Friday, 25 September 2026

'Stuart...' take 2 - Sep 25

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. As soon as I published my opinions on ‘Stuart…’ people began to, err, point out that this was before the S1 finale was published, and that I was wrong. I admit. I was wrong. ‘Stuart…’ isn’t about the multiverse, it is… what is it about?

The show does begin as a show about multiverse – the original Stuart finds the show’s main Stuart (and Bert) and gives her the Interferator (Whatever) for him to go and fix the universe. (An alt-Raj number 1 gives further exposition). They are joined by Denise, Stuart’s estranged ex, and Kripke, who is the dictator in the post-apocalyptic, vaguely Mad-Max-based universe, where the quartet resides. Since Stuart is incompetent, and the other three – mostly too, the foursome begins to travel the multiverse… that is it. That is the whole premise. No fixing, especially intentional one is done. The quartet is just running around, looking for something/someone or other… and if they brought any particular knowhow from their universe, it is quickly forgotten and never mentioned again. Pause.

In fact, in one of the episodes, the ‘main’ Stuart-Denise-Bert-Kripke team meets their variants – an all-scientist team – and aside from their get-up/clothing/etc., the two groups are interchangeable. The original Stuart just as well could have used AI or whatever to clone himself and the other three, and let them lose all over the multiverse – and maybe he did. We do not know. The show’s format has extra-short episodes, impossible for plot development, but wait! We do get it! Pause.

In the episode 1x09, we get to see a Flash fight Mr. Freeze. This is a sharp break away from the rest of S1, where we just saw a bunch of OC crap, and nothing more. I wonder did DC pay to have its’ characters appear on ‘Stuart…’ or were they paid to have this happen. Either way, what happened – happened, and then we got to the season finale, where we learned about the Adversary – we saw neither hide nor hair nor evidence of their activity throughout the S1 – and the team SDBK got trapped/released/stuck/etc. in ‘the real life’, by breaking through the fourth wall. What next?

If ‘Stuart…’ was done correctly and the audiences learned to feel something for the new main 4, then the S1 finale would’ve moved ‘Stuart…’ fully out of the sitcom territory, and into something else. Sci-fi drama, maybe. Instead, there’s nothing, just the epiphany that we are apparently done with the multiverse – the team SDBK appears to be vanquished for the moment – and are doing something more in line with MCU WandaVision, perhaps… or something else entirely.

Again, if ‘Stuart…’ S1 built itself correctly to the S1 finale, we would be honestly worried as to how the universe will fare now that Stuart is unable to fix it for real, but the show did not. Stuart – and his team – have neither done any fixing, and in fact might have caused some of their own damage, as when they moved ‘military Penny’ into a new universe and made her a ‘centaur Penny’ – but we never see the fallout. ‘Stuart’ created at least 6 new universes, but we spent very, very little time in each one, and it’s hard to feel anything for them. In addition, again, we know by now that the original Stuart sent many teams SDBK into the multiverse, and they are interchangeable. This team SDBK is out. Switch onto the next one! We might never know the difference! However ‘Stuart…’ is getting a S2 regardless! Eventually! Did I mention that the real life sucks? Well, ‘Stuart fails to fix the universe’ is certainly doing, and will be doing, its bit to make it even more depressing! Hurrah!

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

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