Exosquad

Like most people, I grew up watching a healthy dose of Saturday morning kids’ cartoons, and like most people, I had my favourites. I often hear people talking about this show and that show, but for me there was one series that blew all the others away: Exosquad. Like many great works, the show seems to have been largely overlooked and forgotten by all but a dedicate group of loyal followers (see http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~pdanner/resolute2.shtml for one of the longest running and best respected fan sites). Over the years, the fans, myself included, have petitioned for the release of the series of DVD. Finally, on April 14th 2009, this wish was granted when Universal released the first season on DVD in the States. It took me a while to hear about the release, but I ordered the disc within minutes of finding out about it – that’s how excited I was to finally be able to see the series again.

But, of course, that level of excitement is a dangerous thing. Can a kids’ cartoon from the early nineties really be all that good? And let’s face it, my taste in television programmes hasn’t exactly stayed the same over the years. So I was very worried about being disappointed. When the disc arrived, I placed it into my player with extreme excitement, but also trepidation that I was about to crumble my childhood memories to dust (I used to love this show so much that I literarily had dreams about it)...

But I needn’t have worried. The show is amazing, and every bit as good as I remember it. And it’s not just me saying it. Look at any of the fan reviews for the disc, and everyone’s saying the same thing: that it’s just as good as, if not even better, than they remember it. So, what is it that makes the show so great? Quite simply, it’s the writing. Forget about Heroes or Lost or any of the other supposedly great shows – Exosquad genuinely delivers what those shows promised and failed to do: it gave us characters to care about, action sequences to get excited about, and ideas to actually think about. Undoubtedly one of a kind, it’s certainly one of the best TV shows that I’ve seen, and I urge you all to go out a buy the Season 1 DVD. I don’t say this only to help you discover what you’ve been missing, but also for the selfish reason that I want need the first season to be a success so that Universal will release the second.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a version of the opening introduction which I could embed, but you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52WvNMUt7Pk