TV Database Gargoyles (1994)

OmegaMeistro · Feb 20, 2025

This cartoon has no reason to slap this hard. The writing is so freaking great and mature for a children's TV show. Granted, it's not quite on the level of the more consistently great X-Men: The Animated Series or even Batman: The Animated Series, but I feel like it deserves to be sitting among them, particularly season 1.

While not every episode is perfect, this epic saga really showed Greg Weisman's talent as a storyteller that he would bring forth to The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series. It's an amazing showcase of what a children's cartoon could do without being preachy or patronizing while still offering great entertainment for older audiences.

Also, the music, god, the theme song is iconic and badass af! It's so epic and majestic! Everytime I hear that theme in the show... literal chills.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 9, 2025

The show lives again! For a second season! With FIFTY-TWO episodes! Phew.

And in the season premiere, Xanatos shows that he's basically a shark trapped in a small guppy pond because he just screws around with Saturday morning cartoon plots for the lulz (also for testing out his Doombot), practically calling the plot of the episode itself (with its revenge theme) a cliche.

Meanwhile, the Gargoyles team retains some nice little details that showcase their character development, like Lexinton's rage at The Pack or Broadway's immediate destruction of the enemy's gun. Just these easily missed small little details that show how fleshed out and complex these characters are in a Saturday morning cartoon.

This will be a fun ride, I'm sure, just trying to pick out the little details on the show obviously meant for an older audience.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 9, 2025

If you've seen "Spectacular Spider-Man" (or have ever picked up a Spider-Man comic like me), this episode should be familiar to you by now. You can see traces of Greg Weisman's Norman Osborn and Max Dillon in Xanatos and Derek's character arcs, respectively, not to mention the mutates' tragic origins making them essentially The Sinister Six. The man is like Xanatos himself, planning Spectacular's storyline long before the show was released.

Human trafficking as a theme though, damn. This was definitely Disney's Batman: TAS, tapping into mature allegories under an animated guise. And at 52 episodes? That's a lot of greatness to be consumed...

OmegaMeistro · Mar 9, 2025

Basically, Greg Weisman's "Othello" but as a Saturday morning cartoon. Whether it's heavy mature themes of human trafficking or riffs on Shakespearean plays, this series continues to surprise at every turn. I also enjoy the creative use of technology with the Gargoyles' magic and the supernatural element of souls.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 12, 2025

Most of my knowledge about King Arthur comes from Fate/Stay Night, so. lol

This was a neat episode though that focuses on illiteracy through the character of Hudson and his newfound companionship in Jeffrey Robbins, a blind author who's well-read and will probably be giving Hudson reading lessons. It's a pretty heartfelt episode that explores the beauty of literature without being preachy, basically the strength of most Gargoyles "message" episodes.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 12, 2025

Basically a "be careful what you wish for" episode with the amusing Puck from Midsummer Night (though the only Puck I know of came from Berserk and the only Oberon I know of came from SMT lol).

It's a fun little episode where Eliza gets to experienced the life of a Gargoyle, along with the rest of New York. Eliza and Goliath's interspecies romance also comes to the forefront for the first time because of it. It's cute, the two of them together.

Demona though got more than she bargained for. Sure, she could walk in the day now, but the tradeoff is becoming one of those inferior humans she despises so much. Oof. That's some Shakespearean poetic justice there.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 12, 2025

My headcanon is that Matt Bluestone is just animated Fox Mulder working a secret mission to expose The Illuminati instead of aliens this time and got partnered up with Elisa Maza. lol You could totally imagine his "I Want to Believe" posters at his home.

Of course, what seems like a red herring episode that's merely an excuse to have the naive and adorable Broadway partner up with Elisa in a buddy cop episode turned out to left behind more than just a generic gangster name, but more on that in future episodes to come, it seems.

It's a pretty decent Broadway episode though, even if it has that Saturday morning cartoon vibe where the senior character has to put up with the goofball tagging along. To be fair to Broadway, he is at least competent enough to justify tagging along instead of just completely screwing up the case.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 14, 2025

PEAK. GARGOYLES. EPISODE.

Just had to get that out of the way. But let's go more into the why.

So, finally, we get to learn that Xanatos has a heart after all, not just a cold and calculative magnificent bastard whose only goal is his endless schemes. This episode is the culmination of every single Xanatos development, period, doing something few Saturday morning cartoons had ever done: evolving its villain into an anti-villain. Initially, I was skeptical about Xanatos' supposed love for Fox when Goliath first learned of it, but by the end of the episode, I'm convinced too that this is genuine affection this time, after all the signs that pointed at his mask falling apart: secretly expressing anxiety away from Owen's gaze when he learned Fox might die for one thing, and giving up the Eye of Odin to Goliath for another (as opposed to pulling a Xanatos trick again to retrieve the Eye in a final scene or something). Even Owen all but confirmed it with his final line this episode: "Actually, Mr. Xanatos, I believe (Goliath)'s right - you've never looked more heroic." And instead of dismissing it as "all part of the plan," Xanatos this time instead said, "A momentary lapse."

But the amazing character development didn't stop with the antagonist either. Goliath has become wise to Xanatos' act (a mere six episodes after the season began) and had anticipated Xanatos' manipulation. WHAT?! You mean he didn't just get used again like a tool until the end of the season? That's insane. Clever writing on a kids cartoon, ladies and gents, and it gets better because both Goliath and Elisa literally called out on the Xanatos Gambit trope, knowing that there's always a Plan D, E and F if Plan C fails. That's some unbelievable self-awareness on an animated series in the '90s on the level of Batman: TAS (stay bitter, Bruce Timm).

And speaking of our favorite mixed blood police officer... Aside from spitting truth bombs this episode, Elisa also gets a pretty cool romantic subplot this episode as she dances with Goliath in what can only be conceived as a Belle costume from Beauty and the Beast as part of the Halloween block party, when Goliath and the other gargoyles are free to roam as themselves. Disney's being coy about this homage, but it fits perfectly for the couple.

I like the Beauty and Beast theme too that parallels the two couples this episode, especially with Fox going werewolf here thanks to the Eye of Odin that Xanatos gifted her. Guess she's more of a Wolf than a Fox now. Hah! And it never ceases to amaze me the level of mythology this series could expand to, whether it's riffs on Shakespeare, the Illuminati being an actual threat, fairies being actual beings, and now, we've got werewolves on top of it all, damn!

And that werewolf is well-animated too because you could feel the strength and ferocity of the beast, not just cartoon-level monster. She easily burst through the door and easily ripped apart the elevator doors like it's paper in a single second, that momentum feeling like a high budget live action movie than a cartoon. That beastly screech at the end as she turns back to Fox is disturbingly chilling too, sounding like a real animal in pain and, again, sounding like an actual movie monster instead of having a cheesy cartoon sound effect.

Overall, if I'm to convince anyone Gargoyles is must-see TV, I'll be tempted to point them to this episode, but it's just not the same without the build-up and the prior knowledge of past episodes because this episode subverts A LOT of preexisting knowledge you have about Xanatos and Goliath, significantly developing them. It's a masterclass in serialized animation that Greg Weisman will expand tenfold in The Spectacular Spider-Man later on, but Gargoyles is just as mind-blowing so far the level of quality it has no reason to have. I'm constantly amazed episode after episode that this was a Disney cartoon because I've never seen a Disney cartoon with this level of sophistication.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 14, 2025

Like a comic book, after the conclusion to the previous story arc, the series begins setting up for the next one, The City of Stone arc. Unfortunately, this requires shifting a number of moving parts, including introducing the Illuminati as an actual organization rather than an ambiguous existence; David Xanatos' father, Petros, paying him a visit; and finally, a tricky time travel bootstrap paradox that involved both Xanatos and Demona altering their past in one form or another.

Time travel's always tricky to write because of all the rules in quantum physics. However, while the bootstrap paradox (looping one event's cause of occurrence with the occurrence itself, à la David sending himself the ancient coin from the past) is somewhat of a cheat (à la Deus Ex Machina), because it's Xanatos, the main with a thousand backup plans, I think it's convincing that it's a foolproof plan, one that ensures Xanatos will get that coin no matter what. Furthermore, you have to remember: the man has the Illuminati's assistance. The Illuminati. Brilliant organization said to manipulate from the shadows for centuries? It's little surprise Xanatos' plan worked, at all.

As for the Demona paradox? I don't think it's so much as fatalism and more like free will; she chose to remain that way despite her memories of how horrible her future self's genocidal attitude looked like to her in 975 A.D. It just makes her arc that much more tragic when you see it that way, and I don't think it's a coincidence either, with how convoluted Greg loves his writing, for better or worse.

The way Goliath kinda just shuffles away to his lonesome, thinking that nothing has changed for Demona despite his attempt, it's just pretty depressing. At least if it had been fatalism, he could have blamed it on some omniscient deity. But it's not, and I think Goliath knows this, as you don't exactly need a PhD on quantum physics or fatalism vs. free will to realize that Demona chose to remain that way.

There is perhaps one aspect of fatalism, however, or perhaps, determinism even: David, despite having concocted an entire time travel scheme spanning decades of his life just to impress his father that he's a self-made man, was still rejected by Petros by the end as Petros saw character, not wealth, as a far more valuable trait, tossing him an ordinary American penny since "it's all you seem to care about." Brutal.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 15, 2025

We get to learn more of Demona's past in what's essentially a take on the real King Macbeth, not the Shakespearean revisionism. I have zero knowledge on both the historical figure and the play itself, so this reads more like Lion King to me. lol

Some pretty interesting setups for the four-parter as roles are reversed once again for the Gargoyles and humans. I get the feeling that this arc will either be Demona's redemption arc or at least make her more sympathetic. You could easily see here why the series of misunderstandings led to her hatred of humans, but at the same time, it's also kinda her fault what happened to the Gargoyles, something she's unwilling to admit.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 17, 2025

It's casual murder day on Gargoyles, the Disney kids television. But I guess if there's no blood, it's okay for the family. Kids are too dumb to read the subtext.

I guess the story arc will explore the theme of how vengeance is empty and the good guys have to play nice and stuff. It's not necessarily a bad message, but I've seen it played out so many times already, especially on animated series.

If you know your Macbeth, his future with Duncan and Lady Macbeth should be pretty clear. They'll probably change a few things, but it's pretty obvious who the new hunter is and why he's after Demona.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 17, 2025

Cool rendition of the Macbeth/Duncan lore. I also think he shouldn't have spared Canmore as it just continues the chains of vengeance; this was one situation where getting your hands dirty might have been the right choice.

Nice to see the humans deal with the aftermath of Demona's murder spree (that one lady who didn't watch TV got lucky), but it might have been cooler if they had addressed the multiple deaths (and the one amputee).

OmegaMeistro · Mar 17, 2025

Bruce Wayne: "Then it will happen this way: You make the kill, but your pain doesn't die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won't know why."

There were many great stories about revenge, especially across the many plays of Shakespeare where many kings usurp each other over and over again, so much so that the ubiquitousness has left the standard revenge tale rather formulaic. There's nothing much to say about it that hasn't been said.

However, it can be done well enough to be reminded why the old parable of revenge poisoning your soul can be effective. It speaks to that simple notion of getting even, that blur line between justice and vengeance. And it's particularly tragic for Demona here, who's so blinded by revenge that she caused her own downfall every step of the way. I especially love that her passcode chosen was "Alone". She knows she's cursed to walk this thorny path by her lonesome, but she keeps drinking out of the poisonous goblet of vengeance.

Poor Macbeth though, as he's largely innocent here, merely misguided, no thanks to Bodhe. What a jackass. Bodhe reminds me of Albert Nimziki from Independence Day, who's also a yellow-bellied slimeball. Similarly, Bodhe's every advice here is self-serving and undermined Macbeth every step of the way, only that Macbeth didn't have President Whitmore's wisdom to kick Bodhe to the curb.

And what of those Weird Witches? They also seem kinda dickish, just setting up tragedies like it's a play. What's their play, their stake in all this? I guess "that's another story... for another day," as they said. What annoying trolls.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 19, 2025

This was a pretty decent one. It's not big on significant plot and merely to move the different players into place for a possible war coming up, but it does showcase once again the Manhattan Clan's intelligence when infiltrating Macbeth's castle. Macbeth's scheme is brilliant as well, using Coldstone as a red herring.

The fight between Elisa and Demona (in her human form) was amusing because even while fatigued, her police training means she's still a better fighter than Demona in terms of h2h.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 19, 2025

Renard is an interesting addition to the show. With so many schemers around, it's always nice to have someone old-fashioned, a human no less, who still values honor and integrity on this cynical show (Macbeth also kinda counts as that, but he's more of a morally ambiguous villain).

Fox's revelation is wild. The plot thickens, as they say. I think it's great that we finally made her a more integral part of the cast with this revelation rather than just being Xanatos' wife who occasionally has a few lines.

Vogel looks suspiciously like Owen, and Owen used to work under Renard like Vogel... Intriguing.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 19, 2025

"All magic comes with a price." - Rumpelstiltskin

Ah, Hudson. Why you so old, Hudson? Dragging down them Gargoyles like that. It'd be easy to criticise the oldest member of the Manhattan Clan as being a burden to the team as he hardly seems to contribute much in terms of combat or even wisdom. Many episodes often utilized him by showing how out of touch or even illiterate he was (the latter point was resolved after he met Jeffrey Robbins, but it remained a plot point of Hudson whenever he was in the scene), while most of the strategic prowess came from either Goliath or Lexington, the younger generations.

This episode, however, resolves that issue by showcasing not just his ability to maneuver through sticky situations, but the kind of wisdom and experience someone who's hundreds of years old could provide, specifically in regards to the true meaning of immortality that exists beyond flesh and biological age.

Of course, to someone like Xanatos, who had saw love as a weakness, he could merely see the immediate effect of age and how he refuse to be part of that equation. That's how he always lived his life, after all; sees a problem, resolves the problem. But perhaps some of Hudson's wisdom much have rubbed off on him by the end, however little.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 22, 2025

Matt Bluestone and Fox Mulder as a character shouldn't work nowadays as our modern day equivalent of a conspiracy nut isn't exactly charming or flattering, just a lot of flat-earthers and false flag assassinations (see Joel McHale's take on the Mulder type in season 10 of The X-Files, for example).

And yet, being a relic of their time, they were written with enough charisma, and more importantly, humanity, that much like the Don Drapers and Gregory Houses after them, they tapped into a kind of relatable quality in us as people: in their case, the passionate search for the truth, for some scrap of rationality amidst the chaotic discord between political agendas.

And to Matt's benefit, this being the world of the Gargoyles, he's even more validated in questioning the existence of a secret society working behind the scenes since centuries past. We've already confirmed the existence of The Illuminati in previous episodes, but it's here that the characters finally get in touch with one of its members in the flesh, even having our Mulder here making a deal with the Devil CSM style.

It's a tight episode that moves along efficiently in terms of bringing Matt's quest to a satisfying climax. The only flaw I would point out - and it's a big one - is perhaps his unnatural exposition dump at the beginning narrating his quest like he walked out of a noir radio drama. It served the intrigue of the episode's plot well enough, but it just felt so forced in a way that this show rarely did. Ah well.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 22, 2025

For a while now on this show, Greg Weisman's plotlines felt intricately plotted like that of a comic book, particularly reminding me of Gerry Conway and especially Roger Stern's takes on Spider-Man. Therefore, it only makes sense that we'd inevitable get a Clone Saga for this show as well, except that Thailog is a lot more sociopathic here than Kaine (even creeping up to Elisa in a predatory way).

Still, for a creature that has lost much of his family, this is a significant development for Goliath, even if it comes in the form of, as he accidentally put it, "an abomination." For Xanatos, however, this is enough of a threat that it gives him pause about his mistakes for once. That's how you know how dangerous Thailog might be: that the Xanatos himself is worried he might have gone too far in some places. And it makes sense: Xanatos' intelligence mixed with Goliath's strength? A lethal combination that will make him an even more formidable foe than Demona.

But as fascinating as this sounds, it's campy Saturday morning cartoon material, not the kind of psychological warfare I'm more used to on this show. A bitter spawn bent on destroying his parent is old hat for a '90s show (see "Angel" and "Xena"), so I hope Gargoyles will bring something more refreshing to the table in the future.

OmegaMeistro · Mar 22, 2025

I wasn't a big fan of The Pack as they felt like the gimmicky kind of villain group you would find in a comic book or a Power Rangers episode. The fact that Wolf raised his fist in the air as he escaped while shouting "This isn't over!" really didn't help.

But I suppose that was the point as The Pack's inhuman transformations were properly creepy, even in animation form. It's not quite Aeon Flux level of disturbing yet, but to see how inhuman The Pack had turned themselves into for the sake of grudge really recontextualize what one might think about comic book villains. Sure, Mac Gargan turned himself into a human scorpion, but at least his limbs didn't fall off or bent in horrifying ways.

There's also the theme of teamwork in this episode as The Pack ironically doesn't work well as a team, with Dingo properly assessing that it might have been a mistake working with these mentally unstable psychos. The Manhattan Clan, on the other hand, gets a lesson in teamwork as Goliath is advised by Hudson to pick a second-in-command, resulting in a show of cooperation and strategy that properly showed their synergy in combat.

It's a step-up from your usual Pack-centric episodes, but I wouldn't shed a tear if this is the last I see of them.

I also have mixed feelings regarding Xanatos' motive this time. Usually, he has a practical reason for doing things, but this time, it's just a game, and he got an officer of the law (Elisa) abducted as part of his schemes, so it just seems unusually callous of him.

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TV Database Gargoyles (1994)

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