Toon In: Animated TV Highlights for August, from Strange Planet to Changes for Solar Opposites
TV Lists animation
Welcome to the ink, paint, and pixel corner of Paste TV, where we’re highlighting some of the best premium animation projects on streaming or direct-to-video aimed for teens and adults. This monthly column not only provides an overview of the new animated series to check out, but we’ve also collected some of the finest creators and voice talents in the medium to give updates, or introductions, to their series.
Please note interviews below were done with animation creatives who are not working under WGA contracts. Rather, they are speaking as producers or their shows are represented by non-striking Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839) contracts.
Strange Planet (August 9)
If you’ve read Nathan W. Pyle’s webcomic Strange Planet, or any of his New York Times Bestselling collections riffing on those comics, then his gentle satire of humanity via blue aliens with acute emotional awareness will already be familiar to you. For everyone else, the Apple TV+ animated series of the same name has the potential to rocket Pyle’s profile even more. He developed Strange Planet into a series with comedy veterans Dan Harmon and Steven Levy (Community), which is a 10-episode meditation on our human foibles as expressed by those simply-drawn but deeply-expressive blue avatars.
Pyle tells Paste, “I try to describe it as, ‘Imagine a planet full of beings who all go to therapy and they’re all willing to talk about their emotions.’ I think that’s part of what makes this unique idea. They’re not simply beings on another planet who are talking in a nasally voice about strange Earth customs. We’re actually visiting their planet, and they’re talking about their own lives. They’re actually thinking on an emotional level that we could aspire to.”
It’s been a long-gestating intention for Strange Planet to cross over from web comic to animated series. Pyle reveals he started discussing it with Harmon and Levy about eight months into the web comic’s existence. And then he met with Alex Bulkley of ShadowMachine animation studio, whose minimalist design style on Bojack Horseman felt in keeping with his own style for Strange Planet. “Just sitting with people who can draw at a technical level that I aspire to—and they’re drawing beings that I’ve made for the Strange Planet webcomic—but they’re turning them around and they’re running them into each other. It was really cool and humbling and also inspiring to see people [working] at that level.”
In crafting episodic stories for the show, Pyle says they had to do a lot of character expansion and arc building, which was very different from how he wrote and drew his web comics. “Four panels doesn’t complete a full story circle, usually,” he laughs. “What’s interesting there is how it brought to the surface the question of how many of these characters are going to be recurring? How much of an arc do we get to see with some of the characters? We chose something of a hybrid in terms of anthological and recurring characters. We knew as we were creating the first season, that the recurring characters would spring up out of our debates and discussions. I think it worked well. It didn’t work perfectly, but it did work well. And it’s the kind of thing that we obviously hope to continue in the future.”
Something that does carry through from the webcomic to the series is a cast of unnamed characters. Pyle says that was something Harmon and Levy were adamant stayed intact in the adaptation and he agrees with. “They said those restrictions created more opportunities for creativity and they were right,” he explains. “And I’m excited to see the audience engage with it. Audiences may name some of the beings themselves, and that creates a new wrinkle on this as the audience continues to interact with it, even as a show.”
Ultimately, he hopes the space created by Ted Lasso and The Bear for very emotion-based storytelling has set the table for Strange Planet to slip right in beside them on the streaming menu. “I wanted to make a show that you can enter into and I think those two shows absolutely did, and our hope is to do the same.”
Mech Cadets (August 10)
Fans of Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa’s Boom! Studios comic book series, Mech Cadet Yu, can rejoice because the adventures of teen hero Stanford Yu have been adapted to the Netflix computer-animated series, Mech Cadets. Japanese animation studio Polygon Pictures is behind the anime look, with Tohru Patrick Awa (Super Mario Bros. Movie) serving as the supervising director and Aaron Lam (Ash Vs. The Evil Dead) as head writer/executive producer. Directly aimed at teens, Mech Cadets is set in the near(ish) future and revolves around underdog Yu coming into his own. Initially, he works as a janitor at the Sky Corps Military Academy, but he has ambitions to pilot a Robo Mech, which are robots that arrived to assist humanity in an unexpected war against alien invaders. It looks slick, and has the vibe of a very upscaled Power Rangers meets Pacific Rim. It also features a strong voice cast including Brandon Soo Hoo (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series), Daniel Dae Kim (The Legend of Korra), Ming-Na Wen (The Mandalorian), and Debra Wilson (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor).
Solar Opposites Season 4 (August 14)
Believe it or not, but one of the most ambitious sci-fi shows out there right now is Hulu’s Solar Opposites. Despite its tropey premise about a family of aliens—in this case, the Solars from the doomed Planet Shlorp—who crash land on Earth and can’t escape because of their busted ship, the show has never devolved into a typical fish-out-of-water comedy. It long ago escaped that narrow lane by folding in meaty, parallel storylines that follow what happens to the humans when Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) shrinks and then throws them into a terrarium in his bedroom; and the intergalactic exploits of the SilverCops chasing down the Shlorpians tasked with finding a new, liveable world.
Producer Sydney Ryan tells Paste that the show will continue to zig instead of zag in Season 4. First off, in light of their shared commitment to give their Pupa (Sagan McMahan) stability in the wake of its angry Season 3 growth spurt, Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Korvo (now voiced by Dan Stevens) commit to soul-sucking, corporate jobs at a garden rake company.
Ryan says The Office vibes that open the season are the writers pushing the absurdity of the Solars literally patterning themselves after the shows they’ve watched. “They were really cracking up at transforming into a “workplace” setup for a couple of episodes. But they also love Solar as it usually is, so they found a way to get back to the family-style antics pretty quickly.”
Speaking of Korvo, in light of co-creator Justin Roiland—who also voiced the family patriarch—exiting the series, a voice recast was necessary. However, Ryan confirms by the time that was realized, all of Season 4 and the upcoming holiday special had already been recorded. So, they started from scratch with the new vocal direction.
“We definitely did not want to try to match the previous voice,” Ryan explains. “The guys felt that would be a little like doing a cover song. Solar is so wild and crazy… it felt right that we do a big, funny swing and totally change the sound of the character while keeping the comedy and the emotional aspects intact. But Korvo’s a tricky character because he’s brusque and pissed all the time, but you still love him.”
Ryan says after listening to many voice auditions, it was Executive Vice President and Head of 20th Television Animation, Marci Proietto, who recommended Stevens based on the work he did for another series. “As soon as Dan read for the part, we all knew that he was the one,” Ryan says. “Not only was he hilarious, but he was excited and loved the show. It was a great fit that really came out of left field, which was perfect for what we wanted.”
Plus, Steven’s sexy Brit accent juiced up Terry’s response to Korvo for even more comedy gold. “In the [season premiere], Terry chooses that voice,” Ryan teases. “He loves his husband and this is a voice change that he’s endorsing. Of course, Terry would jump at his hot alien husband getting a sexy James Bond accent,” she laughs. “But Dan is a phenomenal actor, and you really feel the love between Terry and Korvo this season. If anything, Dan’s dynamic brings the funny, but it also cements that love which is what ties the family together.”
As for the cliffhangers left with “The Wall” and SilverCops stories, Ryan says much will be revealed. “We teased the rise of a new power in “The Wall:” a cult of zealots who have created a religion based on their beliefs about [kid alien] Jesse,” she recaps. “They call themselves ‘Bowinians’ because Jesse wears a little pink bow on her head. When we come back, some time has passed, and ‘The Wall’ has been separated into two sides, religious and secular, with a Berlin Wall type wall-in-the-wall. Mike and Josh wanted to do a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy type story, and that’s what you’ll get.”
She continues, “And the Silvercops story takes a fun turn as well. We pick up with Glen (Kieran Culkin), who the Solar’s shot into space a couple of seasons ago. He’s naked, alone, and afraid on an alien planet, while still on the run from the Silvercops who were trying to frame him for murder. We have a lot of very dramatic side stories in our silly animated show.”
Babylon 5: The Road Home (August 15)
Babylon 5 acolytes have long been waiting for a film or television continuation of J. Michael Straczynski’s sci-fi mythology about the clash between humans and other powerful races in the universe. But no one was expecting it to be Babylon 5: The Road Home, a Straczynski-written, feature length, animated movie that includes the bulk of the original cast reprising their classic roles including Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Tracy Scoggins, and others.
Why an animated movie? Straczynski tells Paste it’s because Warner Bros. came to him with the idea as a collaboration with WB Animation, and then offered a potential live-action series reboot (still in development) to follow after. “For me, the fun of animation is you can go anywhere and do anything. And we didn’t just have budgetary constraints on the original show, we didn’t have a budget,” he deadpans.
For two years, Straczynski says he’s been secretly working on the film with supervising producer Rick Morales, director Matt Peters, and their animation team. From the start, he gave them permission to take advantage of their medium to make Babylon 5 better. “I think at the beginning, they were being kind of precious about the look because they figured I created it, so I had a strong connection to it,” he assesses. “I finally said to them, ‘Look, don’t worry. Keep the sensibility of it there so that you recognize what this is. But if there’s a way to improve it—make it look better, make it look more current, make it bigger—do so. If you go too far, I’ll pull you back. Don’t worry about that.’”
Straczynski says he personally sourced the original CGI files from the live action series for the animators to use as a starting point. “It was fun seeing the station for the first time, but seeing the character designs they came up with, where it’s not literally Bruce, but it is Sheridan. It’s not literally Mira (Furlan) but it is Delenn. Matt said it was the idea of the character rather than being specifically this person.”
As for the story, Straczynski says it’s a love letter to the fans and the cast, which has Sheridan thrown into multiple timelines and alternate realities that allow for revisiting many classic storylines and characters from the mythology. “As a writer, I’m a character guy,” he explains. “And this is a love story that goes through time and space, and he is pulled back by that.”
Straczynski teases The Road Home ends in a place that allows him to still explore stories with the original cast. “We end up at the bottom of the movie with Sheridan and Sinclair and Lochley and other characters in the same place, at the same time. So, that’s classic B5, and that will be that. We were told that if the first one does well, then we have the option of doing more.”
Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (August 22)
Way back in 2006, Adult Swim released the animated ode to all things death metal in the black-as-tar pastiche, Metalocalypse. The series imagined a world where the band Dethklok is adored to such an extent that they’re given carte blanche in society, despite being dumb as rocks. It featured a cavalcade of musician guest stars, ran for four seasons, and even spawned the 2013 rock opera special, Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem. Rumors of a coda project swirled for years, and it has finally arrived with the full-length movie, Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar, available on Digital and Blu-ray Aug. 22. Written and directed by series co-creator Brendon Small, the story reunites Dethklok to thwart a doomsday prophecy by finding the legendary, “Song of Salvation.” Titmouse is responsible for the level up animation which is clearly channeling Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards (1977) and Gerald Potterton’s Heavy Metal (1981). Throw up your devil horns for a last round of animated metal debauchery.
Archer Season 14 (August 30)
How do you say goodbye to the granddaddy of filthy, animated spy comedies? Yes, Archer, FX’s Emmy award-winning adult comedy staple, is getting put out to pasture. Season 14 will see the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest spy,” Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin), undertake his final missions. Will he live or die? Or, perhaps the more accurate question is whether newly-promoted head of The Firm, Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), will kill him herself? Series creators Adam Reed and Matt Thompson’s own animation studio, Floyd County Productions, established the digital puppet look of the series and will see it through in that style to the very end. Archer opened the door for a new generation of adult-centric animation that remains vibrant across all of the major streamers today. The show never shied away from experimental formats or perspectives, so we can’t wait to see how Reed and company serve up a last season of continuously eclectic storytelling.
Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, Total Film, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios and the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen
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