Season Review: Camp Camp Season Five

Four years after quietly disappearing from our mobile devices, Rooster Teeth’s lesser known series Camp Camp returned for a new episode as part of the celebration of the company’s twentieth anniversary. The old cockbiters were going through a few rough years at the time (partially self-inflicted), but reaching this milestone was monumental, and while Camp Camp was never RT’s flagship show, its return was met with great reception, giving the characters and fans some satisfying closure while sending them off with a timeless lesson about accepting change. But they weren’t done yet, as along with this new episode’s release came the announcement of a new season. Much shorter than usual, sure, but it was at least a sign that the creative gears hadn’t stopped yet. So, after another few months, Camp Campbell was finally back with new stories with everyone’s favorite set of campers. It was a solid start, not the best but not the worst, with a new counselor that everyone was iffy about, and kind of undercutting the message of the special. But that was all fine, as it just meant there was a chance for things to improve, maybe even get better then ever!

Less than a week later, Rooster Teeth Productions was announced to be shutting down after nearly 21 years.

As you can imagine, that very much changed the context the remaining three episodes were being released in. In a recent Twitter thread by show writer Eddy Rivas, he confirmed that these episodes were made to assess how they did before deciding to make more, with several episodes and ideas already in the works past that if they did well enough. But now, what was likely meant to just be the softest of reboots was very likely what the show would need to end on, which it was very much not equipped to do. Nonetheless, attitudes toward the season soured as what was less than an hour of content had now become the rushed resolution to a series they had watched and grown to love for many years. You may have noticed that I haven’t really gotten into reviewing the season itself yet, but I hope I’ve made it clear that there is a lot of context here to unpack in order to view these episodes as clearly as possible. In fact, amusingly, there might be more to talk about with the context than with the handful of episodes we got, because they weren’t meant to be major episodes in the first place!

I already mentioned my thoughts about the premiere, but it does pretty much set the tone for the other three episodes, for better or worse. There’s things that are the same, like getting all of the main cast back (aside from recasting all the white actors who were playing non-white characters), having the camp setting, and the usual antics that come from counselors trying to wrangle a bunch of kids. But then there are the things that are different, like the absence of characters outside the camp that they probably couldn’t afford to bring back (the biggest loss of which being Cameron Campbell), the addition of CJ as Cameron’s bastard son who MIGHT have taken the camp over, and some characters getting slight redesigns to reflect how it’s been months between this and last season. To its credit, the episodes try to lean into the chances sparingly to focus on the core concept of the show that people like, but still takes moments to show how certain characters have grown or developed. I’m grateful they didn’t try to immediately shove CJ into everything, but the downside is we get to the end of the four episodes with him just kinda being…there most of the time. Considering we know there were more episodes written, we very likely would’ve had more chance to get to know him in those, but alas.

The premiere also, as mentioned, goes back a bit on things the 2023 special went into regarding accepting change and people moving on. Max begrudgingly accepts these things in that special but then ends up being his usual grumpy self about how people have changed in the premiere. That’s revealed to be him being worried about whether he’s changed enough, but it still feels like a lot of time backtracking. Speaking of backtracking, after Gwen seemed to finally find her calling in the special, she ends up back at the camp not as a counselor but as a journalist gathering details for who she works for. Putting aside that she would be way too biased to give a distanced view of the situation for a story, it’s actually probably for the best that she’s back. Her dynamic with David as the more cynical and tougher counselor would definitely be missed, and espeically given the weirdness of this season maybe being the last, it would’ve only hurt the reception of it more if there was a Gwen sized hole. Not to mention we wouldn’t have gotten “The Talk” which definitely edges out as the best of the four, due in no small part to Gwen often embodying the hapless elder Millenial who now has to guide children who are as lost as she is.

Yeah, it’s basically just the first and third episodes that are really worth going into detail about, since the second and fourth are basically just your typical Camp Camp stories. Not bad by any means, but definitely not gonna place on any Top Ten lists. This “season” was only ever meant to be about testing the waters to see if there was an audience for more, which it seems to have succeeded at…even if it came a bit too late. Some have said they would rather the show end with last year’s special and pretend these episodes don’t exist, which I get to some extent since that special felt like as good an ending as the show could get. But getting these episodes feel like a nice bonus, giving us a glimpse of where the show was going and still might if we’re lucky. With RT closing down, many people will be discussing their favorite shows from the company’s run, so it’s possible this one might get lost in the shuffle, even more so this truncated batch of episodes, but I’m glad I could at least give them their due. Because someone fucking has to.