Prime-time worthy?
It's funny considering that I have such a truncated history with the Sonic franchise as a whole, that the majority of my familiarity of the Sonic character was formed through my attachment to ancillary media, à la the Sonic TV shows. Sure, I mean I played Sonic Adventure 1 back in the day, but the 2D games were ancient history by the time I was picking up the controller, and the Sonic community always seemed so cannibalistic, always fighting itself, that it never really appealed to me to become part of all that noise. And yet with that otherwise passing interest, some shade of child me was ecstatic when he heard about the 4kids version of Sonic X that would be coming to my TV screen. It wasn't because I was a fan of the Sonic games in particular, but because I was fans of games in general, and this was the first time I saw the medium I loved coming to the rest of the world in a serious manner. (Of course it was far from the first time this had ever happened, but I'm equating my own perspective for measurement's sake.)
I was there the night Sonic X first launched for us over in England, and I refused to miss a single episode; I loved that show far more than it deserves to be loved for what it was. (Not that it was bad; but it wasn't 'Avatar: The Legend of Aang' or anything.) So inexplicably, for means I don't quite understand myself, Sonic on TV has been important to my entertainment enjoying life. Since then I've looked back and experienced some of his previous outings from the distant hill of retrospect. The original 'Sonic the Hedgehog' from 93 which was... one of the shows ever made. Sonic SatAM (As it's dubbed by the community to differentiate it from the 93 show) which holds easily the best worldbuilding the franchise has had outside the comics. (Haven't read the comics, can't compare them.) 'Sonic Underground', where they turned it into a musical with instruments and Sonic's two surprise siblings and a royal mother who never features and- look it was bad, okay. And then 'Sonic Boom', the show to coincide with the series reboot which was easily the best thing to come out of the whole affair (before both it and the reboot were scrapped) but it was still... very safe, you know?
After all this time and all these reiterations of the Sonic brand, I guess I'm past the point where the novelty of seeing the blue blur on screen is going to excite me. And so I should be, a lot of these shows have been aimed at younger generations than I, who demand less from their entertainment, I know this. But I'm not asking for 'Teen Titans' quality kids showmaking either, (Although I wouldn't begrudge such a high standard being routinely matched) all I want is the potential we all see in the Sonic brand being met- or at least scratched! We talking about a world full with anthropomorphic animals with crazy colours, personalities and powers; there have been dozens of great fictional worlds built from less than that, from Zootopia to Adventure Time to even 'MLP:FIM', according to that show's fanbase. Sonic can facilitate more than the bottom of the barrel, problem-of-the-week style world and storytelling which has become so lame in the modern TV world.
And my intentions are selfish, I admit. I want a Sonic series to create a world for the timeless Sonic characters to inhabit because I want that world to rub off onto the games that are in constant need of it. The Sonic universe, as it exists currently in the games, is contradictory and paperthin at the best of times, flaccid and utterly uninteresting at the worst. Heck, the series can't even decide on what the population of the world makeup is! 'Sonic Forces' makes direct reference to the fact that it's within the same canon as 'Sonic Adventure' with the appearance and affirmative acknowledgement of Chaos. ("Mom says it's my turn to kill chaos") But then if that's true, why the heck are the streets of Sonic Forces' City lined with only animal people when in 'Sonic Adventure' Station Square had primarily human occupants aside from the main cast? Is there some sort of definitive global segregation between the species of humans and humanoid animals? A apartheid analogy so blown up that the disparate races are forbidden to their own separate cities on other continents? And if so, then what of the human cities? We only see Mobians being saved from destruction in Forces, so did the resistance just sit back and watch the Human population of their world be enslaved and/or exterminated by Infinite's armies? Am I thinking about this way too much and the answer is merely that no person on Sonic Team has spent more than 30 minutes on a script? Yes.
I want a better world for Sonic. I want the bones for a great 3D Sonic game somewhere down the line with stakes and consequence and maybe some level design. (Lord knows after 'Forces' the series could do with some level design!) And is Sonic Prime going to help provide those bones in order to grow a working franchise body from? Probably not, but we can lie to ourselves if it makes us feel better. One of the few original shows that Netflix hasn't abruptly cancelled once it realised that it's trajectory of eternal growth seems to be trailing off several years before they expected, Sonic Prime has kept much of the details surrounding it's content infuriatingly secret in the months we've been waiting for the thing. Even as we sit now, with an officially released preview, it's hard to scourge the slightest morsel of substantive knowledge from this crow's feast of a carcass, but if we're to go cadaver diving in order to pre-empt this show than just let me grab my gloves!
Off the bat I'm not hopeful I'll exactly get the dream I was searching for, but the show does look like the game, which is certainly fulfilling someone's fantasy. The checkerboard texture for the dirt of the hills, the floating rings scattered across the land, and a generally one-to-one depiction of 3D era Sonic. (No inexplicable scarf redesign here.) But they've also taken certain liberties here and there which are no doubt going to be hit or miss for certain sectors of the audience. Namely, Sonic's run cycle which turns his legs into a infinity symbol but leaves the top half his body just hanging limply on top, kind of like Big Wheel from 'Robots'. (Never thought I'd unironically be making a 'Robots' reference literally ever, but there we are.) I think it looks kind of stupid.
Sonic is also undergoing a change of the guard in the voicing department, with this new guy, Deven Mack, being another in a long line of voice actors all attempting to perform the same cocksure, attitudinal-but-still-approachable voice. He sounds fine. Right now the only question I have is what is going to be done with this series in order to make it watchable, because honestly it can go any which way. I've stated my presence for at least semi-serialised stories that build a stable world, but I'm not getting that vibe from the little we've seen. (It is a little, I hasten to add. So I could be wrong.) Heck, I don't even know what genre of fan they're appealing to, what with the background and running sprite being indicative of the 2D era and the bigger spikes and green eyes of the Hedgehog from the 3D era. (Generations and Forces taught us well that the two sides of the fandom can never and should never crossover.)
As such I'm left with a prevailing aura of trepidation, but a general idea of 'who knows'. Sega have demonstrated time and time again that they don't know how to reach the Sonic fanbase, and are maybe even a little scared to try, which could be great or terrible for this show. Either Sega are so scared that they've got their reigns all over this show and won't allow it to do anything not in line with the handful of Sonic games that fans haven't decided that they hate yet, or they're too scared to touch the show and we might get someone with a vision guiding the ship. I'm amenable to being treated with a show I don't expect, and as long as it's good, I'll watch. So please be good, Sonic Prime; the Sonic franchise needs a win right now.
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