Season One Review: SuperMansion

Back in 2013, Adult Swim ran a contest in association with KFC where a bunch of pilots were developed and fans got to vote on which one they liked the best. Ubermansion, a comedy following a bunch of heroes living in a house together, was produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. With Adult Swim already working with the studio on the perennial Robot Chicken, Ubermansion clearly had the built in audience there, especially when you add in the fact that the pilot starred Bryan Cranston in the role of “Rex”. The pilot won out, and here we are several years later, and a full season was never ordered by Adult Swim. Instead, runners up like King Star King, Mr. Pickles, and others all got full season pickups and a second season of Mr. Pickles is on the way.

But then something happened. Streaming services like Hulu and Netflix were looking for original animated comedy for adults, so it made perfect sense for Crackle to jump right in. The streaming service would pick up 13 episodes of the newly-named SuperMansion and you gotta hand it to the streaming service. Out of all of the other streaming services, this was the biggest advertising push I had ever seen.

With that in mind, one could say the media push was somewhat misguided. Obviously, the banner star was Bryan Cranston whom also serves as the show’s executive producer, but anyone that watched this entire first season of SuperMansion knows that Bryan is really part of an ensemble that is HUGE. This is both a blessing and a curse in the case of SuperMansion, on one hand, you’ve got a lot of characters that you can always write to, on the other, it can be difficult in keeping tabs on everyone.

In the case of SuperMansion, this premise was laden throughout the really early parts of the show, right up until the final three episodes. The final three were ones that HOOKED and did not let go. The action sequences, which had always been strong, were superlative, and the dialogue was wittier with greater inclusion of the villains because they hit the jugular a little better than some of the jokes from the heroes which were usually bathed in spoof syrup.

In terms of cast, this one is MASSIVE. As a matter of fact, the one thing I was relieved about at the end of the season was call for new recruits which I hope results in a smaller cast. Hero Characters like Cooch, American Ranger, and Brad I can really do without because they bore me and exude mannerisms and arch types that have been done ten thousand times before. Hero characters like Lex, Rex, Black Saturn, and Jewbot I want to see a bunch more of. Actually, throw in Black Saturn’s butler and little brother in there too (I’m trying to be spoiler-free here with the latter), because those guys were awesome. The Butler could be a whole episode by himself and I would watch that. In terms of villains, I like Groaner, Devizo is fantastic, and I’m curious to see what else the producers come up with.

In any case, Zeb Wells feels more at home with a series like this. Zeb’s background is tailored for a show like this in terms of his experience in being a writer, and then with all of the Robot Chicken experience, Zeb is like the Chris Nolan of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios in my opinion and SuperMansion Season One is his Batman Begins. The exciting thing will be to see what he does with a second season, because now we know the characters and we don’t have to spend a lot of time of fleshing them out. I wanna see STORIES, the stuff that makes me hook on and doesn’t let go. The final three episodes certainly showcased that a lot better then the rest of the season, and the future looks bright as a result.