- Released: 23 December 2021
- Amount of seasons:3
- Seasons watched: 3
- Rating: 3/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
While this season does seem to progress the story at least a bit more than the first two, this one also was my least favorite out of the three so far. I still don't hate this series like so many others do, but I just didn't care about the cast and their plots a lot of the time here. I only really enjoyed a single episode this season, but that doesn't mean that the series is bad. Just...average to me. It just had a single standout episode.
But, like I said, I will give it credit for finally going somewhere with the story. We're finally starting to explore realms and getting more and more hints at Thunder's and Tom's connection. Buzzsaw is also now a recurring antagonist, and the plot thread of Eugene slowly learning about the dragons is followed up on as he becomes a part of the Dragon Riders, eventually gaining his own (really ugly as fuck) dragon.
My favorite episode this season was again regarding Alex. I don't know why, but her episodes seem to have the most heart so far. Between her standout episode in season 1 and an episode about her bond with her mothers this season, I really like her episodes the best. The rest is still decent, but these episodes are so far the only ones where I think the series really stood out. They had some quiet moments here to stand still and sort out the character's feelings. I don't know why it's always the episodes regarding Alex that stand out in this way, but I like it as she's my favorite character. Also, despite me initially disliking his character and not liking his dragon, I also kind-of vibed with the episode where Eugene proved himself to the Dragon Club.
The animation does seem a bit worse somehow this season, though. So far I haven't been hard on the animation in this show because, despite it not being great, it overall just looked passable and like standard TV-quality CGI animation. But there were some really poorly animated moments in this season, particularly regarding awkward flying motions, usually with them feeling really slow or just unrealistic. I don't expect Pixar-level quality, but I do expect the average TV-quality CGI animation from this show. The flying in the other Dragons franchise series never was great, but it also didn't look as clunky as some moments this season.
I also feel I need to mention that Buzzsaw is and incredibly weak antagonist. Nobody takes him seriously and everyone thinks he's a nutcase. He isn't remotely threatening or even funny, he's just boring and uninteresting. Remember how the previous Dragons series actually had the best-written villain out of the entire franchise (Viggo)? Yeah... Now so far the only villains we have are that woman (Sledkin? I forget her name) who hates Tom's mother and Buzz freaking Saw. Who has the most pathetic episodes so far. It'd be one thing if he was either a real threat or possibly just pathetic in a funny way (think Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb or Kaos from Skylanders Academy). But he's neither. And Sledkin (I'm just going to presume I get her name right) is boring as tar as well. She seems more competent than Buzzsaw, but so far hasn't really done anything of significance other than discovering a single glowing rock and just mildly annoying Olivia.
Honestly, a concern I have with this show (and a lot of others these days) is that the seasons are being released with incredibly short intervals. Somehow that doesn't feel right to me. Maybe I'm wrong and the show's staff is working far ahead, but right now it's giving the impression that the staff has to work insanely hard to put out seven full episodes with only a few month's time between them. That's insane. I remember when seasons of animated shows would take one year or even longer to came out. Not a big fan of this new trend of releasing shorter seasons so close together, but this isn't unique to Dragons: The Nine Realms. Others I can think of that did/are doing this are Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Dead End: Paranormal Park and probably a few others, especially more recent ones.
Overall I think this season is slightly weaker than the previous two, but I will give it credit for another standout Alex episode and at least continuing the story that was being set up by the previous two. By now we know our main cast pretty well, so we can get to the plot-developing part of the story while still having a slice-of-life episode once every while. So I'm not as fond of this series as before, but I still like it and consider it decent. Just don't expect it to be as good as the previous Dragons series. I still don't think it deserves all the hate it's currently getting, though.
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