Ben 10 2016 Reboot Episode Review: Need for Speed

[Tactical Ochoa]

Episode Link:
http://kisscartoon.me/Cartoon/Ben-10-2016/Episode-18?id=72616

Episode Review:
Ok, another episode. Saw it a couple of days ago (at the time this is posted) and I accidentally lagged on it but here I am now and here we go.

Let's get the cons out of the way first. We got a new villain in the reboot: Lagrange. For some reason the main characters already know him even though this is the first time viewers will ever see him. Uh, really? Where's the episode that introduced Lagrange? Is this further proof that the episodes of the Ben 10 reboot are being aired out of order or is this just the writers being lazy and showing little to no care and effort again? Even then, Lagrange was just ok. I don't find him to be a good villain but he's not bad either. He's just average at the moment of this episode.

Speaking of Lagrange, let's go to the second problem of this episode. The writers once again made the same mistake of repeating the same jokes and/or running gags in this episode as in the other episodes such as Riding the Storm Out and The Clocktopus. In this episode, almost every time one of the main characters mentions Lagrange's name, they put extra emphasis on saying his name while the camera zooms on on their eyes while they give a mean look in their eyes. It got annoying pretty quickly. Most of the jokes in this episode aren't even that good. There's one joke involving Vin Ethanol (an obvious reference to Vin Diesel and I'm guessing the Fast and Furious series), who repeatedly mentioned that he has family as another pretty annoying running gag, presses a button labelled "FAMILY" which caused robot tentacle to come out of his car and attack other racers. I don't get the joke and I find it to be a stupid joke. If you're going to do running gags in a show, space it out to a longer period of time. I find repeating jokes and running gags to get annoying quite quickly when they are done in such a short period of time and it doesn't look good for the writers either because it shows how little they are truly being creative and original in their works.

Also, Ben's reason for wanting to have the treasure for himself is that he wants to use the money to get his very own cyborg bear, which also ends up being another running gag in this episode. Once again, Ben is behaving like a 4 or 5 year old. It's really stupid and it doesn't make Ben look any better (not like he looking good and likable as a character anyways in this reboot). It makes Ben look so dumbed down and too overly childish for his age. The writers really couldn't do something else instead like have Ben wanting to use the treasure to build up a massive Sumo Slammers collection or have his own spaceship or something of the likes? You know, something that would properly match a lot of what 10-year-old boys generally want? At least it would make more sense that way for Ben as a character and not that stupid cyborg bear bullshit.

Let's cover the treasure itself next. How was it that the treasure, in Yellowstone National Park, wasn't found for so long? It seems as if the treasure, or at least rumors of it, are well known to the public. The treasure was even located in an abandoned cavern...which there is a map of. In that case, it's clear that cartographers and other geographers went in there to map out the entire cavern. That treasure is in a pretty easily noticeable spot and yet no one that was in the cavern before this episode saw the treasure while exploring? It's another pretty glaring plot hole among the many plot holes that this reboot has.

There are a couple of pretty good moments in this episode. Vin Ethanol's reaction, or lack thereof, when his car was crashing was a nice little joke. Ben transforming into Diamondhead when he wanted to transform into XLR8 was pretty funny and it's those very moments that really works well as comedic elements in Ben 10. Ben's mis-transformation is a prominent example of how to do comedy the right way in Ben 10; especially since that it fits into Ben 10 so well.

The moral lesson is also pretty nice for Ben to learn as well. Ben gets really selfish as he wants the treasure for himself but eventually learns to be more selfless. Way to go Ben for learning such an important and valuable lesson...well, that just went out the window the moment the geyser launches the treasure out and it lands right in front of Ben. That pretty much was my reaction by the end of the episode. The moral lesson is a nice little thing for Ben to learn but then it just pretty much get's thrown out the window in favor of a freakin comedic joke. Then after the treasure is taken away from Ben, since that it's government property, the episode ends with a terribly drawn image of Yellowstone. Yeah, this episode didn't really have a good ending.

So, how was this episode overall? It's ok, I guess. There's definitely plenty enough to argue that it's a mediocre and poorly made episode but I guess you can argue that it's an ok episode as well. It's certainly not a good episode though. This episode also just doesn't offer much either and there are plenty of elements of this episode that have already been done before in the Ben 10 Original Series but better. Ben being selfish and learning to be more selfless had already been done before and in such a great way in the Original Series episode, Washington B.C.. There was also an episode of the Original Series that took place at Yellowstone National Park called The Big Tick. It was a nice little episode that brought something to the series that was new and very significant and that was the debut of Ben unlocking his very first new and iconic alien, Cannonbolt. This reboot episode, much like most of the other episodes, just doesn't really offer much or doesn't really offer anything significant and beneficial to the Ben 10 reboot show at all. It's pretty much a bland and forgettable episode that ranges between being mediocre and average. It's pretty much just more of the same for this reboot show and that's it.