Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 - Season 8

The funniest thing about the overhaul Aqua Teen got this year is how little it actually affected the show itself. Renamed Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1, the show has a new theme song, a new intro with stylish visuals, George Lowe announcing the episode titles, and has been relocated to rainy Seattle. Once the show actually starts though, it's basically exactly the same. Despite apparently moving, the squad's home looks exactly the same, and Carl still lives next to them. They were back to being detectives for about an episode before it was completely forgotten. The whole attempt to change the show significantly was a ruse, and a funny one. The show didn't need to change, really, and if people don't like it, there's not a lot that's going to affect it. So Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 is Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and that's fine by me.

Not that I really loved this season more than the last couple. I believe I said last time and maybe even the time before that the show leans a little too far towards weird instead of just funny these days, and that's not really less true here. It's still a funny series, we're not talking about anything too far out here. It's just less consistently laugh-out-loud hilarious. It's hard to keep coming up with ideas after a decade, especially with something so off-the-wall by default as a cartoon about giant talking fast food. The primary issue probably is that they're just not as good at coming up with new characters that are as entertaining as in the beginning. A lot of the time the new characters only exist to react to whatever messed up thing Master Shake is doing, or their entire schtick is a pretty familiar case of an unusual thing talking about an unusual situation as if it's totally normal. Which is cute, just not as inspired as guys like the Mooninites or Happy Time Harry. I did really like the season finale, which brought back the detective idea a little bit with a parody of every overly-twisty crime drama ever made. It's far from the best stretch of episodes the show's ever had, but I had a good enough time with it nonetheless.