Ben 10 2016 Reboot Episode Review: Adventures in Babysitting
-
Episode Link:
http://kisscartoon.me/Cartoon/Ben-10-2016/Episode-16?id=72451Episode Review:
In this episode, the main characters meet another family that's also going on a summer road trip. Maxine and her grandkids, Ryan (I'm guessing early teens maybe; somewhere around 12 or 13) and his 6-year-old brother Simon. This family are written as being kind of mirror images of Ben, Gwen, and Max. Kind of because, to me, the only two characters that are the most similar to each other is Max and Maxine while Ben and Simon are second. I'm guessing Ryan and Gwen are supposed to mirror each other but they have very little similarities to each other. In fact, Ryan doesn't even do much of anything till the end of the episode. So, let's get to reviewing another pointless episode that just further does more harm than good to this show, the franchise, the team working on it, and Cartoon Network themselves.Ok so this episode is really just more of the same as the other episodes of this show. Bad and lazy writing, bland and boring, characters are annoying and are further undermined even more so, another pointless episode overall, etc. The usual. Since that Simon is the main villain of this episode, let's focus on him and his family.
Simon has a backpack made by Billy Billions and was purchased for Simon and the backpack transforms into a weaponized robot suit. In the episode, Simon goes on a temper tantrum and wrecks up an entire small town while endangering innocent lives. See what the problem is here? Why the hell does a 6-year-old have a weaponized robot suit disguised as a backpack in the first place? Does Maxine and/or Ryan do anything about it? Oh, Simon states that Maxine SOMETIMES hides batteries. That's the excuse here?! Oh wait, of course that's not a good excuse because this episode has another major plot hole that shows just how terrible and irresponsible of caretakers that Maxine and Ryan are. I'm in Maxine or Ryan's shoes and Simon receives a backpack. Simon goes on a temper tantrum, activates the backpack, and causes all sorts of chaos and destruction. What would be the most reasonable thing to do after an incident like that? I would not just "sometimes" hide the batteries. The most reasonable thing to do would be to get rid of that backpack. Get it out of Simon's hands so that history doesn't repeat itself. It's such a simple decision to come to here. It's common sense to keep a weaponized robot suit away from a 6-year-old and apparently the writers don't seem to understand that, are too lazy to fix it, and/or, again, the writers and the executives really do think that their fans and viewers are that stupid. At least Ben was reasonable and willing enough to take the batteries out himself even though I doubt that would help much because it's likely that there are more than one set of batteries for that backpack considering that Maxine, again, sometimes hide batteries from Simon. Still, despite all the stupid stuff that Ben does in this reboot, at least there are a few moments like this that shows that Ben is still at least competent and smart. He was also even trying to be nice and reasonable to Simon as well. That's at least the good part of this episode.
Oh yeah, Ben may have triggered Simon's temper tantrum but Gwen is also very much the cause of all that chaos as well. Because Gwen was so fixated into wanting to get Ryan's attention that she kicked Ben and Simon out of the Rustbucket, Ryan wasn't there to stop Simon before things got out of hand. If Simon had his temper tantrum inside the Rustbucket, Ryan would've been there to stop Simon. And then for the icing on the cake, Max and Maxine notice the destruction of the battle yet after seeing the kids acting all innocent in the Rustbucket, they come to the conclusion that Ben and Simon had nothing to do with it, even though they obviously did. And for the cherry on top, Ben gets his ass kicked by a 6-year-old. All sorts of other villains and monsters that Ben fights and a 6-year-old in a robot suit gets the best of him. So what, Ben couldn't just transform into Upgrade, merge with the suit, and then shut it down thus ending the battle quickly and swiftly to avoid too much damage being done and in a way so that Simon doesn't get hurt as well? Oh wait, that's right. That would require thought, care, and effort put into the writing.
Why is Billy Billions even selling or giving these backpacks anyways to people like Simon and his family? Wouldn't it be more beneficial for him to sell them to the military or through the black market or something since that he is a villain with such intelligence to manufacture such weapons?
This is one of the major problem that the reboot show itself and the writers of the Ben 10 reboot are becoming notorious for. The numerous plot holes that just shows how bad and lazy the writing is. Even Omniverse has its fair share of plot holes. Hex mistaking a plain wand for the actual magic wand even though he's holding the actual magic wand in his hands. Nanny Nightmare's dust consistently turns adults into babies yet for some reason Ben and Gwen, who are both 10-years-old, are exceptions to that and are turned into toddlers instead. The obvious other forms of communication that the people at the monastery could've used to substitute for not talking in order to avoid waking up a dragon. Etc. Now there's this episode too with a 6-year-old boy for some reason having a weaponized robot suit.
But wait, Tactical Ochoa, people are ok with a 10-year-old boy having one of the most powerful alien devices in the universe so what's the big deal with a 6-year-old boy having a robot suit? Yeah, let's just go ahead and counter that argument in case anyone has the smart idea to toss that argument out. Unlike Simon and his backpack, the Omnitrix is STUCK on Ben's wrist. It latched itself onto Ben's wrist and it won't come off unless there's a device that's capable enough to do so. If Gwen and Max, and anyone else, thinks that Ben is not responsible and suitable enough to use the Omnitrix, they have no choice but to deal with it and thus try to teach Ben to be more responsible with the Omnitrix. Plus, even Ben shows good responsibility with using the Omnitrix (most notably in the Original Series) and he wants to use it to help others. I just wish that in the reboot Gwen and Max would, well, be more responsible themselves with Ben. More often Max and Gwen would just leave Ben by himself, leaving him to do pretty much almost anything he wants. Even then, Max doesn't put enough of a good leash on Ben while Gwen is mostly acceptable with the trouble and antics that Ben causes because of his impulsive, fun-loving, and cocky behavior. They both don't mentor him enough, if not "at all," like they're supposed to and like they did in the Original Series. Yes, plenty of times in the Original Series, Ben is left by himself but at least Gwen and Max are there to keep an eye on Ben as often as they possibly can in order to make sure that Ben doesn't cause too much trouble while also mentoring and training him to use the Omnitrix in a better and more responsible way. In the reboot, that doesn't seem to be much of the case now.
Overall, like I said, it's more of the same with this episode as it is with most, if not all, of the other episodes in the Ben 10 reboot. Just more of the same and more of the usual as expected. Just another bland, mediocre, poorly made, and pointless episode.
