Go Team Venture!

It has been since about 1999 that I watched a show and actually looked forward to seeing the "Next time, on XXX" at the end of an episode. That long since Babylon 5 went off the air and there hasn't been a show since that I look forward to like the Venture Brothers. Sure I enjoy shows like Mythbusters and a few others, but they're not shows where the plot continues across episodes; where there's an arc. Venture Bros. doesn't really have a long-term laid out arc like B5 did, but it does have a continuity that I appreciate (something I always loved about the Tick cartoon show -- how the moon continued to have CH carved into it from an episode where Chairface decided to use a huge laser to carve his name in it.) The show's primary theme is failure, and it focuses on a washed-up dude who is living off his father's legacy. A father who was a famous super scientist, but not a great father, and who died while the main character was in college. A lot of the show seems a conscious parody of Johnny Quest, and although I didn't watch much of Johnny Quest as a kid, I do still see the parallels. This show is perhaps the real life Johnny Quest forty years later (in fact, there's a character who is clearly Johnny Quest in the show who is a strung out junkie.) The theme of later consequences of adventures and failure really resonates with me for some reason. Anyway, the show is on hiatus (again) until later November, when the one-hour season finale will air, and then it'll be God knows how long until the next season airs. Hopefully not too long. And hopefully the show is picked up for at least a fifth season, if not more.tv