I was excited when I saw more Superjail episodes were being produced after the first season, but I was less excited when I saw how the show was starting to become yet another surreal pothead Adult Swim animated comedy.
The acid-trip hellscapes and grimy, underground feel of the first season disappears in subsequent seasons, so that the show is a shell of its former self. A major problem is that the animation gets cleaner and brighter; the rough-around-the-edges, scrawled-on-a-bathroom-stall look was vital to season one's in-your-face insanity. Season 2 in particular really feels like a second-order pastiche or detached parody of season 1, with awful writing and painfully unfunny new characters like the unnecessary supervillain "Lord Stingray".
But nothing tops that first season. When I first laid eyes on it, late at night on Adult Swim, I thought I'd borne witness to another plane of existence, some abominable, squirming, televised thing that could only have been the sum total of a drug-addicted, homeless 30-something's soul vomited onto animation cells and then blasphemously beamed into homes around the nation. The show disgusted me, captivated me, and left images seared into my brain that I'll never be able to scrub away.
From the sound design, to the voice acting, to the fight and torture scenes, to the angry and violent end credits, the first 10 episodes of this show are to be savored by animation fans and those looking for something to watch that pretty much amounts to religious defilement. Can't say the same for the other seasons, though.
Oh, and "Time Police" Parts 1 and 2, the final two episodes of season one, will forever be one of the best two-part finales of any television show, ever - live action or otherwise. Watch those two episodes, if nothing else.
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