Soldiering on With "Steven Universe"

Spoilers ahead.

It's about time I checked back in with Steven Universe and crew, who have withstood another few rounds of long hiatuses as they keep chugging along.  I think that we're at or near the end of the fifth season, but it's hard to say for sure. Also, Cartoon Network's scattershot scheduling continues to do the show no favors.  I spent most of the year a little frustrated that the story was being so drawn out, with not much progression happening until the last handful of episodes, where everything accelerated to a string of good payoffs.

Let's take stock of where we are.  Jasper is still incommunicado. Greg is still rich.  There have been no new fusions. It also doesn't appear that there are any real looming threats to Beach City at the moment - nothing on the same level as the Cluster or Malachite.  On the other hand, Steven finally made his first visit to the Gem Homeworld, which was awfully brief and a little anticlimactic. Lars has turned into a pink space pirate with a Captain Harlock cape and a crew of "off-color" gems."  Sadie and the Cool Kids have formed their own horror-movie themed band, which has been very entertaining. There's also been a regime change in Beach City, landing the former Mayor Dewey behind the counter of the Big Donut.

For a long while, nothing much seemed to be happening with the Crystal Gems.  Steven and Connie had a minor estrangement, and Lapis briefly left Earth with the barn in tow.  Instead, the show had a big arc exploring Pink Diamond's history on earth, finally leading up to the big revelation that Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond were the same person.  This had been heavily hinted at earlier in the series, and I actually assumed they were the same person until the whole story about Rose shattering Pink Diamond came into play.  Anyway, this explains Pearl's unusual devotion and history of clamming up. I suspected that Pearl was Pink Diamond's servant just because of her coloring, but wasn't sure why that loyalty had transferred to Rose.  The answer was so simple, and not nearly as dark as I'd expected. That's a nice outcome.

All in all, these are positive developments, and the individual episodes have been enjoyable.  The character progression for the Beach City folks has been nice to see, and Steven continues to grow and change and learn new things about his Gem heritage and Rose.  The little visual nods to "Revolutionary Girl Utena" are great. However, I can't help comparing these episodes to the early ones, where we were spending much more time with the Crystal Gems.  The Garnet wedding and the Amethyst spotlight episode just served to emphasize how scarce these characters have been. I've wondered whether some of the voice actresses might be too busy to record new episodes.  Certain storylines feel so dragged out now, and there are little subplots like the Rubies and Peridot's fusion jitters that the creators seem to have entirely forgotten about.    

Meanwhile, others are suddenly being sped up like there's no tomorrow.  I like where the show is going with the Diamonds, though the recruitment of Blue and Yellow felt awfully quick.  Really, the last couple of episodes were very rushed, pulling elements like the Cluster back into the mix that haven't even been namechecked in ages.  I'm glad to see Bismuth again, and learn that Lapis has finally found some courage, but the reunions happened so fast that a lot of potential impact was lost.  We had several episodes dealing with the fallout of the Pink Diamond revelation, but suddenly it's urgent to get Steven back to Homeworld to talk to White Diamond about the corrupted gems, and everything else is on the backburner.  

"Steven Universe" has been on long enough now that I'm not worried about the show being cancelled abruptly the way that the "Thundercats" reboot was.  However, their scheduling remains frustrating, and the ratings continue to slide. That means that the show will become a lower and lower priority for Cartoon Network until they end up holding back the last chunk of episodes to run all together as a finale event in a few years.  See "Adventure Time," which amazingly just ended a few weeks ago. So, I may stop trying to keep up with the newer "Steven" episodes until that happens.    

Or maybe that recently announced "Steven Universe" movie will help jump start interest again.  Here's hoping.

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