Review: GhostForce “Somnibou; Troublestretch”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Mike accidently breaks Glowboo right before a fight with a mattress ghost, and Liv has to fight her own luck charm when it gets possessed.

OUR TAKE

Another week, another episode of GhostForce doing the minimum effort for us. Mike and Liv get to have the spotlight in the two segments of this week, which I honestly find considerably more interesting than episodes about Andy, though that’s really only because Andy is a more typical kids show protagonist and so episodes about him have gotten to be pretty samey after awhile. Though honestly, you could say the same about Mike, since most of his episodes are about is relationship with his dad or his crush on Charlie. This time seems to be shaking that up even the slightest bit since it’s about him trying to reprogram Glowboo right before another fight, causing the usual expected glitchy robot jokes that I’m sure someone somewhere will find funny. Ya know, now that we’re in the second half of the season, I kinda wonder if we’ll ever get an episode that is just about Glowboo, like maybe a whole episode that is from his computer eyes that shows how he spends most of his day being charged up, or perhaps a ghost takes over his body and he has to fight it in a different more makeshift body. Or maybe even he gets an upgraded body! Or a smaller robot friend who gets a red or yellow body! These are all free ideas, you don’t need to credit me! JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING INTERESTING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Oh yeah and the other episode is about Liv thinking she can’t fight without a lucky charm after it is possessed by a ghost. It’s that same old kind of “the luck was inside you the entire time” sort of things. Again, perfectly fine message, if not kinda just…boring. I’m glad that the Liv episodes continue to be the most interesting though, if only by a slim margin. It thankfully doesn’t seem like they’re just regulating her to what you might expect from more typical “girl story” archetypes, which was honestly in the ballpark considering how by the numbers this show tends to be. Though it would probably be even the slightest more impactful if this was a charm we had seen on her for awhile and only NOW she has to fight and lose it. We’re adding a bit of continuity to these episodes, which I am also very grateful for, but maybe we could use this opportunity to start acknowledging how random these possessions are. Every episode starts with showing a ghost possessing something, but it’s pretty much always out of nowhere and not really caused by anything. The object just glows to indicate it’s possessed but it’s not near anything or nothing is done to it that really warrants it. But I guess that’s what we can expect for at least the rest of the season.