles and makes the protagonist look dumb for jumping to help any random person he encounters instead of focusing on his own objective. And calling these fights epic is a stretch as the CGI does not do them justice. Honestly, is not that bad because the models look alright, but the backgrounds and the special effects are simple, and the motions are just sloppy, whether on times of relaxing or in the middle of a battle.

To be fair, Dragon’s Dogma tries, as there is a little plot continuity and there is potential for good dark fantasy material in these stories, not for the sex, drugs and violence which are hardly impactful thanks to the poor CG, is the rushed pacing of every episode what prevents the dark themes to be explored properly.

Every episode is named after a deadly sin (that is the reason why they are seven) but the representation of them is questionable. The first is “Wrath” because it shows the protagonist losing everything he loves and setting on a journey to get a personal vendetta on the dragon…because the latter told him to. How is it sinful when you didn’t do anything wrong, someone takes everything from you and you set on getting revenge on him because he baits you into doing so?

Also, I don’t know about you but for me, a villain who keeps alive someone who wants to kill him and encourages him to do so is just a bad antagonist, even more if he’s absent for most of the story and lets the hero become stronger, which is exactly what happens here.

Now that I mentioned that, how is this protagonist supposed to kill the dragon? He is not even a soldier and he got owned completely by the dragon, yet he expects to kill him without even training? What?

Anyways, the second episode is “Gluttony” and is thematically the most interesting of the bunch, as it shows a village where the food is taken from the people by their governors, sacrifices are made to a ciclop, which for some reason is controlled with a single whip and at the end of the story, once all the villains are defeated, the whole starving village goes out of control and everyone becomes an enemy of each other. It was a great dark turn of events because the protagonist ended up doing more harm than good helping these people but sadly it comes off as rushed because it happens at the very end of the episode.

The next ones are not as interesting, I don’t know why “Envy” is called as such when it features rapist goblins, a clear attempt to cash in Goblin Slayer’s infamy and a woman who married a guy just because of his money and tries to seduce the protagonist. The only relevant thing in this episode are the two soldiers that appear on “Greed” and gives the series a continuity.

Only to have them with their personalities changed completely from one moment to another due to the spell of a lich, again, how is someone a greedy sinner when is not acting like himself because he’s under the control of another being? He’s not doing horrible things on his own and suffering the consequences of his own actions, he’s being used.

In the middle of these stories there is sloth, an episode dedicated to an abandoned village full of drug addicts who cheat on their wives in front of their very own eyes in order to escape from the gritty reality they live on. Thus they don’t work and do nothing when a freaking hydra comes in and destroys their village and kills some women. Another episode full of interesting ideas that are not treated properly because the guys of the village have zero characterization besides cheating on ther wives, before they snap and are able to help kill a hydra when they could barely stand on their feet 5 minutes before because they were under the effects of a strong drug.

Lust was easily the best episode for me, as it deals with the internal struggle of the main protagonist, tempted by a succubus that adopts the form of his dead wife, and he does not let her fool him, the finale of the episode was the highlight of the series for me.

Up until this point, the protagonist was boring, he had a simple personality and a simple past, not very different than a kindhearted shounen or a harem protagonist who helps everyone he encounters just because, but in these last episodes he becomes obsessed with revenge and becomes colder and ultimately, what he sought to destroy. Always an interesting idea, but there was no build up to it because he changed completely out of screen.

The most interesting character in the series is Hannah, his sidekick and, if you notice, the only character whose name I remember, simply because is the most memorable of the bunch. She begins as a “pawn” as they call her in the show, which I assume are artificial beings created to assist the Arisen, people who have their hearts taken by the dragon, this is all stuff that I assume as someone who had not played the game, as the series does not bother to explain all of this stuff and barely implies it.

As a pawn, Hannah is basically heartless and soulless, she doesn’t have emotions, only thinks about how to do things in the most logical course of action, does not know how to speak without hurting others with her direct approach, and at times throws some lines of dialogue about how foolish and emotional creatures are we, the humans. She’s also the real powerful character in the main duo, while the protagonist can only fight thanks to a some sort of dark power gave to him by the dragon, his enemy.

By the end of the series she becomes a lot more human than any other character to the point of being unable of helping the protagonist and put an end to a tragic cicle at the very end, but unfortunately this also happens without build up and out of screen.

And finally there’s the last episode, “Pride”, which is the heaviest on themes, monologues, plot twists and character regressions, but it all feels rushed, preachy, and it devoids all the characters of any free will while also leaves you thinking that almost all of the episodes thus far were unfocused, which they were.

So, you are not watching this series for the setting which is vaguely explored, nor the themes which are bombarded to you in the last episode, nor the plot which is very simple, episodic and unfocused, nor the characters which are as bland as they get, nor the action because, although the fights have some choreography, the weak cg makes them look junky and they always come down to the protagonist becoming enraged and letting his dark powers control him to kill a threat he could barely do anything against up until that moment.

Good ideas here and there, a mostly serious tone (although saying this is kind of a stretch), and a good sound department thanks to the epic score and the acceptable sound effects and voice acting, in particular the dragon who may not sound frightening nor imposing but he sounds old and wise, partially thanks to the way he speaks, incorporating old japanese words which are in turned subtitled with early modern english, but other than that, there isn’t much to see here, especially when there’s so much better options out there such as:

-1997 Berserk, easily the best dark fantasy anime of all times and I’m also one of those who thinks that the cgi movies are decent as well. I would like to say the same about the manga but I didn’t read it yet.

-Vinland Saga, which has a similar character arc for its main protagonist, done a hundred times better, along with a lot more interesting themes and characters, at least in its anime and first arc of the manga.

-The Hobbit movie trilogy which has some similarities with this title, especially the third one (and I guess this also applies to the book).

-Shadow of the Collosus has some similarities in its protagonist as well as an amazing atmosphere and innovating gameplay for its time, and I hope it never gets an adaptation because the result would come off like this.

-There is also the Castlevania 2d cartoon series, also a Netflix original, also a dark fantasy, with an almost anime art style, japanese voices, and Belmont and Sylpha even have somewhat similar designs to this main duo. A lot cooler.

-Blue Gender is completely different but has similar character arcs for its main duo, only a lot better.

-As for the few anime based on videogames that I watched which cracked the code for making a proper product there are Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, because it tells its own what if story and focuses on the spectacle while still providing enough context to understand the plot of the game on a basic level thanks to its first scene. Now I know that fans of the game usually hate the movie for the way the main characters are portrayed, but they fit well with their roles in the movie, but that’s not something to talk about here.

-The other one is Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis, which uses its source material only in concept and tells an otherwise completely different story. Now, its writing is garbage and is barely worth watching only because of its characters, production values, and focus on the cool and fun aspect. So, as you see even these ones are nothing special.

-I would like to include Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerts as well because is doing the same as Bahamut in the sense that it only uses the concept of its source material to tell its own story, with better writing and characterization than that series but it is still airing and thus it can still mess everything up.

garbage netflix cgi of what is otherwise a decent property

ethan (mc) gained power, in no satisfying way. not through being a prodigy, or through training, but through destiny or something similar.

ethan also gained essentially no character development. Rather than becoming a more fleshed out character or more understood by the audience over the course of these seven episodes, he just became more rage filled. While, ironically, the supposedly emotionless pawn (Hannah) grew into a more fleshed out character than he became in episode 2.

overall, I'm not qualified to judge sound quality. Although I consider it to be decent, as I could hear and understand every ... character throughout the entire series and the musical direction was good enough; although it never brought any emotion out from me, and I can't consider it to be anything special.

that being said, if you're someone like me who enjoys watching things that are pretty shitty, you'll probably gain at least some enjoyment from watching this. But don't go into it thinking it's good, by any means

if it were reanimated into a more traditional anime style, everything else being the same, it would get something around a 4-6 from me simply due to the art direction being better. the character development and story are still garbage though; just play the game instead.

*No Spoilers*

Summary:
This review is for Dragon's Dogma.

Summary: Dragon's Dogma takes a loose story-line from its game series and merges it with the seven deadly sins, tackling them one at a time. The characters, story, and everything else are just bad. The animation is okay in certain points, but that's all. I would never recommend this anime to someone.

Story: 1/10
This is one of the least cohesive and most bland plots imaginable. The characters are so boring that the plot doesn't even matter. Each episode, the main character encounters a new sin in the form of a monster. The ending is anticlimactic and there are really no ... clear or meaningful themes addressed in this show.

Art: 4/10
The art is average at best and glaringly jarring at worst. The opening theme is very cool, so I'll throw the animators a bone...

Sound: 2/10
The soundtrack is below average and generic. The voice acting in English is horrific and barely makes sense. Listening to it actually hurts the ears, but the written subtitles are even worse and make the dialogue seem like it was written by a 4 year old.

Character: 1/10
The characters are poorly written, bland, and really make no important decisions for growth. The story is plot-driven in a haphazard way. The overall story is anticlimactic, and there's no character the viewer can relate to or miss by the end of the story, besides maybe a dragon.

Enjoyment: 1/10
This may be the worst, least meaningful, and most forgettable anime I will ever watch.

Overall: 1.8/10

TL;DR -
Overall, I don't get who this show is for, as someone who has not played the games, this did not make me want to go into them. And I can't imagine a fan of the games EVER finding this enjoyable with how rushed and the actual climax scenes (pun intended) looking like that. It's too bad to be enjoyable, and not that bad to be a hate watch or to enjoy drunk with friends, it's just a very rushed, mediocre show that's just extra bad because it looks like a draft of a 2000s CGI movie.

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First things first, I have not played the ... game, nor I know anything about it other than it exists, so I can't mention anything about how well adapted it is.

Now about the show itself it's in this weird spot where it's really not good but also not horrible, with a runtime of 7 eps (though they are longer than the average, so you can count it as 8-ish), it really didn't have much time to really go places, it felt like they took the opening and fitted it into an episode and half, and then the ending of the game for the last episode, and then threw in a bunch of random quests/events/missions/whatever the game has in the middle. It feels rushed, like MEGA rushed, characters just change, things just happen that are not explained whatsoever or not even adressed, the plot twist that you could guess from the very beginning, it just feels.... wasted. It's really not good experience as someone who has not played the game, but that makes me think, who is this show for ? It feels like they made it with the idea that you have some basic knowledge of the game and didn't bother wasting their time fleshing it out proper, or they just really flat out didn't care, it is a really meh experience for someone who doesn't know anything about the games, and I can't imagine anyone who has enjoyed the games to be happy to watch this clunky mess of animation, so really, what was the point ? with this random number of 7 episodes, it feels like they didn't have the money to do something decent, but with the animation quality, I can't imagine it costing them that much (though I must note, there were 2, about 1-3 min segments where there were 3-4 hand drawn characters, which made it look even worse as the CGI models were still either in the background or interacting with them).

The animation itself is really... questionable at times, it's very cartoony, like, dreamworks shrek villan cartoony at points, which 10 mins after gets completely swept by a bunch of people getting decapitated and a girl almost getting goblin slayer'd, it feels like a bunch of people tried to direct and they did not talk to each other whatsoever, or looked at the end product.

The sound was.. well despite me just finishing the show I can't really say anything about it so that means it was not good nor bad, just there, though I must note in the last episode, in the jap audio atleast there were these just random sounds, as if someone was breathing into a mic and they just accidently looped it over the whole episode instead of deleting it.

I have never played the Dragon's Dogma video game, but this anime actually made me interested in playing the original game, so there's that at least. Still, the Dragon's Dogma show is subpar in pretty much every category.

Both the studio that made this show (Sublimation) and the director have only one other credit, a short movie called Walking Meat that no one seems to have seen. Right then and there I should have known this anime would be a little rough with inexperienced people at the helm. Both the animation and sound are decent (4/10) but never, ever rise above mediocrity. Actually, I'll point ... out the intro song as the highlight of the show, filled with macabre visuals like skeletons clutching hearts and each other. This great intro always made me pumped for the disappointing show I was about to watch. The CGI animation always looked pretty bad, though. Like it was never Berserk 2016 levels of crap, but the CG in other shows such as Ajin still looked a million times better. There was also no memorable battle music at all.

Our story was incredibly bland and rushed (4/10). Yes, I'd say this show's biggest sin was its pacing, as the director attempted to cram probably 30 hours of RPG story into just 7 half hour episodes. Impossible! Everything I hear from fans of the game indicates that he butchered the story and cut out many beloved characters. I know for a fact that you can have three Pawns in the game, but our Arisen here only has one. Honestly this premise had potential: a dragon ravages main character's village and murders his pregnant wife. It even rips out the protagonist's heart, who is reborn as an Arisen and wants revenge on said dragon. Sadly the show wastes this cool premise on bland characters and poor execution. If you want a good example of a similar type of show, watch Dota: Dragon's Blood, also based on a video game and on Netflix. There are seven episodes in Dragon's Dogma and each revolves around a different "seven deadly sin," which is a very cool idea. Once again a cool idea is ruined by shoddy execution.

The characters were extremely weak (4/10) and seemed more like slaves to the plot than anything else. Hell, Hannah describes herself as a Pawn, and she is just that in the story! What do I mean by all this? Well in the episode "Envy" a husband has to act totally out of character and murder his wife at the end of the episode, just so we can see a jealous man envious of other men. A noble knight has to act totally out of character in the "Greed" episode and murder his best friend, just to show that men can be greedy. He is overcome by greed after touching the Lich King's gold coin, ok, but then why was Ethan fine after touching the exact same coin beforehand? No time to think about such things! I wanted to like Ethan because I definitely sympathized with his plight, but he was just a generic warrior out for revenge for the majority of the show. There were even a few times he came off unlikable, as he refused to help innocents unless it directly coincided with his revenge plot. The Pawn Hannah I feel had the most potential for character development, but we never really learn anything about her. She literally exists just to be an aid to Ethan and that...sucks.

My enjoyment for this anime was pretty low (4/10) because I thought the episodes were too rushed. I also felt cheated by the abrupt ending. Even when Ethan was having his climactic rematch with the dragon I really didn't feel anything at all. Overall I have to say this is a disappointing, below average anime. 4/10

Before we begin, this review is based purely on Dragon's Dogma, the anime show, without any prior knowledge of the game. I do believe that some people based this show based on what they know about the game, and I wanted to clear the air here - I have never played or even saw them before.

Story: Dragon's Dogma is a Netflix, full CG series that released last year, worldwide. It tells the story of Ethan, who has his heart stolen from him by a dragon, but then ends up being revived. Now called the "Arisen", Ethan, along with his companion Hannah, must ... now navigate the land in order to find the dragon that stole Ethan's heart. On his journey, he faces fierce challenges, with each of the seven episodes being named after one of the seven deadly sins of man - wrath, gluttony, envy, sloth, greed, lust and pride.

The setup to all of this is a little unremarkable, but I never go into a series and drop it if the setup is bad. For this one? It doesn't hold up all that well. We're stuck viewing Ethan and Hannah through a storyline that amounts to: Ethan doesn't really have to help anyone who he meets on his way. But does he? Yes. Why? We're never really sure. There are no story elements that make our characters make decisions. He just wants to get to this dragon... which he knows where it is.

The way this series also ended was atrocious as well. You've watched this series... then you get to the ending and... that's all there is to show for it? I really feel like this series had a goal... then ended when they couldn't think of anything creative to do with it. At some point, you saw some fragments that could have led to a better ending, but it feels like they complete wing it. This series had an opportunity to create something very cool - we're in a very dark world where this fierce, seemingly unbeatable dragon claimed our protagonist's heart - and didn't use it to its advantage. I didn't love the story, writing, or anything in between. (2/10)

Characters: Our cast of characters weren't really expansive either. Ethan seen as a bit of a gentle soul at the start of the series and works pretty hard. This turns around real quick and after his heart was stolen, upon other horrific things, and then Ethan really turns to hate everything. While this is fine... so why was he off interacting with all these characters that he had no business with? The way Hannah gets introduced into the series was actually fine, outside of why she did, but I feel like his character really lacked any sort of depth to it. Hannah's essentially Ethan's traveling companion and that's about it. Her origins are pretty well hidden and her real only duty is to guide Ethan. It's not super clear as to why, but acting as Ethan's second swordarm did provide some cool moments in actions scenes. She does seem to have some form of character development, but it does come off as a bit of a surprise by the end time you hit the end. She's mysterious, but I don't think I can go as far as to say she's a poor character.

The Dragon: Never really given a name, Dragon steals Ethan's heart but... you're not really sure what this does to him. I'm not sure if this is a reference to the game or something, but to leave out the entire reason for this seven episode journey seems strange. Dragon's not in every episode, but Ethan's fueling hate for him creates a storyline that's fine on the surprise, but very barebones underneath. There are some minor characters such as Olivia, who was good for what she's there for. Luis and a few characters Ethan meets along the way, that are at least a little appealing on their own, but don't really mesh into the story elements very well. (6/10)

Art: Being a full CG anime, you really have to be content with elements such as clipping and making sure your action scenes look fine. This did seem passable in a lot of moments but I wouldn't ever go as so far as to say it pushes the envelope in anyway. Some of the spells that you get to see, for example, again, looked fine, but I feel like those are the moments that should have been cooler than they were. (6/10)

Sound: A nice nod was that the OST was done by the original game's composer, Tadayoshi Makino, and he does an okay job here. However, the voice cast was done really well. Greg Chun (Ethan) impressed me here and this is at the top of his work in the limited exposure I've had to him. Equally impressive was Erica Mendez (Hannah) who puts in a strong performance here as well, despite voicing a bit of an emotionless person. Christina Vee (Olivia) and David Lodge (Dragon) put in good performances too. The side cast were actually strong here too so if it's one spot this show didn't falter, it was it's sound. (8/10)

Overall Enjoyment: I just couldn't find a way to enjoy this show. It felt like there wasn't much that made it exciting and, after the second episode, you don't really get the sense that it'll lead to anything. The story buries the show and even with a very good sound cast, the lack of depth in its characters doesn't do it any favours and the ending was very poor. (4/10)

Dragon's Dogma would like to talk in deep about the human nature, good and evil and many other moral themes, but it fails terribly at doing it.
This is how I would summarize this anime in a few words.

I played the game on which it is based years ago, and I enjoyed it, but the problem with the anime is not that it has just the premise in common with the game. The problem is that is very bad, starting from the bad CGI, the wooden animations and the generic character design. I don't expect all 3D animes to be like Dorohedoro or Beastars, but this ... looked really bad.
The plot, in itself, is very simple: a dragon destroys a village and kills the pregnant wife and the adoptive son of the protagonist, Ethan, who swear vengeance against him. The dragon takes his heart away, until he will find him and take it back. For his journey, Ethan will be helped by a Pawn, a being with no will that will always help him no matter what. While traveling, they will meet several people who, somehow, are always victim of one of the seven deadly sins (no pun intended) and that show them the evil of humanity.

But, how can someone fail at making something so simple? Well, that's a great question.
If this was not the first anime, but the first work of fiction you have ever met, you could say that it is at least interesting. But this is made for a mature audience (it's 14+ in my country), even if someone have watched, say, Naruto, they would already seen better. Dragon's Dogma tries to talk about the way human hurt each other because of wrath, greed, gluttony and so on, and asks you how can we continue to enjoy being human if there is such evilness. The problem is that not only it doesn't answer this question, but gives the spectator not much to think about it. 80% of what is shown in the series are terrible things people do to each other: if an alien saw this, they would think that we must be exterminated.

But aside even from this, everything is very childish and rushed, with characters dying like idiots and without any pathos, or doing something evil (and stupid) only to give some meaning to the episode. And don't let me talk about its terrible ending.
It's nearly astonishing that it tries so hard to be deep and meaningful, that it fails not only in this, but in every other aspect.