Season Review: Apollo Gauntlet Season One

What do you get when you take a modern day undercover police officer, send him back through time, and give him magical gauntlets? You get *drumroll* Apollo Gauntlet!

Paul Cassidy is a cop. Due to a rather strange sequence of events that involves alternate dimensions and a pickle-man monster, he finds himself as well as his arch-nemesis, Dr. Benign, transported to a medieval-esque world, complete with kings, queens, and even a supervillain. After a brief run-in with a giant, he stumbles upon a magical suit that gives him superpowers! Donning the name Apollo Gauntlet, our hero decides to… do hero stuff. Apollo and his crew of “helpers” go on some pretty wild adventures and get into some crazy hijinks. They go from searching for a magical ring to preventing the assassination of the royal family and even have time to go on a nice, relaxing camping trip, amongst other things.

Apollo Gauntlet isn’t an over the top action cartoon, with power-ups, energy blasts, and screaming battles, nor is it something that relies strictly on its comedic efforts. Apollo Gauntlet knows this and is able to blend action and comedy pretty damn well, with each episode having just the right amount of both elements. At the same time, each episode feels unique and different and is actually driven by a plot. As a whole, there is a bit if an air of nonchalant-ness that flows through the show, but this actually suits the show perfectly. It’s like the creators said “Ok, we’re going to do this, but we aren’t going to try too hard to make this work, but we’re going to make this work”, and that exactly what makes it work.

Apollo himself seems like a pretty laid back dude but make no mistake. He will use the entire arsenal of WWE to lay the smackdown on his adversaries, all while providing commentary to go along with it. On top of that, he can dance. Apollo Gauntlet is the quintessential definition of a show that belongs on Adult Swim’s late-night programming block. At the same time, I can’t compare it to any of the other shows on Adult Swim because it stands alone. Apollo Gauntlet really has its own flavor. Its animation flows smoothly and the voice acting is great as well. There is a lot of good stuff packed into the short 11 minute long episodes that honestly left me wanting not only to see longer episodes of Apollo Gauntlet but also wanting more episodes of Apollo Gauntlet. I binge-watched the entire 6 episode season, only to find myself disappointed when the credits rolled on the final episode because there was not another episode to watch next. I could easily see myself watching the entire series again just for the hell of it, and I truly hope there’s more to come in the future.

I’m not going to lie, it does take somewhat of a special sense of humor to laugh at all of the jokes that are told in Apollo Gauntlet, and the humor does run a little dry at times. Even still, I found myself laughing out loud out loud as the way appropriately outdated pop culture references fit in perfectly in the world of Apollo Gauntlet. For example, in one particular scene, Apollo faces a giant rock golem. While being encouraged to take on the challenge of the defeating the beastly beast, Apollo’s at-the-time companion says “Come on – it will be just like Shadow of the Colossus”. I laughed way too hard at this joke, and there are much more just like it spread throughout each episode.  If you’re looking for a nice little something to add to your queue of shows to watch, go ahead and throw Apollo Gauntlet on there. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Apollo Gauntlet kicks ass. Literally. Sure his pop-culture references don’t always make sense to those living in the day of the sword and shield, but who cares when your psychically linked magical talking gauntlets understand all your corny jokes anyway? As a series I give Apollo Gauntlet:

SCORE
8.5/10

You can stream every episode of Apollo Gauntlet right now on adultswim.com or catch each episode individually at 12:15 am, on Sunday nights.