WesternAnimation An enjoyable, but not truly standout, series
Sucky review ahoy!
My Life As A Teenage Robot. Just the name of the show itself doesn't exactly fill one with confidence. Doesn't help that it was on Nick, a channel I had abandoned when I was nine for greener, more mature pastures. I finally just watched every episode I could find a few weeks ago out of boredom, and...it's not bad. Could have used a lot of work, but I actually liked it.
Basic Premise
Some time in the future, the scientist Nora Wakeman creates XJ-9 (Jenny), a robot designed to deal with world-endangering disasters and alien invasions. Said robot, however, simply wants to be a normal teenage girl. And...that's pretty much it.
The Good
-The show just looks good. The retro-1930s/futuristic design works beautifully for this kind of series. This extends as far as the character designs; nothing looks horribly off, and there is little to offend the eyes this time around.
-The main cast is fairly developed, at least as far as "teenage girl in high school" shows go.
-The voice acting is wonderful.
-The action works all right, and in some cases (such as the movie) looks wonderful.
The Bad
-Sheldon. Just...Sheldon. A Stalker With A Crush with a severe robot fetish, that lusts after Jenny simply because she happens to be a robot. Oh, and Word Of God is that had the show continued, their relationship would have been canon. Joy.
-The writing leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the plots have been done over and over in the past, just given a "robot twist" or something. (A "glasses are for nerds" episode is instead a "giant eyeballs make me look like a freak of nature" episode, for example.)
-The third season. The main conflict from the first two seasons was already resolved, so the whole thing just feels tacked on. It was nice that the episodes aired and all (considering how long they were just gathering dust), but only a handful were really worth the wait.
-Does EVERY EPISODE need to end with a corny joke?
Overall
Criticisms aside, I actually liked the show. It's nowhere near the levels of Nick's past works, but if you're one of the lucky few with Nicktoons Network, give one or two episodes a shot.
WesternAnimation One of Nick's absolute best
I love this show so much.
In fact, I think MLAATR is even better than the original Sponge Bobs. Come to think of it, the only Nicktoon I rank above Teenage Robot is probably Ren and Stimpy.
My Life as a Teenage Robot was an amazing show just about all the way through, but that first season especially.... just absolutely god-tier.
Seasons 2 and 3 have some weaker storylines but overall still pretty sharp. But season 1 was pretty much stellar writing all the way through.
The first season did a very good job of capturing the life of a crime-fighting robot girl who also just wants to be a normal teen, with well-written gems such as Class Action, See No Evil, The Return of Raggedy Android, Hostile Makeover, Daydream Believer and This Time With Feeling.
Seasons 2 and 3 didn't do quite as great a job in this regard, often focusing either more on the crime-fighting aspect, or more on the slice-of-life aspect instead of excelling at combining both elements like the first season did.
But we still got bangers such as Teen Team Time and Weapons of Mass Distraction that did a good job at recapturing the series premise of Jenny having to protect the world and try to fit in with other teens at the same time.