At last they come across the last human civilization, and it’s not a pretty sight: They’re trapped in an idyllic virtual reality that keeps them safely removed from the dangerous world around them, at the behest of a kindly doctor who may or may not be Finn’s missing mom. Over the course of “Islands,” the group careens across the ocean in an Odyssey-like trip, face down with a moody sea monster and eventually find themselves in an isolated land. Viewed in one sitting, it amounts to a feature-length journey, in which Finn and Jake join forces with the monosyllabic underground dweller Susan on a revelatory journey to find Finn’s mother - not to mention all the other humans mysteriously absent from the Land of Ooo, where Finn spends most of his time with various fantastical creatures. “Islands,” an eight-episode arc that the network released as a “mini-series” on DVD and iTunes last month, marks some of the most exciting storytelling attempted by the show in years.
In the meantime, a new season has started in fine form. Now, with the show finished, Cartoon Network has yet to announce a timeline for the rest of the show aside from plans to air episodes through early 2018. “The fact that ‘Adventure Time’ has a significantly larger audience for that, a more expansive one, is great gravy…but they can’t benefit from it directly.”
“Cartoon Network aims for kids ages two to 14,” said veteran animation producer Fred Seibert, whose Channel Frederator picked up Ward’s original short and has remained involved in the series over the course of its seven season run. “It never really fit into a category, so Cartoon Network didn’t really have a model in which to manage its ever-growing popularity.” And arcane corporate rules prohibited the company from shifting it into the more sophisticated arena of its Adult Swim programming.Įven as the ancillary potential of the show grew, with toys and costumes, comic books and video games, it expanded beyond the narrow parameters of the Cartoon Network viewership. “It was a gradual burn and grew into a realization that this was indeed a massive epic that could be made into a pop culture powerhouse,” the former staffer added.
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