This week, we return to look at episodes thirteen and fourteen, the final episodes in the first season of The Venture Bros.
1. Winged Scene Stealer
Let’s get this out of the way. “The Trial of the Monarch” is frankly a bit of a dud in execution, and the production values are near the bottom of the barrel by the standards of this first season. There is a fun interplay between what is said in courtroom testimony and what is shown that elicits a few laughs, but the jokes don’t come nearly as fast or as furious as previous high point episodes in season one. Having said that, The Monarch saves the episode with his histrionics, withering barbs, and epic tantrums. On trial over the disappearance of a police officer, The Monarch fusses and fumes through courtroom scenes and flashbacks that center around a tell-all book that two minions have published airing the villain’s dirty laundry and, more importantly, the erosion of his relationship with Dr. Girlfriend, or as The Monarch calls her, with a tone of dramatic finality, Dr. Ex-Girlfriend. Aside from this, Dr. Venture, Hank, Dean, and Brock have little to do but bear witness and serve as a peanut gallery through a plot that centers around a feint and the introduction of a shadowy cabal known as The Guild. But the most significant aspect of the episode, and probably why it can be forgiven for not being as chocked full of laughs as previous entries, can be found below.
2. The Big Cs
With the “Trial of the Monarch” The Venture Bros. appears to break away from the one-off nature that has hallmarked the episodes in season one. The episode ends with real consequences instead of The Simpsons-esque storytelling that almost resets the entire board with every episode. The repercussions of this episode trickle into the final episode of the season, signaling the creation of genuine Venture Bros. continuity. The episode is better served for this development, and I imagine the series will reap the benefits of this course change in storytelling. While The Simpsons has survived for thirty years by existing in a kind of hamster wheel of storytelling that perpetually keeps Lisa and Bart in the second and fourth grades respectively, I would contend that the reason that the show doesn’t have the must-see status for many that it used to have is because of this consequence-less conceit, one that Groening and his team would rectify in large part with Futurama. While we have certainly been given glimpses of how events of the past led to the plots of episodes in this season, we have not yet been given any indication that anything happening in the present would dictate anything significant in future plots (aside from perhaps Dean’s crush on Dr. Orpheus’s daughter Trianna). “The Trial of the Monarch” changes all of that.
3. Rocky Horror Picture Whoa
Frankly, the weirder the The Venture Bros. is the better. Arriving home from a very Scooby Doo-sounding adventure and decked out as characters in the cult favorite Rocky Horror Picture Show, Team Venture starts this episode out on the right note. Testing the limits of how many pop culture references can be sustained in an opening scene, Dr. Venture even wears a device that’s a dead ringer for a Ghostbusters proton pack. When Dr. Venture is rushed to the hospital suffering from abdominal pains emanating from a distended belly, things go a little sideways, again twisting something relatively commonplace into something grotesquely funny in typical Venture fashion. In other words, its another plot that is not built on high adventure, rather the adventure springs from something benign, like the tumor that is removed from Dr. Venture’s midsection and proceeds to pilot the X-1 away from the hospital. Yup. That’s about right. The rest is a giant development that bolsters the new continuity-style storytelling for the show, and it has to be seen to be believed.
4. Dr. O
Man, I love Dr. Orpheus. He is far and away my favorite character in this first season, and the necromancer plays a significant role in both of these episodes. When he tells the Venture boys, whom he is babysitting while Dr. Venture is in the hospital, that the remote control has sadly left the material sphere and that the television is stuck on Animal Planet, I actually laughed out loud, something I seldom do when watching television. The normal relationship he has with his teen-aged daughter makes his arch dialogue delivery and theatric hand gestures even funnier. The fact that his achilles heel is that he can’t seem to find a villain to be his chief adversary gives the character a whiff of melancholy, but you wouldn’t know it as he covers it well and with liberally dramatic gusto. I look forward to seeing how this formidable character develops in future seasons.
5. Requiem for a Season
Looking back on the wildly uneven but still promising first season, it’s easy to see how The Venture Bros. continues to chug along into its seventh season. As someone who was initially excited about the show when it premiered only to see my enthusiasm wane as my high hopes for the show were not met initially, this viewing gave me a new perspective. Viewers have to dial into the subversive tone (a term I have used often to describe the show’s style of humor and plot contrivances), and those looking for high adventure or comedy tinged with emotion were often left wanting in this first season. I will likely press on beyond this first season to see where Team Venture’s “adventures” take me. My hope is that they continued to build on the pathos inherent in the Venture family dynamic and that we get more real adventure, not just the conflated kind cooked up by the attention-starved and action-hungry Hank and Dean.
That’s it for season one of The Venture Bros., gang. I hope you enjoyed viewing and/or reminiscing on each episode with me. While there were times that the show tested my patience. It was ultimately worth the investment and more than a few laughs.
