Note to self, never include a divisive show in a poll.
So, what could be said about Twelve Forever? It was a show that aired for one season on Netflix, and it was ran by a whackjob.
It's only right to get this out of the way. But first we need history. I remember watching the pilot for Infinity Train, well before everyone ruined it for me. I caught a pilot for another show, Twelve Forever, in the recommendations, and while the remainder is history with Infinity Train, production had gone underway for Twelve Forever.
Twelve Forever was created by Julia Vickerman, who had involvement with Cartoon Network as far as Clarence and The Powerpuff Girls, and I so wish it was the Craig McCracken run of the original show because it deserves it. Powerpuff Girls is cancer, Animaniacs is diabetes.
For whatever reason, Cartoon Network passed on the pilot, and it wound up getting sold to Netflix and received an overhaul. Another character who appeared in the pilot was written out due to his rampant whiteness, and replacing Cartoon Network was management firm The Cartel (who aside from this primarily does TV movies for the likes of Hallmark and Lifetime), and PUNY, who are best known for producing the trans-influenced Danger and Eggs for Amazon.
I bring that up because sexuality was a focal point to the show, according to co-producer Shadi Petosky, who called it a "gay coming of age story", more on that later.
But you can't bring up Twelve Forever without bringing up Vickerman, who through a pedophiliac Tumblr post (and summing it up as such until she acted.), basically nuked her credibility, leaving the show on an indefinite hiatus, which at this point is a fancy term for cancelled. Funny thing is, Chris Savino got axed from The Loud House and it's still going, while this isn't. This is a rare time where male privilege can be used credibly, and why am I saying that?
So with that, one question remains. Does this mean the show has been tainted beyond repair? Well it depends on your point of view. I checked out one episode just to get an idea what the trouble was, and, I was interested in more, though whether or not I have time is still up in the air.
Ease of Separation
The extent of Vickerman's contributions is characters and writing the stories. Other than that she doesn't voice the main character, so it's fairly easy to separate the character from the creator. Not to mention as far as I've seen, it's all just about a girl's adventure in a world born through her own imagination. I saw the first episode after knowing of Vickerman's disgusting acts, and it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the first episode.
Though near as I could tell, Vickerman is just a creep and a potential danger, so maybe that's why the offset isn't as strong. Probably why Savino didn't ruin The Loud House because his acts was mostly the climate for work environments back then, and maybe why Skylar Page's departure from Clarence didn't lead to an immediate cancellation. I'd say it's picky thinking, but something tells me Page and Savino focused entirely on people their age.
If there was an episode where Reggie's mom was creeping on a 14 year old, could you let me know?
I like the premise
The idea of kids being reluctant to abandon what they grew up with had been done plenty of times before, but repetitive ideas can be saved by good execution.
First up, this isn't set in California or New York, thank you for picking a setting outside of those done and demolished states (this is supposedly set in Iowa.)
The show features a mix of real world scenarios and a fantasy setting. Each are kept to their ideal domains (the later for Endless, the other for the real world), in a way, this can conceivably be seen as how a child deals with angst of growing up and the worlds they can come up with. Anything that comes out makes sense because I can imagine for how ludicrous they are, a child could've easily made them up.
The characters are otherwise realistic, namely Reggie's family and her awkward best friend, well, that's as much as I've seen of them.
Portrayal of LGBT
My hangup with LGBT/left-leaning insertion lies heavily with how they fit in with the show they go with. The third revival of The Twilight Zone sucks because it's incredibly obvious for example. I can forgive any show with those things so long as it was there from the start.
At some point, Reggie develops a crush on a classmate. Romantic feelings could be had when you're young, Reggie is at the final checkpoint of childhood, and since her sexuality was ambiguous to this point, this is welcome and can be worked on naturally. Plus beforehand there was an implied romance between two male figures.
Point is, have it from the start, or make it your own thing. Well save for Steven Universe which at best is just a hollow shell that never was anything to begin with. Connie's mom was cool though.
This is a better version of Adventure Time
I mentioned this in a tweet, some of you already know I hate Adventure Time, so now it's time to tell you why I feel this way.
I just feel Twelve Forever did the real child in a fantasy setting better than Adventure Time ever could.
The world is powered by a child's imagination where anything is possible in Twelve Forever. Shit happens in Adventure Time. Twelve Forever has a more appealing art style. Adventure Time looks as though the artists drew the characters in a hurry with their eyes closed, held together by elevator pitches they call scripts.
"You are only saying that because you hate the fans of Adventure Time and Twelve Forever has a dormant fanbase at this point" -Everybody, most definitely.
I gotta be careful with what I say with this show, given what led to its end. Maybe I just hate slow establishments, whereas with Twelve Forever we get an idea from the get-go and more and more slowly builds up, whereas Adventure Time is a lot slower and for the most part they expect you to take everything at face value, plus it had no idea what it wanted to be at times (the tone was all over the place until they decided to go the mostly action route by the end of it.), while Twelve Forever felt a bit more grounded tonally.
Overall
Honestly the right thing to do was have the show go on without Vickerman. The Loud House and Clarence went on without Savino and Page, and the show had another producer who could've taken on the role of show runner. Petosky had no other projects running at this point, and many of what happened occurred on her watch.
I'm all for her being gone, there should be no excuse for pedophilia whether it's committed or expressed, but as far as I know, it wasn't done in this show.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wait for MisAnthroPony to call me a pedophile for liking this show, provided he doesn't kill me for saying Animaniacs is shit.
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