Next time it will take more than children to save you

     After a fourteen month wait, not atypical for this particular show, Adult Swim’s The Venture Brothers premiered Sunday at midnight (or Monday?). Though this was merely the fourth season, the show has been around since 2004. Thankfully, this season will have sixteen episodes, instead of the usual thirteen, split into two runs, so a wait for season five, if one is ordered, should be shorter.

      The premiere episode was confusing as all get out, jumping around over several months without any obvious way to determine scene order. West Coast viewers had it even worse, because of a mis-airing by the network. For those who saw the full episode, the premise seemed to hinge on whichever superhero Brock most resembled at the time, ordered by value of the original comic book. One of the show’s creators, Jackson Publick, advised viewers to watch the length of Hank’s hair to determine the timeline.

      Because bodyguard Brock Samson quit at the end of season three, the theme song was changed to show a new character filling his role, though long-time fans will remember that the theme song to season two’s premiere was also changed when the Venture Brothers were still apparently dead, but it reverted back to
normal the following week. Because of the plot of this week’s episode, it seems likely this will happen again.
      Overall, the episode was interesting. They used many comic references, again, and paid a wonderful tribute to Raiders of the Lost Ark (see this article’s title). The only disappointment was that, because of the meandering timeline, the villain’s story of cloning Hitler was lost amid the things happening to the principal four characters over the months since season three ended.

      A convenient subplot of The Venture Brothers is that whenever the brothers die, their father just clones them again. While this has been used sparingly up until now, the cloning process was integral to this week’s story. This is important because of the tragic loss of Henchman 24. While Dr. Venture says he can clone him only as a baby, which may provide an amusing plot for 21 for a time, let’s hope 24 returns intact soon.