MID-SEASON SHORTS REVIEW: APOLLO GAUNTLET Season 2

Posted on May 7, 2013August 29, 2019 by Robert Sayers

Spoilers Below

If you watch only one episode of Apollo Gauntlet, you will automatically hate it – and in my opinion, this is by design. The show pretty much wants to find out who has an open enough mind to take on the clusterfuck that comes with this new world– and if it isn’t your cup of tea – prepare to flee in disgust with the quickness.

To be honest, while catching up on this show (so that I could do this review – seeing as I had never seen it previously), my first reaction was “oh my god, whoever made this needs to be thrown into a fire” and I immediately began thinking up clever ways of telling my editor how much hate I had just grown for the world. But, Apollo Gauntlet eventually grew on me, and I still hate that it did.

Seriously, I was convinced on hating this show– like REALLY convinced, until I realized that I had been missing the joke. Yes, parts of the production value were probably shitty by relative necessity, but more often than not they were on purpose.

There is pretty much zero fucks given per episode; either you ‘get’ it or you don’t. The animation per scene is going to change styles about 3 times at any given point, and eventually what starts out annoying slowly becomes hilarious. At first the ‘one man show’ voice acting was annoying, but eventually its irony dulls out its inherent monotony (also season two features an actual female’s voice #ThankGod).

This is the process of appreciating Apollo Gauntlet – basically undergoing rape which spawns Stockholm syndrome. That may sound a bit … mean, but it’s actually something pretty admirable in terms of media winning over an audience. You reeled me in, you bastards.

I’m literally not going to waste anyone’s time going over the plot that’s been covered here because its cliché by design, the real beauty here lies in how Apollo saunters his way through each scenario that makes it worthwhile.

Right, enough fellacious-ness. The bad: the goddamn sound recording is horrendous and I will not forgive it. The audio levels go up and down, the ‘echo’ effect is inconsistent, and the ‘size of the room’ ambiance is a mess – all of which I refuse to believe is ‘on purpose’. Come on dudes, give me a LITTLE polish, come on! You know I deserve it. The worst part is that to top it all off, the musical portions of the show are perfectly mixed — baffling me into infinity. Also, I know the SUPER stock (probably loyalty-free) sounds are supposed to be purposefully corny but they are driving me up the wall, I would like to see them peppered in rather than slathered on. Finally, it’s not the voice actor’s fault, but that Canadian accent hes rockin’ makes my ears crawl a little, which I’m not sure yet if I enjoy or not.

Honestly, I can’t believe how high of a rating I am about to give, but I do appreciate originality and bad-assery more than most. Fix your fucking sound production bro – and if you’re doing this to me on purpose I am officially not pleased.