Since its inception in 2013, Steven Universe seemed like it was going to be different. Created by former Adventure Time storyboard artist Rebecca Sugar, the show thrived on its own unique brand of syncretism, combining traditionally oppositional elements of cartoons to greater cumulative effect. It takes elements of both Western and Japanese animation, indicators of “boy” and “girl” cartoons, and follows a storyline that trades equally in drama and jokes, single episode stories and a longer overarching narrative. Finally ending its first season, this blended approach has worked exceptionally well for the show, both in building up its characters and the greater universe they exist in. But can it maintain that equilibrium forever? Can Steven Universe remain a fun, lighthearted cartoon in the mold of Adventure Time, hinting at a larger story while remaining essentially about smaller events? Or will it have to let itself grow out of its current mold and become a story-arc driven series? The answer could provide insight into the long term goals of Cartoon Network’s programming.
The precursor to Steven Universe can be found in the monumental success of its originator, Adventure Time. Adventure Time had all the hallmarks of earlier surreal animated comedies on the network like Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, but the sinister, creeping sense that something in the show’s setting was off distinguished it from those series. Throughout its run, Adventure Time has dropped references to a great, universe-wide catastrophe that occurred in the past, and in recent seasons has become less oblique and more overt about this, intertwining individual character arcs with the cataclysmic past. Very gradually, Adventure Time has built up this mythos by placing it in the background of individual episodes and dialogues, and its approach has been highly influential in Cartoon Network’s programming.
Patrick McHale’s Over The Garden Wall is a brilliant and moving series recently made in a similar mode, at least insofar as each emphasizes a specific visual style and character-driven plot. Set in an unsettling, Americana-filled purgatory called The Unknown, Over The Garden Wall is about two brothers, Wirt and Greg, and their attempts to find their way back home. Over The Garden Wall incorporates With a similar syncretic traditional cartoon slapstick, folklore and pastiche, high-minded literary references to Dante and centers itself on the timeless trope of children trying to find their home. Unlike earlier cartoons McHale worked on like Flapjack, Over The Garden Wall did not need to take recourse to surrealism or slapstick when it engaged complex philosophical themes. The protagonists experienced real moments of doubt and uncertainty in their time in The Unknown, and the show gave them no easy macguffin to escape from their problems. When Greg and Wirt do succeed in returning home, it is only after they’ve learned more about themselves and the world they became lost in, and in turn helped to make a better place in small ways. It’s a clear indication that Cartoon Network is becoming more interested in story-driven, serialized animation that moves beyond a single premise and into more complex narrative territory.
But it’s a small indication. Over The Garden Wall aired in its entirety over the course of a single week, in 10 11-minute episodes. It was a mini-series, something of an experiment for the network, and its influence has yet to be broadly seen. Steven Universe has the same format of 11 minute episodes, but it has developed over the course of a 52-episode first season. This has given it ample time to explore its characters and to produce both lighthearted, self-contained episodes and more dramatic, multi part ones. This dual storytelling style came to a head in the season finale1, the climax of a plot that had been building for more than a dozen previous episodes. Without revealing spoilers, the two episodes established much greater stakes for the show’s characters and set up a final battle between them and their hitherto most powerful foe. The way said final battle played is particularly telling for the future of Steven Universe. In a highly catchy musical number, the main characters beat their foes, escape to safety and reaffirm their commitment to friendship, love and one another. It has a Sailor Moon-like quality to it, but what happens afterwards re-orients the episode back towards high drama in a compelling yet oddly jarring way. The resulting final seconds leaves the characters as bewildered as we are. Did all of that really happen in 20-some odd minutes? Couldn’t we have gotten more?
The issue is not that Steven Universe should become a “serious” show. Animation as a whole already suffers from an inferiority complex with regards to its own maturity, and discussions of storytelling in it must move beyond the limiting parameters of “adult” vs “juvenile” media. But the scope and number of episodes of the series leaves the question of its ultimate trajectory an open one. Critical to the success of Steven Universe has been its willingness to blur the lines of serious and silly, and its structural format as a 11-minute an episode series reflects that choice. It could easily continue in its previous vein of self-contained episodes with a larger plot in the background, but doing so risks making the larger plot a set piece, something to be occasionally referenced but never seriously considered. This is the problem that Adventure Time has at least partially run into; for all the buildup surrounding its setting and the histories of its characters, we still know remarkably little about either.
Adventure Time has stuck to lighter, episodic narratives, but with its season finale Steven Universe has taken a step in the opposite direction. The challenge for the show will be in heightening the stakes while maintaining its warm and playful style. The finale of Season 1 has shown the strengths and limitations of its current structure, both in the way it centralizes character development and its difficulty in building and sustaining plot momentum at critical junctures. The result could act as a roadmap or a warning to future Cartoon Network shows. If Steven Universe can blend the dramatic and the comedic in a seamless way, it will signal a shift in the priorities of western animation that hasn’t been seen since Avatar: The Last Airbender. Yet however it develops, Steven Universe has already shifted the ground subtly but perceptibly in animation, away from self-contained episodes and towards interconnected, lengthier stories. Its existence and continued success attests to a change in animation that won’t likely abate soon.
__________
1.Season Finale is used in a loose way here; there are 3 more episodes in Season 1, but it is episodes 48 and 49 that include the climax and subsequent denouement of Season 1’s major story arc.