Analysing: Lloyd in Space

Warning: these articles are originally written in Spanish. Therefore, some things might have changed because of translation issues, use of synonyms and paraphrasing, or to keep a joke and whatnot; however, the context of the article remains intact. You may see a couple of mistakes too, do warn me so I can fix them. If you do know how to read Spanish, I highly suggest looking at the real deal just in case you missed something. Have a nice reading!

The world of Animation is extremely competitive: every time someone makes something new, a small revolution happens inside the industry and everyone tries to imitate and exploit it, like mad scientists looking for a secret formula. There isn't a single animated movie that hasn't contributed with something to cinematography, just like there isn't a single animated series that hasn't contributed to the television industry in one way or another. Yes, even if it wasn't as well-received as it should've or ends up being a total fiasco, there's always something salvageable from every little creation; Animation is closely related to the "trial and error" trick, after all.

Going back to that looking-for-a-formula thing based on previous failure or success, what if copying the exact formula of a previous good product from your own company ends up with a loser hybrid that nobody remembers? If it's supposedly an exact clone down to a molecular level, where did you go wrong in this whole "making a carbon copy of my prize-winning race horse"?

I give you Lloyd in Space, the deformed and asphyxiated brother to the muscular stud that is Recess. Oh Paul, oh Joe, if only it were as simple as having a cheat sheet for the final test that is the public's reception... but no, they had to give Recess a younger sibling and then kick the unborn child when it was barely growing its tiny heart, so they ended up with a malnourished and anemic creature that could barely crawl under the shadow of its gargantuan source of inspiration, until it breathed its last sick breath...

But maybe not everything is lost: there's definitely something to rescue from this family tragedy in the house of Disney, and I'll play my part to find it. Let's start this alien biopsy.

• Premise

Lloyd Nebulon is an alien pre-teen with Miku-green skin, who lives in the space station of Intrepidville (how the heck did writers come up with these names in the 90's?). He lives with his single mother and station commander Nora Li Nebulon, and the supreme "snot in your underwear" of Disney's sisters, Francine, who by the way comes with three additional weapons besides her sociopathic tendencies: telekinesis, telepathy, and a voice as melodic and merciful as a bag full of babies being hit with a bag full of cats in heat.

Lloyd interacts regularly with various characters on the station; most of them are recurring characters in the cast, others just show up on special occasions and some only show up once. Lloyd's group of friends are the ones he interacts with the most, and it's composed of three and a half weirdoes: the Douglas the "brain" (literally, he's a giant talking brain with glasses); the Cyclops cousin of Grimace from the McDonald's franchise named Kurt (the all brawns and no brains of the group); a ginger human named Eddie (the "cool kid" of questionable loyalty to his friends)

 and... well, apparently the station has a sentient robotic extension with British humour called Station (the inept and pacifist love-child of GLaDOS and HAL9000).

It's important to remember that Lloyd's adventures have no chronological order or a true plot: every episode is it's own thing and everything that happens ends up forgotten by the next one; this results in a distinctive lack of character development, so the cast ends up "learning the lesson" and yet makes the same mistakes over and over like dunces with amnesia. This is because the show follows a Sitcom format, you know, the every-day mishaps of your typical north american space family. Or something like that. I don't know, this show has "MADE IN THE 90's" written all over it, no matter how much they try to cover it with pseudo-sci-fi.

• Animation

Nothing to see here. Absolutely nothing. The animation in Lloyd's was the standard 2D technique of the times, when digitalization was more complicated and Flash animation was a wee lil' baby. No 3D planes, minimal movement (normal even for today's series), single colours with no shading and simple but charming designs. Although, when the joke required it they played their part well: the animators may have saved all they could when it came to the little details, but that money went into keeping fluid quick motions and well executed gags.

Another salvageable thing is the character designs: because it takes place in the distant future where different alien races all across the cosmos live their daily lives together, there's quite the variety to go around. Some designs are more creative than others (there's an episode with a giant worm as the tour guide for a wormhole, you judge if that's clever or not), but hey, they actually bothered to make them unique, it's more than I can say about other cartoons I've seen around.

In a way, Lloyd reminds me of The Jetsons: it's the stereotypical every-day life of "today's" family, but in a parody of itself and using a space gimmick based on the sci-fi trends of the times. Therefore, the designs and concepts of space and science in Lloyd's universe obey what was believed (in the early 21st century) to be the possible future of humanity: this show is a testimony of what was then known about space, galaxies, and all those things that would later cause scandals in the world of astrophysics (I'm never forgetting Pluto and the Facebook-relationship-like drama about its planet status). The aesthetics of Lloyd and his universe is a time capsule, and extremely interesting from that point of view.

• Conclusion

Lloyd in Space isn't special. It had bad luck since the day it was aired, as there were many Sitcoms with an "unexpected gimmick" back in the day: from its own sibling Recess to Kim Possible, Pepper Ann and Dough... It lasted about four years with forty episodes, which is quite a lot considering in which situation it was caught in, and that indicates it wasn't a total loss. The first and original broadcast was through ABC Networks (which belongs to Disney) before it was sent over to Disney Channel to a broadcast block on Saturdays, which says even more: Lloyd could've had a chance to thrive, but was cut away too soon and forced to compete with shows that had the same weapons but bigger fame. Could Lloyd have survived if it had been left on ABC's a little longer to gain more street cred? Maybe, you never know.

Ah, almost forgot, anyone remembers how all of Disney's cartoons in the 90's and early 2000's had the absolute need to give life lessons to their pre-teen demographic? Lloyd is no exception, and uses every single topic in the book of "Disney's Recyclable Morals". If you ever sit down one afternoon to watch the channel's broadcasts and then take a look at any random episode of Lloyd's, you can guess with a sniper's accuracy how it will end. This can make the experience of watching it so boring, Lloyd in Space's episodes can be paralleled with kids' cereals: they look charming and colourful and they're good to keep you hanging in there until something more meaningful comes around, but you get bored of swallowing the same junk until it becomes dull and tasteless because you can't take the blandness anymore. Earth to Disney: secret formulas like this one aren't as secret as you thought, and they have side effects and conditions of use.

Signing out!

-Gatt