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...but WAIT! We're not quite ready to call off Season 3 'cause I have just one more show to check out; another recent cartoon from Cartoon Network I've been wanting to review for a while and that is a miniseries full series named Infinity Train. Yeah, sorry I had to declare a last-minute announcement that a scorecard on this show is coming soon but I feel like this and the previous scorecard go along pretty decently as both of their pilot episodes were released close to each other so it kind of makes sense for me to let the Victor & Valentino scorecard lead into this one. Anyways, let's roll! I'm excited to examine why the actual show is worse than the pilot just like the previous scorecard!
HISTORY

I undoubtedly experienced the series before I checked out both the pilot and the series for reviewing purposes. Back when the pilot was very popular online as people were demanding Cartoon Network to green-lit the pilot into a full series, I decided to check out the pilot out of curiosity. I didn't have much of a reaction while watching it but I did see why the pilot is so special according to many people.

It would be a rare occurrence that I would re-watch all the show's episodes because I feel like I needed to see if my points as to why these episodes are flawed or not are valid considering that Infinity Train appears to be one of the more complex Cartoon Network shows and the small amount of episodes. When Cartoon Network aired the first season in its entirety leading up to the last two episodes, I tuned in to take notes and re-evaluate my opinions on a handful of episodes.

Since I have cable, I actually tuned in when the series premiere began airing on the network, specifically to climb along the hype train and apparently, avoid spoilers. But when I first watched the full series, I didn't actually took notes. The reason why was because I originally intended for this scorecard to aim for a 2020 release since I've finalized next season's lineup for the rest of 2019 about two months ago. However, seeing my growing passion and the attention the cartoon community would feed to the series including reviews that ended up making me resist holding the scorecard until next year, I had to axe off a green-lit upcoming Season 4 scorecard, one focusing on Yvon of the Yukon part of a series of 90s Canadian cartoons, in favor of Infinity Train. I felt like I've did the right decision since said cartoon is too obscure to garnish any attention and I originally thought Infinity Train would be a miniseries only for an announcement after the airing of the last episode of Season 1 confirmed the miniseries tag null and void. That did save enough time and space for me to get closer to the planned 100th scorecard.
PIE CHART ANALYSIS

Now what do we have here? A really diverse pie chart at first. The 2nd season (or Book Two as the show likes to call it) came and added more uses of each rating with each episode being unrecommendable at all! But as of the scorecard's release, the only ratings that are used more than once are the ratings at least Middling, Unsatisfactory, and Odious. Book Two gave this show an Unsatisfactory whereas Book One gave us a damned rating. Ouch.

I still have more to cover. Of these ratings, only one of them are GOOD and that's a lousy ample rating. As for the other average and below average ratings, one episode even managed to be a damned episode and half of them BAD. The rest are MEH but there is one mixed bag not so hidden in the scorecard.

And that would be about it. The ratings used to appear more than once but once Book Two rolled around (I honestly think the Book theme in the title doesn't work out), there are a lot mediocre to bad episodes added.
FIRST THOUGHTS

Now at first before I jumped aboard the train that technically doesn't go in a route shaped like the actual infinity sign, I would say that the show looks fine as it is. And I shall explain after a word from the show's main summary, the first season summary that is:
The first season follows 12-year-old Tulip and her two-in-one robot companion One-One in their journey through a seemingly infinite train with limitless possibilities that is traveling through a completely barren wasteland. They are joined by Atticus, an intelligent, talking Corgi and king of a Corgi kingdom in one of the train's cars, as they search for a way to Tulip's home. -sourced from WikipediaWell, this concept seems very similar to an Adventure Time episode called "Dungeon Train" where Finn and Jake get on a train that goes on forever. But comparisons aside, I would say that the idea for this series isn't one of the most interesting I've seen since we're dealing with a kid who is trying to find a way back home but it can have the creativity as the heart of the series as well as express solid character development.

When I inquired the characters, they don't appear to be that fleshed out but I expect them to be distinct and somewhat enjoyable although they do seem to be pretty dull especially Tulip. But then there's the animation that is waiting to blow me away. It looks like the show uses paint to craft the backgrounds and for the most part they look very well-detailed and intricate. Not to mention the different cars the gang travels to might have a distinct atmosphere to them. But then again, almost every 2010's cartoon look like they have great animation but here, it feels like it takes you back to a time when cartoons were used to be drawn on paper and not on the computer and that brings the series some nostalgic value to it alongside the futuristic soundtrack that sounds like it was conducted on a synthesizer.

Judging by the cover, it does look like it has the strength to warrant itself as a great cartoon from the beautifully nostalgic quality and very good creativity. Maybe the characters need to be about as interesting as the animation and creativity, but these two will definitely make the series better, am I right?
WRITING

But noooooooo! These two aspects are there, but it proves me that creativity isn't always a good thing.

Of course, we have the heart of the series, the creativity, but in the final product, it ended up being strange but not in a good way. With some of the cars the gang travels to, they're rather weird or unconvincing fusions that I just seem to be bored at. They seem to look odd enough where it looks like the fusions don't go well with each other. These include Corginia being a mix between Rome and corgis and that dinosaur car where it's dinosaurs in a baseball setting. Because that they lack of any sort of unique detail to really make the looks and description of these cars stand out, they simply look boring and unimaginative. But on the other hand, some of the cars are simple yet effective as the simplicity shines in the area which includes the graph car, the grid car, and the chrome car.

Another thing I felt was lacking in the series is worldbuilding, which doesn't give itself enough time to establish the world inside the cars. Of course, some of the cars do have some depth as they further explain life within that car, but much of them are just there and thanks to how uninteresting some of the cars and creativity is, I was simply bored by the details of the cars as even though they don't advance the plot and would give itself time to introduce itself, it in all just feels like an underwhelming presentation where it only explores little of the place.

For much of the episodes, the beginning would start with Tulip and the gang leaving a car, which doesn't leave much room for worldbuilding for some cars that look interesting like the "straight-up Italy" car, which has potential to be explored from the atmosphere and characters inside of it. It can even skip enough cars to reference a car the gang went to but wasn't exactly shown, but then again, it mostly doesn't matter since the episode isn't about what I just said. Ah well, I should probably take a vow of silence to make the straight-up Italy car have its own episode...but at the same time, I'm not done with the review so I digress.

What unspeakable crime could've committed the underwhelming worldbuilding? The pacing. Or perhaps the structure too. I brought both of them up because earlier, the pacing can be too fast where it doesn't give itself time to explain what's going on. When talking about the conflict, more specifically the emotional ones, some of them don't occur until the second half of the episode where it can end up being out-of-nowhere. The action scenes fell victim to the fast pacing at first simply because of how straightforward they feel, therefore rendering much of the action sequences as underwhelming and a bit dull. In fact, I felt like the show can be too straightfoward at times where it doesn't evaluate enough to explain why.

This really applies to the themes the show tries to explore as they feel nearly void of explanation that I couldn't really express emotion. It tries to talk about divorce which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to, but it wasn't built up very well because of how straightfoward the escalation is. All I know is that Tulip's parents argued over one thing and that's it. I don't know if they complained not just over Tulip needing glasses so I may need to require assistance. The other thematic material Infinity Train talks to us is losing a loved one, which is referring to *spoiler alert* Amelia's husband, who died from [no information given]. Because that these two themes are really trying to make us sympathize with and feel sorry for the unfortunate ones yet barely evaluate on the build-up, the themes tried to make me shed a tear but only became sentimental the slightest but I do appreciate how they came off as relatable regardless of the lack of explanation due to how common they are in everyday lives.

If Infinity Train remained as a miniseries, then it won't give us time to figure out the mysteries lurking behind the train itself. Yeah, the train's mechanics weren't properly introduced yet as of the first season and these aspects with no total explanation didn't give itself time to explain this season, which includes how does the train work like how does the train abruptly teleports to a different location on Earth, what causes the number on someone's hand in the train to go up and down, etc.

So we got solid themes that aren't properly developed and then there's solid morals that characters don't properly embrace. There's the message of "Leave the past behind and accept what the future has", which is a great fit for which the Conductor will develop from but unfortunately, it felt like she didn't get enough time to fully embrace the message and redeem herself as the first season ended, where she still seems to be upset about remaining on the train for a long time, not looking like she's ready to accept the future just yet. However, since there'll be a 2nd season, this will hopefully give her more time to fully redeem herself and finally face her problems.

And then there's the other message this show, which this time it deals with impatience. Tulip is, once again, the one character who looks like she could embrace the moral very well where from the start, she wanted to go to game design camp right away even if her parents couldn't, and it looks like it's working when Atticus told her that "progress can't be rushed"...until it looks like Infinity Train has ignored that message where it has Tulip acting impatient once again in "The Past Car", wanting to see what really happened to the Conductor and how did she got on the train in the first place after complaining that Amelia and Alrick's relationship is wasting their time. The episode brought up that message once again but it ended up being ignored. Hey, progress can't be rushed, unless you're in a hurry and wanting to know what you really need to figure out regardless of understanding what exactly lead up to this. And this gave the episode no time to further establish the relationship between Amelia and Alrick, his death, and what else lead to Amelia's disappearance.

"Let me guess, is the show somewhat predictable"? Yeah, I have a grudge with predictability and Infinity Train appears to be one of those shows that are flat-out predictable but only at the beginning. You see how in the first episode where it's really obvious that Tulip would run away and suddenly end up in a strange place? Because we definitely haven't heard of that plot point before! But seriously, this is simply something that I have seen multiple times in cartoons; a character runs away and end up in danger. Doesn't that ring a cliché to you?

Verdict: Now what appears to be the damage? The creativity and worldbuilding fall flat even though some instances look good as they are and the pacing and straightfoward structure doesn't give the show time to further establish the world, make the action scenes detailed and legitimately engaging, build up the emotion, and watch the characters embrace the message a little more. Essentially, a great chunk of the series feel poorly detailed in depth.
QUALITY

There were almost no surprises when I saw the quality took effect.

Easily the main highlight of the quality has to be the backgrounds. The backgrounds being painted gives them a unique and distinct feeling from other 2010s cartoons that it feels like as if the show was traditionally animated. Not on computer, but rather on paper. Here, they have a lot of detail into them alongside the shading where you can see the lighting on the objects around.

What they've done with the settings help how varied the distinct much of the world look. The down-to-earth settings like the forest, cities, and homes are all expressed through lighting with much of their surroundings sharing one specific color hue; a yellow-ish color to capture the warm and peaceful vibe of nature as well as dark colors in dimly-lit parts of the house and cities at nighttime to convey a dark tone in conjunction with the sad turn of the episode. Inside the cars, including outside the train with its bleak and creepy nature, they're all filled with detail on the textures of the world with each setting having different textures than the last, further expanding the show's wise use of textures of each setting. Some of the cars are crafted by color like the crystal and chrome cars while others focus more on detail like the beach and ball pit cars.

If I have to criticize the backgrounds, it's that the style of the backgrounds are noticeably inconsistent. There are some of the settings (particularly the lusterous and simple cars) that don't look like they're painted and more like it was drawn on computer like how the character designs would. Another aspect of the backgrounds that is inconsistent is the grass where it very often changes colors from being pure green to light green, mint, pine, and other shades of green without any indication to the constant change in shading.

The character designs are also not too far behind from the realistic backgrounds, but more specifically, some of the characters aboard on the train are what really shines the most. Within the train, many creatures are explored and although there are some that aren't something special (almost any animal like the dinosaurs in the dinosaur car, the turtles in the unfinished car, the corgis, etc.), some of them actually look stunning like the Ghoms where they're a hybrid of a dog and a cockroach. However, it is fairly common to see these characters lack that much depth whenever in a dark room where it looks like they easily stick out of the place. But it's not just depth, it's the outlines too but then again, many other cartoons have outlined characters in a painted background that isn't as stylized as the character designs.

To further express how high-quality the animation looks, I must say that the special effects blend in really well and that some of them actually feel like something I haven't seen before, more specifically the static effect used throughout Tulip in "The Cat's Car". There are other excellently done effects like the trails inside the train doors and the fluid computer animation on the car from its wheels rolling to whenever they shift from place to place, but none impressed me more than the static effect.

Of course, the soundtracks further provide backup as to why the quality of the series look so great. Like the backgrounds, it feels like it's bringing you back to the past with these mediums that are hard to come across today with a lot of them sounding like they're being composed on a synthesizer. This is a fitting decision due to how synthesizers remind me of the future and that's right, the score has a futuristic vibe to them. The mysterious tone to them makes them sound even more charming to listen to as they sound elaborate with some of the notes fading out at the end. My favorite example of these is whenever the music sounds like it's escalating to something which adds tension to the episode.

The same can be said with the sound mixing. Within much of the train, it really captures the sounds of an engine and other rare sounds very well that it works together to make the audio sound pretty realistic and outstanding.

Verdict: Out of everything the show did, the amount of effort points towards the quality where it really shows the intricacy of how detailed and breathtaking the show looks, both visually and audibly. It gives you that nostalgic vibe with the backgrounds going through a new approach as well as the soundtrack and how the effects and sounds feel ahead of their time. Although it can be inconsistent, I still can't help but give the show credit through its quality.
CHARACTERS

Enjoyable? No, I just couldn't find that much enjoyable about these characters.

Counting off each of the characters I'd like to talk about, there's apparently the first main character to enter the train, Tulip Olsen. Of course, she doesn't seem to be a very interesting character due to her motivation of being an aspiring game designer. But as the show explore more of her character, she actually appears to be worse than usual. Not only is she pretty impatient which even though it doesn't happen often is still annoying (and again, she doesn't learn from being impatient), it was revealed in the episode "The Chrome Car" that she'd often ignore everyone, including her parents, Megan and Andy Olsen, despite looking like they get along with each other very well until the divorce happened, and ran away from home just to get to game design camp. So let me get this straight, we're supposed to relate to and sympathize with someone who wants to run away from home just for a desire, don't care about almost everyone including her parents at one point, and infrequently be impatient crying "I wanna get off this train!" and "I need to know what happens to that right now!"? She at first appears to be insane and dumb to run away from home, but the thing is, she's presented as a smart kid. I guess she's supposed to be written like other children but if she seems advanced for her age, then she should've known better not to become isolated from home. This makes it harder for me to relate to Tulip because I'm not that kind of person who ignores everyone and want to run away from home. However, at least she did reflect from her issues (well, aside from impatience) and that she became more connected with other characters as she developed.

And speaking of Megan and Andy, I was actually wondering about how they felt when they found out Tulip was missing, but the show did absolutely nothing about it. I mean, I guess it makes sense since the first season isn't about them so...

But there's another character who's much worse than Tulip, One-One. Am I the only one who's annoyed by their soft and playful attitude? So, they're mostly the comic relief of the series, but as a comedic character, all I could say is that they're not funny. As a comic relief, they only made the humor of the series just bland and forgettable. What I remember what One-One did that is supposed to be for laughs is make a reference to The Benny Hill Show by humming to its theme song in a chase scene, laugh for a couple of seconds, repeat the whoopee cushion part of Amelia's memory again and again as means that fart jokes are funny, joke around with Tulip about "boot-heads", etc. To be honest, I just think their soft and naive attitude and how unoriginal a lot of their gags are makes Infinity Train's comedy unfunny.

That was only how One-One stands as a comic relief, but as a real character, they are simply overwhelmingly bothersome. It's not just their jokes that are painfully unfunny, but also how stupid in an unfunny type of way they are by exposing Tulip and the gang to the antagonist with their overly-naive and carefree behavior that's just too much, treat themselves as a human like Tulip where they thinks they can breathe and at first thought they had fingers, and the list keeps on going. Sometimes, they seems to act unusual but those unusual aspects of them are just there and simply wasted potential for character arcs like how they seemed to act strange in "The Unfinished Car" with them being glitchy and saying things that are unusual to their behavior like "I'm putting things back in order", yet this case wasn't quite clarified.

Within one of the cars Tulip and One-One enter, they met Atticus, leader of Corginia. As a character who's written to behave like a corgi, I'm honestly annoyed by some of his attributes to where they're a tad redundant such as whenever Tulip wants him to go somewhere but tries to resist and at one point ate out of a trash can. What's even worse with some of them is that like with some of One-One's gags, they can drag on which only makes some of the scenes more unpleasant. Also, the script tries to endure him to establish some chemistry with other characters but they ended up becoming more boring than amusing especially whenever he bonds with someone else and as a result it didn't prove anything and is mostly just there. Another thing that I couldn't get into Atticus would be his sophisticated personality where he'd often speak formally, which I'm glad is a good fit for him but when the chemistry is bland so will his formal vocabulary to bore me even more. Aside from the last few episodes of the first season, he doesn't seem to do much for the journey other than to support Tulip.

Later on in the series, the gang (including us, the viewers) encountered The Conducter for the first time with a self-explanatory action, she was the one running the train. However, it was revealed that the Conductor is actually a woman named Amelia, who had a heartbreaking motivation to recreate her life with Alrick. This character has a ton of potential and some of it actually payed off as it explained more of what the unfinished car looked like, but unfortunately, due to how straightfoward the story is, it feels like the only change that she's running from is just Alrick's death and nothing else, and that feels like she just couldn't give the future a chance all because of losing one thing. It annoys me how it looks like the only thing that makes Amelia satisfied is with Alrick and nothing else. I believe it's very possible that Amelia has other interests other than being with Alrick that can allow her to move on from Alrick's passing like being with another friend, an occupation, or anything else. Or besides that, did Amelia even live a happy life before and during her relationship with Alrick, perhaps times away from Alrick? Her backstory did tell how the Conductor became the Conductor, but it only left a lot of questions like these unexplained, no time to further establish these characters. And speaking of which, how did both Amelia and Alrick knew about the train?

Of all these characters, there has to be some sort of character development, right? Well, it can work sometimes but not all the time. On the other hand, the writing can be so contrived to make the development of some of these characters confusing. One-One perfectly epitomizes a character that tries to get development but the execution made it so wrong. There was an episode tries to give him development but it mostly comes out-of-nowhere and they felt remorseful because it was their fault? I don't understand the abrupt shift in character for One-One in "The Unfinished Car". There's the Conductor as well but I've already explained the deal with her.

Verdict: The characters I mentioned above have distinct characteristics of theirs, but one by one, they're all badly executed characters. From my perspective, they just don't act sympathetic or funny enough for my liking.
FINAL THOUGHTS

Has Cartoon Network actually done it for the 5th time? Produce a new cartoon that I ended up disliking substantially. But unlike their previous properties they've made, I can still give you guys who worked on Infinity Train credit. I mean, you tried to add themes and morals to the show, be creative, and really capture the details of the backgrounds like a piece of art that it all would've made a cartoon that feels like it takes me back to Cartoon Network's Renaissance era. It's too bad that the final product is too underwhelming for me to appreciate, but in the future, I will see if you guys can at least get me to change my summary of the show:
The best way to describe Infinity Train is that it's an achievement for Cartoon Network to craft some extravagant animation combined with an outstanding soundtrack and superb special effects, but like other poorly executed cartoons, the quality certainly can't save how underwhelming the performance of the train went. It's creative, but it came out weird and lacks elaboration. It tells its viewers about themes and morals, but the way they handled the build-up is surprisingly barebones. There are characters that look like we can relate and sympathize with, but how prejudiced they are regarding the future and the way the show establishes them makes it harder for us to feel for them. And finally, it has humor, but it was in the hands of flawed characters who only made them brittle and forgettable.You know, the series could've worked much better if each episode was made 22-minutes long. That way, the show could give the episodes time to further expand the world including the settings and characters better. But because of how the execution ended up becoming horrible, it's yet another disappointment from Cartoon Network that the engine in the Infinity Train is working POOR (35%)-ly.

Epilogue: Wow, what a review I made. I think I need a break after reviewing the series because of how complex the show seems to be. And one last thing I would like to say about this show, is it me or does young Amelia look a lot like Johanna from Hilda? They wear very similar clothing and share almost identical hairstyles as well as faces minus the eyes. But aside from that, this marks the end of Season 3 for sure. For next season, it's going to be the same but I'm expecting myself to be more steady with the pacing by having the releases of Season 4's scorecards be relatively close for each other. So don't miss out because next season, I will discover new mediums.

Description
...but WAIT! We're not quite ready to call off Season 3 'cause I have just one more show to check out; another recent cartoon from Cartoon Network I've been wanting to review for a while and that is a miniseries full series named Infinity Train. Yeah, sorry I had to declare a last-minute announcement that a scorecard on this show is coming soon but I feel like this and the previous scorecard go along pretty decently as both of their pilot episodes were released close to each other so it kind of makes sense for me to let the Victor & Valentino scorecard lead into this one. Anyways, let's roll! I'm excited to examine why the actual show is worse than the pilot just like the previous scorecard!
HISTORY

I undoubtedly experienced the series before I checked out both the pilot and the series for reviewing purposes. Back when the pilot was very popular online as people were demanding Cartoon Network to green-lit the pilot into a full series, I decided to check out the pilot out of curiosity. I didn't have much of a reaction while watching it but I did see why the pilot is so special according to many people.

It would be a rare occurrence that I would re-watch all the show's episodes because I feel like I needed to see if my points as to why these episodes are flawed or not are valid considering that Infinity Train appears to be one of the more complex Cartoon Network shows and the small amount of episodes. When Cartoon Network aired the first season in its entirety leading up to the last two episodes, I tuned in to take notes and re-evaluate my opinions on a handful of episodes.

Since I have cable, I actually tuned in when the series premiere began airing on the network, specifically to climb along the hype train and apparently, avoid spoilers. But when I first watched the full series, I didn't actually took notes. The reason why was because I originally intended for this scorecard to aim for a 2020 release since I've finalized next season's lineup for the rest of 2019 about two months ago. However, seeing my growing passion and the attention the cartoon community would feed to the series including reviews that ended up making me resist holding the scorecard until next year, I had to axe off a green-lit upcoming Season 4 scorecard, one focusing on Yvon of the Yukon part of a series of 90s Canadian cartoons, in favor of Infinity Train. I felt like I've did the right decision since said cartoon is too obscure to garnish any attention and I originally thought Infinity Train would be a miniseries only for an announcement after the airing of the last episode of Season 1 confirmed the miniseries tag null and void. That did save enough time and space for me to get closer to the planned 100th scorecard.
PIE CHART ANALYSIS

Now what do we have here? A really diverse pie chart at first. The 2nd season (or Book Two as the show likes to call it) came and added more uses of each rating with each episode being unrecommendable at all! But as of the scorecard's release, the only ratings that are used more than once are the ratings at least Middling, Unsatisfactory, and Odious. Book Two gave this show an Unsatisfactory whereas Book One gave us a damned rating. Ouch.

I still have more to cover. Of these ratings, only one of them are GOOD and that's a lousy ample rating. As for the other average and below average ratings, one episode even managed to be a damned episode and half of them BAD. The rest are MEH but there is one mixed bag not so hidden in the scorecard.

And that would be about it. The ratings used to appear more than once but once Book Two rolled around (I honestly think the Book theme in the title doesn't work out), there are a lot mediocre to bad episodes added.
FIRST THOUGHTS

Now at first before I jumped aboard the train that technically doesn't go in a route shaped like the actual infinity sign, I would say that the show looks fine as it is. And I shall explain after a word from the show's main summary, the first season summary that is:
The first season follows 12-year-old Tulip and her two-in-one robot companion One-One in their journey through a seemingly infinite train with limitless possibilities that is traveling through a completely barren wasteland. They are joined by Atticus, an intelligent, talking Corgi and king of a Corgi kingdom in one of the train's cars, as they search for a way to Tulip's home. -sourced from WikipediaWell, this concept seems very similar to an Adventure Time episode called "Dungeon Train" where Finn and Jake get on a train that goes on forever. But comparisons aside, I would say that the idea for this series isn't one of the most interesting I've seen since we're dealing with a kid who is trying to find a way back home but it can have the creativity as the heart of the series as well as express solid character development.

When I inquired the characters, they don't appear to be that fleshed out but I expect them to be distinct and somewhat enjoyable although they do seem to be pretty dull especially Tulip. But then there's the animation that is waiting to blow me away. It looks like the show uses paint to craft the backgrounds and for the most part they look very well-detailed and intricate. Not to mention the different cars the gang travels to might have a distinct atmosphere to them. But then again, almost every 2010's cartoon look like they have great animation but here, it feels like it takes you back to a time when cartoons were used to be drawn on paper and not on the computer and that brings the series some nostalgic value to it alongside the futuristic soundtrack that sounds like it was conducted on a synthesizer.

Judging by the cover, it does look like it has the strength to warrant itself as a great cartoon from the beautifully nostalgic quality and very good creativity. Maybe the characters need to be about as interesting as the animation and creativity, but these two will definitely make the series better, am I right?
WRITING

But noooooooo! These two aspects are there, but it proves me that creativity isn't always a good thing.

Of course, we have the heart of the series, the creativity, but in the final product, it ended up being strange but not in a good way. With some of the cars the gang travels to, they're rather weird or unconvincing fusions that I just seem to be bored at. They seem to look odd enough where it looks like the fusions don't go well with each other. These include Corginia being a mix between Rome and corgis and that dinosaur car where it's dinosaurs in a baseball setting. Because that they lack of any sort of unique detail to really make the looks and description of these cars stand out, they simply look boring and unimaginative. But on the other hand, some of the cars are simple yet effective as the simplicity shines in the area which includes the graph car, the grid car, and the chrome car.

Another thing I felt was lacking in the series is worldbuilding, which doesn't give itself enough time to establish the world inside the cars. Of course, some of the cars do have some depth as they further explain life within that car, but much of them are just there and thanks to how uninteresting some of the cars and creativity is, I was simply bored by the details of the cars as even though they don't advance the plot and would give itself time to introduce itself, it in all just feels like an underwhelming presentation where it only explores little of the place.

For much of the episodes, the beginning would start with Tulip and the gang leaving a car, which doesn't leave much room for worldbuilding for some cars that look interesting like the "straight-up Italy" car, which has potential to be explored from the atmosphere and characters inside of it. It can even skip enough cars to reference a car the gang went to but wasn't exactly shown, but then again, it mostly doesn't matter since the episode isn't about what I just said. Ah well, I should probably take a vow of silence to make the straight-up Italy car have its own episode...but at the same time, I'm not done with the review so I digress.

What unspeakable crime could've committed the underwhelming worldbuilding? The pacing. Or perhaps the structure too. I brought both of them up because earlier, the pacing can be too fast where it doesn't give itself time to explain what's going on. When talking about the conflict, more specifically the emotional ones, some of them don't occur until the second half of the episode where it can end up being out-of-nowhere. The action scenes fell victim to the fast pacing at first simply because of how straightforward they feel, therefore rendering much of the action sequences as underwhelming and a bit dull. In fact, I felt like the show can be too straightfoward at times where it doesn't evaluate enough to explain why.

This really applies to the themes the show tries to explore as they feel nearly void of explanation that I couldn't really express emotion. It tries to talk about divorce which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to, but it wasn't built up very well because of how straightfoward the escalation is. All I know is that Tulip's parents argued over one thing and that's it. I don't know if they complained not just over Tulip needing glasses so I may need to require assistance. The other thematic material Infinity Train talks to us is losing a loved one, which is referring to *spoiler alert* Amelia's husband, who died from [no information given]. Because that these two themes are really trying to make us sympathize with and feel sorry for the unfortunate ones yet barely evaluate on the build-up, the themes tried to make me shed a tear but only became sentimental the slightest but I do appreciate how they came off as relatable regardless of the lack of explanation due to how common they are in everyday lives.

If Infinity Train remained as a miniseries, then it won't give us time to figure out the mysteries lurking behind the train itself. Yeah, the train's mechanics weren't properly introduced yet as of the first season and these aspects with no total explanation didn't give itself time to explain this season, which includes how does the train work like how does the train abruptly teleports to a different location on Earth, what causes the number on someone's hand in the train to go up and down, etc.

So we got solid themes that aren't properly developed and then there's solid morals that characters don't properly embrace. There's the message of "Leave the past behind and accept what the future has", which is a great fit for which the Conductor will develop from but unfortunately, it felt like she didn't get enough time to fully embrace the message and redeem herself as the first season ended, where she still seems to be upset about remaining on the train for a long time, not looking like she's ready to accept the future just yet. However, since there'll be a 2nd season, this will hopefully give her more time to fully redeem herself and finally face her problems.

And then there's the other message this show, which this time it deals with impatience. Tulip is, once again, the one character who looks like she could embrace the moral very well where from the start, she wanted to go to game design camp right away even if her parents couldn't, and it looks like it's working when Atticus told her that "progress can't be rushed"...until it looks like Infinity Train has ignored that message where it has Tulip acting impatient once again in "The Past Car", wanting to see what really happened to the Conductor and how did she got on the train in the first place after complaining that Amelia and Alrick's relationship is wasting their time. The episode brought up that message once again but it ended up being ignored. Hey, progress can't be rushed, unless you're in a hurry and wanting to know what you really need to figure out regardless of understanding what exactly lead up to this. And this gave the episode no time to further establish the relationship between Amelia and Alrick, his death, and what else lead to Amelia's disappearance.

"Let me guess, is the show somewhat predictable"? Yeah, I have a grudge with predictability and Infinity Train appears to be one of those shows that are flat-out predictable but only at the beginning. You see how in the first episode where it's really obvious that Tulip would run away and suddenly end up in a strange place? Because we definitely haven't heard of that plot point before! But seriously, this is simply something that I have seen multiple times in cartoons; a character runs away and end up in danger. Doesn't that ring a cliché to you?

Verdict: Now what appears to be the damage? The creativity and worldbuilding fall flat even though some instances look good as they are and the pacing and straightfoward structure doesn't give the show time to further establish the world, make the action scenes detailed and legitimately engaging, build up the emotion, and watch the characters embrace the message a little more. Essentially, a great chunk of the series feel poorly detailed in depth.
QUALITY

There were almost no surprises when I saw the quality took effect.

Easily the main highlight of the quality has to be the backgrounds. The backgrounds being painted gives them a unique and distinct feeling from other 2010s cartoons that it feels like as if the show was traditionally animated. Not on computer, but rather on paper. Here, they have a lot of detail into them alongside the shading where you can see the lighting on the objects around.

What they've done with the settings help how varied the distinct much of the world look. The down-to-earth settings like the forest, cities, and homes are all expressed through lighting with much of their surroundings sharing one specific color hue; a yellow-ish color to capture the warm and peaceful vibe of nature as well as dark colors in dimly-lit parts of the house and cities at nighttime to convey a dark tone in conjunction with the sad turn of the episode. Inside the cars, including outside the train with its bleak and creepy nature, they're all filled with detail on the textures of the world with each setting having different textures than the last, further expanding the show's wise use of textures of each setting. Some of the cars are crafted by color like the crystal and chrome cars while others focus more on detail like the beach and ball pit cars.

If I have to criticize the backgrounds, it's that the style of the backgrounds are noticeably inconsistent. There are some of the settings (particularly the lusterous and simple cars) that don't look like they're painted and more like it was drawn on computer like how the character designs would. Another aspect of the backgrounds that is inconsistent is the grass where it very often changes colors from being pure green to light green, mint, pine, and other shades of green without any indication to the constant change in shading.

The character designs are also not too far behind from the realistic backgrounds, but more specifically, some of the characters aboard on the train are what really shines the most. Within the train, many creatures are explored and although there are some that aren't something special (almost any animal like the dinosaurs in the dinosaur car, the turtles in the unfinished car, the corgis, etc.), some of them actually look stunning like the Ghoms where they're a hybrid of a dog and a cockroach. However, it is fairly common to see these characters lack that much depth whenever in a dark room where it looks like they easily stick out of the place. But it's not just depth, it's the outlines too but then again, many other cartoons have outlined characters in a painted background that isn't as stylized as the character designs.

To further express how high-quality the animation looks, I must say that the special effects blend in really well and that some of them actually feel like something I haven't seen before, more specifically the static effect used throughout Tulip in "The Cat's Car". There are other excellently done effects like the trails inside the train doors and the fluid computer animation on the car from its wheels rolling to whenever they shift from place to place, but none impressed me more than the static effect.

Of course, the soundtracks further provide backup as to why the quality of the series look so great. Like the backgrounds, it feels like it's bringing you back to the past with these mediums that are hard to come across today with a lot of them sounding like they're being composed on a synthesizer. This is a fitting decision due to how synthesizers remind me of the future and that's right, the score has a futuristic vibe to them. The mysterious tone to them makes them sound even more charming to listen to as they sound elaborate with some of the notes fading out at the end. My favorite example of these is whenever the music sounds like it's escalating to something which adds tension to the episode.

The same can be said with the sound mixing. Within much of the train, it really captures the sounds of an engine and other rare sounds very well that it works together to make the audio sound pretty realistic and outstanding.

Verdict: Out of everything the show did, the amount of effort points towards the quality where it really shows the intricacy of how detailed and breathtaking the show looks, both visually and audibly. It gives you that nostalgic vibe with the backgrounds going through a new approach as well as the soundtrack and how the effects and sounds feel ahead of their time. Although it can be inconsistent, I still can't help but give the show credit through its quality.
CHARACTERS

Enjoyable? No, I just couldn't find that much enjoyable about these characters.

Counting off each of the characters I'd like to talk about, there's apparently the first main character to enter the train, Tulip Olsen. Of course, she doesn't seem to be a very interesting character due to her motivation of being an aspiring game designer. But as the show explore more of her character, she actually appears to be worse than usual. Not only is she pretty impatient which even though it doesn't happen often is still annoying (and again, she doesn't learn from being impatient), it was revealed in the episode "The Chrome Car" that she'd often ignore everyone, including her parents, Megan and Andy Olsen, despite looking like they get along with each other very well until the divorce happened, and ran away from home just to get to game design camp. So let me get this straight, we're supposed to relate to and sympathize with someone who wants to run away from home just for a desire, don't care about almost everyone including her parents at one point, and infrequently be impatient crying "I wanna get off this train!" and "I need to know what happens to that right now!"? She at first appears to be insane and dumb to run away from home, but the thing is, she's presented as a smart kid. I guess she's supposed to be written like other children but if she seems advanced for her age, then she should've known better not to become isolated from home. This makes it harder for me to relate to Tulip because I'm not that kind of person who ignores everyone and want to run away from home. However, at least she did reflect from her issues (well, aside from impatience) and that she became more connected with other characters as she developed.

And speaking of Megan and Andy, I was actually wondering about how they felt when they found out Tulip was missing, but the show did absolutely nothing about it. I mean, I guess it makes sense since the first season isn't about them so...

But there's another character who's much worse than Tulip, One-One. Am I the only one who's annoyed by their soft and playful attitude? So, they're mostly the comic relief of the series, but as a comedic character, all I could say is that they're not funny. As a comic relief, they only made the humor of the series just bland and forgettable. What I remember what One-One did that is supposed to be for laughs is make a reference to The Benny Hill Show by humming to its theme song in a chase scene, laugh for a couple of seconds, repeat the whoopee cushion part of Amelia's memory again and again as means that fart jokes are funny, joke around with Tulip about "boot-heads", etc. To be honest, I just think their soft and naive attitude and how unoriginal a lot of their gags are makes Infinity Train's comedy unfunny.

That was only how One-One stands as a comic relief, but as a real character, they are simply overwhelmingly bothersome. It's not just their jokes that are painfully unfunny, but also how stupid in an unfunny type of way they are by exposing Tulip and the gang to the antagonist with their overly-naive and carefree behavior that's just too much, treat themselves as a human like Tulip where they thinks they can breathe and at first thought they had fingers, and the list keeps on going. Sometimes, they seems to act unusual but those unusual aspects of them are just there and simply wasted potential for character arcs like how they seemed to act strange in "The Unfinished Car" with them being glitchy and saying things that are unusual to their behavior like "I'm putting things back in order", yet this case wasn't quite clarified.

Within one of the cars Tulip and One-One enter, they met Atticus, leader of Corginia. As a character who's written to behave like a corgi, I'm honestly annoyed by some of his attributes to where they're a tad redundant such as whenever Tulip wants him to go somewhere but tries to resist and at one point ate out of a trash can. What's even worse with some of them is that like with some of One-One's gags, they can drag on which only makes some of the scenes more unpleasant. Also, the script tries to endure him to establish some chemistry with other characters but they ended up becoming more boring than amusing especially whenever he bonds with someone else and as a result it didn't prove anything and is mostly just there. Another thing that I couldn't get into Atticus would be his sophisticated personality where he'd often speak formally, which I'm glad is a good fit for him but when the chemistry is bland so will his formal vocabulary to bore me even more. Aside from the last few episodes of the first season, he doesn't seem to do much for the journey other than to support Tulip.

Later on in the series, the gang (including us, the viewers) encountered The Conducter for the first time with a self-explanatory action, she was the one running the train. However, it was revealed that the Conductor is actually a woman named Amelia, who had a heartbreaking motivation to recreate her life with Alrick. This character has a ton of potential and some of it actually payed off as it explained more of what the unfinished car looked like, but unfortunately, due to how straightfoward the story is, it feels like the only change that she's running from is just Alrick's death and nothing else, and that feels like she just couldn't give the future a chance all because of losing one thing. It annoys me how it looks like the only thing that makes Amelia satisfied is with Alrick and nothing else. I believe it's very possible that Amelia has other interests other than being with Alrick that can allow her to move on from Alrick's passing like being with another friend, an occupation, or anything else. Or besides that, did Amelia even live a happy life before and during her relationship with Alrick, perhaps times away from Alrick? Her backstory did tell how the Conductor became the Conductor, but it only left a lot of questions like these unexplained, no time to further establish these characters. And speaking of which, how did both Amelia and Alrick knew about the train?

Of all these characters, there has to be some sort of character development, right? Well, it can work sometimes but not all the time. On the other hand, the writing can be so contrived to make the development of some of these characters confusing. One-One perfectly epitomizes a character that tries to get development but the execution made it so wrong. There was an episode tries to give him development but it mostly comes out-of-nowhere and they felt remorseful because it was their fault? I don't understand the abrupt shift in character for One-One in "The Unfinished Car". There's the Conductor as well but I've already explained the deal with her.

Verdict: The characters I mentioned above have distinct characteristics of theirs, but one by one, they're all badly executed characters. From my perspective, they just don't act sympathetic or funny enough for my liking.
FINAL THOUGHTS

Has Cartoon Network actually done it for the 5th time? Produce a new cartoon that I ended up disliking substantially. But unlike their previous properties they've made, I can still give you guys who worked on Infinity Train credit. I mean, you tried to add themes and morals to the show, be creative, and really capture the details of the backgrounds like a piece of art that it all would've made a cartoon that feels like it takes me back to Cartoon Network's Renaissance era. It's too bad that the final product is too underwhelming for me to appreciate, but in the future, I will see if you guys can at least get me to change my summary of the show:
The best way to describe Infinity Train is that it's an achievement for Cartoon Network to craft some extravagant animation combined with an outstanding soundtrack and superb special effects, but like other poorly executed cartoons, the quality certainly can't save how underwhelming the performance of the train went. It's creative, but it came out weird and lacks elaboration. It tells its viewers about themes and morals, but the way they handled the build-up is surprisingly barebones. There are characters that look like we can relate and sympathize with, but how prejudiced they are regarding the future and the way the show establishes them makes it harder for us to feel for them. And finally, it has humor, but it was in the hands of flawed characters who only made them brittle and forgettable.You know, the series could've worked much better if each episode was made 22-minutes long. That way, the show could give the episodes time to further expand the world including the settings and characters better. But because of how the execution ended up becoming horrible, it's yet another disappointment from Cartoon Network that the engine in the Infinity Train is working POOR (35%)-ly.

Epilogue: Wow, what a review I made. I think I need a break after reviewing the series because of how complex the show seems to be. And one last thing I would like to say about this show, is it me or does young Amelia look a lot like Johanna from Hilda? They wear very similar clothing and share almost identical hairstyles as well as faces minus the eyes. But aside from that, this marks the end of Season 3 for sure. For next season, it's going to be the same but I'm expecting myself to be more steady with the pacing by having the releases of Season 4's scorecards be relatively close for each other. So don't miss out because next season, I will discover new mediums.