The Venture Bros. - Season 3

Another season later, and The Venture Bros. is still the best show on Adult Swim and one of the best on TV. It continues to grow in a new direction, focusing more and more on the rapidly expanding cast and history of the world and less on humor. It's still funny, with every bit of dialogue's potential maximized and lots of clever references to itself and nerd culture, but it's not just a show to make stoners giggle. Some fans don't like the new direction, and a few episodes do seem a bit too indulgent in convoluting the story for the sake of it, but I think it's the perfect evolution of what they've created.

The biggest legitimate complaint I see with season three is that there just isn't enough of the main characters, especially the titular ones. Hank and Dean have always sort of been in the background of what was really going on, but they were still around and being lovably out of touch. A lot of episodes this time focus on developing characters, which means a lot less time spent at the Venture Compound. Brock and Dr. Venture get more chances to be around, but Brock really isn't the same - he just doesn't go on murderous rampages or bag amazing women often enough. He gets a chance to shine at the end of the season, but it wasn't quite enough. The root of the issue is probably that while I really enjoyed everything that happened, it probably could have been spread out over double the episodes, with more standard adventures in between to stick to the roots a little better. Whatever they do with the show though, I'm sure I'll like it, and await the next season which will hopefully come much sooner.