Gargoyles

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Why hasn't this show had a discussion thread for it until just now....?

You're all worthless....

Anyways, I didn't grow up with the Disney Afternoon block and admittedly am unfamiliar with most of its shows, but that's irrelevant because even if I did see them all I can guarantee you that Gargoyles would be my favorite one of the shows that ever aired on that block, anyways.

This show combines great writing and story-telling with memorable characters and at times surprisingly dark undertones. It also features villains that are not only intelligent (well, most of them are) but also 3-dimensional, and that are actually fleshed out and treated as characters rather than just villains, as was typical of most actions cartoons for kids at the time. To me, personally, this is the only show that has ever managed to surpass the standards set by BTAS to date (IMO, obviously). The only segment of the show that I'm not too fond of is some of the post-Avalon stuff, but even in that case its because it was dragged out, and most of the individual episodes themselves are still good episodes.

Anyways, discuss this series if it interests you.

For the record, I'd just like to say that for all of the main protagonists of the story excluding Goliath, my favorite has always been Brooklyn. I always felt that he was a good combination between being a comic relief and also being a competent member of the group (past that one episode where he stupidly trusted Demona to put a spell on Goliath, but at least he seemed to have learned from his idiotic mistake in that episode, and that definitely counts for something) who was quite useful in situations that called for it. I always felt that he was the type of character who would make a good 2nd in command even before Goliath actually made him the 2nd in command.

I'm also quite fond of Hudson (I'm a sucker for all of those "old-timer" characters in just about any work of fiction), and I do like how he sometimes can be seen as acting as Mentor of sorts to Goliath, even though Goliath is the leader of the group (but it makes sense, seeing as how Hudson used to be the leader in their past), but for some reason he never stuck out to me quite as much as Brooklyn.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Why hasn't this show had a discussion thread for it until just now....?

Because we planned for you to start it.

[Avaitor]

The cast is so strong in terms of characteristics. Hudson might be my favorite member of the clan besides Goliath, since he usually had a good balance of heart, humor, and intelligence towards him that helped to even out the show during it's best moments, but I could go on all day about each of the characters.

Out of the villains, Demona is in a class all by herself. She's vicious, but still has remnants of a heart. She is relatable, but at time her actions are unjustifiable. Her history is tragic, but she doesn't lose an ounce of power or respect from me throughout. If I had to pick one favorite character, it might be her.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I found Xanatos to be my favorite of the villains, even though he wasn't even really a villain by the end of the series, and in fact helped out the Gargoyles on several occasions. He was very much a villain who used his intellect over brute strength, and that's something that I really liked about him.

Demona is a great villain as well, and easily deserves to go on any list of top 10 animated villain, though I do have to say that it gets a bit grating sometimes to see how 1-dimensional her view of humans and those who befriend and support some of them (basically Goliath and the rest of his remaining clan) is throughout the entire series. Actually, its only grating because there are several episodes where she does seemingly gain just a little bit more understanding that the other side isn't really what she forced herself to believe it is (as in, not all humans are evil like she wants to believe), but then she regresses back to her old self and goes on about how humans are the scum of the Earth. I would have preferred to see some more consistent development in her feelings towards humans and Goliath and his clan. That doesn't meant that she needed to become a good guy at the end (on the contrary, I'm glad that she remained a villain), but it would have made for some interesting character development if she started to realize that she may have been wrong about many of her previous notions (but the show does hint that deep down she might kind of realize that, to its credit).

Still, don't take what I said the wrong way. Aside from that minor gripe of mine, she is an excellently crafted villain.

[Avaitor]

I think by the end she does lighten up to the clan a little, or at least gathers up some emotions after discovering that Angela exists.

The thing with Demona is that she is just very hotheaded, and always has been. So much so that she won't stop doing things like that. She does have reasons to hate humans, but she takes her hatred out of proportion more often than not. I also think she still has and always will have feelings for Goliath, and seeing him with another woman will get to her in ways that nothing can. Elisa to me seems to be the template for all she hates in human beings, even if she herself is a very well-kept one, and is why Demona committed a lot of her actions in the show.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I've been rewatching the series via the DVDs (Fuck, I want the last volume!) and have been enjoying every minute, of course. It's hard to believe a series like this was made, (since animation fans have been wanting original action series for years to no avail) and even harder to believe that it lasted so long at such a high quality. The series gets away with a lot of stuff we don't see nowadays, and is very good at what it does without going overboard. People can die, but it's usually done quite tastefully. Well, King Duncan's brutal death when he bursts into flames and disintegrates as he plummets down a cliff. Hardcore, yet still awesome.

Revelations is so far my favorite episode. I know the series jumps from all kinds of genres, noir, sci-fi, historical, mystic, action, adventure, drama, but I always enjoy the Matt Bluestone episodes the most. The character is a blast, and his noir-ish episodes are always the most fun for me. I especially love the ending of the episode where Mace Malone literally goes insane.

I like that the scope of the world never feels too limited or insular, there's always more to explore and more to see, and yet at the same time we learn more about the characters we have already met and the stories we thought we already knew at the same time.

Truly great show. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, Gargoyles is anything that anyone could possibly want out of an original action show, and I think its a nice refreshment to go back to, since while I do love BTAS and all of the other great superhero/comic book cartoons that have spawned since then, I also love a good show that doesn't have any source material that its based off of, or rather it is its own source material.

I think this show really nailed down the characters, which is what helps carry it for its fairly long run. It sure got away with a lot of things that even cartoons of its time wouldn't normally be able to get away with, but that all would have been moot if it weren't handled with great care and writing, and thankfully Gargoyles had some of the best writers around, and with Greg Weisman overseeing the story it was pretty much destined for success. My only problem is that there haven't been all that many great original action cartoons since then (at least not too many that I'm aware of). I really wish there were more series in this vein.

As for my favorite side character, while Matt Bluestone was all kinds of awesome, I'm going to have to say that MacBeth was my favorite recurring character, and while you might count him as more of a villain than a side-character, he has been shown to be more on his own side than aligned with either good guys or bad guys, for the most part, and you can see from his past in the City of Stone arc that he's actually quite a good-natured person at heart, but just got royally fucked over in his life. At any rate, I count him as a side character. I've also mostly liked Talon. He was annoying at first when he was initially tricked into being a bad guy after being turned into a Gargoyle-hybrid like creature, but after that he was a pretty solid side-character, IMO.

[Spark Of Spirit]

In elementary school, we were actually doing MacBeth around the time the show came on. That actually got us all even more psyched to do it because we thought more people would want to see the play, and they did.

I also got a kick out of him using the alias Lennox MacDuff because I played Lennox. 

But yeah, great character. I forgot that the Weird Sisters used him and Demona after City Of Stone and while rewatching the episode I was utterly confused as to why he was there at all. Of course there was a reason for it. There's always a good reason in Gargoyles.

[Pharass]

Gargoyles is one of my favorite animated shows, I didn't get to watch it until just a few years ago, so I don't have any nostalgic childhood memories of it. Perhaps, it's for the best since nostalgia can be deceptive, but I digress. Anyway, this show excels in every regard, mostly when it comes to characterization and writing. The characters are complex and involving and the writing is intelligent. Not much more I can say about Gargoyles that haven't already been said by others and much better. Oh, yes, anyone else finds it ironic that Demona who hates humans and everything they stand for seem to have adapted to the human world better than the other gargoyles?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, the World Tour takes too long.

There are a lot of great episodes and moments in them, but it simply takes too long for them to get back to Manhattan.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I REALLY, REALLY feel that those episodes kind of hold the series back a bit. There are some great ones within them, but on the whole they are much weaker episodes than what fans had already come to expect from Gargoyles by that point in time. Whenever I re-watch the series, I always skip those episodes, as even individually they aren't very strong stories for the most part, except for that one dealing with that guy trying to resurrect his dead son, that one was really good and I'll occasionally re-watch it.

If you took those episodes out of the picture, then I'd actually say that season 2 would be as close to perfect as you can get for an action cartoon (or any show for that matter). Thankfully the show really makes up for the post-Avalon/World Tour arc with a wonderfully brilliant finale.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's about 20 episodes long, which is about 10 too long IMO.

There are some great ones, such as MIA where Goliath rescues Griff in World War II, but most of them are very episodic in that they don't really add much to the overall picture except to expand the world. It's great that they wanted to expand the world, but it doesn't always make for great storytelling.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh, yes, anyone else finds it ironic that Demona who hates humans and everything they stand for seem to have adapted to the human world better than the other gargoyles?

Yeah, I always found that to be one of the most intriguing aspects of her character. I also loved the irony of her getting cursed by Puck (I'd say who he really is but I don't want to spoil it for Desensitized if he doesn't remember that part yet by any chance) to take the form of a human by daylight as a consequence of not turning to stone during those hours. It must be insanely hard to stomach actually physically turning into what you despise, even if its only for half of your life rather than completely for the rest of your life.

It's about 20 episodes long, which is about 10 too long IMO.

There are some great ones, such as MIA where Goliath rescues Griff in World War II, but most of them are very episodic in that they don't really add much to the overall picture except to expand the world. It's great that they wanted to expand the world, but it doesn't always make for great storytelling.

Yeah, it drags on far too long. The episodes that actually had some effect on the show's continuity tended to be the best. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to down-rate the value of good episodic story-telling, but to be honest that was never Gargoyles's particular specialty. It was always best at telling an intertwined story with a heavy sense of continuity and character development, and building on that story and those characters. The episodic pieces usually just felt far too out of place in this series, IMO.

[Eddy]

I have to admit: I've never watched Gargoyles. I knew it was there when I was growing up but for some reason I never really felt the desire to watch it. I'm really not sure why, maybe it's because I tended to watch the more comedy oriented shows when I was younger. Maybe it's time I check into this series so I can see what all the hubbub was about.

[gunswordfist]

Gargoyles was the show that I knew was great but never got a chance to really get into. I think it was either because I ignored Disney or it came on too early.