NipplesAndToes23
Member
I came onto Jem and the Holograms way after it finished airing when it appeared on the Hub a few years ago and watched following episodes through TV/YouTube. This show quickly became one of my favorites due to the absurdity in the Misfits and Eric Raymond's plans and the heartfelt character centric episodes. Some bypassing thing reminded me of the show this year and I decided to rewatch it on Netflix making this my third run through the entire series.
Every episode throughout the show's three seasons isn't good however, but let's take a quick look at the best and weakest of Season 1.
The highlights of Season 1 are "The Beginning", "Disaster", "Starbrights Pts. 1-3" and "The Jem Jam Pts. 1-2".
We're introduced Jerrica Benton who recently inherited a music label and foster home from her deceased father. Eric Raymond, current CEO, is introduced here and without knowing anything about the show I could tell from his face that he was going to be a villain. Now Jerrica owns half of the company along with Eric and seeks a way to get control as Eric refuses Jerrica to make any decisions for the company.
At this point, Jerrica discovers a pair of earrings left by her dad that are remote devices for a supercomputer that projects holograms and sound. With this new technology and some instruments and costumes found along with the computer Jerrica Benton becomes Jem a rock n roll singer, and creates the band Jem and the Holograms to enter a Battle of the Bands contest to gain control of her company Starlight music.
We get our first dose of Misfits fuckery in this episode with their introduction causing Jem and the Holograms to swerve off a road and almost falling off a cliff. Throughout the shows run we'll have plenty more examples of things they've done that they should've been in jail for. In this first episode the Misfits and Eric Raymond commit breaking and entering, arson, assault, and theft. All this fuckery in one episode is what pulled me in.
Coming back to this first episode forgot how bad the animation was in the first few episodes. This shit looks rough. The animation does get better later on though and it changes a few more times throughout the shows run.
From there "Disaster" and "Battle of the Bands" conclude the arc set up in the first episode. We get more of the Misfits and Eric Raymond's over the top criminal actions with my favorite from this one being when the Misfits hijack a yacht almost crash it into another ship. This is the first time someone mentions calling the cops, but Kimber says "we'll get the last laugh". I was like okayyy.
The "Starbright" episodes is where start to see some of the depth in the characters. Kimber tries to flirt with one of the actors in their movie and gets cut cold. She first meets the stuntman Jeff here who will become important later. What irked me a bit in this episode is how the black makeup artist believes what Pizzazz says about Jem and talks behind her back later on and then later feels ashamed when she finds out she was wrong. These episodes also revealed that Pizzazz actually has a rich father which made me go from thinking that she's tough to that she's a spoiled brat.
The Jem Jam episodes was notable to me because of the celebrity guests. Here we have fake Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, and Michael Jackson. The highlight for these episodes for me were the interactions between the Michael Jackson character and the black Starlight girl Krissie. He's pompous and spoiled, but the two come together once he has a near death experience and Krissie tries to console him.
The weakest out of S1 for me were "The Last Resort" and "Old Meets New". "The Last Resort" isn't bad it's just not all that interesting and Old Meets New is just boring.
Season 2 kicks off well with "The Talent Search" which are two of the best in the show. Shana leaves the Holograms in pursuit of a career in fashion design and the others create a contest to find a new member. It was very easy to tell who the new one was going to be. Significant characters in this show have an unnatural hair color so I knew it was either going to Craig or Raya and it would go to Raya since the Holograms is an all girl group.
One of the most hilarious moments occur in part 2 when Craig puts the fear of God into Eric and the Misfits. This episode also gives us a bit more of Shana's character as was seen in the Italy episode. Unfortunately, we don't get any episodes after this that focuses on a particular hologram leaving Aja as the only one without a character.
The other highlights from Season 2 include: "The Bands Break Up", "Danse Time", "Roxy Rumbles", "Alone Again", "Out of the Past" "Hollywood Jem Pts. 1-2" and my favorite "The Fan".
The Misfits find an ad in the paper from a millionaire offering a reward for anyone who can give him Jem's identity. They go to his house and propose a plan that will get him his answer. This plan involves building a replica of Starlight Mansion, hiring actors, and making a home video about Jem's life. The Misfits have caused a lot of fuckery throughout this show, but their infliction of psychological damage in this episode takes the cake for me. Oh how I wish I could watch this episode for the first time again. The actors the Misfits hire have photorealistic masks and can perfectly imitate her friends voices so this is totally convincing.
Jem starts to question who she is and her own insanity in this story. The two funniest parts in this episode is when Kimber's actor almost gives herself away when she fails to play a note and then does a very fake faint and when Jem walks into a wall and knocks herself out.
The episode being funny aside, it also shows how stupid the Misfits are. They won and didn't realize it. At the beginning when Jem takes Kimber to the side and says "if anyone should know who I am it's my sister" that should have rung some bells in their head. The actor stupidly says "Alright, tell me who your sister is and I'll ask her,". You know that Kimber is Jerrica's sister so that means Jem is Jerrica! But they continue to be dumb when the Jerrica doppleganger comes in and Jem asks "Now who are you supposed to be?". This Misfits are S-T-U-P-I-D.
This is taking longer than I wanted to so I'll make these last bits short. I have to give props to "Alone Again" too. This was the episode where the Holograms get a new foster child that gets hooked on drugs. They handled it in a mature fashion without making it feel too much like an after school special.
"Roxy Rumbles" gives some depth to the titular character. In "Dear Diary" it was subtly hinted that Roxy couldn't read. I didn't realize it at the time, but on following viewings I caught that little hint. So Roxy can't read and Pizazz and Jetta make fun of her upsetting her. While on a walk she fines a lotto ticket and hits the million dollar jackpot. Like the average poor person who hits it big, she starts going berserk with that money; buying jewelry fancy cars, dropping money carelessly. We find out sista is from East Philly and unlike Pizazz she's the real deal. She used to hang out with thugs on the street and going off the dialogue with those guys we can assume she dropped out of high school too. If the shit earlier didn't suggest she couldn't handle money, then the following sequences lay that out plain. She throws a little carnival/concert for the town and is not prepared for the amount of people. When you giving away free shit, people act a fool and that had cost her all of her money and she wound up running back to the Misfits, smh. This was a really enjoyable episode, however, I thought the reading message was a little forced.
"The Bands Break Up" is a cute little episode. The two most meager and naive members of each band wind up together and the duo performance threw me for a loop. Who expected that voice to come out of 19 year-old Kimber? Bitch sound like she's thirty-five. I've seen a lot of people on the internet say that they get lesbian vibes from Kimber and Stormer's relationship in this, but I don't and I'm a lesbian. I knew despite Kimber and Stormer having experience in the music industry that they were going to get fucked by that contract because both of them are naive as fuck. That wouldn't have worked on Jem or Pizazz.
"Out of the Past" may very well be my favorite episode as it gives the origin of Synergy and the history of Kimber and Jerrica's mother and their father's death. It's a rather touching episode, but I can't understand why Jerrica decided to try and talk to Eric. She should have made a distraction with Synergy and stole the album back. Instead, she tries and talk Eric out of it and his response was basically, "bitch, do you think I was playing" and tossed the albums into the fireplace. Jerrica's father was a next level genius by creating Synergy. With all the uses for it it baffles me that the main use for it is an arbitrary music persona that I think she should've ditched after the first episode.
Season 2 has a lot of good, but a good bit of bad ones as well. "Shangri-La", "Journey Through Time" and "Renaissance Man" were so boring and veered off from the usual feel of the series. As I mentioned earlier there are a lot of episodes in this season where the animation changes. "Music Is Magic" written by Batman TAS writer Paul Dini is animated like a Scooby-Doo cartoon and even has music similar to it. These episodes stick out like a sore thumb and usually indicates to me that I won't enjoy it with the exceptions of "Music Is Magic" and "The Presidential Dilemma".
Though Season 2 had a quite a few bad episodes, I feel that Season 3 is actually the weakest. Apart from "The Stingers Hit Town" "A Change of Heart", "Riot's Hope" and the final episode "A Father Should Be" I don't care for it. A few other episodes are watchable, but with the season being so short their flaws stick out more.
The first two episodes introduce us to the new band villains The Stingers who I find enjoyable, but not as interesting as The Misfits. These first two episodes had me confused at first. I legit thought Riot had Kilgrave powers in those two episodes because he calmed a rioting crowd with his voice and later another riot happened and when he dragged Jem out of it he said "Things usually calm down after I leave". I was disappointed when I found out it wasn't true. That would've been a funny running gag.
But the two best episodes here are "Riot's Hope" and the finale. I never thought I'd feel sympathy for Riot who came across as a complete douche. His relationship with his father and mother was pretty sad. Bonnie's desperation to find out about her father in the next episode was equally touching. The resolution from Riot's episode continues here when Jem asks Riot to ask his father for military records that could let to Bonnie's father.
It leads down to three men all with red hair. One works in a factory and is certain he isn't the father, the next is a gambler who only claims Bonnie when he finds out the girl is one of Jem's foster kids, and an artist with amnesia. You'll probably figure out who is the real father, but the exposition of it was entertaining to go through. One thing that bothered me with this episode though was how The Misfits came in to congratulate Bonnie and see her off when every episode before we see that they hate children and don't give a shit about the Starlight girls. Stormer is the only one I'd believe would actually do it, but she wouldn't go there if the other members weren't. That scene came off as it was the last episode so they wanted the Misfits to make one final appearance so they shoehorned them into this scene, despite it being out of character.
Overall I still like this show as much as I did when I first started watching it. I wanted to say a lot more but this became too long and I started to be all over the place. For any other Jem fans here. What do you like about the show and what are you favorite episodes?
Also, before I forget, fuck the movie!
