Dragons: Riders of Berk

Me and Foxy had heard about these two cartoons but that's about it. One was relatively obscure and the other has been referenced by others that I know every so often. Like Zephyr's profile pic, for instance. They were interesting enough just on their own titles to see what they were like. Season 3's still on the horizon, after all.

So, me and Foxy ended up sitting down and watching all the episodes so far of...

[size=+1]Dragons: Riders of Burk[/size]
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I quite enjoyed How To Train Your Dragon on which Dragons aims to extend. The film had decent performances from it's key characters, the father was emotionally deeper than an angry blockhead, Hiccup was entertaining on his own and Toothless was adorable yet awesome. Like a big scaly cat. The film is entertaining will a little bit of visual flare to spruce things up. Generally in the dragon department.

So, Hiccup has been given a Dragon Academy so that him and his other fine, young Vikings can learn how to ride dragon's properly. Considering that most of the dragons are causing a lot of messes all over the place, it's unsurprising that Hiccup is then told to deal with each Dragon related problem as and when they come up like he's herding fire-breathing cats away from pet mice.

Most issues expected to be solved by Hiccup really are that menial. It's just that dragons complicate everything being big scaly beasts.

So now that Stoic is fine with his son's new pets, he can't really drive the story any more as the main antagonist. Enter Mildew: a grumpy, miserable git that lives with a sheep and his cabbage plot. He doesn't like the dragons, because he'd be pretty boring if he was only slightly irked by them, and actively sets about manipulating the villagers into getting rid of them for good. He frames them, points out every flaw of theirs and generally complains about whatever the dragons have done now. He's sort of a cross between **** Dastardly and that neighbour that has a problem with everything..

Oh yeah...Swear Filter...Well, it's Mr Dastardly, from those Wacky Races.

Anyway, that's the largest problem with Dragons appears to be that there's little to no urgency. While the show is entertaining, I can't call it gripping. Plot lines do tend to centre around the same idea: Mildew comes up with another reason why the dragons are a bad idea and the easily swayed village-folk back him up despite Mildew being greatly disliked. For the most part, it appears to be the only worth while story they are capable of telling. With a few notable exceptions, like trying to find a new job for Gopper, most are as dependable as a Japanese Train.

There's an accusation, Hiccup is told to sort the problem, he fails, it's the night before the dragons are meant to leave forever, Hiccup figures out a solution in a nick of time, everyone's happy.

I'm concerned that the somewhat Pokemon-esque elements prompt such a cycle because - as awesome as Pokemon is - that seems like a show written by the copy and paste command. Both used the teamwork of boy and his dangerous monster as the goal for solving the problem of the episode, usually learning some moral as a result. That appears to be every episode with only the details changing. The same can be said for Dragons because the same motions appear to be rolled through every new episode. It's not that it's boring, it just doesn't push the boat out all that often. It's stories feel rather safe and simple, which is fine for a kids show but it's not going to mesmerise anyone. I'm not sure if the show is trying enough.

I'm really trying not to sound spoiled here because in my head, it sounds petty to say such a thing. Maybe because I really wanted this to be better than it appears to be. We've had loads of shows (one in particular we celebrate here, of course) that shows us that when television tries, it's more awesome than you know what to do with. I just feel like Dragons is playing things too safely by merely running with the idea of Dragon's and Vikings living together unharmoniously. Where's the greater exploration of the world around them? The extra details on the dragons is nice but kinda unnecessary at this point. We know quite a bit about the types of dragon, why not go find new ones rather than wait for them to just turn up? We have creatures able to traverse continents within hours, how about visiting new villages? Burk doesn't appear to have anything knew to offer, which is why all the new danger is coming in from the outside. Dangers like Alvin, for example. Maybe seeing what the rest of the world is doing? Are there other mythological creatures? I mean, Dragons verses...I dunno, manicores would be awesome to see. Just something game changing?

Although, we're only 7 episodes in. There's likely to be more to this in time.

Now, how about presentation? The film was very pretty. It was able to make all the cliffs and the characters look and sound memorable. The dragons were varied without looking stupid or overly complicated and the key characters were able to give good performances. Even if the kids were American and the adults were Scottish.

The show appears to suffer with far shorter deadlines as most of the above doesn't return. The polish to all the textures is lessened, because they have to kick around 20 of these things out the door ASAP. Thankfully, Jay Baruchel returns to voice Hiccup while a decent impersonator voices Gobber. Sadly, Stoic no longer has Gerard Butler to give him the commanding tones he enjoyed in the film and get's Nolan North instead. It's a noticeable but acceptable change.

The humour of the film does manage to come back, but feels far more hit and miss this time round. The teenagers of Berk take a far larger part in the stories and so tend to become the comic relief when Gobber or the new character Bucket isn't around. The same sort of personalities are still present. Snotlout (the one that looks like a young Jack Black) is still arrogant, Fishlegs (the fat one) is still rather geeky and Ruffnut and Tuffnut (the twins) are still slightly homicidal. Astrid, on the other hand, has barely anything to do currently except sort of be there. I think there's a single reprisal of the "And that is for X" thing but other wise she spends a lot of time standing around while the others tell the jokes. It seems a shame that they can't find anything for her in particular to be doing when she was the love interest in the film.

I sound like I'm rather disgruntled by Dragons and I'm not. It's certainly trying but I can't say I'm 100% feeling it with this. Cast changes and the slight downgrade in visual quality is fine, I can forgive that but the stories being told aren't compensating. Dragons is entertaining but there doesn't seem to be much of a spark to what's happening, apparently not learning from anything Pokemon as to teach with a similar set up. You'll probably jump to the end of the story long before any of the characters will. Probably for the fans only.